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Salvador, but you're obviously a proud man who isn't very kind to people who bore you.'
    'Do you also read the Tarot cards?' He spoke sardonically.
    'You had my character weighed up in a few seconds, didn't you, Mr Salvador?'
    'Touche.' His lip dented in what was no doubt his concession to a smile. 'So you are going to remain at Abbeywitch, eh? After leaping to the conclusion that I was going to send you packing?'
    'Weren't you?' she fenced, flushing at the way he looked at her, as if he found her naively amusing.
    'I don't interfere in my brother's business no more than he interferes in mine, so I wouldn't take it upon myself to dismiss his secretary. How do you like working for him?'
    Debra stared at Rodare Salvador. 'Don't you know—?'
    'Know what?'
    'Your brother still hasn't come home.'
    The ebony Latin eyes went narrow and the black brows drew together across the thrusting nose. 'But it's been weeks—you are telling me there's been no word from him, no indication that he's coming home? He has that child to consider! He has a duty to the living! What the devil has got into him?'
    'Grief?' Debra murmured.
    'Grief has to be overcome or it becomes a self-indulgence.' The strong, sun-darkened hands were abruptly withdrawn from Debra's shoulders. 'Come, the day is darkening and the tide is coming in, and I must speak with my stepmother.'
    Debra mounted the steps ahead of him, glad of the falling darkness so those eyes of his couldn't dwell on her legs. When they reached the headland he came to a standstill, for there ahead of them, outlined against the last fiery rays of the sun, were the rooftops and turrets and great windows of Abbeywitch.
    'Quite a sight, isn't it?' he said. 'Each time I return to the island I wonder why I leave it, but I'm a divided man, Miss Hartway. In the deep heart of Spain I have a granja where I live like my mother's people, but every so often I think about Abbeywitch and it calls to me, built as it is on these cliffs that rise from the sea itself. This wandering spirit has taken me back and forth since I was a youth, but it's unusual for my brother Jack to behave in such a way. Always he has put his work before anything else.'
    'But along came Pauline,' Debra murmured. 'Your brother fell in love, Mr Salvador, and love can change people.'
    The tall figure gazed down at Debra, a man far more Spanish in looks and outlook than his sister Zandra, and possibly his brother Jack.
    The three of them had shared the same father, but Debra was inclined to believe that they shared little else. There might even be a certain undercurrent of enmity because Rodare had inherited Abbeywitch and yet chose to spend most of his time in Spain.
    'What do you know of love?' He smiled slowly, sardonically. 'You look too young to have known the pangs and pleasures of a relaciones amorosas , apparent from the way you blushed down on the beach—ah, you catch your breath and want that encounter forgotten, eh? Do you think it's possible, señorita ?'
    Never in her life had Debra been addressed as señorita , which like many Spanish words was so provocative, and he attached it to a question which in itself was provoking.
    'You won't say anything to your stepmother, will you, about seeing me nude on the beach—I don't think she'd understand?' This man not only managed to make Debra feel on the defensive, but he aroused other feelings to which she was a stranger. The men who worked for Columbine Publications had an attitude that was ambitious, their sights set on achievement in a modern world. Rodare Salvador seemed more attuned to the elemental fire of the sky as the sun dipped into the sea, where the waves surged to the shore with ponderous power, overwhelming the sands and the rocks.
    'You may rest assured that I shan't say a word—it will be our secret, Miss Hartway.' Irony edged his voice as he glanced towards the sea, and when Debra looked at him, his profile was outlined against the dramatic beauty of the sky, broodingly