‘All right,’ she mumbled, snuggling deeper under the sheet.
‘Where would you like to go?’
She glanced at the clock, and firmly closed her eyes once more. ‘Do we have to decide at seven o’clock in the morning?’
Ramon studied her, noting how the early-morning sunshine slanting through the blinds had turned her hair to pure gold. Her mouth was slightly swollen from his kisses, and recalling the taste of her and the feel of her soft lips parting beneath his he felt unbearably tempted to make love to her again. But she was clearly exhausted after their energetic wedding night, he thought, a feeling of tenderness tempering his hunger. Lauren was his wife now, and they had all the time in the world.
‘We need to make plans so that I can mobilise the staff,’ he told her.
Lauren gave up trying to sleep and rolled onto her back, her heart missing a beat when she met Ramon’s warm sherry-gold gaze. ‘You make it sound like a military operation. Why would the staff need to come on our honeymoon?’
‘I have a villa in Barcelona. I thought we could take Mateo to the beaches there, and there are plenty of designer shops for you in the centre of the city. But there are no permanent staff at the villa, so we will need to take a cook and a butler, and other household staff—and Cathy, of course, for Mateo.’
‘It’s going to be quite a crowded honeymoon, then,’ Lauren murmured, her initial excitement fading a little now that it sounded as though their stay at the villa would be as formal as life at the castle. ‘To be honest, I think Matty is a bit young for the beach—we’ll spend all our time trying to stop him eating the sand. And I really don’t need to do any more shopping,’ she added ruefully.
In the two weeks prior to the wedding Ramon had insisted on taking her shopping in Madrid several times, and her wardrobes were now bursting with couture clothes from all the top design houses.
‘Couldn’t we go somewhere on our own—just you, me and Matty? Do you remember that weekend we spent at a lodge in Scotland?’ She smiled, remembering the trip they had made to the beautiful Scottish Highlands a month or so before she had found out that she was pregnant and their relationship had been blown apart. Ramon had been so relaxed that weekend, and had made love to her so tenderly in front of a blazing log fire that she had found herself falling ever deeper in love with him. ‘It would be nice to go somewhere peaceful,’ she said wistfully.
In the hectic run up to the wedding she had barely spent any time with him, and as the castle had been full of his various relatives they had had no chance to be alone.
Ramon frowned. ‘Scotland will be cold at this time of year. But if it’s mountains you want, I know of a place that is quiet and peaceful, with just the sound of a stream outside the house to disturb us. But it’s not much—just a simple lodge. And there isn’t room for any of the staff.’
‘It sounds perfect,’ Lauren assured him.
She knew many of her friends back in London would love to have an army of staff to take care of the cooking, housework and childcare, but she found the stiff formality of the castle rather stifling, and she didn’t think she would ever get used to the maids bobbing a curtsy every time they saw the new Duquesa.
Ramon dropped a kiss on her mouth. ‘That’s settled, then. I’ll instruct the staff to pack for us, and we’ll leave in a couple of hours.’
‘This is spectacular,’ Lauren said in an awed voice a few hours later, as she climbed out of the four-by-four Ramon had driven from the castle up into the Cantabrian mountains. Below them was a lush green valley, with farmhouses dotted here and there, and orange and almond groves in full bloom. The stream that threaded through the valley was glinting like a silver ribbon in the sunshine. All around the wooden lodge where they were to stay were tall pine trees, and rising up behind them were the higher peaks of the mountains, capped with snow that sparkled pure white against the cornflower-blue sky.
The lodge was as basic as Ramon had said, but perfectly comfortable, with a large sitting room and kitchen, a main bedroom with a bathroom leading off it, and a smaller room where they would set up a travel cot for Matty.
They unpacked the car, and then Ramon took charge of his son while Lauren spread out a rug on the grass and opened the picnic hamper the castle cook had prepared for them.
‘What a heavenly place,’ she murmured, her eyes drawn to the towering mountains. ‘Do you often come up here?’
Ramon carefully spooned some yogurt into Matty’s mouth while the baby was distracted by playing with the car keys. ‘Not as much as I would like. The responsibilities of running the company and the castle estate leave me with little free time, but when I was a boy I came up here most weekends, to hike or to fish in the mountain lakes.’