The Spaniard's Seduction

by Anne Mather

  David was looking worried now. ‘Something is wrong, Uncle Enrique!’ he exclaimed, turning to look up at him, and for the first time Enrique saw a trace of his mother’s fragility in his face. ‘What are you talking about? Why is—she—so cross?’

  Sanchia’s nostrils flared. ‘I need to speak to you alone, Enrique,’ she said coldly, ignoring the boy’s appeal and continuing to speak in Spanish. ‘Why do you not ask—David—’ Her lips thinned as if in distaste. ‘Why do you not get the boy to ask Mendoza to accompany him on a tour of the palacio. You and I have matters to discuss.’

  Enrique squeezed David’s shoulder and then let him go to move back behind his desk. ‘I regret I do not have the time to discuss anything at present,’ he said, speaking English for the child’s benefit. ‘Perhaps we can continue this at another date, Sanchia.’

  Sanchia’s teeth ground together. ‘You present me with a fait accompli and expect me to accept it, just like that?’ she demanded. ‘No apologies; no explanations. Simply the bald fact that the woman who ruined my life is staying here, with you, as a guest! Dios, Enrique, what do you think I am?’

  Enrique expelled a wary breath. ‘I know it must have been a shock, Sanchia—’

  ‘A shock!’ She uttered a mirthless laugh. ‘If you had wanted to destroy me, you could not have chosen a better way.’

  ‘Oh, please, Sanchia!’ Enrique wished David wasn’t hearing this but there was no way he could send him away without it appearing that he had indeed trespassed on his uncle’s hospitality. ‘Are you not being a little over-dramatic? I doubt that meeting Antonio’s son is in any way destructive to your peace of mind today. It is almost ten years since my brother died.’

  Sanchia gasped. ‘And you think I should have forgotten how he deserted me for—for that—?’

  ‘In the name of God, Sanchia!’ Enrique lapsed into his own language to put an end to this. ‘How can you expect me to believe that Antonio ruined your life when less than six months later you married Alfonso de Romero?’

  Sanchia’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out and, deciding he could not let David listen to any more of this, Enrique came round his desk again and smiled down at his nephew.

  ‘Perhaps Señora de Romero is right, David,’ he said gently. ‘Do as she suggests and go and find Carlos. He will be happy to show you the rest of the palacio.’

  David gave Sanchia a doubtful look. Then, returning his attention to his uncle, he asked, ‘Will I see you again after—after Señora de Romero has gone?’

  ‘Later,’ declared Enrique firmly, propelling the boy towards the door. ‘Now, go. You will find Carlos in the orangery. Do you know where that is?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’ David looked a little mutinous now. ‘What shall I tell Mum? Is Señora de Romero a friend of hers, too?’

  Enrique was pretty sure that David knew she wasn’t but he refused to get into that. Nevertheless, as he turned back to Sanchia, he couldn’t help the treacherous thought that he understood perfectly why Antonio had preferred Cassandra to Sanchia.

  He always had…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CASSANDRA didn’t see Enrique again that day.

  According to David his uncle had gone to Seville, and Cassandra could only assume he had gone to see his father. To bring him up to date on current events? she wondered uneasily. It seemed the most likely explanation, yet Enrique had said that his father was recovering from major surgery. Did he really intend to risk his recovery by giving the old man another shock?

  Or was she inventing reasons why Enrique shouldn’t tell Julio de Montoya about David? After all, it was Enrique’s father who called the shots at Tuarega, and, so long as the old man wasn’t involved, she could still kid herself that she and her son could leave here at the end of their holiday with no harm done.

  Yeah, right.

  Deep inside, Cassandra knew there was no hope of that. From the moment David had devised his plan of writing to his grandfather, she had been on a collision course with Julio de Montoya. It was just a pity that it had taken weeks for her to find out about it.

  David, himself, had come back from his exploration of the palacio full of excitement about where he’d been and what he’d seen. And, to a degree, Cassandra could understand his feelings. There was no doubt that Tuarega was the most beautiful place she had ever seen, and the rooms she and David had been given were nothing short of magnificent.

  The palacio itself was divided into several apartments, each with its own courtyard and patio, all of which were interconnected by covered walkways or colonnades. Flowers spilled from dozens of tubs and planters, curled about the narrow white columns that supported the roof, and tumbled from balconies in exotic profusion.

  Cassandra knew, because Señora de Riviera, the de Montoyas’ housekeeper, had told her in heavily accented English, that Enrique and his parents occupied the main apartments that overlooked the courtyard, where they had had tea the afternoon before. But she and David had been accommodated some distance from there in a sunny pavilion with its own long reflecting pool outside, where tiny tropical fish swam amongst saucer-sized water lilies.

  Cassandra wondered if their rooms had formed part of the seraglio, or harem, when Tuarega had been a Moorish stronghold. They were certainly set apart from the rest of the building, though the paintings and murals that adorned the walls and ceilings in her bedroom and bathroom seemed to give the lie to that supposition. Surely there was too much eroticism implicit in the images of semi-naked women bathing and anointing their bodies with what appeared to be perfumed oils to warrant that belief, but she still suspected the choice of accommodation had been a deliberate one on Enrique’s part.

  Nevertheless, the spacious salón, with its rich carpets and heavily carved furniture, was in no way inferior to the rest of the palacio. Some of the artwork was undoubtedly priceless, and the jewel-bright cushions that were strewn about the floors and sofas gave each room a glowing brilliance.

  Adjoining the salón was an equally impressive dining room. Carved chairs were set about a granite-topped wrought-iron table, and a gold candelabrum supported several heavily scented black candles, giving the room a distinctly foreign ambience.

  David had his own bedroom, of course, and, to his delight, his own bathroom, too. Like her own bedroom and bathroom, they were equipped with every possible convenience, which didn’t make it any easier for Cassandra to face the prospect of him returning home.

  The Kaufmans had been sorry when she’d told them that she and David were leaving the pensión. She’d felt obliged to give them an explanation after the fiasco of the day before and, although she felt sure that Franz Kaufman, at least, had put a different interpretation on her decision from the real one, she was not prepared to justify her actions to him. Let him think that she’d been as eager as her son to make contact with her Spanish in-laws, she thought. It was easier than to try and explain something which, even to her own ears, sounded very unlikely.

  Señor Movida had expressed his regret at their departure. Although he would be able to re-let their rooms without too much difficulty at this time of year, he had assured her that he was going to miss her friendly face about the place. Which had touched Cassandra a little. It was good to know that someone cared.

  Awakening at Tuarega the next morning did cause her some misgivings, however. Despite the fact that she and David had enjoyed a delicious supper in their own apartments last evening, and her fears that Enrique intended to monopolise her son’s time had not been realised, she was not foolish enough to believe that she was going to have much say in his activities from now on. Enrique had brought them here so that David could get to know his Spanish family, his Spanish heritage. Allowing him to spend all his time with his mother was unlikely to accomplish this and she might as well accept it.

  Even so, as she left her bed and trod barefoot across the cool marble tiles to the balcony that adjoined her room, Cassandra found her thoughts straying into another area. Over supper, D
avid had admitted that his uncle had had a visitor when he’d gone to his study the previous afternoon. Ignoring her question as to whether he had been trespassing, David had gone on to explain that the visitor had been a young woman, who had been cross with his uncle for reasons he didn’t understand.

  They’d been speaking mostly in Spanish, he’d said, and Cassandra had been diverted from her own doubts about David’s behaviour to speculate on who the young woman might be. It seemed obvious to her, if not to her son, that this woman resented their arrival, but why? Was this Enrique’s girlfriend? His fiancée? Her lips twisted with unconscious irony. How she wished she could discredit him. Although she had no quarrel with the other woman, Enrique deserved a taste of his own medicine.

  But it was no use wasting her time on such futile schemes. If he was engaged to this woman, it was nothing to do with her. Still, it seemed there was at least one more person to whom David’s presence at Tuarega was not proving very appealing. Who was she? Cassandra wondered again, gripping the balcony rail with nervous fingers. And why did she care?

  It was another beautiful morning. It was still fairly early but the sun was up, and the tiles of the balcony were already warm beneath her feet. Unlike her bedroom. She’d discovered that, although their apartments were not air-conditioned, the thickness of the walls prevented them from getting too hot. But out here, with the sun shining down out of a cloudless sky, she did not have any protection.

  There seemed to be few people about that she could see. In the distance, beyond the jasmine-covered grille that edged the patio, a man was working in the gardens that surrounded the palacio, and somewhere the steady drone of a lawnmower broke the stillness. Even so, she was suddenly conscious of the scarcity of her attire—the oversized tee shirt she used to sleep in exposing far too much thigh for her liking—and, deciding to go and find her son, she abandoned the balcony in favour of her bedroom.

  When she ventured into David’s room, however, she found her son was gone. His bed had been slept in: the tumbled sheets were evidence of that. But his sleeping shorts lay discarded on the floor and, when she checked, she found the clothes he’d worn the day before had disappeared.

  Cassandra sighed. She wasn’t worried exactly. It was unlikely he’d ventured far from the palacio, and there were any number of staff around to see that he came to no harm. All the same, she couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed that he hadn’t told her where he was going. This was their first day here, after all, and he should know she was as anxious as he was to get her bearings.

  There was no point in stressing over it, however, and, going back to her own room, Cassandra took a quick shower before getting dressed. But, as she surveyed the clothes she’d brought with her, she couldn’t help wishing she’d packed more summer dresses. Not that she had an extensive wardrobe, of course, but she had left several cotton dresses at home in favour of shorts and cut-offs, and cropped shirts of one sort or another.

  She eventually decided to wear knee-length trousers in a soft cream micro-fibre with one of her less skimpy tops tucked firmly into the waistband. Then, securing her hair in a ponytail, she thrust her feet into heelless pumps and left her room.

  Finding her way back to the main part of the palacio was not so easy, however. Accompanying Señora de Riviera along these corridors the previous day, Cassandra had been too overwhelmed by the beauty of her surroundings to pay a lot of attention to their actual direction. It was not until she emerged into another sunlit courtyard that she had to acknowledge that she was lost.

  Crossing the paved path that circled another pool, this one with its own ornate fountain spilling water into a marble basin, she walked to the edge of the courtyard and looked out over a fertile landscape. Below her, the ground fell away gradually to the valley floor, wide terraces providing room for the acres of what she surmised were orange trees, judging by the overpowering scent of citrus that filled her nose. She wondered how many trees there were. Hundreds, certainly; possibly even thousands. But they were just a small part of the estate that was Tuarega, and she was reminded of how unreal her presence here seemed.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Enrique’s voice startled her, and she glanced round almost guiltily to find him standing beside the fountain. She hadn’t heard his approach. She’d been too intent on her thoughts. And it was disconcerting to find him there, lean and dark and somehow menacing, watching her.

  ‘I—got lost,’ she admitted, deciding there was no point in lying about it. ‘I was looking for David and—well, I seem to have missed my way.’

  ‘Ah.’ Enrique inclined his head and strolled towards her, not stopping until he, too, could see down into the valley. ‘Are you admiring my father’s fruit trees?’

  ‘I was trying to estimate how many there were,’ Cassandra conceded, pushing her hands into the back pockets of her trousers and lifting her shoulders in an awkward gesture. ‘Are oranges easy to grow?’

  ‘Comparatively so,’ agreed Enrique, his dark eyes cool and assessing. ‘They have their problems, as do we all. The fruit fly has not been totally eradicated, and a good grower is always alert for any pest which might damage his crop.’ His lips tightened. ‘Are you really interested, Cassandra? Or is this simply a way of avoiding the obvious?’

  ‘The obvious?’ Cassandra wasn’t entirely sure she knew what he meant. ‘You mean David? Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He is with Juan Martinez, my chief stockman,’ said Enrique at once. ‘He came out to the paddocks this morning as we were examining the new calves.’ He paused, and then went on slowly, ‘It was not an entirely sensible thing to do. These cattle are not like your English domestic breeds. They have moods, temperament. An abundance of spirit. Without proper supervision, it is easy to see how accidents can happen.’

  Cassandra’s throat dried. ‘Are you telling me that David was in danger? That these animals are killers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you are. Or at least that’s what you implied.’

  ‘I said, entering the paddocks without giving any thought to what he might be getting into was reckless,’ amended Enrique patiently. ‘Contrary to popular belief, bulls do not attack without provocation.’

  ‘So you say.’ But Cassandra was dismayed. ‘I think it’s appalling!’

  A muscle in Enrique’s jaw jerked. ‘Exactly what do you find appalling?’ he asked harshly, and Cassandra knew a sudden sense of alarm. ‘Me?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Though she wasn’t being totally truthful. ‘I meant breeding—breeding animals to be slaughtered in the bullring.’ She took a breath. ‘You know how I feel about it. I told you the other day.’

  ‘And what exactly do you think your English farmers do with the bulls they breed?’ he demanded, stepping closer to her, and Cassandra felt the heat rise up her face. It was hot outdoors, but it was an inner heat that was lifting her temperature, beading her upper lip with moisture, causing a rivulet of perspiration to funnel down between her breasts.

  ‘That’s—different,’ she declared staunchly, lifting a protective hand to her throat.

  His eyes darkened. ‘How is it different?’

  ‘Because—because they’re slaughtered for food.’

  ‘Really?’ Enrique regarded her intently, so close now she could feel the heat of his body, too. ‘And you think that killing beasts before they’re half grown is acceptable, sí?’

  ‘People eat beef. They’re bred for a purpose.’

  ‘And so are my bulls,’ Enrique informed her flatly. ‘Plus the fact that a bull is already four years old before he enters the bullring. A more reasonable lifespan than—what? Eighteen months or so?’

  Cassandra shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘You have your opinion. I have mine.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Enrique regarded her from beneath lowered lids. ‘But you do not think my opinion matters, do you, Cassandra? And we are not just talking about my bulls, here.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ C
assandra spoke quickly, wishing she could put some distance between them. But he had trapped her between his body and the trellis of flowering vines behind her that edged the courtyard and she was intensely aware of how vulnerable she was. ‘We’re here, aren’t we? You can hardly claim that that was my decision.’

  ‘No.’

  He conceded the point, but he continued to regard her in such a way that a spark of real fear ignited inside her. He was so powerful, so disturbing; so male. And what she was most afraid of was her own unwanted awareness of him as a man. She could remember too well how abandoned he had once made her feel. How helpless; how eager; and ultimately how ashamed…

  ‘This is not an easy situation for any of us,’ he continued at last, his mouth acquiring a dangerously indulgent softness. ‘We share too many memories, you and I.’ He lifted his hand and, to her dismay, he stroked a long mocking finger down her cheek and along her jawline. ‘Couldn’t you at least try and understand my feelings?’

  Cassandra jerked her head away from his questing touch, rushing into speech to destroy the sudden intimacy between them. ‘I—I don’t know what—what you expect me to—to do,’ she stammered wildly, desperate to get away from him. ‘I— I’m sorry if our being here is putting a strain on your love-life, but I—that’s not my fault—’

  ‘What did you say?’ His harsh response banished any pretence of understanding. With anger darkening his expression he reached for her, one hand circling her upper arm, the other curling about her nape and jerking her towards him. He thrust his face close to hers. ‘What are you talking about?’

  Cassandra was shocked out of her inertia. ‘Oh, please,’ she cried, trying futilely to prise his fingers from her arm. ‘You know what I’m talking about. David saw you with her yesterday afternoon. He said she wasn’t very impressed to see him.’

  Enrique ignored her efforts to try and free herself. ‘Saw me with whom?’ he demanded grimly, apparently uncaring that he was embracing her in full view of anyone who cared to walk along the upper landing of the building that surrounded them on three sides. From a distance, no one would know his true feelings. ‘Talk to me, Cassandra. Tell me who you think she was.’