Spring Bride

by Sandra Marton

  The shorts were baggy and the shirt hung halfway down her thighs and could have housed a family of five within its voluminous folds, which was fine because it meant she’d been able to wear nothing under it but her skin. The thought of putting on her unwashed bra and panties had made her shudder, so she’d rinsed them out and hung them over the shower door to dry.

  There wasn’t a way in the world anyone could possibly guess she had left off her underthings. Still, she was suddenly, almost painfully aware of her body as she stepped from the bedroom. Her breasts felt sensitized to the soft brush of Antonio’s shirt; the denim shorts whispered against her flesh as she walked.

  Her legs felt terribly long and bare despite the fact that the cuffs of Antonio’s shorts ended just above her knees. The truth was that when she wore almost any of the designer dresses handing in her closet back home, she showed more skin than she was showing now.

  Kyra frowned. She was being ridiculous. This was as unattractive and sexless an outfit as a woman could possibly wear. Besides, with any luck at all, the only person she’d see the rest of the day would be Dolores.

  Briskly, she shut the door behind her and made her way down the wide staircase.

  Her footsteps slowed when she reached the ground floor. Last night, the only thing she’d noticed about the house was its enormity. Now she could see that it was more than big; it was beautiful, too. White stucco walls soared to meet sweeping cathedral ceilings. There were green plants everywhere and great expanses of glass let in the bright tropical sun. The furnishings complemented the architecture; everything was clean-lined, simple and handsome.

  It was impossible not to contrast the house with the one she’d grown up in. The Landon mansion was a testament to wealth and power. This place was something very different. Antonio apparently understood what made a house a home.

  Which only proved how deceptive appearances could be, Kyra thought, giving herself a little shake. This house might be his home but it was her prison.

  The kitchen was huge, bright with sunshine and with a dizzying variety of potted flowering plants. Sliding glass doors looked out onto a wide brick patio.

  Kyra paused uncertainly. She’d expected to find Dolores standing by, ready to give her her marching orders, but the room was empty. She shrugged, then headed for the pot of coffee sitting on the stove. There was a pair of brightly colored ceramic mugs alongside. She filled one to the brim with the rich, dark brew and took a long, fortifying sip.

  Mmm. It was ambrosial. Antonio’s housekeeper might be a head-bobbing slave to a cold-blooded tyrant, but she could make a terrific cup ot—

  The patio door slid open. Kyra turned around just as Dolores stepped into the kitchen. A straw basket was hooked over her arm, overflowing with tomatoes, onions and green and red peppers. Her dark brows rose at the sight of Kyra, but she smiled politely.

  ”Buenos días, señorita.” She slid the door shut, put the basket down, and bustled to the refrigerator. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. If you will tell me, please, how you prefer your—your…” She paused, and Kyra could see her struggling for the right word. ”Ay, cómo se llama heuvos?”

  “They are called ‘eggs’,” Kyra said in Spanish. Her tone was cool but polite. “I speak your language, Dolores. Last night, you talked to Señor del Rey as if I were not present, but I assure you, I am perfectly capable of understanding every word you say.”

  Dolores’s black eyes were unapologetic.

  “I had no way of knowing you spoke our language, señorita,” she said stiffly. “If I offended you, I apologize.”

  Kyra returned the unflinching look for a moment and then she blew out her breath.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m letting my anger out on you. You’re only a slave here, the same as me.”

  The housekeeper smiled uncertainly. “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. I’ve no right to drag you into this” Kyra put down her mug and put her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m yours to command.”

  Dolores’s smile grew even more uneasy. ”Señorita?”

  “What do you want me to do? Scour the commodes? Hose down the stables?” Kyra threw out her hands. “Dust? Scrub? Sweep? Just tell me and I’ll get started.”

  The housekeeper was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind.

  “If you would just tell me what it is you wish for breakfast, Señorita Landon—”

  “Call me Kyra. And I’ll make my own breakfast, if you point me in the right direction.”

  Dolores looked aghast at the suggestion. “Please, señorita, go into the dining room. I’ll bring everything to you.”

  “I am not a guest here, Dolores. Didn’t your boss tell you that?”

  “Not a guest? I do not understand. If you are not the Señor’s guest, then what—”

  “Señorita Landon is here as my employee.”

  Kyra spun toward the doorway. Antonio was standing just inside the room, hands on his hips, legs apart.

  “And you are not to wait on her,” he said coldly. “She will take her own meal, and then you will put her to work.”

  Dolores blanched. ”Señor, por favor, I cannot possibly—”

  “You may assign her whatever tasks you wish, though I suspect she will prove useless at all but the simplest things. Perhaps she can learn to scrub floors.”

  Kyra didn’t think. She simply reacted and flung her half-full coffee mug at his head. It smashed into the wall beside him with a satisfying thunk and an even more satisfying shower of dark brown drops.

  For an instant, nothing happened. Then Dolores crossed herself and muttered a prayer in Spanish, but Antonio’s sharp oath drowned it out. He was across the room before Kyra could move, his eyes almost black with anger, his fingers steely as they wrapped around her shoulders.

  “You will not improve your lot here if you continue playing the spoiled brat, Kyra.”

  “There’s no way my lot can improve until I’ve seen the last of you!”

  Antonio’s eyes flashed. Slowly, he released his grip on her.

  “Clean up that mess.”

  Dolores stepped forward. “No, no, there is no need. I shall-”

  “Clean it up, I said.”

  Kyra put her hand on the housekeeper’s arm. “There’s no reason for you to do it,” she said, her eyes never leaving Antonio’s. “I just wish my aim had been better.”

  “Be grateful that it was not,” he said sharply. He watched as Kyra began picking up pieces of broken pottery and then he turned to Dolores. “Remember what I said, Dolores. If Señorita Landon is to have a roof over her head and food in her belly, she must earn it.”

  It was, Kyra thought as she dumped the remnants of the mug into the waste bin, a hell of an exit line. Dolores apparently thought so, too.

  “What is going on?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “What is he talking about?”

  “He’s talking about being a brute,” Kyra said furiously. “What a bastard he is!”

  “No! Señonta, you must not say such things.” Dolores ripped a paper towel from the roll over the sink and wet it under the faucet. “The Señor is a good man. I have never seen him like this before ”

  Kyra snatched the towel from Dolores’s hands and wiped up the spilled coffee.

  “That’s because you let him get away with demanding something instead of asking for it. You could get a better job than this anywhere! Why do you put up with his intimidation?”

  “You are wrong. Truly, Señor Antonio is most kind.”

  “Yeah.” Kyra rose, tossed the paper towel away, and marched to the stove. “And I’ll bet his ancestors were the conquistadores that spread that same kindness all through South America.”

  “It is possible, I suppose.” Dolores took a pan of sweet rolls from the warming oven. “His father was Castilian. But his mother’s people were descended from the Mayans.”

  “The Mayans? Really?”

  Dolores nodded. ”Sí. They were of my village.”

 
; Kyra took a roll, broke it in two, and popped a piece into her mouth

  “You’ve known him for a long time, then,” she said. The housekeeper nodded. “Where did he grow up? In Spain or in South America?”

  Dolores’s lips clamped shut. She swung away and began removing tomatoes from the basket she’d brought in.

  “I am sorry, señorita. I have work to do.”

  A Castilian father and an Indio mother, Kyra thought, licking sugar frosting from her fingertips. That would explain a lot. Antonio’s height and build were Spanish, and those eyes the color of the sea could only have come from across the ocean. But the high cheekbones, the olive skin, the hair black as night…

  It was a combination that made for a man of rare physical beauty and even rarer passions. All that aristocratic insolence mixed with all that fiery passion…

  Kyra frowned, shoved aside the rolls, and wiped her hands on the seat of her shorts.

  “Okay,” she said briskly, “tell me what my chores are. Come on, Dolores, don’t look at me like that. You heard the voice of our master. If you don’t put me to work, he’s liable to have us both drawn and quartered.”

  She smiled, and after a bit, Dolores smiled, too.

  “Well, perhaps you would be so kind as to empty the dishwasher…?”

  “Empty the dishwasher.” Kyra nodded. “And then?”

  “And then—then, if you wish, you might cut up some onions and peppers. For dinner, sí?”

  Kyra nodded again. “No problem.”

  It didn’t take long for Kyra to decide that she was wrong. The seemingly simple job was definitely a problem.

  It wasn’t as if she’d never cut up vegetables before. Stella had always been proprietorial about her kitchen but there had been times she’d let Kyra help out with cutting or chopping or rolling or baking.

  But this was a truly miserable job. She hadn’t even touched the peppers yet, but the onions—stronger than any onions had the right to be—were making her cry. Sniffling, snuffling, rubbing the back of her wrist across her nose and her eyes, Kyra felt every bit as useless as Antonio had predicted she’d be.

  Which, she thought, taking another swipe at her leaking nose, only made it all the more important to complete the job. She shot a quick look at Dolores, whose back was toward her. Then, jaw locked, she went on slicing and chopping. And suffering.

  Long moments later, Dolores wiped her hands on her apron and turned to her.

  “There,” she said, “I have finished preparing the beef. Now…” Her eyes widened in horror. “Oh, señorita, what has happened to you? You are crying!”

  Kyra swiped her hair back from her forehead and tried to smile.

  “I’m not crying.”

  “You are! Ay, caramba, I will kill the Señor with my bare hands for making you so unhappy!”

  “Really,” Kyra sobbed, “I’m not crying. It’s the onions.”

  “It is the chili peppers! I should have realized that your skin is not accustomed to their heat.” Dolores yanked open the freezer door, took out a bucket of ice cubes, and dumped them into the sink. “Quickly, señorita. Plunge your hands into the ice.”

  “But I haven’t even touched the chilies yet. Dolores, really-”

  “By the bones of my ancestors, what is going on here?”

  Antonio’s angry roar filled the kitchen. Dolores turned to him, her face harsh with anger.

  “The Señorita has hurt herself, and you are to blame.”

  “Me? I am to blame because she is incompetent?”

  Antonio’s angry words ground to a halt. He felt as if a fist had reached into his chest and were crushing his heart.

  Kyra’s beautiful face was wet and swollen with tears; she was leaning over the sink, her hands buried in ice, sobbing as if she were in agony.

  God in heaven, what had happened? What had his anger and his damnable pride done to her?

  He crossed the room in a couple of swift strides, pushed Dolores out of the way, and clasped Kyra’s shoulders.

  “What is it, querida?” Gently, he took her hands and lifted them from the ice, girding himself for a gusher of cnmson blood or the sight of raw, burned flesh. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it rushed from his lungs in relief. Kyra’s hands were as they’d always been feminine, graceful, the fingers long and graceful, the nails a pale, delicate pink.

  Antonio clasped those hands in his and drew her to him.

  “Kyra,” he said urgently ”Querida, where are you injured?”

  Tears flowed down her face. “I’m not,” she sobbed.

  His face darkened. “How can you go on being so damnably stubborn at a moment like this? Dolores! Tell me what happened!”

  Dolores made a helpless gesture. “She was helping me prepare dinnei.”

  “Did she cut herself? I see no blood.”

  “The chilies burned her. And the onions—”

  Antonio’s jaw knotted. “She scalded herself! Where? Madre de Dios, Dolores, where is the injury?”

  “Dammit,” Kyra said furiously, “you’re doing it again! I’m perfectly capable of being part of this conversation, Antonio, and I’m trying to tell you, I’m not burned or cut or anything else.”

  “Then why are you weeping?”

  “I’m not weeping! It’s these miserable onions. They’ve made my eyes tear. Is that so hard to understand?”

  Antonio went very still. “Let me understand this,” he said in crisp English. “You are crying your heart out over a cutting board filled with vegetables?”

  Her chin came up. ”You try slicing and dicing for a while, Your Lordship!”

  He could feel the adrenaline still pumping furiously through his veins. Damn this woman! Did it never occur to her to speak up and say she was in trouble? How dare she be so haughty and impertinent when he was trying to help?

  His mouth twitched. And how could she have the brass to be so outrageous when her small, straight nose was pink and damp, when her beautiful silver eyes were glittering with tears?

  His mouth twitched again, and Kyra gave him a look as cold as the cubes in the sink.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” Antonio said quickly. “Nothing is funny.”

  “Good. Because I want to get back to work before you decide to add time to my sentence to make up for this little interruption!”

  Antonio sighed. “Forgive me for imposing Señorita Landon on you, Dolores. I should have known better.”

  “Yes,” Dolores said. “You should have. Of all things, to treat a woman with such discourtesy…”

  The housekeeper was still grumbling as Antonio led a protesting Kyra through the sliding doors and out to the patio.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Where I can keep my eye on you.”

  She glared up at him as he maneuvered her down the patio steps and through the garden. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid I’m going to sue you?”

  “I made a mistake,” he said calmly. “I should have assessed your skills before turning you loose in my house.”

  “I have no skills, remember? You said so yourself.”

  “Perhaps I was mistaken.”

  “Hah! The great Antonio Rodrigo Cordoba del Rey, mistaken? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  Antonio pushed open a wooden door and shoved Kyra ahead of him. Familiar smells—horse, leather and hay—filled her nostrils.

  “Keep your voice down,” he said coldly. “You will frighten my horses.”

  “Well, isn’t that sweet? You don’t want your horses to be upset.”

  “That is correct. Arabians have delicate dispositions.”

  “You should have told me you had horses,” Kyra snapped, wrenching free of his hand.

  “Why?” He smiled nastily. “You are not here to spend a holiday on horseback.”

  “I know something about horses, that’s why!”

  “I have no use for the pastimes of the wealthy, Kyra. My animals are not t
rained for dressage.”

  Kyra’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it interesting how you talk about the rich as if you weren’t one of them?”

  “It is true,” he said stiffly. “I have wealth. But I was not born to it.”

  “Oh. And that, of course, makes all the difference?”

  His jaw tightened at the sarcasm in her voice. “We are talking about you,” he said, his tone icy, “not me. Tell me what you can do to earn your keep without injuring yourself.”

  “I can work with your horses. I can groom them, muck out your stalls—”

  “I employ men to do that. Surely you know how to do something else.”

  “What?” she demanded. “Something useful? You said it yourself, Antonio. I don’t know a damned thing that’s useful, unless you need somebody who knows whether it’s better to serve a cabernet or a Pinot Noir with beef Wellington!”

  She was angrier than Antonio had ever seen her. Two spots of color had crept into her cheeks; her eyes glittered like bright silver ice after a winter rain.

  Suddenly, a hunger so fierce it frightened him seized his heart. He had to get out of here, he had to get outside where there was air to breathe, where Kyra’s proximity, her softness and her femininity, wouldn’t drive him insane as they seemed to be doing now.

  How could a woman with tearstained eyes, a woman dressed in a shirt and shorts heaven only knew how many sizes too big, look so beautiful? So desperately, incredibly desirable?

  “You are in my way,” he said brusquely, and shouldered past her.

  Kyra was right on his heels.

  “What’s the matter, Antonio? Are you starting to think you ended up with a bad bargain?” She sidestepped around him, danced backward down the aisle as she kept up her taunting tirade. “I could have told you that you wouldn’t find any use for an overbred, underedcuated, absolutely useless—”

  Antonio reached out, grabbed her, and shook her hard.

  “Shut up,” he said furiously, “just shut the hell…”

  With a desperate groan, his mouth fell on hers

  Kyra’s reaction was instinctive. She jerked back, or tried to. But Antonio’s arms swept around her, crushing her to him.

  “This is what you are best suited to,” he said fiercely. “You belong in my arms and in my bed, and you know it.”