Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride (27 page)

‘Interesting,’
she shot back with a smile, then moved a little closer to his side when Pedro opened a pair of huge wooden doors and bowed them politely inside.

‘Señor Luiz Vazquez and Señorita Newbury,’ he announced, to whoever was waiting for them. And Caroline hadn’t missed the fact that the butler had not referred to Luiz as
el conde
once since they had arrived.

If Luiz noticed the omission, he didn’t show it. His expression was relaxed, his grip on Caroline’s hand secure, and his stride was as graceful as always as he strode into what turned out to be a beautifully appointed drawing room, with a huge stone fireplace that almost filled one wall—where a woman stood, awaiting their arrival.

Black-haired, black-eyed, slender and petite, she was wearing a silver grey silk suit that was as steely-looking as the expression she was wearing on her face as she stared directly at Luiz, while he stared coldly back.

For a long, dreadful moment after Pedro had quietly retired, closing the door behind him, nobody uttered a single word while these two main protagonists studied each other, and Caroline stood witnessing it happen without taking a single breath.

Then, ‘Welcome,’ the woman said.

‘Tía Consuela,’ Luiz replied stiltedly.

Caroline hid the urge to frown. Tía? she was thinking. Why was Luiz referring to this woman as his
aunt?
Surely
if she was anything to him then she was some kind of stepmother?

‘You look like your father,’ the woman observed.

‘And you have a look of my mother—though you look in much better health than she did when I saw her last.’

Incisive, cold enough to freeze the blood, it was also a puzzle solved for Caroline. This woman was Luiz’s mother’s sister. It was no wonder his grip was suddenly biting into her fingers. What had gone on here thirty-odd years ago?

Feuds and fortunes, he’d said, she recalled suddenly. And she began to get a sense of what had probably happened, most of it revolving round two sisters, one man, and all of—this…

The slight hint of pallor had touched the other woman’s face. But her eyes did not waver. ‘Serena was a romantic fool, Luiz,’ she responded. ‘You will not make me feel guilty for picking up what she so stupidly trampled upon.’

At which point Caroline did actually wince, as her fingers were crushed almost to the bone. Fearing that Luiz was about to do something violent, she burst into speech. ‘Introduce me, Luiz,’ she prompted lightly.

For a second she thought he was going to ignore her, then he complied, tersely. ‘Caroline, this is my mother’s sister and my father’s widow, Consuela de Vazquez,’

‘Hello.’ She winged a bright smile across the room towards his stiff-faced aunt. ‘I’m so excited about coming here. The castle is so beautiful, isn’t it? But I don’t think it’s as old as it would like to be,’ she said, knowing she was babbling like a fluffy blonde idiot, but she didn’t care so long as she could overlay the cold hostility threading through the other two. ‘It wants to be eleventh century, but I would hazard a guess at only sixteenth century.’

‘Seventeenth,’ another voice intruded. ‘In a fit of pique, when his biggest rival for the hand of a certain lady won
the lady’s heart because of the size of his home, our ancestor came home here to the valley and built himself his own impressive structure—then married the lady’s younger sister. History has a habit of repeating itself in this family—as you will soon learn, I predict.’

Caroline had frozen where she stood, the voice familiar enough to send her floundering in a sea of confusion as a tall, dark, very attractive man appeared from way down at the other end of the long drawing room.

He paused and smiled at her stunned expression, and—completely ignoring Luiz—went on in that same light, self-assured way which had repelled Caroline so much the first time she’d met him.

‘Felipe de Vazquez,’ he announced himself. ‘At your service, Miss Newbury.’ It was the man from the lift in Luiz’s hotel in Marbella. ‘We never did get around to introducing ourselves, did we?’ he added with a lazy smile.

‘Señor,’
she acknowledged. And it was only entrenched good manners that made her accept his outstretched hand.

His fingers closed around hers, cool and smooth and infinitely polite. ‘Felipe, please…’ he invited. ‘We are going to be related very soon, after all…’

Instinctively her other hand tightened in Luiz’s and she moved a small fraction closer to him.

It was strange in its own way, but as she found herself making comparisons between Luiz’s bone-crushing grip on one of her hands and his half-brother’s light clasp, on the other, she knew which grip she felt safer with. But then she was remembering the last time she’d met the man, and the suspicion she’d had then that if she’d tried to break away his grip would have tightened painfully—a sensation that was attacking her again right now.

‘Felipe,’ she acknowledged politely, and used the moment to slip her hand free and place it flat on Luiz’s chest. It was such an obvious declaration of intimacy that no one,
not even Luiz, missed that fact. ‘Luiz, isn’t this a coincidence?’ She smiled, keeping her tone light with effort. ‘I met your half-brother in the hotel only the other evening, and had no idea he was related to you.’

‘Yes,’ Luiz drawled. ‘What a coincidence.’

It was too soft, too smooth, too lazy to be nice. She knew Luiz, knew the way he worked, the angrier he got the quieter he became.

Did Felipe recognise that? she wondered, when his dark eyes eventually moved to clash with his long lost half-brother’s eyes. ‘So we meet at last.’ Felipe smiled ruefully.

At last? The words hit Caroline like a punch to her solar plexus. Because surely if she had first seen Felipe at the hotel then Luiz must have known he was there?

Obviously not, she concluded, when Luiz replied dryly, ‘Not before time, maybe.’

The atmosphere suddenly became very complicated as a confusion of rather unpredictable emotions went skittering around all three of them.

There was ice—a lot of ice. There was curiosity. There was mutual antagonism born from an instant burst of sibling rivalry where both men carefully judged the weight of the other.

She wasn’t sure which one of them actually came out on top in that short silent battle, but she certainly knew which one of them held the position of power—no matter what the mental outcome.

‘Welcome home, Luiz.’ With a slightly wry smile that told her Felipe was acknowledging the same thing, he conceded the higher ground to his half-brother. ‘May your next twenty years be more fortuitous than your first twenty…’

It was such an openly cruel thing to say that even his mother released a gasp. So did Caroline, her fingers curling
tensely into Luiz’s shirt in sheer reflex, as if she was trying to soothe the savage beast before it leapt into action.

But Luiz, to everyone’s surprise, laughed. ‘Let’s certainly hope so,’ he agreed. ‘Or this place could be in deep trouble—as we all know.’

Tit for tat. Cut and thrust. Luiz had won that round. And he hadn’t finished, not by a long shot. ‘Which reminds me,’ he went on in the brisk cool voice of a true business tycoon, ‘I have a lot I need to get through here before our wedding takes place next week. So can we start with a tour of the place, before I settle down to some good old-fashioned household accounting…?’

C
AROLINE
was sitting quietly in the window of her allotted valley-facing guestroom when a light tap sounded at her door. For a few precious moments she seriously contemplated not answering.

It had been a horrible few days. Days filled with wariness and tension and eyes watching everything she did and everywhere she went as if they were worried she might decide to run off with the silver!

On top of that, Luiz had taken on the mantle of responsibility here as if it was just another new acquisition in his multinational group. He was quiet, he was calm, he was cool and he was exceedingly businesslike. People—staff, mainly—were already in complete awe of him. They scuttled about like little rabbits earnestly eager to make a good impression. And, all in all, the changes he had put into place already were enough to make the average person gasp.

But this wasn’t a business proposition, was it? It was a home—though admittedly a very unusual home. But how did you attempt to point something like that out to a man who barely acknowledged your existence?

Luiz wasn’t talking to her. He was angry about something, though she didn’t know what. It was difficult to find out when he seemed to have locked himself away inside a suit of armour that wouldn’t look out of place in the castle hallway!

She had an itchy feeling his mood stemmed from the fact that she’d met his half-brother before he had. He’d
quizzed her about that chance meeting. No—
grilled
her was a better word.

‘Where did you meet? How did you meet? What did he say? How did he say it?’

When she’d grown angry and demanded to know why it was so important, he’d simply walked away! Five minutes later she’d seen him standing in the castle grounds with a cellular phone clamped to his ear. Whoever he had been speaking to had been receiving the lash of his angry tongue. Even from up here in this room, looking down into darkness, she had been able to see that.

Since then she had hardly set eyes on him, except to share meals across a dining table with others there to squash any hope of meaningful probing into what was rattling him. They even slept in separate rooms. Now if that was a simple case of maintaining some old-fashioned values here in this time-lock of a valley, then Caroline could understand and accept that. But his cold attitude towards her on every count hurt, even though she kept on telling herself that it shouldn’t.

The tap sounded again. On a sigh she got up, and went to answer it. It was one of the little doe eyed maids. ‘Excuse me,
señorita
,’ she murmured. ‘Doña Consuela send me to tell you that the
padre
is here wishing to talk to you?’

The
padre
. Her heart sank. ‘All right, thank you, Abril. Will you tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes?’

Where was Luiz? she wondered heavily as she crossed to her bathroom. But she knew where Luiz was—or least where he wasn’t, she amended. Because Luiz certainly wasn’t here in the valley. In fact, Luiz had flown off in the helicopter that had arrived to pick him up early this morning and hadn’t been seen or heard of since.

The helicopter landing pad was just one of the changes Luiz had brought into being since they’d arrived here.

He’d had ten men from the village clearing a spot over in the far corner of the garden before Caroline had even got out of bed on that first morning. Another addition he’d had put in at incredible speed was the telecommunications mast erected at the top of the valley—to improve satellite reception, he’d explained over dinner. Apparently you couldn’t run a multinational group without good communication.

Shame he didn’t apply the same principles to his personal life!

But he didn’t, so she now had to go and face the
padre
without knowing a single thing about the wedding proposed for next week, because Luiz hadn’t bothered to discuss it with her!

It was going to make her look really good in the
padre
’s eyes if he discovered that he knew more about it than the bride herself!

I’m going to kill you very soon, Luiz Vazquez, she promised him silently as she checked over her cream skirt and lavender top—which were beginning to look a little the worse for wear now, along with the other things she had brought to Spain with her.

When she’d left London she had packed for a three-day short break in a hotel. She had
not
packed for parties in villas and cross-country travelling, or exploring the many admittedly interesting rooms inside a castle!

She found the
padre
waiting for her in the small sitting room the family tended to use during the day because it opened directly into the garden. Tía Consuela was waiting with him, but once she had introduced Caroline to Padre Domingo, she left them alone.

In truth, Caroline felt sorry for Consuela. In the last few months she had lost her husband, seen her own son being disinherited of everything she must know he had every right to consider his, and was about to lose her right to
live in the home that had been hers for the last thirty-odd years. Yet the way she had remained on here, taking whatever Luiz wanted to throw at her, had in Caroline’s view been rather impressive.

Personally she couldn’t have done it. Pride alone would have sent her running for cover well before her estranged nephew could show his face. But, cold and remote though she always was, she had answered all Luiz’s intense, sometimes acutely detailed questions about the running of the castle, and was quick to refer him on to those who knew more about the running of the rest of the estate.

While her son did nothing, offered no information and kept himself very much to himself by riding one of his beautiful Andalusian horses out each morning and not coming back until it was so dark that he had to.

Felipe had gone from charmer to brooder in a couple of very short phases. And he might have remained on here, like his mother, but unlike her he did nothing to hide his simmering resentment.

Not that Caroline could really blame him for feeling like that. For, no matter what legal right Luiz had to be here, Felipe, had every excuse for feeling angry and bitterly betrayed by his father.

She just wished she could like him more on a personal level, then maybe she could become a kind of go-between for the two half-brothers, give them a fine line of communication which might help bring them closer together.

‘Señorita Newbury,’ Padre Domingo greeted her smilingly. ‘It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance at last.’

Taking his proffered hand, Caroline smiled in answer. ‘I called to see you yesterday but missed you.’

‘I was visiting a
compadre
in the next valley.’ He nodded. ‘We like to get together once a week to—compare flocks. But I was sorry to be out when you called.’

Pleasantries over, it was a bit difficult to know where to go from there. so she covered her own feeling of awkwardness by inviting him to sit down. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she offered. ‘Tea, coffee—or something cooler, perhaps?’

But he shook his white head and with a slight wave of one beautifully slender hand invited her to sit before he would allow himself to do so.

‘You liked our little church?’ he enquired when they had both settled into Louis the Fifteenth chairs still wearing their original upholstery.

Caroline smiled. ‘It’s the prettiest church I’ve ever set foot in,’ she answered honestly. ‘But then this whole valley is the prettiest I’ve ever stepped foot in,’ she added with a warm twinkle in her eyes.

‘But very isolated,’ the father pointed out.

‘Part of its charm,’ Caroline immediately defended, with that same teasing twinkle.

‘And also very—Catholic…’

Ah, she thought, losing the twinkle. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ she asked. ‘Luiz and I marrying in your church with me not being a Roman Catholic, I mean?’ she went on, thinking silently—where are you Luiz? You should have seen this problem arising!

In his neat black robe with its round white collar the father eyed her thoughtfully from his thin, wise face. ‘Is it a problem for you?’ he countered eventually.

‘Only if you expect me to make a sudden conversion,’ she answered candidly.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not expect that sacrifice of you—as I would hope your English church would not expect the same thing of Luiz if the situation were reversed. See, we are emancipated here.’ He smiled then. ‘Even in our sleepy little valley.’

‘But there is a problem?’ Caroline prompted shrewdly. It was written in his thoughtful stare.

‘The problem is more one of—sincerity than religion,’ he murmured slowly, and when Caroline began to frown in confusion he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Let me be blunt, Miss Newbury,’ he said. ‘It has come to my attention that you and Don Luiz are intending to exchange sacred vows with each other which may not be exactly truthful, and indeed are merely a means to a rather sinister end…’

Sinister? Caroline picked up on the word and pondered it frowningly, suddenly very wary as to where the priest was going with this. ‘Are you trying to suggest that every marriage in your church has been a perfect love-match?’ she questioned, aware that if any culture was known for arranging loveless marriages, then surely Spain had to be it!

‘In this particular case, it is only your marriage to Don Luiz that I am concerned with,’ the priest replied smoothly. ‘You met for the first time only five days ago, I have been led to believe. Within hours of that meeting Don Luiz was announcing your intention to marry and your own father was collapsing due to the shock. It has also been suggested that your father is in debt to Don Luiz for a rather large amount of money which may well be the motive behind this—arrangement.’

‘Suggested by whom?’ Even as the full weight of his words came as a bit of a blow Caroline’s hackles were rising—and it showed in the sudden glint in her amethyst eyes.

‘The source of my information is not really important,’ he dismissed with a wave of one slender hand. ‘My concern here is really for you,
señorita
,’ he explained. ‘I came here today with serious concerns that you were being—coerced into the marriage for reasons beyond your control.’

‘Are you trying to tell me, that you are refusing to marry Luiz and I?’ she challenged, coming stiffly to her feet. She simply had not been expecting him to question their sincerity like this.

Inherent good manners made him rise to his feet also. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘Don Luiz is the new
conde
here in this valley. If he tells me to marry him to a lady gagged and chained to his side, then I marry them.’ He shrugged, adding with a wry smile, ‘There, the old ways are not quite dead, heh?’ And now it was his turn to flick her a twinkling smile.

But Caroline was in no mood to twinkle back at him. ‘Then let me put your mind at rest,’ she said coolly. ‘Your information is wrong,’ she declared. ‘Luiz and I have known each other for seven years. We have been
lovers
for seven years.’ Which was not quite a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth. But in this situation it served her purpose very nicely to make that point.

Surprised though the priest undoubtedly was by her correction, it didn’t faze him. ‘But have you
loved
Don Luiz for seven years?’ he threw right back.

Love? Caroline repeated to herself, and smiled a half-smile that was more rueful than cynical, though she had a feeling it should have been the other way round. ‘I’ve
always
loved Luiz,’ she responded dryly. ‘But if you are going to ask me if he feels the same way about me,’ she added, ‘then please don’t.’

‘Then of course I will not,’ he instantly conceded, and with eyes which conveyed a gentle apology for making her feel compelled to add that final remark, he gently touched one of Caroline’s hands. ‘Forgive my intrusion into what you clearly feel is your private business. But I had to be sure that you cared for Don Luiz before I could carry out his father’s last wish.’

His father’s last wish? Her eyes grew curious, but the
priest had already turned away and was walking across the room to where a rather bulky attaché case she hadn’t noticed before lay on a table by the door.

‘I am now going to place something into your care
señorita,’
he explained, ‘that I must make you promise to guard with your life and show to no one…’

For some obscure reason, watching him open the attaché case as he spoke those words made her feel suddenly afraid. ‘If it’s something that will hurt Luiz, then you can keep it,’ she told him.

‘I commend your desire to protect him,’ he replied, turning with what looked like several thin ledgers in his hands. ‘And—yes—these will hurt Don Luiz if he ever sees them. He is, of course, the one exception to the promise I am about to make you swear. Can you read Spanish as well as you speak it?’ he asked suddenly.

Caroline nodded. She had spent most of her summers since she was a small child right here in Spain, and that meant that Spanish had become her second language.

‘Then, having read these—’ he indicated the ledgers ‘—I will leave it to your discretion to decide whether you think he needs to know all that has been written in here…’

He began to approach her, and it was all Caroline could do not to snatch her trembling hands behind her back. For whatever it was he was about to give her, she knew she didn’t want. He saw it in her face and paused two steps away.

‘These are the diaries of Don Luiz’s
papá,’
he informed her. ‘Left in my care long before Don Carlos was taken ill. They explain why Don Luiz inherits all and Don Felipe very little. They explain why Don Luiz has been his
papá’
s beneficiary for the whole of his thirty-five years. So take them,’ he urged. ‘Read them and understand—for Luiz’s sake, please,
señorita…’

Sombrely he held them out to her. Reluctantly Caroline
accepted them, her fingers turning cold as they closed around the diaries; worse her heart felt as if it had turned to stone. She didn’t know why, didn’t understand what any of this was about. But she knew one thing as surely as she knew her name was Caroline: these books were dark things—dark and awful things.