The Caged Tiger
PENNY JORDAN
Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now.Davina's love had long since died.It had been killed the night she'd given birth to their son while Ruy, her husband, had been dallying with another woman. Only for her child's sake was Davina now returning to Spain, to the aristocratic de Silvadores family - and to Ruy.But a Ruy who was changed beyond belief. What had once been a man of virile strength was now a devil of snarling bitterness confined to a wheelchair. And Davina was not prepared for this new assault on her emotions…
The Caged Tiger
Penny Jordan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u19f7a1a2-ff9c-56f8-9827-7ecd8fe76674)
Title Page (#uede1cf48-ad25-57d6-a716-72250a4100fc)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#uf6e02b02-bada-5155-b32c-f00ec5cd74e5)
IT would be evening before the plane landed in Seville. It had been the only flight she had been able to get at such short notice and during the height of the season. It had been cheaper too, because of a sudden cancellation, but it had been a long day—all that hanging around at Heathrow to make sure they got the seats. She pushed a slim pale hand through her silver-blonde weight of hair, her amethyst eyes clouding as she shifted Jamie’s baby weight from one arm to the other. Baby… She stifled a small smile. At three he considered himself a very grown-up young man. She often had difficulty convincing people that she was actually his mother—not just because she looked younger than her twenty-four years. Her small, slender body looked far too fragile to ever have carried a child. But it had. She wasn’t a fool; she knew that despite the plain gold wedding ring she wore people wondered if she had actually ever been married—if Jamie was not simply the result of a youthful indiscretion. They were wrong, though. She had most emphatically been married; had had a husband… There were still faint traces of his orange juice round Jamie’s mouth, and as she reached into her pocket for a tissue the letter crackled ominously.
She didn’t need to take it out, to look at the heavy, expensive crested paper again. Every word written on it was engraved upon her heart, and had been agonised over ever since the letter arrived a fortnight ago.
Only a fortnight? It felt more like years. The letter was brief, couched in words as dry as dust, making it impossible for her to think it had been written with any feeling. But then it hadn’t. Any feeling that had ever existed between Jamie’s father and herself had long since turned to ashes.
So what was she doing on this plane, flying back to Spain, taking her son to his unknown father?
She glanced down quickly at the sleeping child. Under the baby plumpness lay even now the signs of his recent illness. Enteritis was so frightening in a child—one could do nothing but hope and pray. He was over it now, the doctors assured her, but she was haunted by the fear that another poor summer would lower his resistance to the point where he would be ill again come winter. In Spain he would thrive in the warmth and luxury which were his birthright; his skin would take on the mahogany hue of his father’s, his hair would gleam blue-black as a raven’s wing in, the strong sunshine… Hair that reminded her unbearably at times of Ruy… She stroked it back from his forehead where it had fallen in unruly curls. Even in sleep his profile had a subconscious arrogance inherited from a long line of Spanish hidalgos…
She had done her best for him, but it could never come anywhere near to matching what Ruy could give him. She was lucky in that she had been able to work from home, but her illustrations for children’s books and cards did not bring in enough to keep them in luxury, nor to provide the winter away from the English climate which the doctor had suggested might be as well.
Jamie stirred in his sleep, the almost purple eyes which were what she had passed on to him remaining tightly closed. She had always been honest with him. When she thought he was old enough to understand she had explained that his daddy lived far away in another country, without going into too much detail. He had been curious, but had accepted her matter-of-fact explanations without evincing any surprise or distress. At play-school several of the other children lived alone with their mothers, and he saw nothing odd in their own aloneness. Which was wrong, something inside her told her, as she remembered her own parents’ happy marriage. If a child did not grow up knowing that love could exist between adults of both sexes then how could he in turn pass that knowledge on to his own children?
She was being sentimental, she warned herself. Jamie was unlikely to learn anything good about human relationships from observing hers with his father. Which brought her thoughts back full circle. Why had Ruy written to her? Why did he want his son—now?
She had been so sure when she left that he would find some way of having their marriage set aside—it had been a Catholic ceremony in accordance with his religion, but his family were influential and rich, and there were always ways and means… His mother had never liked the marriage. ‘Liked!’ She almost laughed. It would have been truer to say that her mother-in-law detested her, if one could apply such a word to the ice-cold contempt the Condesa de Silvadores had evinced each time their paths had crossed—and they had been many. The Condesa had seen to that. In the end a million tiny pinpricks could be more fatal than one crippling blow.
The plane landed, and a smiling stewardess helped her with Jamie. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she commented as she held him so that Davina could collect all their possessions, ‘but not a bit like you.’
‘No, he takes after his father,’ Davina answered briefly, trying not to let her voice falter.
The stewardess could not know what the words had cost her. How much it always cost her to admit how much Jamie resembled his father—the father who had never wanted him, who never had seen him; never once sent him a birthday or Christmas present, made no attempts whatsoever to see him–until now. And even now he had left it to his mother—the woman who had always derided and scorned her—to write the letter summoning her back to the Palacio de los Naranjos—the Palace of the Orange Trees—the home of the Silvadores family set among the orange groves from which the family’s fortune was derived and whose scent hung sharply and sweetly on the early morning air.
A shiver trembled through her, and mistaking it for coldness, the stewardess touched her arm, motioning her towards the airport building. Despite the huge number of people who passed through her life daily, something about Davina intrigued the other girl. She looked so frail, spiritual almost, her beauty tinged with a contemplative acceptance that touched the heart far more than any more overt signs of grief. What had happened to her to give her that look? She might have posed for some great painter of the Renaissance. Her expression told of great suffering and resignation, and yet surely she had all the things any woman could want? Youth, beauty, this adorable baby, and somewhere the man who had loved her enough to give her his son.
When they emerged from the Customs hail it was dark. Davina walked out into the soft silkiness of the Spanish night, Jamie in her arms. Spain! How the scents of the night brought back memories. Herself and Ruy wandering hand in hand through the orange groves during their honeymoon, and later, when the moon had risen fully and he had taken her so paganly in that shadowed garden, teaching her and thrilling her until her passion matched his. She had been happy then—deliriously happy, but she had paid for it later. She had thought Ruy loved her, had never realised that to him she was merely a substitute for the girl he had really loved; that he had married her to punish that girl.
In the shadowed garden of his home she had thought she had found Paradise. But every Eden must have a serpent and hers had held Ruy’s mother, the woman who hated her so much that she had deliberately opened her eyes to the truth.
And now Ruy wanted her back—no, not her; it was his son. The only one he was ever likely to have, or so the letter had told her. Jamie was his heir, and his place was with his father, learning all that he must learn if he was to take it successfully. And Davina could not deny it, although she could not understand why Ruy had not been able to get his freedom—Freedom to marry the girl he had loved all along, the girl he had really wanted to be the mother of the son who would succeed him, as Silvadores had succeeded Silvadores in an unbroken line from the sixteenth century onwards.
The letter had said that she would be collected from the airport. A porter brought her cases and she smiled as she tipped him. His eyes rested appreciatively on her face, and her hair, like spun silver, and so very different from the girls of his own race. Her features were patrician and perfect, her lips chiselled and firm, her complexion as fine as porcelain, her huge amethyst eyes fringed with luxuriously thick dark lashes.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, Ruy had once told her. But he hadn’t meant it.
‘Davina?’
She hadn’t heard the opulent Mercedes drive up nor seen its driver emerge to come and touch her lightly on the arm, and she spun round, startled, her eyes widening slightly as she found herself looking into a face she remembered as being a boy’s.
‘Sebastian?’
‘Let me take the boy. He looks heavy.’ Her brother-in-law lifted Jamie from her arms with a competence which would have amused her four years ago. Then he had been nineteen, and still at the university studying viticulture in preparation for taking over the family’s vineyards. Now, at twenty-three, he had matured considerably. Although superficially he resembled his brother, Sebastian lacked Ruy’s totally male grace. Where Ruy was lean and muscled Sebastian showed a tendency towards what would develop into plumpness in middle years. He was not as tall as Ruy, his features nowhere near as tautly chiselled, but for all that he was still a very handsome young man. Especially when he smiled—which he had been doing as he held his small nephew. However, the moment he turned towards Davina the smile was replaced by cool formality. She was handed back her child and ushered into the expensive car, her luggage stowed in the boot, and then Sebastian was sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. It surprised Davina that if one of the brothers had to meet her, it had not been Ruy. Surely he must be anxious to see his son to permit his presence?
She voiced her opinion of her husband’s lack of manners as they drove out of the city. In the driving mirror Sebastian’s eyes met hers, before moving away evasively. She remembered that he had always hero-worshipped his elder brother. Twelve years separated them, and Ruy had already been a man while Sebastian was still a child in school.
‘He was unable to meet you,’ was all the explanation Sebastian would vouchsafe, and Davina was glad she had played down the meeting with his father to Jamie. The little boy would have been sadly disappointed had he been expecting him at the airport. In point of fact Davina was surprised that Sebastian had come for them. She had half expected to be collected by the family chauffeur, rather like a piece of unwanted luggage.
Before her marriage to the Conde de Silvadores Ruy’s mother had lived in South America, the only daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and had been brought up very strictly. She had never learned to drive and was always taken wherever she wished to go by a chauffeur. That had been yet another cause of dissent between them. Davina had found it very hard to adjust to being the wife of a rich nobleman without having to behave like some Victorian heroine, not permitted to put a foot out of doors without an escort. Used to running her own life and relatively untrammelled freedom, she had rebelled against the strictures Ruy’s mother had wanted to impose upon her.
Her small sigh brought Sebastian’s eyes to her face. She was very beautiful, this silver-haired girl who had married his adored brother—even more beautiful now than she had been when they married. Then she had been merely a girl; now she was a woman… His eyes rested on his brother’s child. Madre would be well pleased. The boy was all Silvadores.
Unaware of her brother-in-law’s covert inspection, Davina stared out into the dusk of a Spanish evening, forgotten memories surfacing like so many pieces of flotsam, things she had vowed never to remember filling her mind, like the vivid beauty of the sunset, the subtle smell of oranges on the evening air, peasants trudging contentedly homewards after a day in the fields, donkeys with panniers laden. She sighed.
The Palacio lay between Seville and Cordoba, and this journey was the very first she had taken with Ruy after their marriage. They had left Barcelona straight away after the ceremony and flown to Seville…
More to bring a halt to her errant thoughts than out of any real curiosity, she questioned Sebastian about his life since she had left.
Yes, he had now left the university, he answered politely, and was running the family’s vineyards. Davina had a hazy recollection of a young Spanish girl whom his mother had wished him to marry, and when she mentioned her Sebastian told her that they had been married for two years. ‘But, alas, without any little ones,’ he volunteered sadly. ‘The doctors say that Rosita will probably never have children. An operation to remove her appendix caused some complications…’ He shrugged philosophically, and Davina’s heart went out to his young wife. She knew all too well what importance was placed on the bearing of children—especially sons—in her husband’s family. Hadn’t she had it drummed into her time and time again by her mother-in-law that Silvadores had been linked with the history of Spain for hundreds of years and how important it was for the name to continue?
Now she could understand why the family were so anxious for Jamie to be brought up in the full knowledge of what his role would one day be, although previously she had always expected, when Ruy had their marriage set aside so that he could marry Carmelita, that Jamie would be disinherited in favour of the sons she would bear him. She was not au fait with the Spanish inheritance laws, nor had she made any attempt to be. She had left Ruy swearing that never would she ask him for a single penny towards his son’s upbringing, and she had stuck rigorously to that vow, and at the first suggestion that she had come to Spain with any thought of material gain, she would leave at once. They were the ones who wanted Jamie. AH she wanted for her son was his restored health, and had there been any other means of achieving it she would have gladly taken them. She had no wish to be indebted to her husband or his family, but as the solicitor she had gone to see in England had gently pointed, out, there was a possibility that Ruy might appeal to the Spanish courts to have custody of Jamie given to him, and as the child was his heir they might very well grant it.
With that threat hanging over her Davina had had no choice but to comply with the terms of the letter. That way at least she would still be able to be with her child.
They were starting to climb, driving towards the Sierra de los Santos. High up in those mountains was a monastery which had once belonged to the monks of the Inquisition, and she shivered as she remembered Ruy telling her about the ancestor of his who had been to England with Philip of Spain and fallen in love there with one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting. He had married his English Rose, as he had named his bride, and carried her back to Spain with him, but despite the fact that Jane Carfax was of the same religion as himself, the priests of the Inquisition had insisted that in reality she was an English spy. They had demanded that Cristo hand over his wife so that she could be questioned, but the Spaniard knew too much about their torture chambers to relinquish his wife. Instead he had made secret plans to leave his country with his bride and start a new life far beyond the reach of the burning fires to which the priests wished to sacrifice his love.
On the very night they were to leave for the coast the house had been surrounded and they had been taken to the monastery. Their secret had been betrayed by Cristo’s brother, and the two young lovers had perished together in the flames. The brother himself had died shortly after, after an agonising illness—punishment from God, the villagers had called it. The story had haunted Davina. And now, as she raised her eyes to the black bulk of the mountains she shivered, holding Jamie tightly.
‘Soon be there,’ Sebastian told her over his shoulder. ‘Everything is in readiness for you. Madre has given you your own suite of rooms. She has engaged a nurse for the little one. She will help him to learn Spanish, although he is not yet old enough for formal lessons, but he must learn his father’s tongue…’
How much they took for granted, these arrogant Spaniards! Davina thought resentfully. Already her mother-in-law seemed to be usurping her place. Well, she would soon learn that Davina was no shy, awkward girl now, eager to please and terrified. Jamie was her child, and she would be the one to say what he would and would not learn.
And yet half an hour later when the Mercedes stopped in the courtyard of the beautiful Moorish house which had been the home of her husband’s family for centuries, and Sebastian took the sleeping child in his arms, she had to admit that when it came to loving children, Englishmen could learn a good deal from their Spanish counterparts. As they walked towards the house Jamie stirred, and half frightened that he would think she had left him, Davina darted forward to take his hand. Two dimples appeared in his chubby cheeks as he smiled, his arms extended towards her. As she took him from Sebastian, she buried her face in the small baby neck, suddenly overwhelmed by dread, by the fear that she had done the wrong thing.
Too many memories that were best left dead had been stirred already. She might be able to close her heart against her husband, but she could not close her mind to her memories… Memories of the very first time she had seen this house; of how she had been entranced by Ruy’s casual explanation that it had once been the home of a Moorish prince and that much of the original architecture remained. Even now she could hear the music of the fountains playing in the courtyard which had once been the sole property of the ladies of the harem, and even before the massive wooden doors opened, already in her mind’s eye she could see the gracious hallway with its mosaic-tiled floor and elegant Moorish architecture. Everything was the same—but different. Then she had arrived with a husband she had thought loved her as totally as she loved him. This time she arrived with her son—the product of that union.
The doors opened, and in the light from the chandeliers Davina saw her mother-in-law waiting to greet them, regal and feminine in one of the long hostess gowns she always wore in the evening—always black, always elegant. How intimidated she had been on the first occasion! But not this time. Oh, definitely not this time.
Her head held high, she stepped past Sebastian and into the house. Her mother-in-law’s eyes flickered once as Davina greeted her and then went straight to Jamie with a hunger no amount of sophistication could hide. She held out her arms, but Davina did not place Jamie into them. He was busily staring around his new surroundings.
‘So this is Ruy’s child.’
Davina ignored the other woman’s emotion, her eyes hard as they probed the shadows of the room, as she forced herself to damp down the feeling nothing would make her admit was disappointment.
Sebastian had walked into the salón, plainly expecting that they would follow him. Her mother-in-law indicated that Davina should precede her into the room, and with her legs trembling a little Davina did so.
The room was much as she remembered. Rich Persian carpets glowed on the floor, the antique furniture was still as highly polished as it had always been, the room looking more like a film set than someone’s home, and her heart sank at the thought of condemning Jamie to a house where his inquisitive little fingers would be forbidden to touch and explore.
A small, slight girl in a demure cotton dress stood up as they walked in. Davina guessed at once that she was Sebastian’s wife, Rosita, and this was confirmed when Sebastian introduced her. Like her mother-in-law, Rosita’s eyes went immediately to the child in Davina’s arms, and she turned to her husband whispering something huskily in Spanish.
‘She says that the child very much resembles Ruy,’ Sebastian explained to Davina.
‘I know.’
Davina could see that the dry words had surprised them. She had not been able to speak Spanish when she married Ruy, and as he spoke excellent English she had only made a halfhearted attempt to learn. But during the lonely weeks after her return to England she had bought herself some foreign language tapes, partially to pass the time, and partially because then she still hoped that it had all been a mistake and that Ruy loved her and would come to take her home. To her own surprise she had shown quite a facility for the language, and could now speak it reasonably well. She could tell by her mother-in-law’s expression that the older woman thought her knowledge of her language had been gained purely to impress them, and to show her exactly how little she cared what they thought about her she lifted her chin proudly and said coolly:
‘I was given to understand that Ruy was anxious to see his son. Where is he? Out somewhere with Carmelita?’
Rosita paled and started to tremble. Sebastian gripped her hand, his mouth white, and only the Condesa appeared unmoved by her question. What was she supposed to do? Pretend ignorance? Pretend that she didn’t know that her husband loved someone else?
Before anyone could speak Davina heard an unfamiliar sound in the hall. For a moment it reminded her of her own days spent pushing Jamie’s pram, which was quite ridiculous, for who would push a pram through the immaculate rooms of this house?
The salón had double doors, both of which stood open. All three members of the Silvadores family were staring towards them with varying degrees of tension evident in their faces. Only Davina’s expression was openly puzzled. Sebastian walked towards her, his hand touching her arm, as though he wanted to say something, but before he could do so Davina knew the reason why her husband had not met her at the airport but had sent his brother instead. For the sound she had heard was made by a wheelchair and in it, his face drawn in tight lines of pain, was Ruy.
CHAPTER TWO (#uf6e02b02-bada-5155-b32c-f00ec5cd74e5)
‘RUY!’
His name burst past her lips of its own volition in a shocked gasp, his expression going from sheer incredulity to bitter anger as he stared from her slender body, half hidden by the child in her arms, to the faces of his relatives.
‘Madre de Dios!’ he swore angrily, his nostrils pinched and white with the force of his rage. ‘What kind of conspiracy is this? What is going on?’ he demanded harshly. ‘What is she doing here?’
If she had felt shocked before, it was nothing to what she was feeling now, Davina admitted, her face going as white as his, but before she could say anything, Ruy’s mother was speaking.
‘She has come because I requested her to,’ she told her son, holding his eyes coolly.
Davina wasn’t paying much attention to them. She was still too stunned by the fact that this was actually Ruy, the proud and strong, in a wheelchair, to appreciate the full enormity of what her mother-in-law had done.
‘You requested it?’ The thin nostrils dilated further. ‘By whose authority?’ he demanded softly. ‘I am still master in my own house, Madre. I can still say who may and may not rest under its roof, even if I can no longer walk as other men, but must needs propel myself about like a babe in arms.’
With his rage directed at his mother, Davina was able to study him properly for the first time. What she saw shocked her. The Ruy whom she had known had walked tall—a veritable god among men, and if she was honest she would have to admit that she had thrilled to the arrogant grace; the hint of ruthless mastery cloaked by modern civilisation like velvet covering tempered steel. Now there were deep lines of pain scored from nose to mouth which were new to her, and a bitterness in the dark eyes that made Jamie cry out protestingly as her arms tightened round him unthinkingly.
His cry brought Ruy’s eyes to them in scorching denunciation; a look that stripped her of everything and left her aching with a need to escape from it.
He turned his chair abruptly so that she was faced with the sight of his dark head.
‘Get her out of here,’ he told his mother emotionlessly. ‘I never want to set eyes on her again.’
‘And your son?’
His mother said the words so quietly that Davina couldn’t believe that he had heard them, never mind stopped. But he had, and he turned his chair again, his eyes going slowly over the small form held protectively against Davina’s breast.
‘My son, or your grandson, Madre?’ he asked sardonically. ‘Tell me. If I were still man enough to father children, if Sebastian could provide you with grandsons, would you still want that?’
The use of the derisive word, the look he gave them, all combined to arouse within Davina the anger the sight of him, stricken, had tempered. Quivering with the pent-up force of it, she advanced on the wheelchair, her eyes blazing almost as darkly as his, unaware of the arresting picture her erect carriage and pale face made.
‘That, as you call him, just happens to be your son,’ she told him, barely able to form the words coherently. ‘The son you’ve denied from the moment of his birth, but he is your son, Ruy, and he will live here as is his birthright…’
‘How you have changed your tune,’ he sneered bitterly. ‘When I married you, you told me that you wished I were a poor man; that we could live an “ordinary” life. What went wrong, Davina? Or is it just that with age has come the realisation that you will not be young for ever, that there will come a time when men cease to desire your body; when you will have nothing but the dead ashes of too many burnt out love affairs… My son! How can I be sure of that?’
The sharp crack of her palm against his lean cheek split the silence. Behind her Davina heard someone gasp, and she felt faintly sick herself as she stared at the dull red patch against the tanned skin. What had prompted her to behave so outrageously? In her arms Jamie stirred again and whispered, opening his eyes properly for the first time to stare at the man who had fathered him. How could Ruy so coldly deny his own flesh and blood? she asked herself. It was obvious that Jamie was his child…
‘I apologise for striking you,’ she said shakily, ‘but you did provoke me. Did you think I would have come here for one moment had Jamie not been your child?’
‘I know only that you disappeared out of my life, only to reappear now, at the command of my mother. I am not a fool, Davina, no matter what I-might have appeared in the past. It must have been a tempting prospect; a useless cripple of a husband whose presence need not disturb you, and the rest of your life spent in luxury waiting for your child to step into his shoes.’
‘Stop! That is enough, Ruy,’ his mother commanded. ‘If you must have the truth, I allowed Davina to think that you had written to her.’ She shrugged when he stared frowningly at her. ‘Enough of this foolish pride. Jamie is the only son you are likely to have, the only son this house is likely to have. It is only right and fitting that he is brought up here where his place will one day be…’
It was at that moment that Jamie decided it was time he took a hand in the proceedings himself. Struggling against Davina’s guarding arms, he demanded to be put down on the floor. When she did as he requested he toddled solemnly over to the wheelchair, while Davina, her heart in her mouth, darted forward to hold him back. It was only the pressure of her mother-in-law’s fingers biting into her wrist that prevented her from wrenching Jamie away, her grasp restricting her for long enough for Jamie to reach his goal. Once there he stared up at his father, his eyes, so like Davina’s, staring perplexedly at this man who looked back at him with such cool haughtiness.
‘Is he my daddy?’.
The question was addressed to Davina, over his shoulder, the shrill, piping treble baby voice filling the tense silence.
Davina tried to speak and could not. She had a photograph of Ruy at home which she had shown to Jamie, and although she doubted that he could have recognised the man pictured there, she was not going to lie to her son merely to spare the feelings of the father who denied him.
She cleared her throat, but her voice was still husky as she answered his question, going down on her knees to draw him back from Ruy, as though she feared that he might harm the child.
‘Then why doesn’t he talk to me?’ Jamie demanded, turning towards her. ‘Doesn’t he like me?’
Such an innocent question! It brought a lump to Davina’s throat and moisture to her eyes. This was a moment she had faced over and over again in all her worst nightmares, trying to explain to Jamie why his father had rejected them, but she had never, even in the very worst of them, guessed that she would be called upon to do so in Ruy’s presence.
It was the Condesa who came to her rescue, her voice for once almost gentle as she placed her hand on Jamie’s shoulder and smiled down at him.
‘Of course he likes you, pequeño. Is that not so, Ruy?’
‘What man can deny his own flesh and blood?’ Ruy drawled sardonically, and Davina wondered if she was alone in remembering the accusation he had just hurled at her about Jamie’s parentage. She had come to Spain reluctantly, and only for Jamie’s sake, and if anyone had told her that if Ruy had repudiated them that she would insist on remaining she would have denied it most emphatically. It was not in her nature to be mercenary or grasping, wealth and position mattered little in her book when balanced against love and happiness, but something in Ruy’s cold condemnation and lack of feeling for both of them had aroused all her fiercest maternal instincts; and for the sake of her child she was prepared to suffer indignities she would never have tolerated merely for her own gain. Jamie was Ruy’s son, he had every right to be here at the Palacio, but one thing was going to be made quite clear to both Ruy and his family.
‘Jamie is your child, Ruy,’ she told him calmly. ‘Oh, I know why you would prefer not to believe it. I’m surprised you haven’t already had our marriage set aside. Had you done so and married Carmelita, she might have had a son of your own to displace Jamie, and then none of this would have been necessary.’
His harsh laughter jarred, shocking her into immobility. ‘Nothing is quite that easy. Jamie would still have been my heir, whether he is my child or not, simply because he bears my name…’
‘And knowing that Carmelita refused to marry you?’
She didn’t know what prompted her to goad him like that; perhaps it was the nagging ache deep down inside her, a wound which refused to heal; the memory of how she had felt when she first discovered that Ruy did not love her and was merely using her instead to be revenged upon the woman whom he did love.
‘Carmelita had no place in her life for a platonic relationship with a man,’ he told her cruelly, ‘and since I can no longer give her what she desires, she has found it elsewhere.’
‘Carmelita has recently married and gone back to Argentina, with her new husband,’ Sebastian interrupted, and as he said the words, Davina felt the full picture falling into place. Ruy’s mother had always wanted him to marry Carmelita, but now, knowing that her plans must come to nothing, she had decided to fall back on what was left to her… Jamie. Only he would never be allowed to become cold and uncaring like his father, Davina told herself. He would not be brought up to think himself lord of all that he surveyed, to walk roughshod over anything and anyone who stood in his way, to ruthlessly and remorselessly crush underfoot the dreams and hopes of others… as Ruy had crushed hers.
‘It has been a long day, and Jamie is tired,’ she told her mother-in-law. ‘If someone could show us to our rooms…’
‘Motherhood has taught you courage, little white dove,’ Ruy mocked. ‘So cool and brave. I wonder how deep it is, that cool façade…’
‘Just as deep as it needs to be to protect my son,’ Davina told him with a calm she was far from feeling. How long could she endure the sort of mental and verbal torment he was handing out and not crack under it? Hard on the heels of the thought came the comforting knowledge that she was unlikely to see much of him. He was, after all, hardly likely to seek her out…
‘So you intend to stay?’ The hooded eyes watching her were unreadable, but guessing that he had hoped to frighten her into running away, for a second time, Davina lifted her chin proudly to stare back at him. ‘For Jamie’s sake—yes. Personally I wouldn’t touch so much as a peseta of your money, Ruy, but Jamie is your son and…’
‘And you have no objection to touching what will one day be his?’ her husband mocked savagely.
At her side Davina’s hands turned into minute angry fists. That hadn’t been what she had been going to say at all. She had been about to explain to him that Jamie had been ill, that he needed building up, despite his robust appearance, and that for her child’s sake she was willing to endure the torment and insult of knowing herself unwanted in this house.
‘Which rooms…’ she began, ignoring Ruy and turning to his mother, but Ruy forestalled her, his face cruel and malevolent as he too turned towards the older woman, anticipating Davina’s question. ‘Yes, Madre, which rooms have you given my delightful wife and child? The bridal suite, which we occupied before?’ He shook his head and the sneer was clearly visible now. ‘I think not. This wheelchair might be able to perform miracles, as Dr Gonzales tells me, but it still cannot climb stairs.’
Davina wasn’t the only one to gasp. Even the Condesa seemed to go a little paler, her mouth nearly as grim as her son’s as she addressed him.
‘What nonsense is this, Ruy? Jamie and Davina will have a suite of rooms to themselves.’
‘They will share mine,’ Ruy corrected softly. ‘I will not have the servants gossiping about my wife who leaves me and then returns only when I can no longer act the part of her husband. Well?’ he demanded, turning to Davina. ‘Have you nothing to say, no protests to make? Are you not going to tell me that you will return to England rather than suffer the indignity of sharing a room—a bed—with a crippled wreck?’
Davina knew then what he was trying to do—that he was attempting to frighten her into leaving, and how close he had come to succeeding. The mere thought of sharing a room with him, of suffering the intimacies such proximity would bring, had started her stomach churning protestingly. He might not be able to act the part of a husband, as he put it, but he was still a man—the man she had loved, and although her love had died her memories had not.
‘You won’t drive me away, Ruy,’ she told him quietly. ‘No matter what you do, I intend to stay, for Jamie’s sake.’
A servant had to be summoned and instructed to prepare a room for Jamie. Davina could feel the girl watching her as Ruy spoke to her, and although she could not quite catch what was being said, her skin prickled warningly. When she had gone Sebastian and Rosita excused themselves, and as Rosita hurried past her, Davina thought she glimpsed compassionate pity in the other girl’s eyes.
‘My poor timid sister-in-law,’ Ruy mocked, correctly interpreting Rosita’s look. ‘She sincerely pities you, but you have nothing to fear—unless it is the acid tongue of a man who has drunk ambrosia only to find it turning to acid gall on his lips.’
‘Acid burns,’ Davina reminded him coolly. Her heart was thumping with heavy fear, and she longed to retract her statement that she intended to stay. Jamie, who had returned to her side, clutching at her for support, suddenly abandoned her to walk across to Ruy for a second time, eyeing him uncertainly.
‘I have a pushchair too,’ he told Ruy conversationally, while Davina listened with her heart in her mouth. ‘Mummy pushes me in it when I get tired. Who pushes you?’
‘I can push myself,’ Ruy told him curtly, but nevertheless, and much to her surprise, Davina saw him demonstrate to Jamie exactly how he could manoeuvre the chair. Something in her mother-in-law’s stance caught her attention, and as she glanced across at her the other woman looked away, but not before Davina had seen the sheen of tears in her eyes.
How would she feel if that was her child confined to that chair? The sudden clenching fear of her heart gave her the answer, and for the first time she began to feel pity for the older woman. It was a dangerous thing she had done, summoning them here, and one which could alienate her completely from Ruy. She glanced across at him, her breath constricting in her throat as she saw the two dark heads so close together. Ruy had lifted Jamie on to his lap and the little boy was solemnly examining the controls of the chair.
‘He is Ruy’s mirror image,’ the Condesa said quietly. All at once she looked very old, and Davina had to force herself to remember how coldly this woman had received her in this very room when Ruy had brought her here as his new bride. The trouble was that she had not been prepared for the hostility that greeted her. But then she had not been prepared for anything, least of all falling in love with Ruy. It had all happened so quickly—too quickly, she thought soberly. She had fallen in love with Ruy without knowing him. He had married her for… For what? Revenge? For punishment? She shuddered suddenly, reflecting on the harshness of a nature which could enable a man to turn his back on the woman he loved and put another in her place, merely as a means of punishment for some small peccadillo. And yet the first time she met him she had thought him the kindest man on earth—and the most handsome.
It had been in Cordoba. She had gone on holiday with friends—or more properly acquaintances—girls she knew from her work at the large insurance offices in London. Their main interest in Spain lay on its beaches; flirting with the dark-eyed Spanish boys who gave full rein to their ardent natures in the presence of these Northern girls with their cool looks and warm natures, so different from those of the girls of their own country whose chastity was carefully protected until marriage gave their husbands the right to initiate them into the ways of love. Davina had felt differently. She had come to Spain to explore its history—a history which had fascinated her since her early teens, when she had fallen in love with the mystery of a land ruled for centuries by the aristocratic, learned Moors, who had bequeathed to it not only their works of art, but also their colouring and fire.
She had been half way to falling in love with Ruy even before she met him, she acknowledged wryly, for her head had been stuffed with foolish dreams of handsome Moorish warriors astride Arab horses, flowing white robes cloaking lean bronzed limbs, glittering eyes softening only for the women they loved. A sigh trembled past her lips. That was how Ruy had first appeared to her—a heroic figure who seemed to spring suddenly out of nowhere, rescuing her from the gang of teenage boys who had been harassing her as she left the Mosque. His curt words had cut through them like a whiplash, dispersing them to the four winds, and her trembling gratitude at his timely intervention had changed to worshipful adoration when he had insisted on sweeping her off to a small café to drink coffee and tell him what she had been doing in Spain. He, it appeared, was in Cordoba on business. His family owned a hacienda where they bred bulls for the bullfight, and it was in connection with the annual corrida—the running of young untried bulls through the streets—that he was in Cordoba.
Davina had listened fascinated, held in thrall to the magnetism of the man; to the sheer pleasure of hearing him speak, his English perfect and yet still possessing something of the liquid gold of his own language.
She had agreed almost at once when he invited her to accompany him to watch the gypsies dancing the flamenco—not, as she discovered, the polished empty performance put on for the tourists, but the real thing; as different from the other as tepid water to champagne.
They had left before the climax; before the black-browed gypsy claimed his partner in the culmination of a dance so sexually explicit that merely watching it had brought the blood surging to her veins, her expression unknowingly betraying as she watched the dancers, and the man seated opposite her watched her. He had not lived his twenty-nine years without learning something of women, and what he saw in Davina’s face told him, more surely than any words, the extent of her untutored innocence.
Davina hadn’t known it, but it was that knowledge which had sealed her fate—as she later discovered.
When Ruy had proposed to her she had been robbed of words, dizzied and humbled by the sheer gratitude of knowing that the love she had come to feel for him in the short week they had been together was returned. She had had no knowledge when she accepted him that he was merely using her as a tool to torture the woman he really loved—the fiery Spanish beauty who could give him so much more than she herself could offer.
They had been married quietly—a church ceremony in keeping with Ruy’s religion—and that had been the first time she realised that her husband possessed a title—that she had a title. It shouldn’t have surprised her. He had about him an ingrained arrogance-which should have warned her that here was no ordinary mortal. He had been a little amused by her stammered concern that she might not be able to match up to his expectations, that nothing in her life had prepared her for the role of Condesa; wife of a Spanish grandee. It was only when his amusement gave birth to bored impatience that Davina learned fear of her new husband, but this had been swiftly banished by the brief, almost tormenting caress of his lips against hers.
Prior to their marriage he had made no attempt to seduce her, and in her innocence she had mistaken this lack of desire for her as respect. She had often wondered, since her return to England, if she had not gone to him that first night after their arrival at the Palacio, had not let him see that she wanted him… and if he had not been in such a blazing rage of anger against his mother, whether he would not have made love to her; whether in fact it had been his intention to have their marriage annulled when Carmelita had been suitably brought to heel. But above all else Ruy was a man of honour. Once he had in actual fact made her his wife there was no going back—for either of them. Until she had conceived his son, and learned exactly why he had married her. With that knowledge how could she have remained? She might have suspected that all was not well between them, but until she was brought face to face with the truth she had been able to delude herself. When that was no longer possible she had escaped to London, taking Jamie with her, and leaving her mother-in-law to convey to her son the good news that he was now free…
Free… Her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the man in the wheelchair and for a brief moment pity overwhelmed her bitterness. Ruy would never be free again. Ruy, whose superb, physical, male body had taught her the full meaning of womanhood, never to make love, ride, swim or dance again.
‘Look at her!’ His words cut through her thoughts. ‘She cries. For what, my lovely wife? For having to share my bed and being perhaps tormented by all that we once knew together, or have other men, other lovers, obliterated the memory of the pleasure I taught you?’
‘Ruy!’
His mouth twisted bitterly at the warning tone in his mother’s voice. ‘What is it, Madre?’ he demanded savagely. ‘Am I to be denied the pleasure of speaking about love as well as that of experiencing it, or does it offend you that a man in my condition should have such thoughts? You who brought me the news that the woman I loved had left me…’
So the Condesa had been the one to tell Ruy that Carmelita was leaving him… Davina repressed a small shudder. She couldn’t understand how the other girl could have done it. Had she been in her shoes, she thought with a fierce stab of pain, had she been the recipient of Ruy’s love, nothing would have kept her from his side. He might be physically restricted, but he was still the same man; still very much a man! Her wayward thoughts shocked her, widening her eyes as purple as the hearts of pansies with mingled pain and disbelief. She was over Ruy. She had put the past behind her. All the love she had now was focused on Jamie. As though to reinforce the thought she reached out for the child, and her hair brushed Ruy’s chin as she did so.
His withdrawal was immediate and unfeigned, and as she lifted Jamie from his lap, Davina was dismayed to discover that she was trembling. What was; it about this man that had the power to affect her like this even now—so much so that his rejection of her was like the stabbing of a thousand knives?
Grateful that Jamie gave her an excuse to look away from the contempt she felt sure must be in his eyes, she busied herself with the little boy, listening to his informative chatter.
A manservant appeared, silent-footed and grave-faced, and positioned himself behind Ruy’s chair.
‘This is Rodriguez, my manservant,’ he told Davina sardonically. ‘The third member of our new ménage à trois. You will have to grow accustomed to him, since he performs for me all those tasks I can no longer perform for myself. Unless of course you wish to take them over for yourself… as a penance perhaps… and a fitting one. You took pleasure from my body when it was physically perfect, Davina, so perhaps it is only just that you should endure its deformity now.’
‘Ruy!’
Davina thought her mother-in-law’s protest was on account of the indelicacy of her son’s conversation, but she ought to have known better, Davina decided, when she continued angrily, ‘The doctor has told you, the paralysis need not be permanent. Much can be done…’
‘To make me walk like an animal, used to moving on all fours—yes, I know.’ Ruy dismissed the notion impatiently, disgust curling the corners of his mouth. ‘Thank you, Madre, but no. You have interfered enough in my life as it is.’ His glance embraced both Davina and the child held in her arms. ‘Rodriguez, you will take me to my room. Davina.’
When her mutely imploring glance at her mother-in-law went unheeded Davina followed the manservant reluctantly down the long passage leading off the hall, to a suite of rooms she dimly remembered as being what Ruy had once described as a ‘bachelor suite’. It had been the custom for young male members of the family to live apart from their sisters and mothers after a certain age, he had told her. The custom had originated from the days when his Moorish ancestors had been jealous of their wives, and any male eyes which might look upon them.
From what she could remember the suite was quite large, built around its own patio, and as Rodriguez opened the double panelled doors leading into the sala Davina heard the sound of fountains playing outside and knew that she had not been mistaken.
In contrast to the rest of the house the room was furnished almost simply, with clean, uncluttered furniture that combined the best of antique and modern. The dark blue azulejo tiles were covered with a Persian carpet—a rich mingling of blues and scarlets, touched here and there with gold and pricelessly expensive. On a marble coffee table placed strategically next to a cream hide chesterfield were some magazines, and again Davina felt her heart twist with pity that Ruy was reduced to finding his pleasure in such a passive way.
‘You remember this part of the house?’
She refused to look at him. He had brought her to this sala after that dreadful scene with his mother, when the older woman had accused her of trapping him into marriage, of forcing him to make an honest woman of her. It was in here that he had dried her tears before leading her out on to the patio, where she had flung herself despairingly into his arms and they had walked into the orange grove and…
‘I’m hungry!’ Jamie eyed her crossly. ‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’
‘You hear that, Rodriguez?’ Ruy demanded with an upward lift of his eyebrows. ‘My son is hungry. He is not yet used to our way of life.’
A smile glimmered across the other man’s sombre features.
‘Maria shall make you a paella, and you shall have oranges picked fresh from the trees,’ Ruy promised him. ‘Only be patient for a little while.’
Davina was a little surprised at Jamie’s immediate response to the authority in his father’s voice. Perhaps it was true that all boys needed the firmness of a father’s hand. But would Ruy let his obvious bitterness against her spill out to sour his relationship with his son? Had she known that the invitation to come to Spain was not from him she knew she would never have ventured here to the Palacio, and yet having done so, she was strangely reluctant to return again to England.
The courtyard outside was all in darkness, but the patio doors had been left open to allow the scents of the night to drift in—the spicy, sharp smell of the oranges, a constant reminder of that night when Jamie had been conceived; the sweetness of night-scented stocks, those timid, almost insipid flowers that only revealed their true beauty during the hours of darkness when their perfume filled the night air.
If she remembered rightly, beyond the patio was a swimming pool. She had swum in it once with Ruy. She pushed the thought aside, unwilling to remember the warmth of Ruy’s arms around her as he pulled her down beneath the silken water, only releasing her when her lips had been subjected to a masterful, demanding kiss. Then she had thought that he loved her. She had not known about Carmelita.
The sala connected with a smaller room which had been turned into a tiny kitchen, presumably so that Ruy could be completely independent of the rest of the household if he wished, and Davina sensed intuitively that there must be many times when his pride could no longer bear the lash of enduring the silent pity of the rest of his family; when he must prefer to be hidden from the world to suffer alone. And yet he had insisted that she and Jamie were to share his suite, to share his torment…
Beyond the kitchen was a room which had been converted into a bedroom, opulently rich in its furnishings, but it was the huge double bed which drew Davina’s eyes, fear hidden in their amethyst depths as she stared at it.
‘Where’s my bed?’ Jamie demanded suddenly, breaking the silence. ‘And where’s my mummy’s bed?’
‘Your mummy’s bed is here,’ Ruy said silkily, turning aside to murmur something to Rodriguez, who disappeared in soft-footed silence through a door at the far end of the room.
‘Through that door is the bathroom,’ Ruy told Davina when he had gone, ‘and beyond that a dressing room. Jamie shall sleep there for the time being.’
‘And I shall sleep with him,’ Davina said bravely. At home she had only a very small flat, and Jamie’s small bed was in the same room as hers. It would frighten the small boy to find himself sleeping alone, but when she attempted to explain this to Ruy he cut across her explanation, his voice harsh as he said cruelly, ‘You will sleep here in this room in my bed, Davina, otherwise Jamie will be banished to another part of the house. Do you understand me?’
‘Why?’
His eyes searched her face, and for the first time she saw the true extent of his bitterness.
‘Why? Because you are my wife,’ he said softly. ‘Because I will not endure the pitying glances of my servants and my family when it becomes known that my wife has returned to me only because she knows she will no longer be expected to undergo the degradation of sharing my bed. That was what you once called it, wasn’t it?’ he continued unmercifully. ‘Degradation of the very worst sort? You don’t even begin to know what it means, but you will learn, sharing this room with me, being forced to witness all the thousand and one indignities that my… my disability forces upon me. In fact…’ his eyes roamed her set white face, ‘I think you should take the place of Rodriguez.’
His fingers snaked out, grasping her wrist and making her gasp with pain, unable to believe that their hard, vibrant warmth belonged to a man who was no longer fully in control of his own body. ‘It hurts? You should be grateful that you can feel pain,’ he concluded grimly. ‘Madre de Dios, I wish I could!’
Davina swallowed a lump in her throat. Despite his desire to hurt and wound her, she could not prevent pity welling up inside her. Dear God, what torment he must be in, this man who had always taken for granted his male power. To find it cut off like this must surely be the worst blow fate could have dealt him. She knew she ought to feel some sense of satisfaction, some pleasure in knowing that he was now suffering as he had once caused her to suffer, but all she could feel was an overwhelming desire to reach out and brush the silky black hair off his forehead, to hold and comfort him as she might have done Jamie… The thought stunned her, rooting her to the spot as she stared blindly around her, not seeing the elegant room with its rich furnishings, the carved bed, the Persian carpets, the antique furniture, the elegant graciousness of a house that had been inhabited by Ruy’s family for generation after generation; children brought up in a tradition, children of whom her son was the latest.
The door opened suddenly, and Rodriguez appeared with her luggage. Without looking at Ruy Davina followed him through the bathroom with its sunken bath in jade green malachite, the taps in the same material, azulejo tiles adorning the floor.
Beyond it was a small plainly furnished room overlooking the courtyard, with a single bed and a carved chest of drawers. When they were alone Davina undressed Jamie, before taking him back to the bathroom to wash his hands and face before she put him to bed. He chattered continuously, and she answered his questions almost mechanically, her mind still in that other bedroom with the man whose child Jamie was.
As though on cue, the moment Jamie was installed in bed the door opened again, and this time a woman came in carrying a tray, steaming fragrantly.
Jamie was not a fussy eater, and he tucked into the paella with such obvious relish that Davina had to repress a small smile. Contrary to her expectations Jamie seemed to be adapting very well to his new surroundings—far better than she was likely to do herself.
Only when she was quite sure that he was asleep did she return to the other room, unable to repress her feeling of relief when she saw Sebastian in the room, talking to Ruy.
‘Ruy, will you not reconsider?’ Davina heard him saying in a low voice as she re-entered the room. ‘Surely you wish to spare Davina the…’
‘The sight of my crippled limbs?’ Ruy said harshly. ‘Why? Am I spared them? Am I spared anything? No, it will do no good to plead for compassion for my wife, Sebastian,’ he added cruelly. ‘Or is it guilt that brings you to this room, little brother? After all, had you provided Madre with her grandson, there would be no need for Davina to be here, would there?’
A small sound must have betrayed Davina’s presence, for both men turned at the same time.
‘Ah, there you are,’ Ruy drawled in a false parody of tenderness. ‘Just in time to help me change for dinner.’
‘I don’t want any dinner,’ Davina began, but her protest was overruled by Sebastian’s angry protest.
‘You cannot do this!’ he told Ruy. ‘You cannot mean to subject your wife to such indignity… Have you no compassion, Ruy? How is Jamie?’ he asked Davina, turning to her. ‘Has he settled down all right?’
‘Better than I expected,’ Davina told him. There was guilt and embarrassment in his eyes, and she thought she knew now why he had been so offhand with her at the airport. It was obvious that his mother had told him to say nothing of Ruy’s condition, to her, and now he felt guilty about the way his brother was treating her.
‘Rosita had better be careful,’ Ruy commented sardonically when Sebastian had gone. ‘My little brother’s concern for you is most touching. I trust you have something better than that to wear for dinner,’ he added, giving her slender figure a disparaging glance: ‘You will not have forgotten that we observe the formalities here at the Palacio.’
She hadn’t. Since Jamie’s birth and her flight to England there hadn’t been any money for luxuries like evening dresses, but she still had the clothes Ruy had insisted on buying for her after their marriage—when he had realised that he was irrevocably tied to her, and had tried to make the best of their mesalliance. Her mouth twisted a little bitterly and for the first time she realised that she had been handed a weapon which she could use to gain reparation in full for all the hurt Ruy had caused her, if she chose to use it. She was to take the place of his manservant, or so he had commanded, and if she chose, she could make the performance of those small intimate tasks which would be required of her as humiliatingly agonising for Ruy as he had once made her life for her!
‘You will go and prepare yourself for dinner,’ Ruy commanded her curtly, frowning when she made no attempt to move.
‘Don’t you want me to help you first?’
Something in the soft tone of her voice must have made him suspicious, because he frowned darkly, manoeuvring his chair past her. ‘Not tonight,’ he said abruptly. ‘I am hungry, and I don’t propose to wait all evening for you to perform the tasks Rodriguez can perform in half the time.’ He glanced at his watch, pushing back the cuff of his shirt, and Davina felt her stomach constrict painfully at the sight of his lean, sinewy wrist, and the dark hairs curling against the gold mesh of his watch-strap. All too vividly she could remember how that hand had so arrogantly caressed her yielding flesh, had turned her from girl to woman and taught her pleasure…
CHAPTER THREE (#uf6e02b02-bada-5155-b32c-f00ec5cd74e5)
SHE had endured many formal dinners during her days at the Palacio, but none which had tautened her muscles to breaking point as this one was doing, Davina reflected, as the long meal seemed to drag on interminably.
On the table her glass of sherry still stood barely touched. It was Silvadores sherry, matured in their own bodega near Cadiz; the very best fino, dry and clean to the palate. The first time she had tasted it Davina had found it too dry, but habit had accustomed her taste-buds; all those long, lazy afternoons whose end had been signalled by the serving of sherry and tapas on the patio. She clamped down on the thought. On too many thoughts.
‘You are not hungry?’
It was Rosita who whispered the words understandingly, but Ruy who answered them for her, even though they were separated by the length of the polished table, gleaming with silver and crystal. The Silvadores had no need to parade their wealth ostentatiously, and Davina knew that the fine china plates and silver cutlery they were using were nothing compared with the exquisite Sèvres and Meissen china locked away with the gold plate which was a legacy from the Conde who had sailed to the Americas. The family’s wealth derived from many sources—from the sherry business, from land they owned all over Spain, from the young bulls raised on the estancia; from business ventures involving the development of exclusive holiday resorts—but it was here in this ancient Moorish castle that they had set their deepest roots. And Ruy was the sole ruler of this empire. How had his accident occurred? By what means had he been robbed of his independence? Davina glanced down the length of the table. Seeing him seated no one could guess that the powerful muscles moving smoothly beneath his dinner jacket were all that remained of his old physical perfection.
As the meal dragged on images as sharp and crystal clear as the day they were formed imposed themselves relentlessly on her mind; Ruy swimming in the pool; Ruy riding at the estancia, tending the young bulls destined for the arena; Ruy dancing… making love… She shuddered deeply and wrenched her thoughts back to the present, trying to tell herself that it was divine justice that Ruy, who had cruelly and callously used her to get back at the woman he really loved, should now be deserted by that woman. Why had Carmelita done it? Davina wondered. She had been a bride of a matter of weeks when the sultry Spanish woman had sought her out at this very house, reinforcing what Davina had already heard from her mother-in-law—that Ruy loved her; that there had been an understanding between them for many years; that they were on the point of announcing their betrothal when they had quarrelled, and Ruy in a fit of pique because she, Carmelita, did not choose to run to his bidding like the milk and water English miss he had married had chosen a bride as different from the seductive Spaniard with her night-dark hair and carmine lips as it would have been possible to find. She would get him back, Carmelita had told her. A milksop like her could never hold a man like Ruy, whose lovemaking demanded from his partner a deep-seated understanding of the complexities that went into the making of a man whose blood combined the fiery fanaticism of early Christianity with thousands of years of Moorish appreciation of the sensual arts—a woman such as Carmelita herself.
And yet now Carmelita had abandoned him. Because he was no longer the man he had once been; no longer capable of outriding the wind, of making love until dawn tinted the sky, or because her pride would not allow any child she bore him to come second to the son his English wife had given him? Under the polite mask of Spanish courtesy lay deep wells of passion that were a legacy of their Moorish ancestors, as Davina already knew. Who could say what had prompted Carmelita to desert Ruy and make her life with another?
At last the meal drew to a close, but instead of feeling relieved Davina felt her nerves tighten still further, the implacable determination in Ruy’s eyes like the fiendish threat of a torturer ready to turn the screws that final notch which separated excruciating pain from oblivion by the mere hair’s breadth.
All through the meal she had answered her mother-in-law’s questions about Jamie’s upbringing as politely as she could. Once she might have been intimidated by this woman whose ancestors had numbered kings and queens among their intimates, but where Jamie was concerned she would allow nothing to stand in the way of what she considered right for her child, and this she had been making coolly and firmly clear to Ruy’s mother throughout the meal.
By the time she realised she was carrying Jamie she had been too numbed by pain to care, for by then she had known exactly why Ruy had married her, and why too he spent so many hours away from the Palacio—away from her bed. The baby she had been carrying had been incidental to her pain, but after his birth she had been overwhelmed by such love for Jamie that that pain had started to recede, if only minutely. As she held him to her breast and felt him suckle strongly she had known that whatever the cost to herself Jamie would not be brought up in a house where his mother was despised. And her mother-in-law had aided her in her flight. She had been the one who had brought those damning photographs of Ruy and Carmelita together at the estancia, while she, his wife, bore his child alone. She had left the hospital one cold, grey winter afternoon, taking a plane for London, not knowing what path her life would take, but only knowing that she must get away from Spain and Ruy before her love for him destroyed her completely.
She had been lucky—very lucky, she acknowledged wryly. The chance entering of a competition in a women’s magazine had led to a contract for illustrations for a magazine serial and from there to her present work on children’s books. She was not rich, but she had enough to buy a small flat in a Pembrokeshire village; enough to keep Jamie and herself in modest comfort, but not enough to give the little boy the warm winters he needed until his strength was built up.
After dinner while Rodriguez served coffee in the sala Sebastian came and sat beside her.
‘You must try to forgive Ruy,’ he told her awkwardly in a low voice while his brother was speaking to the manservant. ‘He has changed since his accident.’ He shrugged explicitly. ‘Who would not, especially a man like Ruy who was always so…’
‘Male?’ Davina supplied wryly, watching the blood surge faintly beneath Sebastian’s olive skin. ‘Oh yes, I can guess at the devils that torment him now, Sebastian, but what I can’t understand is how your mother dared to conceal from him that she was sending for me.’
Sebastian shrugged again, this time avoiding her eyes completely. ‘You have seen how Ruy reacted. Just as she knew that you would not come if you knew the truth, so she knew that Ruy would not allow you to be sent for. He has his pride…’
‘And was deserted by the woman he loves,’ Davina supplied.
Sebastian looked surprised and uncomfortable. ‘That is so, but my brother is not the man to enforce his emotions on a woman who does not want them. You need have no fears on that score, Davina.’
‘I haven’t,’ she told him dryly. ‘I’m well aware that the only reason I’m tolerated here is because of Jamie; the son Ruy has always refused to acknowledge… the son who even now he tries to pretend might not be his…’
The telephone rang and Sebastian excused himself hurriedly, leaving her alone. Stifling a yawn, she closed her eyes, meaning only to rest them for a few minutes.
Whether it was the faint hiss of the wheelchair, or some sixth sense alerting her to another’s presence that woke her, Davina did not know. When she opened her eyes the sala was in darkness apart from one solitary lamp casting a pool of soft rose light over the ancient Persian carpet.
‘So, you are awake. I seem to remember that you had difficulty before adjusting to our hours.’
‘You should have woken me before.’ A glance at her wristwatch confirmed that it was late—nearly two in the morning. They were the only occupants of the room, and her sense of vulnerability increased as she realised that Ruy had watched her as she slept, observed her in her most unguarded moments. No, not her most unguarded, she acknowledged seconds later; those had been when they made love. She shivered involuntarily, the light shining whitely on Ruy’s teeth as he bared them mockingly.
‘Why do you shake so, querida?’ he asked dulcetly. ‘Can it be that you are afraid of me? A man who cannot move without the assistance of this chair? You fear the caged tiger, where you would not fear the free?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that caged tigers could be unmercifully lethal, driven to scar and wound by the very virtue of their imprisonment, and so it was with Ruy himself. In him she sensed all the dammed-up power and bitterness of a man for whom life has lost its sharp sweetness and turned to aloes on his tongue.
‘What is it you fear most, my little wife?’ He was close enough for her to smell the sherry on his breath and to remember with contracting stomach muscles the taste of his lips on hers. ‘That I shall exact payment for your desertion of me; for depriving me of my son?’
‘You could have come after us,’ Davina reminded him levelly. ‘If you’d really wanted us….’
He made a harsh, guttural sound in his throat, his eyes darkening to anger. ‘Is that what you wanted in a husband, Davina, a man who would prove himself to you over and over again? And the man you left me for? The Englishman who meant more to you than your marriage vows—what happened to him, or did he no longer want you when you stopped calling yourself the Condesa de Silvadores?’
Davina had never been able to think of the title in connection with herself, but she was too bewildered by what Ruy had said to pay too much attention to his reminder that she had stopped using his name when she left his house. There had been no man in her life since the day she met Ruy, apart from his son, and it infuriated her to think that he dared to berate her about some imagined lover when he…
‘There was no one!’ she started to protest angrily, but Ruy’s expression said that he did not believe her.
‘No?’ he sneered. ‘You are lying to me, querida. You were seen with him in Seville. And it is known that you left Spain with him, taking my child with you.’
From the past Davina conjured up the memory of a bearded, fair-haired fellow-Briton she had met in Seville. He had been an artist, and with this common bond between them they had started talking. Davina dimly remembered that her mother-in-law had found them chatting enthusiastically to one another in a small pavement café, and she, innocent that she was, had assumed the older woman’s contempt sprang from discovering her drinking coffee in such a shabby little place, but now, with the benefit of hindsight, she realised that the Condesa must have thought she was having an affair, perhaps as a means of getting back at Ruy. So now she knew why Ruy had been so reluctant to believe that Jamie was his—and she hadn’t helped. Although she had known of her pregnancy she had said nothing for several months, trapped in the bitterness of knowing herself unloved and keeping the knowledge of Jamie’s conception to herself as though she could use it as a talisman to ward off the threat of Carmelita.
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