Postcards From Madrid: Married by Arrangement / Valdez's Bartered Bride / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride

Provoked beyond bearing, Antonio swept up the magazine and slung it aside.

‘So now you’re going to add bullying to all your other sins,’ Sophie commented in a tone of immense martyrdom. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised—’

‘What other sins?’ Antonio raked at her incredulously.

‘Oh, let’s not get into that right now,’ Sophie advised, rising to her full, unimposing height and pausing to hurriedly cram her feet back into the high heels she had removed. ‘Unless you’ve got all day to listen. And, of course, even if you did magically have the time or the good manners to listen, I might drop dead from hunger first.’

‘Hunger?’ Antonio growled, black brows pleating.

‘Obviously I shall have to get used to my comfort being ignored in favour of yours. I haven’t eaten since eight this morning and I am starving,’ Sophie tossed back at him accusingly. ‘And you couldn’t care less, could you? Because you’ve made it very clear that if you’re not hungry, I’m not supposed to be hungry either!’

‘The detour back to the hotel for the photographic session meant that there wasn’t time for lunch,’ Antonio informed her drily, striving not to notice how the vivid colour of anger enhanced the brightness of her eyes.

Sophie folded her arms and sent a flashing look of scorn at him. ‘So, in other words, starving me was deliberate—’

‘How the hell do you make that out?’ Antonio launched back at her wrathfully.

‘I argued about the photographs being cancelled and that annoyed you and so lunch went off the menu—’

‘How could you think that I am capable of being that petty?’ Antonio’s disgust at the allegation was convincing. ‘I did not wish to reschedule our flight. For that reason I arranged for a meal to be served to us now.’

Chagrin rather than relief at that news gripped Sophie. ‘Couldn’t you have explained that to me back at the hotel?’

‘You were sulking—’

‘I don’t sulk!’ Sophie hurled.

‘—and if you want to sulk like a little girl you will be treated like one,’ Antonio completed without hesitation, while wondering how she would react if he just lifted her off her absurdly high-heeled shoes and kissed her into merciful silence.

‘Try that on me again and you’ll see what happens!’ Sophie threw feverishly.

Infuriated by the weird thoughts and ideas interfering with his concentration, Antonio resisted the temptation to rise to her bait. Stunning dark eyes cool as a winter lake, he surveyed her with intimidating self-command. ‘I believe you think that you can distract me from your own inexcusable behaviour at the airport. You haven’t a prayer on that score. I saw you kissing Norah Moore’s son.’

Sophie went pink and jerked a thin shoulder and studied the floor for about twenty seconds. That sufficed for the amount of discomfiture she experienced at that assurance. Indeed after the heartbreakingly hurtful day she had endured she was actually quite pleased that he had been forced to register that one man at least had thought her worthy of his attention. She glanced up again, green eyes rebellious. ‘So?’ she queried.

Antonio was incredulous at that unapologetic reaction. ‘Do not dare to treat it as nothing,’ he warned her, his accent thick with anger. ‘Sharing a very public embrace with your lover on the day you became my wife is not acceptable behaviour by any standards.’

Her defiance ebbed a little and she squirmed, no longer able to meet his proud dark golden eyes. ‘For goodness’ sake, Matt’s not my lover or my anything—’

‘I know what I saw,’ Antonio incised icily.

‘Matt’s fancied me for ages but I only ever thought of him as a friend,’ Sophie admitted reluctantly, angry at being forced to make an explanation. ‘He was upset about me marrying you and he came to the airport to say goodbye. I couldn’t face rejecting him again. I like him and I felt sorry for him, so I put up with him kissing me!’

‘I might have found that a convincing story if you hadn’t been weeping all over him when I saw you,’ Antonio derided with a curled lip.

In that instant, temper and hurt reached flashpoint inside Sophie. ‘I was crying because you had made me so miserable!’

‘I had made you miserable?’ Antonio repeated in thunderous disbelief. ‘What had I done?’

‘Matt being upset about me leaving and giving me those flowers was the first nice thing that happened to me today. Think about that, Antonio…this was supposed to be my wedding day. And it’s been totally horrible!’ Sophie condemned tearfully, all the wounded feelings she had suppressed throughout the day suddenly coalescing and finally making sense to her.

‘How has it been horrible?’ Antonio demanded fiercely.

‘I’ll probably never have another wedding day,’ Sophie proclaimed grittily, pride helping her to swallow back the tears that had been threatening. ‘I know it couldn’t have been romantic in the circumstances, but you could at least have made it pleasant and friendly. I spent two whole days trailing round London finding this outfit and you couldn’t even tell me that I looked OK—’

Dark blood had risen to emphasise the sculpted line of his hard cheekbones. ‘I—’

‘It’s OK…don’t worry about it. Do you think I haven’t worked out for myself that I couldn’t ever reach your standards? But I made the effort; I tried. You didn’t even try to be nice. You accused me of tipping off the reporters at the church. You didn’t give me flowers or anything and the entire time you acted like being with me and Lydia was just one big, awful bore. Matt was so sweet and the comparison between you and him was too much—’

‘The comparison between me and that gorilla?’ Antonio grated between clenched teeth, seizing on that line because her previous comments had hit too many raw nerves in succession to even be considered in the midst of an argument.

‘You’re a hateful snob,’ Sophie told him fiercely. ‘You treat me like dirt…but he treats me like I’m something special!’

A brisk knock sounded on the door and broke the silence that fell in the wake of that last bitter rebuke. A flight attendant entered with a trolley of food. Sophie dropped her head, heavy curls tumbling across her delicate profile to conceal her tear-wet eyes from notice. Trembling with emotion, she sank back down into her seat and cringed over the last revealing words she had flung at him. You treat me like dirt…he treats me like I’m something special!

Why don’t you be honest with yourself? a snide little voice was mocking inside her head. The truth, which she only recognised in retrospect, cut her pride to ribbons. Her wedding day had been a disaster because she had forgotten it was a ‘deal’ rather than a joyous occasion to be celebrated. She had got carried away with bridal fervour. She had absolutely craved personal attention and notice from Antonio. She would have crawled over broken glass for a single compliment. Her distress had stemmed from her pain and disappointment when he had neglected to meet her unrealistic hopes and treated her like wallpaper instead.

Did she have the right to complain about the way he had treated her? Or was she being unfair to him? After all, it hadn’t been a real wedding for two people who cared about each other. Antonio didn’t care two straws about her and she had to learn to live with that, didn’t she? Someone like him was never, ever going to think of someone like her as special, she thought wretchedly. Having to put up with her all day had probably been a taxing enough challenge for him. Her aching throat convulsed. She stared down at the inviting meal that had been laid before her and discovered that she was no longer hungry. A tear rolled down her cheek and splashed onto the plate.

‘Sophie…’ Antonio breathed tautly.

‘Leave me alone!’ she gasped strickenly and, scrambling up, she fled down the aisle and vanished into the sleeping compartment.

CHAPTER SIX (#u7d823bf7-6058-5267-83f5-3d906768b913)

BY THE time that Antonio entered the compartment Sophie was fast asleep. Curled up in a ball, tawny-blonde curls tumbling over a delicate cheekbone, she looked very young, incredibly pretty and alarmingly vulnerable.

She was also his wife. His wife. It was a disturbing moment of truth for Antonio. She was now Sophie Cunningham de Rocha, the Marquesa de Salazar. She had had grounds for complaint, he acknowledged, his handsome mouth hardening on that admission of self-blame. He was not accustomed to finding himself in the wrong. But he had censured her behaviour as his wife without once accepting her right to be treated as though she was his wife.

A slight movement in the cot attracted his attention. He glanced down and met Lydia’s big hopeful brown eyes. The baby flashed him a huge gummy smile of welcome and wriggled with excess energy. Without words, Lydia was letting him know that she wanted out of the cot and that she was expecting him to supply the means of her escape from captivity. He was amused until the baby let out a little bleating cry of disappointment when he turned back to the door.

‘If I took you out of there, I wouldn’t know what to do with you,’ Antonio pointed out in his own defence.

The melting brown eyes stayed pinned to him.

‘Yes, of course I can learn, but in easy stages,’ Antonio murmured in what he was hoped was a soothing tone that might send her back to sleep. He took another step away from the cot.

The brown eyes glistened and the rosebud mouth trembled piteously.

At the threat of tears, Antonio tensed. He glanced back at Sophie, who was clearly enjoying the very sound sleep of exhaustion. Breathing in deep and mustering his legendary ability to deal with the unexpected, he reached down to lift Lydia out of the cot. She wriggled with pleasure and smiled like mad at him in return.

‘You know how to get your own way,’ Antonio informed the baby wryly. ‘But success is not always followed by the reward you expect. We’re going to watch the business news together.’

Sophie wakened only when her shoulder was gently shaken. Feathery lashes lifting, she focused slowly on Antonio’s darkly handsome face and her mouth ran dry. Try as she might, she could not suppress her response to his mesmeric attraction.

‘You may want to get up,’ he murmured softly. ‘We’ll be landing in fifteen minutes. Did you sleep well?’

‘I don’t remember even putting my head down,’ she confided, glancing down at her watch. ‘I’m amazed Lydia let me sleep this long!’