‘Trust me, querida,’ he said with sudden urgency. ‘I believe we can make our marriage work.’
Something in his voice brought tears to Lauren’s eyes, and she turned her head slightly on the pillow so that he would not see them. ‘I don’t find it easy to trust,’ she admitted thickly, losing the battle with the waves of sleep that were pulling her under.
Had something happened in her past which had caused her to value her independence so highly and made it hard for her to trust? Ramon brooded as he stood by the bed and looked down at her. There was so much he did not know about her, for during their affair he had deliberately not involved himself in her personal life. Maintaining that distance between them had made him feel he was in control of their relationship, but now she was to be his wife he could allow himself to lower his barriers. Perhaps, in time, he would be able to persuade her to lower hers.
THEY married two weeks later, in the private chapel in the grounds of the castle. The wedding was a low-key affair, with only close family and friends from the groom’s side in attendance and no one at all from the bride’s.
Ramon had asked Lauren if she wished to invite anyone from England, but she had decided against it, thinking to herself that it was going to be hard enough to fool his family that she was a joyous bride without having to maintain the charade for her friends. She could tell a few close colleagues from PGH the truth, she’d acknowledged. But stubborn pride made her want to hide the fact that her fairytale wedding to a handsome Spanish duke was in reality a marriage of convenience for the sake of their son.
‘I don’t want Mum and Alan to interrupt their cruise,’ she had explained to Ramon when he had called her into his study to discuss the wedding arrangements.
‘Who is Alan?’ he’d queried.
‘My stepfather. Mum married him two years ago, and this trip is a belated honeymoon.’
‘What about your real father?’ Ramon had hesitated when Lauren visibly tensed. ‘Is he dead?’
Not that she was aware of, she’d thought bleakly. But she had not heard a word from her father since the day he had left, and she had no knowledge of his whereabouts. ‘My parents are divorced, and I know Dad will be unable to come to Spain,’ she’d told him, and had changed the subject before he could question her further.
And so, on a bright spring day, as the sun shone from a cloudless sky, Lauren arrived at the chapel alone and was escorted through the arched doorway by the chauffeur, Arturo.
Despite the warmth of the day she was icy cold, with tension cramping in the pit of her stomach as she began what seemed like an endless walk down the aisle under the curious gazes of the guests, her eyes fixed on the handsome, unsmiling man waiting at the altar. For a few seconds her nerve deserted her, and she was tempted to turn and flee. But then she caught sight of Matty, sitting on Cathy Morris’s lap at the front of the church, and she took a deep breath. She would rather die than be parted from her son, and if she wanted to avoid a custody battle with Ramon she must marry him. It was as simple as that.
The skirt of her ivory silk wedding gown rustled as she walked. She had planned to wear the lilac suit she had worn to her mother’s wedding two summers ago, but Ramon had insisted that the Velaquez bride must look the part, and had arranged for a top couturier to visit the castle and design her dress. The result was a deceptively simple sheath which emphasised her slender waist and the soft swell of her breasts, its neckline decorated with crystals that sparkled like teardrops in the sunlight which streamed through the chapel windows.
It was a dream dress, she had thought when she had stared at her reflection in the mirror back at the castle, while a maid had fussed around her, smoothing invisible creases from her skirt. But that was where the dream ended, and perhaps it was better this way. She wasn’t going into this marriage with the weight of expectation that most brides carried, and so, she reasoned, she could not be disappointed.
She was too old to believe in fairytales anyway, she reminded herself as she halted beside Ramon and forced herself to meet his gaze. Something flared in his sherry-brown eyes as he stared down at her, but it was gone before she could define it as his thick lashes swept down and masked his expression.
Moments later the priest’s voice rang out in the silent chapel.
‘You’re not going to faint, are you?’ Ramon asked beneath his breath as they emerged from the cool church into bright sunshine and posed on the steps for photographs. ‘You look very pale. Perhaps today is too much for you when you have only recently recovered your strength after the virus?’ he said, frowning with concern.
She resembled a fragile wraith, he thought grimly, gripped by guilt because he knew he should have allowed her longer to recover from her illness. His impatience to make Lauren his wife was because he wanted to secure Mateo’s future, he had told himself, but he knew that was not the whole truth. He wanted her with an urgency he had never felt for any other woman, and when she had walked down the aisle towards him in her bridal gown, her honey-blonde hair caught up in a loose knot so that stray tendrils framed her face, her clear grey eyes fixed steadily on him, his breath had hitched in his throat.
The pulse beating frantically at the base of her throat had been the only indication that she was nervous, and that betraying sign of her vulnerability had tugged on his emotions. He had blackmailed her into marriage by threatening to fight for custody of their son, and he’d half expected her to refuse to go through with the wedding at the last moment. But she had come to the chapel, to him, and when she had lifted her soft grey eyes to him and given him a tentative smile he had felt a curious ache around his heart.
‘I’m fine,’ Lauren assured him. Not for anything would she admit that the surge of emotions which had stormed through her when the priest had proclaimed them man and wife had made her feel light-headed. She glanced down at the bouquet of red roses she was holding and breathed in their exquisite fragrance.
‘Thank you for the flowers,’ she murmured shyly. ‘They were a lovely surprise.’ The butler had presented her with the bouquet as she had been about to leave the castle for the short journey to the chapel, informing her that they were from el Duque.
Ramon had sent her three dozen red roses the day after she had met him, with a note inviting her to dinner, she remembered. Her heart gave a little flip as she wondered if giving her roses on her wedding day held special significance for him.
‘It would have looked strange if my bride had not carried flowers,’ he said coolly.
Her smile did not falter. Theirs was a marriage of practicality, not a fairytale, she reminded herself, and steeled her heart to ignore the haunting regret that things could not have been different.
The church service was followed by lunch at the castle. The kitchen staff had surpassed themselves, and the meal was spectacular, its finale being a beautifully iced five-tier wedding cake, which Ramon and his new bride cut together.
Lauren guessed that there was a certain amount of gossip among the guests concerning the fact that the Duque de Velaquez was marrying the mother of his son almost a year after the child had been born, and also that his new wife was not a member of the Spanish nobility. But no one mentioned such matters—at least, not to her face—and Ramon’s relatives seemed happy to welcome her into the family.
Only one guest did not seem to share
