A Gift for a Lion Read Online Free PDF Page B

obediently turned their backs, although Joanna caught two of the younger ones exchanging knowing and regretful grins. She was blushing to the roots of her hair by the time she had struggled back into her bikini top and dragged the shift on over it, but at least she was covered again, and a good measure of her assurance returned with the knowledge.
    She picked up her towel and shook it free of sand before folding it and stuffing it back into her straw bag. She knew the man in charge was watching her, and hoped he could not see that she was shaking, although whether fear or anger was the paramount emotion possessing her she could not be sure. 'Come,
signorina
.' He put his hand on her arm.
    'You won't get away with this,' she protested, hating herself for the involuntary tremor in her voice. 'My boatman will be returning for me soon and…' Her voice tailed away as she saw him slowly shake his head.
    'It would be foolish to expect him,
signorina
,' he said.
    'But I gave him instructions,' she began.
    'So did we,' he said gently. 'When we stopped friend Pietro not long after he left you here.'
    'You haven't killed him?' she cried.
    'But no,' he sounded almost reassuring. 'We are not savages.'
    'Then let me go.' she said, despising herself for the pleading note in her voice.
    'But where would you go,
signorina
?' His tone was quite reasonable. 'You have no way of leaving the island, after all.'
    Suddenly Joanna moved, thrusting at him with her bag so that he involuntarily staggered back as it hit him on the chest. She ran then, twisting madly to evade the clutching hands of the others as they stumbled in the soft sand, straight towards the sea a few yards away. She had no rational idea of what she was going to do, but she was quite a strong swimmer and that headland was not all that far away. If she could only reach those rocks just beyond it, there was always a chance that Tony and
Luana
would come in search of her and rescue her before her would-be captors could reach her by way of the rocky coves. She could see no sign of a boat and guessed they must have come down the cliff to reach her.
    She was already waist-deep in water when the first man reached her. She fought him off furiously, striking him with her fists and nails, but he held her long enough for one of the others to reach them and then a third. She was carried, kicking and struggling, dripping wet out of the water, and dumped unceremoniously on the beach. This time they held her tightly by both arms and she knew with a sinking heart that her only chance of immediate escape had gone.
    Joanna felt cold and sick. She was out of her depth and she knew it. Reality was here in these hands which were bruising the soft flesh of her arms and in the dark, jeering faces of the men surrounding her. She closed her eyes to shut them out and as she stood silently, she heard someone make a low-voiced remark in his own language that was greeted with a shout of laughter. There was an indefinable note in that laughter that somehow alarmed her even more than anything that had gone before, and she swung to the man who spoke English.
    'What did he say?' she asked, still breathless.
    'Calm yourself,
signorina
. It was nothing.' His voice was grave, but she could see amusement flickering in his slanting dark eyes.
    'I insist on knowing.' This time it wasn't a frightened forlorn girl who spoke, but Sir Bernard Leighton's daughter with a lifetime of demanding her own way behind her.
    For a moment he hesitated, then shrugged. 'And why should you not know,
signorina
? It was an idle joke, nothing more.'
    'And it referred to me?'
    '
Si
.' He paused again, his lips twitched slightly. 'He spoke the truth,
signorina
. He said that such a wildcat would make a fine gift for the lion.'
    Again she felt that chill. The imprisoning hands and the crowding men were suddenly a threat almost too great to be borne. What did they mean—a gift for the lion?
    Her mind ran wildly on childhood legends, forgotten