Passionate Protection

by Penny Jordan

  Her bedroom! She felt like a small child banished for a sin it didn't know it had committed. Why had Sebastian put her in this room? Perhaps because he could no longer endure her presence in his room, in his bed. Perhaps the fact that she carried his child reminded him too much of the past, of Manuela who he had loved as he would never love her, but he had not kept faith with Manuela. He was denying their child. It was a strangely cowardly act for so brave a man. He hadn't hesitated to risk his own life to save both hers and Lisa's.

  The day dragged. She was to stay in bed for several days, Tia Sofia told her when she came to see her. Lisa's ankle was merely sprained and she too was confined to bed. Jorge and Luisa wanted to come and see her.

  'And Sebastian?' Jessica asked, dry-mouthed. 'He has had to go to Seville on business,' Sofia told her, avoiding her eyes. 'He will come and see you when he comes back.' There was pity in her eyes. 'Do not distress yourself, Jessica. Think of the child you carry and let that give you hope.'

  Jessica was alone when the door opened later in the afternoon and Pilar came in. As always she was dressed impeccably and expensively, her face and nails fit to grace a Vogue cover.

  'Ah, you are awake—that is excellent,' she purred with one of the coy smiles that Jessica dreaded. 'We can have a little talk.'

  'What about?' Jessica asked wearily.

  'Why, Sebastian, of course, and your folly in believing you could possibly hold him. He only married you out of pity and compunction because he thought he had wronged you. You must know that?'

  She did, of course, but she realised that Maria didn't like Pilar saying so. 'And now you carry his child and you believe, foolishly, that it will give you the key to his heart. It won't. His heart…'

  'Belongs to your sister. Yes, I know,' Jessica agreed tiredly. 'But I am his wife, Pilar, and I am to have his child.'

  'His wife, yet you have separate rooms,' Pilar pointed out maliciously. 'His child… Yes, but men can easily have children, you cannot hope to keep him because of that. You would do better to leave now, before he asks you to do so. It must be obvious to you that he doesn't want you; that your marriage was a mistake from the start. Sebastian doesn't want you—if he did why would he move you in here?' she asked scornfully. 'He is a deeply passionate and sensual man, not a man who would give his wife her own bedroom unless he was trying to tell her something. I shall leave you now,' she finished softly, sweeping towards the door, 'but think about what I have said and soon, I am sure, you will realise that I speak the truth.'

  She was gone before Jessica could retaliate,leaving her with the sickening knowledge that what she had said was probably the truth Sebastian didn't want her, and if she had any pride, any backbone, she would leave, just as soon as she was able to!

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  'Jessica, how are you feeling now? Tia Sofia says that you are well enough to receive visitors, but that I am not to tire you out.'

  Jessica smiled at Jorge. 'How is Lisa?' she asked. 'I haven't seen her yet.'

  'Recuperating faster than you. Dr Bartolo told Sebastian that if you hadn't shielded her from the cold with your coat she might well have been much worse. She has a weak chest,' he explained, 'something she inherited from her mother, and if she had got badly cold it would be aggravated. On the other hand, our good doctor is very concerned about you. He says you are too pale and drawn. You do look pale.'

  'I'm just a little tired. How is everyone else, Senor Alvarez and Luisa?'

  'Very well, but soon their visit ends. Senor Alvarez has invited me to visit them in Argentina,' Jorge said carelessly. 'Of course, it all depends on whether Sebastian will let me go.'

  'Have you told him how you feel about Luisa?' Jessica asked him.

  Jorge shook his head. 'I've never known him so unapproachable,' he admitted. 'I just don't know what's got into him.'

  She did, Jessica reflected. He was feeling the strain of being tied to a marriage he didn't want. Pilar was right; it would be best if she left.

  Jorge was just confiding in her how much he wanted to go to Argentina, when the door opened and Sebastian walked in. Jessica's first thought was that he looked drained and tired; her second that he was furiously, bitterly angry.

  'Er… I'll come back and chat to you later,' Jorge muttered to her, obviously also seeing the anger in his brother's eyes.

  'What was he doing here?' Sebastian demanded angrily, when Jorge had gone. 'You are supposed to be resting!'

  'He came to talk to me.'

  'Just to talk?' His mouth twisted aggressively. 'Did he have to sit on your bed simply to talk to you?' Jessica couldn't understand his mood. He seemed bitterly antagonistic towards Jorge, for some unknown reason. 'And what was he talking about?'

  'He was telling me that Senor Alvarez had invited him to visit Argentina, and how much he wanted to go. I suspect he thought I might be able to plead his cause with you,' Jessica added with wry self-mockery.

  'Dr Bartolo tells me that you are not recovering as fast as he had hoped,' he told her with an abrupt change of front. 'He believes a change of scene might be beneficial for you. Perhaps a visit to your family.'

  Jessica felt as though all the breath were being squeezed out of her lungs. It was true, he did want to get rid of her.

  . She turned away so that he wouldn't see the pain in her eyes. 'Por Dios,' he muttered savagely, 'did you not think to tell someone where you were going? Did it not occur to you that no one knew where you were? If I hadn't thought on the long drive back from Seville of the pequena's secret place, both of you could have died there!'

  'Much you would have cared!' Jessica flung at him bitterly. 'Your own child, and you talk about sending her away to some convent—and not even to one of those close enough to her to soften the blow! You tell Pilar, who you must know hates her, even though she is her sister's child. Well, that isn't going to happen to my baby! Poor Lisa, she doesn't even know she is your child, but everyone else does; how can you keep the truth from her for ever? Haven't you thought of her pain and disillusionment when she discovers the truth, possibly at a time when it can do her the most harm?'

  'Lisa—my child?' He frowned down at her, making her feel conscious of her flushed cheeks and undoubtedly tousled hair. 'What are you talking about?' he grated. 'Lisa is not my child!'

  'I know that's the polite fiction you would want to preserve, but I've been told differently. She's Manuela's child, conceived during the time of your betrothal.'

  'Who told you this?'

  Jessica trembled under the look of biting anger he gave her. 'I…'

  'No matter… You believed it, whoever told you. You think I would actually dishonour the girl I was to have married? A virgin?'

  There was so much horror in his voice that Jessica felt acute jealousy of Manuela.

  'I am not talking about dishonour, Sebastian,' she said tiredly. 'You loved her and she loved you. What could be more natural…'

  'Dios, you talk as though you were reading a fairy-tale!' he snapped at her. 'And what you say contains about as much truth. Manuela did have a child out of wedlock and that child is Lisa, but she is not my child.' He saw her expression and smiled bitterly. 'You don't believe me? I assure you it is quite true, although no one knows the truth apart from myself and Pilar. Perhaps I had best tell you the whole and then there will be no more of these hysterical accusations about my lack of feelings towards my "child".

  'Manuela's family and mine had always been close friends, through several generations. The idea of a marriage between us was first mooted when we were quite small, as is our custom, and both of us grew up knowing we were destined to marry, although we were more like brother and sister. The year Manuela was eighteen we were to marry. When she was seventeen we were formally betrothed; it was then that Manuela's father confided to me that he had been seriously worried by her suddenly changed behaviour. There were wild moods, fits of tears, terrible emotional storms that blew up out of nothing. It was decided that she would go to
South America to spend some time with relatives over there. Her father felt that the change would do her good. We parted as the friends we were. If our relationship was not all that I could have hoped for from marriage, it was pleasant and undemanding. I would be free to make a life for myself as long as I was discreet. There would be children.' He broke off when he saw Jessica's expression.

  'There is no need for your pity,' he told her brusquely. 'It is an accepted code of behaviour that harms no one. While Manuela was away I prepared for our wedding. She was to return two weeks before our wedding day. I have since learned from Pilar that her father feared if she returned any sooner her bouts of hysteria might overcome her. Pilar was already married at this time and had no idea how serious Manuela's condition had become.

  'She had been away eight months, but I barely recognised her when she returned. I met her at the airport, and she was swathed in black garments, her face haggard and pale. She refused to see me when I called at the house. "Wedding nerves", her mother told me.

  'A week before our marriage was due to take place I received a phone call from the hospital in Seville. Manuela had been involved in a car accident and was asking for me. They gave me no hint of whether she was injured or how badly, and it was only when I got there that they told me she was not likely to live. They also told me that she was seven months pregnant, and knowing of our betrothal they had imagined that the child was mine and had called me to ask my permission to try to save its life even though they couldn't save Manuela's.

  'Of course I telephoned her parents, but they refused to come to the hospital, so great was their shame. How on earth they had expected her condition to go unnoticed at the ceremony I do not know, but it seems they believed by some miracle that once we were married, everything would be all right.

  'I didn't know what to do, and then, briefly Manuela regained consciousness. She told me her lover had been someone she had met in Argentina, someone she loved in a way that she could never love me. She knew she was going to die and begged my forgiveness, urging me to try to save the life of her child and look after it. I learned later from… connections in South America that her lover had also been married, something he had obviously neglected to tell her, and in some ways I wonder if it was not kinder that she should have her brief moment of happiness and then oblivion before it was destroyed by the realisation that she had been deceived.

  'I stayed with her until the end. She died just after Lisa was born, and I'll never forget the look on her face when she opened her eyes and saw her child. I vowed then that I would bring Lisa up as though she had been our child. I suppose it is inevitable that people should think she was mine.'

  'I'm so sorry,' Jessica managed in a husky whisper. 'I should never… You must have loved Manuela dreadfully,' she added.

  'Loved her?' He looked at her incredulously. 'As a brother, yes, but as a lover—no. One selfish part of me even rejoices that we did not marry. With the benefit of hindsight I can see that there was a weakness in her—not her fault, poor child, but the result of too much marrying among cousins, too much thinning of the blood. Her hysteria, and bouts of temper… But I am tiring you, and Dr Bartolo says that you are to rest.'

  Jessica wanted to tell him that she wasn't tired. She wanted to beg him to stay, but she knew she wouldn't. Not once during their conversation had he said anything about their marriage, and she wondered if he was regretting it as much Pilar had said.

  Pilar had led her to believe that he still loved Manuela, she had lied about Lisa, while according to Sebastian… Was Pilar too tainted with her sister's weakness, was that perhaps why, in spite of the obvious suitability of it, he had not married her? She wanted him, Jessica knew that, and she would stop at nothing to get him, she acknowledged with a sudden flash of insight. Her possessiveness was almost maniacal.

  Two days passed and Dr Bartolo pronounced that Jessica was well enough to get up. Sebastian as always was scrupulously polite when he saw her, which seemed to be more and more infrequently. When they did talk, it was about the factory, the designs—polite, distant conversation that tore at her heart, leaving it bruised and aching. She couldn't stay any longer, she admitted one afternoon after he had gone to inspect the vines, and she was alone in the house, Lisa and Tia Sofia were out visiting, and Jorge had taken Senor Alvarez and Luisa on a sightseeing expedition.

  Only that lunchtime Sebastian had mentioned in conversation that he had been making enquiries about a flight to England for her. His aunt had looked surprised when he mentioned that she might go for a visit, and Jessica had tried to hide the hurt in her eyes that he was so anxious to get rid of her.

  And he never even mentioned their child. Dr Bartolo had confirmed that she was indeed pregnant, but Sebastian had simply compressed his mouth and looked grimly distant when, falteringly, she told him that her condition was confirmed.

  Perhaps now was the time to leave, she thought miserably, before the decision was forced on her. Oh, she knew Sebastian would disguise it in the guise of sending her home for a 'holiday', but they both knew that she would not be coming back. There was simply no point.

  Many of her things were still in Sebastian's room, and now would be a good time to retrieve them. She was busily engaged in removing clothes from cupboards and they were on the bed in neat piles when the door was suddenly flung open. She straightened, her heart pounding, half longing and half fearing to see Sebastian. Only it wasn't Sebastian, it was Pilar, her face contorted with a rage that made fear curl unpleasantly along Jessica's spine.

  'You here!' she hissed malevolently. 'I thought I told you that Sebastian didn't want you, but then the maid tells me you are in his room!'

  Jessica was just about to tell her that she was simply removing her clothes when a sudden spurt of anger—and the memory of what Sebastian had told her—moved her to say lightly, 'I am his wife, Pilar. I have a perfect right to share his room, if I want to.'

  'He doesn't want you,' Pilar spat positively. 'Jesu Maria, you must know that! Sebastian is a man above all else, he would not deny himself your bed and body as he has been doing these last weeks if he desired you!'

  Jessica knew that it was true, but something compelled her to stand her ground and say calmly, 'If Sebastian has been denying himself, it is for my sake, and the sake of our child,' she added softly. 'Sebastian knows that I have…'

  'You are to have his child?'

  The bitter hatred in Pilar's eyes appalled Jessica, who realised how unwise she had been to fan the flames of the other woman's resentment. Far better to have simply told the truth. Now she was alone in the room with what she was convinced was a badly deranged woman, who was advancing on her like a panther on its prey, scarlet-tipped fingers curled into talons, as though they would like to tear into her flesh and destroy the life growing within it.

  'All these years I have waited for him to turn to me,' Pilar said softly, 'all these years of waiting and watching, knowing he must eventually marry for the sake of his name, and then, just when I think he will be mine, you come along… Well, he will be mine,' she snapped venomously. 'Manuela thought she could take him from me, and was punished for it, and I shall not let you and the brat you carry come between me and what is rightfully mine!'

  She was mad—she had to be, Jessica thought shakily as she stared at the wild eyes and twisted features. But she was also dangerous, and Jessica could almost feel those fingers on her throat, gripping it, depriving her of breath.

  She backed into the comer, realising too late that it was the wrong thing to do. Pilar was stalking her like a cat with its prey, a rictus smile twisting the full lips. She lunged, her hands reaching for Jessica's throat, her wildly exultant laughter filling the room.

  The door was suddenly flung open and Sebastian was standing there, his jacket thrown carelessly over one shoulder, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, tiredness lying in the shadows and hollows of his face. His expression changed as he took in the scene, alertness replacing his earlier exhaustion.

&n
bsp; 'Pilar—Dios, what are you about?' He gripped her arms, dragging her away from Jessica and opening the door, as he called to someone outside.

  Dr Bartolo came hurrying in, his expression one of shock as he looked at Pilar and saw the murderous intent in her eyes.

  'Allow me to deal with this, my friend,' he said sorrowfully to Sebastian. 'I have been afraid for a long time that…' He broke off as Jessica felt herself succumbing to the eddying whirls of blackness trying to suck her down.

  'I'm all right,' Jessica managed to assure him. 'Just a little faint. I…'

  'She wanted to take you from me, Sebastian!' Pilar cried bitterly. 'I told her you were mine. I…'

  'Pilar, you must come with me,' Dr Bartolo said firmly. 'She needs specialised treatment,' he murmured in an aside to Sebastian. 'Her behaviour has troubled me for a long time, but there is a clinic I know of where they are used to cases of this kind. She has allowed her feelings for you to become obsessive.'

  Pilar allowed herself to be led out of the room, and Jessica fought off the attack of faintness that had threatened her. Her legs felt weak and shaky, but when Sebastian moved towards her she fended him off, her expression unknowingly one of sharp horror.

  'I am sorry about that,' he said flatly. He had his back to her, and walked across the door leading out into the courtyard. 'I should have warned you about Pilar, but she had seemed so much improved… She has already suffered two breakdowns; on each occasion she convinced herself that she was deeply in love with the victim of her obsession. I am sorry that you had to be involved.'

  He turned round, his eyes going to the neat pile of clothes, his expression changing, darkening. 'What is this?'

  'My clothes,' Jessica told him quietly. 'I was just getting them when Pilar came in. I suppose finding me here in your room was the last straw.'

  'If you wish your clothes moved from my room to yours one of the maids can do it,' he told her brusquely. 'There is no need for you…'