Caroline felt her tummy muscles begin to flutter. Beside her, Luiz’s fingers tightened their grip on hers. He was used to big reception halls. He was used to standing in beautiful surroundings. But this was different. This was his past meeting head-on with his present. Even she, who had always known the place where her roots were planted, was acutely aware of how significant this moment must be for him.
Yet his voice was smooth and as calm as still water when he turned to speak to the old man. ‘And you are?’ he enquired, sounding every inch the noble Conde. Considering what she knew he was feeling inside, Caroline was proud of him.
‘Pedro, sir. I am the butler here,’ the old man replied—
and there was respect in his tone. He for one wasn’t condemning Luiz for being the Vazquez bastard. ‘Please,’ he invited. ‘If you will follow me…’
He began leading them across a polished stone floor past two suits of armour that were guarding the stairs. There were artefacts scattered about this hall that made Caroline’s head whirl as it went into professional mode.
Maybe Luiz knew it. ‘Enough soul here for you?’ he questioned lazily.
‘Interesting,’ she shot back with a smile, then moved a little closer to his side when Pedro opened a pair of huge wooden doors and bowed them politely inside.
‘Señor Luiz Vazquez and Señorita Newbury,’ he announced, to whoever was waiting for them. And Caroline hadn’t missed the fact that the butler had not referred to Luiz as el conde once since they had arrived.
If Luiz noticed the omission, he didn’t show it. His expression was relaxed, his grip on Caroline’s hand secure, and his stride was as graceful as always as he strode into what turned out to be a beautifully appointed drawing room, with a huge stone fireplace that almost filled one wall—where a woman stood, awaiting their arrival.
Black-haired, black-eyed, slender and petite, she was wearing a silver grey silk suit that was as steely-looking as the expression she was wearing on her face as she stared directly at Luiz, while he stared coldly back.
For a long, dreadful moment after Pedro had quietly retired, closing the door behind him, nobody uttered a single word while these two main protagonists studied each other, and Caroline stood witnessing it happen without taking a single breath.
Then, ‘Welcome,’ the woman said.
‘Tía Consuela,’ Luiz replied stiltedly.
Caroline hid the urge to frown. Tía? she was thinking. Why was Luiz referring to this woman as his aunt? Surely if she was anything to him then she was some kind of stepmother?
‘You look like your father,’ the woman observed.
‘And you have a look of my mother—though you look in much better health than she did when I saw her last.’
Incisive, cold enough to freeze the blood, it was also a puzzle solved for Caroline. This woman was Luiz’s mother’s sister. It was no wonder his grip was suddenly biting into her fingers. What had gone on here thirty-odd years ago?
Feuds and fortunes, he’d said, she recalled suddenly. And she began to get a sense of what had probably happened, most of it revolving round two sisters, one man, and all of—this…
The slight hint of pallor had touched the other woman’s face. But her eyes did not waver. ‘Serena was a romantic fool, Luiz,’ she responded. ‘You will not make me feel guilty for picking up what she so stupidly trampled upon.’
At which point Caroline did actually wince, as her fingers were crushed almost to the bone. Fearing that Luiz was about to do something violent, she burst into speech. ‘Introduce me, Luiz,’ she prompted lightly.
For a second she thought he was going to ignore her, then he complied, tersely. ‘Caroline, this is my mother’s sister and my father’s widow, Consuela de Vazquez,’
‘Hello.’ She winged a bright smile across the room towards his stiff-faced aunt. ‘I’m so excited about coming here. The castle is so beautiful, isn’t it? But I don’t think it’s as old as it would like to be,’ she said, knowing she was babbling like a fluffy blonde idiot, but she didn’t care so long as she could overlay the cold hostility threading through the other two. ‘It wants to be eleventh century, but I would hazard a guess at only sixteenth century.’
‘Seventeenth,’ another voice intruded. ‘In a fit of pique, when his biggest rival for the hand of a certain lady won the lady’s heart because of the size of his home, our ancestor came home here to the valley and built himself his own impressive structure—then married the lady’s younger sister. History has a habit of repeating itself in this family—as you will soon learn, I predict.’