by Penny Jordan
‘But you can’t love me,’ she protested huskily. ‘Jaime…’
‘No more doubts, querida, no more arguments. We will be married, and I shall spend the rest of my life proving to you that you made the right decision.’
Suddenly she didn’t want to argue with him any more. What was the point? There was nothing she wanted more than to share her life with him; it was time she put the past behind her, and with it all the insecurities her grandmother had given her.
One final question hovered on her lips.
‘Jaime, are you sure you aren’t marrying me because it was what my father wanted? Your mother…’
‘It is true that your father hoped we would meet one another and become friends, but much as I loved and admired him, I could never marry his daughter simply to fulfil his dreams. Surely you know me better than that, Shelley?’
She nodded her head, and allowed him to kiss her before he left her alone, but the problem was that she didn’t really know him well—not really. She loved him, she knew that, but…
It was idiotic to keep going over and over the same old doubts. She was committed now, and she couldn’t back out of her promise to marry Jaime without deeply distressing the Condessa.
Her face burned anew as she remembered the Condessa’s shock when she walked in on them. What made it worse was that the Condessa had already hinted to her that she could not condone such intimacies under her own roof. Even so, her distress and anger had been directed more towards Jaime than Shelley.
As she closed her eyes her last waking thoughts were of Sofia. Jaime was an experienced man. Could he really prefer making love to her when he could have had Sofia? Sofia still wanted him…she had made that very plain. There would always be women who wanted him. Did she have the strength to cope with the Sofias of this world? If not she would have to find it. Jaime would not want a jealous shrew of a wife. A wife…she was to be Jaime’s wife. For once no doubts were strong enough to spoil the flood of happiness warming her blood, and she went to sleep with a soft smile curving her lips.
* * *
‘Of course, there will be a considerable amount to do. Luckily most of the family have already met you, and already know of Jaime’s intentions, so an announcement of the wedding will not come as any great surprise. If anyone questions it, I shall tell them that there has been a long-standing arrangement between you. That you and Jaime met, in England, perhaps…’
The brisk way in which the Condessa was making plans for the wedding had rather surprised Shelley.
She had expected there to be a certain degree of embarrassment in facing her stepmother after what had happened the previous evening, but when she had found the Condessa alone in the breakfast room, her mother-in-law-to-be had come directly to the point and stated that she was not going to mention the incident again, and that she had already spoken most severely to Jaime about it.
‘For all that he is an adult male, he is still my son and there are certain standards of behaviour. Even so, I suppose one must make allowances for a man deeply in love—especially one who is just about to lose the woman he loves.’
‘He wasn’t losing me; I was just going back home for a couple of months. Everything’s happened so quickly that I felt we both needed a breathing space.’
‘Poof…that is your English blood,’ the Condessa told her. ‘It makes you too cautious. I knew within one day of meeting your father that I would love him. You cannot return to England now. It is out of the question.’
There didn’t seem any point in objecting, not now that she had decided to accept the reality of the marriage. She simply wasn’t strong-minded enough to stand out against the urgings of her own heart, plus the combined arguments of Jaime and his mother.
With a speed that frankly left Shelley feeling breathless, the arrangements were set in motion. The fact that most of the family was already gathered in Lisbon facilitated these to a great extent. Extra staff were hired to take care of the catering arrangements, and since both she and Jaime were of the same faith, there seemed to be nothing to stop the ceremony going ahead with all despatch.
For two days the only time Shelley saw Jaime was for brief and totally unsatisfactory interludes, between being inspected by even more of his relatives and exhausting shopping trips, during which the Condessa seemed intent on furnishing her with enough clothes to last her for the next ten years. In Portugal it seemed a bride required a good old-fashioned trousseau, of the sort that Shelley was only familiar with through the pages of books.
On the third day, the Condessa announced they were to buy the wedding gown. Shelley’s heart quailed a little as she saw the determined look in the Condessa’s eyes, but events seemed to have moved so far outside her control that she couldn’t summon the strength to protest that she only wanted to wear something simple.
It took them virtually all morning to find a gown that suited the Condessa’s very exacting standards, and when Shelley stood before her in it, and caught sight of herself in the full-length salon mirror, even she couldn’t help catching her breath.
It was a real transformation dress, a duckling-into-swan gown, with a tiny little waist and a tight-fitting bodice, balanced by crinolined skirts. Nothing could have been more flattering to her pale skin that the delicacy of the silk and lace. Diamanté drops sewn on to the skirt shimmered like tears against the fragile fabric. It was a Cinderella dress, real fairy princess stuff, and ridiculously, after all she had said about wanting something plain, she loved it.
They spent the afternoon in a daze of euphoria buying cobwebby underwear made by the nuns at the local convent, an extravagance that Shelley protested against quite vehemently until she had an illuminating mental vision of Jaime seeing her in the exquisite hand-embroidered garments. She stroked a delicate satin butterfly appliquéd on the back of a pair of French knickers, her objections suddenly silenced.
Shockingly and alarmingly, she couldn’t wait for Saturday—the day she would actually become Jaime’s wife. She loved him, and suddenly she didn’t care what doubts she might have had beforehand; she wasn’t going to think about them any more.
She and the Condessa returned to the house in a mood of total harmony, both of them highly delighted with all that they had accomplished.
For the rest of the week she saw even less of Jaime, and on Friday evening, the one evening he was in for dinner, the Condessa had organised a family dinner party. Anticipating half a dozen or so guests, Shelley was stunned to see the formal dining-room bulging with close on fifty people—she had forgotten how extensive Portuguese families were, and she could understand now why the Condessa had insisted on her wearing one of her new outfits.
Out of consideration for the bride, none of the guests lingered much longer than eleven, but just as Shelley thought that at last she might have a quiet hour or so alone with Jaime, the Condessa insisted on whisking her off to bed.
‘It will be a long day tomorrow,’ she warned her, and Shelley knew she was right. After the church ceremony, there was to be a reception at the house, and then in the afternoon she and Jaime were to drive back to the quinta where they were to spend a month’s honeymoon. Jaime had asked her if she wanted to go abroad, but Shelley hadn’t been keen. She knew that it was coming up to a critical time with the vines, and besides, she wanted to get to know her new husband in his proper surroundings.
* * *
She was woken early by an excited maid bringing her breakfast. The Condessa and Carlota descended on her before she had even finished her coffee, Carlota to chat excitedlty about the day, and the Condessa to remind her that the hairdresser was arriving within the hour.
After that the day rushed past in a confused blur, the whirling kaleidoscope that had gathered her in its train only setting her down briefly for a moment in the cool calm of the church, when she and Jaime exchanged their vows. The service was conducted in English, and listening to the timeless beauty of the words made her eyes sting sharply with tears.
It was done. She was Jaime’s
wife, and he her husband, for better, for worse.
The reception was ebullient and very noisy, the salons full of children and adults. Portuguese weddings were obviously big family affairs, and Shelley was kissed and hugged so many times she felt quite dizzy.
Of course her dress was much admired, and although Jaime had said nothing about it to her, the look in his eyes when he had turned to greet her at the altar had been enough.
She took it off with a certain amount of regret, and was standing in her pretty silk going-away outfit when Jaime walked into her room.
Her room. She shivered slightly. From now on she would be saying, ‘their room’.
‘Get someone to pack your wedding dress so that we can take it with us,’ he told her, kissing her lightly on her mouth. When she frowned he whispered against it, ‘I want to take it off you myself. The bridegroom’s prerogative.’
Shelley literally felt her stomach drop away with bone-melting excitement and she might have been tempted to beg him to make love to her there and then if Carlota had not burst in excitedly to tell them that everyone was waiting to wave them off.
It was gone three when they finally managed to get away. No one had tied anything to the car or written slogans across it, but nevertheless as she sat beside him in the intimacy of that enclosed space, Shelley was acutely conscious of their newly married state.
Jaime waited until they were free of the Lisbon traffic before kissing her properly. At first when he stopped the car at the side of the road Shelley thought something must be wrong, but when he turned to her and she saw the expression in his eyes, her heart all but turned over inside her.
‘It’s been one hell of a long week,’ Jaime muttered huskily at last when he released her. ‘God knows what sort of state I’d have been in if you’d made me wait any longer.’
He’d already given her a wedding present, a beautiful choker of pearls which she was wearing, and she touched them now.
‘You like them?’ he asked.
‘I love them,’ she told him, and then holding his eyes bravely, added in a hesitant whisper, ‘but not nearly as much as I love you.’
‘I’ll remember that—you can show me how much later,’ promised Jaime softly. ‘God, I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d gone back to England for two months. Kidnapped you, probably.’
‘If you’d taken me to your apartment, your mother would never…’
‘I wanted you as my wife, Shelley, not as my lover,’ he interrupted her harshly. ‘If I’d taken you to my apartment, someone would have seen us. Rightly or wrongly, some members of my family hold rather rigid and old-fashioned moral views. I didn’t want you subjected to any kind of gossip.’
‘You mean if we had been lovers, your family would have disapproved of me?’
Jaime caught the resentment in her voice, and sighed faintly. ‘This is Portugal and not England, Shelley. The Moorish blood of our ancestors still runs strongly in our veins. We’ve got a fair drive in front of us. Why don’t you try and have an hour or so’s sleep?’
‘Some bride,’ Shelley teased, ‘falling asleep after only four hours of marriage!’
‘Oh, you’ll be making up for it later,’ Jaime promised her, watching the way the colour came and went in her face with eyes that suddenly glittered with fierce male pleasure. ‘I like it when you blush like that,’ he told her softly. ‘I like knowing there’s never been anyone else, and tonight I’ll show you just how much I like it.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
JAIME woke her up as he pulled up in front of the quinta. The staff hurried out to help them from the car, eager to congratulate them.
There was a good deal of laughter and a mild degree of embarrassment for Shelley when she started to head for her old room, and had to be reminded by Jaime that from now on they would be using the master suite. Since this was a set of rooms which had originally been occupied by his mother and father, the Condessa had not shared them with Shelley’s father, and although the decor was a trifle old-fashioned and rather sombre, the bedroom with its adjoining sitting-room was generously proportioned with wonderful views over the vineyards and the pine-covered slopes of the hills.
‘What are you looking at?’ Jaime teased her, coming to stand with Shelley on the balcony, after he had closed the door behind their helpers. ‘It’s too dark to see anything.’
‘I can just make out the the outline of the hills,’ Shelley informed him. ‘Are we over the main patio or…’
‘No, this suite of rooms has its own private patio; there’s a flight of steps down to it from the sitting-room balcony.’ He glanced slightly disparagingly round the room.
‘You’ll want to redecorate. That will mean going to Lisbon, of course. If we’d had more time…’
‘We would have had more time if you’d made love to me at your apartment instead…’
‘What do you want me to do? Admit that I hoped Mama would burst in on us and demand that I make an honest woman of you?’
Shelley tensed slightly. She was beginning to feel nervous and shaky, acutely aware of the fact that they were now married and that she was committed to the most intimate relationship there could be between two people.
‘Did you?’
‘What do you think?’ He was watching her with narrowed eyes, and suddenly all her fears came rushing back, intensified by a strong surge of doubt that he could really love her. After all, what did she really have to offer him?
‘If you did, it was a rather drastic way of stopping me from going to England.’
‘But effective?’ One eyebrow lifted, and Shelley was suddenly terribly confused. What had started out as a joke had suddenly taken on bleak undertones.
‘You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t do anything like that,’ she protested huskily, not sure really whether she was making a statement or asking a question.
‘You’d be surprised what I’d do to get something I wanted—and I wanted you as my wife very badly indeed.’
He frowned as someone knocked on the door, and went to open it. Through the half open door Shelley caught a spate of staccato Portuguese, and when he came back, he was still frowning.
‘I’m afraid I have to go out. I shan’t be long; not more than an hour. Luisa will bring you some supper.’
‘But, Jaime…’ She looked at him in dismay. This was their wedding day, their wedding night, and he was going out!
‘I know, but it is something I must do, unfortunately, a business matter that has to be attended to this evening. I shan’t be long. You’ll barely have time to miss me before I’m back.’
Shelley waited for him to come over and kiss her, but disappointingly, he didn’t. He looked at her and smiled, a twisted grimace of his lips. ‘I can’t,’ he told her quietly. ‘If I take you in my arms now, I won’t be able to let you go.’
She wanted to plead with him not to go, to beg him to forget his appointment, but reality outweighed emotionalism. If it wasn’t important he wouldn’t be going. She managed a wan smile.
‘I’ll…I’ll be waiting for you.’
The smile he gave her made her ache with wanting him, but she made no attempt to stop him when he eventually left their room.
∗ ∗ ∗
Jaime had been gone for no more than a quarter of an hour when Luisa came up to announce that Shelley had a visitor.
Surprised, Shelley followed her downstairs to the main salon, her breathing catching in her throat when Sofia uncurled herself lazily from a chair and stood smiling at her with thinly disguised hostility and contempt.
‘Well, well, the little bride!’
‘Jaime isn’t here,’ Shelley told her flatly, not pretending to misunderstand what the other woman wanted.
‘No, I know. He’s in a business meeting with my father.’ She saw the shock leap to life in Shelley’s eyes and laughed mockingly. ‘We have a villa not far from here, within easy reach of the new development we’re building along the coast. When my father extends it to include the villa’s
lands, you and I will be quite close neighbours, since I am going to run the complex for my father. Jaime and I will find that very convenient. It’s been rather awkward visiting his apartment in Lisbon, but once we’re both living down here…’ She saw Shelley’s face and laughed again.
‘Oh dear, hasn’t he told you yet why he married you? But surely you’ve guessed?’
Shelley went ice cold all over. It was all her worst nightmares coming true.
‘You mean…because of my father,’ she whispered betrayingly. ‘I’ll…’
‘Because of your father’s will,’ Sofia corrected. ‘Jaime had to marry you to gain possession of the villa and its lands. That land is vital to the development he and my father have planned. Of course, he and I will continue to be lovers.’ She looked sideways at Shelley to see how this statement was being received, and something in the former’s sick white face obviously pleased her, because she continued in a husky, purring tone, ‘Surely you didn’t think he actually wanted you? A man like Jaime, who could have any woman he desires? My dear, your fabled British common sense must have told you otherwise.’
It had, Shelley thought bitterly, but she had been too head over heels in love to listen to it.
‘I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,’ she protested stubbornly. She wasn’t going to let Sofia completely humiliate her.
‘No?’ The other woman sat down, crossing silk-clad legs, and studying their elegant length before saying, ‘Well then, perhaps I’d better explain.’ She glanced at an expensive gold and diamond-decorated watch on her wrist, and added, ‘Jaime won’t be back for a while. I think I have time to tell you the whole story.’ She made a brief moue. ‘Trust Jaime to leave it to me to tell you! He promised me he would make sure you knew exactly why he was marrying you. Only another woman can understand how a member of her own sex would feel at a time like this. I told him that the sooner you knew the truth, the happier you would be. After all, no woman likes to feel she has virtually thrown herself at a man who doesn’t want her, and that’s what would have happened to you, if you and Jaime had ever got as far as the marital bed. Oh, I don’t doubt he would have taken you.’ She shrugged with magnificent self-assurance. ‘Without being consummated, the marriage would not be legal after all, and he is a very skilled lover, certainly skilled enough to deceive an ignorant little fool like you. You don’t look to me as though you have a great deal of experience, while Jaime… Jaime is very good at knowing what a woman wants…what she needs…’