by Anne Gracie
“But I must—”
He made an impatient exclamation and sat up. “You told me your father told you to flee from Ramón; that he was a brute, a bully, and a thug.”
“He is. He’s a vile beast.”
“And you imagine I’d let you visit a vile beast on your own?” Luke snorted.
She wrung her hands. “But if he sees you, Ramón will want to kill you.”
He sat back and returned to flippancy. “Doesn’t like visitors, eh? Too bad. I’m going.”
“You don’t understand. Ramón will do anything to get his hands on my fortune. He’ll kill you to make me a widow.”
“Will he now?” Her anxiety on Luke’s behalf was quite touching.
“Yes! And then he will force me to marry him!”
He raised a lazy brow. “Really? He could do that? I’m impressed. I’ve been able to force you to do very little. You’re quite remarkably stubborn.”
She stamped her foot. “Oh, will you be serious? You cannot come to Valle Verde with me. I utterly forbid it.”
He smiled. “You forbid it?”
“I do. Because if you go to Valle Verde, he’ll kill you.”
Luke yawned. “He is welcome to try.”
Isabella glowered at Luke from the seat opposite. She’d been jumpy and nervous and bad-tempered the whole way. She peered out of the window of the carriage for the hundredth time and said, “We’re almost there. Just over the next hill.”
Luke nodded.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” she told him.
“I know.” They’d been over this a hundred times, too. He wasn’t letting her go to Valle Verde without him, and that was that. He had no intention of arguing.
“You’re a very stubborn man, you know,” she said crossly.
He gave a faint smile.
They passed the last mile in silence.
“The gates need painting,” Isabella observed as the carriage drove through the entrance to the Valle Verde estate. “And the stonework needs repair.”
Luke leaned back against the comfortable squabs and watched her. Dressed in her new cream and blue dress and wearing that impudent corset that pushed her breasts up, she looked so delicious that it had been all he could do not to while away the journey by making love to her. But she was nervous and jumpy, and so cross with him for what she called risking himself unnecessarily, she was in no mood to be seduced.
Though Luke had always enjoyed a challenge.
But right now he was interested in her reactions to Valle Verde. Her eyes were everywhere, comparing, assessing, looking for signs of mismanagement.
The carriage jolted from pothole to pothole, and her mouth tightened. “The driveway was always smooth as silk.”
But as they drove deeper into the estate, it became clear the neglect wasn’t universal. The vines were well pruned, their rows neat and weed-free. Horses looked at them curiously over sturdy, unpainted fences. Nice-looking animals, too, Luke observed. Sleek and glossy.
“Ramón’s built up the herd,” Isabella conceded. “There look to be almost as many as before the war.”
Luke’s mouth twitched at her reluctant admission. “He probably stole them,” he said in a comforting tone. She blinked in surprise then, realizing he was teasing her, she gave him a haughty look. Her dimple gave her away.
They passed a freshly plowed field where a dozen men and women worked, preparing the field for planting. The strange carriage had caught their attention, and they’d stopped work to watch it go by. Clearly not many visitors came to Valle Verde.
“Oh, oh!” Isabella leaned out of the window and waved. “I know these people.”
One of the field-workers gave a shout, dropped his hoe, and, with a wide grin, ran toward the carriage, waving. The other laborers downed their tools and followed, hurrying to welcome Isabella home.
Luke rapped on the roof to tell the driver to stop the carriage. He opened the door and swung Isabella down. In minutes she was surrounded.
“Little Master, you’re back—”
“Welcome home, Little Master! Welcome home!”
Little Master? What was that all about, Luke wondered.
“Señorita Isabella, we never thought to see you again—”
Isabella greeted them each by name, smiling, weeping, shaking their hands, and embracing some.
“It has been too long since you came among us, Little Master,” an old man said, tears in his eyes. “The true blood of Valle Verde.”
“Oh, Madonna, how like your mother you have grown, little one,” a motherly looking woman exclaimed.
Another woman nodded, wiping away tears with a blue rag. “The image of our dear condesa, the very image of her.”
Isabella did not look too thrilled to hear of the resemblance, Luke observed, but she asked after each person eagerly, inquiring about their families and exclaiming over the news. She’d told him there was nothing for her at Valle Verde anymore, but she was loved by these people, he saw. And she loved them.
And he was taking her to England, where she’d be regarded as a foreigner and an outsider.
Finally, when all the personal inquiries were done, and she’d introduced him as her husband, and he’d been cautiously approved—he at least spoke Spanish like a Spaniard, even if the accent was a southern one—the talk turned to Ramón.
“He is not a gentleman, like your father, but he works hard,” one man said.
“He might not be a conde by blood, but—”
“He’s not a gentleman at all,” a woman interrupted, and there was a general murmur of agreement. Beneath it, Luke thought, there was also some level of approval. Interesting. The old order was changing.
“He’s a sinner and will burn in hell,” another woman muttered. “Taking that girl to his bed and no talk of a wedding.”
Isabella shot a glance at Luke. Her sister?
“The conde needs to marry money, you know that. The estate needs it.” Several people glanced meaningfully at Isabella. Luke wondered if she’d noticed. Clearly Ramón wasn’t the only person who thought she should have married her second cousin. Twice removed.
“No excuse for him to live in sin, though, is it?” the first woman said fiercely. She shook her head. “He’s a godless man.”
“As to that, the old conde was hardly a pillar of the Church—” The man broke off and glanced at Isabella in embarrassment. “My apologies, Little Master,” he said. “I meant no insult.”
She shook her head. “None taken, Elí. I know what my father thought of the Church. But now, we must hurry along, or the new Conde de Castillejo will be wondering who the people are who keep his workers from the fields.”
She made her farewells and returned to the carriage, and they continued their jolting path down the potholed driveway.
Isabella sat silently, her thoughts far away, her brow furrowed.
“Little Master?” Luke said after a while.
She gave a rueful half smile. “A pet name.”
“I guessed that much.” Luke waited for the rest.
She hesitated, then explained. “My father always wanted a boy. When it became apparent that my mother would never give him one, he started to treat me as the heir. He took me out among the people with him and taught me about the running of the estate and… oh, and all manner of things that a boy should know.” She stared out of the window a moment. “And after Mama died, he even dressed me as a boy, and that’s when the people started calling me Little Master, just for fun, you understand.”
He understood more than she realized, and not only her attachment to her breeches, but all he said was, “Those people love you.”
She nodded. “I’d forgotten what it was like to belong.” She stared out of the window, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears and added in a husky voice, “And I’d forgotten how beautiful Valle Verde is.”
A large, square stone house came into view. Nine graceful stone archways flanked the front entrance, with five more along
the balcony of the upper story. Poplars lined the driveway leading up to it, and an ornamental pond lay to one side.
“It’s a beautiful house,” Luke said.
“My family built this in the sixteenth century,” Isabella told him, pride evident in her voice. “It was called El Nuevo Castillo for about three hundred years, but in my great-grandfather’s day he announced that everyone must call it El Castillo de Castillejo.” She said nothing more, but the lurking dimple told Luke the story wasn’t over.
“And so now people call it… ?” he prompted.
“El Nuevo Castillo.” She laughed. “People are slow to accept change in this part of the country.”
“They seem to accept Ramón, all right,” he pointed out gently.
Her smile faded. “They have no choice. He inherited the title and the estate. No matter that he is a vile bully and a thug, he is still the Conde de Castillejo.”
Luke said nothing. The people they’d just been talking to might not love Ramón the way they loved Isabella, or respect him as they did her late parents, but neither did they give the impression they thought him a vile bully or a thug.
The carriage drew to a halt in front of the graceful line of archways. Isabella wiped damp palms on a handkerchief. “Do you have your pistol?”
“He’s not going to shoot me out of hand,” Luke assured her.
“You don’t know that.” She picked up her cloak, which she’d already folded in a bundle, and clasped it to her chest.
“I’ll take that.” He took the bundle from her arms, felt between the folds, and removed the pistol he knew would be there.
“But—” she began.
“You will not call on the sister whom you haven’t seen for eight years with a pistol in your hand.”
“But what if Ramón—”
“Leave Ramón to me.” He handed her the cloak and returned the pistol to the concealed hollow in the armrest.
Servants ran out and put down the steps to the carriage. Luke descended first then turned to hand Isabella down. She descended the steps like a young matador entering the ring.
As she stepped into the sunlight there was a gasp from the waiting servants. It was a repeat of the earlier scene, with tears and exclamations of “Little Master!” and “Señorita Isabella!” She greeted them by name, hugging some, having her hands kissed by others.
“Where is Marta?” she asked, looking around for her old nurse.
“Marta has not lived here for years, señorita.”
“And her daughter, Carmen?”
“Married a man in the next valley. Marta lives with them.”
As Isabella caught up with all the news, it became clear that many of the beloved old house servants she remembered no longer worked at Valle Verde. She gave Luke a significant look. Ramón.
And then a sudden hush as the servants fell silent and drew back as a tall, grave young woman glided into the entrance.
No need for introductions; it was obvious who this was, even though there was not much of a resemblance between the sisters. Half sisters.
Perlita was tall and stunningly pretty, with red gold hair smoothed back in an elegant chignon and gray green eyes fringed with long, sooty lashes.
Luke stepped back. Isabella’s big moment; the reason they’d come here. He waited for the joyous reunion.
Nobody moved.
There was a long silence as the two young women eyed each other. No long-lost reunion here. Luke was reminded of two cats circling each other, hostile and wary, each one waiting for the other to pounce first—only these two didn’t move. What on earth was going on?
The people of the estate edged closer, craning to see, to hear. They would have known about these two girls from the day each was born. The daughter of the mistress, now in charge of the house. The daughter of the house, now a visitor.
Perlita snapped her fingers and issued rapid orders for the carriage to be taken around the back and the horses seen to. All but the house servants melted away. Perlita was very much at home here, Luke saw; very much mistress of the house. Isabella had said her sister was nineteen, but only in years was this girl younger than Isabella. She seemed altogether more experienced, more sophisticated, and it wasn’t simply her clothing.
And she did not have the manner of a helpless innocent needing to be rescued.
Perlita had Papa’s eyes. Bella stared at her half sister, close-up for the first time in her life. Not just Papa’s eyes, but his long lashes, and there was also something in the way she held her head that reminded her of Papa, too. It was an almost physical pain, seeing the resemblance. Why should she have Papa’s eyes and not—
No. Bella pulled herself up. She would not think such thoughts. She was here to help her half sister, not wallow in old resentments. Perlita’s looks were not her fault. Besides, having Papa’s eyes only proved their relationship.
But oh, did she have to be so very beautiful? Bella could see the way Luke was looking at her. Perlita was dressed in a sophisticated green dress that exactly matched her eyes. The dress was fashionable, cut low and tight to display a lush bosom, a tiny waist, and an hourglass figure. She wore no jewelry; she didn’t need to. Like her mother, she was beautiful.
Beside her Bella felt small and plain and ill-dressed. She thrust the thought aside and drew herself up. Looks didn’t matter, she told herself. Character was what counted.
Hollow comfort.
Still, she wished her sister wasn’t quite so beautiful. It was almost intimidating, especially with Papa’s eyes staring at her with barely concealed hostility.
Nonsense, she was the elder sister, and the legitimate one, and she had every right to visit her childhood home. “How do you do, Perlita.” She inclined her head stiffly.
“Sen— Isabella,” Perlita responded and gave an equally stiff nod. She didn’t move.
Now what? Bella wondered. She could hardly push Perlita aside and shove her way into the house.
Luke gave a soft cough and stepped forward. “And I am Isabella’s husband, Lord Ripton.” He bowed.
“Her husband?” Perlita blinked and glanced from Bella to Luke and back again. The relief in her face was obvious. She had not known Isabella was married.
“Yes, her husband. You may call me Luke, since in law, we are now brother and sister.”
“Brother and sister?” Perlita echoed blankly.
“Something like that,” Luke said in an easy manner that Bella envied. “Isabella and I are on our way to England, but she’d heard you were at Valle Verde and wanted to call in, to see how you were.” He made it sound so casual, a mere whim. Bella was grateful.
“How I am?” Perlita gave Bella a shocked glance. “You came to see me?”
“Is that so strange?” Bella removed her hat and gloves and tugged her dress to straighten it.
Perlita didn’t beat about the bush. “I think so, yes, seeing we’ve never even spoken to each other before this day.”
Bella felt rather than saw Luke’s reaction. She could almost hear him thinking aloud, Never spoken to each other? You dragged me halfway across the country to save a sister you’d never even spoken to?
Her cheeks heated. She avoided his gaze and managed to say with an air of assurance, “Yes, but I decided it was time we met.”
Perlita’s brows rose. “Why?”
Isabella glanced at the servants, avidly watching and listening, and said nothing. Perlita gave a tiny shrug, as if to say, why not, and invited them inside.
Bella stepped inside, and memories swamped her. Nothing had changed. The arrangement of the furniture, the smell, the cool stillness, it was all the same. Even the wall hangings were the same ones that had always hung there, though a little more faded. The tiled terra-cotta floors were as highly polished as ever. Her feet itched to walk the worn patterns of the tiles as she had a thousand times as a child; along the line of red flowers, then onto the blue medallions, avoiding the yellow and brown ones that looked like a lion. They didn’t really, but
she’d always pretended…
She hadn’t thought of those tiles in years, but now… It was like being greeted by an old playmate. The footsteps of her childhood.
She forced herself back into the present. The house looked immaculate.
“Welcome to El Nuevo Castillo,” Perlita said coolly.
It felt very odd to be welcomed as a stranger to her own home.
But it wasn’t her home, Bella reminded herself.
After allowing them to refresh themselves after their long journey, Perlita led them toward the large drawing room. Bella hesitated on the threshold. Papa’s favorite room.
As if he knew how she felt, Luke slipped his hand under her elbow. Warmed by the contact, she stepped in. It was unchanged, too. It had always been old-fashioned—Mama had wanted to change it but Papa always refused. It was a man’s room, with heavy varnished woodwork, studded with silver nails, and leather-covered chairs. Even the old dueling swords that had been in the family for generations remained crossed and mounted over the mantel, gleaming as brightly as they had throughout her childhood.
The room held a thousand memories. Even the smell was the same.
It was as if Papa had just stepped out. Bella’s throat filled as the emotions she’d tried to hold back finally swamped her. Eight years since she’d been in this room. She thought she’d almost forgotten it, but now, being here… Her tongue thickened. She couldn’t speak.
Perlita invited them to sit and ordered refreshments. In minutes tea was brought in along with a plate of small, iced cakes. It was a well run home, Bella conceded as Perlita poured.
Part of her hoped that Perlita was really only the housekeeper, here, but no… not in that dress.
“How is your mother?” Bella inquired politely, steadier after a few sips of hot tea.
“Married and living in Barcelona,” Perlita said. She waited until the servants had gone and said bluntly, “Why have you come here?”
“Because I was worried about you.”
“Worried?” Perlita arched her slender brows. “About me?” She gave a snort of disbelief.
“It’s true.” Bella set her cup aside and took the plunge. “I had heard you were… living with Ramón. I was concerned.”