For a moment they stood very still, neither of them speaking, just looking at each other, before something in the dark eyes that seemed to take in everything with their arrogant scrutiny made Skye’s hand go instinctively to the low neck of her riding shirt.

She felt in that moment as she had never felt before, as if she stood naked while this stranger appraised her.

Then pride came to her rescue.

“I thought it must be on your orders, señor, that I have been brought here,” she said.

She took care not to speak aggressively, but quietly and with what she hoped appeared to be an unruffled self-possession.

If El Diablo expected her to be frightened or disconcerted by his actions, then he would be disappointed.

It seemed to her that a glint of appreciation came to lighten the hardness of his expression.

“Buenos dias, Señorita Standish,” he said, “and you must be both tired and hungry. Would you not like to wash and tidy yourself before we dine?”

His words were courteous enough, but again, because he was looking at her, she was acutely conscious of her appearance. She had not given it a thought during the long hours that she had been travelling here, but now she knew that her face was hot and dusty and her hair untidy.

With an effort, because somehow his eyes held hers magnetically, she looked down at her hands as she drew her riding gloves from them.

“Thank you, I would like to wash.”

“Let me show you the way.”

He moved across the cave as he spoke and she followed him. A wooden floor had been laid in the cave and now she had time to see that there was other furniture besides the big couch, a writing desk, chairs and several tables.

Before she had time to take in more than a fleeting impression, El Diablo had pulled aside a curtain and she saw an opening behind it.

“I hope you will find everything you want, señorita,” he said courteously. Then the curtain swung back behind her and she was alone in the strangest place she had ever seen in her life.

It was another cave, almost circular in shape, not as big as the one she had just left, but which nevertheless compared favourably with a medium-sized bedroom. The walls were hung with Indian blankets dyed the lovely clear blue of a periwinkle.

A wide low bed set against one wall was covered in the same shade, while on the floor were innumerable mats made from the skins of the puma.

Skye recognised the fur because in California her American grandfather had had one she was very attached to. He had told her how he had killed it in the mountains of Mariposa and how the puma was often called ‘the American lion’ chiefly on account of its colour.