The Dragon's Cave Read Online Free PDF

another standard for himself than the one he applied to other people.
    ‘I know !’ Pilar replied unanswerably. ‘ Women gossip—you know how it is ! Wives hear things from their husbands and soon we all know ! Many of my mother’s friends would like to marry their daughters to Carlos, so all his affairs are reviewed often. Mama finds it very amusing because they used to do exac tl y the same when Papa’s first wife died. Only then she didn’t know that he was going to marry her, you understand. She thought he would marry someone important again, like Carlos’ mother, but he fell in love with her.’
    Megan struggled into the dress of her choice, a soft woollen dress of palest apricot that looked well with her light brown hair.
    ‘ I suppose Carlos will marry someone important too?’ she suggested, pulling at the waist to make it sit better.
    ‘ Absolutamente si ! Carlos is very proud. Mama teases him a little about it, but I think she likes it really. Carlos is the image of Papa, much more like him than any of us .’
    ‘ How many brothers and sisters have you?’ Megan asked.
    ‘Besides Carlos, there is Pepe, who is in South America, and Isabel, and me. Isabel is seventeen, I am nearly nineteen, and Pepe is twenty-one.’
    Megan swallowed. ‘There must be quite a gap between him and Carlos?’ she queried. ‘He looks much older ! ’
    ‘Nearly thirty,’ Pilar confirmed. She gave Megan an appreciative look, admiring her typically English looks. ‘ Do you always wear your hair that way? In Spain, we seldom wear it loose like that, unless we are very young. I like it. It suits you very well. But you know that ! Heaps of people will have told you so ! ’
    ‘Hardly anyone,’ Megan said a little sadly. ‘They’ll be wondering where we are. Shall we go downstairs?’
    Pilar danced down the stairs with eager steps, almost colliding with her brother in the hall.
    ‘Carlos !’ she exclaimed, well pleased. ‘See how pretty Megan looks in this dress? Will you tell her now ?’
    The Spaniard looked up the stairs towards Megan, his eyes dark and enigmatic. ‘Did you borrow the dress?’ he asked her. ‘It seems a little big for you.’
    Megan made a face. ‘I must have lost weight in the last few weeks,’ she admitted.
    He shook his head at her. ‘ You are too thin,’ he told her abruptly.
    She froze, her head held high. ‘ I don’t think that’ s any business of yours!’
    He put up a hand and guided her down the last few stairs so that she had to give up the advantage she had had of looking down on him. Now he could look down on her.
    ‘ Let’s go into the sitting room,’ he said gently.
    ‘You are going to ask her now ! ’ Pilar crowed happily. ‘Oh, Carlos, may I come too? I want to see her face when you tell her! It’s such a brilliant idea ! ’
    ‘No, you may not,’ the Spaniard said firmly. To Megan’s surprise, Pilar didn’t press the point, but went meekly away towards the kitchen where Megan could hear her mother preparing the lunch.
    ‘ I don’t know why you have to be so secretive,’ Megan said crossly. ‘I think it’s rather silly, if you want to know ! ’
    ‘I wanted to be sure that my stepmother would like you,’ he answered callously. ‘ It was hard to tell last night. She would have to approve of you first, but as Pilar likes you, she will be well disposed towards you.’
    Megan bit her lip. She longed to tell him that the approval or otherwise of his family meant nothing at all to her, but something prevented her. She wished that somehow Carlos had met her under other circumstances, circumstances that she could be proud of, instead of the shame that gripped her whenever it was mentioned, not, she thought, because it had been Tony who had kissed her, but because it had been this Spaniard, with his funny, old-fashioned ideas, who had discovered her being kissed by Tony.
    ‘Pilar says her mother wants to live in England,’ she put in hastily, hoping to turn the