‘The calls will wait. I’ll do the guided tour,’ Raul slotted in smoothly, his attention darkly fixed to his animated and chattering companions.
Polly risked a glance at Raul. Brooding tension had hardened his lean, dark face. In receipt of a smouldering look, she flushed. ‘Are you sure you can spare the time?’ she pressed anxiously.
Disconcertingly, Raul dropped a casual arm round her taut shoulders. ‘Why not?’
‘Did I say something wrong back there?’ Polly asked as he walked her away from the younger man.
‘You talked more in two minutes to a complete stranger than you have talked to me in three entire days,’ Raul delivered silkily. ‘However, I would advise you to maintain a certain formal distance with Patrick.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t be misled by all that boyish charm. Patrick is a serial womaniser.’
Polly blinked. ‘He seemed very nice. He was so interested in Luis.’
‘It was just a light word of warning,’ Raul drawled dismissively, his blunt cheekbones accentuated by a slight darkening of colour as she frowned at him in patent confusion over why he should have found it necessary to give that warning.
He changed the subject ‘Actually, I thought you would’ve been down to the stables long before now. Country-bred Englishwomen are always mad about horses. They even take their ponies to boarding school with them!’ He laughed with husky appreciation. ‘I expect you ride pretty well yourself.’
Conscious of the approving satisfaction he didn’t attempt to conceal in his assumption that she was used to being around horses, Polly muttered, ‘Er...well—’
‘I’ve never met an Englishwoman who didn’t,’ Raul confided, making her tense even more. ‘And, as horses are a major part of my life, that’s one interest we can share.’
‘I’m probably a bit rusty...riding,’ Polly heard herself say, when she had never been on a horse in her entire life. But any wish Raul might express to share anything other than a bed deserved the maximum encouragement.
A split second later, she realised that she had just told a very stupid lie which would be easily exposed, but she had been so delighted at his talk of wanting to share his love of horses with her that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to disappoint him. She would teach herself to ride, just enough to pass herself. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it? In the meantime, all she had to do was make excuses.
He showed her round the stables. She copied every move he made with the horses poking their heads out over the doors. Mirroring worked a treat. Just about everything he told her went right over her head, because her knowledge of horseflesh began and ended with a childhood love of reading Black Beauty.
‘It’s all so fascinating,’ she commented with a mesmerised smile while he talked about polo—an incomprehensible commentary on chukkas, throw-ins and ride-offs. His lean brown hands sketched vivid impressions to stress the fast and furious action. It occurred to her that even if he had been talking in Spanish she would still have been utterly hooked. His sheer enthusiasm had a hypnotic effect on her.
Registering the glow in her dark blue eyes as she listened to him, Raul smiled. ‘You look happier today, querida.’
The silence that fell as he uttered the endearment seemed to thump in time with Polly’s hopelessly impressionable heart. The tip of her tongue snaked out to dampen her dry lower lip. His stunning dark golden eyes homed in on the tiny movement and her tummy simply flipped. In the hot, still air, a storm of such powerful desire engulfed Polly that she quivered with embarrassment.
A slow smile curved Raul’s beautiful mouth. Striding forward with confidence, he reached for her, a sudden burning brilliance blazing in his gorgeous eyes. ‘You’re trembling...’
And he knew why. He radiated an answering sexual heat that overwhelmed her every attempt to conceal her own reactions. And when he hauled her close with hungry hands, and plunged his mouth down passionately hard on hers, she felt as if the top of her head was flying off with excitement, and she simply went limp, eyes sliding shut, struggling to breathe, heart pounding like a manic triphammer.
‘Oh, boy... she gasped, as Raul lifted his imperious dark head again, pressing her shaken face against his shoulder. Feverishly she drank in his hot, clean scent, torn by a devouring need for him that was shatteringly intense.
But it was balanced by an awareness of his hunger, the jerky little shudder racking him as he snatched in a fractured breath. The barriers had come down, she sensed. He was touching her again. She was no longer off limits, like an ornament sheltering under a glass bell jar. And he wanted her, oh, yes, he wanted her, and this time that was going to be enough, she told herself urgently.
As he set her back from him, brilliant eyes veiled, Raul murmured lazily, ‘I’ll pick you up for a picnic lunch around three. Leave Luis at home.’
A little fretful squalling cry erupted like a comical complaint from the stroller. Raul burst out laughing. Surveying his wakening son’s cross little face with a luminous pride he could not conceal, he sighed, ‘We made a wonderful son together...I just wish we had made him between the sheets.’
Polly blushed, but she was touched that he should think along the same lines as she had done. ‘Not much we can do about that.’
‘But we’ll do it the normal way the next time,’ Raul asserted with amusement, and before she could even blossom at that reassuring implication that they would have another child some day, he added with deflating practicality, ‘One of the grooms will run you back to the ranch. You shouldn’t be out in this heat without a hat. Sunstroke is not a very pleasant experience.’
When she walked into her bedroom, two of the maids were hanging a rail of unfamiliar new garments in the wardrobe. Polly hovered, fingering rich fabrics, recognising wildly expensive designer tailoring. Dear heaven, Raul had bought her clothes. No asking, What do you like? No suggestion that she go and choose for herself. She eased a sleek dress in a smoky shade of blue from a padded hanger and held it against herself. Lordy, she’d never worn anything that short in her life!
But she was smiling, because she was already walking on air. Next time. Two little words that told her that Raul regarded their marriage as a lasting development. She put on the blue dress and then tracked down the housekeeper and asked for the keys of the curious little turreted building on the south boundary of the gardens. She had a couple of hours to kill, and yesterday had peered in through the shrouded windows and found the doors securely locked.
‘No one goes there now, señora.’ The older woman muttered something anxious in Spanish about el patrón, her kindly face strained as she finally passed over the keys with marked reluctance.
The staff might be superstitious about the place, but Polly was unconcerned by that troubled reference to ‘el patrón’. Raul wouldn’t give two hoots if she went and explored. This was supposed to be her home now, and that picturesque building intrigued her.