Читать книгу Mistress Of His Revenge - Шантель Шоу, Chantelle Shaw - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

‘I WANT YOU to leave.’

Sabrina whirled away from Cruz and faced him across the desk, breathing hard as she struggled to control her temper. ‘How dare you turn up at Eversleigh uninvited and make a ridiculous accusation against my father, who isn’t even here to defend himself?’

‘He couldn’t defend himself against the truth.’ Cruz welcomed his anger as a distraction from the infuriating knowledge that when Sabrina had squeezed past him, her breasts had brushed against his chest and his body had reacted with humiliating predictability. His eyes were drawn to the low-cut neckline of her dress and the jerky rise and fall of her breasts. He pictured her naked beneath him, the erotic contrast of her milky pale body against his dark bronze skin, and he remembered her soft, kitten-like cries in the throes of orgasm.

Inferno! It was two months since he had dumped his last mistress and clearly he had gone too long without sex, he thought with savage self-derision. The purpose of his visit was to persuade Earl Bancroft to hand over the map of the abandoned mine, but all he could think of was how much he wanted to bend Sabrina over the desk and push her dress up to her waist, baring her silken thighs so that he could...

Ruthlessly he controlled his imagination but he could not control the painful throb of desire in his groin as he tried to focus on what she was saying.

‘I didn’t know your father had died.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry... I know how close you were to him. But I don’t believe my father was responsible. How could he have had anything to do with Vitor’s death?’

‘When my father found the Estrela Vermelha, the earl sent him back to an area of the mine that he knew was unsafe to look for more diamonds.’ Cruz’s jaw hardened. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know. Bancroft must have told you about the accident at the mine even if he failed to admit his culpability for what happened.’

‘My father didn’t confide in me,’ Sabrina admitted. ‘We’ve never been close. I grew up at Eversleigh, but my father had inherited land and the diamond mine in Brazil from an uncle and he spent months at a time abroad. I visited him when I was eighteen, which is when I met you, but when I came back to England I had little contact with him.’

She fell silent, remembering the bleakest period of her life when she had hidden away at Eversleigh like a wounded animal. There had been no one she could talk to about the miscarriage. Four years earlier, when she had been fourteen, her mother had walked out of her marriage to Earl Bancroft and abandoned her children for her lover, and Sabrina had learned a valuable lesson—that she could not trust anyone and she had to rely on herself.

When she’d fallen pregnant by Cruz in Brazil she had told her father about her pregnancy. Typically he had said little then, or later, when she’d informed him that she had lost the baby. His only comment had been that he thought she had made the right decision to return to England and take up the university place she had deferred.

The earl had paid an unexpected visit to Eversleigh Hall during the summer ten years ago, Sabrina suddenly recalled. Her father had been in a strange mood and even more uncommunicative than usual, but he had made the surprising announcement that he intended to sell his diamond mine. He’d made no mention of Vitor Delgado’s fatal accident, or of Cruz, and Sabrina’s pride had refused to allow her to ask about him.

She had spent her first weeks back at Eversleigh hoping that Cruz would come after her, but as time went by she had been forced to accept that he wasn’t coming and he did not care about her. Now she’d learned that he had suffered a terrible tragedy soon after she had returned home. Following his father’s death his focus would understandably have been on taking care of his mother and much younger twin sisters.

She studied his face and noticed the fine lines around his eyes and deep grooves on either side of his mouth that had not been there ten years ago. He had idolised his father and would have felt Vitor’s loss deeply. She felt a faint tug on her heart. ‘When did the accident at the mine happen?’

‘Three weeks after you had left me and returned to England. It was the worst time of my life. First you lost our baby and then I lost my father.’

Sabrina stiffened. ‘An estimated one in seven pregnancies ends in miscarriage,’ she said huskily, repeating what numerous medical experts had told her when she had sought an answer as to why she had lost her baby. ‘We were unlucky.’

‘Perhaps it was simply bad luck.’ Cruz’s tone was devoid of any emotion, but Sabrina was convinced she had heard criticism in his voice. She curled her hands into tight balls until her fingernails cut into her palms.

‘Riding my horse did not cause me to miscarry,’ she said in a low tone. ‘I was seventeen weeks into my pregnancy and beyond the risk period of the first three months. The doctor said I was not to blame.’ But she had always blamed herself, she acknowledged bleakly, and she had suspected that Cruz thought she’d been irresponsible to have gone riding.

‘If you’d had your way, you would have wrapped me in cotton wool for nine months,’ she burst out.

His over-the-top concern had been for the baby, not for her. Every day, when Cruz had gone to work at the mine he had left her under the watchful and disapproving eyes of his mother. Sabrina had felt lonely and bored in Brazil. She’d been delighted at her three-month scan when the doctor had said that her pregnancy was progressing well and there was no reason why she should not do the things she normally did. She had thought it would be safe to take her horse for a gentle ride, aware that her mother had ridden during both of her pregnancies.

Cruz’s chiselled features were impassive. ‘There is no point in dragging up the past.’

His harsh voice jerked Sabrina from her painful memories. Her long lashes swept down, but not before Cruz glimpsed raw emotion in her grey eyes that shocked him. Ten years ago her lack of emotion after the miscarriage had made him realise that she had not wanted their child, and her hurried departure from Brazil had proved that she did not have any feelings for him.

His jaw hardened and he told himself he must have imagined the pained expression in her eyes. ‘You said that the earl is away, but I need to speak to him urgently. I assume you keep in contact with him by phone or email?’

She shook her head. ‘All I know is that he is probably in Africa. He has investments in a couple of mines there, and he often takes trips into remote areas to investigate new mining opportunities.’

Everything she had said was true, Sabrina assured herself. Her father often went abroad on what he called his adventures. But he had never stayed out of contact for this long. She had last spoken to Earl Bancroft when he had called her from a town somewhere in Guinea, but, after eighteen months when nothing had been seen or heard of him, Sabrina was seriously concerned for her father’s safety.

‘I’m afraid my father is incommunicado at the moment,’ she murmured.

There was something odd about the situation, Cruz mused. Something Sabrina wasn’t telling him. With difficulty he restrained his impatience.

‘Well, if I can’t talk to Earl Bancroft perhaps you will be able to help me. I believe your father has some information about the Montes Claros diamond mine. Before my father died, the earl showed Vitor a map of an abandoned section of the mine. The map is the legal property of the mine owner. You might be aware that I bought the mine six years ago, which means that the map belongs to me.’

Sabrina shrugged. ‘I don’t know anything about a map. I told you my father rarely confides in me about his business dealings.’

A vague memory pushed into her mind. At the time she hadn’t paid much attention to the incident, but Cruz’s words made her wonder about her father’s curious behaviour when she had walked into his study and found him looking at a document spread out on his desk. Earl Bancroft had snatched up the piece of paper before Sabrina had got a clear glimpse of it and thrust it into an envelope.

‘This is my pension fund for when I retire,’ he’d said, laughing. ‘It’s much safer to keep it hidden here at Eversleigh than in a bank.’

‘Why is the map important?’ she asked Cruz curiously.

‘I believe it shows a section of the mine that was dug many years ago.’ He shrugged. ‘There may be nothing down there, but the Estrela Vermelha was found in the deepest section of where we currently operate and it’s possible that there are other diamonds in the abandoned mine.’ Cruz’s eyes raked Sabrina’s face and she quickly dropped her gaze.

‘Did your father ever show you a map?’

‘No,’ she said truthfully.

‘Do you know where he might have put a map? Does he have a safe where he keeps important documents?’

She shook her head. ‘He wouldn’t need to lock things in a safe. Eversleigh Hall had dozens of secret places to hide valuables—and people, come to that. Many old English houses have secret chambers and priest holes, which were built hundreds of years ago when Catholic priests were persecuted,’ she explained. ‘For instance, one of the wooden panels in this room conceals a secret cupboard. My father knows the location of all the hiding places at the hall.’

‘And do you also know where the secret chambers are?’

‘I know where some are, but not all of them. Even if I knew every hiding place I wouldn’t show you their location without my father’s permission.’

Sabrina felt a sense of loyalty towards Earl Bancroft despite the fact that they had never shared a close emotional bond. Since her father’s mysterious disappearance she had realised that she loved him. She looked at Cruz steadily. ‘If you are really the rightful owner of the map then I’m sure my father would have given it to you when you took over the mine.’

‘Don’t pretend to be naïve,’ Cruz growled. ‘I won’t go so far as to say that Earl Bancroft is a crook, but some of his business dealings are decidedly shady.’

‘How dare you—?’

‘I worked for him,’ Cruz cut her off impatiently. ‘I saw how your father ignored safety regulations in the mine to save money.’

Sabrina’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘My father isn’t here to defend himself and I only have your word on what happened.’

‘And of course you, with your aristocratic title and privileged lifestyle, would not believe the word of someone who grew up in dire poverty in a slum,’ Cruz said sardonically. ‘You always thought I was beneath you, didn’t you, princesa?’

‘That’s not true.’ During their affair she’d hated it when he had mockingly called her princess to emphasise that they came from different ends of the social spectrum. ‘I never cared about where you came from, or that you didn’t have much money.’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You made it obvious that you were desperate to return to Eversleigh Hall.’ He glanced around the comfortable library with its shelves of books from floor to ceiling and plush velvet curtains hanging at the windows. ‘I can understand why you hated living in a cramped miner’s cottage with a corrugated-iron roof, when you were used to living in a grand mansion.’

‘I didn’t hate the cottage, but we lived there with your parents and your mother never made me feel welcome.’ Sabrina saw disbelief in Cruz’s eyes and knew it would be pointless trying to convince him that she hadn’t minded the basic living accommodation in Brazil. But his mother’s unfriendliness had been hard to cope with. Ana-Maria Delgado had patently adored her son, and perhaps in Cruz’s mother’s eyes no woman would be good enough for him, Sabrina mused.

As Cruz had said, there was no point in dragging up the past. It had all happened a long time ago and their lives had moved on. Ironically their fortunes had reversed for Cruz was now a millionaire, while since her father’s disappearance she had spent every last penny she had paying for the upkeep of Eversleigh Hall, and she and the house were practically bankrupt.

‘Some things about you haven’t changed. Your eyes still darken to the colour of storm clouds when you lie.’

Cruz’s deep voice jolted Sabrina from her thoughts and she tensed as he walked around the desk and stood unsettlingly close to her.

‘Ten years ago when I asked you if you were happy to live in Brazil with me and have my child, you assured me that you were, but your eyes were as dark as pewter and revealed the truth—that you wanted to return to Eversleigh Hall.’

She flushed guiltily and looked away from his intent gaze that seemed to bore into her skull and read her thoughts. ‘I missed my brother,’ she said quietly. ‘Tristan was just a kid of eleven. After my mother left we had become very close and I was worried about him living here with just a nanny to take care of him.’

‘I don’t believe that concern for your brother was the only reason for your eagerness to leave Brazil, any more than I believe you are unable to contact Earl Bancroft if you wish to,’ he said sardonically. ‘I also think you know more about the map than you have admitted.’

She had forgotten how tall he was, Sabrina thought, feeling a frisson of panic when she realised that he had moved imperceptibly closer to her. She could see the shadow of black chest hairs beneath his crisp white shirt and the faint delineation of his powerful abdominal muscles. Seductive images taunted her subconscious: Cruz’s naked, bronzed body pressed against hers, hard against soft, dark against her whiteness. She visualised him pulling her down on top of him, his strong arms holding her as he guided her onto his erect shaft while she slowly took him inside her.

Heat coursed through her veins. The few lovers she’d had in the past ten years had never evoked more than her mild interest, and sex had been disappointing. But to her shame she was bombarded by memories of Cruz’s magnificent virility and she was aware of a betraying dampness between her legs.

Anger was her only defence against the insidious ache of longing in the pit of her stomach. ‘I’ve told you I know nothing about a map and it’s not my problem if you refuse to believe me.’

Even though she was wearing four-inch heels she had to tilt her head to look at his face. Ten years ago she hadn’t stood a chance against him, she thought bitterly, feeling an ache in her heart for the innocent girl she had once been who had looked forward to going to university. Cruz had taken one look at her and decided he wanted her, but within months of the start of their affair she had been pregnant and facing a very different life in Brazil from the one she had been used to in England.

If he had loved her she would have coped with her new lifestyle, she thought sadly. But when her pregnancy had been confirmed Cruz’s desire for her had died and it had quickly become clear that they had nothing between them to sustain a relationship.

She felt the ache of tears at the back of her throat. It was silly to cry for a lost love that in truth had only ever been an illusion, she reminded herself.

‘I want you to leave,’ she said tautly. She frowned when he made no response, merely raised his dark eyebrows and surveyed her with an arrogance that made her seethe.

‘I suppose you think I should be intimidated by your air of menace. Perhaps you think you can force the whereabouts of the map out of me, but I have plenty of staff in the house.’ She mentally crossed her fingers behind her back as she thought of John and his wife, Mary. The butler and housekeeper were the only remaining staff living at Eversleigh and were past retirement age. ‘If you lay a finger on me I’ll scream.’

She spun on her heels, intending to march over to the door, but his hand shot out and he caught hold of her arm and jerked her round to face him.

‘I don’t think force will be necessary to persuade you to give me what I want,’ he murmured.

Sabrina’s stomach muscles clenched as his sensuous, molten-syrup voice tugged on her senses. Time seemed to be suspended and her breath was trapped in her lungs. Her eyes widened as she watched his dark head descend and she realised that he was going to kiss her. He wouldn’t dare, she assured herself. But this was Cruz Delgado—a man who would dare to make a deal with the devil if he believed the odds were in his favour.

‘I warned you, I’ll scream.’ It was melodramatic, but she felt melodramatic, damn it! She gasped as he pulled her against him and she felt the heat from his body melting her bones.

He gave a wolfish smile. ‘Perhaps you will. I remember how you used to scream with pleasure and claw me with your sharp nails when you came, gatinha.’

‘Cruz—for God’s sake!’ In desperation she thumped his shoulder with her fist, but her blows had as much effect as a mosquito landing on a rhino’s hide.

‘You are so goddamned beautiful,’ Cruz said harshly. He could not resist her and he was shamed by his weakness. If he kissed her, perhaps the fire blazing inside him would cool and he would be released from this mad desire that made his muscles taut and his heart pound. He clamped one arm around her waist and slid his other hand into her hair and up to clasp her nape as his mouth swooped down to capture hers.

Cruz’s lips were hard, demanding, as he forced Sabrina to accept the mastery of his kiss. She was unprepared for the savage hunger that ripped through her. She was transported back in time to when she had been eighteen; a girl on the brink of womanhood, a virgin who had given not only her body but her heart and her soul to Cruz. It had taken her ten long years to reclaim them.

The memory of how badly he had hurt her gave her the strength to fight him. But he remembered how to pleasure her and he knew how to undermine her defences with the bold sweep of his tongue as he traced the shape of her lips before thrusting between them to explore the moist interior of her mouth.

Sabrina felt herself tremble and knew Cruz must sense she was close to total capitulation. But rather than increase the pressure of his mouth he softened the kiss and took little sips from her lips, butterfly soft and so utterly beguiling that she sagged against him and kissed him with a sweetness and curiously evocative innocence that caused Cruz to abruptly lift his head.

Deus! He had not come to Eversleigh Hall with the intention of making love to Sabrina. His eyes shot to the big mahogany desk and for a few seconds he was tempted to sacrifice his hope of finding the map, and probably his sanity, he acknowledged derisively, to satisfy the rampant desire raging through his veins.

He had not expected to feel this overpowering attraction to a woman he had known briefly when she had been a girl. Their affair had lasted for less than a year and after she had returned to England he had determinedly put her out of his mind. When he had arrived at Eversleigh Hall this evening he had assumed he would be immune to Sabrina Bancroft. The reckless craving that consumed him was a humiliating reminder of his weakness ten years ago when he had fallen under her spell after one glance from her storm-grey eyes.

Right now, Sabrina’s eyes had softened to the colour of woodsmoke, the colour of her desire; Cruz remembered that sensual look and felt his body tighten in response. He swore silently to himself. He had been a fool once, but he would not make the same mistake a second time.

His mouth curled into an insolent smile. ‘Your willingness to co-operate is encouraging. All I want now is the map, and I will leave you to enjoy your party.’

The mockery in Cruz’s voice ripped apart the seductive web he had woven around Sabrina. She pulled out of his arms, hot-faced and trembling with anger. It was bad enough that he believed she actually liked playing hostess to Hugo Ffaulks and his bunch of immature friends. But worse was the realisation that Cruz had only kissed her in order to make her lower her guard so that she would give him a map that he was convinced was hidden somewhere at Eversleigh Hall.

Oh, God! What was wrong with her? She hadn’t seen him for ten years, but within ten minutes of meeting him again she had all but invited him to hitch up her skirt and take her right there on the desk. Erotic images swirled in her head and her shame was compounded by Cruz’s husky chuckle that told her he had seen her gaze flick towards the desk. Without pausing to think, she lifted her hand and struck his cheek with a resounding crack that shattered the silence in the library. ‘Get out.’

His eyes glittered. ‘I don’t advise you try that again,’ he said in a measured tone that despite its softness sent a shiver down Sabrina’s spine.

‘Just...go,’ she whispered.

When he’d driven from London to Surrey, Cruz had not anticipated making the return journey without the map in his possession. But his visit to Eversleigh Hall had not gone to plan. He grimaced at the understatement. Now he was at an impasse. Either Sabrina genuinely did not know about the map that Earl Bancroft had shown his father, or she was refusing to tell him where the earl kept it.

A sudden loud crash from outside the library broke the stand-off, and with a muttered oath Sabrina hurried across the room and opened the door.

‘John,’ she called to the butler, ‘what on earth was that noise?’

‘I’m afraid it was Sir Reginald, Miss Sabrina. Some of the guests knocked him over.’

Bemused, Cruz followed Sabrina into the hall and saw the suit of armour that he had noticed when he’d arrived at the house lying in pieces on the parquet floor. A group of young men who were clearly the worse for drink were attempting to fit the pieces back together. One of them staggered towards Sabrina.

‘Sorry about your knight, Sab...rina,’ he slurred. ‘I want you to know that this is the best birthday party ever.’

‘I’m glad you are enjoying yourself.’ Sabrina spoke crisply as she tried to sidestep around Hugo Ffaulks, but his reactions were quicker than she’d anticipated and he slid his arms around her waist.

‘I enjoyed you coming to my bedroom this morning. Will you wake me up the same way tomorrow morning, Sabrina?’

Sabrina missed the cynical expression on Cruz’s face. ‘You can have breakfast in bed tomorrow if you wish, Hugo.’ She struggled to hide her impatience as she reminded herself that the money his parents had paid for the party would cover the hall’s outstanding electricity bill.

Still trying to extricate herself from the young man, she glanced along the hall and saw Cruz by the front door. She flushed when he deliberately dropped his gaze to Hugo’s hands on her bottom.

‘My apologies for disturbing you,’ he said mockingly. ‘Have fun for the rest of the night.’

Damn him to hell! Sabrina thought furiously as she watched him stride out of the house. She wrenched herself free from Hugo. She couldn’t understand her burning desire to run after Cruz and slap the arrogant smile off his face. Usually she was mild natured, but he made her feel so angry that her body was actually shaking, and, when she glanced down, the sight of her pebble-hard nipples jutting beneath her dress was humiliating evidence that it was not only anger that Cruz aroused in her.

When he’d kissed her she had felt alive, truly alive, for the first time in ten years. Oh, she was safe from falling in love with him. She’d have to be certifiable to make that mistake again, but during those moments of passion in the library she had wanted him so badly that even now her breasts ached and she could still taste him on her lips.

She would have to get herself under control before she saw him again. And she was in no doubt that she would see him again. She knew from bitter experience that when Cruz wanted something he would not rest until he had it in his possession.

Ten years ago he had wanted her. Now he wanted a map that he insisted her father had hidden at Eversleigh Hall. She was certain that Cruz would be back, but next time she would be prepared for his sizzling sexual charisma and she would not melt the moment he looked at her, she promised herself.