Dark blood had risen to emphasise the sculpted line of his hard cheekbones. ‘I—’
‘It’s OK…don’t worry about it. Do you think I haven’t worked out for myself that I couldn’t ever reach your standards? But I made the effort; I tried. You didn’t even try to be nice. You accused me of tipping off the reporters at the church. You didn’t give me flowers or anything and the entire time you acted like being with me and Lydia was just one big, awful bore. Matt was so sweet and the comparison between you and him was too much—’
‘The comparison between me and that gorilla?’ Antonio grated between clenched teeth, seizing on that line because her previous comments had hit too many raw nerves in succession to even be considered in the midst of an argument.
‘You’re a hateful snob,’ Sophie told him fiercely. ‘You treat me like dirt…but he treats me like I’m something special!’
A brisk knock sounded on the door and broke the silence that fell in the wake of that last bitter rebuke. A flight attendant entered with a trolley of food. Sophie dropped her head, heavy curls tumbling across her delicate profile to conceal her tear-wet eyes from notice. Trembling with emotion, she sank back down into her seat and cringed over the last revealing words she had flung at him. You treat me like dirt…he treats me like I’m something special!
Why don’t you be honest with yourself? a snide little voice was mocking inside her head. The truth, which she only recognised in retrospect, cut her pride to ribbons. Her wedding day had been a disaster because she had forgotten it was a ‘deal’ rather than a joyous occasion to be celebrated. She had got carried away with bridal fervour. She had absolutely craved personal attention and notice from Antonio. She would have crawled over broken glass for a single compliment. Her distress had stemmed from her pain and disappointment when he had neglected to meet her unrealistic hopes and treated her like wallpaper instead.
Did she have the right to complain about the way he had treated her? Or was she being unfair to him? After all, it hadn’t been a real wedding for two people who cared about each other. Antonio didn’t care two straws about her and she had to learn to live with that, didn’t she? Someone like him was never, ever going to think of someone like her as special, she thought wretchedly. Having to put up with her all day had probably been a taxing enough challenge for him. Her aching throat convulsed. She stared down at the inviting meal that had been laid before her and discovered that she was no longer hungry. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the plate.
‘Sophie…’ Antonio breathed tautly.
‘Leave me alone!’ she gasped strickenly and, scrambling up, she fled down the aisle and vanished into the sleeping compartment.
CHAPTER SIX
BY THE time that Antonio entered the compartment Sophie was fast asleep. Curled up in a ball, tawny-blonde curls tumbling over a delicate cheekbone, she looked very young, incredibly pretty and alarmingly vulnerable.
She was also his wife. His wife. It was a disturbing moment of truth for Antonio. She was now Sophie Cunningham de Rocha, the Marquesa de Salazar. She had had grounds for complaint, he acknowledged, his handsome mouth hardening on that admission of self-blame. He was not accustomed to finding himself in the wrong. But he had censured her behaviour as his wife without once accepting her right to be treated as though she was his wife.
A slight movement in the cot attracted his attention. He glanced down and met Lydia’s big hopeful brown eyes. The baby flashed him a huge gummy smile of welcome and wriggled with excess energy. Without words, Lydia was letting him know that she wanted out of the cot and that she was expecting him to supply the means of her escape from captivity. He was amused until the baby let out a little bleating cry of disappointment when he turned back to the door.
‘If I took you out of there, I wouldn’t know what to do with you,’ Antonio pointed out in his own defence.
The melting brown eyes stayed pinned to him.
‘Yes, of course I can learn, but in easy stages,’ Antonio murmured in what he was hoped was a soothing tone that might send her back to sleep. He took another step away from the cot.
The brown eyes glistened and the rosebud mouth trembled piteously.
At the threat of tears, Antonio tensed. He glanced back at Sophie, who was clearly enjoying the very sound sleep of exhaustion. Breathing in deep and mustering his legendary ability to deal with the unexpected, he reached down to lift Lydia out of the cot. She wriggled with pleasure and smiled like mad at him in return.
‘You know how to get your own way,’ Antonio informed the baby wryly. ‘But success is not always followed by the reward you expect. We’re going to watch the business news together.’
Sophie wakened only when her shoulder was gently shaken. Feathery lashes lifting, she focused slowly on Antonio’s darkly handsome face and her mouth ran dry. Try as she might, she could not suppress her response to his mesmeric attraction.
‘You may want to get up,’ he murmured softly. ‘We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes. Did you sleep well?’
‘I don’t remember even putting my head down,’ she confided, glancing down at her watch. ‘I’m amazed Lydia let me sleep this long!’
‘I’ve been entertaining her.’
Before she could comment on that surprising information, he had gone. Ten minutes later she joined him in the main cabin. Lydia was enjoying a peaceful nap in her baby harness, a sure-fire sign of contentment.
‘How did you manage with her?’ Sophie asked uncomfortably.
‘Consuela, one of the crew, is a parent. She lent me some assistance when Lydia needed a drink,’ Antonio admitted modestly. ‘But Lydia was very good and easily amused.’
‘Thanks for letting me sleep.’ Sophie studied her linked hands and cleared her throat. ‘I owe you an apology for the way I lost my temper earlier.’
‘No, you don’t owe me anything,’ Antonio contradicted with quiet assurance. ‘You were right to complain and I am sorry that I made the day a difficult one. I must confess that I was nourishing a certain resentment of the situation which I needed to deal with.’
It came entirely naturally to Sophie to reach across the aisle to touch his lean brown hand with her own in an instinctive gesture of sympathetic understanding. ‘Of course you felt bitter, but you don’t have to apologise for being human. It must’ve been so hard for someone like you to put up with a brother like Pablo. Then to be landed with responsibility for Lydia into the bargain, well, obviously you felt fed up.’
That sudden gush of generosity from her corner was too much for Antonio’s innate reserve about his own feelings. His expression of regret, honest admission of fault and the explanation he had believed she was due had cost him dearly. Her unexpected compassion stung his strong pride like acid.
‘You mistook my meaning,’ Antonio replied icily. ‘Never at any time since I learned of my niece’s existence have I wished that her care fell to someone else. There is no more proper person than I to undertake that task and I would never attempt to avoid the responsibility. I don’t expect you to understand it, but loyalty to my family is as integral a part of me as my honour.’
Sophie coloured hot pink and then white, mortification at that unabashed snub biting at her frail self-esteem. No matter how hard she tried she always seemed to say or do the wrong thing with Antonio, she reflected wretchedly. He appeared to believe that she was too vulgar and common to comprehend the more refined sensibilities of a Spanish aristocrat.
‘That’s a hateful thing to say,’ she whispered with scorching fervour, for once again he had hurt her. ‘I was every bit as loyal to Belinda as you are to your precious family!’
An hour later, she was seated in a long, opulent limousine being driven through the Andalusian countryside. Up until that point she had rigorously ignored or crushed Antonio’s conversational attempts to redeem himself.
When he tried to tell her a little about the history of Spain, Sophie said tartly, ‘Save yourself the trouble. Buy me the book!’
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When the country road wended through silvery olive groves, Antonio informed her that they were now on the family estate. After what felt like a very long time to Sophie, the olive trees gave way to orange orchards and a picturesque whitewashed village straggling over the lower slopes of forested hills. Locals peered out of the houses and stopped in the narrow, winding street to stare at the limousine and wave acknowledgement.
‘Are we still on your family estate?’ Rampant curiosity finally forced Sophie to abandon her stony silence and ask that question as the limo traversed a shaded road surrounded on all sides by dense evergreen woods.
‘Sí. My great-great-grandfather planted those oak trees,’ Antonio told her with unhidden pride.
‘It’s like the fairy tale of Puss-in-Boots,’ Sophie muttered helplessly and, when Antonio angled a look of incomprehension at her, added, ‘Puss-in-Boots wanted to impress the king with the idea that his master was hugely important and rich. So, he pretended all the land they passed belonged to this character he made up called the Marquis of Carabas.’
‘The Marquis of Carabas,’ Antonio repeated with only the slightest tremor of amusement disturbing his dark deep drawl.