Читать книгу The Spaniard's Seduction - Anne Mather - Страница 9

CASSANDRA propped her chin on her hands and stared wearily across the table at her son’s sulky face. She ought to be really angry with him, and she was, but she couldn’t help feeling the tiniest bit of sympathy, too.

After all, it wasn’t his fault that she’d never told him the truth about his de Montoya relations. She’d always avoided any discussion of her late husband’s family, hoping, pointlessly as it had turned out, that David would accept the fact that they and his mother just didn’t get on. It wasn’t as if he was short of an extended family. Cassandra’s two sisters were both married with children of their own. David had aunts and uncles and cousins, as well as his maternal grandfather to call on. Foolishly, she had thought that would be enough.

Clearly, it hadn’t been. Like his father before him, David was far too intelligent to accept her prevarication. But to go through her things, to seek out Antonio’s passport and write secretly to Julio de Montoya without even telling her what he’d done… Well, she didn’t know how she was going to forgive him for that.

She sighed, wondering what the chances were of them getting an earlier flight home. Not very good, she surmised, remembering how full the plane had been on the journey out. Besides, she’d paid for a two-week holiday package and if she wanted to change the return date she would obviously have to pay extra for their seats.

Not an option she wanted to consider. She had already spent over her budget in coming here and she was loath to ask her father to bail them out. That, too, would entail more explanations than she was prepared to face at present.

‘Are you going to maintain this ridiculous silence for much longer?’ she enquired at last, forcing her son to look up from the scrambled eggs and bacon he had ordered in spite of her protests. A fried breakfast was far too heavy in this climate, in her opinion, but David had not been in the mood to compromise. ‘Because if you are,’ she added, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

David emptied his mouth of food, took a gulp of orange juice, and then regarded her with accusing eyes. ‘Do I get a choice?’ he enquired insolently, and Cassandra knew a totally uncharacteristic desire to smack him.

‘I won’t be spoken to like this, David,’ she said, folding her napkin and placing it beside her plate. She, herself, had eaten nothing, and the sight of the greasy food was enough to turn her stomach. ‘I realise you think you have some justification for acting this way, but you’ve got no idea what a nest of vipers you’re uncovering.’

‘A nest of vipers,’ scoffed her son, around another mouthful of egg. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. If you ask me, you’re just jealous because Uncle Enrique liked me.’

Jealous!

Cassandra’s nails dug into her palms. ‘You think so?’ she said, the urge to wipe the smug look off his face becoming almost overwhelming. ‘And what would you know about it?’

‘I know Uncle Enrique is nice, really nice,’ declared her son staunchly. ‘Gosh, you were so rude to him, Mum! It’s a wonder he even wants to see me again.’

Cassandra pressed her lips together, feeling the unwelcome prick of tears behind her eyes. Oh, yes, she wanted to say, Enrique de Montoya wants to see you again. Now that he knows I have a son, he’ll do everything he can to take you away from me.

But, of course, she couldn’t tell her son that. She couldn’t be so cruel. Apart from anything else, it was unlikely he would believe her. In David’s world, people were exactly what they appeared to be; they said what they thought. They didn’t lie or cheat, or use any means in their power to destroy someone else. Why frighten him unnecessarily? He would learn soon enough that the de Montoyas would do anything to gain their own ends.

‘Anyway, I think you should tell him you’re sorry when you see him again,’ went on David, scraping up the last of his eggs with his fork. He looked up, his dark eyes a haunting reminder of the past. ‘We are going to see him again, aren’t we, Mum?’

Cassandra hesitated. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve decided to cut the holiday short,’ she said, even though she hadn’t decided any such thing until that moment. ‘I’m going to find out whether we can get a flight home later today—’

‘No!’ David sprang up from his seat in dismay, and the family of holidaymakers at the nearby table turned curious eyes to see what was going on. ‘I won’t go,’ he said, not caring what anyone else thought of his behaviour. ‘You can’t make me.’

‘Sit down, David.’

Cassandra was embarrassed, but her son was beyond being reasoned with. ‘I won’t sit down,’ he declared. ‘I want to see Uncle Enrique again. I want to see my grandfather. Why shouldn’t I?’

‘Sit down!’

This time Cassandra got half out of her seat and, as if realising he wasn’t doing himself any favours by making it impossible for his mother to face her fellow guests, he subsided unwillingly into his seat.

‘Now, listen to me,’ said Cassandra, her voice thick with emotion, ‘you’ll do exactly as I tell you. You’re nine years old, David. I have every right to demand that you do as I say.’

David’s expression was sulky, but Cassandra was relieved to see that there were tears in his eyes now. ‘But why are you being so awful?’ he exclaimed huskily. ‘You always said you loved my father. Was that just a lie?’

‘No!’ Cassandra gave an inward groan. ‘I did love him. More than you can ever know.’

‘Then—’

‘But your father wasn’t like the rest of his family,’ she continued urgently. ‘He was—sweet; gentle. He—he was prepared to risk the wrath of his own family just so we could be together.’

David frowned. ‘Are you saying they tried to stop you getting married?’

Cassandra’s stomach lurched. ‘Something like that.’

‘So when you said you didn’t get on with Dad’s family, what you really meant was that they didn’t get on with you?’

God, Cassandra really didn’t want to talk about this.

‘I—suppose so,’ she agreed tensely.

‘But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to know you now,’ protested David, his eagerness showing in his face. ‘Dad died, what? Ten years ago?’

‘Nearly.’

‘So…’ He shrugged. ‘They’ve obviously changed their minds. Why else would Uncle Enrique come here to meet us?’

‘Because of you,’ cried his mother fiercely, realising too late that she had spoken a little too vehemently. ‘I mean,’ she said, modifying her tone, ‘naturally they want to meet you. You’re your father’s son.’

‘And yours,’ put in David at once. ‘And once they get to know you—’

‘They’re not going to get to know me,’ said Cassandra desperately. ‘Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? I never want to see any of the de Montoyas again.’

David’s face crumpled. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I do mean it.’ Cassandra felt dreadful but she had to go on. ‘I know you’re disappointed, but if we can’t get a flight home, I’m going to see if it’s possible for us to move to another pensión along the coast—’

‘No!’

‘Yes.’ Cassandra was determined. ‘I’m prepared to compromise. I know you’ve been looking forward to this holiday, and I don’t want to deprive you of it, so perhaps we can move to another resort.’

‘I don’t want to move to another resort,’ protested David unhappily. ‘I like it here. I’ve made friends here.’

‘You’ll make friends wherever we go.’

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Of course you will.’

‘But—’

‘But what?’

David shook his head, apparently deciding he’d argued long enough. ‘Nothing,’ he muttered, and then looked considerably relieved when Horst Kaufman and his parents stopped at their table.

The German family had been having breakfast on the terrace and now they all smiled down at David and his mother.

‘Good morning, Mrs de Montoya,’ said Franz Kaufman cheerfully. ‘It is another lovely day, yes?’

‘Oh—yes.’ Cassandra managed a polite smile in return. Then, noticing their more formal clothes, ‘Are you going off for the day?’

‘Yes. We are going to Ortegar, where we believe there is a leisure facility for the children.’ It was Frau Kaufman who answered, and Cassandra couldn’t help but admire their grasp of her language. ‘A water park and such. We wondered if you would permit David to come with us?’

‘Oh.’

Cassandra was nonplussed. She hardly knew the Kaufmans and the idea of allowing David to go off with them for the day was not something she would normally countenance. But, she reminded herself, she was going to spend the day trying to change their hotel arrangements, and going off with Horst and his family might be just what her son needed to put all thoughts of the de Montoyas out of his head.

‘Can I, Mum? Can I?’

David was clearly enthusiastic, and, putting her own doubts aside, Cassandra lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture. ‘I— I don’t know what to say.’

‘We would take great care of him, of course,’ put in Franz Kaufman heartily, patting David on the shoulder. ‘And as he and Horst get along together so well…’

‘We do. We do.’

David gazed at her with wide appealing eyes, and deciding that anything was better than having him dragging after her all day, making his feelings felt, Cassandra sighed.

‘Well, all right,’ she agreed, earning a whoop from both children. ‘Um—where did you say you were going?’

‘Ortegar,’ said Frau Kaufman at once, and Cassandra frowned.

‘Ortegar?’ she said. ‘Where is that exactly?’

‘It is along the coast. Near Cadiz,’ answered Franz a little impatiently. ‘Maybe twenty miles from here, that is all.’

And probably twenty miles nearer Tuarega, thought Cassandra, moistening her lips. She knew that because she had scanned the map very thoroughly before agreeing to David’s choice of destination.

Her heartbeat quickened. David’s choice of destination, she realised unsteadily. Goodness, how long had her son been planning to write to his grandfather?

‘I’ll go and get ready,’ said David eagerly, and she wondered if he suspected what she was thinking. ‘I won’t be long.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ murmured Cassandra, getting up from her chair and giving the Kaufmans another polite smile. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’

‘We will be waiting out front.’ Franz Kaufman nodded his approval, and Cassandra was left with the uneasy feeling that she had been out-manoeuvred by her son again.

David had already bundled a towel and his swimming trunks into his backpack by the time she reached their room. He had evidently raced up the stairs and she tried not to wonder if he was desperate to get away.

‘Do you need any money?’ she asked, picking up a discarded tee shirt from the floor, but David only shook his head and edged towards the door.

‘I’ve got four hundred pesetas. That’s enough,’ he said quickly, and his mother stared at him.

‘That’s less than two pounds,’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t know how much it will cost to get into the leisure park.’

‘You can pay Herr Kaufman when we get back,’ said David impatiently. ‘Come on, Mum. They’re waiting for me.’

Not that urgently, thought Cassandra unhappily, but she had given her word. ‘All right,’ she said, accepting his dutiful peck on her cheek. ‘Be good.’

‘I will.’ David headed out of the door with a triumphant grin on his face. ‘See you later.’

Sanchia’s red sports car was just pulling up outside the palacio when Enrique came out of the building. Sanchia herself, tall and dark and exotically beautiful, emerged from the vehicle, smoothing down the narrow skirt of the green linen suit that barely skimmed her knees.

Once his brother’s fiancé, Sanchia had swiftly recovered from that fiasco. Within a year, she had married a distant relative of the Spanish royal family, and when her elderly husband died leaving her a wealthy widow, she had immediately transferred her affections to her late fiancé’s brother, making Enrique wonder if that hadn’t been her objective all along.

But perhaps he was being conceited, he thought now. Sanchia had been heartbroken when Antonio had married an Englishwoman and had then been killed almost before the ink on the marriage licence was dry. She had turned to him then, but he hadn’t imagined that her plea for his affection had been anything more than a natural response to the circumstances she’d found herself in. After all, Sanchia’s family had never had a lot of money and it must have been quite a blow when her wealthy fiancé abandoned her less than three months before their wedding.

In any event, Enrique had made it quite plain then that he was not interested in taking up where his brother had left off. He liked Sanchia well enough, he always had, but the idea of taking her to bed because his brother had let her down was anathema to him. He had been grieving, too, and not just because his brother was dead. He had let Antonio down, and he’d found it hard to live with himself at that time.

Now, things were different. Sanchia had been married and widowed, and he himself was that much older and more willing to accept that life could all too easily deal you a rotten hand. The relationship he had with Sanchia these days suited both of them. He doubted he would ever get married, despite what his father had had to say about it, and, although Sanchia might hope that he’d change his mind, she was not, and never could be, the only woman in his life.

Which was probably why he felt such an unexpected surge of impatience at her appearance this morning. His thoughts were focused on what he planned to do today and Sanchia could play no part in that.

She, of course, knew nothing of the events of yesterday. Even though there’d been a message from her waiting on his answering machine when he’d got back last night, he hadn’t returned her call, which probably explained her arrival now.

‘Querido!’ she exclaimed, her use of the Spanish word for ‘darling’ sounding warm and intimate on her tongue. She reached up to kiss him, pouting when her lips only brushed his cheek, before surveying his casual appearance with some disappointment. ‘You are going out? I was hoping we might spend the day together.’

‘I am sorry.’ Enrique was aware that his navy tee shirt and cargo trousers were not his usual attire, but they were less likely to attract attention in a holiday resort than the three-piece suit he’d worn the day before. ‘I have got—some business to attend to.’

‘Dressed like this?’ Sanchia twined her fingers into the leather cord that he’d tied at his waist. ‘I cannot see you visiting one of your clients in a tee shirt.’

‘Did I say I was going to visit one of my clients?’ asked Enrique rather more curtly than he had intended. He disentangled her fingers from the cord and stepped back from her. ‘It is a personal matter,’ he appended, feeling obliged to give her some sort of explanation. ‘Really. I have got to go.’

‘Is it another woman?’ she demanded, and just for a moment he felt a surge of resentment that she should feel she had the right to question his actions.

But then common sense reasserted itself. Why shouldn’t she feel she had some rights where he was concerned? They had been seeing one another for months, after all.

‘Not in the way you mean,’ he assured her, his thin smile hardly a reassurance. Then, belatedly, ‘Perhaps I can ring you later?’

Sanchia’s lips tightened. ‘You are not going to tell me where you are going?’

‘No.’ There was no ambivalence on that score.

Her mouth trembled now. ‘Enrique…’

His irritation was totally unwarranted, and he despised himself for it. But, dammit, he wanted to get to Punta del Lobo before Cassandra had time to disappear again. ‘Look,’ he said reasonably, ‘this does not concern you—us. It is—something to do with my father. A confidential matter I have to attend to.’

Sanchia’s jaw dropped. ‘Your father has been having an affair?’

‘No!’ Enrique was horrified that she should even think such a thing.

‘But you said it did involve another woman,’ she reminded him, and Enrique wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

‘I also said, not in the way you mean,’ he declared shortly. ‘It is just—’ Dios, what could he say? ‘—an unexpected complication.’

‘That involves a woman?’

‘Only indirectly.’

That, at least, was true, although Enrique could feel his stomach tighten as he thought of confronting Cassandra again. Dios, he hated that woman, he thought savagely. If only he could tell Sanchia how he really felt, she would have no further cause for concern.

‘Muy bien.’ She pivoted on her high heels and, waiting for him to fall into step beside her, she started towards her car. ‘But you will ring me later this morning, sí?’

‘Make it this afternoon,’ said Enrique, suppressing a sigh. ‘If I cannot reach you at home, I will call your mobile.’

‘Which will not be switched off as yours was last night,’ remarked Sanchia waspishly, inspiring another twinge of irritation. Dammit, when had they got to the point where every move he made had to be justified?

‘I will ring,’ he assured her, making no promises of when that would be. He swung open the door of the scarlet convertible. ‘Adiós!’