Davina hadn’t known it, but it was that knowledge which had sealed her fate—as she later discovered.
When Ruy had proposed to her she had been robbed of words, dizzied and humbled by the sheer gratitude of knowing that the love she had come to feel for him in the short week they had been together was returned. She had had no knowledge when she accepted him that he was merely using her as a tool to torture the woman he really loved—the fiery Spanish beauty who could give him so much more than she herself could offer.
They had been married quietly—a church ceremony in keeping with Ruy’s religion—and that had been the first time she realised that her husband possessed a title—that she had a title. It shouldn’t have surprised her. He had about him an ingrained arrogance-which should have warned her that here was no ordinary mortal. He had been a little amused by her stammered concern that she might not be able to match up to his expectations, that nothing in her life had prepared her for the role of Condesa; wife of a Spanish grandee. It was only when his amusement gave birth to bored impatience that Davina learned fear of her new husband, but this had been swiftly banished by the brief, almost tormenting caress of his lips against hers.
Prior to their marriage he had made no attempt to seduce her, and in her innocence she had mistaken this lack of desire for her as respect. She had often wondered, since her return to England, if she had not gone to him that first night after their arrival at the Palacio, had not let him see that she wanted him… and if he had not been in such a blazing rage of anger against his mother, whether he would not have made love to her; whether in fact it had been his intention to have their marriage annulled when Carmelita had been suitably brought to heel. But above all else Ruy was a man of honour. Once he had in actual fact made her his wife there was no going back—for either of them. Until she had conceived his son, and learned exactly why he had married her. With that knowledge how could she have remained? She might have suspected that all was not well between them, but until she was brought face to face with the truth she had been able to delude herself. When that was no longer possible she had escaped to London, taking Jamie with her, and leaving her mother-in-law to convey to her son the good news that he was now free…
Free… Her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the man in the wheelchair and for a brief moment pity overwhelmed her bitterness. Ruy would never be free again. Ruy, whose superb, physical, male body had taught her the full meaning of womanhood, never to make love, ride, swim or dance again.
‘Look at her!’ His words cut through her thoughts. ‘She cries. For what, my lovely wife? For having to share my bed and being perhaps tormented by all that we once knew together, or have other men, other lovers, obliterated the memory of the pleasure I taught you?’
‘Ruy!’
His mouth twisted bitterly at the warning tone in his mother’s voice. ‘What is it, Madre?’ he demanded savagely. ‘Am I to be denied the pleasure of speaking about love as well as that of experiencing it, or does it offend you that a man in my condition should have such thoughts? You who brought me the news that the woman I loved had left me…’
So the Condesa had been the one to tell Ruy that Carmelita was leaving him… Davina repressed a small shudder. She couldn’t understand how the other girl could have done it. Had she been in her shoes, she thought with a fierce stab of pain, had she been the recipient of Ruy’s love, nothing would have kept her from his side. He might be physically restricted, but he was still the same man; still very much a man! Her wayward thoughts shocked her, widening her eyes as purple as the hearts of pansies with mingled pain and disbelief. She was over Ruy. She had put the past behind her. All the love she had now was focused on Jamie. As though to reinforce the thought she reached out for the child, and her hair brushed Ruy’s chin as she did so.
His withdrawal was immediate and unfeigned, and as she lifted Jamie from his lap, Davina was dismayed to discover that she was trembling. What was; it about this man that had the power to affect her like this even now—so much so that his rejection of her was like the stabbing of a thousand knives?
Grateful that Jamie gave her an excuse to look away from the contempt she felt sure must be in his eyes, she busied herself with the little boy, listening to his informative chatter.
A manservant appeared, silent-footed and grave-faced, and positioned himself behind Ruy’s chair.
‘This is Rodriguez, my manservant,’ he told Davina sardonically. ‘The third member of our new ménage à trois. You will have to grow accustomed to him, since he performs for me all those tasks I can no longer perform for myself. Unless of course you wish to take them over for yourself… as a penance perhaps… and a fitting one. You took pleasure from my body when it was physically perfect, Davina, so perhaps it is only just that you should endure its deformity now.’
‘Ruy!’
Davina thought her mother-in-law’s protest was on account of the indelicacy of her son’s conversation, but she ought to have known better, Davina decided, when she continued angrily, ‘The doctor has told you, the paralysis need not be permanent. Much can be done…’
‘To make me walk like an animal, used to moving on all fours—yes, I know.’ Ruy dismissed the notion impatiently, disgust curling the corners of his mouth. ‘Thank you, Madre, but no. You have interfered enough in my life as it is.’ His glance embraced both Davina and the child held in her arms. ‘Rodriguez, you will take me to my room. Davina.’
When her mutely imploring glance at her mother-in-law went unheeded Davina followed the manservant reluctantly down the long passage leading off the hall, to a suite of rooms she dimly remembered as being what Ruy had once described as a ‘bachelor suite’. It had been the custom for young male members of the family to live apart from their sisters and mothers after a certain age, he had told her. The custom had originated from the days when his Moorish ancestors had been jealous of their wives, and any male eyes which might look upon them.
From what she could remember the suite was quite large, built around its own patio, and as Rodriguez opened the double panelled doors leading into the sala Davina heard the sound of fountains playing outside and knew that she had not been mistaken.
In contrast to the rest of the house the room was furnished almost simply, with clean, uncluttered furniture that combined the best of antique and modern. The dark blue azulejo tiles were covered with a Persian carpet—a rich mingling of blues and scarlets, touched here and there with gold and pricelessly expensive. On a marble coffee table placed strategically next to a cream hide chesterfield were some magazines, and again Davina felt her heart twist with pity that Ruy was reduced to finding his pleasure in such a passive way.
‘You remember this part of the house?’
She refused to look at him. He had brought her to this sala after that dreadful scene with his mother, when the older woman had accused her of trapping him into marriage, of forcing him to make an honest woman of her. It was in here that he had dried her tears before leading her out on to the patio, where she had flung herself despairingly into his arms and they had walked into the orange grove and…
‘I’m hungry!’ Jamie eyed her crossly. ‘Mummy, I’m hungry!’
‘You hear that, Rodriguez?’ Ruy demanded with an upward lift of his eyebrows. ‘My son is hungry. He is not yet used to our way of life.’
A smile glimmered across the other man’s sombre features.
‘Maria shall make you a paella, and you shall have oranges picked fresh from the trees,’ Ruy promised him. ‘Only be patient for a little while.’
Davina was a little surprised at Jamie’s immediate response to the authority in his father’s voice. Perhaps it was true that all boys needed the firmness of a father’s hand. But would Ruy let his obvious bitterness against her spill out to sour his relationship with his son? Had she known that the invitation to come to Spain was not from him she knew she would never have ventured here to the Palacio, and yet having done so, she was strangely reluctant to return again to England.
The courtyard outside was all