Dark Fever. CHARLOTTE LAMB
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booked an apartment in the grounds, which were extensive, with large white adobe-style buildings scattered among trees and lawns intersected by winding narrow streams running under arched wooden bridges in something like the Chinese style. Each building contained half a dozen separate apartments, each with its own front door and a balcony looking over blue swimming-pools and gardens down to the sunlit blue sea.
The apartments were spacious; Bianca found she had a bedroom, bathroom and sitting-room, one corner of which was a tiny kitchen area, with everything you might need to prepare a meal.
She unpacked rapidly, explored her new domain, showered and put on a stylish green linen dress and white sandals. The hotel served a buffet lunch at one o’clock and it was just after twelve now. She would take a walk through the grounds before going to lunch. As she was on holiday she wouldn’t want to spend her time cooking—she was going to eat out a good deal.
She went out on to her balcony and leaned on the rail, staring down over a pool right below the building.
There was someone swimming in it. Through the blue glare of the light on the water Bianca saw a shape moving, a black seal’s head, a powerful, gold-skinned body cutting through the pool.
Shading her eyes, she watched as the swimmer slowed to a standstill, at the edge of the pool, before hauling himself out of the water. He stood on the blue and white tiles for a moment, raised his hands to slick back his dripping black hair. She stared at the wide, smoothly tanned shoulders, the deep, muscular chest, the slim waist and strong hips, the powerful thighs and long legs. His wet black swimming-trunks clung to him, almost transparent in the strong sunlight, so that he might as well have been naked.
She couldn’t look away. Her mouth went dry and her skin prickled with heat.
At that instant, as if some primitive instinct warned him that he was being watched, the stranger lifted his head to stare in her direction.
Her face burning, Bianca guiltily turned and almost ran back into her apartment.
BIANCA went into Marbella itself that evening, in the hotel courtesy coach, to tour the local tapas bars with a guide. The other guests in the party were all married couples, which made Bianca feel left out and kept reminding her of Rob, and what wonderful holidays they had once had. Even before they arrived at the first bar in the old town she was beginning to wish she hadn’t come, because nobody much spoke to her. It wasn’t until they moved on to another bar that she got into conversation with another of the party—a woman of about her own age with short blonde hair and blue eyes.
She was sitting on a bar stool beside Bianca studying the contents of a tapas saucer. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ she asked Bianca, who peered at it too.
‘Squid?’
The bartender was watching them—he suddenly leaned over and grinned. ‘Calamares a la plancha!’ he explained, then went off to serve someone else.
‘You speak Spanish?’ the German woman asked Bianca, who shook her head.
‘But I think plancha means plate.’
They called out to their Spanish hotel guide for a translation.
‘Squid cooked on a hotplate!’ he called over. ‘Don’t be scared. Try some! You don’t have to fight the bulls to be brave, you know!’
Bianca and the other woman laughed, tried the squid and had to agree it was good, if a little rubbery.
‘Too much garlic in it for me, though.’ The German turned to smile at Bianca. ‘We ought to introduce ourselves—I’m Friederike Schwartz; please call me Freddie—everyone does.’ ‘I’m Bianca Fraser.’
Freddie stared and laughed. ‘Bianca…that means white, doesn’t it? And Schwartz means black in German. How funny.’
‘Your English is amazing! I’m terribly impressed. I barely know six words of German.’
‘My husband works for a big German company—we travel the world with him, my children and I. He once spent two years in America, so we all learnt English.’
‘Is he here with you?’ Bianca glanced around the crowded little bar trying to guess which of the men belonged to Friederike.
‘He is the guy with a red tie, playing dominoes at that table,’ Freddie told her. Bianca inspected him, smiling.
‘He’s very attractive! Lucky you!’ He was clearly older than his wife, a man approaching fifty, bronzed and slim, brown-haired, brown-eyed, with a touch of silver at the temples, and still very good-looking.
‘Yes, I am, but he is cross tonight. He didn’t want to come on this bar cruise. Karl does not like to be out late. He wanted to stay in our suite looking after our children, but I talked him into coming.’
‘How old are your children?’
‘Teenagers. I keep telling him they don’t need babysitters any more. We have two sons, twins aged fourteen, Franz and Wolfgang, and my daughter Renata, who is seventeen and getting prettier all the time. When I walked around with her men used to stare at me—now they stare at her! I feel like the wicked queen in Snow White. I look into my mirror and grind my teeth every day.’
Bianca did not take her too seriously—she was laughing as she said it and was much too lovely to feel threatened even by a daughter who was half her age. Freddie was probably in her early forties but she looked ten years younger—her skin was smooth and unlined and her eyes were bright and clear. Her figure was slim and her clothes classy.
Karl looked up and saw them watching him and beckoned to his wife. Freddie groaned. ‘He’s going to ask when we can go back to the hotel! He’s bored already.’ She slid down from her bar stool and smiled at Bianca. ‘Nice talking to you. See you later.’
Bianca sipped her glass of red wine doubtfully—it tasted like red ink. She couldn’t help feeling that she sympathised with Freddie’s husband—she wasn’t enjoying this evening much either. But it would have been depressing to stay in her apartment by herself.
‘You are alone, señora?’ asked the Spanish guide, sliding into the seat beside her.
She gave him a wary look, nodding, hoping he was not going to make some sort of pass. A short, darkskinned man in his thirties with a distinct paunch, he was not her type. But all he said was, ‘Then please be careful not to leave the group. Keep with us at all times. I am afraid handbags have been snatched lately. There are some gangs in town, from other big towns—they work in pairs, going around on motorbikes, and they’re so quick—they come up behind you and snatch your bag, and they’ve gone before you know what is happening.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ Bianca assured him, taking a piece of chorizo, the spicy red local sausage, from a little tapas saucer…
‘Enjoy, señora,’ he smiled, getting up to go and talk to some of the other guests.
They moved on a few minutes later to another bar, another selection of tapas—the other guests grazed eagerly on the food on offer while they drank their glasses of wine, discussing the various dishes with each other. Bianca noticed that Freddie and her husband had disappeared; perhaps they had taken a taxi back to the hotel.
The range of tapas was bewildering—artichokes in vinaigrette, baby clams served in a garlic sauce, fried whitebait, baby eels or squid, snails, mushrooms in a rich tomato sauce, chorizo, hard-boiled eggs stuffed with a variety of things. Everything was beautifully cooked but very rich.
The last bar they visited was the best—along with the tapas there was music and flamenco dancing, a blackjacketed man urgently drumming the heels of his highly polished shoes, his partner dancing with passion and invitation around him, her red skirts flaring.
The sexual tension in the