LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER TWO

      ALEXANDRA had never experienced such a sense of space and freedom, miles and miles of long pampas grass stretching as far as the eye could see. Acres and acres of land, grazed by herds of shorthorned cattle, that turned wicked eyes in their direction as they passed, making Alexandra, at least, aware of the thin sheet of metal which separated them from those ugly pointed projections. Cattle in France and England never had such beady little eyes, or moved with the arrogance of the beast, untamed and magnificent.

      Ever since the powerful Range-Rover passed beneath the crossed strips of wood which had marked the boundary of Jason’s land, she had been expecting to see the ranch-house, but mile followed mile and there was nothing in sight but the untrammelled grasslands of the Santa Vittorian plateau. The road, which from Valvedra had been passably smooth, was now little more than a beaten track, and she was regretting her impulse to offer Miss Holland the seat beside Jason in front. As she sat in the back of the Range-Rover, the base of her spine was in constant opposition to the springs of the vehicle, and her back ached from being thrown from side to side.

      From time to time, her eyes encountered Jason’s through the rear-view mirror, and then she made a determined effort to appear unconcerned, aware that occasionally a trace of amusement lightened their umber depths. But she was here, that was the main thing, she thought with satisfaction, and the awareness of Jason’s lean body in the seat in front of her was all the compensation she needed.

      It had not been easy, she acknowledged it now, and until the moment she and Miss Holland had boarded the plane she had been terrified in case he should send some message forbidding her to join him. But from the minute her father had spoken of Jason Tarrant, describing the kind of man he was, telling her about their adventures in Mexico, the rough absorbing outdoor life they had led, she had wanted to meet him. All her life she had wanted to do the things her father did, meet the people he worked with, and share in the thrill of his excavations. She would have followed him to the ends of the earth if he had asked her, but he never had. So far as he was concerned, she was a girl, and girls were not welcome in what he considered to be a male province. Her own mother had died in childbirth confirming his belief that females were weak, defenceless creatures, and he had only sent for Alexandra at the end because he had known he was dying, too.

      Even then, he had not known what to do with her. Her assurances that she would make out on her own had not convinced him, but his suggestion of returning her to the nuns of Sainte Sœur had filled her with alarm. It was then she had coined the idea of writing to Jason Tarrant, of telling him her father was dying, and putting her future into his hands. She knew her father had helped him when he was in trouble, but Charles Durham would not even consider such a proposition. Instead, he had dictated a letter to his solicitors, giving them the address of the convent, and asking that if—when—anything happened to him, Alexandra should return there, at least until she was eighteen.

      To her shame, Alexandra had never written that letter. Because his eyesight was failing, she had written all her father’s letters for him, and it wasn’t difficult to substitute a letter of her own for him to sign. It was possible that given time, the solicitors might have questioned that particular missive, but Charles Durham suffered a massive heart attack the following day from which he never recovered. Alexandra was left, pale and distraught, at the mercy of her own machinations.

      Her first meeting with Jason, at his hotel, had not been exactly as she had expected. Of course, she had expected him to protest about the fact of her being a girl—didn’t everyone?—but she had not imagined he would be so young. She had been prepared to meet a contemporary of her father’s, a man in his fifties, at least, instead of someone perhaps twenty years younger. But that initial hazard had been swiftly superseded by her immediate attraction to the man himself, whose lean hard body and dark-skinned features reminded her vividly of the painting of an Indian the nuns had kept at the convent. Those gentle women would have been shocked by Alexandra’s reactions to that particular picture, the baptism to Christianity of a tall bronzed pagan, which had taken on a different aspect in Alexandra’s maturing eyes.

      Jason himself had been as confounded as her father by his new responsibilities, but in the event it proved providential that he had imagined her to be a boy. Without Miss Holland’s intervention, he might never have been persuaded to allow her to go to Santa Vittoria, but she felt now that whatever he had decreed, she would have followed him. It was fate, she decided, which had prompted her to write that letter, and for now, just being with him was enough.

      Miss Holland was another matter. That lady had taken her responsibilities very seriously, and seemed to regard her situation as that of a nursemaid, rather than a companion. There were times when she made Alexandra feel like a child in the company of an adult, and those occasions were galling. She was seventeen; granted she had led a comparatively sheltered life, but she had read a lot, much of it books the nuns would have been horrified to discover in the hands of one of their charges. The only thing her father had not kept her short of was money and she had spent it lavishly on literature of all kinds. All her experience of the relationship between a man and a woman had come from books, but she felt adequate to cope should the situation arise. She was a mature and intelligent young woman, or so she believed, and Miss Holland’s behaviour was a source of irritation to her. The fact that since their arrival in Valvedra, it was a source of amusement to Jason, too, only added to her frustration.

      Miss Holland had proved useful when it came to providing her with a wardrobe suitable to the climate in which she was to be living. Her knowledge of London was extensive, she having

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