‘That was the first sound of genuine amusement I’ve heard from you since we met again,’ he told her huskily.
‘What did you expect?’ She pouted. ‘When you’ve done nothing but blackmail and bully me!’
It was supposed to be a tease, but Luiz didn’t smile. Instead his eyes remained darkly probing. ‘I didn’t bully you to get you here tonight,’ he quietly pointed out.
‘No,’ she agreed. She had been the one doing the bullying this time.
‘Are you ready to explain to me now what happened today to make you want to run away like this?’
So he knew she hadn’t been telling the truth back at the castle. She turned her face down again, and began watching the way her fingers were drawing whirls into his chest hair.
‘I had a visitor,’ she said, deciding to come clean with the truth—or part of the truth anyway. ‘The village priest,’ she explained.
Luiz had gone still; even his heart seemed to have slowed beneath her resting cheek. ‘And…?’ he prompted very quietly.
‘And he wanted to know if our planned wedding was a sham.’ She smiled.
‘Was he threatening not to marry us?’
Clever, quick Luiz, she thought. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘In fact he assured me that if el conde came to his altar with his bride chained and gagged he would marry them.’
‘Then what was his point?’
Now there was a question, she thought, and on a soft rueful laugh she sat up, to run her fingers through her tangled hair. ‘His point was, I think,’ she began slowly, choosing her words with care, ‘to make me aware that certain—rumours were circulating the valley about the sincerity of our feelings for one another.’
‘Rumours?’ he repeated.
‘Mmm.’ She nodded. ‘Apparently it is being said that you and I met for the first time only a few days before you brought me here as your bride…’
‘And you said—what?’
He hadn’t moved a single muscle since this had started, and Caroline now had her back towards him, so she couldn’t see his face. The worst thing about Luiz, she told herself grimly, was his annoying ability to speak without giving a single hint as to what he was thinking.
‘I told him the information was inaccurate,’ she said. ‘That we had known each other for seven years. Then I lied a bit,’ she added with a shrug, ‘and told him we had been lovers for seven years…’
Only it hadn’t felt much like a lie when she had said it, she recalled. In fact it was probably closer to the truth than anyone would believe—in her case at least.
‘To which he said what?’
‘You’re very good at this,’ she remarked, turning her head to level him with a dry look.
Two sleek black brows rose in enquiry. Her stomach muscles leapt. He’s such a sexy devil, she thought helplessly.
‘The Spanish Inquisition,’ she explained. ‘In fact you remind me of a dripping tap. You just steadily and relentlessly drop your questions until you get to know what it is you’re after.’
‘To which he said—what?’ he repeated, and there wasn’t a single alteration in those black holes for eyes.
She looked away again, and a heavy sigh whispered from her because the truth was out of bounds. And there was another problem she had been worrying over since the priest’s visit.
‘I think he was trying to warn us that someone is making trouble for you,’ she said. ‘Someone is feeding rumours about the valley that you and I are a sham—which is, I presume, their way of making sure we will never gain the people’s respect. The other rumour is that you have more or less bought me from my father. Now, who but you and I know anything about that?’
‘You think I have been telling tales?’
It was such a ridiculous suggestion that she laughed. ‘You mean it is possible to get blood from a stone?’ she mocked—then released another sigh. ‘What’s worrying me, Luiz,’ she explained, ‘is that someone has to have been spying on us. And it sends creepy feelings down my spine just to think of it.’ She even shuddered.
A hand came to her naked back and soothed the shudders. ‘The spy in this case we already know, querida,’ he informed her quietly. ‘And because we also know he has some right to be bitter enough about the situation to spread rumours which may place us in a poor light, we will allow him a small—indiscretion. It is, after all, all he believes he has left to survive on right now…’
He was talking about Felipe. The name didn’t need saying. ‘Okay,’ she agreed, and curled herself back around him, needing to say more but afraid to say more in case too much came pouring out.