The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride(4)

With a low murmur of distress she dragged her mind back to the present. The road continued upwards, lined on either side by trees that formed an arch overhead, but as the car rounded another sharp bend Grace gasped and gripped the wheel. In the clearing she could plainly see the edge of the road and the terrifying drop over the side of the mountain.

‘Dear God,’ she muttered beneath her breath. Her palms were damp with sweat as realisation hit that one false move would send her hurtling over the edge. She hated heights, and her head spun as she fought the nausea that swept over her. For a moment she was tempted to turn back, but the road was too narrow for her to attempt to swing the car round. And besides, she thought grimly, she had a job to do.

El Castillo de Leon was the ancestral seat of the Herrera family and she was praying that the new duque was at home. Her letters to him had been unanswered, and all attempts to contact him by phone had been blocked by his ultra-efficient staff. In desperation she had travelled to the bank’s offices in Madrid and from there had flown south to Granada, only to be informed that the president was at his private residence in the mountains.

She would see Javier Herrera or die trying, Grace vowed grimly, dragging her eyes from the perilous drop and concentrating on the road ahead. To her relief the road eventually levelled, and when she turned the next bend the castle rose up before her, an imposing Moorish fortress that appeared grey and unwelcoming in the drizzle.

Her heart was thumping when she eased out of the car. Every muscle in her body ached, although whether that was from the tense drive up the mountain or the prospect of finally meeting Javier Herrera, she did not know.

The castle was a truly impressive example of Moorish architecture, but Grace’s eyes were drawn to the solidly forbidding front door, which was guarded on either side by two stone lions, who sat silently watching her as if waiting to pounce. She wouldn’t like to be here in the dark, Grace thought with a shiver. She’d rather not be here now, but the Duque de Herrera was the only person who had the power to save her father, and the sooner she saw him the better.

The fine rain was soaking through her thin dress, chilling her skin. Quickly she reached into the car for the pashmina she had flung in at the last minute. Made of the softest cashmere, it had been an extravagance even before she’d discovered her father’s financial problems, she acknowledged ruefully. Now she regarded it as an obscenely expensive frippery, but at least it was warm and, hugging it round her shoulders, she hurried up the front steps of the castle.

As she lifted her hand to pull on the bell rope, the door suddenly swung open and two figures appeared. One was plainly a member of the castle staff and the other was a short, elderly man with an eye-catching moustache.

‘I’ve come to see the Duque de Herrera,’ Grace faltered nervously, grateful that the years she had spent holidaying with her Aunt Pam in Malaga meant that she spoke Spanish fluently.

‘If you value your life, señorita, I do not recommend it,’ the older man told her bluntly. ‘The Duque is not in the best of moods.’

But at least he was at the castle, Grace thought as hope surged through her. Javier Herrera was here, and all she had to do was persuade the stony-faced butler to allow her to see him.

Several minutes later she was still on the steps, with only the weathered lions for company. ‘Please,’ she begged one last time as the heavy oak front door began to close, shutting her out.

‘I’m sorry, but it is impossible. The Duque never sees uninvited guests,’ the butler insisted impatiently.

‘But if you would just tell him I’m here…I promise I only want five minutes of his time.’

Her despairing cry bounced off the wooden door, and even the lions looked unimpressed. In her frustration Grace gave in to the childish urge to kick the front door, but unsurprisingly it remained firmly closed. The castle had been built as a defence against an army of invaders, and one slightly built young woman who stood a couple of inches over five feet tall had no chance of breaching its battlements.

‘Damn you, Javier Herrera,’ she muttered, blinking back her tears. She seemed to be left with no alternative but to turn her car round and head back down the mountain path, but she couldn’t bear the thought that she had failed. Her father often teased that what she lacked in inches she made up for in stubbornness—she couldn’t give up yet. The Duque de Herrera was here, on the other side of the castle walls, and there had to be a way she could get to him and make him listen.

Once again she was pierced by the vivid mental image of her father, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep, and his once strong body gaunt with strain and loss of appetite. He had never come to terms with her mother’s death; his heart was broken and the doctor had warned that Angus was perilously close to a nervous breakdown. If she could only lift her father’s terror that he would be sent to prison—a very real possibility, according to Mr Wooding, the family solicitor—then perhaps he would be able to lift himself out of his deep depression.