The Spaniard's Woman

‘Try not to despise me, Seb.’ It was an order, not a plea.

Miserably, her heart in her mouth, Rosie watched what promised to be a clash of two Titan characters. ‘I loved Lucia. I would never have hurt her. But because of her condition my feelings for her of necessity became more like the love of a father for a sick child.’

‘So you looked for relief, right there, practically under Lucia’s nose,’ Sebastian said darkly, his eyes stony.

‘It happened!’ Marcus shot straight back. ‘Seb—I was a normal, healthy male, with normal, healthy needs. But I never even considered looking elsewhere. Until that summer when I first met Molly. Oh—’ he shrugged impatiently ‘—I knew the Lamberts had a daughter, must have seen her about the place from time to time. But that summer, when she worked with us, it was as if I’d been struck by a bolt of lightning. It just happened. We couldn’t help ourselves. We tried, by God we both tried!’

Again the impatient shrug, as if he couldn’t expect anyone who hadn’t experienced something similar to understand. ‘We were careful—Lucia never even guessed.’ He heaved a heavy sigh.

‘Molly knew, and understood, that I would never leave Lucia for her. Your aunt relied on me too much, not only to arrange and oversee the twenty-four-hour nursing care she had begun to need by then, but for company, for the knowledge that someone really cared enough about her to stay with her, helping her in her fight against her cruel disease.’

‘So you sacrificed your mistress and your unborn child just to keep your reputation sweet,’ Sebastian injected coldly.

‘Dammit, man! Haven’t you been listening?’

Marcus was clearly losing his cool. Rosie wondered dizzily if she should intervene. But neither of them seemed aware of her existence any longer. She would have liked nothing better than to creep quietly away and hide somewhere but she couldn’t do that.

And Marcus was grinding out, his skin reddening, ‘I didn’t know Molly was pregnant. Had I done I would have been over the moon about it. I always wanted a child. Molly’s child—’ Words seemed to fail him there, but after a moment his voice strengthened. ‘Had I known, I would have settled her somewhere on the other side of the country—a cottage with a garden; she was mad about growing things—I would have supported her and our child. Something would have been discreetly arranged. But Molly vanished. At the time I believed she’d found the strength I didn’t have, the strength to break the spell between us. But I had no idea of the truth. So how could I have helped? Answer me that!’

Even though Rosie’s vision was blurred with tears she could see the way Sebastian’s hard shoulders suddenly relaxed, see Marcus turn to her. ‘But Molly gave me a daughter.’ He held out a hand but Rosie ignored it. She was trying to read Sebastian’s expression, t

o see if he understood that love could be devastating, take precedence over everything else.

She did. Since falling in love with him she understood it only too well, and could forgive both her parents for what had happened. But if Sebastian had never experienced the wild passion of that kind of love, didn’t know what it could do to a person, how it could sweep normal moral considerations aside, then he would never forgive the older man.

Her wide eyes still seeking his, he swept her a long, level glance before turning to the door. His voice stiffly polite, he observed, ‘I misjudged you, Marcus. I doubted your honour. Forgive me for that. As you were unaware of your lover’s pregnancy you can’t be blamed for doing nothing to help.

‘Now…’ he paused at the great carved doors ‘…you need privacy to get to know each other. I’ll leave you, and make sure you’re not disturbed.’

Rosie’s heart seemed to swell to twice its normal size as she gazed at the spot where he had been. So that was why he’d been so simmeringly angry. Nothing to do with her at all, or only indirectly. He—as evidenced by his determination to keep her where he could see her until they knew whether or not she was pregnant—would never shirk his duty. He’d been coldly angry because he’d believed Marcus had.

At least the rift she’d caused between them had been healed, she thought thankfully, her eyes misting.

‘Rosie—’

Dimly, through a haze of emotional tears, she watched Marcus walk towards her. He took her hands and drew her to her feet.

‘Molly’s child, my daughter,’ he said brokenly. ‘Such a precious gift.’

The dimly lit corridor stretched endlessly in front of her. Was this the way to her room, or wasn’t it? Rosie felt wrung out with exhaustion. She wished Sebastian would appear. She needed him. Not to talk—she was all talked out—but just to be close, and if that was weak, well, she couldn’t help it. Her father had wanted to know all there was to know about her life and her mother’s. She’d told him everything, skating rapidly over the bad bits so as not to add to the guilt he was obviously and wrongly feeling.

Touching on the pendant, she’d promised to return it to him in the morning, but he’d said, ‘It’s been in the family for decades. It’s yours now, as of right. One of the greatest sadnesses of my life has been the lack of an heir, and now I have you.’

‘Oh, no!’ Rosie reddened with mortification. ‘I don’t want anything! I didn’t try to find you for what I could get out of you! All I wanted to do was get to know you a little. Mum and I didn’t have any relatives, not since my grandparents died.’ And even they had turned their backs on them. ‘Then, when Mum—went, I just wanted to feel I did sort of belong to someone.’

She was just thankful that her father was a decent man and not the callous philanderer she’d half believed he must be. That was all that really mattered to her. And Marcus had given her the most wonderful smile.

‘Don’t you think I don’t know that? You are your mother’s daughter, not a grasping bone in your body. And if you’re as sensitive to others’ needs as she was, you’ll agree to spend some time with me, back at Troone. We can really get to know each other while you decide what you want to do with your future. For the moment, that’s all I ask of you.’

All in all, it had been an emotionally exhausting two or three hours, and now it was late and, stupidly, she’d got herself lost in this huge building.

There was another corridor branching off the one she’d found herself in. Perhaps that was the one that would lead to her room? Trouble was, the house was built around a series of courtyards. She could be wandering around all night!

She forced herself on. Then, her eyes widening, she heard Terrina’s voice coming from a partly open door. Saying something about preferring the cheque to be made out in US dollars. Sounding fairly stroppy about it.

Never mind that—she was saved! Terrina would know how to find her room! Lurching forward on a burst of adrenalin—fuelled energy, she stumbled to a halt when she heard Sebastian’s voice answering, ‘If that’s what you want.’ A tiny pause, then, ‘Take it and think yourself lucky. It should be enough to keep you in nail polish and perfume until you find another rich sucker to attach yourself to. It’s nowhere near what you’d have had access to as Marcus Troone’s wife, of course, but the alternative is having him throwing you out with nothing at all, should he get to hear what I could tell him. Be packed and ready to leave in the morning.’

Rosie’s eyes closed in pain. She shivered in shocked disbelief.