‘Lecture over?’ Luiz clipped.
‘Yes,’ she sighed, wondering wearily why she bothered to take him on like this. The man was impervious to anything anyone said that didn’t suit his own view of things! ‘I’ve finished.’
‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Because I think we’ve arrived, and I am beginning to feel like hell…’
As surprise admissions went, that one really managed to strike at the heart of her. She turned in her seat, saw how pale he had gone, saw how clenched his face muscles were and automatically looked where he was looking—and felt everything inside her shudder to a resounding halt.
For while they had been sniping at each other they had come to the end of the fruit groves and driven over the drawbridge, beneath a wide archway cut into the whitewashed wall that surrounded what she supposed must be the castle’s private enclave.
She had never, ever seen anything quite like it. From up on the mountain it had all looked pretty stunning, but from down here, on the valley bottom and this close up, the castle was nothing short of enchanting, with its whitewashed walls blushing in the dying sunlight.
It was all so outstandingly—dramatically—beautiful. Even the formally laid out gardens they were now passing through took the breath away. The driveway opened up into a wide cobbled courtyard with a statue of Neptune spouting water into a circular pool, guarding the huge arched entrance into the castle itself.
Luiz stopped the car. Without a word they climbed out, then just stood gazing around.
‘It’s a folly,’ Caroline murmured softly.
‘Hmm?’ Luiz’s dark head swung round to frown a blank look at her.
‘The castle,’ she explained. ‘It’s not what it appears to be.’
‘What makes you say that?’ He seemed to have a struggle to get his voice to work, but once he had spoken some of that awful strain eased from his face.
‘Look around you,’ she invited. ‘There is absolutely no reason for anyone to build a fortified castle down here in the valley. The mountains themselves are the only protection needed down here. If you’d wanted to protect what was yours, you would have built up there, where we came in through the pass in the mountain. This…’ she gave a nod of her head towards the castle ‘… was built to satisfy someone’s eccentric ego. A folly,’ she repeated, looking frontward again. ‘But a beautiful folly…’
And if his family were guilty of bankrupting themselves due to their personal extravagances, she added silently, then at least it had not been at the expense of their exquisite home.
Luiz’s home now, she extended, looking across the top of the car at this man who was such a complicated mix of so many different cultures that it was no wonder he kept most of his real self hidden—he probably didn’t know who he actually was himself!
‘We’re being watched,’ Luiz murmured.
‘Mmm,’ Caroline replied. ‘I know.’ She had felt the eyes piercing her flesh from behind leaded glass windows from the moment they climbed out of the car. ‘So, what do you want to do now?’ she asked. ‘Bang on the door and claim ownership? Or do we take the more civilised approach and wait until we are invited in?’
But even as she put the two lightly mocking suggestions to him the great door behind Neptune was drawing open. Her heart skipped a beat. On the other side of the car she heard Luiz’s feet scrape against gravel. Without thinking twice about it, she walked around the car and went to stand beside him.
As she did so a man appeared in the doorway, small, thin and quite old, his expressionless face giving no hint as to whether they were to be made welcome or simply grudgingly allowed to enter the castle’s hallowed inner sanctum.
‘It looks like it’s showtime,’ Caroline said softly.
‘Looks like it,’ Luiz agreed, and although he reached out to catch hold of her hand, as if he needed to feel her presence for moral support, she was relieved to see that the implacable Luiz Vazquez was back in place again and the other, tense and uncomfortable one had been firmly shut away.
Together they walked around the fountain and up to the door. With a slight bow of his dark head, the man murmured, ‘Welcome señor—señorita,’ with absolutely no inflexion in his voice whatsoever. ‘If you would kindly come this way?’
The man stepped to one side in an invitation for them to precede him inside, and as the door closed quietly behind them they found themselves standing in a vast hallway built of oak and stone, with an eight-foot-wide solid stone stairway as its main feature. The rough plastered walls were painted in a soft peach colour, adding warmth to what could quite easily appear coldly inhospitable.