The Spaniard's Seduction

by Anne Mather

  ‘Señor,’ he exclaimed, with some humility. ‘Lo siento mucho. El niño—’

  ‘No importa, Carlos.’ Enrique broke into the man’s apologies with a reassuring smile. ‘Naturally, David is eager to speak to his mother; to apologise for his behaviour, sin duda. Is that not so, David?’

  He arched a warning brow and the boy, clearly disconcerted by this turn of events, pulled a sulky face. ‘You don’t understand,’ he protested, glancing defiantly towards his mother. ‘She was going to take me away.’

  ‘We do not say “she” when we are speaking of our mothers,’ Enrique reproved him sharply, even though the boy’s words had only confirmed his suspicions about Cassandra’s intentions. If he hadn’t turned up at the pensión as he had, he might well have found himself compelled to employ a private investigator to find her. He breathed deeply and then added, ‘How did you get here?’

  David’s chin jutted. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’ he asked insolently, in deliberate contravention of his uncle’s words. Then, when this didn’t provoke the reaction he’d expected, he muttered sullenly, ‘I got a lift.’

  ‘A lift!’ Cassandra spoke for the first time, her consternation evident. ‘From Ortegar?’

  ‘Where else?’ This wasn’t going at all the way David had expected and Enrique wondered what he would have done if he’d been here when the boy arrived. Taken him back to his mother, probably, he conceded drily. He had no desire to be accused of kidnapping. ‘The Kaufmans weren’t interested in what I did,’ David continued. ‘They dumped Horst on me and then cleared off to the bar.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Cassandra cast a shocked look at Enrique before chastising her son. ‘Besides, you like being with Horst. You’ve played together all holiday.’

  ‘All holiday!’ David mimicked her. ‘We’ve only been here for four days, Mum! And who said I liked him? He’s a wimp.’

  ‘Well, you were keen enough to go out with him and his parents this morning,’ she cried, and David pulled a face.

  ‘Haven’t you figured out why?’

  ‘That will do.’ Enrique decided he had heard enough. ‘Your mother asked you a question earlier. How did you get from Ortegar to Tuarega?’

  ‘I answered her,’ exclaimed David defensively, but Enrique was beginning to understand that Cassandra might well have her hands full with this young tyrant.

  ‘To say you got a lift is not an answer,’ he retorted coldly. ‘From whom did you get this lift? I assume it was not with someone you knew?’

  David shrugged. ‘I know him now,’ he said. Then, meeting Enrique’s dark accusing eyes, he hunched his shoulders. ‘Oh, all right. He was a wagon driver, yeah? Big deal! He even spoke English almost as well as you do. We talked about England’s chances of qualifying for the World Cup.’

  ‘Oh, David!’

  Cassandra was clearly horrified and Enrique knew a quite inappropriate urge to comfort her. The boy was here, after all, safe and sound. Whatever risks he had taken, and however he deserved to be punished, she should not blame herself for his behaviour.

  ‘I suppose the Kaufmans came moaning to you because I’d gone missing.’ David was apparently unrepentant. Then, on a different tack, ‘I thought you swore you’d never come here.’

  ‘You wish,’ said Cassandra tightly, recovering a little of her spirit. ‘Have you any idea how worried I’ve been about you?’

  ‘Oh, Mum!’ David pushed his hands into the pockets of his shorts and scuffed his feet against the veined tiles. ‘You must have guessed where I’d gone. Why else did you get in touch with—with him?’

  He jerked his thumb towards his uncle and Enrique was amazed to discover that he badly wanted to take this young man in hand.

  ‘Your mother did not have to get in touch with me,’ he stated crisply. ‘As a matter of fact, we had lunch together, and it was not until we got back to the pensión that we discovered you had disappeared. Or so the Kaufmans assumed. Without prior knowledge, they had no way of knowing where you had gone.’

  David had listened to this statement with steadily increasing indignation, however. ‘You had lunch together?’ he cried accusingly. ‘Why wasn’t I told you were going to see one another again?’

  Enrique gave him a half-amused, half-disbelieving look. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘David—’

  Cassandra tried to intervene, but her son was far too full of resentment to listen to her. ‘I would have liked to have had lunch with you,’ he exclaimed petulantly. ‘Yesterday, you said you wanted to see me again. You were angry because Mum wouldn’t listen to you. I bet that was why she sent me off with the Kaufmans. Just to get me out of the way.’

  ‘David!’ said Cassandra again, and Enrique couldn’t let her defend herself alone.

  ‘Eres una—’ he began, and then cut himself off before he said something he would regret. ‘The world does not revolve around you, niño,’ he said instead. ‘What your mother and I do is nothing to do with you. Do you understand me? You will never again question her actions or mine.’

  David looked as if he would have liked to challenge him, but he evidently thought better of it. Dragging his feet, he moved closer to his mother, before saying sullenly, ‘I want to go back to the hotel.’

  Cassandra was clearly at a loss for words, and once again Enrique intervened. ‘Not yet,’ he said flatly. ‘Your mother is tired. She needs some refreshment. I suggest we all adjourn to the patio. I will ask Consuela to bring us some iced tea.’

  ‘I don’t like iced tea,’ muttered David, nudging his mother’s arm. ‘Can’t we go? I don’t like it here.’

  Enrique realised that Cassandra was in a cleft stick. On the one hand she was probably relieved that he had exploded the boy’s myth of a fairy godfather, but on the other she must know that giving David his own way wasn’t going to do her any favours either.

  ‘Shall I ask Consuela to attend to the matter of the refreshments?’ suggested Mendoza, in his own language, and Enrique gave him an affirmative nod.

  ‘Gracias, Carlos,’ he agreed, then gestured towards the gallery that led to the courtyard at the back of the house. ‘Will you come this way, Cassandra?’

  He wasn’t absolutely sure of what her reaction would be, but David grabbed her arm. ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ he protested. ‘Can’t we get a taxi or something?’

  ‘I, myself, will take you back to the pensiónlater,’ essayed Enrique firmly. ‘Cassandra?’

  She was obviously torn two ways, but Enrique was not used to being thwarted by a nine-year-old child. ‘Do not be so selfish, David,’ he said, more pleasantly than he would have liked. ‘You wanted to come here. Not your mother. It is only fair that you allow her to see a little of the place where your father was born and raised.’

  David wouldn’t look at him. ‘Please, Mum,’ he appealed. ‘This place is old and creepy. Let’s go home.’

  Cassandra hesitated. Then, meeting Enrique’s eyes, she said, ‘Your—uncle is right. You were the one who wanted to come here, David. You can’t expect to have it all your own way.’

  ‘You would say that!’ David was furious now. ‘You don’t care about me at all.’

  ‘Por el amor de Dios!’ Enrique’s patience was at an end. ‘I am beginning to doubt that you are a de Montoya, after all. Can you not show your mother some respect?’

  David’s eyes filled with tears, proving that for all his sulky belligerence he was still just a child at heart. ‘Are—are you going to let—him—speak to me like that?’ he asked tremulously, and Enrique waited with resignation for Cassandra’s reply. Surely this was the opportunity she had been waiting for. And he had given it to her.

  ‘Where did you say we could have tea?’ she enquired instead, meeting Enrique’s cynical gaze with searching eyes. ‘I—should like a drink, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  He knew a fleeting sense of the initiative being taken from him, a disturbing pang of something that might have been pain in the pit of his stomach. Caray, but
she never failed to disconcert him. And what was he doing, inviting her to have tea with him, when only the day before he had wanted to hurt her, to inflict a little of the pain on her that she had caused his family—caused him?

  His momentary lapse meant his tone was cooler than it might have been when he said, ‘Follow me,’ and led the way along the vaulted gallery to the central courtyard at the back of the palacio.

  Immediately, the beauty of his surroundings soothed him. At this hour of the afternoon, with long shadows providing welcome oases of shade beyond the shadows cast by the colonnade, the courtyard was a peaceful place. It was where his father used to sit in the late afternoon also, and Enrique had only recently come to appreciate its tranquillity after an exhausting day at the winery.

  ‘What a—beautiful place!’

  It was Cassandra who had spoken, surprising him by walking past him to admire the pool where the sound of running water was a constant delight. She rested her hands on the rim of the fountain, leaning forward to inhale the perfume from the lilies, and Enrique was instantly aware of the way the action caused her khaki shorts to ride up the backs of her legs.

  Such long legs, he noticed unwillingly, as he had noticed once before, slim and shapely through the calves and thighs, deliciously rounded at the curve of her bottom—

  Dios!

  He turned abruptly away, half afraid that the boy who was still hanging behind him might have noticed his distraction. This was the woman who only yesterday he’d assured himself he hated. How could he look at her now with such passion when he knew what she had done to him, to his family? He must be mad!

  Thankfully David had noticed nothing amiss. He was intent on kicking the fallen petals of a blossom he had found lying at his feet and Enrique felt a rekindling of the sympathy he’d felt towards his nephew the previous day. He must not lose sight of the real victim here. And it was certainly not Cassandra.

  The appearance of a plump woman carrying a tray aided his recovery. ‘Gracias, Consuela,’ he thanked her, after she had set her burden down on the table. Then, in her own language, ‘I will let you know if we need anything else.’

  ‘Sí, señor.’

  Consuela, whom he’d known would be curious about the visitors, cast a startled glance at David as she withdrew, and Enrique resigned himself to the fact that any decision he might have made concerning the boy had essentially been taken out of his hands. It was one thing to trust Mendoza to keep his mouth shut and quite another to expect the woman who had been here since he and Antonio were children to remain silent about what she’d seen.

  But he’d known that, he acknowledged, his eyes drifting once again towards the fountain. He’d known exactly what would happen when he’d suggested that Cassandra should stay. He would have to think seriously about what he was going to tell his mother before any rumour of the boy’s identity reached her ears.

  Cassandra turned then and came back to where the table was situated in the shade of the balcony, and Enrique made an effort not to stare at her. But, Dios, it was hard not to. Her hair was a tawny halo of red-gold curls that tumbled carelessly about her shoulders. It was longer than it had been ten years before, but just as fiery in the sunlight. He recalled how soft it had felt between his fingers—how surprised he’d been to discover in her nakedness that the colour was natural…

  He hid the emotion that twisted his face by staring down at the tray Consuela had brought. Such thoughts were anathema to him, an affront to himself and his memories of his brother, and he despised himself for them. De acuerdo, she had not yet been married to Antonio when he’d known her, but that had been only a formality. It was no excuse for what he’d done.

  Yet, she had still been a virgin…

  ‘The village looks so small from here,’ she murmured, clearly as discomfited by the situation as he was, but at least her words dispelled his painful introspection.

  ‘Are you thirsty?’ he asked, adopting a polite expression for David’s sake, if nothing else. He indicated the tall glasses of iced tea with their delicate lacing of lemon slices. ‘Por favor!’

  Cassandra glanced at him warily. ‘I am a little thirsty,’ she conceded, but he noticed that when she took the glass he offered she made sure she didn’t touch his fingers with hers.

  Well, that was as it should be, he told himself grimly, a pulse jerking in his temple nevertheless. Bringing her here had not been the wisest thing he’d ever done, on several counts, and he had to believe that it was the ever-present reminders of his brother that were making him so aware of his faults and hers. All the same—

  ‘May I have a cola?’ asked David at his elbow, and he realised that the boy had come to join them. Thanks to Carlos, no doubt, there were several cans of the popular soda on the tray, the metal running with condensation in the heat.

  ‘Por supuesto,’ he said absently, his mind still involved with what he had been thinking. And then, realising the boy didn’t understand him, he changed it to, ‘Of course.’ He lifted a can and flipped the tab before handing it to him. ‘There you are.’

  ‘Thanks.’ David took the can, but instead of drinking from it he bit his lip. ‘I’m—sorry, Uncle Enrique,’ he said. ‘Sorry I was thoughtless, I mean.’ He cast his mother a rueful glance. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, Mum.’

  Cassandra looked taken aback and Enrique guessed David wasn’t always as willing to back down. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ she said quickly, taking refuge in her glass. Then, with an obvious effort to be civil, she licked a pearl of moisture from her lip and added, ‘This is delicious. Iced tea never tastes like this back home.’

  Which was as good as saying she would talk to David when they were alone, Enrique conceded drily. This whole situation was rapidly losing any credibility at all. Dios, what did she think she was doing here? How was she going to justify what had happened to herself? Sooner or later she would have to accept that there was no alternative. One way or another, Enrique and his father were going to have a role in David’s life.

  David had moved away now, carrying his soda across to the fountain that his mother had been admiring earlier, and Enrique moved closer to Cassandra. ‘I spoke to my mother last evening,’ he said, forcing her to look up at him. She shouldn’t imagine that because David was here he wouldn’t say what he thought. He’d tried talking to her earlier in the day and that had not been a success. She had to be made to see that avoiding the issue was going to achieve nothing.

  ‘Really?’ she said now, and he knew a moment’s regret when he saw the guarded look in her eyes. It was obvious she was still not prepared to compromise with him, despite what had happened. Her spine was very stiff as she continued, ‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

  Enrique took a deep breath. ‘She told me that my father is making good progress,’ he said evenly. He didn’t add that she’d been put out by his failure to ring her at the time he’d promised or that he’d mentioned nothing about what he’d been doing all day. ‘She hopes he will be able to return home in a matter of days.’

  Cassandra lifted her slim shoulders. ‘I’m happy for you.’

  ‘Are you?’ Enrique felt a quite compulsive desire to shock her. ‘Why? Because it means David will get to know his grandparents that much sooner?’

  A hand fluttered to her throat and, for all her efforts to appear composed, he could see the fear she was trying so hard to hide. ‘You are joking?’

  ‘I do not make jokes, Cassandra.’ Enrique despised the wave of sympathy she aroused in him, and his words were unnecessarily harsh as he added, ‘You are fighting a losing battle. Admit it. The boy has shown how he feels about it. All right, perhaps his method of achieving his ends left a lot to be desired. I accept that. But you are not going to get anywhere if you insist on denying him his right to know his Spanish family.’

  Cassandra swallowed. He saw the way the muscles in her throat worked to hide the emotion she was fighting. Then, setting her glass down on the tray, she said tightly, ‘Will yo
u allow me to ring for a taxi to take us back to Punta del Lobo?’

  Enrique sighed. ‘I have told you: I will take you back to the pensión myself. There is no need for you to call a taxi.’

  She shook her head. ‘I would prefer to.’

  ‘And can you afford it?’

  His words were unforgivable, and he regretted them as soon as they were said. But it was too late. She had heard him, and his careless tongue aroused her as a polite denial would never have done.

  ‘Of course, I would expect you to say something like that,’ she told him in a low scornful voice. ‘That is all you care about, isn’t it? You and your father both. That was why you were so against me marrying Antonio, wasn’t it? Because I didn’t have any money. Because in your world having no money equals gold-digger, right? Well, you know what? I’d rather possess a poverty of the wallet than one of the spirit!’

  She was staring at him now, her eyes wide and filled with righteous outrage. Dark lashes, unmistakably damp with tears, shaded pupils that were an incredible shade of blue, and he felt their condemnation in every pore of his being. For the first time in his life he was aware of his own arrogance, of the cynicism that had coloured all his dealings with this woman. And for the first time, also, he felt himself to be at not only an emotional but a psychological disadvantage, too.

  ‘Lo siento,’ he found himself saying softly. ‘I am sorry. I should not have said what I did.’ He paused. ‘Will you forgive me?’

  Cassandra rubbed the end of her nose with her knuckle. ‘Do you care?’ she demanded with a sniff, and before he could prevent it his hands had reached out to grip her arms just above her elbows.

  It was a mistake. Her skin was like satin, soft and warm and deliciously sensitive to the touch. He knew that any pressure he brought to bear would leave dark bruises on her flesh and, for an insane moment, he wanted to do just that. To put his mark on her; to have the rest of the world see exactly what he’d done.

  It was insane. He knew that. But that didn’t stop him from feeling as he did. His eyes searched her face, wanting to see some matching emotion in hers, and settled on the parted fullness of her mouth. It was wide and sweet, her tongue hovering nervously over her lower lip, and for one mindless moment he wanted to touch it, to taste it, to allow his tongue to probe deeply into that hot moist cavern…