Dark Fever

That made her laugh. ‘I’m forty years old!’ The admission almost took her breath away. Her age was something else she angrily resisted.

Gil grinned. ‘And here I am lecturing you when I’m two years younger!’

‘Only two?’ she retorted, but was quite relieved because she had suspected that he might only be thirty-five or so.

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ he said, his eyes gleaming. ‘You look much younger than forty yourself.’

They were standing in the hotel lobby now. The receptionist waved urgently at Gil, who nodded back at her then looked down at Bianca. ‘I must go. If you have any problems at all ring my office and I’ll deal with them. And stay in the hotel grounds for the rest of the day.’

She prickled, resenting the autocratic tone.

‘Don’t give me orders, Senor Marquez!’

His eyes were sardonic. ‘Don’t be stupid, Bianca. I’m not giving you orders, I’m advising you, for your own good, to stay where you can be protected. And my name is Gil. Remember?’

He held out his hand and courtesy demanded that she take it. Slowly and unwillingly she held out her own hand but he did not shake it. He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it formally, with a slight bow.

She drew a startled breath. He straightened, looking down into her startled eyes.

‘Take a siesta after lunch, Bianca. Start living like a Spaniard—go to bed in the afternoon. Let us teach you how to enjoy life.’

She knew she was turning pink and saw that it amused him; his eyes teased her, but as he stopped speaking he released her hand, turned and walked away towards the reception desk.

Bianca hurriedly turned away too and went into the dining-room where they were still serving a buffet lunch. A waiter came to show her to a table and ask if she would want some wine with her meal.

For once, she decided, she would; the morning had been exhausting and after lunch she would take Gil’s advice and go to bed for an afternoon siesta.

‘A half-carafe of your house white, please, and some mineral water.’

When the waiter had gone she went over to the buffet, collected a plate and began to wander around choosing from the food. By now the selection was not as extensive as it no doubt had been at the start of lunchtime—the other guests had plundered the plates and left only scraps of the most popular food. Bianca wasn’t very hungry, however; she chose salad and a small slice of cold poached salmon.

As she went back to her table to begin eating she suddenly saw someone waving from a table at the far side of the room, by the window.

Breaking into a smile, she recognised Freddie and went over there, carrying her plate. Freddie was chic and eye-riveting in a very plain white lawn dress which made her tan more marked; she glittered, too, with gold—small, shield-shaped earrings in her ears, a chunky gold bracelet on her arm, a thin chain around her neck. The simplicity and yet richness of the ensemble worked so well together that you would have supposed it to have been designed as a whole by whoever had made the dress, thought Bianca, whose business was fashion, but she suspected that Freddie herself had chosen the jewellery to match the expensively simple white dress. Freddie had a natural style which money could not buy.

She smiled warmly at Bianca, asking, ‘How are you today?’ Her eyes searched Bianca’s face. ‘You look pale, and no wonder! Gil told us what happened last night in Marbella—it must have been terrifying. For such a thing to happen... it could ruin your holiday—how lucky Gil came along when he did.’

Bianca nodded. ‘Yes

, it was very lucky.’ Even if she wished it had been someone else she was grateful that he had arrived when he did. ‘At least I wasn’t hurt, and didn’t lose anything! It could have been so much worse. I’ve just had to go to a police station for an identity parade—that was quite scary, too; I hated doing it.’

‘Did you pick anyone out?’

‘I didn’t recognise anyone, but I did feel sure that one man was the mugger; I pointed him out to the police and they said he was one of the men they had picked up. The other man stayed on the bike during the attack, and I never even noticed him.’

Freddie looked puzzled. ‘If you didn’t recognise him how could you pick him out?’

‘There was something... I don’t know, I just felt sure it was him; it was instinctive, a sort of sixth sense, and I might have decided I was wrong, but then I looked in his eyes and...he hated me...’ Bianca shivered, remembering that moment, and Freddie looked horrified.

‘How terrible! You poor thing!’

‘Let’s not talk about it,’ said Bianca hurriedly. ‘I just want to forget about it, now all that’s over.’ She looked at the other places at the table. ‘Where’s your family? Have they eaten and left?’

‘Karl took them sailing. Gil has a yacht moored at Puerto Jose Banus...’

‘Where?’

‘That’s a marina, just down the coast from here, at Nueva Andalucía; they have mooring for hundreds of yachts, a casino and a leisure complex with bars and nightclubs and restaurants...and swimming-pools—they have several of those, too. It’s a fun place and Karl and the children loved it the minute they saw it. It’s their sort of place.’