The Consequence He Must Claim
She might not have been raised in high society, but her father had been titled, educated at Cambridge and a member of the House of Lords. She knew what good manners looked like and had learned early to adopt his posh accent for job interviews, especially in London. Cesar had been taken aback the first time he’d overheard her talking to her mother, falling into their broad Irish accent as she did. Already firmly entrenched as his PA, she had had a moment of insecurity as she danced around explaining that she was actually peasant stock, not the snobby aristocrat she mimicked.
Tonight she was pretending to be exactly that, determined to make Cesar and his family proud to call her a member of their family. At least not ashamed.
It was all going well until, quite suddenly, the Marques de los Jardines de Las Salinas was in front of her, congratulating her on her marriage. He was Diega’s father. Then her mother was in front of her, also offering a distant smile.
“Querido,” Diega said to Cesar, her smile wide and avaricious as she arrived with her parents. She paused to kiss both his cheeks. “I brought an old friend of yours. I hope you don’t mind. As I said to your mother when I called, perhaps we can make a match for Pia.” She sent a moue down the line, winking at Cesar’s sister before bringing her gaze back to catch at Sorcha’s. Her smile hardened. “Cesar was at school with him,” Diega explained. “Thomas Shelby. The Duke of Tenderhurst. Do you know him?”
Sorcha’s heart stopped. The Duke of— Her half brother?
“Tom,” Cesar was saying. “Nice to see you.”
Sorcha couldn’t bring herself to look. Her gaze locked to Diega’s triumphant one as Diega moved along to Rico.
Sorcha told herself to breathe, but she was turning to stone, like a spell had been cast, filling her insides with gravel and earth and hardening agents. Clay. Gummy, suffocating sludge.
“Meet my wife, Sorcha,” Cesar said, oblivious.
Her half brother showed not a hint of recognition as he took her limp hand and claimed it was nice to meet her.
His smile faltered until she found a stiff one, then he shook her hand and said something about how happy he was for her and Cesar. He wished them a long life and moved along the line.
Get through this, Sorcha told herself, grappling for composure.
The worst part was, he looked just like her da.
* * *
Cesar wouldn’t call himself intuitive, but spending time with a baby developed a few skills for reading a mood. He knew what the dismayed precursor to an emotional meltdown looked like and Sorcha teetered for a millisecond on that bubble, obviously knocked off-kilter by Diega’s arrival.
After their stolen moment of passion earlier, he was in a state of sustained tension not unlike the final moments before climax, when his control wanted to unravel. He’d been thinking they were both standing in the fire of sexual awareness, burning with anticipation, but she was no longer with him.
What could he say about Diega being here? He’d forewarned her. He’d chosen Sorcha and his son over her. That ought to count for something.
Sorcha recovered quickly, making him almost doubt he’d seen anything. She now held a smile on her face, greeting people and exchanging pleasantries, but he could tell she wasn’t herself. And her behavior was odd because she had disguised her falter well. He was surprised with himself for noticing the change in her. He hadn’t realized how attuned he’d become to her.
What she looked like, he realized with a hard shock, was like one of them. The natural warmth he took for granted, in the same way he expected her blond hair or blue eyes, was extinguished. It had been replaced by a facade of forced good manners.
They were finally able to leave the door and move into the crowd that had spilled out to the lawn and open-sided tents. The orchestra paused so his father could make a toast, welcoming Sorcha into the family.
She smiled, looked as radiant as Cesar had called her earlier, but ethereal. Insubstantial. Her eyes were shiny and the strain behind her expression suggested she was quietly miserable.
And that misery felt like a knee to the groin. He was pleased to introduce her as his wife. Proud. Despite the costs to his family and the impact on their relationship with Diega’s, he had concluded his son was worth it. Once they lived properly as husband and wife, he would no doubt be more than satisfied.
Was she not pleased to call him her husband?
They started the dancing and she was a mannequin in his arms, not the receptive woman from earlier, but a stick figure that held him off.
He reflexively turned himself inward. Aloofness was his comfort zone, but it was difficult to maintain when the promise of physical intimacy had been bending the barbed wire he kept in a perimeter around his inner self.