him she had thought him the kindest man on earth—and the most handsome.
It had been in Cordoba. She had gone on holiday with friends—or more properly acquaintances—girls she knew from her work at the large insurance offices in London. Their main interest in Spain lay on its beaches; flirting with the dark-eyed Spanish boys who gave full rein to their ardent natures in the presence of these Northern girls with their cool looks and warm natures, so different from those of the girls of their own country whose chastity was carefully protected until marriage gave their husbands the right to initiate them into the ways of love. Davina had felt differently. She had come to Spain to explore its history—a history which had fascinated her since her early teens, when she had fallen in love with the mystery of a land ruled for centuries by the aristocratic, learned Moors, who had bequeathed to it not only their works of art, but also their colouring and fire.
She had been half way to falling in love with Ruy even before she met him, she acknowledged wryly, for her head had been stuffed with foolish dreams of handsome Moorish warriors astride Arab horses, flowing white robes cloaking lean bronzed limbs, glittering eyes softening only for the women they loved. A sigh trembled past her lips. That was how Ruy had first appeared to her—a heroic figure who seemed to spring suddenly out of nowhere, rescuing her from the gang of teenage boys who had been harassing her as she left the Mosque. His curt words had cut through them like a whiplash, dispersing them to the four winds, and her trembling gratitude at his timely intervention had changed to worshipful adoration when he had insisted on sweeping her off to a small café to drink coffee and tell him what she had been doing in Spain. He, it appeared, was in Cordoba on business. His family owned a hacienda where they bred bulls for the bullfight, and it was in connection with the annual corrida—the running of young untried bulls through the streets—that he was in Cordoba.
Davina had listened fascinated, held in thrall to the magnetism of the man; to the sheer pleasure of hearing him speak, his English perfect and yet still possessing something of the liquid gold of his own language.
She had agreed almost at once when he invited her to accompany him to watch the gypsies dancing the flamenco—not, as she discovered, the polished empty performance put on for the tourists, but the real thing; as different from the other as tepid water to champagne.
They had left before the climax; before the black-browed gypsy claimed his partner in the culmination of a dance so sexually explicit that merely watching it had brought the blood surging to her veins, her expression unknowingly betraying as she watched the dancers, and the man seated opposite her watched her. He had not lived his twenty-nine years without learning something of women, and what he saw in Davina’s face told him, more surely than any words, the extent of her untutored innocence.
Davina hadn’t known it, but it was that knowledge which had sealed her fate—as she later discovered.
When Ruy had proposed to her she had been robbed of words, dizzied and humbled by the sheer gratitude of knowing that the love she had come to feel for him in the short week they had been together was returned. She had had no knowledge when she accepted him that he was merely using her as a tool to torture the woman he really loved—the fiery Spanish beauty who could give him so much more than she herself could offer.
They had been married quietly—a church ceremony in keeping with Ruy’s religion—and that had been the first time she realised that her husband possessed a title—that she had a title. It shouldn’t have surprised her. He had about him an ingrained arrogance-which should have warned her that here was no ordinary mortal. He had been a little amused by her stammered concern that she might not be able to match up to his expectations, that nothing in her life had prepared her for the role of Condesa; wife of a Spanish grandee. It was only when his amusement gave birth to bored impatience that Davina learned fear of her new husband, but this had been swiftly banished by the brief, almost tormenting caress of his lips against hers.
Prior to their marriage he had made no attempt to seduce her, and in her innocence she had mistaken this lack of desire for her as respect. She had often wondered, since her return to England, if she had not gone to him that first night after their arrival at the Palacio, had not let him see that she wanted him… and if he had not been in such a blazing rage of anger against his mother, whether he would not have made love to her; whether in fact it had been his intention to have their marriage annulled when Carmelita had been suitably brought to heel. But above all else Ruy was a man of honour. Once he had in actual fact made her his wife there was no going back—for either of them. Until she had conceived his son, and learned exactly why he had married her. With that knowledge how could she have remained? She might have suspected that all was not well between them, but until she was brought face to face with the truth she had been able to delude herself. When that was no longer possible she had escaped to London, taking Jamie with her, and leaving her mother-in-law to convey to her son the good news that he was now free…
Free… Her eyes were drawn irresistibly to the man in the wheelchair and for a brief moment pity overwhelmed her bitterness. Ruy would never be free again. Ruy, whose superb, physical, male body had taught her the full meaning of womanhood, never to make love, ride, swim or dance again.
‘Look at her!’ His words cut through her thoughts. ‘She cries. For what, my lovely wife? For having to share my bed and being perhaps tormented by all that we once knew together, or have other men, other lovers, obliterated the memory of the pleasure I taught you?’
‘Ruy!’
His mouth twisted bitterly at the warning tone in his mother’s voice. ‘What is it, Madre?’ he demanded savagely. ‘Am I to be denied the pleasure of speaking about love as well as that of experiencing it, or does it offend you that a man in my condition should have such thoughts? You who brought me the news that the woman I loved had left me…’
So the Condesa had been the one to tell Ruy that Carmelita was leaving him… Davina repressed a small shudder. She couldn’t understand how the other girl could have done it. Had she been in her shoes, she thought with a fierce stab of pain, had she been the recipient of Ruy’s love, nothing would have kept her from his side. He might be physically restricted, but he was still the same man; still very much a man! Her wayward thoughts shocked her, widening her eyes as purple as the hearts of pansies with mingled pain and disbelief. She was over Ruy. She had put the past behind her. All the love she had now was focused on Jamie. As though to reinforce the thought she reached out for the child, and her hair brushed Ruy’s chin as she did so.
His withdrawal was immediate and unfeigned, and as she lifted Jamie from his lap, Davina was dismayed to discover that she was trembling. What was; it about this man that had the power to affect her like this even now—so much so that his rejection of her was like the stabbing of a thousand knives?
Grateful that Jamie gave her an excuse to look away from the contempt she felt sure must be in his eyes, she busied herself with the little boy, listening to his informative chatter.
A manservant appeared, silent-footed and grave-faced, and positioned himself behind Ruy’s chair.
‘This is Rodriguez, my manservant,’ he told Davina sardonically. ‘The third member of our new ménage à trois. You will have to grow accustomed to him, since he performs for me all those tasks I can no longer perform for myself. Unless of course you wish to take them over for yourself… as a penance perhaps… and a fitting one. You took pleasure from my body when it was physically perfect, Davina, so perhaps it is only just that you should endure its deformity now.’
‘Ruy!’
Davina thought her mother-in-law’s protest was on account of the indelicacy of her son’s conversation, but she ought to have known better, Davina decided, when she continued angrily, ‘The doctor has told you, the paralysis need not be permanent.
