To ignore him would unfortunately have proved she was at least one, so Nell fastened herself in.
‘Where are we going?’ A little late in the day to display this basic curiosity but better late than never.
He flashed her a quick sideways look. ‘A cottage the other side of the mountain.’ He nodded towards a blue-tinged peak that framed the castle. ‘By the sea.’
‘What makes you so sure that they are there?’
‘Felipe has always liked the place. He has mentioned on more than one occasion it’s his idea of the perfect love nest.’
Or lair, she thought darkly.
Luiz showed no further inclination to talk and a silence not of the comfortable variety stretched between them.
The road turned out to be as bad as he had suggested and the gradient steadily increased, until it became so steep the back wheels struggled to gain purchase on the potholed ground.
On one occasion Nell winced.
Luiz flashed a look at her pale, tense face and said, ‘It’s not normally this bad—they had some freak storms up here last month.’
‘So long as we don’t have any now.’ Not long later the road levelled out and they began to travel through a forested area. Nell expressed her surprise that there was so much greenery.
‘Oak groves,’ he said by way of explanation.
‘Can’t you go any faster?’
‘I could,’ he replied, not increasing his speed. Not necessarily a bad thing, Nell was forced to concede as they were taking a sharp bend that necessitated her clinging to the door to stop herself being thrown against him.
‘You could drive, but it would require you to keep your eyes open.’
It would also require her mind not drifting off without warning and, while she was forced to share an enclosed space with him, that seemed unlikely. ‘I’m not good with heights, and you should have your eyes on the road, not on me.’
‘Perhaps I’m helpless in the face of your fatal allure.’ Luiz’s heavy lids lowered concealing the flicker of surprise at the unexpected truth in his dark eyes.
What was it about her face that fascinated him?
Luiz turned his head and allowed his eyes to slide across the soft contours of her profile before returning his attention to the road. He had never met a woman who had such an expressive face, who wore her emotions so close to the surface.
Rosa had been a classic beauty.
This girl was not; he felt a need to search out her imperfections. To the objective observer, her eyes were beautiful. The rest of her features were not exceptional, but her unexceptional mouth, far too generous for her small face, exerted a growing fascination for him. He kept hearing that husky sigh she had breathed into his mouth when she had melted into his arms. His sarcasm shouldn’t have hurt but it did.
‘Very funny,’ Nell said, flashing a cool smile before she turned her head and trained her eyes on the passing scenery.
Busy refusing to acknowledge the odd achy lump in her throat—she was just tired—it took a few minutes to register the mist rising off the ground. It hung low, shrouding the vegetation in a spectral white fog and reducing visibility.
‘Will the fog get worse, do you think?’
‘Possibly.’ The fog would be the least of their problems, Luiz mused with a glance towards the fuel dial that hovered around empty.
He released a long hissing sigh of irritation through his clenched teeth. Only last summer he had given Felipe, who had just got his driving licence, a lecture when he had got stranded driving to a party at a friend’s house.
His cousin would no doubt be amused to see the tables reversed, but he doubted that his driving companion would find the situation so amusing when she realised. For the last few miles the four-wheel drive had been running on fumes, dashing his earlier hopes they might make it to the coast before the tank ran dry. He saw no useful purpose in telling her—she would find out soon enough.
Struggling to see the funny side himself, Luiz flashed a sideways glance at her profile—any excuse. Her pensive profile, chin pressed into her white knuckles, smooth brow furrowed, was turned to the window. She looked tense enough to snap like an overstrung guitar. Luiz could almost see visible waves of tension and impatience rolling off her rigid body.
His reply regarding the weather was irritatingly vague but his confident manner did ease her anxiety slightly.
‘Just why are you here?’
Nell cast him an irritated look. ‘I’ve already explained.’
‘Yes, I know you have to save your niece from the clutches of my cousin.’ The idea of Felipe as some sort of serial seducer of innocence brought a wry smile to Luiz’s lips. ‘This,’ he conceded drily, ‘I know.’