A Lady In Need Of An Heir

‘Thank you for that, at least.’

There was silence, strangely companionable. Gaby let out a sigh she had not realised she had been holding and let her shoulders relax back against the rough stones.

This was becoming all too comfortable. Confession was clearly a weakening indulgence. She sat upright again, opened her satchel and began to take out the food. ‘Would you like to come with me to a dinner party tomorrow night?’

Gray had found a chicken leg and paused in midgnaw. He really does have a fine set of teeth... A sudden flash of where those teeth might be employed made her grab for a bread roll.

‘Yes, very much, thank you. But will your hosts not mind an uninvited stranger?’

‘Not at all. I will write a note when I get home. It is only up there, see? To the left of that big rock on the shore? The next quinta along. Their house is close to our boundary and the estate stretches away to the east. They are another Anglo-Scottish-Portuguese family, the MacFarlanes, and they have been here as long as the Frosts.’ Gaby stuffed the roll with cheese and found a tomato. ‘I like him a lot. She is a terrible snob, so she will be delighted to have an earl at her table, but other than that and the fact that she wears pink too much, she is tolerable.’ She bit into the tomato, then sprinkled salt on the exposed flesh and decided she had been fair to Lucy MacFarlane. ‘Her husband, Hector, has been like an uncle to me. They throw big dinner parties so there will probably be at least a dozen other guests.’

‘Will they not have invited a gentleman to balance you?’

Gaby shook her head, her mouth full, and swallowed. She never tired of the sweet tang of the tomato juices on her tongue, the warm pungency of the cheese, the springy resistance of the fresh-baked crust of the bread. Here in the sunlight, with the scent of herbs and the distant sound of the river, was a kind of sensual little heaven.

‘There are so many spare gentlemen around, what with visiting buyers and partners and officials from the government making inspections,’ she explained as she split another roll. ‘The ladies are always outnumbered.’

‘Stops the gentlemen becoming complacent.’ Gray reached for another chicken leg.

She was not going to watch him eat it. Her imagination was doing a perfectly good job of visualising those muscles moving in his neck as he chewed and swallowed, his tongue coming out to lick his lips and savour the herb-infused oils it had been cooked in.

‘The gentlemen are much more concerned with discussing the harvest, debating whether or not to declare a vintage, garnering information and downright gossip about rival quintas, rival lodges. The ladies are so much ornamentation as far as they are concerned.’

‘Except you.’ He said it seriously, not as though he was mocking her, which was a pleasant surprise.

Gaby risked a look. The chicken leg was nothing but a bone now, dangling from long, lax fingers. ‘Except me,’ she agreed. ‘I spend the evenings carefully not flirting, not gossiping, not discussing the things the men consider feminine concerns. Then when the ladies withdraw I stay put and they simply pretend I am not female. Obviously I must put something of a crimp in the conversation if they are dying to discuss mistresses or boast of their sexual performance or relieve themselves, but they can always take their cigarillos out on to the terrace and do all of those things.’

Gray gave a snort of amusement. ‘I do not think your aunt has the remotest idea just who she is expecting me to bring back to London. I look forward to watching you. Do you scandalise the other ladies?’

Gaby shrugged. ‘They are used to me. This will be a social evening only, I think.’ Some of the other women she even thought of as friends, although she had little in common with their day-to-day lives. ‘Wine?’ She passed him the flask of red.

‘Good. Yours?’ Gray wiped the neck with one of the napkins Maria had wrapped the food in before passing it back to Gaby, then ruined the civilised effect by scrubbing the back of his hand across his lips.

The soldier, not the society gentleman, Gaby thought, repressing a smile.

‘No. This is a MacFarlane vintage. They make more table wine than I do. You’ll have to talk to them at dinner tomorrow—I’m sure Hector MacFarlane would be delighted to sell you—’

She broke off as a flicker of darkness scuttled out from a boulder beside Gray’s left boot. The knife was in her hand ready to throw, then she realised that he had slid his own blade from his boot and had it poised in his hand. They both watched the scorpion, then it skittered off over the edge of the terrace and they relaxed in unison, shoulders touching as they leaned back.

‘These days I don’t like killing anything I don’t have to, even those wicked little devils,’ Gray said as he slid his knife back out of sight.

‘Neither do I,’ Gaby agreed. There was a mark on her blade, a smear of sap, and she rubbed it clean with her thumb.

‘How well can you throw that?’ Gray asked.

‘Very well. Old Pedro, my father’s steward, taught me when I was only ten. See that dead plant over there?’ A large, desiccated thistle was silhouetted against a post on the edge of the terrace.

‘You can hit that from here?’ He sounded politely sceptical.

Gaby shifted the knife into a throwing grip and sat up. Beside her Gray stood and out of the corner of her eye she saw him draw his own knife again. His throw followed hers in a fraction of a second. Hers skewered the head of the thistle to the post, his cut the stem beneath the head.

‘I’m impressed.’ He walked across to retrieve both knives.

‘So am I. Shall we go back down again now? Now, what was I saying? Oh, yes, Uncle Hector is sure to offer to sell you wine.’

She thought she heard him mutter, ‘Everyone in this damn valley wants to sell me something,’ but when she looked at him he grinned back.

Really, the man was all too easy to like—she couldn’t recall now why she had found him so severe, so difficult, when he had first arrived. Perhaps she could survive a week of his company, after all. Provided she could stop looking at his mouth. Or those shoulders.

Chapter Six (#u249e6d11-9d30-5926-b768-c89b8280bf84)

It was early, the light was thin, weak. Nothing stirred inside the house or out. Gaby turned, squashed up the pillow and burrowed into it. Far too early to be awake. She turned to the other side. But something had woken her, a soft thud and a crunching sound that had somehow become part of a dream about cracking walnuts.

She sat up, listened. Nothing, just her imagination, but it was impossible to go back to sleep now. She lay and thought about Gray instead.

Last night at dinner she had thought him subdued, somehow. Polite, careful to involve Jane in the conversation, observant about what they had seen on their walk up through the terraces. And yet it was as though someone had turned down the wick on a lamp. Perhaps he was tired or missing his children, or he regretted committing to stay for a few days and travel down to Porto with her. He had excused himself after the meal and gone back to the Gentlemen’s House. No intimate conversations last night, which was doubtless a good thing.

Sunlight was penetrating the shutters now. When she slipped out of bed and went to look the morning was perfect: cool, clear, filled only with the sounds of nature. The river, early birds, a distant dog barking. The water would be cold, but the bathing place would be beautiful and she could paddle her feet and watch fish rise and the kingfisher hunting.

It took minutes to pull an old gown over her head, find some rope-soled shoes and a towel and let herself out into the garden. A blackbird flew off, making its usual overdramatic fuss about nothing. The ginger kitchen cat sauntered out of the wood store, inspected her, sneered in a feline manner and strolled off, tail up, in search of a breakfast mouse.

Dew-soaked grass brushed her ankles. The air, not yet warmed by the sun, sent goosebumps up her arms and she threw the linen towel around her shoulders as a makeshift shawl. Foolish to even think of wading at this time of year when the river was chill with the very last of the melt water from the mountains, but she was restless.

The Douro was not a safe river to take risks with, except where it had carved little bays and deposited shingle to protect them. There it was possible to find pools with slow-moving water, deep enough to swim in, safe enough to relax. There was one just upstream of the house, beyond the edge of the lawn, through a thicket of willow. Gaby trod softly, hoping to see the kingfisher on his favourite dead branch overlooking the pool.

Something was splashing about beyond the screen of low-hanging branches. She moved warily. It might be a stray farm animal taking a drink or it might be a pack of the semiwild dogs that roamed the foothills and were best avoided. She eased the leaves apart and caught her breath.

Gray was standing thigh-deep in the pool, stark naked. His back was to her, his arms raised as he ran both hands through his wet hair. He had just stood up, she realised, as the water sheeted down from his shoulders.

His skin below the neck was pale, the muscular definition of his shoulders and back a pattern of light and shade as the sunlight hit him. She followed the dip of his spine down to the narrow waist, the tight, neat buttocks, the horseman’s strong thighs where water droplets clung to dark hairs.

A river god, magnificent, male. Gaby’s mouth was dry, she could have no more closed her eyes than levitated. Then the kingfisher flew past the mouth of the bay, a flicker of iridescent blue, and Gray’s head snapped up, his arms dropped to his sides. For a moment the man watched the bird and Gaby watched the man, then he turned and she took two hasty steps back among the low-hanging leaves.

Her foot came down on a dry branch with a crack like a pistol shot. There would be no mistaking it for anything but a footfall. She almost fled, then realised that would betray the fact that she had been watching.

She cursed in Portuguese, loudly enough to be heard, and pushed on through the wall of greenery, unfurling the towel from her shoulders as she came, as though preparing to stop and undress.