“Don’t be stupid, Maggie. The answer must be as obvious to you as it is to me. I have arranged to be married on the sixteenth, and that’s what I mean to do.”

“But you haven’t got a bride,” she said incredulously. “What are you going to do? Call in one of your conquests? Will any woman do?”

The strange light was there in his eyes again. “Not any woman,” he said. “You.”

Something caught in her throat and she forced herself to give a brief choking laugh.

“I’m not laughing,” he said quietly.

“You’re right. It’s the unfunniest joke I’ve ever heard.”

“I was never further from making jokes in my life. You don’t understand Spanish honor. The one who does the injury is the one who makes reparation. You have injured me, and it is you, and nobody else who must make it right.”

Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books.

She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days, and have now been married for twenty-five years. They live in the Midlands with their three dogs.

Two of her books, His Brother’s Child and Song of the Lorelei, won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award in the Best Traditional Romance category.

The Stand-In Bride
Lucy Gordon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

CHRISTMAS weather had come early. Although it was only the first day of December there was already the promise of snow, making the air sparkle and the street decorations gleam. High over London’s West End they shone against the darkness, multi-coloured confections of angels with long golden trumpets, elves, fairies dancing with long streamers, silver bells hanging in clusters.

But the two young women hurrying along the glittering street had no attention for the beauty overhead. They were arguing.

‘Catalina, please don’t be unreasonable,’ Maggie begged for the third time.

‘Unreasonable!’ Catalina snapped. ‘You want me to spend an evening looking at men wearing nighties and little skirts, and I’m unreasonable? Hah!’

‘Julius Caesar is a great play. It’s a classic.’

Catalina made a sound that might have been a snort. She was eighteen, Spanish and looked magnificent in her blazing temper.

‘It’s Shakespeare,’ pleaded Maggie.

‘That to Shakespeare!’

‘And your fiancé wants you to see it.’

Catalina said something deeply uncomplimentary about her fiancé.

‘Hush, be careful!’ Maggie urged, looking around hurriedly, as though Don Sebastian de Santiago might appear from thin air.

‘Pooh! I am here in London; he is in Spain. Soon I shall be his prisoner, and behave myself, and say, “Yes, Sebastian,” and “No, Sebastian,” and “Whatever you say, Sebastian.” But until then I do what I like, I say what I like, and I say I don’t like men with knobbles on their knees wearing skirts.’

‘They probably don’t all have knobbles on their knees,’ Maggie said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

Catalina let forth a torrent of Spanish and Maggie hastily seized her arm and steered her along the road, weaving in and out of the seething crowd. ‘It was supposed to be part of your English education,’ she said.

‘I am Spanish; he is Spanish. Why I need an English education?’

‘Why do I need—’ Maggie corrected her automatically.

‘Why do I need an English education?’ Catalina repeated in exasperation.

‘For the same reason you needed a French education, so that you can be a cultivated woman and host his dinner parties.’

Before her rebellious charge could answer, Maggie steered her into a teashop, found a table and said, ‘Sit!’, much as she would have done to a recalcitrant puppy. The young Spanish girl was delightful but exhausting. Soon Maggie would see her off to Spain and retire to the peace of a nervous breakdown.

For the last three months it had been Maggie’s job to perfect Catalina’s English and share chaperoning duties with Isabella, her middle-aged duenna. The two Spanish women lived in one of London’s most luxurious hotels, courtesy of Don Sebastian, who had also arranged the highlights of their schedule, and paid Maggie’s wages.

The whole thing had been arranged at a distance. It was six months since Don Sebastian had last found time to see his fiancée, and that had been on a flying visit to Paris, during which he seemed to have checked the improvement in her French, and little else.

Day-to-day decisions were in the hands of Donna Isabella, who hired teachers locally, communicated with Sebastian and relayed her employer’s wishes to her employer’s bride-to-be.

He was in America at the moment, expected to arrive in London the following week, after which Catalina would accompany him back to Spain to begin preparing for her wedding. Or possibly he wouldn’t have time to come to London at all, in which case they would travel without him. Whatever else he could be accused of, Maggie thought, it wasn’t flaming ardour.

She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking of to choose a wife so totally unsuitable. Catalina was ignorant and empty-headed—clothes-mad, pop music-mad, boy-mad. By no stretch of the imagination was she a proper consort for a serious man with a seat in the regional Andalucian government.

Catalina’s efforts to master languages were halfhearted. She managed fairly well with English because she’d watched so many American television programs, but her French was dire, and her German had been a waste of everybody’s time.

Yet Maggie was fond of her. Exasperating Catalina might be, but she was also kind, warm-hearted and fun. She needed a young husband who would be entranced by her beauty and high spirits, and care nothing for her lack of brains. Instead she would soon be imprisoned in a world of premature middle age.

‘All right,’ Maggie said as they ate tea and cakes. ‘What do you want to do this evening?’

‘Die!’ Catalina declared passionately.

‘Short of that,’ Maggie said, firmly dousing melodrama with common sense.

‘What does it matter? In a few weeks my life will be over anyway. I will be an old married woman with an old husband and a baby every year.’

‘Is Don Sebastian really old?’ Maggie asked.

Catalina shrugged. ‘Old, middle-aged. So what?’

‘I wish you had a picture of him.’

‘Is bad enough I have to marry him. What for I want his picture?’

‘Anyone would think I hadn’t taught you any English,’ Maggie complained. ‘It’s not “what for I want his picture?”, it’s “Why should I want his picture?” Now, let’s try it. I say, “I wish you had his picture”, and you say—?’

‘I say if I have his picture here, I stamp on it.’

Maggie gave up.

‘Maybe he’s only middle-aged outside, but he’s old in here.’ The girl tapped her forehead, then her chest. ‘And it’s in there that counts.’

Maggie nodded. She knew only too well how a man could look one thing and be another. Four years of marriage had taught her that. Blissful happiness, followed by disillusion, then heartbreak, disgust and despair. To cover her sudden tension she ordered more tea.

The two women made a study in contrasts—the one still in her teens, all proud, passionate Spanish beauty, dark, glittering eyes and a warm complexion, and the other in her late twenties, with soft fair skin, dark brown eyes and light brown hair. Catalina was tiny, built on dainty lines, but her lively temper and excitable personality tended to make her the centre of attention.

Maggie was tall and statuesque, but her manners were so quiet that she could be overlooked beside the magnificent Catalina. Yet she too had a touch of the Mediterranean. Her grandfather had been Alfonso Cortez, a Spaniard from Andalucia who had fallen madly in love with an Englishwoman spending a week in Spain. When it was over he’d pursued her all the way home, never seeing his own country again.

From him Maggie had inherited her large, dark eyes that suggested unfathomable depths. They were alluring in themselves, but doubly so against the Anglo-Saxon pallor of her skin. Observers would have summed Catalina up in an instant, but would have lingered over Maggie, puzzling over her mystery, and the pain and bitterness that she strove to hide. They might have read the sensuality and humour in her mouth. The sensuality she tried to conceal, even from herself. The humour was her weapon against the world. Once, and it seemed a long time ago, she had laughed all the time. Now she laughed to protect her privacy.

‘If you feel like that about your fiancé, you should tell him,’ she said.

‘You think Sebastian would let me go, after he’s spent two years grooming me? Everything I do is under his control. I am taught what he wants me to know—languages, how to dress, how to eat, how to behave.

‘Even on this tour of Europe, I have no freedom because he has organised everything. In Rome, in Paris, in London I stay in hotels he chooses, and do what he say.

‘And now, it’s Christmas and there are so many lovely things in London: decorations and Christmas trees, and children singing carols, the stores are full of lights, and we buy lots of lovely presents, and visit Santa in his grotto…’

‘I’m not taking you to any more grottoes,’ Maggie interrupted with a shudder. ‘You nearly got us thrown out of the last one for flirting with an elf.’

Catalina giggled. ‘Wasn’t he the most handsome boy you ever saw?’

‘But you’re practically a married woman.’

The girl’s laughter faded. ‘Si! And when all these lovely Christmas things are happening, Sebastian want me to see a worthy play. Why not a pantomime? Widow Twanky and Principal Boys. We don’t have that in Spain, so is part of my English education, si? But no! Julius Caesar!’

It would be impossible to convey the depth of loathing and disgust she put into the last two words. Maggie sighed in sympathy.

Having exploded, Catalina settled to submerge her sorrows in chocolate éclairs doused in cream. ‘And always there is Isabella,’ she sighed. ‘Spying on me.’

‘That’s not fair,’ Maggie protested. ‘She’s kind and very fond of you.’

‘I’m fond of her, but I’m also glad that tonight we could come out without her. She means well, but she is Sebastian’s poor relation, and she thinks he’s God. Always she say, “Don Sebastian’s wife would never do this,” and “Don Sebastian’s wife would always do that.” One day I will reply, “Then Don Sebastian’s wife can do it, but I’m going to do something else.”’

‘Good for you. Tell him that the wedding’s off.’

‘If only I dared! Oh, Maggie, I wish I was like you. You had the courage to follow your heart and marry the man you loved.’

‘Never mind that,’ Maggie said hastily. Catalina’s curiosity about her marriage was making her tense and edgy. To change the subject she said, ‘We’ve still got time for a show.’

‘Oh, yes, we must go somewhere, or we shall look nice for nothing,’ Catalina said fervently.

She seized any excuse to wear her loveliest clothes, so even for an outing with her chaperone she was done up to the nines. The floor-length peacock-blue dress looked glorious with her warm colouring. The diamonds, perhaps, were a little old for her, but she knew she looked beautiful, and was happy.

Maggie would have preferred to dress with restraint, but Catalina viewed restraint with horror. She had insisted on a shopping trip and, with an unerring eye, steered Maggie towards a black silk cocktail gown that moulded itself to her womanly curves.

‘It’s a bit low,’ Maggie had said hesitantly.

‘So what? You have a magnificent bosom; you should show it off,’ Catalina had said imperiously.

Even Maggie could see that the dress had been made for her, and she bought it, compromising with a black silk chiffon scarf that she could whisk about her shoulders. She was wearing the scarf now but, even so, she wished that the dress was a little less revealing.

‘What shall we choose?’ she asked now.

‘Your Place Or Mine?’ Catalina said at once. ‘I have wanted to see that ever since I read that it was very rude and naughty.’

‘Just the sort of thing Don Sebastian’s wife shouldn’t see,’ Maggie teased.

‘No, she shouldn’t,’ Catalina said happily. ‘So let us go immediately.’

Isabella turned her heavy bulk over in bed, trying to ignore the nagging pain in her side. She wondered when Maggie and Catalina would return, but a glance at the clock told her they had been gone barely an hour.

A sudden noise made her stiffen. It came from the other side of her bedroom door, where there was the large sitting room of the luxurious suite she shared with Catalina. Somebody had entered by stealth, and was looking around.

Summoning her courage she slipped out of bed, found her bag, dropped a heavy ashtray into it, and crept to the door. Then, with one wild movement, she yanked the door open and swung the bag at the intruder.

The next moment her arm was seized in a grip of steel, and she was looking at the astonished face of Don Sebastian de Santiago.

‘Merciful mother of heaven!’ she moaned. ‘What have I done?’

‘Nearly brained me,’ her employer said wryly, feeling into the bag and removing the ashtray.

‘Forgive me, Señor. I thought you were a burglar.’

The habitual stern, haughty look on Don Sebastian’s face softened. ‘It is I who should ask your forgiveness for intruding on you without warning,’ he said courteously. ‘I ought to have knocked, but knowing it was your night for going to Julius Caesar I assumed the place would be empty, and persuaded Reception to give me a key.’ He regarded her face with concern. ‘Are you un-well?’

‘A little, Señor. It is nothing, but I preferred not to go out, and I knew I could entrust Catalina to Señora Cortez.’

‘Ah, yes, you mentioned her in your letters. A respectable English woman, who teaches languages.’

‘And the widow of a Spaniard,’ Isabella said eagerly. ‘A most cultivated and reliable person, with a mature outlook and the highest principles.’ Fearful that her chaperonage might be found wanting, she continued to expatiate on Maggie’s virtues until Don Sebastian interrupted her gently.

‘I don’t wish to keep you from your bed. Just tell me how to find them.’

Isabella produced her own unused ticket from the bag. ‘They will be sitting here.’

He shepherded her kindly to the door of her room, bid her farewell, and departed. In fifteen minutes he was at the theatre, arriving in the middle of the first interval. Rather than waste time searching the crowd, he went to the seat number on his ticket, and waited for Catalina and her companion to join him.

Your Place Or Mine? was only mildly shocking, but to a girl from a sheltered background it seemed deliciously risqué. Afterwards they walked to a nearby restaurant, Catalina blissfully remembering tunes and jokes from the show.

‘Sebastian would be so cross if he knew where I’d been tonight,’ she said cheerfully as they sat waiting for their food.

‘I can’t imagine why you agreed to marry him if you dislike him so much.’

‘I was sixteen. What did I know? Maggie, when you live in a convent boarding school with nuns saying, “Don’t do this,” and “Don’t do that,” you will agree to anything to get out.

‘And along comes this old man—OK, OK, middle-aged man—who was a friend of your Papa—also he is your distant cousin, third or fourth, I forget. But Sebastian is the head of the family, so when your Papa die this man is your guardian. And he say he has decided you will make him a suitable wife.’

‘He has decided?’

‘He is a decisive man. It is his way.’

‘What about what you want?’

‘He says I’m too young to know what I want.’

Maggie appealed to heaven. ‘Give me patience!’

‘Anyway, you say yes, because if you don’t get out of that school you will scream,’ Catalina explained, adding with a big sigh, ‘but he’s much worse than the nuns. A girl should go to her wedding joyfully, full of adoration for her groom. How can I adore Sebastian?’

‘Since I’ve never met him, I don’t know whether he’s adorable or not,’ Maggie pointed out.

‘He is not,’ Catalina said firmly. ‘He is a grandee, an aristocrat. He is proud, fierce, haughty, imperious. He demands everything and he forgives nothing. He believes that only honour matters, for himself, for his family. He is impressive. But adorable—no!’

‘Well, adoration is fine for the wedding day,’ Maggie observed. ‘But a marriage needs to be built on reality.’ She poured them both a glass of the light wine she had ordered.

‘What are you thinking?’ Catalina asked, looking curiously into her face.

‘I—nothing. Why do you ask?’

‘Suddenly your face has a strange expression, as though you could see something very far away that nobody else could see. Oh, no!’ Her hand flew to her mouth in a conscience-stricken gesture. ‘I have made you think about your own husband, and that makes you sad because he is dead. Forgive me.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ Maggie said hastily. ‘It’s four years since he died. I don’t brood about it now.’

‘But you do. You never talk about him, so you must be brooding in secret,’ Catalina said with youthful romanticism. ‘Oh, Maggie, how lucky you are to have known a great love. I shall die without ever knowing a great love.’

That was the thing about Catalina. One moment she could discuss her predicament with a clear-sightedness that made Maggie respect her, and the next she would go off in a childish flight of melodramatic fancy.

‘I wish you would tell me about Señor Cortez,’ she begged.

‘Start eating,’ Maggie advised quietly.

The last thing she wanted to discuss was her husband, whose name had been Roderigo Alva. After his death she had reverted to her maiden name of Cortez, determined to cut all connection with the past. Normally she kept her secrets, but in an unguarded moment she’d let slip that she’d once had a Spanish husband, and Catalina had naturally assumed that Cortez was her married name. Rather than correct her, and prompt more unwanted questions, Maggie had let it pass.

To divert the girl’s attention, Maggie said, ‘I’m sure Don Sebastian will see that he can’t hold you to a promise given when you were sixteen. If you just explain—’

‘Explain? Hah! This isn’t a reasonable Englishman, Maggie. He only listens to what he wants to hear and insists on his own way—’

‘In short, he’s a Spaniard. And I’m beginning to think any woman who marries a Spaniard is crazy,’ Maggie said with more feeling than she’d meant to reveal.

‘Oh, yes,’ Catalina agreed. ‘Let me tell you what my Grandmama used to say about my Grandpapa—’

Maggie was a good listener, and Catalina poured her heart out in a way she could never do with the easily shocked Isabella. Maggie already knew much of the story of her childhood in the old Moorish city of Granada, motherless, because her mother had died at her birth, leaving her with a bewildered father who was already middle-aged. But Catalina told it again anyhow, talking about southern Spain, its vineyards and olive groves, orange and lemon orchards.

Just outside Granada stood the Santiago estate, or at least part of it, for it also included extensive property in other parts of Andalucia, all owned by the rich and powerful family head, Don Sebastian de Santiago. Catalina had met him once, when she was ten, and she was taken to the Residenza Santiago, his great home that was like a palace. For this visit she wore her Sunday dress, and was warned to be on her best behaviour. She recalled little of that meeting, save that he had been formal and distant. Soon after that she was sent to the convent school. When she emerged at sixteen her father was dead, and she found herself the ward and betrothed of a man she hardly knew.

She was still chattering as they hailed a cab to take them the short distance to the hotel, travelled up in the lift and walked along the corridor to the suite.

They found the main room almost dark, except for a small table lamp.

‘We have a cup of tea, like true English people,’ Catalina said. While she called room service, Maggie took off her coat, yawned and stretched.

‘I so envy you that dress,’ Catalina said longingly. ‘No straps and only your bosom is holding it up, so when you stretch your arms over your head it look like maybe it fall down, and maybe not. And all the men are watching and hoping. I wish I can have a dress that look like it fall down.’

‘Catalina!’ Maggie said, half-amused, half-horrified. ‘You make me out a terrible chaperone.’

Impulsively the girl hugged her. ‘I like you so much, Maggie. You have an understanding heart, I think.’

‘Well, you take my advice. Stand up to this ogre and tell him to get lost. This is the twenty-first century. You can’t be forced into marriage against your will—certainly not with an old man. One day you’ll meet a nice boy of your own age.’

Catalina chuckled. ‘I thought you believed a woman was crazy to marry a Spaniard of any age.

‘I meant any English woman. I dare say if you’re Spanish they might be just about tolerable.’

‘How kind of you,’ said an ironic voice from the shadows

They whirled and saw a man rise from the armchair by the window, and switch on a tall standard lamp. Maggie felt a frisson of alarm, and not only because of his sudden appearance, the way he seemed to loom up from nowhere. It was to do with the man himself. There was something inherently dangerous about him. She knew that by instinct, even in that brief moment.

Before she could demand to know who he was and how he came to be there, she heard Catalina whisper, ‘Sebastian!’

Oh, heavens! Maggie thought. Now the fat’s in the fire.

Obviously he’d heard every word she’d said. But that might even be a good thing. A little plain speaking was long overdue.

She surveyed him, realising that she had been seriously misled. Catalina’s notion of elderly was coloured by her own youth. This man bore no relation to the grey-beard they had been discussing. Don Sebastian de Santiago was in his thirties, perhaps his late thirties but certainly no older. He stood a good six foot two inches tall, with a lean, hard body that he carried like an athlete.

Only on his face did Maggie see what she had expected, a look of pride and arrogance that she guessed had been imprinted there at the hour of his birth. And right now, to pride and arrogance was added anger. If she’d cherished a hope that he hadn’t heard all her frank words, a look at his black, snapping eyes would have dispelled it.

But for the moment anger was just below the surface, almost concealed by a layer of cool courtesy. ‘Good evening, Catalina,’ he said calmly. ‘Will you be so kind as to introduce me to this lady?’

Catalina pulled herself together. ‘Señora Margarita Cortez, Don Sebastian de Santiago.’

Sebastian inclined his head curtly. ‘Good evening, Señora. It is a pleasure to meet you at last. I have heard much about you, although I admit that I had not expected to find you so young.’

His eyes flickered over her as he spoke, as though he were sizing her up, prior to dismissal.

Maggie raised her chin, refusing to be discomposed.

‘I was not informed of any age qualifications for my job, Señor,’ she replied crisply. ‘Only that I should speak fluent Spanish, and be able to introduce Catalina to English customs.’

He seemed a little surprised that she had turned his remark back on him. He surveyed her ironically.

‘Then permit me to say that you seem to have exceeded your brief. Was it part of the terms of your employment to criticise me to my bride, or is that an English custom I’ve never heard of before?’

‘You take a light-hearted conversation too seriously, Señor,’ Maggie said, managing to sound amused. ‘Catalina and I have enjoyed an evening at the theatre, followed by a meal, and we were in the mood to talk nonsense.’

‘I see,’ he said sardonically. ‘So you were talking nonsense when you told her that she couldn’t be forced into marriage with an ogre. I can’t tell you how greatly that relieves my mind. For if you were to seriously oppose me, I tremble to think of my fate.’

‘So do I,’ she riposted. She wasn’t going to let him get away with that.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, but otherwise didn’t deign to react.

‘It’s time for me to be going home,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ll just call a cab—’

He moved swiftly to put himself between her and the telephone. ‘Before you do, perhaps you could favour me with an account of your evening. Did you enjoy Julius Caesar?’

‘Very much,’ Catalina burst out before Maggie could stop her. ‘Such a great play, and an inspired performance. We were thrilled, weren’t we, Maggie?’

‘Yes, do tell me.’ He turned to her. ‘Did you enjoy the performance as much as Catalina—?’

Maggie’s alarm bells rang. ‘Don Sebastian—’

‘Or will you, at least, have the sense to admit the truth?’ he cut across her sharply. ‘Neither of you were there tonight.’

‘But we were,’ Catalina plunged on, unwisely. ‘Truly, we were.’

‘That’s enough,’ Maggie said, laying a hand on the girl’s arm. ‘There’s no need for this, Catalina. We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. Perhaps it’s Don Sebastian who should be ashamed, for spying on us.’

‘That was a most unwise remark, Señora,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘I do not owe you or anyone an account of my actions, but I will tell you this. I arrived unexpectedly and decided to join you at the theatre. When it was clear that you weren’t there, I returned here to wait for you. It’s now past one in the morning, and if you know what’s good for you, you will explain exactly where you were, and who you met.’

‘How dare you?’ Maggie snapped. ‘We met nobody. Catalina has been in my company, and mine alone, the whole evening.’

‘Dressed like that?’ he asked scathingly, taking in the elegantly sexy contours of her dress. ‘I don’t think so. Women flaunt themselves for men, not each other.’

‘Piffle!’ Maggie said, losing her temper. ‘Catalina likes to dress up for the pleasure of it, as does any young girl. I dressed up to keep her company.’

‘You’ll forgive my not accepting your word,’ he said coldly.

‘No, I won’t forgive you, because I don’t tell lies.’

‘But Catalina does. Under your chaperonage she feels free to deceive me. Now I know the kind of example you set her. You take her out gallivanting heaven knows where, and encourage her to lie about where you’ve been.’

‘I didn’t encourage her—I couldn’t stop her. Yes, it was a stupid lie, but only a small one, and it wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t act like a man bringing the word down from the mountain. Stop making such an issue of something so trivial. She’s eighteen, for pity’s sake, and entitled to some innocent fun.’

‘I will be the judge of that.’

From behind the bedroom door came the sound of a groan.

‘Poor Isabella,’ Catalina said hurriedly. ‘I was forgetting that she isn’t well. I should go to her.’

‘Yes, do,’ Maggie advised, regarding Don Sebastian out of glinting eyes. ‘We’ll fight better without you.’

Catalina scuttled away, leaving the other two eyeing each other like jousters. Again Maggie had the sensation of danger that she’d felt in the first moments of meeting him. She wasn’t frightened. There was something about danger that exhilarated her when she could meet it head-on. Perhaps he should be afraid.

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU are right, Señora,’ Don Sebastian said. ‘My bride is innocent in this matter. The blame lies with the woman charged with her welfare, who has so notably failed in her responsibilities. For the last time, I demand that you tell me where you have been.’

‘To the theatre.’

‘To see what?’

‘A light-hearted musical. Not as worthy and improving as Julius Caesar, but it’s Christmas and neither of us was in the mood for war and murder.’

‘And does this light-hearted musical have a title?’ he growled. He knew she was prevaricating.

Maggie sighed. ‘Yes. It’s called Your Place Or Mine?’ she said reluctantly, realising how it sounded.

‘Your Place Or Mine?’ he echoed. ‘I suppose that tells me all I need to know about the kind of sleazy entertainment you think suitable for a sheltered young girl.’

‘Rubbish,’ Maggie said firmly. ‘The title is misleading. It isn’t sleazy at all—just a little bit naughty, but basically innocent.’

‘Indeed?’ Don Sebastian snatched up a newspaper he had been reading to pass the time, and pointed to an advertisement for the show they had just seen. ‘Outrageous,’ he quoted. ‘Titillating! Don’t take your grandmother!’

Maggie struggled to stop her lips twitching, and failed.

‘I am amusing you?’ Don Sebastian asked in a warning voice.

‘Yes, frankly, you are. If you knew anything about theatre advertising—which you clearly don’t—you’d realise that this kind of publicity is deliberately angled to make the public think a show more shocking than it is. “Don’t take your grandmother,” really means that even your grandmother wouldn’t be shocked. My own grandmother would have loved it.’

‘I can well believe that.’

‘Meaning? Meaning?’

‘Do you wish me to spell it out?’

‘Not unless you enjoy making yourself unpleasant, which I’m beginning to think you do. What a fuss about nothing! Catalina is young, pretty. She ought to be out dancing with friends of her own age, and what do you offer her? Julius Caesar, for pity’s sake! Men in nighties and little skirts, with knobbles on their knees.’

‘Since you didn’t see the performance you are hardly equipped to comment on their knees,’ he snapped.

‘I’ll bet they were knobbly, though. A sheltered girl like Catalina would probably have been shocked at the sight.’

But humour was wasted on this man. His eyes had narrowed in a way that some people might have found intimidating, but Maggie was past caring. She had never met anyone who made her so angry so quickly.

At last he said, ‘You have your values and I have mine. They seem to be entirely different. I blame myself for hiring your services without checking you out first.’

‘Don’t you have your finger in enough pies?’ she demanded in exasperation. ‘Must each tiny detail come under your control?’

‘With every word you betray how little you understand. When a man is in authority, control is essential. If he does not control all the details, his authority is incomplete.’

‘Details!’ Maggie said explosively. ‘You’re talking about this poor girl’s life. And if you regard that as a detail I can only say I pity her.’

‘How fortunate that I’m not obliged to consider your opinion,’ he snapped.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever considered anyone’s opinion in your life,’ she snapped back.

‘I don’t tolerate interference with my private affairs. It’s not your place to criticise me or my forthcoming marriage.’

‘If you had any decency, there wouldn’t be a marriage.’

‘On the contrary, it’s only my sense of duty that makes me take a feather-headed ninny as my wife. On his death-bed her father made me promise to protect her, and I gave my word.’

‘So be her guardian, but you don’t have to be her husband!’

‘A guardian’s power ends on the day his ward marries. I protect her best by remaining her guardian for life.

‘Well, of all the—‘

‘You know Catalina by now. Is she intelligent? Come, be honest.’

‘No, she isn’t. She has a butterfly mind. All the more reason to marry a man who won’t care about that.’

‘And how will she choose her husband? She’s an heiress, and the fortune-hunters will flock to her. Can you imagine the choice she’ll make? I don’t need her money. I’ll make a marriage settlement that ties it up in favour of her children, and then I’ll give her everything she wants.’

‘Except love.’

‘Love,’ he echoed scornfully. ‘What sentimentalists you English are. You think marriage has anything to do with romantic love? My wife will be protected and cared for. I will give her children to love.’

‘And she’ll have to be content with the small corner of your life that you spare her.’

He regarded her cynically. ‘I see how it is. You think a man only makes a good husband if he prostrates himself and worships the woman, like a weakling. But I tell you that a man who truly worships is without pride, and the man who only pretends is not to be trusted.’

‘You think a strong man patronises the woman?’ Maggie demanded sharply.

‘I think men and women each have their roles, and their duty is to fill them well. And since you ask, no, I don’t think that my role is to look up to any woman. I suppose you’ve been filling Catalina’s head with your pretty nonsense.’

‘Catalina is young. She knows what she wants out of life, and it isn’t you.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. She’d like some fast-talking boy who’ll sweep her off her feet, spend her money and turn on her when it’s gone. Is that the fate you want for her?’

‘No, of course not, I—’ Something was making it difficult for her to speak. His words had touched a nerve. She turned away and went to the window, so that she didn’t have to look at him. But the darkness outside reflected the room within, and she could still see him, watching her, frowning.

‘What is it?’ he asked at last.

‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘You’re right, this is none of my business. Soon you’ll take Catalina away, and I won’t see her any more.’

‘What was your own husband like?’ he asked, with a flash of insight that alarmed her.

‘I’d rather not talk about him.’

‘I see,’ he said harshly. ‘You discuss my marriage, which—as you so rightly say—is not your concern, but if I wish to discuss yours, you feel entitled to snub me.’ He pulled her around to face him. ‘Tell me about your husband.’

‘No.’ She tried to get free but he held her firmly.

‘I said, tell me about him. What was he like to put that withdrawn look on your face when he’s mentioned?’

‘Very well, he was Spanish,’ she flashed. ‘Everything else I prefer to forget.’

‘Did you live in Spain?’

‘That’s enough. Let me go at once.’ But his long fingers clasped on her arm did not release her.

‘I’d rather stay like this. I don’t want to have to follow you about the room. I asked if you lived in Spain, and so far you haven’t answered me.’

‘No, and I’m not going to.’

‘But I intend that you shall. I’ve been very patient while you interrogated me and favoured me with your insulting opinions, but my patience has run out. Now we talk about you. Tell me about your husband. Was he a passionate man?’

‘How dare—? That’s none of your—’ His glintingly ironic eyes stopped her, reminding her of how frankly she had spoken about his private affairs. But that was different, she told herself wildly. It didn’t entitle him to invade the secrets of her bed, or to look at her with eyes that seemed to see the things she kept so carefully hidden.

‘So tell me,’ Sebastian persisted. ‘Was he passionate?’ Maggie pulled herself together. ‘I’m surprised you ask. You just told me that love has nothing to do with marriage.’

‘And so it hasn’t. But I’m talking about passion, which has nothing to do with love. What a man and a woman experience together in bed is a life apart. It matters little whether they love each other or not. In fact, a touch of antagonism can heighten their pleasure.’

She drew an uneven breath. ‘That is nonsense!’

He didn’t answer in words, but his fingers twitched, catching the silk chiffon scarf and slowly drawing it away, leaving her shoulders bare. A tremor went through her at the sudden rush of cool air on her skin.

‘I think not,’ he said softly.

His eyes held hers. His meaning was shockingly clear. The hostility that had flared between them in the first instant was, to him, an attraction. He was inviting her to imagine herself in bed with him, naked, turning their anger into physical pleasure. And he was doing it so forcefully that she couldn’t help responding. Against her will the pictures were there, shocking in their power and abandon: a man and a woman who’d thrown aside restraint and were driving each other on to ever greater ecstasy.

She was intensely aware of the sheer physical force of his presence. Once, before passion had played her false, she had responded to it fiercely: so fiercely that in disillusion she’d turned away from desire, fearing it as a traitor. She’d fought it, killed it. Or so she’d thought.

But now it was there again, not dead but only sleeping, waiting to be awoken by a certain note in a man’s voice. Not this man! she swore furiously to herself. But even as she made the vow she became conscious of his body, how lean and hard it was, how long his legs with their heavy thigh muscles just perceptible beneath the conservative suit. The touch of his fingers was light, but force seemed to stream through them so that she could think of nothing else but that, and what a man’s strength might mean to a woman in bed. Power in his hands, in his arms, in his loins…

She tried to blot out such thoughts but his will was stronger than hers. He seemed to have taken over her mind, giving her no choice but to see what he wanted her to see, and to reflect back that consciousness to him.

‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Yes.’

As though in a trance, she murmured. ‘Never.’

‘Then he was not passionate?’

‘Who?’ she whispered.

‘Your husband.’

Her husband. Yes, of course, they had been discussing her husband. The world, which had vanished for a heated moment, seemed to settle back into place.

‘I won’t discuss him with you,’ she said, echoing words she’d spoken before because her mind was too confused to think of new ones.

‘I wonder why. Because in bed he was a god, who showed you desire that no other man could ever match? Or because he was ignorant about women, knowing nothing of their secrets and too selfish to learn, a weakling who left you unsatisfied? I think he failed you. What a fool! Didn’t he know what he had in his possession?’

‘I was never his possession.’

‘Then he wasn’t a man or he would have known how to make you want to be his. Why don’t you answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘Yes, it was so long ago that I asked, wasn’t it? And such a little question. Did you live in Spain?’

‘For a few years.’

‘And yet you know nothing about the Spanish mind.’

‘I know that I don’t like it, and that’s all I need to know.’

‘Just like that,’ he said, ‘you condemn a whole race in a few words.’

‘No,’ she said defiantly, ‘I condemn all the men of your race. Now let me go, this instant.’

He laughed softly and released her. Something in that laugh sent shivers up her spine, and her sense that he was a man to avoid increased. It was unforgivable that he should have called up old memories that still tormented her. She backed away and turned from him, resisting the temptation to rub the place where his fingers had gripped. He hadn’t hurt her, but the warmth was still there, reminding her how he had felt.

‘All Spanish men!’ he said ironically. ‘But surely, some of us are “tolerable”?’

‘None of you,’ she said coldly.

‘How very tragic to have fallen under your displeasure!’

‘Don’t bother making fun of me. I don’t work for you any more.’

‘That’s for me to say.’

‘No. There are two sides to every bargain and I’ve just terminated my employment. And let me say that you made that very easy.’

‘Not so fast,’ he said at once. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’

‘But I have finished with you. Now you’re here, my job is finished—which is fortunate because, having met you, I have no desire to work for you. You can take that as final. Goodnight.’

From the look on his face she guessed that he had been about to give her the sack, and was furious that she’d gotten her word in first.

‘And may I ask if you expect me to give you a reference, Señora?’

‘You may do as you please. I’m never short of work. In short, Señor, I’m as indifferent to your opinion of me as you are to mine of you.’

That really annoyed him, she was glad to see.

‘I’ll just say goodbye to Catalina and Isabella,’ she said, heading for the bedroom door, ‘and then I won’t trouble you again.’

But when she entered Isabella’s room an alarming sight met her. The duenna’s plump form was tossing and turning, and her flushed face was twisted with pain.

Catalina was sitting on the bed. She turned quickly when Maggie entered. Her face was frantic.

‘She’s so ill,’ Catalina wailed. ‘I don’t know what to do. She won’t let me call a doctor.’

‘She needs more than a doctor,’ Maggie said swiftly. There was no telephone by the bed so she looked back to the sitting room and called, ‘Get an ambulance.’

‘What has happened?’ Sebastian asked, heading for her.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said impatiently. ‘Call the ambulance. Hurry!’

‘No,’ Isabella protested weakly. ‘I will be well soon.’

‘You’re in great pain, aren’t you?’ Maggie asked, dropping to her knees beside the bed and speaking gently.

Isabella nodded miserably. ‘It’s nothing,’ she tried to say, but the words were cut off by a gasp. Isabella clutched her side and her head rolled from side to side in agony. Sweat stood out on her brow.

Maggie hurried out. ‘I’ve called them,’ Sebastian said. ‘They’ll be here soon. You evidently think it’s serious.’

‘Earlier tonight she said it was a headache, but the pain seems to be in her side. It may be her appendix, and if it’s ruptured it’s serious.’

Catalina came flying out. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she wept. ‘She’s in such pain, I can’t bear it.’

‘Pull yourself together,’ Maggie said, kindly but firmly. ‘It’s poor Isabella who has to bear it, not you. You shouldn’t have left her alone. No, stay there; I’ll go to her.’

She hurried back to the bedside. Isabella was moaning. ‘No hospital,’ she begged. ‘Please, no hospital.’

‘You must be properly looked after,’ Maggie said.

She began to talk softly to Isabella, sounding as reassuring as possible, but she couldn’t reach the old woman, who seemed maddened by terror at the mere word ‘hospital’. At last, to her relief, Maggie heard a knock at the outer door. Through a crack she could just see Sebastian admit the paramedics. But Isabella was now in a state of hysteria.

‘No,’ she screamed. ‘No hospital, please, no hospital!’

The next moment, Sebastian appeared. Maggie rose as he came to the side of the bed and took Isabella’s hands between his. ‘Now, stop this,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘You must go to the hospital. I insist.’

‘They took Antonio there and he died,’ the old woman whispered.

‘That was many years ago. Doctors are better now. You’re not going to die. You’re going to be made well. Now, be sensible, my dear cousin. Do this to please me.’

She had stopped writhing and lay quietly with her hands in his. ‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered.

‘What is there to be afraid of, if I am with you?’ he asked, smiling at her.

‘But you won’t be there.’

‘I shall be with you all the time. Come, now.’

In one swift, strong movement he pulled back the bed-clothes and gathered her up in his arms, making nothing of her considerable weight. Isabella stopped fighting and put her hands trustingly around his neck as he lifted her from the bed and carried her out to where the paramedics had a stretcher. Maggie heaved a sigh of relief that somebody had been able to get through to her.

At last Isabella was settled on the stretcher, and the paramedics hurried away with her. Sebastian prepared to follow the little party, but in the doorway he stopped and looked back. ‘Come!’ he commanded Catalina.

The girl shuddered. ‘I hate those places.’

‘Never mind that. Do as I say. Isabella is our responsibility. She mustn’t be left alone without a woman’s comfort. These will be your duties in the future, and you may as well start now.’

Catalina looked helplessly at Maggie.

‘All right,’ Maggie sighed, recognising the inevitable. ‘I’ll come with you.’ She met Sebastian’s eyes. ‘I can always leave later.’

‘To be sure,’ he said ironically. ‘My bride will magically become strong-minded and responsible, won’t she?’

In the flurry of departure she didn’t need to answer this. Downstairs the paramedics eased Isabella gently inside the waiting ambulance. Sebastian followed, nodding towards a car just behind.

‘Follow us to the Santa Maria Infirmary,’ he said curtly. Maggie’s eyes widened at the name of the most expensive private hospital in London.

‘Of course,’ Catalina said, when they were seated side by side in the back of the chauffeur driven car. ‘Isabella is one of his family. He feels responsible for her.’

‘He must do if he’s gone in the ambulance,’ Maggie mused. ‘Most men would die, rather. But you should have gone, my dear.’

‘I hate sickness,’ Catalina wailed. She saw Maggie looking at her in exasperation and added shrewdly, ‘Besides, Sebastian is the one she wants. He makes her feel safe.’

‘Yes, I noticed.’

Maggie had been unwillingly impressed by the kindness and patience he had shown the old woman, and the way she had clung to him, as though to a rock. However overbearing Sebastian might be, he clearly took his patriarchal duties seriously.

At the Santa Maria Infirmary, doctors were waiting for Isabella. As they prepared to wheel her away she cried out to Sebastian. ‘No, no! You promised not to leave me.’

‘And he won’t,’ Maggie said at once, taking the old woman’s outstretched hand. ‘But he must stay out here a moment to give them your details, and I shall come with you. You and I are friends, aren’t we?’

Isabella gave a weak smile of assent, but her eyes rolled to Sebastian. At once he clasped her other hand.

‘Señora Cortez will be my deputy,’ he said. ‘Trust her as you do me, and it is as if I myself were by your side.’

Isabella gave a sigh and allowed herself to be wheeled into the cubicle. Now her eyes never left Maggie and it was clear she regarded the transfer of trust very seriously.

It took only a brief examination to confirm that Isabella had acute appendicitis, requiring an immediate operation. The word brought her terror rushing back.

‘Why are you so afraid?’ Maggie asked gently.

‘My husband, Antonio, had an operation in a hospital. And he died.’

‘When was that?’

‘Forty years ago.’

‘A lot of people died then who wouldn’t die now. You will recover, and be well again.’

She continued talking in this way, glad to see that the old woman was gradually relaxing. There was a shadow in the doorway and Sebastian looked in. He was smiling in a way that transformed him, and his manner to Isabella was almost teasing.

‘Not long now,’ he said to her. ‘And then all will be well.’

‘And I won’t die? You promise.’

‘You won’t die. Word of a Santiago.’

He leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on Isabella’s forehead. Her eyes remained on him as she was wheeled away, until she was out of sight.

‘I must stress the dangers of surgery on a lady of her age and weight,’ the surgeon explained. ‘But there is no choice.’

‘I take full responsibility,’ Sebastian said at once.

The doctor left. Almost to himself, Sebastian murmured, ‘I have given a promise I had no right to give.’

‘But there was nothing else you could do,’ Maggie said. ‘It was her only chance.’

‘True. But if she dies—when she trusted me—?’

‘She would have died if she had not trusted you,’ Maggie insisted. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘Thank you for saying that. I needed to know that someone—’ He stopped and looked at her with surprise, as though he’d only just realised what he was saying, and to whom. His face became reserved again, but he said, ‘I mean—that I must thank you for what you did for her. It was kind. You have the gift.’

He didn’t elaborate and she looked at him with a frown.

‘It is a gift that some have,’ he said quietly. ‘They calm fear and inspire trust.’

‘It seems that you have the gift yourself.’

‘It’s natural for her to trust the head of her family. She trusts you for yourself.’

Then he seemed to become embarrassed, and looked around for Catalina. They found her sitting in a corner, playing with a small child who was waiting with his mother.

‘I think I’d better be going,’ Maggie said.

‘No,’ Sebastian said at once. ‘Isabella will look for you when she comes round. You must stay here with us.’

Maggie was silent, confused. Despite their truce she still felt an instinctive need to get right away from him. While she hesitated he added gravely, ‘I would be grateful if you would oblige me.’

‘Very well. But only until I know Isabella is safe.’

He gave her a curt nod. ‘I shan’t ask you to endure my company longer than that.’

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