It was a command that she should look her prettiest tonight and she knew that to refuse was only to invite a repetition of what had happened on the first night when he had sent her back to change her clothes.

But she could not wear an evening dress that was low at the back, for the weals on her white skin were as strongly marked as a tiger’s stripes. No longer crimson, they were turning black and blue, branding her, she thought bitterly, as the property of El Diablo, as the cattle cropping the grass round the haciendas were branded with their owner’s mark.

Finally she chose a short evening dress of flame-coloured lace that fell away from the narrowness of her waist into a full ballet-length skirt supported by stiffened petticoats, which gave it a gay fullness. The bodice was cut low in the front, but had a lace-covered back and little short sleeves. Over it, to be quite certain the weals were hidden and in case the evening was cool, Skye draped a scarf of purple chiffon embroidered with stars.

She dressed slowly, for she hoped that by the time she returned to the sitting room the Indian servants would be waiting to serve dinner. But although she combed her hair unnecessarily and took a long time choosing a handkerchief to match her dress, when finally she came into the sitting room there was no one there save El Diablo standing with his back to the empty fireplace, a glass of wine in his hand.

Skye came through the leather curtain and looked at the table with a glance of enquiry.

“Isn’t dinner ready?” she asked.

“It will be brought when we are ready for it,” he replied. “Let me look at you.”

Obediently she stood still where she was, halfway across the floor towards him, silhouetted in her flame and purple against the darkness of the walls. The last dying brilliance of the sun coming through the window shone on her hair and on the transparent purity of her skin.

“You are very lovely.”

There was no mockery in El Diablo’s voice this evening, only a new depth. Or was it her imagination?

“I have told you I hate compliments,” she said coldly.

“I was just stating a fact,” he replied. “Surely you cannot resent the truth?”

“I think all personal remarks are odious.”

He smiled at that.

“I am inclined to agree with you. Those you have directed at me certainly deserve that adjective.”

Skye shrugged her shoulders.

“Forgive me, I was forgetting that you have had nothing to drink,” El Diablo said.

He poured out a glass of the light wine not unlike a Spanish sherry that he took as an aperitif before meals.