Passionate Relationship. PENNY JORDAN

Again, Luisa will tell you.’

      Already he was turning away from her, and incredibly, Shelley realised he intended to walk out and leave her.

      Anger battled with trepidation. It was galling to discover how little she wanted to be left alone in this alien environment, no matter how attractive it might be, and no matter how unwelcoming her host.

      ‘Your mother and sister…’

      ‘They are out shopping at the moment, but will return in time for dinner.’

      He saw her face and smiled cruelly. ‘What is wrong? Surely you cannot have expected to be greeted with a fatted calf? I must say that I admire your…courage, Miss Howard. It is not every child who would only condescend to visit the home of its father in such a blatant quest for financial gain. When I think of his attempts to contact you…his grief…’ He swallowed hard, and over and above her shock at his obvious misconception of her motives, once again Shelley had the impression of intense anger being held tautly in control. ‘No, you are not welcome in my home,’ he continued, ‘and nor shall I pretend that you are. For the love and respect I had for your father I am willing to see that his wishes are carried out. My mother is not here to greet you because she is still suffering desperately from her loss. Your father was the most important person in her life. Why didn’t you come before…while he was still alive? Or was it your inheritance that drew you here and not the man?’

      He threw the question at her harshly, but she was too shocked to formulate an answer. Turning on his heel, he left the room abruptly.

      Standing in the shadows, Shelley shivered. So now she knew the reason for his contempt. He thought… She took a deep, steadying breath, wondering if she could call him back and tell him the truth, but somehow it seemed to be too much effort. Incredibly, she felt as weak and shaky as though she had just gone through an intense physical and emotional ordeal. She felt almost bruised both inwardly and outwardly.

      She would have given anything to drive away from the quinta and never return, but she owed it to her father’s memory to stay. Seen from her stepbrother’s viewpoint, perhaps he and his family had good reason to think the way they did, but surely they might have given her the benefit of the doubt; might have waited, and not pre-judged. The stubborn pride she had inherited from her grandmother urged her to leave now and ignore her father’s bequest, but she had come too far, gone through too much to leave now without accomplishing her mission.

      She had come to Portugal with a purpose, and that purpose was to learn about the father that she had not known she had until recently; she was not going to allow her arrogant, judgemental stepbrother or his family to stop her. They could think what they liked of her, but she intended to make it clear to them that it wasn’t avarice that had brought her to their home, unless a desire to learn about the man who had been her father could be classified as a form of greed.

      So silently that she almost made her jump, a young girl came into the room.

      ‘I am Luisa,’ she informed Shelley with a charming accent. ‘I show you to your room, sim… Yes?’

      ‘Yes, please.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      BY accident rather than design, Shelley didn’t make it to the dinner table at eight o’clock. Instead, it was gone ten when she finally surfaced from a deep but unrestful sleep. The brief span of time it took for her to recognise her surroundings was accompanied by a downward lurch of her stomach and a sense of growing despondency.

      She had come to Portugal with such high hopes, and foolishly romantic ones, she realised now, ruthlessly exposing to her own self-criticism the folly of her ridiculous longings for a family of her own—the sort of family that comprised brothers and sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins, the sort of family she had heard colleagues bemoan times without number, the sort of family, she had told herself staunchly when her grandmother died, that she did not need.

      Dreams took a long time to die, she recognised emptily, but last night hers finally had. She was not welcome here in Portugal. Even once the misconceptions surrounding her reasons for coming to Portugal were sorted out, she would still not be welcome. Her pride demanded that she didn’t leave the quinta until she had made it plain to Jaime exactly why she had come, but her pride also demanded that no matter what apology he might make, no matter how he might seek to make amends for misjudging her, she would hold him at a distance.

      He wasn’t what she had wanted in a stepbrother anyway. It was impossible for her to ever envisage him in a brotherly role. That overwhelming aura of sexual magnetism of his would always be something she was far too much aware of. She shivered a little, goosebumps forming on her flesh as she remembered the contemptuous way he had looked at her.

      Outside her open window she could hear the sound of crickets, the warm air stirring the curtains, reminding her that she was now in a foreign country.

      She felt thirsty, and far too keyed up to go back to sleep. Her cases were neatly stacked on a long, low chest; someone had emptied them while she slept. Opening the wardrobe, she took out a slim-fitting cotton dress.

      She managed to find her way to the top of the stairs without difficulty, but once down in the hall was totally confused as to the whereabouts of the kitchen. Her throat, which had felt merely slightly dry when she first woke up, now felt like sandpaper and, calculating back how long it had been since she had last had a drink, she suspected she might be suffering slightly from dehydration.

      She felt more vulnerable and unsure of herself than she could remember feeling for a long time. The years in foster homes had taught her well how to guard herself against the hurts unwittingly inflicted by others. It had been a long time since anyone had been allowed to hurt her, and even longer since she had cried, but today she had come perilously close to experiencing both.

      The sharp sound of a door opening made her jump, her face setting in lines of cold rejection as she saw her host striding towards her.

      ‘So, you have decided to grace us with your presence after all. A pity you did not deign to join us for dinner.’

      The insolent contempt in his voice banished all her good intentions not to let him provoke her into further hostilities. Acting with an impulsiveness that later would shock her, Shelley responded curtly. ‘Why should I? You obviously know exactly what I’m here for, so, as you’ve already made abundantly plain, there is scarcely any need for the normal civilities between us.’

      She saw that something in her cold words had caught him on a sensitive spot. A wave of dark colour—probably anger rather than embarrassment—stained the tanned skin, his eyes glittering with suppressed rage. She had once read somewhere that these Moorish Portuguese were a very proud and correct race, and she judged that he would not appreciate her criticism of his reception of her.

      Spurred on by her success, she added dulcetly, ‘You’re obviously a very clever man, Jaime, to be able to analyse so correctly and assess the reactions of others without meeting or knowing them.’

      This time he had himself well under control, only his voice faintly clipped and harsh as he responded, ‘You flatter me, I’m afraid. In your case very little intelligence was needed; one merely had to look at the facts. A daughter who refuses to make herself known to her father until after his death, when almost miraculously she suddenly appears on learning that he had left her something of value; who would not even have given herself the trouble of coming out here at all if I hadn’t insisted that she did. Why did you never make any attempt to trace your father? While you were a child I can see that you must have felt bound by your grandmother’s desire not to see him, but once she had died—and I understand from the enquiries instituted by the lawyers that she died when you were fourteen—surely then you must have felt some curiosity about your father, some desire to find him?’

      Her heart was pounding so heavily she could hardly breathe. It was plain to Shelley that Jaime had no idea to the real truth: that her grandmother had brought her up in the belief that her father was dead. But the same stubborn