Claiming His Wife

‘You can’t be serious!’ The thin, wavery bleat of her own voice secretly appalled her. She hadn’t meant to sound so utterly withering. Cassie swallowed convulsively and tried again, tried to do better. ‘You must be desperate if you have to resort to blackmail to get a woman to share your bed!’

This time the contempt she felt must have echoed in her tone because she saw his eyes narrow, his jawline harden. He was a passionate man; she knew that—passionate about his work, the land he loved, the family name, his women. Never about her, though, and they both knew it. Her taunt would have damaged his inbred, fierce Spanish pride.

‘Not blackmail—a condition,’ he corrected harshly. ‘Non-negotiable. You are free to take my offer, or leave it.’

‘My body’s not a commodity to be bartered,’ she stated, suddenly feeling shivery, as if her flesh had been plunged into a deep freeze. What he was suggesting was completely out of the question.

But he obviously wasn’t seeing it that way because his voice roughened. ‘It was before, if I remember correctly. Your body in my bed in exchange for my ring on your finger, a life of luxury, payment of your father’s debts—and let’s not forget that nice soft option for your brother, which we now know he abused. And again, with you, I got the rough end of the bargain and found myself sharing a bed with a block of ice. My bride made me feel like an animal with depraved and intolerable appetites—it was not an experience I wished to repeat.’

So he had left her completely alone. And he hadn’t had the sense to understand that she’d been terrified.

Not of him, because she had loved him then, but scared half to death of failing the shatteringly sexy, passionate and experienced man who had swept her off her feet with one smile from those sensually moulded lips, one glance from those sultry, smoky eyes. The man who hadn’t seen that his family’s displeasure at his choice of wife had already made her feel inferior and totally inadequate.

And she hadn’t had the courage to explain all of that to him, to at least try to tell him how she felt. Cassie shook that unwanted thought out of her head and closed her eyes as she dragged in a deep lungful of air; when she opened them he was holding the door open, his powerful body graceful, relaxed.

Showing her out? Bored? Impatient to get rid of her now he knew she would have nothing to do with his outrageous suggestion?

So why did she feel giddy with relief when he told her, ‘I’m not suggesting something immoral. You are my wife.’

‘We’re separated,’ she reminded him, defensively putting her light-headedness down to the trauma of the last few days, the expenditure of courage that had been needed to bring her to face him again.

‘Not by my wish,’ he stated dismissively. He swung on his heels.

Catching her breath, she followed him along the stone-flagged passageway that connected the old farmhouse to the newer, more comfortable addition that had been built in his father’s lifetime. Surely there was room for negotiation? Surely she could make him see that his cruel suggestion simply wasn’t practical, then ask him to reconsider her original offer?

‘Roman!’ If there was a desperate edge to her voice, she couldn’t help it. Her brother’s future depended on her ability to make her estranged husband change his mind. ‘Even if I wanted to come back to you—’ which she most definitely did not ‘—I couldn’t. I have a living to earn, a job to go back to. I told Cindy I’d only be away for a couple of days. It’s one of our busiest times.’

He stopped, turned, his impressive figure framed in the archway that led into the main hall. He lifted wide shoulders dismissively. ‘No problem. I’ll phone my cousin and explain. She’ll understand.’

Of course she would! Cindy idolised Roman, she hadn’t been able to believe her ears when Cassie had returned to England with the news that her marriage was over.

The relationship wasn’t as close as Roman had stated. Cindy’s grandmother had been Don˜a Elvira’s eldest sister. She’d married a Scot and they’d lived in England, producing Cindy’s mother. Although the Fernandez family hadn’t approved of the alliance with a mere foreigner, Don˜a Elvira and her surviving sisters had remained in contact.

Cassie and Cindy had been best friends since they’d met at school as five-year-olds, and it had been to her and her warm and loving family that Cassie had turned when her and Roy’s father had died from a heart attack.

They couldn’t have been more supportive. When the shock news had come that the house Cassie and Roy shared with their widowed father would have to be sold to cover his debts, Cindy’s mother had suggested, ‘We’ve been planning a holiday in Spain, visiting relatives on my mother’s side. Why don’t you and Roy come with us? I know they’ll make you welcome when I explain the circumstances. And it would give you and Roy a chance to get your heads round what’s happened.’

That was how she’d met Roman; that was when the short and, with hindsight, strangely distant courtship had begun. And the rest, she thought tiredly, was history. A history she wished had never been written.

‘Any other objections?’ he enquired flatly. ‘Or is the resumption of our marriage for three short months too high a price to pay?’

Much, much too high! Roy had done wrong and the only way Roman would allow him to avoid punishment was to punish her in her brother’s stead. Their wedding night had been a total fiasco. Although they had consummated the marriage, her fear of disappointing him had made her about as responsive as a lump of rock, thereby ensuring that the experience was one she didn’t want to repeat. The fear of further failure had made her push him away when he’d tried to take her in his arms on the following nights after that. So why would he want to force her to share his bed now—unless it was to dole out punishment?

Oh, her objections were legion! Moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, she framed the words of the only one that wasn’t personally insulting to him—which meant it was the tritest. ‘I came prepared for an overnight stay in Jerez before getting a flight back to England. How can I stay when I haven’t got much more than the clothes I’m wearing now?’

His smile was thin and it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I think we might be able to find a store that stocks female clothing somewhere in Spain, don’t you? And, Cassandra—’ his eyes narrowed to slits of smoke-hazed jet ‘—I’m not prepared to discuss this further. You take my offer, or you leave it. Sleep on it and give me your decision in the morning.’ He turned again, lobbing over his shoulder, ‘I’ll get someone to show you to a room you can use for tonight. We eat at nine, as you may remember, and afterwards you and Roy can have some time together to discuss your futures.’

Dispiritedly, she watched as he strode across the polished terracotta tiles of the airy, square hallway. She had honestly believed she was mature enough now to stand her ground against that overweening authoritarianism of his—that she would never again allow him to tell her what to do, where to go.

Yet she had to admit, after one of the maids—new since her own departure, just over a year ago—had shown her to a bedroom overlooking the courtyard at the back of the house, that her interview with Roman had sapped her of the energy she would have needed to arrange for a taxi to pick her up here and drive her back to Jerez, where she would have had to find overnight accommodation.

Also, this way she was guaranteed some time with her twin. She could sit through dinner with Don˜a Elvira and the dreadful aunts for the sake of the opportunity to speak to Roy alone afterwards. If she insisted on leaving now, Roman would make sure she didn’t get so much as a glimpse of her brother.

She needed to apologise in person for having failed him. Break the news that Roman would be bringing charges against him. It made her sick just to think of it. She’d been looking out for him ever since their mother had died a few days before their eighth birthday, but the price Roman was demanding was way too high. She had worked hard to turn her life around. How could anyone expect her to put herself back in the prison she’d escaped from a year ago?

Her pale face set, she gave the room she’d been shown to a cursory glance. It was very similar to the one she’d used when she’d spent the greater part of her two years of marriage here. Roman had simply dumped her, leaving her with his mother and the aunts while he’d been away doing his own thing. Business in Jerez and Cadiz, with plenty of fringe benefits in the form of fancy restaurants, fancy females, climbing in the Himalayas, skiing at Klosters—whatever turned him on.

Shrugging, consigning her memories back into the past, she unpacked her overnight bag. Cotton night-dress, a change of underwear, make-up and toiletries. Her heart hovering somewhere beneath the floorboards, she went to the adjoining bathroom for a much-needed shower and wished she and her twin had never heard of Roman Fernandez.

Candles—dozens of them—set in shallow crystal bowls imparted a warm, flickering glow to the old silver of the elaborate place settings. Dinner at Las Colinas Verdes was always a formal affair and tonight all the stops had been pulled out because there were two guests.

Herself the unwanted one. And Delfina The Desirable, who had been flavour of the month amongst Roman’s female relatives for as long as Cassie had known them.

Roman was seated at the head of the long table with the Spanish woman on his left. Delfina was as exquisite as Cassie recalled, her dark hair cut in a fashionable jaw-length bob, her slender figure clothed in ruby satin, leaving the delicate sweep of her shoulders and arms bare.

‘You are looking well, Cassandra. Better than I have seen you. You are obviously happier in your own country.’ Don˜a Elvira, remote and dignified in black silk, was seated at the foot of the table, to Cassie’s right. Her remark was made in her perfect English and carried the customary barb.

‘Thank you.’ Cassie inclined her head coolly. She could have answered that she would have been ecstatically happy in Spain if her husband had loved her, if his family had accepted her. But what was the point raking over a past that was dead and buried as far as she was concerned? She would not let this ordeal undermine her hard-won poise. She wouldn’t let any one of them intimidate her now.

Tía Agueda and Tía Carmela, Roman’s aunts, were seated opposite, their small dark eyes constantly flicking between Cassie and Delfina. Delfina was speaking in animated Spanish to Roman who, naturally, took pride of place at the head of the gleaming mahogany table. Her hand was continually moving to touch the back of his, or to linger on the white fabric of his sleeve, as if to emphasis a point she was making, her dark eyes flicking and flirting beneath the lustrous sweep of her lashes.

During her time in Spain Cassie had picked up enough of the language to get by, but the other woman’s voice was pitched too low, too soft and intimate to allow her to hear what was being said.

She fingered the stem of her wine glass and, as if noting the unconsciously nervous gesture, Don˜a Elvira said, ‘It is an uncomfortable time for all of us.’

And wasn’t that the truth? Cassie speared a sliver of tender pork fillet. Her twin was conspicuous by his absence. House arrest, he’d told her. He probably had to eat in the kitchen with the servants. She laid down her fork, the food unwanted.

‘I’ll be returning to England tomorrow,’ she stated, squashing the wicked impulse to tell her mother-in-law of her son’s attempt to blackmail her into resuming their marriage. Only for three short months—but, even so, Don˜a Elvira and the aunts would hate that. They were probably already counting down to when Roman could be free of his unsuitable, hopeless wife and they could begin pressing him to marry someone of his own nationality, someone with breeding and lots of lovely old money!

Something clicked inside her brain. Of course! She could see it all now. Roy’s fall from grace had given Roman the leverage he needed. It wasn’t just sexual curiosity about her, as he’d so insultingly claimed—his family must be nagging him again to produce an heir, and this time he could put them off if it appeared that he was having another stab at making his marriage work!

Sharply, her mind skidded back to the afternoon Roman had proposed to her. The older family members had been taking a siesta; Roy and Guy—Cindy’s older brother—had taken a couple of horses out onto the campos while Cindy and her mother were upstairs packing. About to follow suit—the month-long holiday was over and they were leaving for home the next day—she’d been halfway up the handsomely carved staircase when Roman’s softly voiced request had stopped her in her tracks.

‘Cassie, got a few minutes to spare?’

Her hand had shot out and tightened on the polished banister until her knuckles stood out like white sea-shells as a wave of raw heat flooded her body. She had been sure she was in love with him, helplessly and hopelessly in love, and it had turned her into a gibbering idiot when he was around.

Cindy had said, ‘Mucho macho!’, pretending to swoon. ‘He doesn’t even notice me but he follows you with his eyes, you lucky pig!’

Trying not to think of the gross stupidity of that remark—why should a man as gorgeous, as self-assured and wildly wealthy as Roman spare a very ordinary woman with no social skills and about as much sex appeal as a carrot a second glance?—she had waited until the gauche heat ebbed from her face before slowly turning.

He had been watching her from the foot of the stairs. Watching. Waiting. Her throat muscles had gone into spasm.

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Yes?’ Had her expression been intelligent, or just plain dumb? The latter, she suspected, because the slight shake of his dark, handsome head, the very slight abrasiveness of his voice had suggested impatience.

‘Not here. In the courtyard, for privacy. Come down.’

She’d gone; of course she had. If he’d asked her to walk to the North Pole with him she’d have gone without a murmur. And the sun-soaked courtyard had been deserted except for just the two of them, the scent of the rosemary and lavender planted in the centre perfuming the hot air. And his proposal had been the very last thing she’d expected.

‘As my mother and aunts never tire of telling me, it’s time I married and sired an heir. They’ve been dangling suitable females under my nose for the past five years and now that I’ve reached the venerable age of thirty-three they’ve stepped up their campaign.

‘I tell them to hold their meddling tongues, to put the succession of simpering creatures back into the boxes they dug them out of; I tell them that I will marry the woman of my choosing, not theirs. It makes no difference and, quite frankly, Cass, I am tired of it.’

At that point he had taken her hand and her whole body had melted, turning her into an amorphous mass of sensation, blanking out every last one of her brain cells. What else could explain the unseemly haste, the total lack of logical thought that had accompanied her acceptance when he’d increased the pressure of his fingers on hers and murmured, ‘I think we could make a successful marriage. You’re young for your years. Don’t take that as a criticism—you lack the guile and artifice that bores me in other women, and I find that very appealing. I do need an heir, and for that I need to marry. I want a woman I can live with, a woman whose primary concerns aren’t the perfection of her appearance, attending parties that take her days to prepare for, or empty-headed gossip.’

His mouth had indented wryly. ‘The bargain wouldn’t be one-sided. Since the death of your father you’re a ship without a rudder; I gather that he had you convent-educated then used emotional blackmail to keep you at home acting as an unpaid housekeeper. Cass, marriage and motherhood would give you the direction you want. And no need to worry about the debts waiting for you at home—naturally, as your husband, I would discharge them. And for me—’ his eyes had softened as he’d smiled into hers ‘—I would be free of the endless carping from my female relatives. In time, there would be our children to take their meddling minds away from me, and I could get on with my life in peace. And, more importantly, I would have a wife I’d chosen for myself. Will you think about it, dear Cassie?’

She hadn’t, she thought now, defiantly draining her wine glass. She’d simply accepted him and thought about it later, when it was too late to do anything other than acknowledge the fact that he had married her because she was biddable, undemanding, a creature of no consequence, and someone he could hide in a corner and forget about. Someone to provide him with the heirs the vast Fernandez estates needed.

Only it hadn’t worked out like that, had it?

‘I see Delfina still visits you,’ she remarked coolly to her mother-in-law. Her voice dripped with sarcasm as she added, ‘So kind, don’t you think, when sophisticated social events, glitzy restaurants and expensive shops are her natural milieu? Or so she always led me to believe.’

Before, she would never have dreamed of saying such a thing. She had almost literally withered away whenever her mother-in-law or the aunts had spoken to her, almost always with some criticism or other—the way she dressed, her apparent inability to conceive or keep her husband at her side, her weight loss.

‘She has always been fond of my son.’ Don˜a Elvira dabbed her mouth with her napkin. ‘As I said, it has been an uncomfortable time for all of us.’

Was that sympathy in the older woman’s eyes? Cassie thought so. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. Formerly, had she only listened to the words, failing to see the concern for her well-being and happiness that lay behind the apparent criticisms?

She laid down her napkin, made her excuses, and left the room without even glancing at Roman. Sympathy from a most unexpected quarter wasn’t worth thinking about. Not now. It was over.

‘Sis!’

As Cassie closed the door to the formal dining room behind her Roy emerged from beneath the stone arch that led to the kitchen quarters. It took her two seconds to reach him. She wanted to shake him but he looked so wretched she hugged him instead.

‘I couldn’t sit through dinner, not knowing whether you’d persuaded Roman to give me another chance.’

She had meant to tell him that she’d tried and failed, that he was on his own now and had to take the consequences of his dishonesty, but she could feel his wiry body shaking. Her heart lurched. Her eyes filled with tears.

In the past she’d fought all his battles for him. Maybe he would have been a stronger character if she hadn’t. Maybe she was to blame for the way he’d messed up his life.

But how could she fail him now, when he needed her most?

‘It will be all right,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘You’ll be given another chance. Make the most of it, though, because it will be your last.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE kitchen was in the older, original part of the house; the stone walls were painted white and the huge black range added to the warmth of the early morning. Asunción, who ran the household and catered for the unmarried estate workers with unruffled efficiency, was kneading dough; two of the maids sat at the other end of the central table, chattering over their toasted rolls and coffee.

‘Have you seen Señor Fernandez?’ Cassie asked as her appearance made the housekeeper stop pummelling and the maids fall silent.

Unless they’d changed their habits during the past twelve months, Don˜a Elvira and the aunts wouldn’t surface until after they’d breakfasted in their rooms at ten. But when he was here Roman was always out on the estate soon after sunrise; she didn’t want to miss him and hang around until lunchtime, getting more nervous and downhearted with every passing second. She wanted to get this over with.

‘No, not this morning, señora.’ Asunción planted her floury hands on her wide hips, her small dark eyes sparking with curiosity. ‘Señorita Delfina waits for him also.’ One of the maids smothered a giggle, earning a quick dark look from the housekeeper. ‘If you join her in the courtyard, someone will bring coffee out for you.’

‘Thank you, Asunción.’ Cassie retreated smartly, her cheeks burning. Las Colinas Verdes was like a small village; everyone knew everyone else’s business and the affairs of the family were the subject of eternal gossip and conjecture.

They would all be wondering why the runaway, unsuitable English wife had returned and why el patrón had taken his young brother-in-law out of his comfortable office in Jerez and put him to work like a labourer in the fields. Uncomfortably, she wondered what answers they’d come up with.

She had no wish to join Delfina but she really did need that coffee. Her night had been restless, tormented by the knowledge of what she’d let herself in for. She couldn’t go back on her promise to Roy, but if Roman wanted her to pretend that they were making a fresh start, and get his relatives off his back, then she had a condition of her own to make, she thought firmly.

Delfina was sitting in the shade of the sprawling fig tree which grew against one of the high stone walls of the courtyard. She was wearing form-fitting stretch jodhpurs and a cream-coloured, heavy silk shirt; the long sleeves were casually rolled up to just beneath her elbows, displaying lightly tanned forearms and a matching pair of thin gold chain bracelets.

She looked every inch the aristocrat, as if she belonged here. Cassandra couldn’t understand why Roman was going to such lengths to pretend he wanted another shot at making his marriage to an average-looking nobody like her work, when surely he could see that this beautiful, sophisticated daughter of a wealthy sherry family would make him a perfect wife. Or had he really meant it when he’d said that Delfina’s type bored him?

‘If you’re looking for Roman, you’re out of luck,’ Delfina snapped. ‘We had a date to go riding but he must have left without me.’ The lovely, perfectly made-up face was petulant, the scarlet mouth drooping sulkily. ‘He always did head for the hills rather than spend time around you, so I guess that’s what’s happened now.’

‘Is that so?’ Cassie slid on to the bench seat on the opposite side of the table, in the full glare of the already hot sun, noting that the other woman had barely touched her coffee or her juice. Roman might enjoy the flirtatious attentions of Delfina, and the way she hung around him would boost his already considerable ego. But he certainly wouldn’t want to marry her, and not only because her shallowness would bore him.

Delfina had been born to elegance and style, and was accustomed to the high life. She certainly wouldn’t allow herself to be isolated here, seeing her husband only when he felt like dropping by for a week or two, producing babies and closely chaperoned by his mother and aunts while he swanned off, free as a bird. She would make a demanding wife, while he had wanted a dutiful, self-effacing one, one who didn’t ask questions or demand a single thing of him.

Roman Fernandez was far too selfish to completely tie himself down to a woman; he enjoyed the pleasures of a bachelor-style life far too much. But at least, Cassie knew, he wouldn’t seduce the other woman. She came from an important family and he wouldn’t compromise her; his Spanish code of honour wouldn’t let him. Though why she should see that as a consolation, Cassie couldn’t imagine. She no longer cared what he did.

‘I can’t think why you came back after all this time,’ Delfina said pettishly. ‘You’re wasting your time if you expect Roman to take you back—because he won’t, you know. How long are you staying, anyway?’ she wanted to know. ‘It can’t be too long if the only thing you’ve got with you is the same old suit you wore to dinner last night,’ Delfina added disparagingly. ‘And you really shouldn’t sit in the sun, not with your ginger colouring. You’ll get covered in ghastly freckles, just like your brother. And what’s he doing working here? I thought Roman had given him an easy life back in the office in Jerez.’