The Stand-In Bride

‘I think not,’ he said softly.

His eyes held hers. His meaning was shockingly clear. The hostility that had flared between them in the first instant was, to him, an attraction. He was inviting her to imagine herself in bed with him, naked, turning their anger into physical pleasure. And he was doing it so forcefully that she couldn’t help responding. Against her will the pictures were there, shocking in their power and abandon: a man and a woman who’d thrown aside restraint and were driving each other on to ever greater ecstasy.

She was intensely aware of the sheer physical force of his presence. Once, before passion had played her false, she had responded to it fiercely: so fiercely that in disillusion she’d turned away from desire, fearing it as a traitor. She’d fought it, killed it. Or so she’d thought.

But now it was there again, not dead but only sleeping, waiting to be awoken by a certain note in a man’s voice. Not this man! she swore furiously to herself. But even as she made the vow she became conscious of his body, how lean and hard it was, how long his legs with their heavy thigh muscles just perceptible beneath the conservative suit. The touch of his fingers was light, but force seemed to stream through them so that she could think of nothing else but that, and what a man’s strength might mean to a woman in bed. Power in his hands, in his arms, in his loins…

She tried to blot out such thoughts but his will was stronger than hers. He seemed to have taken over her mind, giving her no choice but to see what he wanted her to see, and to reflect back that consciousness to him.

‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Yes.’

As though in a trance, she murmured. ‘Never.’

‘Then he was not passionate?’

‘Who?’ she whispered.

‘Your husband.’

Her husband. Yes, of course, they had been discussing her husband. The world, which had vanished for a heated moment, seemed to settle back into place.

‘I won’t discuss him with you,’ she said, echoing words she’d spoken before because her mind was too confused to think of new ones.

‘I wonder why. Because in bed he was a god, who showed you desire that no other man could ever match? Or because he was ignorant about women, knowing nothing of their secrets and too selfish to learn, a weakling who left you unsatisfied? I think he failed you. What a fool! Didn’t he know what he had in his possession?’

‘I was never his possession.’

‘Then he wasn’t a man or he would have known how to make you want to be his. Why don’t you answer my question?’

‘What question?’

‘Yes, it was so long ago that I asked, wasn’t it? And such a little question. Did you live in Spain?’

‘For a few years.’

‘And yet you know nothing about the Spanish mind.’

‘I know that I don’t like it, and that’s all I need to know.’

‘Just like that,’ he said, ‘you condemn a whole race in a few words.’

‘No,’ she said defiantly, ‘I condemn all the men of your race. Now let me go, this instant.’

He laughed softly and released her. Something in that laugh sent shivers up her spine, and her sense that he was a man to avoid increased. It was unforgivable that he should have called up old memories that still tormented her. She backed away and turned from him, resisting the temptation to rub the place where his fingers had gripped. He hadn’t hurt her, but the warmth was still there, reminding her how he had felt.

‘All Spanish men!’ he said ironically. ‘But surely, some of us are “tolerable”?’

‘None of you,’ she said coldly.

‘How very tragic to have fallen under your displeasure!’

‘Don’t bother making fun of me. I don’t work for you any more.’

‘That’s for me to say.’

‘No. There are two sides to every bargain and I’ve just terminated my employment. And let me say that you made that very easy.’

‘Not so fast,’ he said at once. ‘I haven’t finished with you yet.’

‘But I have finished with you. Now you’re here, my job is finished—which is fortunate because, having met you, I have no desire to work for you. You can take that as final. Goodnight.’

From the look on his face she guessed that he had been about to give her the sack, and was furious that she’d gotten her word in first.

‘And may I ask if you expect me to give you a reference, Señora?’

‘You may do as you please. I’m never short of work. In short, Señor, I’m as indifferent to your opinion of me as you are to mine of you.’

That really annoyed him, she was glad to see.

‘I’ll just say goodbye to Catalina and Isabella,’ she said, heading for the bedroom door, ‘and then I won’t trouble you again.’

But when she entered Isabella’s room an alarming sight met her. The duenna’s plump form was tossing and turning, and her flushed face was twisted with pain.

Catalina was sitting on the bed. She turned quickly when Maggie entered. Her face was frantic.

‘She’s so ill,’ Catalina wailed. ‘I don’t know what to do. She won’t let me call a doctor.’

‘She needs more than a doctor,’ Maggie said swiftly. There was no telephone by the bed so she looked back to the sitting room and called, ‘Get an ambulance.’

‘What has happened?’ Sebastian asked, heading for her.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said impatiently. ‘Call the ambulance. Hurry!’

‘No,’ Isabella protested weakly. ‘I will be well soon.’

‘You’re in great pain, aren’t you?’ Maggie asked, dropping to her knees beside the bed and speaking gently.

Isabella nodded miserably. ‘It’s nothing,’ she tried to say, but the words were cut off by a gasp. Isabella clutched her side and her head rolled from side to side in agony. Sweat stood out on her brow.

Maggie hurried out. ‘I’ve called them,’ Sebastian said. ‘They’ll be here soon. You evidently think it’s serious.’

‘Earlier tonight she said it was a headache, but the pain seems to be in her side. It may be her appendix, and if it’s ruptured it’s serious.’

Catalina came flying out. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she wept. ‘She’s in such pain, I can’t bear it.’

‘Pull yourself together,’ Maggie said, kindly but firmly. ‘It’s poor Isabella who has to bear it, not you. You shouldn’t have left her alone. No, stay there; I’ll go to her.’

She hurried back to the bedside. Isabella was moaning. ‘No hospital,’ she begged. ‘Please, no hospital.’