In Name Only

So over their drinks Cathy had told her, guiltily missing out the fact that she had lied, had allowed Javier Campuzano to believe she was Johnny’s mother. She didn’t feel easy about what she had done, but that erroneous belief had to strengthen her case where he was concerned. If he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out on him he would leave nothing undone—not a single thing—until he had legal and total control over his nephew.

‘You and Senor Campuzano are both related to Johnny in the same degree,’ Molly said, her neat head tipped on one side. ‘Naturally, he could apply for an order to give him the right to see the child regularly, to exercise some control over his future upbringing and welfare.’

Which was precisely what Campuzano had said, but Cathy knew, she just knew, he wanted complete and total control. And she had no doubt at all that he would move heaven and earth to get it if he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out, preferring the glamour and excitement of a modelling career to the hard work of bringing up a child. So, ‘And if the baby were still with his real mother?’ Cathy asked, hoping she didn’t look as hot and guilty as she felt. ‘Would his father’s family still have rights?’

‘Well, I have warned you,’ Molly answered, her smile sympathetic, ‘that the adoption order might not go through, despite the natural mother saying she wanted nothing more to do with the child. The courts could take the view that, following the birth, she is suffering some kind of hormonal imbalance and could change her mind at a later stage. Only time will tell, of course, and, in the interim, you could be given a residence order with parental responsibility.’ She was taking the question at face value, in view of the warnings she’d already given, and that made Cathy feel more devious than ever, her long hair falling forward, hiding her uncomfortable face as she dressed the baby. And Molly was telling her, ‘And yes, the father’s family would still have rights; a child needs the care and love of all its family.’ Which was not at all what Cathy had wanted to hear.

And because of that she had had to back down, to agree to come to Spain. All she had to do now was convince the not-to-be-convinced that she was a responsible, loving mother.

She was in her own thoughts. Her mouth took a grim line and, made aware that he was looking at her, saying something, she shrugged half-heartedly. ‘Sorry?’

‘We are almost there. You can see the house from here.’ The emphatic patience of his tone told her he was repeating himself. And then, with an edge of steel, ‘I would have thought you would be eager to see where your child will be spending most of his boyhood.’

Unforgivable. Untrue. He was trying to make her believe that Johnny’s future was already settled. She refused to dignify his taunt by making any comment. Casting a dismissive glance at the low white building perched on top of a rounded hill overlooking the vineyards, the rows of newly leafing vines curving around the hillsides in perfect symmetry, Cathy hunched one shoulder in a negligent shrug. She utterly refused to be impressed.

Johnny didn’t need vineyards, or anything else Campuzano could give him. He needed love, and cherishing, and she could give him that in abundance. Unfortunately, the Spaniard seemed to be offering just that. The sternly arrogant features were relaxed, irradiated with intensely tender pleasure as he bounced the squealing baby on his knee.

Jealousy, white and piercing and utterly unpleasant, darkened her eyes, and her voice was thin and sharp as she instinctively reached for the child.

‘Do you want to make him sick?’ she asked, and was immediately, humiliatingly ashamed of herself, hardly able to contain her relief when the Mercedes swept through a wide arch in a long white wall and came to a well-bred halt in a courtyard that billowed with scarlet geraniums in huge terracotta pots.

However, for all her shame, she refused to hand Johnny over as Campuzano held the car door open, managing with unsteady defiance to lever herself to her feet, feeling the heat of the sun-baked cobbles burn through the soles of her sensible low-heeled shoes.

Seen at close quarters, the house was impressive: low and sprawling with thick, white-painted walls and a sturdy double-storey square tower at one end. The arcaded front elevation seemed to offer a cool refuge from the sun, with the harsh contrasts of the white walls, the deep blue of the sky, the vibrant, living colour of the purple bougainvillaea, all those spicescented scarlet geraniums.

Cathy closed her eyes on a wave of homesickness, overpowered as much by the personality, the lithe strength, the sheer untamed grace of the Spaniard as by the almost bludgeoning vitality of his native Andalusia.

Transplanted from the soft greens and greys and blues of a reluctant English spring, she felt suddenly that the enormity of having to do battle with Javier Campuzano on his own territory was beyond her.

But, despite her quiet temperament, she was a fighter, she reminded herself. She would not simply give in, as the Spaniard was so obviously convinced she would. Straightening her drooping shoulders, she produced a hopefully imperious tone.

‘Show me where I can feed and change the baby. He needs to be out of this sun.’ Out of her need to hold her own she had managed to make it sound as though the vibrant energy of the Andalusian heat were in some obscure way obscene, and the eyes that challenged him were glinting with a purple spark of defiance.

‘Of course.’ He was clearly unimpressed by her attitude, and the lowering black bar of his brows put an edge on the courtesy of his smooth reply. He said something rapid in Spanish to Tomás, who was already extracting the luggage from the car. And the hand that gripped her elbow, steering her over the cobbles, wasn’t gentle at all and she tugged distractedly away, shocked by the electrifying sensation produced by the hard pads of his lean fingers against her skin.

‘Ahhh! El niño!’

A short, amazingly stout woman emerged from the arcaded shadows at a trot, black-clad arms extended, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles, her attention all for the wide-eyed Johnny, the merest dip of her still glossy dark head for Cathy herself.

Admiring baby-talk had a universal language all of its own, Cathy learned as Johnny’s chubby solemn face quickly dissolved in a smile of heart-wrenching brilliance, little arms held out to the newest member of his fan club. And before Cathy could catch her breath the baby was expertly whisked out of her arms and was carried away, chortling perfidiously, into the cool shade of the house.

‘He will be perfectly safe,’ Campuzano said with a taunting smile that set her teeth on edge. ‘I’m sorry Paquita didn’t stay long enough to be introduced, but you must excuse her lapse of manners—the Spaniard’s love of children is legendary.’

‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ Cathy sniped. How could she get through to him, make him understand that she wouldn’t be taken over, and, more importantly, wouldn’t allow her baby to be, either?

He had moved infinitesimally closer and the harsh light of the sun illuminated the grainy texture of his tanned skin, the darker shadowing of his hard jawline, the golden tips of the black fan of the lashes that lowered in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the gleam of satisfaction in the smoky depths of his eyes.

Cathy’s breath caught in her throat, an unborn sob, half frustration, half something else entirely—something she couldn’t put a name to—choking her. And she looked away quickly, her soft lips drawn back against her teeth as she reiterated edgily, ‘I told you—he needs to be fed and changed. He’s not a plaything; he’s—’

‘I know precisely what he is.’ His voice was a lash of rebuke. ‘He is my nephew. And Paquita knows exactly what she’s doing. She and Tomás, besides keeping house for me here, have brought up nine children of their own to lusty maturity.’

‘Bully for them!’ Cathy snapped with a cold curl of her lips. She knew what he was up to. She was to be relegated to the status of a spare wheel, a punctured one at that. The taking-over of the child had begun and all Campuzano had to do was wait until she grew bored enough to take herself off, back to her former glitzy career—or so he thought.

And her heated suppositions were proved entirely correct when he extended a slight smile—one that didn’t touch his beautiful, cynical eyes—and offered, ‘I will show you to your room. We dine at nine—I’m sure you can occupy yourself somehow until then.’

He moved towards the house, the effortless, almost unbelievable male arrogance and grace of his easy, long-legged stride making her hate him. Anger took her by the throat and her eyes were smouldering with resentment as she caught up with him, demanding, ‘You can show me where that—that woman has taken my child. Looking after him will keep me occupied.’ She wasn’t about to be pushed into the background of Johnny’s life. That wasn’t the reason she had agreed to come to Spain, and the sooner he understood that, the better.

But he looked at her coldly, the ice in his eyes taking her breath away as he warned harshly, ‘Be careful, señorita. I don’t like your attitude any more than I like your morals. Paquita’s position in my household demands respect. See that she gets it, and mind your manners. Come.’

Bristling with temper, Cathy followed stiff-leggedly into the house. She was aware of space and airiness, of white walls and cool, tiled floors, but of nothing much else until he paused before a plain cedarwood door, gave her a cursory dip of his handsome head, and said smoothly, ‘Your room. Rosa, Paquita’s youngest daughter, will come for you at nine to show you to the dining-room. I suggest you relax and try to mend your temper.’

He turned on his heels and was gone, leaving the memory of a definitely feral smile, leaving her even more incensed at his high-handed treatment of her. Pushing the door open, her lips tight, she scowled into the silent, beautiful room, noted that the cases she had brought from England were stacked at the foot of a handsomely carved fruitwood bed, and closed the door again, leaning against it briefly as she glanced up and down the long corridor.

Every last one of the million and one things that a baby needed were packed in those cases. Which meant that Paquita couldn’t be attending to his now urgent needs but probably tossing him like a cuddly football around her own multitudinous offspring, displaying the newest member of the oh, so dominant Campuzano family to an admiring audience. But admiration didn’t satisfy hunger pangs or change wet nappies!

Determined to rescue him if it was the last thing she did, Cathy set off down the corridor, her chin at a pugnacious angle, opening each and every door. The arrogant Spaniard was going to have to learn that he couldn’t, as of divine right, have everything his own way.

The three other bedrooms she glanced into were as beautiful and as silent as her own and, after the corridor angled, she found the communal living-rooms, places to eat, relax. And one study full of highly technical data and communications systems.

And then the kitchen, which must be the ground floor of the two-storey tower, because a curved wooden staircase led up from among the quietly humming electrical equipment which gleamed against the whitewashed stone walls. She spared a reluctant thought for the nice mix of ancient and modern, the great stone chimney breast, the terracotta-tiled floors and lovingly polished carved dressers, before her eyes narrowed to glinting purple slits as she heard the unmistakable sound of crooning Spanish baby-talk coming from the room above.

So! She had tracked Johnny down, as she had known she eventually would. And this was where Paquita learned that she couldn’t snatch the baby out of her arms and carry him off to play with him without so much as a ‘May I?’ while Campuzano stood by, gloating, that look of satisfaction on his hard, impossibly arrogant features!

Anger, fuelled by the fiercely protective mothering instinct that had hit her the moment it had become clear that Cordy regarded the new-born baby as little more than a pawn in the game she’d been playing, drove her up the stairs like a miniature whirlwind. But her rapid pace faltered almost as soon as she’d gained the upper room. Fitted out as a nursery, it contained everything a baby could need, and there was even a single bed alongside the capacious, comfortable crib. And far from being tossed around like a human football, Johnny was safely tucked into the arms of an exceedingly pretty girl of around eighteen years of age, a blissful expression on his chubby face as he sucked his bottle.

He had been changed and was wearing a romper she had never seen before, the all-in-one garment a soft blue cotton that had to be more suitable for this climate than anything she had brought with her. And the tiny fingers of one plump hand were entwined in the soft dark curls of the girl who was nursing him, she noted with a wrench. Johnny always played dreamily with her own long blonde locks as she fed him, part of the bonding process.

‘Mama comes!’ The hugely stout Paquita was hovering, her face wreathed in smiles, her rich voice soothing as she met Cathy’s hurt, bewildered eyes. ‘Mi hija—Rosa, mi hija. Inglés not so good. Rosa good. All children educado! Muy bueno!’

‘Mama is proud that all her children speak some English. Some better than others.’ Rosa’s tone was gentle but her smile was brilliant, her voice attractively accented as she turned her attention to Cathy. ‘Baby Juan has had his oatmeal; that is right, yes? And when Don Javier telephoned his instructions for what would be needed he told us the brand of the milk formula you used.’ The teat was eased from the little drowsy mouth and Rosa expertly lifted the sleepy baby on to her shoulder.

‘Let me.’ Cathy stepped forward, taking the child, her loving arms enfolding him. She had no doubt that Javier Campuzano had planned every last tiny detail. Those cool eyes had missed nothing on his many visits to her London flat before they had left for Spain, while his clever brain had already determined that legal custody of his nephew was already as good as his—whether the means of obtaining it were fair or foul.

Cathy shivered as a deep, instinctive fear put ice in her veins, and Rosa got up from the nursing chair, gathering the empty bottle, the oatmeal bowl, asking, ‘You are pleased with the nursery? I shall sleep here with him. I will look after him well, I promise.’

None of this was Rosa’s fault, so Cathy swallowed the impulse to snap, The hell you will! and took her time over tucking the baby in his crib.

Her first instinctive impulse had been to demand that everything in the nursery be transported to her bedroom. Right now! But this room was ideal; the long windows set in the thick stone walls admitted sunlight and fresh air, and their louvred shutters could be closed during the heat of the day. It was handy for the kitchen, too, where she could make up his formula, store the day’s supply of bottles in the fridge, mix his oatmeal and purée his vegetables. It would be neither sensible nor practical to insist on such a move. So, straightening, casting the baby a fond, lingering glance, she turned to Rosa.

‘I will be looking after Johnny myself. He can take his daytime rests in here, but I shall have him in my room at night. We can carry the crib through after his evening bath and feed.’ Then, seeing the utter desolation chase surprise out of the dark Spanish eyes, Cathy made the only compromise she was willing to consider. ‘If I need to be out for any reason I’ll be happy to leave him in your care.’ Which didn’t do much to lessen the look of hurt disappointment, and made her add, ‘He should sleep for at least two hours now, but I’d be grateful if you’d keep an eye on him while I unpack.’

That she would need to leave the baby in Rosa’s obviously capable hands some time in the near future was in no doubt, Cathy told herself as she stowed her belongings away in the capacious cupboards and drawers. If Johnny’s grandmother didn’t show up at the finca within the next few days, then she would have to go to Jerez and find her. Campuzano would have to learn that she couldn’t be kept here in isolation, a virtual prisoner, separated for most of the time from the child they were tacitly fighting over.

Carrying the crib down to her room later that evening restored Cathy’s confidence in her ability to hold her own with the overwhelming Jerezano. Rosa helped, and as they positioned the crib at the side of the big carved bed the Spanish girl said, ‘Don Javier asked me to show you to the dining-room.’ She consulted her watch. ‘In one hour’s time. And while you eat I will look in on the baby now and then.’

‘I found the dining-room when I was looking for the nursery,’ Cathy returned with a grin, placing the now sleeping child in the crib and covering him with a soft woollen blanket. ‘But I’ll be easier if you check on him, thanks.’ She had taken to the Spanish girl on sight and Johnny responded to her well; the three of them had spent a happy hour and a half, enjoying bath-time, feed-time and playtime, with Paquita puffing up the stairs to join in the fun. So if Johnny woke while she was closeted in the dining-room with Campuzano he would be reassured by a familiar face.

Not that she was looking forward to dining with Johnny’s uncle, of course. The odd, fluttery sensation deep inside her was due to apprehension about the way he would receive the ground rules she was determined to lay down, she assured herself as she stepped out of the shower in the cool green marble en-suite bathroom. He could turn awkward, she acknowledged. A strand of cruelty was woven into his proud Andalusian character, she just knew it. He would not be an easy man to cross.