by Anne Mather
Or was that being absurdly ingenuous? What if this was all a clever ploy instigated by Enrique and his father to gain control of her son? She was certainly easily persuaded if that was so.
But she dismissed the idea as soon as it generated itself. This was no ploy, no plan of Julio’s to delude her into giving her son away. Enrique looked ill; far more ill than she had expected. How serious had his injuries been, for God’s sake? And was there any chance that he’d confide in her?
‘Hasta nunca, Carlos.’
While she’d been hovering just inside the door, trying to decide what she could say to attract his attention, Enrique had apparently heard something and assumed it was the manservant. And, realising she would have to identify herself, she found the words to say.
‘Hasta nunca?’ she echoed softly. ‘What does that mean?’
Enrique swung round, swaying a little as he did so, and she longed to go and put her arms around him. ‘It means, get lost,’ he informed her harshly. ‘And it applies to you just as much as to Carlos.’
Cassandra blew out a breath. ‘That’s not very polite. I always thought Spaniards prided themselves on being excessively polite. Although I suppose your family is a law unto itself.’
Enrique’s eyes were hooded, so she couldn’t read their expression, but his nostrils flared. ‘As you say,’ he conceded, after a moment. ‘Will you go now?’
Cassandra shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? Carlos will call Salvador for you, if you wish. Or a cab, if you would prefer. We do have telephones at La Hacienda.’
‘Enrique—’
He breathed a deep sigh and, leaving the balcony rail, he walked wearily back into the sitting room. ‘You are determined to persist with this, are you not?’ he said heavily. ‘Why? Why are you here? Of what possible interest can it be to you that I have had a minor accident that resulted in a short spell in hospital?’
‘It was hardly a minor accident,’ exclaimed Cassandra at once, and he shook his head.
‘Sí, it was.’ He rolled back the sleeve of his sweater, exposing a raw scar on his forearm. ‘Aquí tiene, it is healing. Juan has had many such injuries over the years and his family do not panic at the first sight of blood.’
Cassandra felt sick, her stomach twisting at the thought of the pain he must have suffered before the paramedics could get to him. ‘That—that wasn’t your only injury,’ she protested. ‘I know you had to have a blood transfusion.’
‘Dios!’ Enrique propped himself against one of the sofas and Cassandra had the feeling he was in danger of falling without that support. ‘I do not intend to show you my other injury, Cassandra.’ He snorted. ‘El viejo—the old man—he has certainly laid a—how is it?—a guilt trip on you, no?’
‘No.’ She couldn’t help moving a little closer even though he stiffened when she did so. ‘Oh, Enrique, I’ve been so worried about you.’
‘Que?’ His lips twisted. ‘And this from the woman who ran away rather than face me after confessing her cruel little deception? You must be careful in future, Cassandra. Wine can loosen the sharpest tongue.’
‘I didn’t run away,’ insisted Cassandra indignantly. She took a breath. ‘That was you.’
‘Me?’ Enrique stared at her for a moment and then he shook his head. ‘No, Cassandra, I do not run away. I admit that when you told me that I was David’s father I was glad to have to go to Seville to bring my father home. I needed a little time to come to terms with what you had told me. I admitted that. But I did not run away.’
Cassandra quivered. ‘What about ten years ago?’ she countered, unable to prevent herself, and his face contorted with sudden loathing. But whether it was for himself or for her, she had no way of knowing.
‘Ten years ago,’ he echoed bitterly. ‘Ah, you do not intend for me to forget that, do you, querida.’ He used a term of endearment, but there was no affection in his tone. ‘You asked me once what I said to Antonio, sí? Would it surprise you to hear that I said nothing? Nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘I made a mistake, Cassandra. A terrible mistake, I admit it. And I have been paying for it ever since.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
Cassandra was confused, and he bent his head to run weary hands through his hair. His hair needed cutting, she noticed inconsequentially. It overlapped his collar at the back. Then, lifting his head, he speared her with a tormented stare.
‘I do mean it,’ he said. ‘But I see I am only satisfying whatever twisted thread of your nature brought you here.’ His voice was rough. ‘If my father had not told you about the accident, you would not be here. What did he tell you? Did he imply I was at death’s door? I can think of no other reason why you would agree to see me again.’
‘I wanted to see you!’ The words were torn from her. ‘And you know very well why I went back to England. You might not have been present at the interview I had with your father, but you knew what he was going to say. You wanted David to stay here. It was what you’d wanted all along, even before you knew David was your son. How could I insist on taking him back to England when it might be your father’s only chance to get to know his grandson? I’m not that heartless, Enrique. Besides—’ she heaved a sigh ‘—it was what David wanted.’
‘So why did you not stay, too?’
‘Because I have a job,’ exclaimed Cassandra at once. ‘I can’t just take time off when I feel like it.’
‘But your holiday was not over,’ retorted Enrique, pushing himself away from the sofa. ‘You left without even having the—the courtesy to tell me goodbye.’
‘You weren’t there,’ exclaimed Cassandra defensively. ‘I was told you’d gone to Cadiz, on business for your father. I waited. I did.’ This as Enrique pulled a wry face. ‘But day followed day and you didn’t come back.’
Enrique studied her indignant face. ‘I almost believe you.’
‘Almost?’ she caught her breath. ‘It’s the truth!’
‘Then why did you tell David that you did not want to see me again? That your own father was more important than waiting around for me to come back?’
‘I—didn’t say that.’ But she had said something like it. Something that had persuaded David to intercede on her behalf. With, apparently, disastrous consequences.
‘I can see you are having second thoughts,’ said Enrique bitterly. ‘You did tell David you never wanted to see me again. Why deny it now?’
‘Because it wasn’t true,’ blurted Cassandra impulsively. ‘Dear God, Enrique, you can’t possibly believe that. Not—not after I’d told you—’
‘That David is my son? His tone was harsh. ‘That not only had I seduced you but I had also condemned you to spend the last nine years caring for my child? Oh, yes, I can see that that would persuade you to stay.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ protested Cassandra huskily. ‘Why do you think I told you as I did? I didn’t have to. I wanted to.’
‘To torture me?’
‘No!’ Cassandra stared into his dark tormented face for a long moment and then, coming to a decision, she stepped forward and, reaching up, brushed his lips with hers. ‘That’s—that’s why,’ she added, a little breathlessly. ‘Do you believe me now?’
Enrique didn’t touch her. ‘I believe you’ll regret your impulsiveness,’ he declared roughly. ‘And I am forced to accept that you have a conscience. But that is all.’
Cassandra shook her head. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘Am I?’ Enrique breathed deeply. ‘So what are you saying? That what happened between us ten years ago meant something to you?’
Cassandra hesitated. ‘You know it did.’
‘Do I?’ But he had the grace to look away as he added in a low hoarse voice, ‘Yet you went ahead and married my brother.’
Cassandra nodded. ‘Yes.’
Enrique’s face contorted. ‘How could you?’
Cassandra closed her eyes for a moment. ‘I tried to tell him I couldn’t marry him,’ she insisted dully. ‘I did
. But he didn’t want to hear it. He said that if I let him down, it would shame him; that it would prove to you and to the rest of his family that I really had only wanted to marry him because of who he was.’ She lifted her lids again, to find Enrique, watching her with bleak unforgiving eyes. ‘It’s the truth. Can’t you try and understand how I was feeling? I was nineteen years old, Enrique. I was in a state of shock. You—you’d left. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘You must have hated me,’ said Enrique harshly, but it wasn’t a vindication and she shivered.
‘You don’t understand,’ she said again. ‘Antonio—Antonio loved me. And I cared for him, too. I didn’t know I was already carrying the seed of your child. I just wanted to do what was right. I—I swore to myself that I’d make him a good wife, and—and I would have. But then the accident happened. It was an accident, you know? Nothing else. Antonio never knew about us. I suppose I’d hoped he never would. But not in that way. Never in that way.’
‘And if we had met again?’ suggested Enrique with bitter emphasis, and she turned away.
‘I—I—I can’t answer that,’ she said brokenly, and, unable to take any more, she stumbled towards the door.
She didn’t make it. Before she’d gone a dozen yards Enrique caught her, his hands closing about her upper arms from behind and preventing her from going any further. Although his hands were slick with sweat, proving how weak he was, and she could feel the unsteadiness in his body, he somehow managed to drag her back against his shaking frame. Then his head dipped to find the vulnerable curve of her neck and she felt the roughness of his jaw against her skin.
‘Lo siento,’ he groaned, his lips moving against her flesh. ‘I’m sorry. Lo siento mucho.’ I’m so sorry. ‘Will you forgive me?’
Cassandra tipped her head back against his shoulder, her arms crossing her body to capture his hands with hers. ‘There—there’s nothing to forgive.’
‘There is,’ he contradicted her huskily, turning her in his arms to cradle her face between his palms. ‘I have been such a fool; such an arrogant fool. I have no right to ask for explanations from you when my own behaviour has been so much less than admirable.’
‘Oh, Enrique—’
Her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but he wouldn’t let her reassure him. ‘Let me speak,’ he said, and she could feel the tremor of his body through his hands. ‘I told you that ten years ago I made a terrible mistake. I did. But the mistake was not in making love with you.’ His thumbs brushed her cheeks. ‘The mistake was in letting you go.’
Cassandra stared up at him. ‘Enrique…’
‘It is true. That was what I meant when I said I had been paying for it ever since.’ His lips twisted. ‘Oh, I have tried to deny it. I have tried to forget and move on with my life, but it has not worked. I am still unmarried, and until I read David’s letter I believed I would never get the chance to speak to you again.’
‘Enrique…’
‘No, listen to me, querida. I want to tell you how it was when I saw you in Punta del Lobo. Until then, I had held out some hope that you were not the reason why I have resisted all my father’s efforts to find me a wife. But when I saw you, when I saw the fire in your eyes—’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘Dios, Cassandra, you must have known how I felt.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘All I saw was the shock you got when you saw David.’
‘Ah!’ He lowered his head and rested his forehead against hers. ‘That was a shock, sí. And a source of some envy on my part.’
‘Envy?’
‘I thought David was Antonio’s child,’ he reminded her drily. ‘I was selfish enough to resent the fact that he wasn’t mine.’
Cassandra lifted her hands to his shoulders. ‘He’s yours,’ she said simply. ‘You know that now.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He paused. ‘But when I returned from Cadiz and found you gone—’ He turned unsteadily away, as if the emotions his words had generated were too much for him. ‘I am sorry. I have got to sit down…’
‘Oh, Enrique!’
With sudden understanding, Cassandra put her arm about his waist and guided him to the nearest sofa. Then, when he was seated, she came down beside him, close enough so that her hip and thigh and the whole side of her body was touching his.
‘I am sorry,’ he said again, when she lifted a hand to stroke his damp forehead. ‘You must think I am useless.’
‘Just suffering from a surfeit of emotion,’ she told him gently, leaning closer and depositing a soft kiss on his mouth. ‘Oh, Enrique, why didn’t you tell me how you felt?’
‘I intended to,’ he said, his eyes dark with passion. He was feeling stronger now that he was off his feet, and the arm that came about her shoulders, holding her against his chest, was surprisingly firm. ‘But when I got back from Cadiz, you had gone.’
‘There are phones,’ she reminded him, and he closed his eyes briefly, as if recalling his anguish.
‘There are,’ he agreed. ‘But I regret to say I am a proud man and I preferred not to humiliate myself again.’
‘Again?’
‘Por supuesto. I could not believe that after speaking to you in the gallery, and when I came to your bedroom, you could have any doubts about the way I felt about you. And when I came back and David told me what you had said—’ He shrugged. ‘I hardly needed my father to tell me what a fool I was.’
Cassandra caught her breath. ‘He told you that?’
‘As good as.’ He sighed. ‘He told me he had tried to persuade you to stay until the end of your holiday but that you had been determined to leave.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘I know that now.’ Enrique grimaced. ‘I also realise that that was why he insisted I must attend to his affairs before addressing my own. He was a sick man. I knew I needed to speak with you, but I consoled myself with the thought that you’d be here when I returned. You weren’t, and that was when my life fell apart.’
Cassandra groaned. ‘But he must have relented.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Enrique was sardonic. ‘He would never have gone to the trouble of bringing you here if he hadn’t felt some responsibility for what had happened.’
‘He said you’d entered one of the pens where a bull was being kept. He made it sound as if you’d gone in there deliberately.’
Enrique touched her cheek. ‘It was a crazy thing to do.’
‘So why did you do it?’
‘I was not thinking,’ he told her heavily. ‘My mind was occupied with other things. I do not believe I did it deliberately, but it is true that since you went away I have had little interest in anything.’
‘Oh, Enrique!’
‘There,’ he said cynically. ‘I have laid a guilt trip on you myself. So what are you going to do about it?’
Cassandra looked at his mouth. She was remembering how sensual his mouth was, how delicious it had felt earlier against her skin. ‘What do you want me to do about it?’ she asked at last, inviting his response, and, with a groan, Enrique sank onto his back against the cushions, taking her with him.
‘I can think of many things,’ he said, his accent thickening with emotion, and Cassandra was stunned by the sudden strength of his hand at her nape. His mouth found hers with an urgency that brooked no resistance, and with a little cry she surrendered to the magic of his touch…
EPILOGUE
ENRIQUE married Cassandra three weeks later in the small church at Huerta de Tuarega. The whole village turned out for the wedding of el patrón’s son, and afterwards there was a fiesta in the village square.
Despite her happiness, Cassandra couldn’t help but compare this wedding with the civil ceremony she and Antonio had shared. This time there had been no question that all the de Montoyas would attend. And, although she doubted Elena de Montoya was overjoyed at the outcome of her husband’s interference in his elder son’s life, she had had to accept that Enrique loved Cassandra, and only she could make him happy.
Sanchia had att
ended, too, of course. Along with representatives from all the foremost families in the district, she would have appeared churlish not to do so. Enrique had told Cassandra all about Sanchia: about how quickly she had transferred her attentions to him after Antonio had broken their engagement. He’d also confessed that he and Sanchia had had a passing relationship in recent months. But that as soon as he’d met Cassandra again, he’d had nothing more to do with the other woman.
‘Poor Sanchia,’ Cassandra had said one evening, a few days after her return to Spain.
She and Enrique had spent the day at the palacio, Enrique speaking to his father freely for the first time since his accident, and Cassandra confiding to David that perhaps the hopes he’d had for the future were not so fanciful after all. She’d told him she’d forgiven him for writing to his grandfather. That without his intervention she might never have found happiness at last.
She and Enrique had already talked of getting married, and her son had been in seventh heaven at the thought of having a surrogate father at last. Not that Enrique was a surrogate anything, Cassandra had reflected. But for the present it was kinder to let events proceed at their own pace.
‘Why “poor Sanchia”?’ Enrique had demanded, taking great pleasure in watching her brush her hair in front of the mirror in his bedroom at La Hacienda. He’d been lounging on the bed, looking much better than when she’d arrived at La Hacienda. The wound on his thigh still looked ugly, but he had started eating again and there had been a trace of healthy colour in his face.
‘Why do you think?’ she’d countered, putting down the brush and turning towards him. In a cream silk negligee that Elena had lent her, she’d looked unknowingly provocative. ‘To lose Antonio was bad enough. To lose you as well must be devastating.’
‘If you come here, I will show you exactly how devastating,’ he’d told her huskily, stretching out a hand towards her, and Cassandra had gone to him willingly, as captivated by their love as he was.
