Counterfeit Bride(28)

He was kissing her breasts now, his mouth touching the soft flesh with  lazy sensuality, the flicker of his tongue re-creating the pleasure his  questing fingers had begun.

Nicola thought desperately, 'I have to stop him-now, or it will be too late.'

His wickedly experienced hands were travelling again, stroking down her  body in total mastery, and she said hoarsely, 'Luis-please . . .'

His mouth smiled against her body. 'Willingly, amada. Anything you  desire.' His hand slid from her hip down the smooth curved length of her  thigh, and back, easing aside the folds of her robe as he did so.

The breath caught in her throat. 'You mustn't...?

'I must,' he contradicted softly. 'Ah, querida, you know that I must...'

Her eyes widened endlessly, looking up into his. The caressing,  exploring hands were opening up new dimensions of sensation she had  never dreamed existed, and she heard herself groan softly.

The dark eyes were intensely brilliant as they watched her. He whispered, 'Do I please you, querida? Tell me that I do.'

There was an odd note in his voice. Something like diffidence, the  corner of her mind that was still working, registered incredulously, as  if he was some callow boy with his first love instead-instead of a  practised seducer for whom a woman's body and a woman's responses held  few mysteries.

And for a moment she saw Carlota Garcia so clearly that she might  actually have been physically present in the warm shaded room, the  serenely beautiful face contorted with passionate pleasure as she  responded totally to the same caresses, from the same man.

She heard herself moan, 'No--oh, no ...' and then she twisted away from  him, striking his hands away from her body, levering herself desperately  across the bed and burying her flushed unhappy face in the pillow.

Luis said her name on a shaken breath, and his hands came down on her  shoulders to lift her back into his embrace, and she almost wailed,  'Don't touch me! I-I can't bear it!'

There was a long silence, then he said, 'What hypocrisy is this? You want me, or did you imagine that I would not know?'                       
       
           



       

'Oh, yes,' she said dully, still keeping her face averted. 'But I expect  you could make a stone statue want you. God knows you've had enough  experience.'

'Jealous, mi amada?' He actually sounded amused.

'No,' she said. 'Just-not interested. How could I be when-when I already love someone?'

'Indeed?' he drawled, the grip on her shoulders tightening painfully. 'And who is he?'

She said, 'I'll make a bargain with you, señor, I won't enquire too closely into your private life, and you can leave me mine.'

The cruel grip fell away from her shoulders. She lay very still and  heard him leave the bed, the rustle of his clothes as he dressed, and  then the slam of the door.

She was alone, which was what she had aimed for, but it was a sterile victor}', because it had left her lonely also, and afraid.

There was a nightmare quality about the days which followed. The guests  departed, and Nicola found herself living at the hacienda in the old  hostile atmosphere. Only Luis was no longer her sheild against it. For  one thing, he was rarely there, at least during the daytime. When he was  around, he treated her civilly when other people were present, and as  if she did not exist when they were alone.

She had not expected he would return to her room, but he slept there  each night he was at the hacienda. Or she supposed he slept. His  breathing was even, and he never moved, or spoke to her or touched her.  Nicola herself found sleep elusive, and when it came it brought wild  disturbing dreams, so that she often awoke with tears on her face. And  one recurring dream was the worst of all.

It seemed to happen .on the nights when Luis was away, and it always  began in the same way, with her riding in Luis' arms on Malagueno, safe  and warm and secure, the queen of the world. It was so real that she  could feel the warmth of his body, the brush of his lips on her hair,  but as she turned to smile at him, to offer him her lips, everything  changed. The face under the wide-brimmed hat was blank, without  recognisable features, and the arms which held her were a choking  prison. She usually woke up at this point gasping for breath, but then  one night the dream went on and the face of the man who held her began  to take shape, and with a cry of protest she realised it was Ewan,  smiling triumphantly at her. Still protesting, she began to struggle  against him, but his hold was too strong, he was shaking her, and she  moaned his name, turning her head wildly from side to side in rejection.

Then, suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she saw the shimmering wings  of the butterfly spread like a beneficent canopy above her. And she saw  too that Luis was there, leaning over her, holding her wrists, his  shoulders and chest bronze in the lamplight. For a moment she thought  she was dreaming still. He had not been expected back that night, and  she had fallen asleep alone in the big bed.

She said with a little gasp, 'I was dreaming.'

'Not for the first time.' He released her wrists, and moved away from  her. Nicola wanted to say, 'Don't leave me. Please hold me,' because she  was still shaking, but it was already too late. He pushed the covers  aside and got out of bed, standing naked for a moment while he retrieved  his robe.

He said, 'I'll ring for Maria. She can make you a tisana to calm you. And I will spend the rest of the night in my own room.'

Nicola watched helplessly as the door closed behind him. There was a  kind of finality about it, as if he had decided that it was time to put  an end to this pretence of normality about their marriage.

She didn't want the tisana which Maria brought her, but she drank it  anyway, and whatever it contained worked like a charm, because when she  eventually opened her eyes, it was almost the middle of the day.

She dressed hurriedly and went downstairs, to find a furious row raging.  Luis, it seemed, had gone early into Santo Tomas, returned sooner than  expected and summoned Pilar to the study where they could be heard  shouting at each other. As Nicola hesitated in the hall, wondering  rather helplessly whether she should intervene, and what on earth she  could say or do if she did, the study door opened and Pilar erupted like  a small fury, and ran up the stairs, clearly in floods of tears.

She did not appear at the midday meal, or at dinner that evening, and  Luis, in a fouler mood than Nicola had ever seen him, would have  gratified his family by absenting himself as well. After he had  systematically bitten everyone's head off in turn, Dona Isabella rose to  her feet, quivering with outrage, and announced majestically that she  was withdrawing to the salon as her appetite had been destroyed by her  nephew's lack of consideration.

'I regret that married life has not improved your temper,' she added  acidly, giving Nicola a scathing look as she swept from the room.

Nicola stared down at her half-finished plate, her face burning. As she  looked up, she encountered a look of commiseration from Ramon, and she  gave him a wavering smile in return.                       
       
           



       

'Perhaps you would prefer to be alone together,' Luis said silkily from  the head of the table. 'Do not hesitate to tell me if you find my  presence an inhibition.' His eyes glittered dangerously as he stared at  them.

Ramon cast his eyes to the ceiling, pushed back his chair, and left the  room in silence, leaving husband and wife confronting each other from  either end of the long and shining table.

Nicola thought it would be pleasant to pick up every plate, glass and  piece of cutlery on the table and throw them at Luis' head, screaming  very loudly all the while, but she decided that the soft answer which  was supposed to turn away wrath might be a better bet in the  circumstances.

She said, 'I don't know what Pilar has done to anger you, Luis, but if I can help in any way

'So you actually wish to be of some use, do you?' he said harshly.  'Perhaps if you had taken the trouble to be friendly to Pilar, to  attempt to win her over and be a companion to her, then this whole  situation might have been avoided.'

The injustice of it made her blink. Over the past miserable three weeks  she had done everything possible to try and win Pilar over, but the  girl's hostility to her was inexorable. She spent long hours in her  room, reading parcels of books sent to her from Mexico City.

Nicola would have liked to have borrowed some of them, but a tentative  suggestion had resulted in such a chilly negative that she had never  dared ask again.

She had asked Pilar more than once if they couldn't ride together, but  had met with a curt refusal. And she knew perfectly well that Pilar had  scorned Luis' direct orders, and invariably rode out alone, being  missing sometimes for several hours. And yet the only time Nicola had  tried to escape on her own from the atmosphere at the hacienda, she had  encountered Ramon, who had spoken to her quite severely about taking  unnecessary risks before he escorted her back to the stables, and the  unspoken but no less potent criticism of Juan Hernandez. Perhaps that  was why Pilar got away with her solitary rides so easily, she thought  wearily. Juan Hernandez was far too busy keeping an eye on her to  perform the same service for his master's young cousin.