How much they took for granted, these arrogant Spaniards! Davina thought resentfully. Already her mother-in-law seemed to be usurping her place. Well, she would soon learn that Davina was no shy, awkward girl now, eager to please and terrified. Jamie was her child, and she would be the one to say what he would and would not learn.
And yet half an hour later when the Mercedes stopped in the courtyard of the beautiful Moorish house which had been the home of her husband’s family for centuries, and Sebastian took the sleeping child in his arms, she had to admit that when it came to loving children, Englishmen could learn a good deal from their Spanish counterparts. As they walked towards the house Jamie stirred, and half frightened that he would think she had left him, Davina darted forward to take his hand. Two dimples appeared in his chubby cheeks as he smiled, his arms extended towards her. As she took him from Sebastian, she buried her face in the small baby neck, suddenly overwhelmed by dread, by the fear that she had done the wrong thing.
Too many memories that were best left dead had been stirred already. She might be able to close her heart against her husband, but she could not close her mind to her memories… Memories of the very first time she had seen this house; of how she had been entranced by Ruy’s casual explanation that it had once been the home of a Moorish prince and that much of the original architecture remained. Even now she could hear the music of the fountains playing in the courtyard which had once been the sole property of the ladies of the harem, and even before the massive wooden doors opened, already in her mind’s eye she could see the gracious hallway with its mosaic-tiled floor and elegant Moorish architecture. Everything was the same—but different. Then she had arrived with a husband she had thought loved her as totally as she loved him. This time she arrived with her son—the product of that union.
The doors opened, and in the light from the chandeliers Davina saw her mother-in-law waiting to greet them, regal and feminine in one of the long hostess gowns she always wore in the evening—always black, always elegant. How intimidated she had been on the first occasion! But not this time. Oh, definitely not this time.
Her head held high, she stepped past Sebastian and into the house. Her mother-in-law’s eyes flickered once as Davina greeted her and then went straight to Jamie with a hunger no amount of sophistication could hide. She held out her arms, but Davina did not place Jamie into them. He was busily staring around his new surroundings.
‘So this is Ruy’s child.’
Davina ignored the other woman’s emotion, her eyes hard as they probed the shadows of the room, as she forced herself to damp down the feeling nothing would make her admit was disappointment.
Sebastian had walked into the salón, plainly expecting that they would follow him. Her mother-in-law indicated that Davina should precede her into the room, and with her legs trembling a little Davina did so.
The room was much as she remembered. Rich Persian carpets glowed on the floor, the antique furniture was still as highly polished as it had always been, the room looking more like a film set than someone’s home, and her heart sank at the thought of condemning Jamie to a house where his inquisitive little fingers would be forbidden to touch and explore.
A small, slight girl in a demure cotton dress stood up as they walked in. Davina guessed at once that she was Sebastian’s wife, Rosita, and this was confirmed when Sebastian introduced her. Like her mother-in-law, Rosita’s eyes went immediately to the child in Davina’s arms, and she turned to her husband whispering something huskily in Spanish.
‘She says that the child very much resembles Ruy,’ Sebastian explained to Davina.
‘I know.’
Davina could see that the dry words had surprised them. She had not been able to speak Spanish when she married Ruy, and as he spoke excellent English she had only made a halfhearted attempt to learn. But during the lonely weeks after her return to England she had bought herself some foreign language tapes, partially to pass the time, and partially because then she still hoped that it had all been a mistake and that Ruy loved her and would come to take her home. To her own surprise she had shown quite a facility for the language, and could now speak it reasonably well. She could tell by her mother-in-law’s expression that the older woman thought her knowledge of her language had been gained purely to impress them, and to show her exactly how little she cared what they thought about her she lifted her chin proudly and said coolly:
‘I was given to understand that Ruy was anxious to see his son. Where is he? Out somewhere with Carmelita?’
Rosita paled and started to tremble. Sebastian gripped her hand, his mouth white, and only the Condesa appeared unmoved by her question. What was she supposed to do? Pretend ignorance? Pretend that she didn’t know that her husband loved someone else?
Before anyone could speak Davina heard an unfamiliar sound in the hall. For a moment it reminded her of her own days spent pushing Jamie’s pram, which was quite ridiculous, for who would push a pram through the immaculate rooms of this house?
The salón had double doors, both of which stood open. All three members of the Silvadores family were staring towards them with varying degrees of tension evident in their faces. Only Davina’s expression was openly puzzled. Sebastian walked towards her, his hand touching her arm, as though he wanted to say something, but before he could do so Davina knew the reason why her husband had not met her at the airport but had sent his brother instead. For the sound she had heard was made by a wheelchair and in it, his face drawn in tight lines of pain, was Ruy.
‘RUY!’
His name burst past her lips of its own volition in a shocked gasp, his expression going from sheer incredulity to bitter anger as he stared from her slender body, half hidden by the child in her arms, to the faces of his relatives.
‘Madre de Dios!’ he swore angrily, his nostrils pinched and white with the force of his rage. ‘What kind of conspiracy is this? What is going on?’ he demanded harshly. ‘What is she doing here?’
If she had felt shocked before, it was nothing to what she was feeling now, Davina admitted, her face going as white as his, but before she could say anything, Ruy’s mother was speaking.
‘She has come because I requested her to,’ she told her son, holding his eyes coolly.
Davina wasn’t paying much attention to them. She was still too stunned by the fact that this was actually Ruy, the proud and strong, in a wheelchair, to appreciate the full enormity of what her mother-in-law had done.
‘You requested it?’ The thin nostrils dilated further. ‘By whose authority?’ he demanded softly. ‘I am still master in my own house, Madre. I can still say who may and may not rest under its roof, even if I can no longer walk as other men, but must needs propel myself about like a babe in arms.’
With his rage directed at his mother, Davina was able to study him properly for the first time. What she saw shocked her. The Ruy whom she had known had walked tall—a veritable god among men, and if she was honest she would have to admit that she had thrilled to the arrogant grace; the hint of ruthless mastery cloaked by modern civilisation like velvet covering tempered steel. Now there were deep lines of pain scored from nose to mouth which were new to her, and a bitterness in the dark eyes that made Jamie cry out protestingly as her arms tightened round him unthinkingly.
His cry brought Ruy’s eyes to them in scorching denunciation; a look that stripped her of everything and left her aching with a need to escape from it.
He turned his chair abruptly so that she was faced with the sight of his dark head.
‘Get her out of here,’ he told his mother emotionlessly. ‘I never want to set eyes on her again.’
‘And