A Gift for a Lion by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online Page A

from your ill-advised attempt to escape from my men. I could not leave you to catch pneumonia.'
    'Then it was you…' The shame of it prevented her from finishing her words. The caress of the silk on her skin was suddenly abhorrent as she visualised herself naked and helpless under this man's disturbing amber gaze.
    'Don't look so stricken,
signorina
,' he said crisply. 'You didn't deny my men the privilege of a glimpse of your undoubted beauty. Am I supposed to be less human? Or would you have preferred their attentions?'
    Her eyes felt as if they were burning, but she was incapable of tears. Finally she lifted her head and looked at him. He was leaning back in his chair, out of the range of the lamplight, and his expression was hidden from her.
    'If you wanted to totally humiliate me, then you have succeeded,' she said quietly. 'I can only hope that you're now satisfied and that I can leave without any further delay.'
    'Has humiliation also rendered you deaf,
signorina
? You are not leaving.'
    'I think you must be mad!' she fought against the bubble of hysteria rising within her. 'You can't keep me here—surely you see that? My friends know where I am. They'll come and search for me, and you can't take all of us prisoner.'
    'I have not the slightest intention of doing so, and I would not count on any search being made. Your friends believe that you are my willing guest.'
    'Why should they believe that?'
    'Because they have received a note, presumably from you, which tells them so, and asks them to send on your luggage.'
    'They'll know it isn't from me. Tony knows my writing.'
    'Then he will recognise your signature.' He tossed something across the desk to her. With a sinking heart she recognised her cheque card, taken no doubt from her wallet in the beach bag. 'Your style is a distinctive one,
signorina
.'
    'So you're a forger as well as a kidnapper,' she flung at him. 'What a list of charges there'll be when I get free of this place, unless you mean to add murder to your other crimes!'
    'Such hard words.' That detestable mockery was back in his voice. 'You did go to considerable pains to visit me, after all. Am I now to be blamed because I take equal pains to keep you here?'
    For a moment she stared at him impotently, then suddenly the tears came, slow and scalding, and she buried her face in her hands and gave way to them. A thousand miles away, it seemed, a bell was ringing, but she took no notice, even when a kindly arm assisted her out of the chair, and a voice encouraging her in heavily accented English murmured in her ear as she moved in a blurred, obedient dream to the door.
     
    The room itself was beautiful. In spite of the rage and humiliation that consumed her, she could appreciate that. She could also appreciate the fact that the door was locked and that exquisite wrought iron grilles effectively blocked the only other possible escape route through french windows on to a balcony beyond. The french windows themselves stood tantalisingly open, a soft evening breeze, warm and scented, wafting into the room.
    Lying across the enormous divan bed on her stomach, her chin propped in her hands, Joanna tried to think calmly and clearly about her predicament. She wept no longer. A phrase that the much-loved nanny from her childhood had often used strayed into her mind. Temper's tears are soon dried, my dear.'
    Well, they were dried, and from now on she would keep her emotions under control. No matter what happened to her, he would never again see her collapse into a grovelling, tearful heap.
    The most irksome thing about her predicament was that she still did not know why she was being kept on Saracina. She frowned in real bewilderment. Surely he was not detaining her out of revenge, simply for trespassing on his property? In spite of the way that he had treated her, his face was not that of a petty person. She shivered slightly, remembering the ruthlessness of that mouth with the sensually curved lower lip.
    And she