The Last Illusion

A heavier hand than normal with the make-up she’d brought with her didn’t make her feel any better, but banished the wrung-out-old-dishcloth look. Got to keep my end up, she rallied herself as she left her room. And so far she was doing fine. If she was keeping score she would give six to one and half a dozen to the other!

Rooting around a bit, she discovered a lavishly arranged table in the smaller, more intimate of the three courtyards that bounded the graceful fortress of the house. In the centre, one of the fountains for which the house was named permeated the soft darkness with the song of water. The Moors, coming from dry lands, had deeply appreciated the gift of water; it refreshed the eyes and ears as much as it refreshed a parched throat. And here, as in many parts of the province, the Moorish influence was strong.

And the night was richly perfumed, an evocative mixture of roses, lilies, rosemary and oleander that went straight to her head, more intoxicating than wine. And added to the music of the water was the rustle of palms from the gardens beyond, and lamps in iron brackets cast a glimmering, magical light, enhancing the quality of soft mystery—merely hinting, never revealing, giving a glimpse of the curving purity of a white rose, heavy with fragrance, drawing a gauzy veil over the half-seen line of a piece of marble statuary...

Charley caught her thoughts and slapped them roughly down. Once, years ago, she would have nearly gone out of her tiny mind at the thought of dining alone with her idolised Sebastian in such a romantic setting. She would happily have licked his boots in adoring gratitude.

But not any more. And when he stepped out from the arcaded shadows she put the wave of pain that tore through her down to a mangled nervous system—brought on, of course, by what he had made her do. For some reprehensible reasons of his own—spawned from that twisted, cruel mind of his—he had forced her to stay here when all she had wanted was his agreement to end formally a marriage that must be as distasteful to him as it was to her.

‘Only two place settings?’ Charley ran light fingers over the white damask cloth that covered the circular table. ‘Olivia not with you at the moment?’ He had already accepted that her physical appearance had changed, and now she had to show him that her whole attitude had changed. She was in control of her life and her destiny, was a fully adult woman and not an overgrown, sheltered child. So to begin with she could show him that she could mention that woman’s name without having hysterics!

He paced towards her and pulled out a chair, an eloquent black brow drifting upwards as he instructed softly, ‘Sit. Olivia has not visited Cadiz, to my knowledge, for a long time. Wine?’

She didn’t believe him, but wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of arguing. In any case, it didn’t matter. The wine he gave her was a wonderfully smooth twelve-year-old Rioja, and even before Sebastian had seated himself opposite, lighting the candle in the centre of the table and slotting the protective glass covering in place, Teresa was with them, a grinning Pilar bringing up the rear, both bearing huge covered dishes.

She was, Charley recognised, being given the works. There were three delicious salads to dip into: pimentos with anchovy, artichoke hearts with tuna, and a Sevillana—lovely crisp lettuce, sweet fresh tomatoes, tarragon, olives and hard-boiled egg. Then came the utterly delicious legacy of the Moors—spinach with almonds and raisins, spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg. And who would resist Teresa’s sizzling hot giant prawns, cooked in chilli and garlic-flavoured olive oil? Charley couldn’t, though she knew Greg would have frowned on such lavish excess.

The relaxing setting, the superb food and wine—not to mention Teresa’s careful attendance—had helped her to unwind, to forget the vexed question of what she was doing here in the first place and remember that she’d been too uptight to eat any breakfast, or anything on the plane coming over, and only when Teresa and Pilar finally withdrew did she forget the sensual delights of the palate and come back to her senses with a bang.

Subdued, misty lamplight played across the table, on the ivory-toned fabric of Sebastian’s jacket, on the lean, olive-toned fingers as they deftly stripped the peel from an orange, leaving his face shadowy and mysterious. And although she knew that the fruit was far more juicily sweet and delicious than any that could be bought back in England, Charley shook her head and clamped her lips together as he offered her a segment.

Greg would have forty fits if he could see her now. And she wouldn’t blame him. Everything, just everything, was a celebration of the senses: sight, sound, taste and scent, a sybaritic pandering to all that was sensual. It was a setting fit for high romance, certainly not a setting the down-to-earth Greg would have been comfortable with.

But it was nothing but an illusion. Unconsciously, Charley sighed, and Sebastian said harshly, ‘Missing your portly lover, Charlotte? Wishing he were here in my place?’

‘Naturally,’ she came back at once, stiffening her spine defensively. It wasn’t the truth, though.

She missed Greg, of course she did, missed his common-sense attitude and straightforward character. But she couldn’t wish him here. He didn’t go a bundle on illusions. He liked to know what he was getting. A meal like this, in such a setting, would have made him uneasy. He would have preferred a well lit room, two courses of solid English fare—not this relaxed dipping about all over the place—and a decent half-pint of real ale to go with it. That she had—up until now, of course—wholeheartedly enjoyed it all would have annoyed him, because her enjoyment would not have been something he could have shared.

‘Are you in love with him?’

The question was posed with perfect seriousness, but he leaned forward, into the pool of light, and the sultry eyes were mocking. She met them warily, not knowing how to answer. She had been ‘in love’ before, and it had nearly driven her out of her mind. What she felt for Greg in no way resembled the extravagant, profligate passion that had made her a willing slave to this dark devil’s merest glance.

He’d made her an addict, destroyed her self-respect, made her incapable of thinking of anything or anyone but him. So no, what she felt for Greg was nothing like that. And neither did she want it to be! Never again would any man enslave her to such a degrading extent.

But she wasn’t about even to try to explain, to tell him that she had agreed to marry Greg because he would make a good father for the children they both wanted to have some day, because he was steady and sensible and he respected her, and allowed her to respect herself, and would never, ever try to overwhelm her. He wouldn’t know how to begin. So she said baldly, ‘None of your business. The only thing that need concern us is the ending of our marriage.’ She finished the wine in her glass, congratulating herself on putting him in his place. And, just to let him know that he needn’t think he’d got the upper hand just because she’d agreed to stay, she pronounced airily, ‘I might decide to leave in the morning. I could always file for a legal separation.’

‘Which would take twelve months, leaving you no better off than you are now—without my formal agreement to a divorce,’ he pointed out drily. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t bother if I were you. You’re no more in love with your accountant than I am.’ He refilled her glass, right to the brim, and she knotted her brows at him.

‘Clairvoyant, are you? How can you possibly know what I feel—?’

‘I know far more than you give me credit for, mi esposa.’ His voice had the cutting edge of steel. ‘You may wonder what you are doing here, why I should allow you within miles of my home. Let me tell you...’ Lean fingers beat softly against white damask. ‘You once accused me of a deed so shameful that I vowed to have revenge, to make you, too, taste the kind of pain that turns the soul to iron. That is why I had you watched, had your every movement reported back to me.’

Silenced, Charley stared into the glowing darkness of his eyes, her mouth going dry. Revenge was a hateful word, walking down the years, biding its time, waiting for the right, the most devastating opportunity. Was that why she was here now, neatly trapped in this elegant, sumptuous web?

And she had walked right into it. But she wasn’t afraid. Why should she be? He could do nothing to her except make her wait for another year before she could be completely rid of him.

Her eyes never wavering, she gave a tiny shrug and twisted the stem of her glass between her fingers. ‘Bully-boy tactics don’t suit you, Sebastian.’ Then she took the fight right back to him. ‘I accused you of two shameful deeds, or had you forgotten? Which one of the two made you throw your money away on the expense of having me watched? Killing your own brother, or carrying on your affair with Olivia after we were married?’

He ignored her taunts, merely watched her. His half-hooded eyes boring into hers as if he could reach right into her soul, his fingers stilled now, lamplight playing on those darkly beautiful features, making a shifting, unreadable mask of them, a mask she suddenly ached to tear away with frenzied fingers.

She was beginning to shake inside. He alone could make her do that. But she wasn’t going to let him have that effect on her. She wouldn’t tolerate it. She lifted her glass to her lips and swallowed, and reminded him coldly, ‘If you recall, you didn’t refute either accusation. Because you couldn’t?’ If, at the time, he had even attempted to, she would have been only too happy to listen, pathetically eager to believe whatever he said, even then, even after Olivia had told her the truth. She had been bewitched by him.

But he had said nothing, not a single word to defend himself against either accusation.

‘Did I need to?’ Inflexible Gaditano pride spiked every syllable, and his eyes were coldly expressionless as he leaned back into the shadows. ‘I think the fact that you came here in person, instead of putting your request through a solicitor, speaks for itself.’ His velvet voice dropped, softening hypnotically, sending shivers down her spine. ‘Had you really believed me capable of the shameful deed of murder, you would not have come near me—let alone agreed to stay with me. That tells me you didn’t believe, even then.’ White teeth gleamed suddenly against the shadowy darkness of his face. ‘Therefore, what really sent you scurrying away, back to England, where you mistakenly thought you could forget me, was the belief that I went to Olivia’s bed. You were too much of a child then to cope with that kind of jealousy, to think it through.’

He stood up, pushing back his chair, looking pagan in the drifting, shadowy lamplight. ‘You are a child no longer; the appeal is still there, but enhanced by excitement. You have become an opponent worthy of my steel. Is that not so?’

He came nearer and she stood up quickly, willing the shakiness out of her legs, managing a commendably wobble-free voice as she pushed her chin in the air and argued, ‘We have nothing to fight about, not any more,’ absolutely unprepared for his softly spoken,

‘Surely you see the battle that emerges? But don’t be afraid—it will reach a successful conclusion.’ A lean hand cupped her elbow as he escorted her inside. ‘May I suggest that you give some thought to what I have said? It would ensure that victory comes more quickly. I grow impatient, querida. I have waited too long. However...’ His shrug was almost too graceful to be borne. ‘Some women, like some wines, take longer than others to mature. It is a process that can’t be hurried, yet the results are worth waiting for.’

CHAPTER THREE

IN THE past, Charley had never tired of looking out over the deep water harbour with its crane-spiked waterfront teeming with tugs, ferries, merchant ships and cruise liners, but this morning she really wasn’t seeing anything.

Like a coward, she had crept out of the house very early and had wandered her way through the web of narrow streets until thirst had driven her into a bar for coffee, and after that she’d found herself at the harbour without even consciously aiming her feet in that direction.

And now the sun was burning the mist from the water and the inside of her head felt as if it were full of unravelled knitting, because she’d spent a wakeful, restless night doing her best to avoid thinking over what Sebastian had said.

In his typical lordly fashion he had instructed her to think over what he had said concerning her reasons for leaving him in the first place, her own supposed lack of belief in the most damning of the two accusations she’d hurled at him.

Well, she wasn’t going to! The time for soul-searching was long gone. Her marriage to Sebastian was over in all but name, and a contented future with Greg lay just around the corner. And that was the way she wanted it. Yes, most certainly, that was the way she wanted it!

Aware that she was squinting against the rapidly increasing glare of the sun, she fished her dark glasses out of her bag and slid them on to her nose. And from right behind her Sebastian said, ‘What a surprise,’ his tone very dry.

Charley froze. And, without turning, she asked crossly, ‘What are you doing here?’

Did he have his spies out, even here? Or had he followed her himself, a silent, watchful shadow, dogging her footsteps? Like Nemesis. But the dryness increased until his voice was utterly withering as he reminded her, ‘I had business at the harbour. I visit frequently. Don’t tell me you’d forgotten.’

‘Totally,’ she lied contentiously, and turned to face him, feeling, quite insanely, much more relaxed. She had never so much as bent the truth in the past, never argued, had always been anxious to please, slavishly devoted. Giving as good as she got was fun, she decided, her sparkling amber eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

Of course she remembered his frequent visits to the offices at the commercial docks, the times she had walked this way on the off-chance of seeing him, wondering if he would be in this area or in the Machado office block on the outskirts of the city. He had rarely spoken about his work, probably seeing her as too flea-brained to be interested in the export empire that had been started by his grandfather.

But whenever Olivia had come out to Cadiz he’d spent long hours with her, discussing business—or so he had said.

‘Then I can only conclude that the dreariness of the British weather and the added boredom of your job has damaged your brain.’

He was grinning at her, calling her bluff, his black eyes sharp and knowing, and she countered with as much enthusiasm as she could manage, ‘Far from it. I love my job; it’s much more stimulating than trying to be the dutiful wife of a wealthy Spaniard! All that sitting around with nothing to do but attend to the flowers, speaking when I was spoken to, wondering what time you’d be home. If at all. So stimulating, in fact, that unimportant things like whether you visit the harbour or not got pushed right out of my head.’

‘Is that so? Maybe I should have asked Ignacia to teach you how to scrub floors.’

The sultry look was back in his eyes. It did things to her. And she couldn’t bear it!

She looked away quickly, watching the vapor from Puerto appear through the last few remaining wisps of mist that hung over the bay as she willed the too rapid beats of her heart to slow down to normal. Hitching the narrow leather strap of her bag higher on her shoulder, she said coolly, ‘Shouldn’t you be at work or something? Don’t let me detain you.’ She had never been able to detain him before; he had spent the majority of his time chained to his desk. Except when Olivia had been around, of course.

But she wasn’t going to remind him of that. She would never mention that woman’s name to him again. And Sebastian denied smoothly, ‘I have taken a holiday.’

As far as she knew today wasn’t a public holiday, with carnival or fiesta an excuse for everything to shut down. But he definitely wasn’t dressed for the office. She couldn’t see him sitting behind his huge desk wearing that sleeveless black body-hugging T-shirt and those casual white lightweight trousers.

‘How nice. Do enjoy your day, won’t you?’ Charley swept off along the Avenida del Puerto, braving the thunderous traffic, her brisk stride echoing, she hoped, the tart finality of her words. No way was she prepared to spend the day with him, or even a part of it. She had made up her mind that the best way to deal with the coming four weeks was to keep well out of his way, to think of him and of the past as little as possible.

‘I have taken far more than one day.’ His voice was as smooth as honeyed cream, and Charley flinched as his big hand shot out to drag her away from the rapidly approaching wheels of a great snarling truck. ‘Four weeks, to be exact.’

‘Hell!’ Charley closed her eyes as she leant weakly back against him, her body melding into his as if it belonged. If he was going to hound her for the whole of that time she would probably go mad!

His naked arm slid around her tiny waist, his fingers splayed warmly across her ribcage. She wondered distractedly if he could feel the frantic hammer beats of her heart and knew that he must have done, but had misinterpreted the cause of the fluster, when he said silkily, ‘Allow me to guide you. I would hate to think my presence had driven you to prefer suicide under wheels of a juggernaut.’

Sarcastic lump of hatefulness! Charley fumed as he expertly dodged the wild flow of traffic and finally deposited her neatly on the edge of the Plaza Sevilla.

‘Coffee?’ he asked, one brow lifting urbanely. ‘Or perhaps you need something stronger.’

‘Let’s stop fooling around,’ Charley snapped out, small hands flapping at him, brushing him away. Enough was enough. ‘I don’t need you to see me over the road. I don’t need you to buy coffee or tag along. In short—’ big amber eyes glared behind sheltering dark lenses, the line of her mouth very determined ‘—I don’t need you at all.’

‘Oh, but you do,’ he contradicted, his teeth white against the tanned olive tones of his skin. ‘You need my agreement to the divorce you’re so suddenly anxious to get.’ He smiled, but there was no humour in it. Just naked aggression.

Charley scowled right back at him. As she had decided moments earlier, enough was enough, and she conceded honestly, her hands slicing sideways impatiently, ‘I stand corrected. I do need you for that. But I can’t understand why you should insist I stay here. And neither,’ she tacked on tartly, ‘does Greg.’

If she had hoped that by bringing her next husband into the discussion she could get him to admit that his bargaining position was as ridiculous as it was pointless she was disappointed, because all he said was, ‘Good. At last you are willing to talk. Perhaps even to think things through. Come, let us walk.’

She had no clear idea of where they were going and only the haziest notion of why she was still at his side as they slipped from one narrow street to another. The only thing she knew for sure was that to do as he said in this respect was easier than picking a fight. He was quite capable of forcing her to go with him.

But even he wasn’t capable of forcing her to ‘think things through’—as he kept suggesting. He might be able to control her physical movements for the next month, but he couldn’t control what was going on inside her head. And why should she dredge up the past, with all its grief and pain? It was over, and thinking of what had happened, and why it had happened, would be pointless.

Only when they emerged into the brilliant sunlight did she stop grumbling away inside her head. They had come to the Campo del Sur, the broad walkway on the city’s southern limits, the blue waters of the Atlantic washing against white stones and, looming above them, the awesome Baroque block of the cathedral, its golden dome glittering in the white light reflected from the whitewashed buildings.

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