Knight in Black Velvet. HELEN BROOKSЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HEY...señorita... You lika nice Spanish boy, eh? You wanna say hello maybe?’

      Lorne forced her legs, which had increased their pace since the crowd of Spanish youths had started following her into practically a jogging stance, into a slower, calmer rhythm. She mustn’t panic! Mustn’t give in to this fear that was causing her flesh to prickle with horror. It was broad daylight, for goodness’ sake! Admittedly she was in the middle of nowhere on a hot dusty road that seemed to lead into infinity with not a house or building in sight, but they wouldn’t do anything, would they? The suggestive remarks and cat-calls had grown more daring with the minutes but that didn’t mean anything, not really... did it?

      ‘Señorita... You Inglésesa? Americana? You gotta boyfriend, eh?’

      The heat was shimmering off the winding road in great waves, the sky an empty vivid blue in which the sun sat like a queen, and Lorne cast yet another desperate glance at the broken chain on her old bike as she marched resolutely forward, pushing her only means of transportation, which was worse than useless, her bulging rucksack rubbing her back and causing the perspiration to trickle between her shoulderblades.

      ‘You tired, eh? You wanna rest a little?’ They had closed the twenty yard or so gap since she had last turned round; she could feel it in the hairs that were prickling on the back of her neck. What was she going to do? Terror was a huge lump in the base of her throat that restricted breathing and was beginning to make her feel sick. Harsh vivid memories of old headlines flashed into her mind. ‘GIRL RAPED AT KNIFE-POINT’. ‘FOUR YOUTHS FOUND GUILTY OF THE RAPE OF—’ And now it could be her! She could become yet another nameless statistic that would cause most people to click their tongue in sympathy before their eyes ran down the rest of the page. How could she have been so stupid as to put herself in such a vulnerable position?

      A burst of ribald laughter just behind her caused her stomach muscles to clench in protest and she wished with all her heart that she had learnt Spanish as the youths continued to shout and encourage each other in their native tongue. But she didn’t need to understand what they were saying to know what was on their minds. The thick excited laughter, the shrill note that had entered the young male voices was a portent of things to come.

      ‘Look, why don’t you just clear off?’ As she swung round she saw her sudden attack had momentarily surprised them as the four young men stopped dead in the road facing her. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than bother me and frankly you’re not funny. OK?’

      The narrowing of their eyes and sudden darkening of a couple of the faces told her they understood English far better than she understood Spanish, and also that she had tried the wrong tack. One of the youths, broader and a little older than the rest, stepped forward, his good-looking face surly as he let his dark eyes travel over her body in insolent slowness from the top of her silver-blonde head down to the long, smooth brownness of her legs revealed in their entirety in the old worn denim shorts she was wearing. The only skirt she had brought with her, and which she usually wore every day in spite of the heat to deflect just such a situation as this, had met its end, mangled and torn, in the bicycle chain just a few hours before, necessitating a quick change from the rucksack. ‘You think you too good to talk to us, eh?’ There was no humour or banter in the youth’s voice now. ‘Sí?’

      Lorne stared into the hard, unsmiling face as sheer undiluted fear turned her soft grey eyes almost black. The reasons that had driven her to take this long lonely holiday, Sancho’s betrayal, along with the resulting humiliation, pain and embarrassment, suddenly seemed to fade into insignificance beside this thing that was about to happen to her. And it was. She knew it.

      The same movement that threw the inoffensive bicycle into the middle of the now silent, predatory group watching her so closely also turned her on her feet to run, and it was some seconds before the drum of chasing footsteps sounded on the old dirt road. She ran as she had never run before, as if her life depended on it, which maybe it did, but even as the blood pounded in her ears and she felt the cut of the sharp spiky stones littering the road through her thin black pumps she knew she wasn’t going to make it. They were young, fit and strong and they were gaining on her.

      The blur of red coming towards her registered a moment before the harsh blaring of the car’s horn, but even as she raised her hand in the age-old gesture of appeal for help she twisted her foot on a small boulder and fell, sprawling in the red dirt in a tangle of limbs and long silver-blonde hair and excruciatingly fierce pain. The sandy grit was in her mouth, her eyes, and she could feel the sting of raw flesh on the palms of her hands where she had tried to cushion her fall, but the blinding pain that ripped through her right ankle took every other sensation from her body as she tried to move. For a moment she thought she was going to lose consciousness as the world swirled and flew round her in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colour, but the thought that the approaching car might not have stopped, that she might have been left to the tender mercies of her pursuers, kept her from fainting outright.

      By the time she had raised herself into a sitting position at the side of the road she became aware that