Knew too that she was melting, hot with desire for the final consummation of their lovemaking. The moment when she would belong to him completely.
Diaz took her with immense care, his body gentling its way into hers, his eyes watching her face intently for any hint of discomfort.
But Rhianna was aware of nothing but a sense of completion, as if a missing piece of her life had been found at last.
He said hoarsely, ‘Do you know—do you have the least idea what total heaven you are?’
‘And I,’ she whispered, ‘was thinking the same about you.’
As she moved with him, joined to him, she felt like a bird soaring, her only song one sweet, uncontrollable cry of pleasure as her body splintered into the fierce rapture of climax.
Afterwards they lay quietly entwined, exchanging kisses, murmuring nonsense to each other.
‘It’s just occurred to me,’ he said, twining some of her hair round his fingers and breathing its fragrance. ‘I’m now potentially the most hated man in Britain.’
‘Then it’s just as well you’re in Spain.’ She nestled closer. ‘But why?’
‘The ultimate fantasy,’ he said. ‘I’m in bed with Lady Ariadne.’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘Don’t say that, Diaz. Never say that. She doesn’t exist, and you know it.’
‘Sweetheart, I was joking.’ His tone was remorseful as he tipped up her chin and studied her. ‘But I admit I’m curious how you ever got cast in a part like that.’
‘Good audition,’ she returned frankly. ‘Something told me the series was going to be a smash, and I wanted it—even though Ariadne wasn’t a leading character originally. But when we went into rehearsal they suddenly realised her potential and began changing the scripts.’
She sighed. ‘Now she’s seen off two husbands, a lover, and the heir to the estate—the Victorian equivalent of Lucrezia Borgia. Some fantasy.’
‘At the same time,’ he said, ‘stunningly beautiful and incredibly sexy.’ He paused. ‘In spite of your astonishing state of innocence, my love, you can’t tell me that your co-star, however good a friend he may be, wasn’t turned on even marginally in his love scenes with you.’
A gurgle of laughter escaped her. ‘Rob’s an actor,’ she said. ‘His main concern when we were in bed was ensuring the camera got his best side.’
He stared at her. ‘You have to be joking.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ she said, still giggling. ‘Ask the director. Ask anyone. For Rob, love scenes are just work, and he takes that extremely seriously. Besides,’ she added more soberly. ‘He doesn’t play around. He’s a one-woman man, which is why I’m sure that he and Daisy will get together again. She’s the other half of him.’
There was a silence, then he said quietly, ‘Let’s hope you’re right, and it works out for them.’ And began to make love to her again.
And as her body lifted to his touch, the words, Because it never can for us seemed to hover unspoken in the ether.
They were still there in the back of her mind, impossible to shake off, when they eventually ate lunch, sitting on a terrace at the rear of the house overlooking the swimming pool, with Rhianna wearing one of his shirts.
‘I really wish we’d arrived in daylight,’ she said, drawing a deep breath. ‘I’ve only just realised there are mountains.’ She shaded her eyes, studying the range of jagged grey peaks towering towards the sky that filled the distance. ‘They’re spectacular. And is that actually snow I see?’
‘It’s usually there somewhere on the cordillera,’ Diaz agreed. ‘So are bears, although I admit I’ve yet to see one.’
She shuddered. ‘Just as well, I imagine.’ She paused. ‘And everything’s so green. I didn’t expect that.’
‘We get a fair amount of rain here,’ he said, adding laconically, ‘Don’t confuse Asturias with Andalusia.’
‘Here—the mountains. In Cornwall—the sea. You seem to have picked the best of both worlds.’ She managed to keep a wistful note out of her voice.
He shrugged. ‘I have roots in both. After all, this is where Jorge Diaz was born, even if the original house no longer exists.’
Seen in daylight, the farmhouse itself wasn’t particularly beautiful, just a large rambling structure with white walls and a roof of faded terracotta tiles, but it fitted solidly and reassuringly into its landscape.
Like Penvarnon, she thought, it had all the makings of a home.
It suddenly seemed necessary to change the subject.
She waved a fork at the clustering trees beyond the garden’s perimeter fence. ‘Is that your apple orchard?’
‘Part of it.’ He offered her some tomato salad.
‘My God, she said. ‘What happens to all the fruit? I didn’t know the Spanish were big on apple pie.’
‘These apples make cider,’ he explained. ‘They drink a great deal of it here in the north. But it’s quite mild, unlike scrumpy.’
‘And your pool.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘After what you said about the house, do you reckon that’s a comfort rather than a luxury?’
‘I’d say both. You can try it after we’ve eaten, and give me your opinion.’ He smiled at her. ‘It’s also pretty much a necessity. Asturias has always been a big coal mining area, and most of the rivers are still polluted, so not much swimming there.’
‘Can’t something be done about that?’
‘Yes, but it all takes time.’
My cue, she thought. Aloud, she said lightly, ‘Which reminds me—my time here is running out fast. I really need to find out about flights to London.’
‘Dressed like that?’ His grin teased and warmed at the same time. ‘You’ll be a sensation.’
She forced a shrug. ‘I get my clothes back tonight. I can leave tomorrow.’
There was a brief silence, then he said, ‘Of course. I’ll see what I can arrange.’
Making her realise just how much she’d hoped he would say, Don’t go. Not yet. Stay with me.
Which proves he’s far more of a realist than I am, she told herself ironically. A man with roots and his future planned. A future that could never seriously include the girl whose mother wrecked his parents’ marriage.
Whereas I—I’m the twenty-first century equivalent of a strolling player, a rogue and a vagabond who performs and moves on.
Had their time together achieved the desired effect? she wondered, pain stabbing at her. Had it cleared her from his mind and appeased his body? When she left, would he finally be rid of her, even if it hadn’t happened as he’d expected?
‘What are you thinking?’ His question cut abruptly across her reverie.
She pulled a rueful face. ‘Oh—just that I’m probably going to have some explaining to do when I get back.’
His mouth tightened. ‘The questions are already being asked, it seems,’ he commented. ‘Pilar tells me there were four telephone calls from my aunt yesterday, all bordering on the hysterical.’
Rhianna gasped. ‘Even while the wedding was still going on?’ She paused. ‘Have you called her back?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She may be my mother’s sister, but she has no jurisdiction over my life.’
Rhianna said awkwardly, ‘Perhaps she’s just being protective—thinking how your—how Mrs Penvarnon would feel if she knew about us.’
‘They’re hardly close,’ he returned drily. ‘It suits my aunt to play lady of the manor at Polkernick, while my mother lives in St Jean de Luz, but there are no family visits—not even for this wedding, as you may have noticed.’
‘Maybe that’s why Mrs Seymour’s so upset?’ Rhianna suggested. ‘Because you weren’t there either?’
‘I made it totally clear to her that could happen,’ he said. His eyes met hers. ‘I was there for one reason only, if you remember, and it wasn’t to see Carrie throw her life away on that waste of space.’
‘And then you found there wasn’t really a reason after all.’ She tried to smile. ‘It’s a pity that virgins can’t be is
sued with some kind of barcode. Think of the problems that would have saved you.’
He pushed his chair back with such force that it fell over with a clatter, then came round the table to her, pulling her to her feet.
‘Don’t say that,’ he muttered roughly. ‘Don’t even think it. Dear God, Rhianna, this may not have been what I intended, but it was what I wanted. You were what I wanted, and I need you still—for whatever time we have left.’
And she went trembling into his arms, closing her mind to everything but the passion of his kiss.
They spent a quiet afternoon by the pool. Rhianna ventured into the water once, but found it cold, much to Diaz’ s amusement, and retreated back to the padded sun mattress under the huge striped umbrella.
She turned her head, beginning to smile as she watched him emerge from the water.
‘For a moment,’ she said, ‘I thought I was a teenager in the cove at Penvarnon again.’
‘My God,’ Diaz said, as he towelled down before stretching out with a sigh of pleasure on the adjoining mattress. ‘One of my life’s most difficult moments, and you still remember it.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘You were the first naked man I’d ever seen.’
He grinned at her. ‘I thought you didn’t look.’
‘I certainly tried not to,’ she said demurely.
‘I see.’ He paused. ‘And has your attitude undergone any significant change since then?’
She propped herself on one elbow, her eyes openly caressing him, while her free hand began to stray, taking whatever liberties it chose.
‘Now,’ she said softly, ‘now I could look at you for ever.’
‘Take all the time you need,’ he said lazily, his eyes half closed, magnificently unselfconscious as his body quickened and hardened at her touch, before pulling her to him and making slow, sweet love to her in the drowsy afternoon.
But as they lay together afterwards Rhianna became aware that the breeze had freshened, and shivered suddenly.
Diaz sat up, looking at the sky. ‘The weather’s changing,’ he said. ‘See the clouds gathering above the mountains? It’s going to rain.’ He sighed. ‘We’d better go in anyway. I think I heard the car, so Pilar will be back.’
It was, she thought, the end of an idyll…
And the end of everything.
‘I hate to think what she’ll say if she sees me wearing your shirt.’ She kept her tone light.
‘Well, she’s unlikely to say it to you.’ His mouth twisted in amusement. ‘I’m the one who gets the full force of her disapproval. She loves me, but she thinks I’m a bad influence on her menfolk.’ He added wryly, ‘Juan and Enrique are her cousins, and Felipe is her grandson, so she takes their moral welfare very seriously.’
He shook his head. ‘She’s always said that I’ll—’ He stopped abruptly.
‘That you’ll—what?’ she queried, then realised. She said hesitantly, ‘That you’ll break your mother’s heart?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Something of the sort.’ He zipped himself into his shorts, then held the shirt for her to put on.
Pilar was indeed back. They did not see her, but her voice could be heard in the distance, shrilly upbraiding someone.
‘Felipe, no doubt,’ Diaz muttered as they escaped upstairs. ‘He wants to go south to Marbella, to earn lots of money and have fun with foreign girls. Pilar, as you can imagine, is against the idea. War is intermittent, but fierce.’
The first thing Rhianna saw in the bedroom was her clothing, fresh, clean, and laid neatly across the bed.
‘Why the hell didn’t she put it away in the wardrobe?’ Diaz said, frowning.
‘Too intimate, perhaps.’ She smiled valiantly. ‘Also too suggestive of permanence. You’d better reassure her that her fears are unnecessary.’
He turned away. ‘I’d better say something, certainly.’ He looked down at the dresses on the bed, and picked up the green one she’d worn that first evening on the boat. ‘Wear this for me tonight, Rhianna. Please?’
Her heart seemed to twist. ‘If—that’s what you want.’
‘It’s what I have to settle for, anyway,’ he said, and walked into the bathroom.
Presently she heard the shower running, and realised he had not invited her to join him as he’d done earlier that day, when her attempt to wash his back had turned into something very different. When, with both of them drenched and laughing, she’d found herself lifted on to his loins and brought to a swift and tumultuous climax which had left her clinging to him, her legs too shaky to bear her weight.
She sank down on the edge of the bed, the dress draped across her lap and thought, He’s starting to say goodbye.
She dressed with extra care that evening. Diaz had gone by the time she emerged from the bathroom in her turn. Outside, the sky looked like granite, and she could hear the first heavy drops of rain thudding on to the balcony. Everything, she thought, was changing.
She put on her favourite underwear, silk embroidered with little silver roses, and made up her face with a light touch. She brushed her hair to the lustre of satin, then slipped into the green dress, winding the sash tightly round her slender waist.
She even chose the same earrings. Then, after touching scent to her pulse points, she went downstairs.
Diaz was waiting for her in the salon, a long, low-ceilinged room, with creamy walls and the same slightly old-fashioned furnishings that she’d noticed elsewhere, which seemed so much in keeping with the house. The enormous fireplace at one end of the room didn’t seem out of place either, she thought, listening to the splash of the rain.
But it was the portrait hanging over the fireplace that brought her to a surprised halt. For an instant she thought she was looking at Moira Seymour, only a frailer, more shadowy version, and then she realised who it must really be.
She said uncertainly, ‘Your mother?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Painted not long after I was born. It was meant to hang at Penvarnon, but I had it shipped over here.’
Rhianna looked again. No, she thought. That could never be Moira Seymour. There was a quietness about the seated figure, a softness to the mouth that bore no resemblance to her sister’s glossy self-confidence. And Esther Penvarnon looked sad, too. Not at all like someone who’d just given birth to a much wanted child.
She hesitated. ‘Will you tell me about her—and your father? After all, it can’t make any difference now.’
He stared down into his glass, his brows drawn together. ‘I was away at school from the time I was seven,’ he said. ‘But even before that I knew somehow that they weren’t happy. My father was a big man, larger than life and full of energy. He taught me to swim and row a boat, and to bowl at cricket. He made life special, and I pretty much worshipped him. I saw much less of my mother. She suffered constantly from this terrible debilitating virus that left her with hardly the strength to move. I was always being told as a child to be quiet because she was asleep, or keep out of her room because she was resting.’
He added expressionlessly, ‘Looking back as an adult, I can see that it probably hadn’t been a real marriage for a very long time. There was my mother in a wheelchair, with my father still young, virile, and attractive to women. A recipe for the usual disaster.’
He shook his head. ‘I suppose there must always have been other women. Certainly he spent less and less time at Penvarnon, and I began to stay away too, discovering family life in other people’s houses.’
She said, ‘But your aunt and uncle…?’
‘Were there principally for my mother.’ His mouth twisted. ‘My father thought it would be good for her to have her sister’s companionship. The reality, I think, was very different. Eventually someone from the village was employed to care for her—your aunt.’
Rhianna looked at him gravely. ‘I would hardly mention Aunt Kezia and caring in the same breath.’
‘Yet she was devoted to my mother, apparently,’ he said. ‘Then, when she was promoted to
housekeeper, her place was taken by her younger sister, Grace, who was planning to become a nurse.’
He moved restlessly to the fireplace and stood looking up at the portrait.
‘Apparently he fell in love with her at first sight,’ he said abruptly. ‘So it can’t have been easy for him to be married yet not have a wife in any meaningful sense. So maybe there was some excuse for him finding consolation elsewhere.’
He drew a harsh breath. ‘But he came back to Penvarnon, Rhianna, and had a blatant affair with a girl almost young enough to be his daughter, totally humiliating and distressing my mother in the cruellest way. Then, when Grace Trewint was dismissed, he followed her to London and lived with her in a Knightsbridge flat he bought for them both. He never came back to Cornwall. We lost him. I—lost him.’
She said, ‘But if they loved each other—’
‘What kind of love is that?’ he returned harshly. ‘When so many people get hurt by it? My mother ended up in a nursing home, for God’s sake. She was there for almost a year, but gradually she put her life back together. Her health improved, and she even learned to walk again.’
He shook his head. ‘But she wouldn’t return to Penvarnon—and, with its memories, who could blame her? At first she bought a house in Brittany, then she moved south. But not here. Still not to Penvarnon property.’ He paused. ‘And she remains—fragile.’
He turned slowly and looked at her, his eyes haunted, anguished. ‘Rhianna…’
She went to him, putting her forefinger gently on his lips to silence him. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she told him huskily. ‘Truly, you don’t. Because I—understand.’
We love each other, she thought. But we can never say so. Because he’s right. What kind of love deliberately causes more hurt to someone who’s suffered enough?
She moved away and sat down. ‘Did she never think of divorce?’ she asked tentatively.
‘That’s one of the few things I’ve felt able to ask her.’ Diaz walked to the windows and stood looking out at the rain. ‘All she said was, “It wouldn’t have been right.”’
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