“I think not,” El Diablo replied. “With my escort and the men outside the City and, as Alejo knows all too well, a great number of followers in Jācara itself, it would be tempting Providence.”

“I am frightened all the same,” Skye murmured.

“For me?” he queried.

“No, no, of course not – for myself,” she answered hastily, although she had, in fact, been thinking of him.

He laughed softly as if she did not deceive him and then their conversation was interrupted by the sight of a horseman coming towards them over the plain.

He was the first of several they encountered riding out from Jācara with last minute information and the latest gossip from the streets and the Palace.

They rode on until midday when they were only a few miles from Jācara and then El Diablo called a halt.

They dismounted where the ground was speckled with marachines, the daisy-like flowers of a wild plant that produces a species of tiny sweet potato. There were trees to give them shade and the river only a hundred yards away. Each man had brought his own food and one of them carried a luncheon for El Diablo and Skye, which had been prepared by Alphonse.

There were meat and chicken pasties, tiny rolls stuffed with cream cheese and fruit.

Skye found that she was hungry as she and El Diablo sat at the foot of a majestic ombu tree away from the gauchos. She was thirsty too and the light wine they drank tasted like nectar.

For a while they ate in silence, watching the horses cropping the grass, their tails swishing to and fro to keep away the flies, while the hummingbirds and the butterflies were vivid splashes of colour against the green of the trees and the pampas.

“It seems a pity that we have to go into a town on a day like this,” Skye remarked reflectively.

“Do you really like the country so much?” El Diablo asked.

“I always feel stifled in a town, especially in summer,” she replied. “I remember last year how I hated being in London, but Aunt Hilda had taken a house for the Season and so we had to stay, rushing from party to party, at which she hoped optimistically I would find an eligible husband.”

“Why didn’t you?” El Diablo asked.

“I hate men!”

“Why?”

“Must there be a reason?”

“Of course. It is not natural for a woman to dislike the opposite sex. Who hurt you?”

“How do you know anybody did?” Skye demanded defensively.

“You’ve answered my question,” he said. “Who was it and what happened?”

She turned her face away from him a little petulantly.

“You are assuming – that there was something to upset me.”

He poured himself out another glass of wine.

“Did someone try to become your lover?” he enquired, his voice quiet, without the mocking note that she knew only too well.

She shook her head.