
Kate Walker was born in Nottinghamshire but she grew up in Yorkshire and has always felt that her roots were there. She met her husband at university and she originally worked as a children's librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she's not working, she divides her time between her family and their three cats. Her interests include embroidery, antiques, film and theatre, and, of course, reading. You can visit Kate at www.kate-walker.com
The Duke's Secret Wife
by
Kate Walker
WWW.MILLSANDBOON.CO.UK
CHAPTER ONE
SO SHE was here at last.
Luis de Silva watched from the shadows as the small group strolled towards him. There were perhaps twelve or fifteen of them, of assorted ages and nationalities. About them there was the buzz of faint excitement and anticipation, and they were clearly oblivious to the chill of the early spring evening.
But it was the young woman in the middle of the group who caught and held Luis's attention.
'Isabella...'
The name hissed through his teeth on the instinctive indrawn breath he couldn't control.
It was two years since he had seen her but he would have recognised her anywhere. There was no mistaking the sleek, shining cap of blonde hair that gleamed silver in the moonlight. Her tall, slender figure was clothed in a dark velvet dress; green, he suspected, though the gathering shadows of evening made it impossible to tell for sure. Full length, and mediaeval in style, it had wide, silk-lined sleeves, falling almost to the ground from her fine-boned wrists. It was cinched around her slim waist with an ornate gold belt, and over the top she wore a heavy black cloak that swirled around her with every graceful movement.
'Madre de Dios!'
Luis choked back the exclamation that rose to his lips, taking several hasty steps backwards into the shadows of the nearby buildings. He did not want to be seen until he was ready. It would mean losing the element of surprise he was determined would be on his side when he finally revealed himself to her.
But for now he was content to watch.
'And so, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the site of one of the darkest events in the whole of the history of York...'
Her voice was light and sweet-toned; her actor's training meant that it carried clearly across to where he stood watching her.
'This building is Clifford's Tower...'
The words blurred and scrambled inside his head, making no sense. Instead, he was swept away on a tide of memory he neither wanted nor welcomed as just the sound of that once well-known voice opened up the door to the part of his past he would sooner forget.
Once that voice had made his heart lift so high he had thought it might actually escape his body. It had made his senses kick on a pulse of desire so hot and strong that he had been totally at their mercy.
But most of all, it had once spoken to him of love and trust and belief in another until he had forgotten all his natural caution and fallen head over heels into the first, the most powerful, the only love of his life.
But then she had taken that love and crushed it underneath the heel of one of her elegantly shod feet. And now...
'No!'
Furious with himself, he refused to let his thoughts wander any further. He would not let himself think of those times. Could not let himself remember or he would turn and walk away from here, never looking back.
And he couldn't afford to look back.
In the background a church clock chimed the half-hour, reminding Luis that the young man, a student he presumed, he had bribed to let him take his place had said that it was around now he should hear his cue. What was it he had said?
'But before we move on...'
He'd waited long enough. He was going to have to do this so it was better to get it over with.
The muscles in his jaw tightened, his shoulders tensed, and he stepped out into the light of the street lamp.
'Isabella...'
It was the last thing Isabelle had anticipated. With her mind firmly fixed on following her script, determined to get her timing exactly right, she had been oblivious to everything else around her. This group of tourists who had followed her around the carefully planned route of the York City Ghost Walk had clearly enjoyed every minute of it. Their enthusiasm bubbled in the air, sparking off her invention so that she had ad-libbed outrageously. And now they were approaching the climax of the night.
But first there was one more 'apparition' to tantalise them. Any minute now, when she spoke his cue, Andy would appear from the darkness, dressed as Dick Turpin, the famous highwayman, and say...
'Isabella...'
The voice came from behind her, from where she had expected that Andy would appear. But it was not Andy. The voice was nothing like Andy's Yorkshire tones for one, and...
Isabella.
Only one man had ever called her that. Had ever added the extra syllable to her name. To make it easier, he had always claimed, for his Spanish tongue.
Only one man had pronounced the four syllables in quite that lilting way, turning her name into a form of poetry that twisted in her heart with the bitterness of memory.
Only one man had ever spoken to her with quite that accent. But this could not be him. That man had left her life two years before, vowing never, ever to return. He was thousands of miles away, in another country, another world.
He could not be here!
'Buenas tardes, mi mujer,' that taunting, terrifyingly familiar voice continued, pushing her into whirling round, eyes wide, fearful of who she might see.
'Luis!'
It was a choking cry of stunned disbelief and horror as she took in the lean, powerful height of him, the forceful width of chest and shoulders, under the black jacket and jeans, the dark, glossy hair and brilliant, gleaming eyes, and she took a couple of hasty steps backwards in an instinctive urge to flight.
'L-Luis? Is that you?'
The tall, dark man took another couple of steps forward, moving right into the pool of light shed by a street lamp. And Isabelle knew with a terrible sense of inevitability that there was no chance of escape. No hope that she had made a mistake.
The two years since she had seen him had changed him little. He had matured in that time, obviously, and now, at thirty, he was a man in his prime. He had filled out, any lingering awkwardness of youth being replaced by powerful muscles and a dignified control that gave every movement an elegant restraint, like the approach of a prowling hunting cat.
'Good evening, querida.'
The rich, deep voice seemed to curl around her senses like warm smoke, making her nerves prickle just under the delicate surface of her skin. With her ears accustomed to the flat vowels of the Yorkshire accent, his intonation seemed even more exotic and foreign than ever, making her feel as if some alien and dangerous visitor had just intruded into her happy and secure way of life.
'What a pleasure it is to see you again,' he drawled, his smile a flicker of pure menace, teeth very white against the tanned skin of his face.
'Now that I really doubt!'
Isabelle was gradually regaining some degree of control over her reactions. Okay, so her heart was pounding in double-quick time, her breath coming in a distinctly uneven pattern, but she was determined not to let him see that.
'I don't think that pleasure would be the right word.'
'Well, then, you would be wrong, mi angel,' Luis drawled in a voice as smooth as silk. 'You would be completely wrong.'
As he spoke he let his darkened gaze drift downwards, over the shock-whitened skin of her cheeks, past the fine lines of her throat, to the creamy flesh of her breasts exposed by the low-cut neckline of her velvet gown. The slight curves were pushed upwards and forwards by the tight lacing and the bones in the bodice, so that they were enhanced and displayed in a way she had never really minded before but now found positively uncomfortable.
'Pleasure is exactly the right word.'
'For you perhaps, but not for me!'
Instinctively she gathered the folds of her cloak around her, enveloping herself from head to toe, just in time to conceal the sudden rush of blood to her skin that washed her pallor with a tinge of pink, betraying her inner turmoil. And what made matters infinitely worse was the knowledge that it wasn't only embarrassment that made her feel this way.
In spite of every effort to control it, her frantic struggles to push down the unwanted feelings, her heart still raced in excitement, a betraying pulse throbbing at the base of her neck. This man had always had this unsettling effect on her. And if she had hoped that an absence of years would have reduced the impact of that tall, muscular body, those lethal good looks, then she was bitterly disappointed.
If anything, the effect was even stronger because she hadn't seen him in so long.
'I thought that you never, ever wanted to see me again. At least, that was what you said the last time I saw you.'
The time that he had flung his wedding ring in her face and told her that the shop they had bought it from might actually take it back.
'If you're lucky,' he had spat at her, his bitterly scathing tone seeming to flay several layers of skin from her vulnerable body, 'you might even get a full refund. After all, it hasn't been on my finger long enough to show any wear and tear. Barely long enough to consummate our union---but that was quite long enough for you to grow tired and bored and look for new amusements.'
Then she had been too stunned, too devastated, to fight him. She hadn't been able to find the words to convince him he was wrong and to call him back. Now all the pain, the horror of that moment came flooding back, putting a biting bitterness into her tone as she faced him with what she hoped looked like confidence.
'I had hoped that you'd meant it---that you planned to stay away for good.'
'That was my original intention. But circumstances change. And I have had to change with them.'
'And this change means precisely what?'
'That we have things to discuss. Your letter, for one.'
He was going to agree to a divorce.
The words sounded in her head like the death knell to any hopes she might have had that one day they could revive their relationship. That somehow they could find a way to get past all the hurt, the lies and devastation on both sides, and find a way to get through to each other again.
They had been so in love once. And deep down inside she knew that she had never truly given up on the hope that that love wasn't totally dead. That there was still a chance it could live again.
But Luis's expression had nothing of love in it. It was hard and cold, the eyes that she knew to be a glittering golden brown were shuttered and withdrawn from her, hooded by heavy lids with thick, black, lustrously curling lashes. And it had been because she had known that this was how he would react that she had finally made that act of desperation and written asking for a divorce.
'We can talk here.'
'Not in front of an audience.'
The autocratic gesture he made brought her attention back to the fact that they were not alone. Stunned and confused, Isabelle belatedly remembered the Ghost Walk group who still stood clustered about them, their original smiles of approval and appreciation changing by turn to frowns of confusion and then to concern. Clearly this was no longer part of the Ghost Walk performance. And, equally obviously, their guide was genuinely distressed.
Now one of the Americans moved forwards.
'Are you all right, miss? Is this guy bothering you?'
'He...'
Luis turned to face him, proud head held arrogantly high, all his breeding and status showing in every haughty line of his body.
'This guy...' he echoed, injecting a biting satire into the words. 'Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Luis Alejandro de Silva, heir to the Dukedom of Madrigalo.'
He waited a nicely calculated moment for the impact of the title and the innate, bone-deep pride that went with it to hit home on the other man, then coolly and cold-bloodedly went for the knockout verbal punch.
'I also happen to be the lady's husband.'
That caused a ripple of shock to flow through the group, murmurs of astonishment and confusion greeting the announcement.
'Is this true, ma'am?'
For one brief, weak-kneed moment, Isabelle actually considered saying no, this man was not her husband. He was nothing to her; never had been anything in her life. But almost immediately she reconsidered.
For one thing, she dreaded the thought of the possible consequences. Luis de Silva in this sort of coldly determined mood was imposing enough, but Luis angry was quite another matter. And he would be angry---furious---if she denied her relationship with him. He might have rejected that relationship, declared he wanted nothing more to do with her, but he wasn't going to stand by and let her do the same.
'Yes,' she said tiredly, her voice a flat monotone. 'Yes, Don Luis is my husband. It's just that I wasn't expecting to see him. We---we've been separated for some years.'
'So naturally my appearance was something of a shock to her.'
Luis's tone made Isabelle blink hard in bewilderment. In a split second he had switched from being pure blue-blooded aristocrat, arrogant and condescending as could be, and adopted a softer, more affable mood, using a matey, all men together approach.
And the new technique was working. She could see it in the faces of the group around her. The women were quite simply melting in the warmth of that deliberate charm, the carefully switched-on smile, the lowered, deeper voice. And the men were nodding understanding. Even the American, her self-appointed protector, was clearly having second thoughts.
'But, believe me, I mean her no harm. I simply want to talk to her. I had to resort to this subterfuge simply in order to get her attention. I've been trying to get in touch with her for days but she doesn't answer the door---her phone is never picked up.'
'I've been away!' Isabelle interjected, but she might as well not have spoken.
Luis had the group in the palm of his hand. His act was near perfect, giving the impression of being a concerned husband who only wanted to mend the rift that had arisen between himself and his wife. A rift that had been something and nothing, his attitude implied.
And they were swallowing it. Every word.
'I could not wait any longer...'
He didn't need that faintly wry shrug of his powerful shoulders, the supremely Spanish gesture with his hands, Isabelle thought cynically. But he used them anyway. They were his trump card, saying without words that he couldn't help himself. That he was only a man, and a passionate man at that. A man who was so in love with his wife that he couldn't endure another moment's separation from her.
All around her, the murmured comments told Isabelle that Luis had won. He had swung the group's loyalty to his side and there was no way she could fight that.
'I really needed some time alone with her. I'm sure you understand.'
Oh, yes, they understood all right. But at least the chivalrous American wanted to be sure.
'Will you be okay?' he asked solicitously.
'Oh, yes, I'll be fine,' Isabelle assured him emphatically. 'Really I will.'
It was nothing less than the truth. Whatever his faults---and he had plenty of them---Luis was not a thug. He was hot-tempered, ruthless, totally convinced of his supremacy above all others, arrogant as the devil, but he would never knowingly hurt her.
At least not physically.
Emotionally it was a very different matter. That way he could hurt her simply by existing. By existing and not loving her as much as she had loved him. And when that 'not loving' had turned to hate, that was when he had totally devastated her soul.
But she wasn't prepared to give in to him so easily. If you let him, Luis was perfectly capable of riding roughshod over anyone else's feelings.
'But I can't come with you now, Luis. I'm at work---this is my job. I have this tour to finish.'
'I am aware of that, mi angel.'
If she had hoped to disconcert him, then clearly it hadn't worked.
'And that is why I have made arrangements...'
One long, bronzed hand was lifted in an autocratic gesture, summoning someone from the darkness of a shop front.
'Señor Morris!'
Isabelle's heart sank to somewhere on the pavement, beneath the soles of her neat ankle boots, as, in answer to the command, the errant Andy, resplendent in his highwayman costume, appeared out of the shadows and strolled towards them, a slightly sheepish grin on his boyish face.
'I'll take over for you, Izzy,' he said. 'I know the rest of the route from here---and all the stories.'
'But...'
She tried to protest but her weak-voiced interjection was ignored as Luis took things right out of her hands.
'Señoras y señores, thank you for your patience with this unexpected interruption to your evening. I trust you realise that I would never have acted in this way if I had not thought it was the only thing I could do. Andrew here will be your guide from now on. If you will follow him...'
And they did. Isabelle could only stand and watch as the group headed off, with Andy launching straight into the familiar patter about the history of Clifford's Tower. What else could she possibly do? Luis had outmanoeuvred her, checkmated her like a chess Grand Master.
Not that she was going to give in without a fight.
'So now they've gone...'
Whirling, she faced Luis, her chin coming up defiantly, her eyes flashing challengingly.
'What exactly did you want to talk to me about?'
'Not here.' He shook his dark head.
'Yes! Here and now!'
If he was going to tell her that he agreed to a divorce, then she wanted it over and done with. Wanted the words spoken, the blow delivered. It was like waiting to hear that some part of her had to be amputated. Better to get it done, quickly and sharply. Hopefully, the event would hurt less that way. It was the pain that was waiting for her in the future that she couldn't bear to think about.
'Say what you have to say, Luis...'
'I said not here! I do not want the whole world knowing my business.'
He couldn't just blurt this out cold, here in the street. If he did, he was sure she would just laugh in his face and walk away.
'My car is parked just here. We will go back to your house.'
'We will do no such thing!'
Each minute she spent with him was only making things so much worse. Making it harder to let him go a second time. After those long, lonely years without him, just the sight of him was like a banquet to someone dying of starvation. She couldn't look at him enough, couldn't take enough of him in to appease her hungry senses.
And if she ever let him into her home, then it would be much worse. She would never be able to forget that he had been there; never erase the shadow of his presence from her flat.
'Isabella...'
The low growl was a warning not to try his patience further.
'It is late and I have no wish to make a public spectacle of myself by discussing what should be a very private matter between a husband and wife in the street like this. You will get into my car and I will drive you to your house---'
'I will...you will,' Isabelle tossed in, imitating the autocratic tone of his command with bitter satire. 'Whatever happened to please and thank you, Luis? Or does your lordship not use such courtesies with the peasants?'
His breath hissed in between his teeth, warning her that he was very close to losing his grip on his barely reined-in temper.
'Please,' he said with a sarcasm that matched her own. 'Isabelle, I just want to talk.'
'But it's what you want to talk about that worries me. You'll have to tell me more than that, Luis, or I'm not going anywhere with you.'
'Muy bien!'
His hands flew up in a gesture that was a perfect blend of exasperation and resignation.
'All right! We will do it your way if that's what you prefer! The reason I am here, Isabella, is because...'
'Because you want to end our marriage,' Isabelle supplied unhappily when he paused, seeming uncharacteristically at a loss for words. 'You don't have to spell it out, Luis. I sent you that letter, after all. I guessed from the start that you were here to arrange for our divorce.'
'Then you guessed wrong, querida. Totally wrong. I have not come here looking for a divorce. On the contrary, I am here because I want you to come back to me.'
CHAPTER TWO
'I WANT you to come back to me.'
When she had been expecting something so totally different, the words made no sense at all to her.
'Come---back?' she managed through shock-stiffened lips. 'I don't...'
'Come back, as in return to me.'
Luis sighed his exasperation.
'You are, after all, my wife.'
But when she still stared at him, blank-faced, her eyes looking bruised, he elaborated further.
'I want you to come to Spain with me as my wife. Madre de Dios, I did not think that my English was so---'
'It's not that!' Isabelle protested sharply, still unable to believe what she had heard. 'Your English is perfect and you know it. It's just that I can't see what you want with me.'
'I need you.'
And he hated himself for saying it. That much was there in the tight clench of his jaw, the way the words had to be forced out past lips that would clearly rather be saying anything else.
'Why?'
'Do I have to explain here?'
He was every inch the arrogant aristocrat once again, proud head flung back, eyes flashing. She would have sworn that even his nostrils flared in an expression of disapproval.
'You certainly have to explain. Where you do it is immaterial to me.'
'Then we will go to your house.'
'Oh, no...' That was not what she had meant.
'Isabella, what I would like right now is to get inside and out of this wind. This damn northern climate is so very different from what I am used to and I need a cup of coffee.'
His shiver was exaggerated for effect, deliberately so, she knew, a reluctant smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.
If he had wanted to appeal straight to her heart, using the tug of shared memory, then he couldn't have chosen a more effective way of doing so. Luis had always hated the colder climate of Yorkshire as opposed to the warmth of his native Andalucia and had complained bitterly about it. So now his gesture, his expression, his tone of voice, all revived images of him doing just the same in far happier times.
And he knew it, damn him! She was sure he had planned it this way.
'Oh, all right.'
What was she hesitating for anyway? she asked herself. If there really was a chance of the two of them getting back together, then she wanted to know about it. She wanted to hear what he was going to say and find out just why he had changed his mind. So why did it matter where they talked?
'We'll go to my place. You said you have a car?'
Of course he had a car. A sleek, powerful, softly growling monster of a vehicle that she couldn't even name. But she knew that she was sitting in the financial equivalent of the mortgage on her flat---and then some. Luis de Silva loved speed, he loved luxury, and as a result he only ever had the very best of everything.
Which begged the question why was he here, like this, with her? A man like Luis, with the title he possessed, the fortune that was his to command, could have had anyone. All he had to do was to click his fingers and women fell into line, just waiting for him to pick them. There must have been dozens in the years since she had last seen him. Rich, sophisticated, beautiful women, like Catalina, the only one of his former lovers she had ever met. Women who would have been only too happy to grace his life, be photographed on his arm, warm his bed...
The sudden shiver that ran down her spine at the thought made her twist nervously in her seat.
'Turn left here.'
Her voice was strained and tight with the emotions she was struggling to hold back, and she made herself stare straight ahead, forcing away the hot, bitter tears that threatened. She would not let them fall!
'Go right to the end of the street. It's the last house.'
'I know.'
The quiet comment stunned her, making her heart stop dead in astonishment. But then she remembered.
'You said I didn't answer my door... You've been here before?'
His dark head moved in a curt nod.
'You've been watching me!'
'You said you'd been away,' he explained with overly patient reasonableness. 'I could hardly watch you if you weren't there. Where did you go?'
'To Lynette's. If you remember, she...'
No, reminding him of her friend was a bad mistake. Talking about Lynette meant turning his thoughts towards Rob, Lynn's brother-in-law, and the man Luis thought she'd betrayed him with. The reason why he'd walked out on their brief marriage years before.
'You can park here,' she muttered hastily.
Luis swung the car to the side of the road with a suddenness that had her glancing at him in surprise. This husband of hers usually prided himself on his driving, handling his expensive vehicles with practised skill. The mention of Lynn had changed the atmosphere in the car. The tension between them had thickened suddenly until it was almost impossible for her to breathe.
'I'll go and open the door,' she said, scrambling inelegantly in her haste to be out of the car. 'That way you won't have to stand out in the cold too long.'
Luis watched her walk up the short path to the lighted porch, willing himself to calm down, to get a grip on himself. Strong fingers drummed a restless tattoo on the rim of the steering wheel in an outward expression of the inner turmoil of his thoughts.
The drive from the city centre had been a particularly sophisticated sort of torment, with every cell in his body reacting urgently and painfully to the presence of Isabelle's slim form so close to his after all this time.
She was so familiar and yet so unknown. Dios! She still wore the same perfume as she had done then, the mixture of rose and sandalwood tantalising his nostrils and making him harden instantly. And then, while he'd still been struggling to control the hungry need that simply being with her had sparked off, she had had to mention Lynette Michaels.
'No!'
He muttered the word aloud as he pulled his key from the ignition and pushed the door open. He would not think about it. Wouldn't even let the memory of Rob Michaels into his thoughts. If that happened then he would turn and leave, heading away from here like a bat out of hell.
So he made himself walk down the road towards her, follow her into the small, narrow hallway. He watched in astonishment as she took out another key and pushed it into the first door on the right.
'What? You have a flat here?'
Her face was turned to him sharply, confusion stamped clearly on it.
'Of course---what did you think? You didn't think I owned the whole house, did you?'
'I thought...I sent you money.'
'I didn't want your money.'
'Evidently.'
The door was open now and those golden tiger's eyes were scanning the small, slightly shabby room, taking in the deep brown, well-worn settee and chairs, the equally elderly table and dresser. The only saving graces in what was a rather ugly place were the clean, freshly painted cream walls, and the pretty floral-patterned curtains and cushion covers. Isabelle had made those herself in an attempt to brighten the place up.
'I would have kept you better than this.'
'You wouldn't have kept me at all, Luis! I can look after myself. And you made it only too plain that you never wanted to see me again, that you wanted me out of your life for good.'
'And does that surprise you? You slept with another man while you were married to me.'
'I did no such thing. I didn't!' she emphasised as he eyed her sceptically, obvious disbelief darkening his eyes. 'It never happened, Luis.'
Was he listening to her? He had to listen to her!
Two years before, he had refused even to hear a word she'd tried to say. He'd simply turned and walked out of her life without a backward glance. He had cut himself off from her so completely that it had been as if he had vanished off the face of the earth. Her phone calls had gone unanswered, her letters had been returned unopened.
That was why, in the end, she had resorted to sending him a solicitor's letter telling him that she wanted to legalise their separation. It had been the most painful decision she had ever had to make.
'I didn't do it. I was innocent of everything you accused me of. I don't know what happened. I don't know how Rob got there.'
He almost believed her. When she turned that pleading face on him, green eyes wide, the disturbing thing was that the sudden kick of his heart told him that he was still weak enough for it to matter. That, blind stupid fool that he was, he wanted to believe her.
But that was forgetting that she was an actress. That she had spent years training to do just this. To deceive an audience into believing that what she did, what she said, was the truth. He had seen her act, knew how good she was at it. But he had never expected to see that skill of hers turned against him.
'Luis, you have to understand...'
He had hesitated just long enough to light a tiny flame of hope inside her. A hope that flickered, steadied, grew for a moment...then died painfully abruptly as he shook his dark head, scowling savagely.
'I have to do nothing!' he snarled.
But then, another second later, a disturbing change came over his face. The burn of anger disappeared from his eyes, leaving them cold and opaque, and his shrug was cool, totally indifferent. And Isabelle found that even more frightening than his icy rage.
'It doesn't matter. It's in the past. It doesn't affect the present.'
'But it has to.'
'I told you, there is no "has to" about this.'
Another pause, even more deliberate this time. The bronze eyes watched her coldly, assessing her like some specimen on a laboratory table, one he was just about to dissect.
'You have to understand about that night---'
'What you have to understand,' Luis inserted in a savage undertone, 'is that you are wearing my patience very thin. I do not want to talk about that night---and if you are wise, then neither will you! Why do you persist in this?'
'In---in what?'
'In reminding me of that night---of all nights? Do you want to make me think of it---remember every disgusting detail? Do you want to etch it even more clearly in my mind so that I cannot forget it? Believe me, mi belleza, if you do that then you are risking my turning round and walking out of here and never coming back.'
'No---please...' Not a second time.
'If you want me to stay,' he swept on furiously, overriding her whispered protest, 'then you would do better to help me forget. Never to mention it again and let the memory fade. Otherwise I can never take you back---my pride would not allow it.'
'And can you do that? Can you really put it to the back of your mind?'
She didn't believe he could. How could he push away all memory of that appalling night when the anger, the betrayal he must have felt then had kept him apart from her ever since? And as for his stubborn pride, she really couldn't imagine that he could swallow it hard enough to start over again.
'Can you pretend it never happened and let us have a new beginning?'
He had to struggle with himself to answer her. The fight he was having was there in the taut, drawn lines of his face, the tension in his jaw, the darkness of his eyes.
'I have to,' he said flatly, all emotion drained from his voice.
'What?' She couldn't believe she'd heard him right. 'Luis---what did you say?'
But his mood had changed again.
'I believe you offered me coffee.'
And that was clearly as much as she was going to get from him, for now at least.
'Of course. But first let me try and make things more comfortable in here.'
He watched silently as she lit the small, spluttering gas fire.
'Do you want to take off your coat? It will get warmer---eventually.'
And she might feel a little easier, more able to talk, if he didn't look as if staying was the last thing on his mind. As if he was about to get up and walk out at the soonest possible opportunity.
'Do you promise me that?'
She remembered that dry tone of old, her heart jerking in her breast at the memory. And the bitter-sweet sensations were intensified sharply as he shrugged himself out of his coat and handed it to her. The jacket was of the finest, softest wool, still warm from the heat of his body, and the scent of the subtle cologne he wore rose from the expensive fabric, tormenting her with the memories it evoked.
'W-well, I wouldn't move too far away from it.'
It was the first time she had really seen him in the light and, having looked once, she found it impossible to drag her eyes away from him again. He had always had this effect on her. Had always possessed a hard-core sexuality that produced a kick like a mule in the pit of her stomach.
The worst thing was that he was completely unaware of it. He never even considered the effect that sleek black hair, gleaming bronze eyes and smooth olive skin might have on the opposite sex. And when his naturally dramatic colouring was combined with a fiercely carved bone structure, all angles and planes, hard chin and a devastatingly sensual mouth, then the whole effect was as potent as a crate of explosives.
There were new lines on his stunning face, etched there more by experience than the passage of time. She knew of the death of his brother a year before, and her heart ached for the loss he must have felt. He and Diego had always been so close, almost like twins rather than siblings separated by four and a half years in age. Luis would have missed his older brother terribly.
'I---I'll make the coffee!' she said, as much to persuade herself to move as to inform him of anything.
Unnervingly, he prowled after her, coming to lounge in the narrow doorway, one broad shoulder propped against the frame. Just knowing he was there made Isabelle's hands shake as she filled the kettle, splashing water everywhere. He was too big, too strong, too dark---too much, especially when in the confines of her tiny kitchen. Prickling awareness fizzed over her skin, making her heart lurch into a rapid staccato beat.
'So what brought about this change of---of attitude?'
'Change of heart' didn't describe it properly. There seemed to be no bit of his heart involved in the decision to take her back, if the bald, blunt declaration he had made was anything to go by.
'It's not so much---Isabella---atención!'
It was hard and sharp, sounding a note of warning, and it froze her to the spot.
'What?'
The word was still on her tongue when Luis grabbed her, powerful hands clamping tight over her arms, and twisted her around and away from the stove. The movement took her into his arms, close up against the hard wall of his chest so that she gasped in sudden shock, not sure whether it was the unexpectedness of his reaction or the pounding of her heart as a result of being so close to him that was making her feel this way.
'L-Luis... What are you doing?'
Her voice sharpened as she felt his hands at her throat, fumbling for and finding the clasp that held the long, swirling cloak fastened.
'No, Isabella.'
Roughly he pushed her restraining fingers aside, his dark head bent, attention totally on what he was doing. With an impatient movement he snapped it open, tossing the garment aside with an impatient exclamation.
'Hey, that...'
Her protest died as she suddenly saw why he had reacted as he had. On one side of the cloak, just at the edge, a long, brown mark showed where the flames from the gas ring had caught it, scorching it to the point where a ragged hole had appeared in the fabric. Another couple of seconds and it would have been alight.
'Oh---no...'
All the strength seemed to leave her legs at the thought of what might have happened. Visions of the cloak catching fire, the flames taking hold, engulfed her thoughts. She could have been so badly burned.
'Luis, thank you...'
Or perhaps the way she was feeling had nothing to do with what might have happened, but rather just what was happening now.
His arm was tight around her waist, supporting her with easy strength. She was so close that she could hear the thud of his heart beneath the soft material of his shirt, feel the way his chest rose and fell with every breath, inhale the intensely personal scent of his skin.
And everything stilled, held immobile.
'Luis...'
She was back where she had been in the past. Back where she belonged. In his arms, held close. And it felt so right. So very, very right.
A tiny adjustment of her position, a small twist of her body, brought them to face each other. Breast to chest, pelvis to pelvis, legs tight against the muscular length of his.
'Luis...'
He should never have taken off that damn cloak, Luis told himself furiously. Should never have exposed himself to temptation like this!
Oh, it had been bad enough before. Simply seeing her face, the blonde sheen of her hair, the emerald brilliance of her eyes had been hard enough. The sound of her voice, soft and slightly husky in his ears, had awoken memories best left buried. It had set his pulses thudding, reminded him of hunger he preferred not to recall.
But now...
'What happened to us?'
It was just the faintest thread of sound, so thin that without thinking he dropped his head instinctively to catch her hesitant words.
And immediately regretted it.
His cheek was now lying against the softness of her hair and the temptation to turn, just so, and press his lips to the silky strands was almost more than he could resist. The scent of her body rose towards his nostrils, flowers and rain; the sweet, subtle aroma of her skin, tormented him with the recollection of how it had once been so that his body stirred, hardened, demanded. His senses were swimming, swirling on a warm sea of desire, and deep inside the hunger of physical need clawed at him remorselessly.
He couldn't fight it any longer. Couldn't hold back, couldn't hide the way she affected him.
Slowly his proud head lowered, and, sensing his intention, Isabelle lifted her own face to his, her mouth softening, lips parting instinctively in anticipation of his kiss.
Behind them the kettle, knocked off the flames by being moved slightly to one side, came to the boil again with a wild shriek. Startled and confused, Isabelle took a step backwards, blinking in shock.
'Por Dios!' Luis muttered, darkly savage, though whether he was swearing at her, the kettle, or himself, Isabelle had no way of knowing.
She didn't have time to decide before he had wrenched himself away from her, releasing her arms with a speed that made it look as if he feared it might actually contaminate him to keep hold of her.
'Luis...' she tried, but the moment was gone, destroyed in a second, and there was no way she could get it back.
But it had happened. And the fact that it had told her something very deep and very important about this husband of hers. Something she was sure that he would have preferred to keep totally secret. That he would have died rather than have her find out.
'Where's the coffee?' Luis snapped, snatching the kettle up off the stove. 'Mugs?'
'Here...'
Isabelle obeyed the note of command in his tone automatically, but her thoughts weren't on the simple task at hand. Instead they were centred on those few moments in Luis's arms and the seconds when she had known, when on the deepest, most intuitive level of understanding, she had sensed just what had been happening to him.
He still wanted her.
He might try to deny it to her face. Might act as if he were totally indifferent to her, but the truth was something else.
He couldn't hide the reaction of his body. And she had felt the hard, hot response that had revealed the desire he couldn't control. But it was more than that. In the moment she had looked into his eyes, she had seen the dark, fierce blaze of something very strong and very primitive. Something more potent than thought and more forceful than any attempt at restraint.
And she knew she could use that against him to try and discover the truth about how he really felt.
CHAPTER THREE
'SHALL we take our coffee into the other room?'
Luis didn't look at Isabelle as he spoke, already heading into the small sitting room. He needed to put some space between them. He had to regain control of his senses, force his clamouring body under control before he could take things any further.
'The fire must have warmed the place up by now.'
He had known he was lost in the seconds that he had tossed aside the enveloping cloak, and seen her standing before him, tall and slender in the clinging green velvet dress. Long and flowing, it shaped her delicate ribcage, the narrowness of her waist, with sensual intimacy, hugged tight by the elaborately embroidered belt.
The colour did amazing things to her skin and hair, making her eyes gleam like polished emeralds, the soft flush of her cheeks matched by the lush curve of her mouth. And standing so close, inches taller than she was, he had had the best view possible of the warm curves of her breasts, the opulent cleavage created by the corsetry of the boned bodice.
She'd filled out in the years since he'd last seen her. She was no longer just a girl burgeoning into maturity, but a woman in her prime. Stunning, sexy and enticing.
And he wanted her.
Dios, he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life. More than the sensual madness that had pushed him towards her in the first moments that they had met. More than the aching hunger that had made him propose marriage far too soon, and well before either of them had actually been ready.
'It still isn't all that warm in here.'
Deliberately, Isabelle came to sit beside him on the small settee, curling her legs up underneath her in a way that brought her even closer to him.
'We need to sit right in front of the fire,' she added by way of a belated excuse for her action. 'So---now I think you owe me an explanation of why you're here.'
'I've explained.'
He was definitely on the run, mentally at least. Those copper-coloured eyes wouldn't look directly at her, but stared straight into the small gas fire. And the long, lean body was held unnaturally taut, as far away from her as was possible on the two-seater settee, making her determined to press home the advantage he had unexpectedly given her.
'I told you, I want you to be my wife again. If you do, then you'll want for nothing. You'll live in luxury; you'll only have to think of something you'd like and it will be yours.'
'And you think that will be enough?'
Heavy lids dropped down hastily over gleaming bronze eyes, hiding their expression from her.
'What else could you want?'
Deliberately Isabelle leaned nearer, almost but not quite touching him.
'Is this to be a proper marriage, Luis? A real marriage?'
'Of course.'
She ran her tongue over her lips with slow provocation and watched as his gaze darkened, his pupils widening in response.
'But---we might not be---compatible.'
Luis's response was a short, hard bark of laughter.
'Not compatible! Oh, Isabella, mi esposa, you cannot think that. That compatibility was the one thing that brought us together. The thing that never died between us. It will still be there. You need have no fear of that.'
'Would you like to prove that?'
There it was again. That sudden stiffening of the muscular frame, the wariness in his eyes. He might act the hard, invulnerable, untouchable male, but every once in a while something flickered in that polished amber gaze, revealing a hidden emotion he couldn't quite conceal.
But what was that emotion?
Isabelle leaned even closer, looked deep into those dark, watchful eyes.
'Why don't you kiss me, Luis?'
Luis stilled suddenly and the narrow-eyed glance he shot her was sharp, assessing, full of suspicion.
'What is this, belleza?' he demanded harshly. 'Are you planning on seduction?'
She tried a smile to disarm him but even she could feel it wavering at the corners.
'You're going to have to do it some time. That is, if we're to have this proper marriage.'
'Oh, I see. This is a way of saying yes without actually admitting that you're giving in?'
'It might be.'
'Isabella...'
It was a growl of warning, impatient and rough, making her stomach clench in sudden apprehension. But she'd started this. She had to go on---right to the finish.
'I'll tell you what...'
She tried to pitch her voice at a huskily seductive level and knew that she had succeeded as she saw the flare of response deep in his eyes.
'Why don't you kiss me and we'll see? If what you say is true---if that compatibility is still there, then maybe I will agree to your terms.'
And she would know from the way he kissed her whether she was deceiving herself totally or not.
Her mouth was almost touching his now, and the sweet scent of her skin surrounded him, awakening every cell in his body, sending the hot, honeyed pulse of desire raging along his veins. He couldn't have resisted her if he'd tried.
And he didn't want to try.
One kiss, he told himself fiercely. One kiss and one kiss only. Just enough to prove to himself that he wasn't the fool he feared he was where this woman was concerned.
'Está bien!' he muttered roughly, reaching out and closing his hands hard over the fine bones of her shoulders.
With a rough, jerking movement he pulled her towards him in the same moment that his head came down and his mouth fastened over hers. He took her lips with such force that they opened involuntarily under his, giving him access to a more intimate invasion.
She gave a small, gasping sigh into his mouth as her tongue met his and her hands slid up to tangle in the raven silk of his hair, pulling his head down even further, to deepen and prolong the kiss.
And in that second he knew he was helpless. Knew that he could no more deny his feelings than he could tear himself away from her. His heart was racing, his breath coming in raw, uneven snatches, his head swimming under the sensual onslaught of the passion that blazed deep inside.
His body was hard and tight, his need so intense it was a burning pain. He couldn't get her close enough, couldn't touch her enough, his hands moving restlessly over her slender frame, stroking, caressing, feeling. Yearning fingers closed over the thrusting curves of her breasts and his breath caught roughly in his throat.
'Luis...'
It was a moan of response against her lips and she crushed herself even closer, pushing the warm weight of her flesh into his cupped palms.
'Dios, Isabella, mi belleza...'
All his English had deserted him. He couldn't have formed a single word in any language but his own to save his life. He couldn't think, could only feel, only knew that if he didn't possess her here, now, this very second, he would die from wanting...
Isabelle felt as if her bones were melting in the heat of her desire. She had lost track of just why she had started this in the first place, only knew that it felt right, perfect, the most natural thing in the world. The only thing in the world she wanted.
She shifted slightly on the settee as Luis pulled at the enfolding weight of the velvet skirt, tugging it upwards. Her heart seemed to beat high up in her throat as he slid hot fingers up the length of her legs and along the soft whiteness of her thighs to the spot where the sharpest pulse of hunger throbbed in aching need, then slowly, agonisingly, away again.
'You want to know why I'm here,' he muttered against her mouth. 'Well, I'll tell you. I'm here because when I got that letter I realised there was no way I could let you go. In all the time we've been apart, no woman has ever had the effect on me that you had. I can't eat---I can't sleep for wanting you. I haven't lived these past years, couldn't rest until I had you back in my arms, in my bed. And then when I saw you again---just one look was all it took to revive the old feelings---the hunger, the desire...'
He paused, looked deep into her eyes, then lifted one hand to trail the backs of his fingers slowly down the side of her face, his darkened gaze holding her mesmerised as he did so.
'And I know you're feeling the same.'
'Yes...'
She didn't even think of trying to deny it. Each tiny touch had triggered off explosions of desire along every nerve in her body. It was as if she were a ready-laid fire, primed with finest kindling, dust-dry logs. All it needed was the spark of a single match to set light to everything, send the flames of passion roaring through her, drying her mouth so that she licked nervously at painfully parched lips.
'Yes,' she croaked again. 'That's exactly the way I've been feeling.'
The way she was leaning towards him was inviting him to do exactly the same. The way she was looking at him was like a magnet, drawing him closer and closer. The way her mouth had softened, her lips parting, was an open invitation for his kiss again.
And Luis took it without hesitation.
His hands came out, slid round the back of her neck, up into the golden fall of her hair. The pressure of their hold brought her face to his, angling her head so that their mouths fitted perfectly together.
This time, the first touch of his lips was gentle, almost tentative, searching, questioning. But when her response gave him the answer he sought without restraint, then the kiss soon turned into a powerful, crushing demand.
And she met that too. Met it and matched it, moving from following to leading in the space of an urgent, pounding heartbeat. Her kiss told its own story of longing and hunger, of giving him of herself and taking everything he offered.
And when, with their mouths still locked together, he stood up, strong arms taking her upright with him, she knew exactly what he had in mind because it was what was in her thoughts too. She went with him, willingly and gladly, her heart recognising that this was what she wanted most in all the world.
He half walked, half carried her towards the bedroom, finding it by instinct, his lips still taking hers, tasting, giving, promising all kinds of delights ahead of them. The silence in the room was total, the only sound the pounding of their two hearts in total unison, in complete accord with each other.
There was no need for speech; no need for words. His hands told her she was beautiful as they touched and tantalised, smoothing, caressing, arousing, communicating perfectly the way he saw her. And his body proclaimed his need for her as it strained against hers, hard and demanding, fiercely aroused. He was awe-inspiring in his strength and the power of his passion, and yet she felt totally safe, completely at one with him.
Because the same hunger was burning its way through her. It made her body tremble with need as Luis's strong hands found the zip fastening of her dress, slid it right down to the base of her spine so that all she had to do was to let her hands drop and the green velvet slithered to the floor, pooling at her feet. The fine lace of her slip, the sliver of satin that was her bra followed, removed and tossed to the floor in a series of intent, unhurried movements that spoke eloquently of his powerful restraint.
Isabelle could feel no such thing. With his mouth still working its sensual magic on her, her whole body clenched in a paroxysm of anticipation, a trembling longing for more. She was clinging to him now, her legs no longer capable of supporting her as he swung her up into his arms and slowly lowered her onto the downy quilt on the bed.
'Isabella, amada...belleza...'
It was an incantation of longing against her skin, his mouth kissing its way from her lips, over her throat, her shoulder, and down the length of her body. Isabelle caught her breath in sharply as his lips touched the slope of her breast, brushed the pink swollen nipple, but didn't linger. Instead they slid lower, over the tautened muscles of her stomach, his tongue briefly circling the shallow indentation of her navel.
'Luis...' she breathed, needing to say his name, then choked into silence again as knowing hands eased the sliver of satin that was her only covering down the length of her legs, his tormenting mouth following it all the way.
Only then did he pause to throw off his own clothes, dropping them carelessly wherever they fell, and sliding down onto the bed beside her, gathering her into the heat of his body.
And now his kisses were fiercer, thrilling in their demand. His touch had lost that careful restraint, becoming instead the urgent, hungry caress of a man close to the edge of his control. Long, tanned fingers closed over the thrust of her breasts, taking their weight into the warmth of his palms. His thumbs stroked over the creamy curves, encircling the swollen peaks until she moaned aloud in agonised delight and arched her back against the support of the pillows behind her.
'I've waited so long for this,' Luis muttered against her heated skin. 'So long---too long. A lifetime, it seems.'
'Too long,' Isabelle echoed on a sigh that broke into a high-pitched cry of delight as his mouth took the place of his hands, his tongue tracing the same tormenting path as his thumb had followed just seconds before. 'Too long...'
'But now there will be no more waiting...no more time. Now you are back where you belong...in my bed...'
'Yes...'
It was a cry of affirmation, a sob of ecstasy as his lips closed over her nipple, drawing it into the heat of this mouth and suckling hard. The stinging sensation of delight made her writhe frantically beneath the imprisoning weight of his body, her head twisting from side to side on the pillows. She closed her eyes tight, the better to concentrate on the sensation that spread throughout her body. Every pleasure spot she possessed seemed to be linked in a burning golden chain of arousal, all of it centred on and radiating out from that one core point of her being.
And the hunger between her legs was a throbbing need that had her shifting restlessly, moaning her need, incapable of putting what she wanted into speech.
But Luis had no need of words, no need for instruction. He interpreted her needs, anticipated them with the intuitive instinct of a lover. His fingers slid through the moist curls at the most feminine core of her body, stroking her intimately, a rough growl of satisfaction sounding in his throat as he discovered just how hungry for him she was.
'Querida... Mi mujer...'
All his English deserted him. He could manage only his native Spanish, the words rough and incoherent, muttered in a voice that was thick and raw with need.
'Amada...amada...'
His voice thick with passion, his eyes blazing, a wash of dark colour marking the sculpted lines of his cheekbones, he pushed her legs apart and inserted his long body between them.
Isabelle lifted her hips to meet the force of his invasion, opening to him, welcoming him, drawing him as deeply into her as she could manage, and she heard his wild cry of satisfaction as the hot silk of her closed about him.
For a second, simply lying there was enough. Simply knowing he was with her, inside her, filling her, was satisfaction after all the long, lonely days, months, years, of being without him. But in the space of a heavy, thudding heartbeat that satisfaction changed into a new desire, desire into demand, and she began to move underneath him.
'Isabella,' he choked. 'Mi mujer...'
Hard hands clamped down on her shoulders, holding her still, as he took charge of their lovemaking, slowly at first, then faster, harder, stronger. His passion-lit gaze burned down into hers, his head thrown back, his jaw tight, as he lost control. The hot, fierce thrusts grew wilder, more forceful, taking both of them higher and higher until at last, with a harsh cry, he put his arms around her, gathering her up to him, and his lips crushed hers as they lost all connection with reality and the world splintered around them.
It was the start of a long, hot night. When eventually Isabelle focused again, she just lay, letting her breathing slow, her heart stop racing to the point of bursting. Beside her, she heard Luis stir, sigh with weary satisfaction and stretch lazily.
'You okay?' he questioned softly, his accent very pronounced, his voice husky.
'More than okay,' Isabelle answered dreamily. 'Much more than okay.'
At that point she must have drifted into sleep because the next time she opened her eyes it was as Luis slid from the bed and padded silently across the thick carpet heading for the bathroom.
As Isabelle lay in drowsy contentment, she heard the sound of the shower being turned on, water splashing onto the tiles. The next moment Luis was back, easing the quilt from her lazy body, lifting her in his arms.
'Hey...what are you doing?'
It was a feeble attempt at a protest because the truth was she didn't care. As long as he was there, with her, with the warm satin of his body against hers, the strength of his arms enclosing her, the scent of his skin in her nostrils, he could do anything he liked and she wouldn't complain.
'Don't panic,' he murmured, shouldering open the glass door and carrying her inside the cubicle. 'I just thought you'd like a shower.'
Hiding a smile against the strength of his shoulder, Isabelle injected a mock protest into her voice.
'Do I have to? It sounds rather over-energetic to me.'
His laughter was low, full of genuine amusement, sounding deep inside the powerful chest against which her cheek rested.
'Trust me, mi angel, you won't have to do a thing. Just leave everything up to me.'
He was as good as his word. From the moment that he lowered her feet to the floor so that she was under the flow of the heated water, he took charge of everything. Isabelle didn't even have to find the strength to stand upright as he supported her on one muscular arm, lathering scented shower gel all over her acquiescent body with his free hand.
'Mmm, that feels good.'
Eyes closed, she edged round until she was leaning back against him, the soft hairs on his chest brushing the sensitive skin between her shoulder blades, her buttocks fitting snugly against his pelvis. With two hands available now, the pleasure of his massage more than doubled, long, caressing sweeps of his firm fingers alternating with gentler, deliberately lingering strokes over her breasts and dipping down between her legs.
'Don't stop,' she begged. 'Please don't stop.'
She didn't know at what stage simple pleasure turned to hunger, at what point hunger became desire. She only knew that the firm pressure of Luis's fingers sliding all over her skin was a delicious torment that woke every one of her senses and set them clamouring all over again.
And it was only too obvious that Luis felt the same. The heated pressure of his aroused body against hers was the last straw, driving all thought of restraint from her mind. Twisting round again, she pressed herself close to him, lacing her arms around his neck.
'I want you now,' she whispered in his ear, her words half drowned by the rushing water. 'Right here. Right now.'
His sigh was both a sound of delight and surrender to a force that was stronger than either of them.
'Your wish is my command, querida...'
The next moment she was lifted off her feet, her legs encircling his narrow waist, her back against the steam-damp tiled wall. He thrust into her with a guttural sound deep in his throat, his mouth closing over hers, his tongue echoing the more intimate invasion of her body.
It was hard and hot and fast and gloriously fulfilling. The water pounded down on their heads, its heat and pressure adding to the tumult of sensations ricocheting through Isabelle's wildly excited body. She had never climaxed so fast, so fiercely, never been so totally out of control. And when it was over both of them sagged against the walls of the cubicle, struggling for the return of some sort of reality.
She was only vaguely aware of the moment Luis finally reached up a hand and switched off the shower. Of him wrapping her in a thick, soft towel and taking her with him back into the bedroom. Drying her tenderly as a mother, he carried her to the bed, laid her down and pulled the downy quilt up over her exhausted form.
The faintly cool touch of the covers roused her slightly and she caught at his hand when he would have eased away.
'Don't go! Don't leave me.'
'Leave, amada? Never. This is just the start of things. We've only just begun.'
Already sleep was claiming her, rolling through her mind like mist coming in from the sea, but she knew the moment he joined her in the bed, felt the heat of his long, powerful body, the strength of the arm that came round her waist, pulling her close up against him.
'Sleep for now, querida,' he murmured, pressing a swift, soft kiss on her cheek. 'And when you wake I'll still be here. I'll always be here. I'm never going to let you go again.'
Another kiss, more lingering this time, landed on her hair, and the arm that held her tightened.
'Now you know exactly why I want you back. You're mine. We belong together. Tonight has proved that.'
'We belong together.' The words gave her hope. Hope that if she spent more time with Luis, if she went back to living as his wife, they might just have a future together. 'There was no way I could let you go,' he had said.
It was enough. When she had believed that he would never want her anywhere near him again, it was more than enough. It was a beginning. Something to build the possibility of a future on. They had a long way to go, but they had taken the first steps.
In the darkness Luis stretched lazily, lying on his back, with one hand behind his head, staring up at the ceiling as he let the tides of sleep wash over him.
His body ached with a bone-deep satisfaction, his clamouring senses stilled for a while at least. At his side Isabelle lay, deeply asleep, her slim body softly curved towards his. He would let her sleep for now. There would be plenty of time to talk---and more---in the morning.
A wide grin spread across his expressive mouth and he stretched again, sighing in deep, luxurious contentment. Things might work out after all. Whatever had happened in the past was the past. Isabelle was here, with him now---and surely she couldn't have responded to him as she had tonight if there was anyone else in her life?
But one way or another, he was determined there was no going back. Isabelle was his wife, and she was here to stay.
Turning over on his side, he draped a possessive arm around his wife's still form, closed his eyes, and fell deeply asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE weather in Andalucia was totally different from the cool winds and miserable, drizzling rain they had left behind in Yorkshire. As Isabelle alighted from the powerful car that had taken them on the last stage of their journey she stepped out into warm, bright sunshine and only the gentlest of delicate breezes.
But somehow the warmth didn't seem to reach inside her. It brushed over her skin, the breeze tangled in her hair, but it didn't touch her heart, which remained as fearful and uncertain as ever.
Should she really be here? Was she doing the right thing?
Last night she had been so sure. She had been so confident that a new beginning was possible. But were the feelings that she had experienced in the heat of their lovemaking and its aftermath enough to carry them through into that new beginning?
What was it that people said about the cold light of dawn?
She had woken that morning to find that Luis was already up and dressed, bending over her to place a brief kiss on her sleepy face.
'What? Where are you going?'
'To get my things; check out of the hotel. Then I'll be back.'
'So you are coming back?' Her heart jolted in a mixture of uncertainty and delight.
'Do you doubt it? Oh, yes, querida. I'm coming back. I think last night rather proved a point.'
'What point?' She couldn't get her sleep-clouded mind to focus and frowned in confusion.
'"Why don't you kiss me and we'll see?"' he quoted, his tone laced with a dark humour. '"If that compatibility is still there, then maybe I will agree to your terms."'
Eyes gleaming with appreciation raked the length of her slim body from the tousled golden hair, down over the pale skin of her face and neck, still marked red in places by the demanding force of his kisses.
'Made up your mind, then, have you, sweetheart? Because if you haven't, then I certainly have.'
Bending suddenly, taking her totally by surprise, he pressed his lips to hers once more, and she could feel his smile against her mouth as she was unable to control her instant, passionate response.
'I think we'd both agree that that compatibility is still there, querida. So you don't have to say another word. I'll take that as a yes.'
Her tongue seemed too swollen, too clumsy to answer him, but he clearly didn't need her to say a single thing. Snatching up his jacket, he slung it over his shoulder and headed for the door.
'I'll give you an hour or so to pack,' he tossed at her, not even sparing a backward glance. 'I'll be here to pick you up on my way to the airport.'
She had packed as she'd been commanded to do, but all the time her body had been tight with tension, never knowing quite whether to believe that Luis would come back or not. And so she had jumped like a startled cat when the sound of his hard fist hitting the scuffed and faded wood of the front door had had her hurrying to let him in before he splintered the lock.
'Do you think you could make a little more noise?' she'd demanded, hiding her private feelings behind a mask of annoyance. 'There are people still asleep in the house, you know.'
'At this time?'
His brief, impatient glance at his watch expressed irritated disapproval without a word having to be spoken.
'Some of the guys who live here work shifts. We don't all have the luxury of being able to come and go as we please. Some of us have to earn our livings.'
'In Spain I would have put in a couple of hours' work at the vineyard already.'
Luis dismissed her protest with an arrogant flick of his hand.
'I prefer to be out and busy before the heat of the day sets in.'
'Which is fine in Spain, but not exactly appropriate here,' Isabelle retorted with a reluctant glance out at the rain-soaked street. 'We don't get a chance to take a siesta and rest for half the afternoon.'
She realised her mistake as soon as the words had left her mouth, anything else she might have been about to say disappearing in a tangle of confusion as she saw the wicked, glinting glance he shot her from behind dark lashes.
'As I recall, we didn't exactly use the time for resting,' he drawled sardonically, the gleam in his eyes growing as he watched the hot colour race up her neck and into her face, until she was almost exactly the same bright pink as the cotton jumper and cardigan she wore with loose oatmeal trousers for comfort in travelling.
'No---like every man, you only had one thing on your mind,' she retorted tartly, too knocked off balance mentally to care that that was exactly the wrong thing to say, giving Luis an opening that he would be unable to resist.
He didn't disappoint her.
'Every man?' His tone had sharpened perceptibly. 'Am I to take it you're talking about Rob Michaels here?'
There, his name was out in the open. The thing that had come between them, broken them apart, had been acknowledged at last.
'You can take it that I'm talking about whoever you want, whatever you want! But seeing as last night you were the one who was so insistent that I never mention that man's name again so that we could let the memory fade, don't you think it's rather hypocritical of you to bring him into the conversation again at the first opportunity?'
His answer was a fierce, savage glare, one that turned his eyes molten gold with fury, but she told herself to ignore it.
'After all, you were the one who invited your ex-mistress along on what was supposed to be a private party in that hotel.'
'Catalina invited herself along,' Luis snapped. 'What did you expect me to do? Tell the hotel she wasn't allowed to book in? I thought she'd be company for you.'
'And I wouldn't have needed company if you'd not taken yourself off to London. I was miserable. I had a cold and it was my birthday.'
She wasn't going to admit how much the presence of the lovely Catalina had disturbed her. Beside the Spanish woman's sultry beauty, she had felt pale, wan and insignificant.
'So you made my life hell as a result. Tell me, do you enjoy dragging up the worst moments of our past together? Are you determined to drive me away all over again?'
'On the contrary, I think that you'd better make your mind up, Luis. Either you want to talk this out, or you want to keep quiet. You can't have it both ways. The next few days are going to be difficult enough...'
'The next few days...' Luis echoed, pouncing on the words like a hunter on its prey. 'Does that mean that you're coming with me?'
Had he actually doubted it? Isabelle found that hard to believe. But there was a rough edge to his voice, a disturbing shadow in his eyes that spoke of something very different from the unshakeable self-confidence and arrogant authority he usually displayed.
'Did you give me any choice?' she parried, green eyes flashing defiance as she met that predator's stare head-on. 'I thought it was a royal command and I had no chance of doing anything else.'
Abruptly his expression changed, the shadow in his eyes growing darker, deeper.
'Not a command, querida,' he said gruffly. 'A request. One you could grant or refuse as it pleased you. If you come, I want you willing. I want you by my side as my wife...'
'And this will be the real marriage you promised me?'
She could hardly get the words out, they meant so much to her.
'How could it be anything else?' He looked astonished that she should even ask the question. 'You will share my life and my bed. We will be husband and wife in every sense of the word.'
Isabelle's face broke into a wide, brilliant smile of delight, her eyes glowing like emerald fire.
'Then, in that case, I'll come with you,' she said, and when he held out his hand she put hers into it without hesitation.
That smile was in Luis's mind now as he watched her face at the moment that she took in her first sight of his family home. It was one thing knowing that he lived in a castle, quite another being faced by this magnificent hill-top building, parts of which dated back to the sixteenth century.
Built in a warm honey-coloured stone, the castle was approached through gardens of orange groves, oleander and olive trees, beyond which stretched meadows and woodlands. And close by the main courtyard was an aromatic herb garden that scented the air softly.
Luis had stopped the car at the foot of the drive, suggested that they get out and walk from here, sending the chauffeur on ahead with their luggage.
'It's the best way to see the castle,' he told Isabelle. 'And besides, I need to talk to you. There are some things you need to know.'
Isabelle agreed without hesitation. The whole place was so unlike anything she had ever seen in her life that she needed time to adjust, to take in the reality of it. Perhaps if she walked up to it slowly, then she might be able to believe it.
'This is where you live?' She looked positively awestruck.
'It's where my parents live. I have my own villa some miles south of here. But my mother and father would never forgive me if I didn't bring you to the family home for their first meeting with you.'
If he was honest, he had never really thought that this day would ever actually happen. Even as he'd knocked on the door of her flat this morning, he had wondered if she would refuse to come with him. He hadn't known if she would welcome him or shut the door right in his face.
And the worrying thing had been how much that had disturbed him. He had found his pulse rate quickening as he'd approached her flat. The hand that he had raised to knock had been unnervingly unsteady.
Seeing her again last night had revived all the hunger, the passion he had once felt for Isabelle, and he had known that he had to have her back in his life, whatever it took. He didn't care if she felt anything for him or not. She was the only woman who had ever made him feel this way, and right now that was enough.
'What was it you wanted to talk to me about?'
From the way his face changed in response to her question, Isabelle knew that she wasn't going to like what he had to say to her.
'Luis---what is it?'
The bronze eyes had darkened swiftly, his jaw tightening, and he stopped walking abruptly, turning to face her.
'I haven't told you everything,' he said sombrely. 'Haven't told you exactly why you're here.'
Isabelle felt as if a cruel hand had suddenly closed over her throat, making it difficult to breathe properly.
'I know why I'm here,' she managed unevenly. 'You asked me to come. To travel to Spain with you---as your wife.'
Why did he hesitate? Why had he suddenly hooded his eyes, shaking his dark head?
'Not exactly,' he said stiffly.
'Not exactly?' Isabelle echoed in confusion. 'Why? What do you mean? What else is there?'
Luis drew in his breath again harshly, raking one hand through the raven darkness of his hair. And that sigh went straight to Isabelle's insides, twisting all her nerves in fearful apprehension.
'Luis! Tell me.'
At last his amber-coloured eyes met hers, fixing her with an intent and unwavering stare.
'I wanted you to come to Spain with me, yes,' he said roughly, clearly reluctantly. 'But not as my wife. I need you to come as my fiancée. To be here as my prospective bride.'
'Your prospective bride? What is this?'
Isabelle couldn't believe what she was hearing. She could only stare at him in blank bewilderment, struggling to see his expression clearly in the glare of the sun.
'You have to be joking!'
'It seems clear enough to me.'
Luis moved into the shade of a nearby tree, leaning back against the width of its trunk, and folded his arms across his chest.
'My family don't know I'm married. They don't even know that you exist. If I turn up with you and say that you're my wife, that we've been married for two years already, it will involve us in a lot of complicated, awkward explanations...'
'And why would that matter?'
'My father is ill---seriously ill. He's supposed to avoid all stress or shock.'
'Oh, Luis!'
That drew her shocked green eyes to his carefully shuttered face, one hand going out to touch his arm.
'I'm sorry!'
'Gracias.'
It was swift, dismissive. He didn't look as if her sympathy had touched him at all.
'What...?'
'Prostate cancer. He's in remission at the moment, but his time is limited.'
He drew in his breath in a sharp hiss between sharp white teeth.
'I want to make what time he does have happy. That's why you're here. My father wants to see me married---not to find out it's already happened. And Mother has always dreamed of organising a family wedding. Having the service in the cathedral, the reception in the castle. She had hoped to do so for Diegeo, but...'
'I heard about the speedboat accident,' Isabelle inserted quietly when he broke off, his eyes suddenly unfocused. 'That must have been hard on you all.'
'Then you will see why I want to present you to them as my new fiancée.'
'And go through another wedding ceremony? Pretend it's all happening for the first time---lie through my teeth! I think not!'
'That's the way it has to be.'
He was back in aristocratic mode once again. Pure arrogant conquistador from his head to his toes.
'The way I want it.'
'The way you want it!' Isabelle echoed bitterly. 'And what do you think is going to happen? That you'll just snap your fingers and I'll jump to do your bidding like some lowly serf you have honoured to notice. I'm a free woman, Luis! I don't let anyone else just run my life.'
'As I've learned to my cost,' he returned sardonically. 'You made sure the word "obey" was omitted from the wedding service, as I recall. And what I thought was going to happen was that you were prepared to consider the idea. I thought you'd understand my father's position, the way he feels...'
'I do! Believe me, I do. But even though I understand---and sympathise---that doesn't just mean I'm going to fall in with your plans without question.'
'Would it be so terrible, Isabella?'
'It's that---prospective bride bit. It's a lie.'
'Only a white lie, querida. Surely in order to make an ill man happy you can salve your conscience for a little while and play a part. If you can convince a bunch of tourists that there are ghosts walking around York...'
'That's my job! It's what I get paid for.'
'If you want payment---I'll give you anything you want! Think of it as a job. All I ask is that you do your damnedest to be convincing. I want my father and mother to believe we are the happiest couple on earth.'
'I'm not that good an actress.'
'I think you are. I've seen you, remember? I watched you last night. You almost had me convinced that some spirit would come creeping out of the walls of that tower.'
'I was working to a script!'
'Then I will give you a script!'
Reaching out, he took her hand, drew her very close as he looked down into her shadowed green eyes.
'You and I met just a few months ago. I was in England on business. You were at a party I was invited to. We looked into each other's eyes and it was like un trueno---a thunderclap. We fell in love in an instant. All we want is to be married. As quickly as possible.'
'Luis...'
She tried to protest, tried to break through the hypnotic spell his voice was weaving around her, but she didn't have the strength. His words were taking her back into the past. Reminding her of how it had once been.
'Think about how it once was with us, Isabella.' Luis bent his proud head, kissed her mouth with heartbreaking softness. 'It wasn't so very long ago. Surely you can remember that?'
How could she forget it? It was etched into her memories, branded on her heart. It had been all she had ever dreamed of. And now it was what she wanted back most in all the world.
And when he looked at her like that, when the husky, enticing tones of his softly accented voice pleaded with her to do as he asked, she was helpless, soft as wax in his hands.
'All---all right, I'll...' she began shakily, but Luis didn't give her a chance to complete her sentence. Lacing his fingers in hers, he squeezed her hand tight.
'It's not so very far from the truth,' he told her, leading her up the remainder of the drive and into the stone-flagged courtyard of the castle.
But almost immediately it was as if the shadows cast by the high walls had fallen over Isabelle's heart. Her steps slowed, coming to a complete halt as she looked up at the huge, carved oak door.
'What is it?'
'I don't think I can.'
'Por Dios, why the hell not? You've come this far, you can't back out now.'
'But I don't think I can go through with it.'
'Of course you can.'
He dismissed her fears with an arrogant little flick of his hand.
'But if you want a little help...'
Before she knew what was coming, he had reached out and caught hold of her arm. Swinging her round, he brought her up close to him, held tight against the hard wall of his chest.
'This should do it,' he muttered roughly as his head came down, his mouth taking hers hard and fast, crushing her lips underneath his.
The world seemed to swing around her, her thoughts filling with a buzzing haze. The warmth of the sun was as nothing when compared to the heat that was flooding her body, making her heart pound fiercely, setting her blood throbbing in her veins.
She responded instinctively, urgent hands clutching at his powerful shoulders, fingers digging into the hard muscle underneath the fine cotton of his navy shirt. Her mouth opened under his, allowing, and hungrily responding to the tantalising dance of provocation of his tongue. Her pliant body arched towards his, glorying in the feeling of his male strength against her own, and electric thrill sparking in every nerve as she felt the heated pressure of his erection against the softness of her pelvis. Hard hands cupped her buttocks, pressing her even closer.
When Luis finally released her, she was breathing hard and unevenly. Her scalp tingled where his hands had twisted in her hair, and she knew that her face was flushed, her eyes overbright as if she had a fever.
Which she did, she admitted to herself. Luis was like a fever in her blood, a fatal addiction. She would never be free of him, and, if the truth was told, she never wanted to be. He was all she had ever dreamed of in a man.
'There...'
Luis's voice was rich with dark satisfaction, a tiger's purr of pleasure.
'Now you look like a newly engaged fiancée. A woman hopelessly in love with the man she has agreed to marry.'
Of course she did, Isabelle admitted to herself. She looked that way because she really was that woman. There was no point in trying to deny it, or hide it from herself any longer.
The one thing and the one alone that had brought her here was the fact that her love for Luis had never died. The flame of it still burned deep inside her heart, unwavering and unquenchable, in spite of all their years apart.
'And, Isabella---'
But whatever Luis had been about to say went unfinished. His words were interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind the heavy door, the buzz of puzzled Spanish reaching them vaguely through the solid wood.
'My family,' he said abruptly. 'They heard the car and they've grown tired of waiting so they've come looking for us. Ready?'
Isabelle could only shake her head, a terrible sense of apprehension freezing her tongue and making her breath catch in her throat.
'There's no need to look like that.' Luis actually sounded as if he understood, the gentleness in his voice knocking her right off balance. 'They won't bite.'
'But what if they don't like me?'
Her voice shook with the strain of controlling her real fears. She had come here in the hope of reviving what she and Luis had once had, of convincing him that he had been wrong to believe she could ever be unfaithful to him. But what if he never changed his mind? What if he never ever loved her again?
'How could they not like you?' he asked now. 'All they ask for is that you make me happy. And you will.'
'I will? How---?'
But she couldn't finish the question because at that moment the door was pulled open and a tall, black-haired woman appeared, her arms outstretched in welcome.
'Luis, welcome home. And this---is this lovely young woman your fiancée?'
'Sí Mama.'
Luis moved forwards, one strong arm snaking round Isabelle's waist, taking her with him.
'Isabella, come and meet my mother...'
Desperate to hide her nervousness, Isabelle switched on a smile that she prayed looked genuine. But it faltered, almost disappearing as Luis bent his dark head until his mouth was close to her ear.
'You know only too well how to make me happy, mi angel,' he whispered, warm breath feathering over her skin. 'Just as I know exactly how to please you. And if you're good, I'll prove it to you tonight.'
CHAPTER FIVE
ISABELLE leaned her arms on the wide stone sill of the castle's arched windows and stared out at the darkened landscape, a low despondent sigh escaping her. She felt lost and isolated, a crazy, inexplicable feeling in a place full of people, but the truth was that she had never known loneliness like it.
She didn't know who she was or where she belonged any more. She was Luis's wife and yet here, amongst his family, she was only his fiancée. The duque and duquesa had welcomed her into their home, treated her like an honoured guest, but she knew that her presence here was just a pretence, that she was deceiving them by pretending to be something she was not. And Luis...
The sigh deepened. The truth was that she just didn't really know how Luis saw her.
A soft sound of a knock at the door startled her, bringing her head up sharply.
'Who is it?'
'Your fiancé of course.' Even through the thickness of the door, the irony in Luis's tone was clear. 'Were you expecting someone else?'
'I wasn't expecting anyone,' Isabelle protested as she wrenched open the door. 'Least of all you. What are you doing here?'
'I'm performing my duties as your host,' he drawled sardonically, black straight brows lifting in disapproval at her tone. 'I came to see if you were comfortable and your room was okay.'
She couldn't look him in the face, every heightened sense was too aware of him for that. He was still wearing the trousers of the elegant silver grey silk suit he had changed into for dinner, but he had discarded the jacket somewhere. The fine linen of his white shirt clung softly to the firm lines of his torso, emphasising the width of chest and broad straight shoulders. He had tugged his tie loose at the neck, unfastening a couple of buttons, and the immaculate colour seemed to glow vividly against the smooth tanned skin of his throat.
'Luis, you've seen my flat. You know that compared to that this...' her gesture took in the elegantly furnished room with a genuine four-poster bed, thick rose-coloured carpet and curtains '...is total luxury. I couldn't be more comfortable.'
'You're quite sure you have everything you need.'
'I'm perfectly fine! You don't even have to ask that! Goodnight.'
To emphasise the point, she tried to shut the door in his face, only to find the movement prevented by the swift insertion of one elegantly booted foot into the open space.
'I also thought you might like a nightcap.'
He lifted a hand to display a bottle of red wine and two glasses hooked between his fingers.
'Something to relax you.'
'I think not.'
'It's from our own vineyards,' he continued imperturbably, obviously unconcerned by her unwelcoming tone. 'I think you'd enjoy it.'
'And what would your parents think to that?'
Luis affected a pretence of not understanding, widening his eyes in a display of innocence.
'Think to what, querida?'
'To your being here, alone, with me at this time of night. Wouldn't they think---?'
'They wouldn't expect anything else,' Luis inserted smoothly, flooring her completely. 'We are, after all, man and wife.'
'But your parents don't know that!'
'They know that we are engaged, and they are modern minded enough to know that very few couples actually wait until they've exchanged vows before they share a bed together.'
'But all the same...'
Her grip on the door had loosened a little, her concentration wavering. Luis took full advantage of the situation by pushing it wider and slipping in through the open space. Strolling across the room, he deposited the bottle and glasses on the bedside table, pulled a corkscrew from his pocket and set about stripping the foil from the bottle with swift efficiency.
'My parents, amada, would be very surprised, not to say concerned, if we didn't want to spend some time alone together, particularly at this new and very special stage in our relationship.'
He didn't look her in the eyes as he spoke, his attention apparently on opening the bottle, extracting the cork as smoothly and skilfully as possible.
'They believe we have just become engaged. That we are madly in love with each other.'
'And we both know that that couldn't be further from the truth!' Uncertainty and tension pushed the words from her mouth.
Luis's busy hands stilled suddenly, his whole body freezing into immobility in a way that made her heart clench sharply. But a moment later he had returned to his task, apparently focusing only on that and nothing else.
'Is that a fact?' he drawled at last, his words punctuated by the faint pop as the cork finally slid from the bottle.
Isabelle's heart, which had started to relax, tightened up again, more fearfully this time, as she tried to interpret just what his tone of voice might mean.
'Here, taste this.'
Luis was pleased with his tone, the smoothness of his voice. He hadn't missed a beat, covering his reaction to that ill-timed comment.
So what had he expected? That she would have come right out with a declaration of love? He'd have to be dreaming for that to happen. And he'd never thought of himself as a dreamer. All his life he'd lived on purely pragmatic terms---except once, when he'd fallen hopelessly and totally in love with this woman. Insanely in love, because he'd never fully recovered his wits since.
There, he'd admitted it to himself at last. Ever since that moment in York when he'd seen her coming towards him, dressed in that spectacular gown, he'd known he wasn't over her. The sensation of being kicked in the gut he could explain away as a purely physical reaction---though his thoughts had been at the opposite extreme to pure. But it was the absurd and impossible lifting of his heart that had told him he was in deep trouble.
'It's delicious.'
Isabelle's voice seemed to come from a long distance away, forcing him to drag his attention back to the moment.
'I thought you'd like it.'
Did she know how the rich ruby colour of the wine had stained her mouth, emphasising the soft fullness of her lower lip? The memory of how sweet that mouth had tasted, how it had opened invitingly under his kiss, instantly triggered his body's response so that he had to swing away to stare out of the window until he could get himself back under control.
But there was no escape. Even as he stared out at the darkened sky, he could still see her slender, feminine body in the pretty floral-print dress reflected in the glass before him.
'And perhaps it might relax me. I was too nervous to drink very much at dinner.'
'Or eat very much.'
He'd hardly touched his food himself, moving it about on his plate in a pretence at interest in it. But all his attention had been focused on the woman sitting opposite, her blonde hair gleaming in the flickering light of the candles, her soft voice answering his parents' questions with careful politeness.
'You were every bit as bad as me.'
He hadn't expected that and it brought him swinging round in shock, amber eyes flying straight to her face.
'You noticed?'
'Oh, I noticed. You messed about, but put very little in your mouth.'
Her laugh was slightly shaky, no real warmth in it.
'I don't know what your parents must have thought of the two of us. I just hope they don't think there was something wrong with the food and sack the cook.'
'Don't worry, the chef's job is safe. They'll think we're both so completely lovesick that we've lost our appetites. And they'll expect you to have been nervous, so they'll understand.'
'I wasn't nervous! I never felt unsure with your mother and father. They couldn't have been kinder and they made me feel right at home from the start. That was the problem.'
'What problem?'
'Isn't it obvious? They're lovely people; I don't like deceiving them. In fact, now that I've met them, I hate it even more.'
'Is this your way of trying to say you want out of this?'
Luis moved forward, picked up his own drink, trying to look as if the answer to his question didn't matter a damn to him.
'Not at all. If anything, now that I've met your father, I want to go through with it even more. He's a lovely person, I took to him straight away and I'm so sorry that he's ill.'
'He likes you too.'
'And that's what makes this pretence so difficult. I just wish we could do this without deceiving him---and without all the fuss.'
The sudden shake in her voice, the way she sipped hastily at her drink, gave her away.
'You're scared?'
Her eyes looked like dark green ponds, deep and shadowed, as she glanced up at him.
'Aren't you? No, I suppose not. You must be used to all this---a wedding in the cathedral, pictures for the press. Do we really have to have a reception for all the village?'
'It isn't what I thought was ahead of me, remember. I always thought this would be Diego's role in life. That as the eldest son and heir, he'd be the one going through the ceremonial wedding. But, yes, I'm afraid we do have to put up with it. They'll expect it. It comes with the territory---marrying into a branch of the royal family, however small and obscure. Though in our case, it's more like a twig.'
The tiny, half-hearted smile that flashed on and off her face left him in little doubt how she was feeling. Inwardly he cursed his mother's over-enthusiasm for the wedding plans that had had her launching into them as soon as they had sat down for dinner. But then Dona Elvira had been looking forward to this moment for years. And she had no idea of the secret undercurrents running through the situation. The delicious cold gazpacho soup had barely been served before she had started a discussion on dresses and flowers and bridesmaids.
'Hey, it's not that bad.'
'Isn't it?'
She swung away from him, headed for the small settee beside the huge stone fireplace. The fact that she sat staring fixedly into the empty hearth told its own story, and Luis saw that her teeth were worrying at her bottom lip.
'Isabella---don't.'
He came to sit beside her, lifted an arm to put it round her shoulders, then changed his mind. A moment later he changed it back again and let his arm fall, his hand closing over the fine bones of her arm.
'You'll be fine. And I'll be there with you.'
That brought her head round sharply, her expression startled.
'Will you?'
'Where the hell else would I be? After all, it's my wedding too. And perhaps this will help make you feel better.'
Isabelle could only stare numbly as Luis pulled a box from his pocket and took out a spectacular diamond ring. She didn't resist as he took her hand and pushed the ring onto the appropriate finger where it fitted perfectly.
'How---how did you know my size?'
His mouth took on a cynical twist.
'I remembered it. I have bought you a ring before, remember?'
How could she forget when the ring in question hung on a slender chain around her neck, nestling safe inside an identical but much larger one. The ring she had placed on his finger on their wedding day. The ring he had thrown at her in such a fury on the day he had walked out of her life.
'I always promised you a proper engagement ring. We were in such a hurry to get married that you never had one before.'
'And this is very definitely a proper engagement ring.'
And then, when she was totally emotionally unready to do so, she recalled his comment at the door of the castle. 'You know only too well how to make me happy, mi angel,' he had said. 'And if you're good, I'll prove it to you tonight.' And with a sickening lurch of her heart she knew why he was here.
'So when do I start reimbursing you for this? Because I presume you expect me to earn it with some sort of payment in kind.'
Her question earned her a glare of angry reproof, one that made her shift uncomfortably on the brocade couch.
'It comes with no conditions attached,' he growled angrily. 'I gave it to you because my parents would know something was amiss if I didn't. They would expect my fiancée to be wearing a ring---I have provided one. Our story would not ring true otherwise.'
It was controlled, so emotionless that it stabbed at her vulnerable heart. It was impossible not to contrast his behaviour now with the ardent, impulsive proposal of marriage he had made just over two years before.
'But our story isn't true, is it, Luis? I don't see why we can't just tell them---'
The look on his face, the dark anger that blazed in his eyes, stopped her dead.
'Tell them what, mi angel? Do you really want me to explain to my parents why we split up in the first place? Shall I tell them that you were found in bed with another man only a few weeks after we were married?'
'I told you---!'
'I know what you told me, but forgive me...' Luis laced the words with an acid that turned them into the exact opposite of any genuine attempt at an apology '...I prefer to believe the evidence of my own eyes.'
'The evidence you were supposed to believe! It was a setup!'
Luis's dark frown dried her mouth, stilled her impetuous tongue.
'Was Rob Michaels in your bed?' he questioned harshly, every bit the counsel for the prosecution.
'Yes.'
It was barely a whisper but there was nothing she could say except the truth. She had woken up to find Rob in her bed, but she had had no idea how he had got there. Her memory of the night before had been decidedly hazy as the result of a very bad cold and some medication she had taken. And before she had had a chance to demand to know what he'd been doing there, the whole world had blown up in her face.
She shuddered miserably as her mind replayed snatches from that terrible night. The sound of a key in the lock. The door swinging open. The light snapping on.
And there, framed in the doorway, with a face as black as a thundercloud, bronze eyes molten in fury---Luis. Her husband.
'And why is lying to my parents so very hard? After all, you have lied to me about much more important things.'
'I never...'
Her face was pale, her green eyes huge above colourless cheeks. He had the fight of his life with himself not to take her in his arms and tell her it was all right, that it didn't matter.
He forced himself to continue.
'Did you not swear to me that you loved me more than life itself? That you could never imagine yourself with anyone else, loving anyone else...'
His voice lowered, became a deadly, vindictive hiss.
'Sleeping with anyone else.'
It was crueller than any slap in the face. All the more so because it had been delivered in such a quiet, controlled voice. But then she looked into his eyes and to her shock it was not anger or cruelty that she saw there, but the soul-deep pain of betrayal.
'I've told you...'
'I know what you've told me. But until you can come up with something better than, "It was a set-up," I'm sorry, but I cannot believe you.'
The last thing he sounded was sorry, Isabelle reflected miserably. Instead his tone was icily cold, laced with a bitter control she couldn't see her way past. Unable to bear the way that the same dark feeling showed in his gaze, she pressed her hands to her face for a moment, covering her own eyes with them.
'I had a heavy cold,' she said from behind her concealing fingers, putting all the conviction she could muster into the words, willing him to believe them. 'Catalina gave me something for it and I went to bed early. The next thing I knew was when I woke up when you came into the room.'
'A room that was locked from the inside. I had to go down to Reception and get the master key.'
'Rob must have locked it.'
'And how did he get inside in the first place?'
'I don't know!'
Isabelle snatched her hands away from her face, flinging them out in a wild gesture to emphasise her words.
'I don't know.'
It wasn't enough. She could read it in his dark, shuttered face, the way his eyes were hooded under half-closed lids. He didn't believe her. And really, deep down, she knew she couldn't blame him.
Would she have believed him if the positions had been reversed? If she had been the one coming home late from a long trip to London to see her brother and she had walked in on Luis, naked, in bed with someone else---with Catalina, for example. Would he have been able to convince her that it was all perfectly innocent? That he had fallen asleep alone and woken up to find the other woman in his bed?
It sounded impossible and totally unbelievable. And she knew that she would have reacted just as he had done. That she would have walked away in a black fury of pain and betrayal and never looked back.
'Luis, we'd had a row...'
'I know what had happened. You do not have to remind me. We argued and so---so what? You punished me by sleeping with the first man who asked?'
'You can't believe that!'
No, Luis admitted privately, she was right, damn it! He couldn't believe it. He hadn't then and he couldn't now. If anyone had asked him, he would have sworn on his life that Isabelle loved him. That she would always be faithful. That was why finding her with Michaels had hit him so hard that he had thought he would go crazy, do something totally unforgivable, if he hadn't got out of there at once.
'It was what you threatened to do,' he said dully. 'And Rob Michaels had been sniffing around you for weeks.'
Isabelle winced away from his words, and the pain she could hear behind them, wishing she could deny the truth, but knowing that she could not.
'It was an empty threat. I never meant it. Certainly not like that. I was angry---hurt. It was my birthday, Luis.'
Her tone pleaded for understanding.
'My first birthday with you and you spent it away from me.'
'I had no choice; you knew that. My father was only in London for that day. I had to see him to try to bridge some of the distance that had come between us. I had no other opportunity.'
She understood that now, Isabelle admitted to herself, but then, barely twenty-one, and still in the throes of the first obsessive, possessive love for her new husband, she had been unwilling to share him with anyone, even his family. She had insisted he stay with her---or at least take her with him. And when he had refused she had lost her temper.
'All right, go!' she had flung at him, blind to the danger signs of his tightly set mouth, the tension in his hard jaw, the muscle that had flickered just above it. 'Go if you want, and leave me on my own! But don't expect me to stay on my own! If you won't be with me on my birthday, I'll find someone else who will.'
It had been a hollow threat, bad-tempered, childish and petulant, and she had never dreamed that it might rebound on her so appallingly, until it had been too late.
'I can see that now, Luis,' she admitted miserably. 'And I was very stupid, very selfish---but that's all I was. Please don't hate me for being stupid.'
'I don't.'
He didn't hate her.
Dios, didn't she know that he could never hate her? That was the reason she could get to him so badly. The reason why he'd had to come to England when he'd got that letter. He'd tried to convince himself that he never wanted to see her again, but the truth was that he had never felt anything so terrible as the fear that he might lose her for good. And he'd endured that fear twice now.
'Why do you think you are here? I forgave you---'
'Forgave!'
Isabelle couldn't believe what she was hearing and her distress was a savage wound in her heart as she faced the way her hopes had been lifted, only to be dashed right down in the next second. She could hardly bear to look into his face, to see the way he had stiffened, the golden eyes narrowing, his jaw setting hard and tight.
How could he have taken her so close to the future she had dreamed of and then snatched it away again? She felt as if she had been given a glimpse of heaven, only to have the door slammed right in her face.
'I didn't want forgiveness for something I didn't do! I wanted trust! The sort of trust that doesn't need proof---that believes in me completely and totally. And if you can't give me that, then our marriage has no future and we might just as well forget the whole thing!'
That got through to him. It slashed straight through everything else he had been feeling, stabbed straight to the heart. And in that moment he knew that, two years before, he had made the worst, most appalling mistake of his life.
There had always been something he had kept coming back to, something he hadn't been able to quite put his finger on, and it had disturbed him, nagged at him throughout the past two years. Now he knew he wouldn't be able to rest until he'd cleared the whole matter up. And if he had been wrong, then he'd spend the rest of his life making it up to Isabelle.
'I don't want to forget it,' he muttered harshly.
Isabelle didn't know how to take that.
'Oh, Luis, mi marido, mi amor...'
'No!'
He couldn't bear those words. Not now. Not when he feared that he had wronged her so badly.
Pushing himself to his feet, he swung halfway across the room, needing to put a physical distance between them that matched the emotional one he had let grow because of his stupid hurt pride.
'Don't call me that. Not now.'
Isabelle knew her mistake as soon as the words had left her lips, and desperately, hopelessly, wished them back, knowing there was no chance of salvation.
Beside her she had felt Luis's hard length tense, freezing in shock, and then, agonisingly, the immediate, inevitable swift withdrawal, the movement away that spelled out his rejection, tearing her heart in two.
'Luis, mi marido, mi amor...' The first few words of Spanish he had taught her. The most important words, he had said. If she never learned any other phrases, then these would do. They would say all she ever needed to say to keep him happy.
But one night she had used those words and known they would never have the same effect again. That even if she handed her heart to him at the same time, he would never, ever believe that she loved him.
They had been the last words she had shouted after him on that dreadful night when he had arrived back unexpectedly and found her and Rob, in bed together. She had tried to explain but he had turned from her as he was doing now, his eyes dark with rejection. And so she had screamed the only words she had thought might bring him back.
But they had had as little effect as they were having now. His face had closed up, steel shutters seeming to slam shut behind his eyes, cutting him off from her completely. And he had walked out of her life---for good, it had seemed.
The words swung round and round in Luis's head, gaining a new and terrible bitterness with every repetition.
My husband, my love... Once he had longed to hear her say them as often as she could. He would have sworn that he would never grow tired of them. That he could never hear anything that would have made him happier.
Until one bitter dawn when he had heard her shout them after him down a long, shadowy hotel corridor as he'd walked away from the terrible sight of her and her lover in bed together.
He hadn't been able to bear to stay a second longer then. He had had to get away---fast---just as he had to now. If he stayed, then he would surely give himself away completely, by letting her know just how he was feeling. And the truth was that he was such a mess, such a knot of tangled emotions deep inside, that he didn't know what to say to her.
'L-Luis...' Isabelle tried, but her voice failed her completely, shrivelling into nothing as he turned back to her and she saw the tightness of every muscle in his face, the blank, opaque eyes.
'Perdón,' he said stiffly. 'Forgive me, but I cannot...'
My husband, my love. But if he had loved her enough he would have stayed. He would have listened. He would have trusted.
He had done no such thing. He had failed her. And now he would have to live with his conscience for having wronged her so badly.
'You were right, Isabella,' he went on harshly. 'Perhaps we should forget the whole thing. I will not trouble you again.'
Not until he could prove to her that he believed in her the way she needed him to.
'But, Luis...' Isabelle began, but she was speaking to empty air.
Without even another glance in her direction, Luis had marched from the room and she could only stare in silent desperation as the door swung to behind him.
'Forgive me, but I cannot...' His cold, stiff words seemed to hang in the air, freezing, like the cruel hand that gripped her heart.
'I cannot...' What? If he could never forget what had happened, then what possible hope of a future was there?
CHAPTER SIX
'ALL alone, my dear?'
'What?'
Isabelle looked up in surprise, struggling to drag herself into the present as Luis's father came towards her along the stone-flagged terrace.
'Is that son of mine neglecting you?'
'He---he had business to attend to. Something about one of the vineyards.'
It was an excuse that would do as well as any other, she told herself. It was the one Luis had used to explain his absences at first.
But lately he had stopped doing even that. He had just headed out at the start of the day, some mornings even before she was awake, and he was more often than not very late back.
'The vineyards can take care of themselves.' The duke frowned into the sun. 'Luis should be here.'
'He will be,' Isabelle put in hastily, hoping she sounded more confident than she actually felt. 'I think he just wants to make sure that everything is in order before we leave on our honeymoon.'
A honeymoon that was now not so far away. The days since she had come to Spain had flashed by so fast that she could hardly believe she had been here a month or more now. Every day had been taken up with some sort of planning or preparation for the wedding so that she had barely had time to think.
And if she was honest, she'd been grateful for the endless round of fittings, consultations, coffee mornings, visits to relatives that had filled her time and taken her away from Luis's disturbing absences and his even more disturbing presence in the brief times he had actually spent in the castle.
'How are you feeling today?'
Don Alfonso always looked pale, and his tall frame hadn't an ounce of spare flesh on it. But the bronze eyes that were so like his son's were bright and alert these days, his energy belying his state of health.
'I feel fine,' he assured her now, a smile lighting up his face. 'So I was wondering if you'd like that history lesson now.'
'The tour of the gallery?' Isabelle was already on her feet. 'I'd love to.'
It was something that she and the duke had discussed some days before. From the first, Isabelle had been fascinated by the long gallery of portraits of the de Silva family, ancestors of Luis, long-ago dukes and duchesses, dating right back to the time of the Spanish Inquisition. She had wanted to learn more about them, but the time had never been quite right.
The afternoon passed in total absorption. As Don Alfonso had said, this was a history lesson, but the characters involved were his family. Luis's family. Her family by marriage now. And for the first time she had a real sense of how Luis must feel, with the weight of all that lineage behind him.
'It must be amazing to know that you have ancestors who were brothers or sisters of kings,' she said when a couple of hours later they made their way back down the long, sweeping stone staircase into the main hall again.
'It's an honour and a responsibility,' the duke added sombrely. 'Our family has great wealth but we also owe a great deal to our heritage and should never treat it lightly.'
'Living here must make you feel like that. Knowing that this castle has been in the family for so many hundreds of years.'
'And it will be into the future too. That has always been my dream. That is why in our family marriage and children are so important. When Diego died, I thought...'
He caught himself up, shaking his head, the golden eyes dimmed for a moment, but then he reached for Isabelle's hand and squeezed it gently.
'But your marriage to Luis will ensure that our line will go on. Your children will inherit the dukedom. Yours and Luis's.'
The words caught Isabelle on the raw, stirring uncomfortable memories of yet another reason for her distress over the past weeks. Even the blazing passion that had flared between herself and Luis on that first night in York seemed to have died. He hadn't even come to her room, hadn't shared her bed since they had arrived.
There was a discreet cough behind them, a maid trying to get their attention.
'Don Alfonso... You have a visitor. Señorita del Bosque.'
'Catalina? I thought she was in America.'
Something in the way the older man said the name, his expression as he looked towards the room the maid had indicated, betrayed the way he was feeling. He would never admit to being tired, but clearly he had had enough.
'Shall I see what she wants?' Isabelle suggested. 'I met Catalina once---back in England. I'll talk to her if you like.'
Her reward was another of those charming, warm smiles that twisted in her heart with the memories they revived. Memories of the days when she had first met Luis. When his smile had been so swift and so delightful, so easily won.
'If you wouldn't mind, my dear. I would appreciate it.'
'Why are you sitting here in the dark?'
Luis's voice coincided with the snapping on of the light, startling Isabelle so that she jumped nervously, wide green eyes turning to where he stood in the doorway.
'I---I was thinking.'
She looked distant, Luis thought, as if her mind was somewhere else. And there was something in the way she sat, a lack of colour in her cheeks, the unsmiling mouth, that made him tense instinctively. He could almost scent trouble in the air but he had no idea where it came from.
'Thinking about what?'
'The wedding.'
It was the easy answer because she wasn't yet ready to tell him the truth. What she had thought would simply be a social chat with Catalina had turned into something that had rocked her whole world. Something she didn't yet know how to handle. For one thing, she needed to be sure, to know that it was actually fact. And to do that, she had to test the water first.
'Oh, that.'
He had thought it would be more. The realisation that that was all it was should have relaxed him, but there was still something about the atmosphere in the room that did nothing to ease his unsettled frame of mind.
'So, what's been on your busy schedule today?'
Luis strolled into the room and settled himself in the chair opposite Isabelle, leaning back tiredly.
'Did you have another fitting for the wedding dress of the year? Or perhaps an important meeting to decide about the colour of flowers?'
'Actually, today I didn't have anything planned. Most things are just about in hand.'
Isabelle was frankly surprised by the bite in Luis's voice. Anyone would have thought that he was---jealous was the word that sprang to mind. But that couldn't possibly be true.
'Good. Then perhaps in that case you might like to consider having lunch with me tomorrow? Maybe even spending the day together?'
'Well---yes---if that's what you want.'
If his mood had surprised her, then this invitation rocked her even more. It broke into the routine they had established. The routine that she had thought worked well. The routine that she believed was the way Luis wanted to run things.
After lying awake late into the long, lonely hours before dawn on her first night in the castle, after Luis had walked out on her, she had finally come to a decision. There was only one way that she could handle this situation. One way that she could behave so that she could get through the days being the wife Luis wanted and still keep any sort of hold on her sanity and her feelings.
She was going to have to pretend. She was going to have to put on the act of her life and draw on every last ounce of her dramatic ability and training if she was to be in the least bit convincing.
She would have to play the newly engaged fiancée, still starry-eyed in the first throes of love. The prospective bride who had every happiness to look forward to and who was planning the wedding of her dreams with heartfelt delight, while all the time she knew that the man she loved felt nothing for her but the dark physical passion that had ensnared both of them on the night he had come to find her in York.
And she had thought that she might just manage that. Or at least she had done, until today.
Until Catalina had appeared and let her in on a couple of bitterly painful truths.
'It isn't a matter of what I want,' Luis growled. 'More that my parents are hardly going to believe we're hopelessly in love with each other if we rarely spend as much as half an hour in each other's company except at mealtimes.'
'You're the one who's always out--- "on business",' Isabelle pointed out. 'And there's a lot to do to plan a wedding---especially the sort of wedding your mother has in mind.'
'It has seemed to be the only thing you think about.'
It had been impossible to get near her, in fact, Luis thought. Looking back over the past three weeks, it seemed she had been almost constantly occupied, dashing here to choose table decorations, or there to look at flowers.
She had been perfectly polite and pleasant, but somehow ethereal. Being with her had been like trying to grab hold of a soap bubble. Just when he thought he had it in his hands it would burst and disintegrate into nothing.
They barely spoke at all. At least not about anything important. And because he had vowed that he wouldn't touch her until he believed he had the right, all other forms of communication were closed to them too.
'Your mother wants everything to be perfect.'
'I know.'
Luis's sigh was low, despondent, and his bronze eyes clouded as he stared at the floor.
'She's putting her heart and soul into this wedding because it will be the only one,' he said, unknowingly reviving memories of the way the duke had spoken earlier. 'She always dreamed of planning Diego's wedding too.'
'That must be hard for all of you.'
Something had put an edge into her voice, drawing his frowning gaze to her face, but she simply returned his look with a blank one of her own as she continued.
'I know how you felt about your brother. It must have been a terrible day for you all when he died.'
'I thought my father would never recover.'
Luis raked his free hand through the black silk of his hair, the shiny black strands catching the sunlight as they fell back over his high forehead.
'Since then I've felt I've had to be both sons for him.'
'He's looked better recently. Brighter and happier.'
'He sees the hope of a future and that gives him something to keep going for. You've done that for him.'
'Not just me---it's both of us together. And the wedding.'
She flexed shoulders that were tight with tension and closed her eyes briefly against the sting of tears. She would have given the world not to believe what Catalina had told her, but with every word that Luis spoke the dread grew darker, her fears stronger that the Spanish woman had spoken nothing but the truth.
'You're not enjoying it?' Luis had misinterpreted the reasons for her low spirits. 'I would have thought that for any woman the chance to have a wedding dress specially designed by a Paris couturier, a wedding in a cathedral, would be like a dream come true.'
The dream come true, Isabelle reflected sadly, would be to know that the man she was marrying loved her as much as she loved him. With that, the simplest, most inexpensive wedding would be perfect, and without it all the money in the world couldn't provide compensation for what was missing.
'For some people, perhaps,' she said slowly, keeping her eyes lowered so as not to have to look into his darkly devastating face. 'But if you want to know the truth, then I much preferred our first wedding in that little chapel in York.'
'Walking to the church in the rain?' Frank disbelief rang in Luis's voice, stilling the restless movement of Isabelle's hand on the arm of her chair.
'It was only a little shower. Not even a drizzle really.'
And she had been so happy that she hadn't noticed the weather at all. The sky might have been dull and grey but in her heart there had been nothing but sunshine and her feet had felt as if they weren't touching the ground, as if she were floating down the damp pavements towards her destiny.
'And I was so thrilled when I found that dress in a boutique sale. What?' she asked in some surprise when his head came up, bronze eyes fixed on her face.
'I was just remembering how wonderful you looked in it,' Luis told her, his voice rough as if it came from a painfully dry throat. 'So beautiful, so fresh and innocent.'
Even when he had thought he hated her, he had never been able to erase from his mind the memory of that moment when he had turned and seen her walking down the aisle of the tiny chapel, wearing the simple white cotton dress, carrying a single rose by way of a bouquet. Her golden hair had gleamed in a soft halo around her glowing face, her lips had been curved into a smile of pure delight, and her eyes had never looked so brilliant, shining a wonderful, emerald green.
'Your Paris designer is going to have to work hard to do any better.'
'I don't think he'll do better---it'll just be different. In the same way that this reception for five hundred will be so different from...'
'From the picnic by the river?' Luis supplied when, overcome by memory, she couldn't supply the words. 'That was something else.'
'At---at least the sun had come out by then.'
The darkness in his eyes was tying her nerves into tight, painful knots. Looking into his handsome face now, she was suddenly taken back to that day, remembering the happiness, the hope for the future, she had felt then.
'I couldn't believe my luck,' Luis went on, his voice growing even deeper on each word. 'I kept looking across at you and thinking--- She's my wife. That's my wife.'
Abruptly his expression changed, a deep frown bringing his black brows together.
'Should I have made it different for you, Isabella? Should I have swallowed my pride, forgotten the arguments I'd had with my father and brought you here, married you...'
'In a wedding like the one we're having now? Do you want the truth, Luis?'
The memory of Catalina's words that afternoon came back to haunt her, stiffening her pride and tightening her voice.
'Because if you do, then the answer is no. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I loved you so much then. Couldn't have been happier... This wedding can never be the same. And neither can our marriage.'
'Okay, maybe we can never go back to that innocent, idyllic time, but perhaps we can find something to put in its place.'
'What sort of something?'
'Well...'
Abruptly Luis caught himself up, a prey to a sensation of doubt, as cold and sneaking as if a cloud had just passed in front of the sun.
I loved you, she had said. Not I love you. He wanted to tell her everything that was in his heart. Let her know that the past didn't matter---that all that mattered was her and the way he felt about her. But if he did---and she didn't feel the same way...
'Something' of that feeling was all she wanted back. Not the whole, heartfelt loving that had once been the most essential part of his life.
Better not to rush things. Better to take it one step at a time. To offer only a part of what he was feeling and then see where that took them. At least then, if she couldn't give him the same love back, he wouldn't risk the pain of loss all over again. It had taken him two long years to get over that sensation, the feeling that she hadn't loved him as he had loved her. He didn't think he could ever recover from it a second time.
So he caught back the impulsive declaration he had been about to make, stamping down on the protestations of love and belief in her, and instead substituted a careful, controlled explanation of the future they might have.
'We could have a future together---children...'
Her reaction was not at all as he had anticipated.
'Children? You want children?'
Any hope she'd had that she'd been wrong, that Catalina had lied, died as soon as she looked into his face. Suddenly too much on edge to stay still, she got to her feet, pacing restlessly about the room.
'Of course I want children. I told you---I want a proper marriage and everything that it entails.'
'Your father wants you to have children too. I get the impression that he'd like us to have them as soon as possible.'
Luis nodded swift agreement.
'I think it's the most important thing in the world to him.'
Abruptly Luis got to his feet, moving to stare out of the huge arched window through which the vast gardens of the castle could just be seen in the moonlight. His head was bent slightly, his shoulders hunched, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.
'I really believe that he is holding on because of his dream of grandchildren. That he is fighting harder because he wants to stay alive for that.'
There, it was out. He had never thought that he would ever tell anyone the truth of his beliefs. But he had not been able to hold the words back. Somehow being with Isabelle again had broken into the reticence that was so much a part of his relationship with his parents. To her he had been able to say the things he had never been able to say to his mother or anyone else.
'You could be right.'
Her voice behind him was surprisingly soft. He turned slowly back to face her.
'A positive attitude seems to be a very strong weapon in the fight against such illnesses.'
'You sound as if you know about such things.'
'My grandmother---the one who brought me up after my parents were killed in that motorway pile-up---had cancer. She refused to give in to it. Believe me, I know what you're going through.'
'Then you'll see why it matters to me too. He started talking about my getting married as soon as he knew I would be his heir. His one wish is to see the future of the de Silva dynasty secure---the prospect of grandchildren to inherit the dukedom when he is gone. That's why Diego's death hit my father hardest of all. He had been grooming my brother as his successor. Now he had to start all over again.'
He didn't have to elaborate on what had put that note into his voice. Isabelle remembered only too well how he had told her of the way his father, Duke Alfonso, had always favoured his elder son. As an adolescent and a young man, Luis had rebelled against both this and the formal dignity of his position. That was why he had been in England, taking any unskilled job he could, in the first place.
Isabelle had never dreamed that the charming drifter with the melting eyes and equally liquid accent, who worked as a waiter in a wine bar, was actually a member of one of the noble houses of Spain, only a step away from the royal family. By the time he'd told her, she had already fallen totally in love with him.
'So, naturally, you wanted to please him.'
A quick, abrupt inclination of his head indicated agreement.
'And make what time he has left happy. In one way, it would be no hardship. I am of an age when most men think about settling down, having a family, and I certainly want children some day.'
'But...' Isabelle supplied when he paused, uncharacteristically hunting for words.
Because there had to be a but. It was there in his sudden hesitation, in the clouding of those brilliant eyes, the way his mouth clamped tight shut.
'No, don't bother, Luis---I'll say it for you, shall I? It would have been no hardship but for the fact that you are already married. To a thoroughly inconvenient sort of a wife. The sort of a wife that you thought you had got rid of, left behind you, years ago, and you never wanted to see again.'
She had never expected him to deny it, but, even so, his silence as she paused to draw breath had an effect like a blow to her face. He didn't even trouble to confirm her suspicions, simply stood there, regarding her stonily, no flicker of emotion on his dark features.
It was stupid, she knew, frankly naïve to have hoped for anything else. But she had hoped, she realised now. She had hoped that every word Catalina had said was a lie. That the inheritance of the dukedom had nothing to do with why Luis had wanted her back. And now she was being punished for that bit of presumptuous ingenuousness by the sharp slash of pain in her heart.
'So why, then? Why am I here?'
'You know why you're here.'
'No, I don't!'
She had thought she'd known. Had believed that even if he didn't love her the way that she loved him, then at least he had wanted her desperately---so much so that he couldn't live without her. But what Catalina had said had destroyed even that delusion.
'I mean, I know you needed a wife, but did it have to be me? Why not just get rid of the problem once and for all? I was asking for a divorce---why not just give me one? Why not divorce me and marry someone else---someone much more suitable?'
'Divorce wouldn't have been possible in this case, because our religion forbids it---certainly if I am to inherit my father's position. I cannot be divorced and also be Duque de Madrigalo.'
Isabelle almost doubled up under the impact of the brutal pain. The words were almost an exact echo of the sneering declaration that Catalina had made.
'Luis needs a wife. You're the only wife he has, and as his religion doesn't accept divorce---not if he is to inherit the dukedom---then you'll have to do. It's that simple.'
That simple and that appalling.
'And so you were forced to come to me? To ask me to come back to you.'
'I need you,' he had said. And he had sounded as if the words had had to be dragged out of him. As if he had hated speaking every single syllable.
'Isabella...'
'Are you going to tell me it had nothing to do with it? Because quite frankly I won't believe you. Your father made it plain that he believes marriage and the creation of heirs are your duty.'
'That's the way he sees it.'
'And you don't?'
He actually winced at the acid sarcasm in her tone.
'What do you expect me to say? That it never entered my head? We both know that would be a lie. But there was more to it than that.'
All he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and show her just how much more there had been to it. If he could just hold her, kiss away her anger and her fear, she might listen to him. Perhaps he could even tell her how close he was to proving it. But it was as if there were a glass wall between them, and her face had a frozen, hostile look that forced him to hold back. Her beautiful green eyes were just chips of emerald, icy and distant.
And the damn foolish vow he had made to himself also held him back.
'Of course there was more!'
From the black depths of her memories came the unwanted and unwelcome recollection of the night when they had made love. She could hear his voice, rich with dark satisfaction, when he had held her close.
'Now you know exactly why I want you back.'
Oh, yes, she knew all right.
She had let herself dream of a chance of starting again, of building a future together. But what would that future be based on?
Sex. That was all. She'd even been deceiving herself when she'd let herself call it making love. She knew different now. That deeply satisfied tone had told its own story. It had been rich with dark triumph, smug with the confidence of the conqueror. Luis had wanted her back to please his father, but once he had seen her he had wanted her for himself too. He had admitted as much. And she knew that what he wanted her for was sex.
He didn't want her as a wife, except in his bed. All he wanted was a warm, responsive body on which to satisfy his own desires, sate his lust. His heart was not involved in any part of this at all.
And she, poor, blind, besotted fool, had been every bit as responsive as he could have wished. She had given him exactly what he wanted. Exactly the sort of wife he had been looking for.
'Isabella...'
Luis was coming towards her. Hastily she backed away, holding up a hand to stop him.
'What does it matter why I wanted you back? You are back---and it's the future that matters from now on. The future we make together.'
He was going to kiss her; she could see it in his eyes. To take her in his arms and kiss all the anger, the defiance out of her. And if he did so then she would be lost. She would never be able to resist him.
'Don't touch me!'
Cold and hard, it stopped him dead, and she forced herself to meet the burn of his amber gaze.
'I don't want you near me. Is that understood?'
He didn't move a muscle. Perhaps something flickered in the depths of his eyes, but that was all.
'Perfectly.' It matched her tone, ice for ice.
'I don't want to talk about this---or anything---any more. I'm going to bed now---alone.'
If he had fought her, she didn't know what she would have done. But he made no move at all. Just stood and watched her as, with her blonde head held high, her back stiffly straight, she stalked past him and headed up the stairs.
She made it to her bedroom without breaking down. But when she sank down on her bed the tears would not hold back any longer. Too weak, too despairing to care, she gave into them and simply let them fall.
One large drop fell onto her hands as they lay on her lap and she wiped it away, her gaze going automatically to the beautiful ring that Luis had given her on her first night in the castle.
He might as well have stamped his brand on her skin, she thought bitterly, as burden her with this expensive proof of his possession. It was almost more than she could bear to think that the perfect diamond that gleamed so brilliantly might only be nothing more than a deception, a pretence, making a mockery of everything it stood for. Deep in her heart she knew that she would have welcomed something a quarter the size and a tenth as expensive if only it had come with the certainty of Luis's love she had once known.
But now it seemed that that love---and even the hope of it---was lost for ever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ISABELLE stared at her reflection in the mirror and wondered just how she was going to get through tonight. Somehow she had to go downstairs to the main ballroom of the castle and greet the hundreds of guests who had gathered there, ready for tomorrow's ceremony. She would have to be polite and friendly, and make small talk, but most of all she would have to smile.
And smiling was the last thing she felt like doing.
It was impossible not to contrast the way she was feeling now with the excitement that had fizzed through every cell in her body on the night before what she now thought of as her 'real' wedding, two years before, in York. Then she hadn't been able to keep still, but had fidgeted from one task to another, too restless to settle to anything.
And as for smiling... Then her mouth had been stretched in one huge, permanent grin, and her eyes had sparkled in sheer joy and delight.
'Try!' she muttered now, directing the words furiously at her reflection. 'Try and smile! You look like you're going to a funeral, not a wedding party!'
But when she did try, then the exaggerated curve she forced onto her mouth looked like the painted-on grimace of a circus clown, totally unconvincing. And the green eyes that looked back at her were as dark and clouded as a mossy pool, no light showing in their depths.
'Wait for me in your room,' Luis had commanded in his phone call from who knew where earlier that day. 'I'll come and fetch you and we'll go downstairs together.'
A month ago, he had promised to be at her side throughout the ceremonies and the social events that would lead up to this wedding of theirs, and then she had been so happy, so thankful to think of his support that it had seemed, if not a sign of love, then at least an indication of some sort of caring enough to want to help her.
But in the days since then, everything seemed to have gone downhill so fast that it had made her head spin. After last night, Luis had withdrawn from her so completely that it was as if he had become a total stranger. And this afternoon he had simply disappeared, giving no reason for his absence, and he had delayed his return for so long that she had been forced to wonder if in fact he would be here tonight at all.
'Isabella!'
The knock at the door, the sound of her name startled her out of her miserable reverie. Of course it could only be one man. Biting her lip in an attempt to bring some colour into its bloodless shape, she hurried to answer his summons.
She was unprepared for the impact of his appearance. It had only been hours since she had seen him, but for some reason it was like seeing him for the first time in a long, long while. She had never before seen him in the formal elegance of evening dress, and the superb tailoring suited his tall form with stunning style. The cut of the jacket emphasised the width of his straight shoulders and broad chest. The trousers enhanced the narrow waist and hips, the long, long legs. And against the stark black and white, the deep bronze of his skin and the burning amber eyes stood out even more than ever.
'Bueno, I'm glad to see that you are ready,' Luis declared without any other form of greeting. 'And you look stunning in that dress.'
'Gracias.'
She resorted to one of the few words of Spanish she had learned in the hope of keeping her emotions under control. It was the first hint of approval she had heard in his voice for days and it brought hot tears springing into her eyes.
'I'm glad you like it.'
'I more than like it.'
The flare of desire in his eyes told its own story and one long, tanned hand lifted in an autocratic gesture, indicating that she should turn slowly in order to display the dress fully to him.
Her head came up as she obeyed him, a touch of pride coming into her own eyes. She knew that the deep rose-pink silk suited her, its rich colour warm against the creamy pallor of her skin. The fitted strapless bodice emphasised the narrowness of her ribcage and her waist, the swelling fullness of her breasts, and the long, flowing skirt enhanced her slender height.
'Hermosa,' Luis breathed when she finally came full circle to face him once again. 'You look lovely, but that dress needs a little something...'
From his jacket pocket he slid a slim, leather jewellery box and held it out.
'Wear this for me tonight.'
His tone startled her. When she had anticipated command, there was an unexpected softness in his voice and his golden eyes seemed to scorch her skin as he watched her take the box and flip it open.
'Luis...'
All words escaped her. Her eyes were blinded by the fierce glitter of diamonds, accentuated by the sudden burn of tears.
The necklace was a glorious river of jewels, delicate and spectacular, and the earrings that went with it were like the cascading tumble of a waterfall, curved and sparkling.
'They---they're perfect. But, really, I don't need...'
'Put them on,' Luis commanded huskily. 'I bought them with that dress in mind.'
He had known how they would look, he thought as he watched her move to the mirror, fix the earrings in place. He had imagined as soon as he saw them just how the diamonds would glow against the peach softness of her skin, the earrings falling in a scattering of stars from under the shining blonde hair and along the delicate lines of her neck. And the necklace just clasped the base of her throat, then spread out to fill the space above the line of her breasts, drawing attention to the soft beginning of the creamy curves.
'I can't...'
Isabelle was struggling with the fine clasp of the necklace.
'Here, let me.'
It was the first time he had touched her in days. The only time, in fact, since he had come to her room on the night of her arrival in Spain. And because of that Isabelle froze into total stillness at the first brush of his fingertips on her skin.
Everything that was female in her reacted to the tiny physical contact between them, sensation burning through every cell, spreading throughout her body like wildfire. With her head bent, the fall of her blonde hair coming forward to hide her face, she closed her eyes so as to concentrate better on the delicious feelings.
She hadn't realised how hungry she was for his touch until she felt it again and then her response was so instant, so fierce that she was sure he must feel it. That he must be able to sense the change in her breathing, the increased rate of her heart.
The fear of discovery made her flinch inwardly and immediately Luis froze behind her.
'Perdón---I'm sorry,' he muttered roughly, and as she glanced up swiftly her eyes met his in the glass of the mirror.
It was as if someone had tossed a bucket of icy water over a fizzing firework, dousing it immediately. His gaze was so distant, so withdrawn, totally opaque. With what physical closeness they'd had gone, there was nothing there but coldness and total lack of emotion.
It was the first time he had touched her in days. But not because he hadn't wanted to. Because he hadn't felt he had the right to act as her husband physically, until he did so mentally.
I didn't want forgiveness for something I didn't do! I wanted trust! The sort of trust that doesn't need proof---that believes in me completely and totally. Her words had hit him right where it hurt---in his heart.
Trust. He knew he hadn't given her that. He had walked out on their marriage in an agony of rage and hurt pride. He hadn't stopped to listen to see if there could be any other possible explanation, and he had stayed away, nurturing that anger all the time.
His fingers fumbled with the fastening of the necklace and Isabelle shivered slightly.
'Perdón,' he muttered again, automatically glancing into the mirror where he met the wide emerald gaze head-on.
'It doesn't matter.'
Her voice was soft and the look in her eyes made his heart clench sharply. How could he not have seen the truth in those eyes? The way that her soul seemed to shine out from them?
'It matters,' he said roughly. 'I want you to look perfect tonight.'
And then, because he had to hide his body's instinctive, automatic reaction to her, to the touch of the silken fall of her hair, the soft perfume of her skin, he swung away abruptly.
It was either that or take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. Kiss her until both of them were past thought and into the place where only the wild, urgent responses of their bodies mattered. And he'd promised himself that that would not happen---at least not until he'd made everything right. He'd been caught that way before, and he had told himself that it was what would get him through this. Now he saw that in fact it was what had been blurring his vision, blinding him to the truth.
'Luis?'
Isabelle's voice sounded softly from behind him. Clamping down hard on his baser instincts, he forced himself to turn slowly and face her.
In spite of the warmth of the evening, Isabelle felt chilled to the bone. His abrupt reaction had taken all hope with it. He was totally closed off from her. She couldn't even reach him physically. The distance he had put between them told her that.
And who had she to blame for that? Only herself.
Right now, she felt she would trade every bit of her pride for some of his passion if only it meant that he would look at her with something in his eyes. Anything.
'How do I look?'
Molten bronze eyes swept over her in a burning survey and her heart skipped a beat as she saw that she had touched him at last.
'You look wonderful.'
'Fit to be a duke's wife?' Her voice quavered on the question.
'You're fit to be anyone's wife,' he told her deeply. 'The question is more whether they are worthy of you.'
His tone worried her. She didn't understand the raw edge to his voice, the way a muscle jerked just above his jaw.
'What---?' she began but he held up a hand to silence her.
'No more questions, querida. Our guests will be here in half an hour, and before that I have one more thing for you.'
'Something else? Luis, I don't need another gift! I---'
'You need this. And it is not a gift. More like something I have owed you for a long time---far too long.'
'But...'
She frowned her confusion but he shook his dark head firmly.
'No more questions, come and see.'
He held out his hand to her and, unsure but trusting, she put her own into it and felt his fingers close about hers, warm and firm.
He led her out of the room, along the corridor and down the huge, curving flight of stone stairs to the main hall. As she moved beside him, each step in perfect harmony with the other, she couldn't help thinking that tomorrow she would walk with him in much the same way down the long central aisle in the cathedral.
She would be his bride, but not really his wife. She would have his position, his title, but she would not have what she most wanted---his heart.
'Luis,' she began uncertainly. 'You still haven't explained what will happen tomorrow---how things will go. We can't truly be married all over again because the ceremony's been performed. I know you said...'
'That you should leave that with me,' Luis filled in for her when she hesitated. 'And you have nothing to worry about.'
'But what are we going to do?'
'I have spoken to the archbishop and everything is in hand. Forget about it for tonight.'
Forget about it for tonight. The words echoed in his head, mocking him with their hollowness. How could he persuade her to do something that he found totally impossible himself?
Forget. He had thought of nothing else over the past few weeks. Thought only of how to make this marriage of his into a real one in every possible sense. And tonight was make or break time. With his free hand he touched his jacket pocket, heard the faint crackle of paper, and his heart missed a painful beat.
Tonight, he would put his fate in Isabelle's hands, and she would decide once and for all whether there would be any need to trouble the archbishop tomorrow or not. If things went the way he hoped, then tomorrow would be the start of a whole new life for both of them.
But if things didn't work out, then instead of being a beginning, tomorrow would be the exact opposite---an end to this marriage. Because if he couldn't convince her tonight, then he had no hope of ever enjoying a future.
He came to a halt outside the door to the library and forced himself to take hold of the handle and turn it.
'In here---there's someone who wants to meet you.'
'Someone?'
The expression on Luis's face told her that this was not just some new guest, some other member of his family she had yet to meet. His head was held high, his eyes meeting hers with an expression that she had never, ever seen in them before. Under the elegant jacket, his broad shoulders were taut with tension, and his breathing sounded strangely raw and uneven.
'Luis---what is it?'
He didn't answer. Instead he pushed open the door and stood back to let her precede him inside.
'See for yourself...' he said at last.
The woman in the library had her back to them. One arm resting on the ornately carved mantelpiece, she was looking up at a huge oil painting of a long-ago Duke of Madrigalo. But she was instantly familiar. Isabelle had seen that tall, voluptuous figure, the fall of long black hair down her back, only the day before.
Her breath escaped her in a jolting gasp and the room seemed to spin round her sickeningly.
'Catalina!' she managed through lips made dry with shock. 'What are you doing here?'
CHAPTER EIGHT
'WHAT are you doing here?' Isabelle repeated when Catalina didn't answer her, her black eyes going instead to the man still standing in the doorway.
'I...' she began, then obviously lost her nerve.
'Tell her!' Luis rapped out the command like a bullet from a gun.
'Yes---please,' Isabelle murmured. 'Tell me.'
What was Catalina doing here again? Why had Luis brought her? Because clearly Luis had brought her here. That much was obvious from the uncomfortable interplay between the two of them.
Turning to Luis, she was stunned to see he was actually backing out of the room.
'Why?' she began, but Luis shook his head, silencing her.
'This is between you and her. She knows why she's here.'
Isabelle could only watch in confusion as he left the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.
'Why are you here this time?' she tried again with Catalina.
'Are you telling me you don't know?'
Clearly the other woman had regained a little confidence with Luis's departure.
'I thought you'd sent that crazy husband of yours after me and told him to bring me here.'
'But Luis has never even mentioned your name. I never told him you were here.'
'But he already knew. He tracked me down where I was on holiday in America and said he wanted to see me. He even paid my fare back to Spain. That was why I was here yesterday.'
'You came to see Luis, not the duke?'
'I thought he wanted me back. So you can imagine how I felt when I found that you were here.'
The black eyes burned with jealous fury and suddenly Isabelle knew without being told that the story the other woman had told her the day before had been nothing but a lie.
'Luis found out you were here yesterday---and he wants you to tell me that everything you said then was just a pack of lies?' she hazarded nervously.
'That and the rest.' Catalina showed little sign of any repentance. 'He came to me today and told me that he only wanted me back here so I could apologise to you.'
'Apologise. For what?'
But deep down she knew and so, clearly, did Catalina. She looked most uncomfortable, pushing her hands deep into her jacket pockets, then taking them out again, shifting from one foot to another.
'For that night in York.'
And then of course there was no need to explain. They both knew exactly which night she meant. Just remembering, Isabelle shivered faintly.
'He sought you out so that you could prove to him that I was innocent that night?'
To her consternation, the Spanish woman shook her dark head emphatically.
'Now that I could understand. But, no---that's the weird thing. He didn't want me to tell him anything. There was no doubt in his mind that I was behind it all and that I owed you an apology.'
'You?'
Isabelle's head was spinning now. If Luis had brought Rob to her, to apologise, then that she could have coped with. But Catalina?
'Do you know how much I hated you?' The Spanish woman's tone was almost conversational but the way her black eyes flashed, the burn of anger in them, told its own story.
'Hated me?' She had never shown any sign of it. 'But I thought you and Luis had broken up long before.'
'Not long enough. I always thought we'd get back together. That one day we would be married. Dios, how I dreamed of being Duquesa! And you ruined all that! And I vowed I'd have my revenge.'
'You...'
Isabelle was remembering now. Recalling the way she had felt miserable, missing Luis and suffering with a cold.
'The tablets...'
'You thought they were cold relief, but in fact they were sleeping tablets. You were very young---a naïve, gullible fool. And Rob---ah, poor Rob! He was very, very drunk---and he had fancied you for months. It was the easiest thing in the world to persuade him that you had told me you fancied him too---to suggest that he might join you in your hotel room. After all, you had made it plain to anyone who would listen that you and Luis had rowed. All I had to do was to make him promise to lock the door...'
Her words rolled on, but they broke over Isabelle's head, not penetrating her thoughts. Instead, her mind was preoccupied with only one thing. A comment that Catalina had made earlier and that now was fretting at her brain, telling her something important.
'He didn't want any explanations,' she exclaimed suddenly, stopping Catalina dead. 'You said that Luis didn't want you to tell him anything. Just said he knew.'
'I assumed you had told him.'
Isabelle's head came up, a brilliant glow lighting in the emerald depths of her eyes. Her heart was singing, soaring in delight, and she couldn't stop smiling.
'No, I'd told him nothing. Nothing at all.'
Nothing at all. But he had believed in her enough to track down Catalina and bring her back.
He had believed in her!
Whirling round, she picked up her silk skirts and ran. Out of the library. Along the corridor, calling his name as she went.
'Luis! Luis! Where are you?'
Hot tears of joy were blurring her eyes so that she didn't see him coming and ran head first into the hard strength of his body, reeling backwards awkwardly, almost falling to the ground. But powerful hands came out to support her, long fingers closed around her arms, holding her up.
'Isabella, enamorada, what has she done to you? I will kill---'
'No, Luis, no!'
When he would have moved away, furiously intent on finding Catalina, she caught at his arm and held him back.
'No, Luis.'
Half laughing, half sobbing, totally ecstatic, she caught her breath and looked deep into the blazing golden eyes.
'No, Luis, enamorado. There's no need for that.'
His own language got through to him where her English had not. She could feel the jolt of shock that ran through his powerful body, followed by an instant second of relaxation. But then almost immediately he tensed again.
'What did you say?'
Laughter bubbled up into her throat at the sight of his wonderful face looking so stunned, the dazed look in his eyes.
'I said, "Luis, enamorado,"' she repeated. 'What do you think I said?'
'But---do you know what that means?'
'Of course I know what it means! My Spanish isn't that bad! But if you'd prefer it in English, so that you know I know what I'm talking about, and that I mean what I say...'
She laid a gentle hand against the lean plane of his cheek, looked deep into the burning pools of his eyes.
'Luis, my beloved, my dearest, my darling husband. I love you and---'
But the rest of her sentence was stopped in its tracks, kissed away by the passionate assault of Luis's mouth, the pressure of his lips on hers. It was a kiss that scorched through every cell in her body, searing along every nerve, snatching the soul from her body and taking it captive for ever. It drove all thought, all hesitation from her mind so that she kissed him back willingly and happily and gave herself up to the force of his caress, her slender arms up around his broad shoulders, clinging on for much-needed support.
'I love you!' Luis gasped when at last he lifted his head to draw air into his raw lungs. 'I love you---I adore you.'
He punctuated each phrase with another kiss, drugging, mind-numbing, setting her head spinning all over again.
'You are my life, my whole reason for being. I can't believe how totally crazy I was to come so close to losing you.'
He shook his dark head in bitter despair at his own actions.
'I should have believed you, mi angel. Should have known that you could never betray me like that. I've been such a fool. Such a blind, stupid fool.'
'But even I never suspected Catalina,' Isabelle reassured him. 'I was blind there too. And you saw the light in the end. You trusted me, valued me enough to find her.'
'I would have walked barefoot to the end of the earth if it had meant that I could win you back,' Luis vowed and the depth of his words, the intensity of his voice, left her in no doubt about the truth. 'I couldn't have gone on without you. My life would have been empty---nothing.'
Another kiss enchanted her, made her melt against him, her blonde head going back, emerald eyes locking with bronze, oblivious of everything else. It was a long, long time before either of them could speak, but then at last Luis sighed deeply and, fastening one arm around her slim waist, he fitted her tight against him.
'I have a confession to make,' he told her softly.
'A confession?' Isabelle's momentary apprehension faded in the moment that she saw the warmth in his eyes, the glow that lit them from within.
'I would have come to find you anyway,' he told her huskily. 'I already knew that I couldn't stay away any longer. And when I got your letter it gave me just the push I needed. The fear that you might actually want a divorce---that I might lose you---was more than I could bear.'
He was pushing his hand into his pocket as he spoke, pulling out a large white envelope.
'This is for you,' he said gruffly, holding it out to her.
The look deep in his eyes told her how important the contents of that envelope were and her hands shook as she opened it, pulled out the papers it held.
'Luis---what? Divorce papers! But why?'
'If you hadn't believed Catalina when she told you what she'd done. If you'd still thought that the only reason I wanted you back was so that I could one day be the Duke of Madrigalo...then I would never have held you to our marriage. I had the papers drawn up ready just in case they were needed.'
'But that would have meant you... Oh, Luis!'
A choking sob caught in her throat at the thought of the sacrifice he had been prepared to make.
'You would have given up your claim to the title---and all that it entails---for me?'
'The dukedom and all its money, all the privilege, would be nothing without you in my life. Even if my position hadn't meant that I couldn't divorce, I would never even have thought of finding another wife. There could only ever be one woman for me and that is you...'
Once more his mouth took hers, making her moan softly with delight.
'My love for you is a once-in-a-lifetime commitment. I could never, ever marry anyone else.'
'And neither could I,' Isabelle assured him. 'You're the man I gave my heart to the moment I met you---the only man I'll ever love this way.'
But then a thought struck her and she caught hold of his hand, looking up into his handsome face in some concern.
'Luis---the wedding---what are we going to do? What are we going to tell everyone?'
Luis didn't hesitate even for the space of a heartbeat. This was what he had hoped for, what he had prayed might happen if he found Catalina and brought her here to tell the truth. It might prove a little awkward having to explain to his parents and their hundreds of guests, but, with Isabelle at his side, he knew that nothing else would matter.
'We tell them the truth, querida. Nothing else will do.'
Lacing her fingers through his, he gave her hand a quick, warm squeeze and led her down the corridor, across the hall. Pausing outside the door of the huge ballroom, he looked down into her wide green eyes, smiling reassurance into her concerned face.
'Ready?' he asked softly. 'We'll do this as we'll do everything else in our lives from now on---we'll do it together.'
And that 'together' lifted her heart, sending a rush of confidence and courage through her. It straightened her back, brought her head up high, put a light into her already brilliant eyes.
'I'm ready,' she assured him. 'With you at my side---as my husband---how can I ever be anything else?'
As the door of Luis's suite finally closed behind them, Isabelle gave a deep, heartfelt sigh.
It had been a long day. A long, perfect day. The sun had shone from dawn to dusk and there hadn't been a single cloud in the sky. In fact, there hadn't been a single thing to mar the day in the slightest way.
Of course, Luis's announcement that they were already married had caused some shock and consternation, but, once the surprise had died down, no one had truly minded. Instead, every one of their guests had been only too happy to attend the ceremony in the cathedral---only now the ceremony was to mark not their wedding but the renewal of their vows and to have their marriage blessed by the archbishop.
'Tired?' Luis questioned softly, hearing her sigh.
'A little.' Isabelle nodded. 'It is very late.'
In Spanish style, the ceremony hadn't started until seven in the evening and there had been a huge party to which all the village had been invited.
'I've danced my feet off.' She laughed, reaching up to unpin the beautiful lace mantilla she had worn instead of a traditional veil and then rubbing her temples wearily. 'And my ears are still ringing from all the fireworks.'
The first firecrackers had been set off as they had emerged from the cathedral and the explosions had continued all through the night, only dying away, reluctantly, as the faint pink threads of dawn had begun to creep through the night sky.
'It was a wonderful day!'
Through slightly misty eyes she looked down at her hand, softly touching the ring that gleamed there. A new ring for a new beginning.
It was of an unusual design, two hands holding a heart between them. And inside the ring was engraved the words, 'No tengo nada, porque darte.' The design was taken, Luis had told her, from a ring that had been found in a sunken Spanish galleon. And the words meant, 'I have nothing, for it is given unto you.'
'The best day of my life.'
'The best?'
Luis had come behind her, strong fingers stroking the exposed nape of her neck, massaging weary muscles.
'Better even than our first wedding?'
Emerald eyes meeting bronze in the mirror, Isabelle considered thoughtfully, then slowly she nodded.
'Our secret wedding was wonderful---magic---but I was so young then. Little more than a child. I loved you but I was immature and unrealistic, I was just a girl; I didn't really know what I was doing.'
'And now?'
The way that the massaging fingers stilled on the back of her neck told her without words just how important this was to him.
'Now, I know exactly who I am---what I want.'
His slow smile was her reward, and the glow in his eyes intensified a thousandfold.
'And that is?'
In a rustle of fine silk, Isabelle got to her feet and laced her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his in a deeply loving kiss.
'Now I'm a fully grown woman, my darling, with all of a woman's love for my man.'
'Is that a fact? So tell me...'
Once more those tanned fingers were busy behind her back, but this time they were unfastening swiftly and efficiently the silky ribbons that laced up the bodice of her dress.
'How do you feel about showing me exactly what this grown woman's love involves?'
Isabelle's smile grew, became wider, positively beatific.
'I thought you'd never ask. I can't imagine anything I'd like more.'
'A Dios gracias,' Luis muttered fervently. 'Because if I don't make love to you right now I swear I will---'
'You won't have to,' Isabelle interrupted, pushing her fingers into the black silk of his hair and drawing his mouth down to hers for a long, deep, passionate kiss. 'Because I feel exactly the same way.'
And as Luis swept her up into his arms and carried her towards the bed she smiled again in anticipation of the perfect end to a perfect day. It had been a day of public ceremony and public celebration but now, at last, this private time was theirs.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark ownerand/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with theUnited Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisationin the Internal Market and in other countries.
First published in Great Britain 2008by Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Kate Walker 2002
ISBN: 9781408904251

