fingertip.
'And I will be desolated without you, Bella,' Shasa agreed, and dropped the handset of the telephone on to its cradle and pushed Kitty back gently on to the pillows.
'I said get thou behind me, Satan,' she protested huskily. 'Not get thou on top of me.'
Isabella drove as fast and as well as any man he had known. Ramsey lay back in the leather bucket seat of the hired Mercedes and studied her openly. She basked in his attention and every few minutes, when a straight section of road allowed it, she glanced sideways at him or reached across to touch his hand or his thigh.
Unlike many of the assignments that he had been given over the years, Ramsey did not find it difficult to act out his part with this woman. He sensed a strength in her, an untapped reservoir of courage and determination that intrigued him.
He recognized that she was as yet unfulfilled and restless, dissatisfied with and rebellious against her easy undemanding existence, ripe for excitement and challenge, searching for something, some cause to which to dedicate herself.
Physically she was immensely attractive, and he had no difficulty faking that tender concern towards her that was the hallmark of the accomplished lover. When he looked at her like this, it was a deliberate device. He knew the appeal of his gaze, that cold green contemplation like the stare of the serpent that mesmerizes a wild bird, and yet he enjoyed looking at her as at an exquisite work of art. Although he knew from her file that she had been with other men, he had learnt in these last few days that the core of her being was still untouched and there was a strange virginal quality about her that aroused him.
As with so many legendary male lovers, Ramsey experienced that condition known as satyriasis. The name derived from those woodland godlings of Roman mythology which were half-man and half-goat and whose sexual appetite was insatiable. Although Ramsey Machado was quite abnormally responsive to any woman, whether she was attractive to him or otherwise, yet it was unusual for him to be able to achieve orgasm. He was in most cases simply indefatigable, able to outlast a partner with even the most tardy libido and to drive a normal woman on and on until she at last screamed for mercy.
Then he was able to continue at the very first indication that she wished to do so, and he was so sensitively attuned to feminine sexuality that he would usually recognize that indication before she did herself.
However, this woman was one of those rare creatures who was able to bring him on without too much difficulty. With her he had already achieved true orgasm a number of times and he knew he would again. It was, of course, essential to his plans that he did so.
Driving up from the coast on that sultry summer's day, Isabella was as happy and exhilarated as she had ever been. She was in love. Now there was not the least shadow of doubt in her mind that this was the grand passion of her life. There had never been, and there could not conceivably be again, anyone to match him. She would never experience any emotion to exceed what she felt for him now. His presence beside her and those green eyes upon her made the sunlight brighter and the high dry air of the Sierra taste sweeter on her lips.
The wide plains and the mountains beyond were so like her own beloved land.
They transported her back to the open horizons of the great Karoo, for there were the same lion-coloured earth and sepia rockscapes. Looking upon them, her mood was carried upwards even higher and she laughed aloud with joy and had to strive hard to prevent herself crying out: 'Oh, Ramsey my darling, I love you. I love you with all my heart and with all my soul for ever.' Even in her giddy exhilaration, she was determined that he must say it first. That way she could be doubly certain that what she already knew was true - that he loved her as much as she loved him.
Ramsey knew these mountains and he directed her over dusty back-roads to vistas of grandeur and beauty hidden far from the usual tourist routes.
They stopped in one of the little villages, and he joked with the locals in their patois. He came away with a slab of the pink serrano ham cured in the snow, a loaf of rough peasant bread and a goatskin full of the sweet dark Malaga wine.
Beyond the village, they left the Mercedes parked beside an ancient stone bridge and followed the stream up through the olive groves into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
While a bearded billy-goat watched them in astonishment from the cliff above, they plunged naked into a secret pool of the river. Then, st ' ill naked, they ate their picnic lunch seated on the smooth black rocks above the water.
Ramsey demonstrated how to hold the wine-skin at arm's length and direct a hissing jet into the back of his open mouth. When she tried, the wine spurted over her cheeks and dribbled from her chin, and at her request he licked the ruby droplets from her face and from her taut white bosom. This was such fun that they forgot about the rest of their lunch and made love, Isabella still perched on her rock and Ramsey standing knee-deep in the pool facing her.
'You are incredible,' she whispered. 'My legs are jelly. You'll probably have to carry me back to the car.' They spent so much of the afternoon beside the pool that the sun was on the tops of the mountains, turning the snows to incandescent gold, when they came in sight of the castle.
It was not as large or as grand as Isabella had expected it to be. It was simply a gaunt dark building high on the slopes above the higgledy-piggledy pink-tiled roofs of the village. As they approached, Isabella saw that part of the parapet had collapsed and that the grounds were overgrown and neglected.
'Who does it belong to now?' she asked.
'The State.' Ramsey shrugged. 'There was talk some years ago of turning it into a tourist hotel, but nothing came of it.' The caretaker was an old man who remembered Ramsey's family, and he led them through the ground-floor rooms. They were empty; all the furniture had been sold to pay the family debts, and the chandeliers were thick with dust and cobwebs. The walls of the hall were stained with rain-water from the leaks in the roof 'Ies so sad to see something once so lovely ruined by neglect,' Isabella whispered. 'Doesn't it make you sad, too?' 'Do you want to go?' he asked.
`Yes, I don't want to be sad today.' As they went down the hairpin track into the village, the last of the sunset was so splendid on the mountain-tops that Isabella recaptured her bubbling mood.
At the inn in the village, the innkeeper recognized the family name. He ordered his two daughters up to change the bed-linen in the front room, and sent his wife back to her kitchen to prepare one of the Andalusian specialities for their dinner, cocido Madrilefio, a stew of chicken and the spicy little chorizo sausages on a bed of cabello dedngel, noodles so fine that they deserved their name of Angel's Hair.
'In Spain, sherry is the drink of the people,' Ramsey explained to her as he filled her glass. It was cold enough here in the mountains to warrant a fire in the stone fireplace, and the light of the flames played over his features making him even more improbably handsome.
'We always seem to be doing one of three things' - she contemplated the golden wine in her glass - 'eating or drinking or. She sipped the wine.
'Are you complaining?' he asked.
'Gloating, actually.' She slanted her eyes at him. 'Eat your cocido and drink your sherry, sehor, you are going to need your strength.' She awoke with the sunlight streaming in through the open window and experienced a moment's dread that he had gone again. However, he was there beside her in the wide soft bed, watching her with that cool enigmatic expression; she felt another moment's chill of doubt, but as she reached for him, almost diffidently, she found that he was already hard and swollen for her.
'Oh Godp she whispered joyously. 'You are incredible!' No man had ever wanted her as much as he did. He made her feel like the most desirable woman in the universe.
The innkeeper had laid a breakfast of purple figs and goat's cheese for them in the walled courtyard. They sat under the trellised vines, and Isabella peeled the figs with her long painted nails and placed the globules of succulent flesh between his lips. Her father was the only other man she had ever done that for.
When one of the daughters brought a pot of steaming coffee out to them, Ramsey excused himself and went up to their bedroom. Through the tiny bathroom window, he could see Isabella sitting in the courtyard below and heard her voice and her laughter as she tried to make herself understood in her newly acquired Spanish.
Earlier he had watched her swallow a birth-control pill as she stood beside him at the washbasin. She had made a silly little ritual of it, toasting him with the glass of water. 'Many happy returns!'However, the pack of remaining pills was no longer in her toilet-bag on the ledge above the basin.
He went back into the bedroom. The bed occupied almost the entire floor-space, and their luggage was crammed into the curtained alcove beside the door. Isabella's big squashy leather shoulder-bag was thrown carelessly on top of her suitcase.
He paused to listen again, and heard her voice faintly through the open window. He took the bag to the bed and began to unpack it swiftly, laying out the contents in careful sequence so that he could repack it in exactly the same order. He had searched her sequinned handbag and checked the brand of birth-control pills she was using on that first morning in the Kensington flat while she was still asleep.
Later he had discussed them with the doctor at the embassy.
'If the woman discontinues
