sent me the most hateful letter,’ Isabel was saying, her voice quivering slightly. ‘He said that he didn’t believe I might be pregnant and that it was just a trick to get Jorge to marry me. At least it’s all over with now, Jess,’ she added on a happier note, ‘I’m so relieved. By the way,’ she added coquettishly, ‘John proposed last night and I’ve accepted him—the parents are over the moon!’
Privately Isabel thought her cousin far too young to be thinking of marriage. It was plain that Isabel was far from mature, and she doubted that John was the right husband for her, but she knew better than to interfere.
‘When will you be back?’ Isabel demanded. ‘We’re having a proper engagement party, and I want you to be there, of course.’
A sop to ease her conscience, Jessica thought wryly. She had done the dirty deed for her and now she was to be rewarded; Isabel couldn’t get engaged without her. Had her cousin the slightest idea of what it had felt like to have to stand there and listen to Sebastian de Calvadores’s insults? To be told that her morals were questionable, that she was motivated by financial greed—no, she thought grimly, Isabel didn’t have the slightest conception.
Since she had allowed herself two days to sort out Isabel’s romantic problems, Jessica found herself with a day on her hands. She wasn’t going to waste it, she decided as she breakfasted in her room on warm rolls and fresh honey. She would explore Seville.
She already knew a little about it; that it had once been ruled by the Moors who had ruled all this part of Spain; that during the Middle Ages it had had a fine reputation as a centre of medical learning. Once Colin arrived there would be scant time for sight-seeing, which in any case did not interest him, so after checking the time of his flight, which was due in early in the evening, Jessica collected her guide books and set out to explore the city.
But as she wandered the Moorish Alcazar, instead of simply being able to drink in its beauty, at almost every turn she was forcibly reminded of Sebastian de Calvadores; it was from the men who had built the civilisation from which this beauty had sprung that he drew his arrogance, she thought as she looked around her. There was Moorish blood running in his veins, underlining and emphasising his total masculinity. She shivered, suddenly feeling cold, glad to step out into the warmth of the sunshine. Forget him, she told herself, why worry about what had happened? She knew that he had been totally mistaken about it, and that should have been enough. But somehow it wasn’t. She could forget the contempt in his eyes, the explicitly sexual way they had moved over her body and yet at the same time had remained so cold, as though he had been saying, see, I know everything there is to know about you as a woman and it does nothing for me, nothing at all.
If it wasn’t for the fact that by doing so she would betray Isabel she would have gone back and told him how wrong he was about her; then it would be his turn to feel her contempt, her condemnation.
Seville was a beautiful city, but she wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it. Almost everywhere she looked she was reminded of Sebastian de Calvadores; Moorish faces, sternly oppressive, stared back at her from paintings; Moorish men who had guarded their women like precious jewels in rare caskets and who would never in a million years permit them the kind of freedom Isabel enjoyed.
Chastity and desire burned strongly in twin flames in these people; either saints or sinners, but knowing no middle road; their history was a proud one and there could be few natives of Seville who did not boast some Moorish blood, some fierce elemental strain they had inherited from their forebears. They had been a race who, even while they tasted the cup of pleasure to the full, always remained a little aloof, knowing that where there was pleasure there was pain. A cynical, sophisticated race who had kept their women closeted away from the world to be enjoyed by them alone.
Jessica was glad when the time came to go and meet Colin’s plane. He seemed so solid and safe somehow as he came towards her, carrying his briefcase, frowning uncertainly until he saw her.
‘Jessica!’ His hug was affectionately warm. ‘Everything sorted out?’ he asked her as they got into their taxi, his tone implying that he wouldn’t be surprised to find that Isabel in her tiresomeness had allowed her problems to overflow into Jessica’s working life.
‘I think so.’
His relief made her laugh. ‘Thank goodness for that! I was terrified that we’d have a tearful besotted Latin lover on our hands!’
Just for a moment Jessica compared this image to the reality of Sebastian, and wondered if Jorge was anything like his formidable brother. Probably not. She couldn’t see Sebastian allowing himself to be manipulated in the way she was coming to suspect that Isabel had manipulated Jorge. No, when it came to the woman in his life, Sebastian would be totally in control. Was he married?
‘Jess?’
Stop thinking about him, she chided herself, giving her attention to Colin. She was in Seville to work, not concern herself with the private life of a man who was virtually a stranger. Stranger or not, for those first few pulsating seconds when she had seen Sebastian she had been aware of him in a way that still had the power to shock her. For all his repressive arrogance there was a sensuality about him, a total maleness and a dangerous allure, reminiscent of that of a jungle cat for its prey.
Colin was tired after his flight and it was decided that he would dine in his room and have an early night.
‘Have you been to the exhibition centre yet?’ he asked Jessica. She shook her head. ‘Well, the exhibition doesn’t open until tomorrow. We’ve got an appointment with Calvortex after lunch. Keep your fingers crossed, won’t you?’ he asked her. ‘I’ve done all next season’s designs with their fabrics in mind. If they’re anything like last season’s we’ll be on to a real winner—especially if he gives us the exclusive use of his stuff for the U.K.’
‘How much do you know about them?’ Jessica asked him as they stepped into the hotel foyer.
‘Very little, and most of that word of mouth. The Chairman of the company handpicks his clients, from what I’ve been told. The company is a small family-run business; apart from that I know nothing, except that they produce the sort of fabrics that fill the dreams of every designer worth his or her salt. I’m relieved to hear you’ve sorted out all that business with Isabel,’ he added as they headed for the lift. ‘Tiresome girl! Why should you run round after her?’
‘Well, I won’t have to much longer,’ Jessica told him. ‘She’s got herself engaged.’
‘God help the man!’ was Colin’s pious comment as the lift stopped at their floor.
Their rooms were not adjacent and outside the lift they went their separate ways.
In her own room, Jessica tried to concentrate on the morning and the textile show, but somehow Sebastian de Calvadores’s aquiline features kept coming between her and her work. A hard man and a proud one, and her face burned with colour as she remembered the way he had looked at her, the insulting remarks he had made to her.
She went to bed early, and was just on the point of falling asleep when she heard someone knocking on the door.
‘Jess, are you awake?’ she heard Colin mutter outside. ‘I’ve got the most dreadful indigestion, do you have anything I can take?’
Sighing, she went to her suitcase and found some tablets. If Colin had one fault it was that he was a hopeless hypochondriac and that he refused absolutely to carry even aspirins about with him, preferring instead to play the martyr for the uninitiated. Jessica had got wise
