The Dragon's Cave Read Free Page A

think?’ he said.
    She chuckled. ‘Yes, you are. I can’t imagine you riding on a mule ! ’
    ‘Why not?’ he countered.
    ‘No, no, it would have to be a very fine horse to look right .’
    He raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. ‘So?’
    ‘Yes, of course ! ’ she went on impatiently. ‘A mule would be far too humble a mount for you!’
    He frowned at her. ‘Are you always so indiscreet in your remarks?’ he cautioned her.
    She bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
    ‘Are you?’
    ‘I didn’t mean to tease you,’ she added. ‘Only you must see that you’d look better on a horse than on a mule?’
    ‘I am sure I should,’ he agreed. ‘What I meant was that it is easy to see why this young man of yours thought you wanted his attentions.’
    ‘I don’t see why,’ she said. ‘I hardly know him.’
    ‘You hardly know me,’ he pointed out.
    Megan gave him a mystified look. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said gruffly.
    He laughed out loud. ‘I am telling you that it is unwise to flatter unknown males when you are alone with them,’ he reproved her. ‘It may lead to other undesirable incidents.’
    She felt herself blushing. ‘I wasn’t flattering you!’ she denied.
    ‘ No?’ He dismissed the matter easily, pointing out his hotel to her. ‘ I will fetch the car ,’ he told her. ‘ You will be quite safe here, in the light from the hotel .’
    ‘ Yes,’ she agreed mechanically.
    ‘ You are not nervous of the dark?’ he probed.
    She was, but she had no intention of admitting such a weakness to him.
    ‘ No .’
    ‘ Good.’ He gave her a long, grave look and then walked away from her, down some side street, leaving her on her own with the snow fluttering down around her.
    She didn’t know why she was letting him drive her to her parents’ home. The fact that he was tall and elegant, and never for a moment considered that she might refuse to fall in with his arrangements, had nothing to do with it. She had argued with better men, she told herself, even if they hadn’t been as arrogant as this Spaniard. Perhaps it was just that she liked the feeling, after all, of some knight in shining armour carrying her away into the winter night. He looked the part for that, she thought. Haughty and unbending and full of Spanish honour! She had never met anyone quite like him before and he intrigued her, though how she was going to explain him away to her parents, she simply could not imagine.
    For a knight, his charger, in the shape of an extremely expensive-looking Mercedes car, was a delight to behold. Megan slipped into the front seat beside him, rejoicing in the warmth that enveloped her. It gave her a queer feeling to be on the right side of the car, but she supposed that was because he usually drove in Spain and not in England.
    ‘Where to?’ he asked briefly.
    She swallowed, once more aware of how very far she was taking him, a stranger, out of his way. ‘ Tunbridge Wells,’ she said.
    He didn’t appear to be surprised, or particularly concerned.
    ‘Do you return there every night?’ he asked her.
    She shook her head. ‘I share a room with a friend.’
    He raised his eyebrows. ‘And this friend, does she have charge of you?’
    Megan giggled. ‘Good heavens, no! We were at school together. Alice—I was at school with her too—found it for us. It’s fairly near her place. We were all going to share with her, but she—it wasn’t convenient,’ she ended lamely, hoping that he wouldn’t ask her why.
    ‘ Is she, too, as young as you?’
    Megan grinned at him. ‘ We’re all of age !’ she said, rather smugly.
    ‘You too?’ His disbelief was obvious.
    ‘I’m eighteen ! ’ she exclaimed.
    ‘ That is no age at all,’ he snubbed her. ‘ One of my sisters is also eighteen, but I should not dream of allowing her to run round Madrid, or London, on her own! If you had an unpleasant experience this evening, it was no more than to be expected—’
    ‘Tony