the Comte agreed dryly. ‘Is that what you want, mon petit? To go from the schoolroom to the bedroom?’ He saw that he had shocked her, watching the colour come and go in her face.
‘Come,’ he murmured, glancing sardonically at her. ‘You are not going to tell me that the nuns kept you in complete ignorance of the “facts of life"? There must have been holidays, encounters with attractive young men who were only too willing to add practical knowledge to theory.
‘No!’ Hope’s shocked denial silenced him for several seconds, while she sat bolt upright in her seat, her body trembling with rejection of his suggestion, her mind unable to analyse why it should have provoked such a strong response. After all, many of her fellow pupils had indulged in just the sort of experimentation the Comte had so mockingly described, and although she had never been included in the excited midnight discussions about them, she was not so naïve that she didn’t know that there was far more to human relationships than the cold, dry facts presented to them during their lectures.
‘No?’ The Comte pulled off the main road, bringing the car to a halt beside a field. They were in the middle of the country and Hope noticed absently that the crop was growing, green-gold fields stretching into the distance, an ancient stone castle perched precariously among the foothills which marked the beginning of the sierras.
Her profile averted from her companion, she tensed when his fingers cupped her jaw, forcing her to face his enigmatic green gaze.
‘No?’ he repeated queryingly. ‘Not even so much as a stolen kiss, ma jolie?’
Sensing the mockery behind the question, Hope blushed hotly, hating the way he was exposing her life, her inadequacies, because hadn’t she secretly wondered what it would be like to share the giggled confidences of the others? Hadn’t she secretly lain awake in her bed wondering why she felt none of their desire?
‘There is no one to steal kisses from behind the walls of the convent,’ she retorted bravely at last, ‘except for Father Ignacio who comes to hear our confessions. My father wouldn’t let me spend my holidays with my friends and …’ She broke off, hating herself for confiding so much to him. Now, doubtless, he would tell her father what she had said and she burned with embarrassment and humiliation. How gauche and disloyal her father would think her.
‘So!’ His gaze rested disturbingly on her lips, and Hope could almost feel the soft flesh burn from the contact. She longed for him to look away, but his fingers still cupped her jaw, curling against her skin, his thumb gently stroking along the bone, quivers of sensation spreading from the point where his flesh touched hers. Her mouth had gone dry, her lips parting on a small sound of protest, turning to a shocked gasp when the Comte rubbed his thumb over the fullness of her bottom lip, his free hand grasping her wrists as though he sensed her intention to thrust him away. His dark head descended, and the brush of his mouth against hers caused Hope to tense and stiffen, confused by her conflicting emotions. On the one hand was shock, outrage that he should trespass on his friendship with her father, on the other was this curious, languorous sensation that the brush of his lips against hers evoked, making her want to slide her hands over his dark-suited shoulders, explore the shape and feel of him, while his mouth continued to …
With a horrified cry, Hope tore herself out of his grasp, her eyes huge and deeply violet in her small face, her fingers fluttering betrayingly to touch the quivering softness of her lips. Was that compassion she read in the darkness of his eyes? Or was it scorn for her lack of expertise, her inexperience?
‘Well, mon petit? Is your curiosity now satisfied? Do you no longer envy your schoolfriends their little experiments?’
Hope sat immobile with despair and hatred in her heart. Not even her most secret thoughts were safe from this man. Had he known also that she had looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to have it touch her own? She had quenched the thought almost at birth, shocked and disturbed by it, but somehow he had known.
‘What’s the matter? Did the good Sisters tell you that such intimacies should only be shared with your husband, that no one should touch those soft lips but him?’
‘I am not quite a fool, monsieur,’ Hope managed stiffly. ‘I am well aware that it amuses you to … to torment me.’
She heard him laugh soundlessly as he re-started the car, and turned back to the main road. Was he married, she wondered curiously. Did he have a family of his own?
‘There is a small town a few miles away, where we can spend the night,’ she was informed as the Ferrari ate up the miles. ‘The hotel was once the home of a local family, but it has now been taken over by the government and opened as an exclusive hostería.
Several miles on they came to the town. The road had started to climb into the foothills, and to Hope’s surprise, their destination turned out to be the castle she had noticed before.
‘A fitting setting for you, Hope,’ the Comte murmured lazily as he stopped the car. ‘We shall have to ask them if they can find a turret room for you. You have all the inviolate innocence of a fairy princess.’
She wasn’t given a turret room, but the room she was given was far more luxurious than anything she was used to, Hope admitted, smoothing the heavy bedspread over the carved four-poster which dominated the room. Her room had an adjoining bathroom, and she secured her hair on top of her head, almost filling the bath with hot water, indulging in the pleasure of soaking her aching limbs in the scented water. Outside, dusk had fallen. The Comte had suggested that she should eat in her room, and she wasn’t disposed to argue with him. She didn’t feel hungry, and all she wanted to do was to sleep. Tomorrow, she hoped, she would see her father. Why didn’t she feel more excited at the thought? Perhaps her senses had been blunted by too much excitement, after being starved of it, Hope thought wryly, stepping out of the bath and drying herself, studying her reflection wonderingly in the full-length mirror, her eyes drawn to the pointed thrust of her breasts, taut and firm, the skin silky-smooth. A strange sensation curled through the pit of her stomach, her eyes darkening as she remembered how the Comte had kissed her. She must not think about it! Shivering with reaction, Hope looked for her robe, remembering that she had left it in her room.
When she opened her bedroom door she realised someone had been in her room. The lamps had been switched on, her nightdress lay across the bed, and a small enclosed electric trolley was pulled up against a small table. Her supper, no doubt. She walked towards the bed, stiffening with shock as something moved in the shadows beyond the lamps, and the Comte’s lean figure detached itself from the darkness.
Every instinct screamed for her to cover her nakedness from him, but strangely she could not move, her muscles locked in paralysing terror as she stared up at him as he studied her body with a clinical detachment that broke through her fear, freeing her to reach shakily for her robe, wishing it was her old school one and not this flimsy fine silk which merely clothed her body rather than concealed it.
‘I’m sorry, Hope, I didn’t realise you hadn’t heard me.’ It was the first time he had apologised to her, and Hope sensed that it was genuinely meant. ‘I did knock,’ he continued, ‘but you obviously didn’t hear me. They have brought our dinner—come and sit down.’
For the first time Hope noticed that he, too, had changed. His darkly formal suit had given way to a thin silk shirt that made her disturbingly aware of the male body beneath it, with dark, thigh-hugging pants moulding his legs.
When they were both seated, the Comte indicated the trolley and smiled, asking Hope if she would like to serve them or if she would prefer him to do it.
This, at least, was an area in which she was proficient, Hope thought, approaching the trolley. All the girls at the convent were taught how to be perfect hostesses, and even with the Comte’s eyes on her, she managed to serve their soup dexterously and properly.
‘It seems to me that your convent teaches the more old-fashioned virtues; the womanly arts rather than commercial ones,’ the Comte murmured when Hope removed the soup bowls and served the main course, a rich chicken paella.
‘Many of