“On the contrary,” El Diablo contradicted, “a woman has a supreme position if she chooses to be a woman and not a pale imitation of a man.”

“A supreme position as what?” Skye asked. “As a plaything?”

He laughed at the anger in her voice and, reaching over, put his arm round her and drew her close to him.

“Would you rather be told that you had a brain than that you were beautiful?” he asked. “I suppose you would. It is the contradiction of your sex. And yet no man, if he is honest, has ever fallen in love with a woman’s brains.”

He tilted her head back against his shoulder.

“I don’t know what your brain looks like,” he said, “and I don’t think I care very much. But your body is very lovely.”

As he spoke, he ran his fingers down the warm column of her neck and then, as she struggled against him, his hold on her suddenly tightened, his arm became a band of steel against which there was no escape.

“Still insubordinate?” he asked. “I wonder if I shall ever train you to accept the inevitable?”

“Never! Never!” Skye cried.

“It is strange,” he said reflectively, “how much fight there is in such a very little person. Sometimes when I hold you in my arms I think how easy it would be to kill you by mistake. You are so small and so weak that sometimes I am afraid of crushing you. And yet you go on fighting me, spitting your venom at me and defying me with a spirit that has really something rather valiant about it.”

He was speaking slowly and quietly, almost as if he talked to himself rather than to her. And now his fingers tightened on her throat, feeling a little frightened pulse beating beneath his hold.

Skye made a desperate effort to distract his attention.

“Please tell me something,” she pleaded.

“What do you want to know?” he enquired.

“What will happen after tomorrow?” she said. “I have given you my word of honour that I will make no effort to escape while we are in Jācara. I shall keep my promise, you know that – but, if Alejo agrees to your terms and the mountains can be utilised in the way you wish for the good of Mariposa, what happens then?”

“To you or to me?” El Diablo asked.

“To – me,” Skye replied.

Without replying he bent and pressed his lips against hers. His lips were hard, warm and compelling and they held her mouth captive.

She tried to move away from him, but he pulled her close against him and, when at length he raised his head and set her free, she was breathless.

She dared not look at him for she dreaded the fire she knew was smouldering in his eyes.