She didn’t have to answer that because a large white Mercedes swept towards them and Gil shot a glance at it, muttering, ‘That’s Karl now.’ He caught hold of her arm, his cool fingers possessive. ‘Be careful, Bianca. Do you hear me? Keep your wits about you while you’re out. I don’t want to be told you’ve been mown down by a motorbike in Marbella.’
She nodded, quivering at his touch. ‘I’ll be careful. I must go—Freddie and Karl are waving.’
‘Damn Freddie and Karl!’ he said through his teeth. ‘Bianca, I don’t like you going out alone...’
‘I won’t be alone!’
‘Without me,’ he said roughly, and her breath caught.
‘I’m sure I’ll be fine with Freddie and Karl,’ she said huskily, pulling free. Without a backward look she hurried off towards the white Mercedes.
Karl and the children were in the back of the car, Freddie was behind the wheel. Leaning over, Freddie opened the front passenger seat and gestured; Bianca climbed in beside her and as she did so Gil arrived, closed the door on her and leaned on the half-open window, looking into the car.
‘If anything happens to her while she’s out with you two I’ll kill the pair of you!’ he grimly told his sister-in-law and her husband.
‘We’ll look after her, don’t worry,’ Karl said from the back of the car, his voice calmly reassuring.
‘We won’t leave her alone for a second,’ Freddie promised.
Bianca shot Gil a glance and met his grey eyes; they glittered darkly at her, the black pupils so large, they were all she could see.
‘Be careful!’ he warned fiercely.
She nodded and he withdrew from the window. Freddie drove off with a squeal of tyres on gravel and a moment later they were out on the road to Marbella in the early morning traffic and Bianca was able to relax with a faint sigh, smothered before her companions could hear it and draw their own conclusions, which might be rather too accurate, she felt.
They spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in Marbella. After they had parked and walked into the old town, Karl and the children went off on some expedition of their own while Freddie and Bianca went in search of the dress shop in whose window Bianca had seen the flamenco-style dress.
‘I do hope it hasn’t been sold! It was probably a one-off, and I really loved it.’
She was on edge as they walked, constantly looking around, half expecting to see a leather-clad figure on a motorbike, jumping at every sound...the bang of a door, a car starting, a dog barking.
When they reached the narrow little street they were looking for it was worse. Bianca felt her nerves prickle as she caught sight of the tapas bar outside which she had been attacked just a few nights ago. So much had happened since. It seemed like weeks, not days ago, yet coming back made it all come sharply into focus, raw and immediate, and very painful, as if it had only happened last night.
‘Is that the shop?’ asked Freddie when she stopped walking and froze on the narrow pavement in more or less the same spot on which it had taken place.
Bianca pulled herself together, forced a smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, then she looked at the window display and her eyes lit up. ‘Yes! That’s the shop, and that’s the dress! It’s still there.’
‘Hey, that is gorgeous!’ Freddie said, eyes widening as she stared at the dress. ‘And very Spanish! I couldn’t wear it, but I can see it will suit you perfectly, Bianca; you have the right colouring and the right figure for it.’
‘Do you really think so?’
In broad daylight, the dress was even more boldly dramatic, the red the colour of blood, the neckline lower than anything she had worn for years, the waist tight, the skirt full and cascading with frills of black lace. It was not a dress for anyone timid or retiring, and Bianca didn’t know if she had the nerve to carry it off in public.
She considered it uncertainly, but Freddie was enthusiastic. ‘Go on, go in and try it on! What have you got to lose? I’ll tell you if it doesn’t look good on you, I promise.’ She took hold of Bianca’s wrist and dragged her into the shop where a large, statuesque Spanish lady in a black dress with a white lace collar took charge of Bianca and, having been told it was the dress in the window which interested her, carried her and the dress off to a fitting-room.
Bianca, by then, was half hoping the dress would not be her size, but it was; what was more, it fitted her like a glove.
The Spanish manageress burbled in Spanish at her while Bianca stared dumbfounded at her own reflection, thrown back to her from all sides. Every wall in the little room held a full-length mirror. She was transformed: the red dress gave her a style and passion that alarmed her, the cascading frills and glimpses of her legs a
s disturbing as the neckline which left so much of her white breasts bare.
‘On you, is lovely,’ the Spanish woman managed, beaming over her shoulder, tweaking the neckline even lower.
Bianca tweaked it right back up again. She was not going around half naked.
Undeterred, the other woman cooed at her. ‘Very Spanish, for the dance, flamenco... you English? You look Spanish in this.’
Freddie knocked on the door of the fitting-room. ‘Can I come in?’