‘Por que? Will you put a curse on me if I disobey?’ Lucia surveyed Sarah with cruelly amused contempt. ‘Beware. Rafael is more gypsy than Santovena. He used to light a candle before he would get on a plane. Gypsies are very superstitious, very backward. They live by lies and deception. Education, as you must see with Rafael before you, is wasted on them.’
‘Yours didn’t do much for you,’ Sarah commented before she could bite back her spleen.
Unexpectedly, Rafael flung back his dark head and laughed with rich appreciation. ‘Beware, Lucia. My wife is not so quiet as she looks.’
Ugly colour lit Lucia’s gaunt bone-structure. ‘Why do you not thank us for what we did for Rafael?’ she demanded of Sarah. ‘When he came to Alcazar he was a dirty little savage. He stole food and hoarded it like an animal. He was violent, he threatened me with a knife—’
‘Because you beat me.’ Rafael said it so very softly that Sarah almost missed the insertion. His aunt’s face set into a blank mask. He lifted his wine glass. ‘I believe we have heard enough of the civilising of the little savage. Save it for your charity conventions, Lucia.’
The older woman rose abruptly to her feet. She said something vicious in her own language, flung down her napkin and stalked out of the room. Silence spread in her wake. Ramon stood up, flushed and tight-mouthed. ‘I must offer you both my most fervent apologies. Madre’s illness has put Lucia under great strain,’ he proffered without conviction. ‘Perdonme but I must go to her. Buenas noches.’
‘Buenas noches,’ Sarah managed, noting the almost pleading slither of Ramon’s sad spaniel eyes in Rafael’s direction.
‘Buenas noches, Ramon.’ There was an ironic edge to his intonation.
The scene had upset Sarah. Her stomach had taken a nasty somersault when she’d finally appreciated that Ramon and Lucia were the aunt and uncle once given the responsibility of bringing Rafael up. Ramon was weak, utterly beneath Lucia’s controlling thumb. And Sarah had seen more than malice in Lucia’s eyes, she had seen cold hatred. Her imagination shrank from picturing an embittered Lucia thrust unwillingly into the role of substitute mother. Conscious that she herself was shaken, she glanced searchingly at Rafael. Resting indolently back into his heavily carved chair, Rafael had the slumbrous attitude of a well-fed tiger.
‘You could have been kinder to Ramon,’ she heard herself say.
‘Why? He can control neither his wife nor his son. He should not have brought Lucia here,’ Rafael countered. ‘Do not mistake his loyalty. Ramon is very much Lucia’s satellite.’
Sarah chewed uneasily at her lower lip. ‘Evidently your cousin Caterina is the only member of the family to fall into a different category.’
‘Si. Caterina and I are very close.’ Dark eyes rested on her impassively. ‘We are sure to see her before the end of the summer.’
Tension fuelled by sudden suspicion was a steel wire through her body. She was ashamed of the direction her thoughts were taking and suddenly keen to escape Rafael’s disturbingly acute scrutiny. ‘It’s late and it’s been a very long day. I think I’ll go to bed.’
Rafael smiled, a lazy smile that nevertheless had some elusive quality that increased her unease. Before she could rise, he murmured, ‘Momento, Sarah. I have a sudden desire to hear about Gordon. Don’t rush away.’
‘What about Gordon?’ To her annoyance, she sounded defensive, and then the proverbial penny dropped and her complexion stained with colour. ‘I gather Gilly has been chattering.’
‘Did you sleep with him that night?’ The question was flicked at her with the utmost casualness.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t grill Gilly about that as well!’
‘Cristo, what sort of a father do you think I am?’ he demanded with raw distaste. ‘I questioned her about nothing. It was she who questioned me. She was disturbed by what she saw and, whatever else you did that night, you should have dealt more sympathetically with the child.’
The development of the dialogue had taken an unexpected turn that Sarah was ill prepared for. ‘Perhaps I would have, if I’d known there was a problem, but she was asleep when he left and she didn’t mention it to me again! And I’ve had a lot of other things to worry about over the last few days.’
‘Bueno, but I still await an answer to my original question,’ Rafael breathed impatiently. ‘You could not give me a straight reply. That is always your way, Sarah. The truth is either to be avoided or ignored. I tell you now, that is not how this marriage will work this time.’
Sarah was angry, hurt and confused all at the same time. ‘Do you think I did?’
He did not pretend to misunderstand her. ‘You might have done. Angry women are not always wise in the methods of retaliation they employ. You were very angry with me and if he was already your lover I would not say it was beyond the bounds of possibility.’
Sarah was furious. ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence! I’m not in the habit of using my body to strike back at another man. And Gordon is not and has never been my lover.’
‘Muchas gracias, gatita,’ he murmured gently. ‘Did that hurt so much? Esta bien. We have disposed of Gordon. This is fortunate. He was not a very interesting individual.’
Sarah stiffened. ‘He wants to marry me.’
Rafael shook her by bursting out laughing. He studied her quizzically. ‘A more unlikely candidate for bigamy I have yet to meet.’
‘I don’t find that particularly funny,’ she said tartly, although she had to fight to keep her mouth compressed. ‘I’m going to bed.’
His black spiky lashes cast tiny shadows on his hard cheekbones in the candlelight. ‘Would I keep a woman from her bed?’ he mocked.
Sarah climbed the magnificent staircase slowly, still reeling from Rafael’s volatile ability to swing from brooding cool to sudden amusement. She was annoyed when Caterina swam back into her thoughts like an albatross in search of a neck. He was close to his cousin…well, why not? He must have been grateful to have one friend in this household.
In the forlorn hope of distracting herself, she decided to take advantage of the decadent bath adjoining her bedroom. After her nap earlier, she wasn’t tired enough to retire to bed. As she slid into the caressing warmth of the water a little while later, her rebellious thoughts marched on.
Lucia loathed Rafael. Could money alone create such sheer hatred? By any normal standards, Ramon and Lucia were very rich in their own right. Had Lucia been exaggerating when she accused Rafael of destroying her daughter’s marriage? Could Rafael and Caterina have had an affair? Or was she becoming paranoid? Paranoid was highly probable, she conceded in self-disgust. Look at the fuss she had made about Suzanne! The lady’s husband had been in residence as well. At the time the information had been a minor consolation but in a cooler frame of mind Sarah knew that she had no right to question Rafael’s lifestyle when she had severed their relationship by embarking on a divorce.
Unfortunately reason and actual feelings, she discovered, were frequently a very poor match. The thought of Rafael with another woman hurt her unbearably. It was a gut response and not one she wanted to feel. For so long she had lived with loving Rafael but when he had been out of her life that love hadn’t threatened her, it hadn’t made any demands of her, and she had been one step removed from the pain in her detachment. But it wasn’t like that now. Emotion was controlling her and unless she was very careful it would betray her again as it had in London. And tonight she felt vulnerable, very vulnerable.
Never again would she need to wonder why Rafael had no respect for family connections and why he had not understood her own conflicting loyalties. He had come here at seven years old and from that day on he had been fighting for survival in an enemy camp. The Santovenas could never have been anything but a threat to him and in the light of what she now knew it was hardly surprising that he had made not the smallest attempt to improve her parents’ view of him. He had had no time for them at all and it was that utter indifference which had so enraged her father
.
But then Charles Southcott was very small beans to a male who had grown up against a backdrop like this, she acknowledged, annoyance licking through her again. If anything, Rafael had taken pleasure in emphasising his total unsuitability as a husband.
‘Not in bed yet?’
She hadn’t heard the soft click of the door and her eyes flew wide. In a single driven movement, she leapt upright and grabbed a towel, hauling it frantically round her dripping body. ‘Get out of here!’
Hot golden eyes were wandering slowly and quite unashamedly over the gleaming wet curves exposed by the inadequately sized towel. ‘Sarah…’ he breathed huskily in an entirely different tone as he leant back against the door to close it. ‘Stay where you are.’
She scrambled out of the bath. ‘Open that door!’
In answer, Rafael shrugged fluidly out of his jacket, letting it lie where it fell in open challenge. An impatient hand reached up to jerk loose his bow-tie, an explicitly intent quality to his heated gaze. ‘I have dreamed of you in that bath…’
‘I’m warning you, Rafael.’
‘Of what do you warn me?’ He dropped the tie and embarked ruthlessly on the studs of his white silk dress shirt. ‘Surprise me instead. I like surprises,’ he murmured provocatively.
‘Will you stop taking your clothes off?’ Sarah lost her battle for icy dignity and screeched, seriously alarmed when a muscular wedge of bronzed chest sprinkled with black, curling hair swam into view.