Celeste laughed. She couldn’t resist the mischief in his expression. “Which do you think would be the correct side, Don Ricardo? Do I need a lover? Or have I already found one?”
He studied her with amusement. “You’re far too attractive not to be pursued by lovers already, doncella. However, if you should some day find yourself without someone to call your own, then I stand ready to take up the task.”
“Don Ricardo,” Celeste said with a smile, admitting that, as he was probably only around thirty years of age and handsome, he had undoubtedly practised his courteous phrases on many a willing maiden. “I see you’re a rascal, and a flirtatious one at that.”
He laughed and raised one eyebrow. “Rascal? The word hardly does justice to my misdeeds, señorita, but I’ll let it pass since you don’t yet know me well enough to have learned of them. But come, our other guests are arriving. Shall I escort you to the table?”
Now, as they attended the meal, Celeste listened to the lively banter around the table, most in Spanish too quickly spoken for her to follow. Occasionally, however, Don Ricardo sensed her boredom and, like a worthy host, slowed his speech or changed to her tongue to include her in some particularly comical story.
Celeste noted, however, that beneath his polished mien and jovial manner he seemed uneasy. He kept glancing towards the door as if expecting someone. Indeed, another plate had been placed on the table but had so far remained unused.
They were nearing the end of the roast suckling pig with its glazed fruits when Don Ricardo stood suddenly, looking past the open door into the corridor. “It’s about time you got here,” he said, not pretending to hide his displeasure.
A shadowy figure moved closer to the entrance. “I’m sorry, Ricardo, but the Indian couple who live down near the river bridge lost their baby this afternoon—an early birth, the child too small to live. I went to comfort them and to offer prayer and last rites. I was necessarily delayed.”
Don Ricardo’s displeasure softened. “Well, come in and eat,” he said, gesturing, and the priest entered the room.
Celeste had been looking down at the food on her plate, but when the man entered she raised her eyes to greet him. Her heart stopped beating. It couldn’t be. Not him.
Ricardo looked around and raised his hand towards his guests. “Nay, don’t get up. I can make the proper introductions without hindering our meal. Permit me to introduce the priest who serves my encomienda. He’s also my good friend. For you, though, he’s the end of your quest—the gentleman you seek, Padre Diego Castillo.”
Celeste could not breathe. She looked around at the others, only to find soft amusement on Barto’s face and a startled, almost pained expression on that of Padre Francisco.
Her eyes travelled over him quickly. No wonder he’d seemed somehow familiar. He was her betrothed’s twin. They had the same height, the same hair colour, the same blue eyes. But there the resemblance ended. Her betrothed had short hair and a full beard. Diego’s hair was long and streaked by sun, his tanned face cleanshaven. He lacked the arrogant stance and ostentatious clothing of his brother, and his eyes were far kinder. And, of course, when she’d first seen Diego he’d been thoroughly wet and completely nude, and her mind had been in such disarray that she hadn’t been able to put the facts together.
Even now she could barely register them all—that the priest before her was Diego Castillo, the other son of Don Alejandro and Doña Anne. And that he was also the naked stranger who’d rescued her from the river, the man whose warm eyes and warm skin had awakened her to passion. The one whose voice had made her insides quiver with sensual feeling. The one she’d heard in the confessional chamber.
And the one who’d also heard her. All about her.
She sat very still, letting the facts settle. He remained in place across the table from her, watching her with that same concerned expression he’d had earlier.
“Sit down, Diego,” Don Ricardo said in a firm voice.
Diego did not sit. He stared at her, willing her to look up at him. Celeste felt his eyes, felt their odd intensity.
She did look up, but only to focus her attention on Ricardo. “I wonder if I might be excused,” she said. “I suddenly feel unwell and need a little air.” Then, without hearing a reply or waiting for one, Celeste escaped the room.
Diego caught her just outside the doorway, capturing her slender wrist with a firm male hand. “Don’t run away from me,” he said.
Celeste, startled, looked up into his face. It was determined and firmly set, his blue gaze intently fastened upon her face. Her throat went instantly dry.
“We must talk,” he said quietly. “Come with me. The chapel is nearby and will give us the privacy we need.”
Celeste looked back towards the open door of the dining room and saw that every pair of eyes in the room had fastened with interest on them. Don Ricardo’s face held slight humour. Barto and Padre Francisco’s a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “I would be unchaperoned,” she stammered. “That would not be proper.”
Some of the intensity fled Diego’s face, replaced by a hint of amusement. “Perhaps not proper if I were a handsome gallant bent on your seduction. But I think a maiden might visit a priest at any time without fear of ravishment.” The corner of his lips gave in to the temptation to smile. “Wouldn’t you agree, my lady?”
It was difficult to answer him coherently. Her mind had snagged on the word ravishment. That word, mixed with his nearness and the intense blue of his eyes, had set her nerves to quivering. There was too much between them, even here, with every gaze turned in their direction. Too much heat. Too much fascination. Too much desire.
There was desire. Oh, yes. Celeste knew she wasn’t supposed to feel it, or even be comfortable with it, but at this moment she didn’t care. She’d always been far too headstrong and impulsive, had always had to labour to contain her natural urge towards spontaneity.
But now, standing in the corridor with Diego’s warm fingers capturing her wrist, the wildness in her soul reasserted itself, and she plunged headlong into feeling.
“Come with me,” he repeated. “Tell me why you’ve come from Spain to seek me out.”
Celeste nodded absently, trying to remember again exactly why it was she had come. She’d practised a speech to deliver to him, one that enumerated all the reasons he should return with her. She’d known it by heart only an hour ago, but now could not remember one single word.
She vaguely heard Diego make their excuses, and just as vaguely heard Ricardo’s reply, before Diego led her away through the heavy carved doors and into the courtyard.
Her senses were suddenly alive. The short trip across the paved courtyard became a dream of sensation. The night air was cool and a bit damp, heavily scented with the fragrance of flowers…and man. Diego’s warm, soapy essence was new to her, and more pleasant than she’d anticipated. His hand left her wrist and moved to the small of her back as he guided her towards their destination. He touched her lightly, courteously, but her entire body vibrated to the warmth of those elegant fingertips. She’d never been so aware of anything as at this moment, with primitive energy humming through her.
And he was a priest. She reined in her madness and focused on that, on the coarseness of his dark robe, on the glinting of his silver crucifix in the moonlight. Diego Castillo was a priest.
But, goodness, he was an attractive priest. The maleness of him called out to her, made her flush with desire, made her wish… No, she would not consider any such thing. She was already bound by oath to another, and this…this was utter madness. Her mind coiled around her fascination and captured it. She was here for one purpose and one purpose only: to convince her betrothed’s twin to return to Spain. Only then could she procure the marriage she needed. She needed this marriage.