A Fiery Baptism

by Lynne Graham

  And there was still hope, she told herself, that their differences could be settled without resort to the law. Rafael might soon become bored with fatherhood. Gilly and Ben could be extremely demanding and difficult. Where would they be staying in Spain? In his grandmother’s home? The set-up would certainly cramp his style. Rafael demanded total seclusion when he was painting and the twins would be constantly underfoot. Patience wasn’t one of his virtues. And how could he possibly imagine that they could live together again? Rafael was very hot on sounding off high ideals about how he wanted his children to grow up. Just how good was he likely to be in the field when he found his own freedom curtailed? She could afford to bide her time for a few weeks and let him find out those facts for himself.

  When she arrived at the nursery school to pick up the twins, Rafael was standing on the steps talking to their teacher, Gilly clinging to one hand, Ben to the other.

  ‘Gilly…Ben.’ Sarah stuck out her hand impatiently.

  ‘We’re saying bye to Daddy.’ Ben stayed where he was, a truculent cast to his small face. Gilly turned her head the other way and pretended not to have seen her mother.

  Descending the steps, Rafael shook them free. ‘When your mother tells you to do something, you do it.’

  Ben gave him an obstinate look. ‘No.’

  Gilly tossed her head. ‘No.’

  Sarah held her breath, awaiting a lion’s roar from Rafael. Instead he crouched lithely down on a level with them. ‘Why not?’

  Gilly’s rosebud mouth quivered. ‘Peter Tate’s daddy went away on a plane and never came back.’

  Ben scuffed at the ground with a trainer-clad toe, striving to hide his fear behind a faade of cool. ‘Daddies do that all the time, I s’pose,’ he muttered.

  ‘I promise that I will not.’ Rafael slid his gold watch carelessly off his wrist. ‘Soon you will be coming to Spain to stay with me. Will you look after this until you see me again?’

  There was an overbright glitter in Rafael’s beautiful dark eyes. Sarah glanced away, her throat thickening. Rafael was sol y sombra—sun and shade. She had fallen in love with his warmth and his vibrance. In her innocence, she had not begun to understand the dark, savage complexity that lay beneath. By the time she had understood, it had been too late. Rafael had retreated from her. Rafael, once so open with her, had shut her out. She hadn’t known how to reach him. She had been afraid to try. She had been so certain that he intended to leave her. She had walked on eggshells for months.

  But what if Rafael had been walking on eggshells too? He had wanted her to have a baby. He had ensured that she became pregnant. How many men still wanted a child in a failing marriage? He must have valued their marriage much more than he was prepared to admit at the time. Sudden anger seized her. Why was she thinking like this? What he might have felt five years ago had no bearing on the present.

  He didn’t have a faithful bone in his body. That woman in New York and the beautiful Suzanne who had followed had been as inevitable as a cold wind on a January day. Passionate affairs, equally passionate partings. And Sarah had too much pride and too much anger still trapped inside her to become part of that pattern. Ice, she reminded herself and ice she would be. Yesterday he had taken her by surprise. Yesterday her own body had taken her equally by surprise. The next time, she would be prepared. The next time, she would freeze.

  Rafael joined her at the railings. ‘I wanted to see them again before I left,’ he murmured intently, employing a long-fingered hand to edge her round to face him.

  Sarah slapped his hand away in instantaneous rejection. ‘Don’t touch me!’

  Within view of the children she had thought herself safe but she discovered her mistake. He drew her inexorably into his arms, clamping her slim body to the virile strength of his. He devoured her mouth with hot, compelling urgency, his tongue stabbing between her lips with a piercing sweetness that was as devastating as it was unexpected. She fell into that kiss like ice-cream melting on a hot summer day. When he set her back from him, she staggered against the railings and he steadied her with a mocking hand. ‘To be continued,’ he promised, tawny eyes blazing with raw amusement.

  He strode across the pavement and swung into the taxi waiting by the gates.

  ‘That was disgusting,’ Gilly said loudly.

  ‘People on TV do it.’ Ben was slightly less censorious but he was obviously embarrassed for her. He could not have been half as embarrassed as his mother was.

  * * *

  Why did the phone or the bell always go when she was in the bath? Sarah snatched irritably at a towel and pulled on her robe in more or less the same motion, wondering who could possibly be at her door at half-ten at night. Karen was in New York. And it certainly wouldn’t be her parents. That particular confrontation had taken place four days ago and had she announced that she was running away with a mass murderer she could not have achieved a bigger effect.

  It was Gordon on her doorstep. Taken aback, she flushed, recalling that she had refused to see him twice in the last week and had relied on his male ego to make him take the hint without forcing the issue.

  ‘Obviously I’ve come at a bad time, but do you mind if I come in?’

  Reluctantly she showed him into the lounge. He took up a stance by the fireplace, rather pink and stiff about the face. ‘I dined with your father at his club tonight,’ he said thinly. ‘He told me that Alejandro is your husband and that you’re going back to him. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.’

  ‘My father shouldn’t have involved you.’ Sarah sighed.

  It was the wrong thing to say. ‘Don’t you think I had a right to know?’ he demanded. ‘If you must know, I was damned grateful that your father did choose to take me into his confidence. He’s worried sick about you and the children and I’m not surprised!’

  Sarah tilted her chin. ‘Tell me, did Rafael figure as a wife-beater, a fortune hunter or a womaniser? Or all of the above? I should warn you that my father doesn’t limit his imagination.’

  ‘I want to help you, Sarah. He must be putting pressure on you through the children. You can’t be doing this willingly,’ he asserted. ‘You need a good lawyer and I hadn’t planned to say this yet but in this situation, well, perhaps I ought to say it. A respectable new husband in the wings wouldn’t be a disadvantage either.’ He paused, quite instinctively for effect. ‘I have been thinking of asking you to marry me.’

  His careful wording roused a wicked twinge of amusement in her but it couldn’t survive when he was so obviously upset and sincere. ‘That’s very kind of you, Gordon, but—’

  ‘I’m not being kind.’ He gripped her hands before she could back away. ‘You don’t belong with someone like Rafael Alejandro. You’re panicking into the worst possible decision. I can understand that you’re angry with your father. Alejandro should have been told about the twins when they were born but after what he put you through I can equally well understand why your father wanted to protect you.’

  Sarah turned an angry pink. ‘I don’t need to be protected from Rafael.’ She attempted to break loose when he linked his arms round her but his slim build was deceptively strong. ‘Don’t,’ she pleaded in distress.

  ‘You’re actually defending him!’ he grasped in disbelief. ‘You’re not even giving me a chance. I just asked you to marry me!’

  He kissed her angrily, forcibly and then he lifted his fair head, reading the annoyance in her pale face. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  ‘Mummy does that with Daddy too.’ Gilly was watching them from the hall.

  ‘What are you doing out of bed?’ Sarah snapped.

  Gilly took one look at Sarah’s stern expression and turned and vanished back into the bedroom.

  Gordon was straightening his tie, affronted by the interruption. ‘When are you flying out?’ he asked curtly.

  ‘Day after tomorrow.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘What is it about him? He’s over here less than a week, he snaps his fingers and you run!’<

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  ‘It isn’t like that, Gordon!’

  ‘From where I’m standing it looks exactly like that and if one half of what your father said is true you are riding for one back-breaking fall,’ he forecast.

  ‘I didn’t ask for your opinion. And you don’t really want to marry me, Gordon,’ she responded ruefully. ‘I can’t see you as a stepfather.’

  He reddened. ‘I do want to marry you and I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life. Your father believes that Alejandro is using you to strike back at him.’

  ‘Rafael isn’t that petty.’ She was stung into the retort.

  ‘I hope you’re right, Sarah. Pawns don’t survive long on the board,’ he spelt out unpleasantly.

  * * *

  Their flight was delayed and it was late afternoon when they finally landed in Seville. The heat was horrific. By the time Sarah had reclaimed their luggage and dissuaded the twins from wandering off and getting lost, she felt hot and tired and bedraggled.

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’ Gilly wailed.

  Where indeed? Sarah wondered grimly as she scanned the busy reception area. Of course, in the few minutes he had spared her on the phone he hadn’t said that he would meet them; she had taken that for granted. It really didn’t pay to take things for granted with Rafael.

  ‘Senora Alejandro?’

  She spun and found herself facing a portly little man, clutching a chauffeur’s cap between his hands. ‘Yes…si?’ she adjusted uncertainly.

  ‘Don Rafael sends his apologies. He is unable to be here,’ he said in slow and carefully enunciated English. ‘I am the chofer, Timoteo Delgados. Please to follow, por favor.’ His expression was anxious, suggesting that he had just delivered a well-rehearsed speech.

  Without further ado, he took charge of the trolley and cut a firm passage through the crowds. Gilly and Ben raced ahead and Sarah quickened her pace to keep up. It was cooler outside but the more bearable temperature barely registered with her as she crossed to the parking area. Timoteo was loading their cases into an incredibly opulent white Rolls-Royce. Sarah raised a brow. It had to be a hire car, she decided, and a limousine was decidedly over the top. A personal appearance from Rafael would have been far more impressive.

  ‘Is it a long drive?’ Timoteo regarded her blankly. ‘Have we far to go?’ she rephrased.

  ‘Lo siento mucho, senora. No hablo ingles,’ he confided worriedly.

  He slammed the door, sealing them into the luxury interior. In a spirit of rebellion Sarah kicked off her shoes and flexed her cramped toes while her highly impressionable children exclaimed over the superior mode of their transport. Even so, she was conscious of a treacherous little jag of excitement when she looked out on the city’s narrow, tortuous streets and flat-roofed white houses and glimpsed the Gothic magnificence of the fifteenth-century cathedral that stood out against the stark azure-blue skyline. Too soon they were speeding down the motorway where interesting views were at a premium and it was almost an hour before they graduated on to twisty country roads. Silvery green olive groves and orchards bursting with oranges and lemons were interrupted by rich expanses of pastureland. An evocative citrusy scent filtered into the car and her nostrils flared appreciatively.

  The limousine began to slow down at the top of a steep hill and made a graceful turn into the mouth of a massive stone archway barred by tall wrought-iron gates. In electronic silence the gates parted and swept back. A broad tree-lined driveway stretched straight as an arrow before them.

  Sarah sat bolt upright and stared. The driveway fanned into a delicate arc in front of a vast building boasting an elegant faade of slender columns and arches in an architectural style that was strongly reminiscent of a Moorish palace. An exotic tangle of red and violet bougainvillaea cascaded over the walls. Stone urns of hydrangeas and geraniums in full bloom studded the mosaic-tiled terrace beneath the arches. Through the trees she had teasing glimpses of verdant gardens embellished with palms and fountains playing glittering jets of water into the hot, still air.

  Her frown of astonished incomprehension slid away. Obviously Rafael had booked them into a hotel. She should have guessed that at the airport when the chauffeur and the limousine had materialised! Presumably two weeks’ cool-headed reflection had persuaded Rafael that full-time parenting might make serious inroads into his freedom. And they were only two and a half months short of a divorce. In London Rafael had decided too much in the heat of the moment and this was the result. Bitter anger currented through Sarah as the car drew to a stately halt. He was a self-centred, double-dealing swine! He had uprooted her from her job, her home and her security on a whim, and now he was parking them under a hotel roof where they could cause him the least possible inconvenience!

  ‘Daddy!’ Ben squealed, and as Timoteo opened the door the twins hurtled in a miniature stampede towards the male standing on the terrace.

  Sarah alighted with a lot less haste, an icy smile on her lips. An enormous amount of hugging and kissing and frantic speech was being exchanged. In a white shirt that threw his gleaming black hair and bronzed skin into prominence and slim-fitting black jeans that sleekly accentuated his narrow hips and the long, lean line of his legs, Rafael looked infuriatingly spectacular.

  ‘Why wasn’t you at the airport?’ Gilly demanded ungrammatically.

  ‘Abuela…my grandmother, she was not well,’ Rafael was explaining in suspiciously carrying tones because Sarah was taking her time about joining them. ‘But you will meet her tomorrow when she is feeling better. She is very much looking forward to meeting you.’

  Red that had little to do with the heat was warming her skin, a flag of guilt for all her unpleasant assumptions as to the reasons behind his failure to show.

  ‘Can we go into the garden?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes but you stay out of the water,’ Rafael decreed. As the twins took off, rich dark eyes zoomed in on Sarah and lingered. ‘You look tired. You should rest before dinner.’

  ‘Oh, you’re joining us for dinner, are you?’

  His winged brows drew together. ‘Where would I be going?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘I just wondered. I wouldn’t want you to over-exert yourself on our account.’ He was staring at her, unusually slow on the uptake to the challenge of a thrown gauntlet. She spread an admiring glance over their surroundings. ‘Not that I have any complaints. This is a beautiful hotel. As long as you’re picking up the bill, I’m perfectly happy to stay here.’

  Rafael tautened. ‘This is not a hotel, Sarah.’ He hesitated. ‘This is my home.’

  ‘Your home?’ Sarah laughed and then stared at him wide-eyed for a staggered pause, searching his level gaze for some sign of humour and finding none. In the hot and cold limbo of shock, she whispered, ‘You’re not joking, are you?’

  ‘I would have a strange sense of humour if I were.’

  The taut silence was smashed by a loud splash followed by a combined shout and screech. Rafael swung on his heel with a curse and tore down worn stone steps into the gardens. The twins were clambering guiltily out of a lily-pond the size of a swimming pool.

  ‘What did I say?’ Rafael roared.

  ‘I wanted to sit on the big leaf,’ Gilly howled.

  ‘Rafael…’ Sarah interposed.

  ‘Go into the house and cover your ears if you can’t bear to hear this!’ he shot at her.

  He tore strips off them. He explained the danger. He drew an excruciatingly horrible description of death by drowning. By the time he had finished the twins were more chastened than Sarah had ever seen them. The hovering presence of two uniformed maids and an older woman in a black dress, who had come hurrying outside in the midst of the fracas, forced Sarah to keep her tongue between her teeth.

  Rafael issued instructions in a flow of Spanish and Gilly and Ben were removed dripping from the scene by the dark-eyed maids, who were trying to hide their smiles. The older woman remained.

  ‘This is my housekeeper, Consuelo,’ Rafael murmured smoothly.

  ‘Buenas tardes, senora. I hope you had the good journey.’ Consuelo’s homely face was wreathed with a pleasant smile.

  ‘Muchas gracias, Consuelo. I am glad to be here,’ Sarah lied shakily.

  ‘We would like coffee in the sala,’ Rafael dismissed the older woman with an inclination of his dark head. He glanced at Sarah. ‘You are angry with me. All the children need is a firmer hand. They have to learn that when I say no, I mean no. When you say no, sometimes you mean maybe, sometimes you even mean yes, please. For myself, I do not mind this indecision; it adds spice.’

  Still too shaken even to reply in kind, she followed him silently up on to the terrace where she preceded him through arched balcony doors. With a numbed sense of complete unreality, she walked into a very large and exquisitely furnished room. A stunning Aubusson carpet of beautifully blended pastels lay beneath her feet. Elegant curio cabinets and silk upholstered couches abounded. Objets d’art were dotted with negligent ease on polished antique surfaces throughout the room. Everything she saw screamed old-established money and exclusivity, collections gathered up over generations and displayed with often careless understatement.

  Rafael’s home. How could it be possible? No, she could not believe it yet. She was still fathoms deep in shock. Presumably this treasure house had devolved to Rafael through his father’s side of the family. He had never talked about them. For two years of marriage he had kept all this a secret from her. Not a hint, not an accidental single slip had escaped him.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ She could no longer suppress the feelings of angry hurt and betrayal warring within her. ‘You let me make an outsized fool of myself.’ She shook her head numbly. ‘I feel humiliated.’

  Rafael elevated a brow. ‘Enamorada, that is not the stock Southcott response to hard currency in plenty.’

  ‘I just don’t understand how this is possible,’ she muttered tightly.

  ‘During our marriage, I was not welcome here at Alcazar,’ he advanced with flat emphasis. ‘I received nothing from the estate although I was legally entitled to an income from it. My grandfather, Felipe, hated me and I must confess I had no greater affection for him.’

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