‘I would rather have you than lunch…’ she admitted, her cheeks warm with embarrassment over her own boldness.
With a throaty laugh of masculine appreciation at that frank confession, Antonio spun her round to face him. ‘You must have been made specially for me, enamorada.’
‘Or you must’ve been made for me,’ Sophie traded.
In the corridor outside the nursery he dragged her into his arms and captured her mouth with a devastating urgency that left her dizzy. ‘You’ve turned my life upside down,’ he breathed raggedly. ‘But I like it this way.’
His mobile phone started ringing before they even reached the bedroom. They exchanged mutually irritated glances and with a sigh he answered it. She knew by the shadowing of his lean dark features that something important had come up and that he would have to leave.
An estate tenant, an old man who had known Antonio from childhood, had been ill for a long time and was asking for him to visit.
‘I must go and see him,’ Antonio said gravely.
‘I know.’ Sophie masked her disappointment and smiled to show that she understood, for she had learned to appreciate his serious side and the strong sense of responsibility that drove him.
She opened the bedroom door and stared wide-eyed at the superb arrangements of white flowers that flourished in several corners. The air was heavy with the scent of blossom. ‘My goodness…’
‘It was supposed to be a surprise. I should have kept you out of this room until I got back,’ Antonio groaned.
‘My birthday’s still a week away—’
‘I know…’ Antonio watched her remove the envelope from the biggest floral display. ‘But we have now been together for two months and we’re celebrating, querida.’
Her throat thickened and her eyes misted over with tears as she scrutinised the gift card. It was such a romantic gesture and she was really touched. What had happened to their marriage of convenience? He had said to forget how their marriage was supposed to be and she had needed no encouragement to forget that original businesslike agreement, for she was madly, hopelessly in love with him. He had suggested that they enjoy being married and since then every day, every night had been a joy for her. Nobody had ever made so much effort to bring her happiness. Was it any wonder that she simply adored him? With an unsteady hand she skated a fingertip over a delicate white blossom.
‘You don’t like them?’
Fiercely blinking back the moisture in her aching eyes, she flung her arms round him, hugged him tight and whispered gruffly, ‘I love them, I really, really love them and appreciate the thought.’
Antonio drove out to the isolated farm to visit the old man, who had once been the estate farrier. He was taking his leave of the sick man’s family early that evening when his phone rang again. It was his friend, Navarro Teruel, the family doctor.
‘Could you come and see me at the surgery?’ Navarro sounded unusually stilted. ‘I know I usually come up to the castle, but on this occasion you might find my office more suitable.’
Climbing into the dusty four-wheel drive he used on the estate, Antonio frowned. ‘I could come right now. Is there something wrong?’
‘I’d prefer not to discuss this on the phone,’ Navarro told him awkwardly.
Antonio dug his phone back in his pocket. He felt slightly nauseous. Was it his grandmother? Doña Ernesta had been pronounced fighting fit at a recent examination. But a couple of weeks earlier Antonio had allowed Navarro to run a full battery of tests, including DNA, on Lydia. Dios mio! Had that medical turned up a disease? But why had it taken so long for Navarro to approach him with the adverse result?
Sophie didn’t even know about half those tests. Having arranged to take Lydia to Navarro for a vaccination that had been overdue, Sophie had come down with a twenty-four-hour virus that had confined her to bed and it had been Antonio who had taken the baby instead. Navarro had been very thorough. He had sympathised with Antonio’s concern about the risk of a heart murmur and his friend’s desire not to worry his wife unnecessarily. But in most cases heart murmurs could be dealt with, Antonio reminded himself. Why had Navarro sounded so bleak and constrained?
Antonio drove to the surgery with the immense care of someone worried sick. What if there was something seriously wrong with Lydia? Leukaemia, he thought strickenly. Could it run in families? He pictured Lydia, who was the most cheerful baby imaginable, suffering and fighting for her life. His hands gripped the steering wheel with the fierce power of his disturbed emotions. He imagined what that terrible battle would do to Sophie…and to him. He knew that he would have to be strong for all of them. He knew that just at the moment he did not feel strong. He wanted to rage against fate with every atom of his being.
Navarro, a tall, thin, bespectacled man opened the door of the surgery. It was after opening hours and the reception area was empty and silent. ‘Come in, Antonio.’
Lean, powerful face pale and grim, Antonio refused the offer of a seat. ‘Just give me the bad news.’
‘The DNA results on your late sister-in-law’s child arrived this afternoon.’
‘You invited me here to discuss that DNA stuff?’ Antonio interrupted in surprise.
‘You asked me to take care of the testing when you brought Lydia to see me,’ Navarro reminded him. ‘As you know I did the saliva tests on you and her and sent them off. I imagine that, like me, you thought no more of the matter.’
‘I didn’t…’ Antonio agreed, endeavouring to rise above his concern for Lydia to absorb this new and unexpected information. ‘I assumed that you had asked me here to tell me that there’s something wrong with Lydia.’
‘Lydia is a perfectly healthy child.’ But Navarro was still frowning when he extended a folded sheet of paper to his former school friend. ‘But you had better look at this. I dealt with the DNA testing personally, so none of my staff have had access to this information.’
Antonio flipped open the document and read the typed lines several times over with fierce concentration. ‘This can’t be true…there must be some mistake!’ he contended in flat rebuttal.
‘I’m sorry, but the tests prove beyond doubt that Lydia is not your brother’s child,’ Navarro pronounced with a regretful sigh. ‘The child is not related to your family. She carries none of your genes.’
Antonio was so shocked he dropped heavily down onto the chair opposite the other man. He began to speak and then thought better of it. An intensely private man at the best of times, he immediately battened down the hatches of his reserve on his personal reactions. Navarro might be his oldest friend from childhood, but this was a family matter that touched his honour.
‘I’m sure that this news will be equally distressing for your wife to hear, which is why I preferred not to come up to the castle. Try not to judge Lydia’s mother too harshly, my friend…’
Antonio was no longer listening. Incredulous dark anger was rising in a flood tide inside him, washing away the trusting foundations of the newer ties that had formed in more recent times. The child he regarded as his niece, the baby he had learned to regard as his own daughter, was an impostor, a fake. She had not a drop of the blood of the Rocha family in her veins. Who had put forward Lydia’s claim? Belinda—and through Belinda, Sophie. The sisters must both have known the truth. He refused to believe otherwise.
Antonio sprang upright. ‘I must go home.’
Navarro looked concerned. ‘Take some time to come to terms with this, Antonio. People do make mistakes and often the innocent foot the price.’
But Antonio was too outraged to embrace such a philosophical view and too close to the sharp end to feel generous. He had allowed himself to become the victim of a scam! What else could it be? He had married a virtual stranger on the strength of his conviction that that little girl was his brother’s child. But he should have insisted that DNA tests to prove the child’s identity were done first. In retrospect he could not credit that he had been so gullible. He had actually ignored the legal adv
ice he had received at the time. His own lawyer had advised caution and tests, but Antonio had been impatient to get the marriage over and done with and the situation resolved. He had also been ashamed of the part his dishonest brother had played in his late wife’s impoverishment. Questioning the paternity of Belinda’s child against such a background would have been adding insult to injury.
But wasn’t it strange that just at the point when he had decided simply to remove Lydia from Sophie’s care something had happened to change his mind? How much had he been influenced by Mrs Moore’s well-timed sob story about Sophie’s inability to have a baby of her own? Had Sophie even had leukaemia when she was a child? How did he know that she was infertile? That story had not come from Sophie personally and tact had prevented him from approaching her for verification. If Mrs Moore had lied to further Sophie’s hope of enriching herself through Lydia, Sophie would be able to disclaim any responsibility for the fact.
Back at the castillo, Antonio strode into the vast and imposing salon and poured himself a brandy. As he replaced the stopper on the crystal decanter he noticed that his hand was unsteady. He drained the goblet and strode upstairs to the nursery. He did not know why his steps had automatically taken him up there. The room was dimly lit and the nanny, who was tidying away clothes, slipped away to leave him in peace with her charge.
Lydia was fast asleep, her little face serene below the mop of her curls. She looked very much like Sophie, he acknowledged. Lydia had the same delicate build, facial shape and creamy skin, but her hair was darker than her aunt’s and her eyes a different colour. Antonio surveyed the child whom he now knew had nothing to do with him at all. Fierce bitterness laced his mood. He had never had much interest in children but he had still learned to love Lydia. Yet she was a stranger’s child even if she did not feel like a stranger and was Sophie not a stranger too? After all, the woman he had believed her to be would never have deceived him in such a manner.