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So over their drinks Cathy had told her, guiltily missing out the fact that she had lied, had allowed Javier Campuzano to believe she was Johnny’s mother. She didn’t feel easy about what she had done, but that erroneous belief had to strengthen her case where he was concerned. If he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out on him he would leave nothing undone—not a single thing—until he had legal and total control over his nephew.
‘You and Senor Campuzano are both related to Johnny in the same degree,’ Molly said, her neat head tipped on one side. ‘Naturally, he could apply for an order to give him the right to see the child regularly, to exercise some control over his future upbringing and welfare.’
Which was precisely what Campuzano had said, but Cathy knew, she just knew, he wanted complete and total control. And she had no doubt at all that he would move heaven and earth to get it if he ever discovered that Johnny’s real mother had walked out, preferring the glamour and excitement of a modelling career to the hard work of bringing up a child. So, ‘And if the baby were still with his real mother?’ Cathy asked, hoping she didn’t look as hot and guilty as she felt. ‘Would his father’s family still have rights?’
‘Well, I have warned you,’ Molly answered, her smile sympathetic, ‘that the adoption order might not go through, despite the natural mother saying she wanted nothing more to do with the child. The courts could take the view that, following the birth, she is suffering some kind of hormonal imbalance and could change her mind at a later stage. Only time will tell, of course, and, in the interim, you could be given a residence order with parental responsibility.’ She was taking the question at face value, in view of the warnings she’d already given, and that made Cathy feel more devious than ever, her long hair falling forward, hiding her uncomfortable face as she dressed the baby. And Molly was telling her, ‘And yes, the father’s family would still have rights; a child needs the care and love of all its family.’ Which was not at all what Cathy had wanted to hear.
And because of that she had had to back down, to agree to come to Spain. All she had to do now was convince the not-to-be-convinced that she was a responsible, loving mother.
She was in her own thoughts. Her mouth took a grim line and, made aware that he was looking at her, saying something, she shrugged half-heartedly. ‘Sorry?’
‘We are almost there. You can see the house from here.’ The emphatic patience of his tone told her he was repeating himself. And then, with an edge of steel, ‘I would have thought you would be eager to see where your child will be spending most of his boyhood.’
Unforgivable. Untrue. He was trying to make her believe that Johnny’s future was already settled. She refused to dignify his taunt by making any comment. Casting a dismissive glance at the low white building perched on top of a rounded hill overlooking the vineyards, the rows of newly leafing vines curving around the hillsides in perfect symmetry, Cathy hunched one shoulder in a negligent shrug. She utterly refused to be impressed.
Johnny didn’t need vineyards, or anything else Campuzano could give him. He needed love, and cherishing, and she could give him that in abundance. Unfortunately, the Spaniard seemed to be offering just that. The sternly arrogant features were relaxed, irradiated with intensely tender pleasure as he bounced the squealing baby on his knee.
Jealousy, white and piercing and utterly unpleasant, darkened her eyes, and her voice was thin and sharp as she instinctively reached for the child.
‘Do you want to make him sick?’ she asked, and was immediately, humiliatingly ashamed of herself, hardly able to contain her relief when the Mercedes swept through a wide arch in a long white wall and came to a well-bred halt in a courtyard that billowed with scarlet geraniums in huge terracotta pots.
However, for all her shame, she refused to hand Johnny over as Campuzano held the car door open, managing with unsteady defiance to lever herself to her feet, feeling the heat of the sun-baked cobbles burn through the soles of her sensible low-heeled shoes.
Seen at close quarters, the house was impressive: low and sprawling with thick, white-painted walls and a sturdy double-storey square tower at one end. The arcaded front elevation seemed to offer a cool refuge from the sun, with the harsh contrasts of the white walls, the deep blue of the sky, the vibrant, living colour of the purple bougainvillaea, all those spicescented scarlet geraniums.
Cathy closed her eyes on a wave of homesickness, overpowered as much by the personality, the lithe strength, the sheer untamed grace of the Spaniard as by the almost bludgeoning vitality of his native Andalusia.
Transplanted from the soft greens and greys and blues of a reluctant English spring, she felt suddenly that the enormity of having to do battle with Javier Campuzano on his own territory was beyond her.
But, despite her quiet temperament, she was a fighter, she reminded herself. She would not simply give in, as the Spaniard was so obviously convinced she would. Straightening her drooping shoulders, she produced a hopefully imperious tone.
‘Show me where I can feed and change the baby. He needs to be out of this sun.’ Out of her need to hold her own she had managed to make it sound as though the vibrant energy of the Andalusian heat were in some obscure way obscene, and the eyes that challenged him were glinting with a purple spark of defiance.
‘Of course.’ He was clearly unimpressed by her attitude, and the lowering black bar of his brows put an edge on the courtesy of his smooth reply. He said something rapid in Spanish to Tomás, who was already extracting the luggage from the car. And the hand that gripped her elbow, steering her over the cobbles, wasn’t gentle at all and she tugged distractedly away, shocked by the electrifying sensation produced by the hard pads of his lean fingers against her skin.
‘Ahhh! El niño!’
A short, amazingly stout woman emerged from the arcaded shadows at a trot, black-clad arms extended, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles, her attention all for the wide-eyed Johnny, the merest dip of her still glossy dark head for Cathy herself.
Admiring baby-talk had a universal language all of its own, Cathy learned as Johnny’s chubby solemn face quickly dissolved in a smile of heart-wrenching brilliance, little arms held out to the newest member of his fan club. And before Cathy could catch her breath the baby was expertly whisked out of her arms and was carried away, chortling perfidiously, into the cool shade of the house.
‘He will be perfectly safe,’ Campuzano said with a taunting smile that set her teeth on edge. ‘I’m sorry Paquita didn’t stay long enough to be introduced, but you must excuse her lapse of manners—the Spaniard’s love of children is legendary.’
‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ Cathy sniped. How could she get through to him, make him understand that she wouldn’t be taken over, and, more importantly, wouldn’t allow her baby to be, either?
He had moved infinitesimally closer and the harsh light of the sun illuminated the grainy texture of his tanned skin, the darker shadowing of his hard jawline, the golden tips of the black fan of the lashes that lowered in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the gleam of satisfaction in the smoky depths of his eyes.
Cathy’s breath caught in her throat, an unborn sob, half frustration, half something else entirely—something she couldn’t put a name to—choking her. And she looked away quickly, her soft lips drawn back against her teeth as she reiterated edgily, ‘I told you—he needs to be fed and changed. He’s not a plaything; he’s—’
‘I know precisely what he is.’ His voice was a lash of rebuke. ‘He is my nephew. And Paquita knows exactly what she’s doing. She and Tomás, besides keeping house for me here, have brought up nine children of their own to lusty maturity.’
‘Bully for them!’ Cathy snapped with a cold curl of her lips. She knew what he was up to. She was to be relegated to the status of a spare wheel, a punctured one at that. The taking-over of the child had begun and all Campuzano had to do was wait until she grew bored enough to take herself off, back to her former glitzy career—or so he thought.
And her heated suppositions were proved entirely correct when he extended a slight smile—one that didn’t touch his beautiful, cynical eyes—and offered, ‘I will show you to your room. We dine at nine—I’m sure you can occupy yourself somehow until then.’
He moved towards the house, the effortless, almost unbelievable male arrogance and grace of his easy, long-legged stride making her hate him. Anger took her by the throat and her eyes were smouldering with resentment as she caught up with him, demanding, ‘You can show me where that—that woman has taken my child. Looking after him will keep me occupied.’ She wasn’t about to be pushed into the background of Johnny’s life. That wasn’t the reason she had agreed to come to Spain, and the sooner he understood that, the better.
But he looked at her coldly, the ice in his eyes taking her breath away as he warned harshly, ‘Be careful, señorita. I don’t like your attitude any more than I like your morals. Paquita’s position in my household demands respect. See that she gets it, and mind your manners. Come.’
Bristling with temper, Cathy followed stiff-leggedly into the house. She was aware of space and airiness, of white walls and cool, tiled floors, but of nothing much else until he paused before a plain cedarwood door, gave her a cursory dip of his handsome head, and said smoothly, ‘Your room. Rosa, Paquita’s youngest daughter, will come for you at nine to show you to the dining-room. I suggest you relax and try to mend your temper.’
He turned on his heels and was gone, leaving the memory of a definitely feral smile, leaving her even more incensed at his high-handed treatment of her. Pushing the door open, her lips tight, she scowled into the silent, beautiful room, noted that the cases she had brought from England were stacked at the foot of a handsomely carved fruitwood bed, and closed the door again, leaning against it briefly as she glanced up and down the long corridor.
Every last one of the million and one things that a baby needed were packed in those cases. Which meant that Paquita couldn’t be attending to his now urgent needs but probably tossing him like a cuddly football around her own multitudinous offspring, displaying the newest member of the oh, so dominant Campuzano family to an admiring audience. But admiration didn’t satisfy hunger pangs or change wet nappies!
Determined to rescue him if it was the last thing she did, Cathy set off down the corridor, her chin at a pugnacious angle, opening each and every door. The arrogant Spaniard was going to have to learn that he couldn’t, as of divine right, have everything his own way.
The three other bedrooms she glanced into were as beautiful and as silent as her own and, after the corridor angled, she found the communal living-rooms, places to eat, relax. And one study full of highly technical data and communications systems.
And then the kitchen, which must be the ground floor of the two-storey tower, because a curved wooden staircase led up from among the quietly humming electrical equipment which gleamed against the whitewashed stone walls. She spared a reluctant thought for the nice mix of ancient and modern, the great stone chimney breast, the terracotta-tiled floors and lovingly polished carved dressers, before her eyes narrowed to glinting purple slits as she heard the unmistakable sound of crooning Spanish baby-talk coming from the room above.
So! She had tracked Johnny down, as she had known she eventually would. And this was where Paquita learned that she couldn’t snatch the baby out of her arms and carry him off to play with him without so much as a ‘May I?’ while Campuzano stood by, gloating, that look of satisfaction on his hard, impossibly arrogant features!
Anger, fuelled by the fiercely protective mothering instinct that had hit her the moment it had become clear that Cordy regarded the new-born baby as little more than a pawn in the game she’d been playing, drove her up the stairs like a miniature whirlwind. But her rapid pace faltered almost as soon as she’d gained the upper room. Fitted out as a nursery, it contained everything a baby could need, and there was even a single bed alongside the capacious, comfortable crib. And far from being tossed around like a human football, Johnny was safely tucked into the arms of an exceedingly pretty girl of around eighteen years of age, a blissful expression on his chubby face as he sucked his bottle.
He had been changed and was wearing a romper she had never seen before, the all-in-one garment a soft blue cotton that had to be more suitable for this climate than anything she had brought with her. And the tiny fingers of one plump hand were entwined in the soft dark curls of the girl who was nursing him, she noted with a wrench. Johnny always played dreamily with her own long blonde locks as she fed him, part of the bonding process.
‘Mama comes!’ The hugely stout Paquita was hovering, her face wreathed in smiles, her rich voice soothing as she met Cathy’s hurt, bewildered eyes. ‘Mi hija—Rosa, mi hija. Inglés not so good. Rosa good. All children educado! Muy bueno!’
‘Mama is proud that all her children speak some English. Some better than others.’ Rosa’s tone was gentle but her smile was brilliant, her voice attractively accented as she turned her attention to Cathy. ‘Baby Juan has had his oatmeal; that is right, yes? And when Don Javier telephoned his instructions for what would be needed he told us the brand of the milk formula you used.’ The teat was eased from the little drowsy mouth and Rosa expertly lifted the sleepy baby on to her shoulder.
‘Let me.’ Cathy stepped forward, taking the child, her loving arms enfolding him. She had no doubt that Javier Campuzano had planned every last tiny detail. Those cool eyes had missed nothing on his many visits to her London flat before they had left for Spain, while his clever brain had already determined that legal custody of his nephew was already as good as his—whether the means of obtaining it were fair or foul.
Cathy shivered as a deep, instinctive fear put ice in her veins, and Rosa got up from the nursing chair, gathering the empty bottle, the oatmeal bowl, asking, ‘You are pleased with the nursery? I shall sleep here with him. I will look after him well, I promise.’
None of this was Rosa’s fault, so Cathy swallowed the impulse to snap, The hell you will! and took her time over tucking the baby in his crib.
Her first instinctive impulse had been to demand that everything in the nursery be transported to her bedroom. Right now! But this room was ideal; the long windows set in the thick stone walls admitted sunlight and fresh air, and their louvred shutters could be closed during the heat of the day. It was handy for the kitchen, too, where she could make up his formula, store the day’s supply of bottles in the fridge, mix his oatmeal and purée his vegetables. It would be neither sensible nor practical to insist on such a move. So, straightening, casting the baby a fond, lingering glance, she turned to Rosa.
‘I will be looking after Johnny myself. He can take his daytime rests in here, but I shall have him in my room at night. We can carry the crib through after his evening bath and feed.’ Then, seeing the utter desolation chase surprise out of the dark Spanish eyes, Cathy made the only compromise she was willing to consider. ‘If I need to be out for any reason I’ll be happy to leave him in your care.’ Which didn’t do much to lessen the look of hurt disappointment, and made her add, ‘He should sleep for at least two hours now, but I’d be grateful if you’d keep an eye on him while I unpack.’
That she would need to leave the baby in Rosa’s obviously capable hands some time in the near future was in no doubt, Cathy told herself as she stowed her belongings away in the capacious cupboards and drawers. If Johnny’s grandmother didn’t show up at the finca within the next few days, then she would have to go to Jerez and find her. Campuzano would have to learn that she couldn’t be kept here in isolation, a virtual prisoner, separated for most of the time from the child they were tacitly fighting over.
Carrying the crib down to her room later that evening restored Cathy’s confidence in her ability to hold her own with the overwhelming Jerezano. Rosa helped, and as they positioned the crib at the side of the big carved bed the Spanish girl said, ‘Don Javier asked me to show you to the dining-room.’ She consulted her watch. ‘In one hour’s time. And while you eat I will look in on the baby now and then.’
‘I found the dining-room when I was looking for the nursery,’ Cathy returned with a grin, placing the now sleeping child in the crib and covering him with a soft woollen blanket. ‘But I’ll be easier if you check on him, thanks.’ She had taken to the Spanish girl on sight and Johnny responded to her well; the three of them had spent a happy hour and a half, enjoying bath-time, feed-time and playtime, with Paquita puffing up the stairs to join in the fun. So if Johnny woke while she was closeted in the dining-room with Campuzano he would be reassured by a familiar face.
Not that she was looking forward to dining with Johnny’s uncle, of course. The odd, fluttery sensation deep inside her was due to apprehension about the way he would receive the ground rules she was determined to lay down, she assured herself as she stepped out of the shower in the cool green marble en-suite bathroom. He could turn awkward, she acknowledged. A strand of cruelty was woven into his proud Andalusian character, she just knew it. He would not be an easy man to cross.
Suppressing the inching, quivering feeling of alarm, Cathy dressed quickly in the simple, sleeveless black crêpe shift she had already laid out, and braided her long blonde hair. The minimum of make-up and she was ready, ten minutes early. A pity, that. Counting off the seconds to the coming confrontation could only put her already jangling nerves even more on edge.
Meeting her wide violet eyes in the mirror, she made a conscious effort to ease away the tiny frown line between her arching brows, and wondered again how Javier Campuzano could have mistaken her for Cordy.
At five feet seven, they shared the same height, and both had fine, clear skin and blonde hair to shoulder-blade length. But there, as far as Cathy was concerned, the resemblance ended. Cordy’s blue eyes were more sapphire than violet, her cheekbones far more pronounced, her nose longer and slightly aquiline, giving her features far more sophistication than Cathy’s. And whereas Cordy’s figure was model-girl-svelte, truly elegant, Cathy’s curves were far more generous—positively earthy, she sometimes felt.
But then he would no doubt put the weight gain down to recent motherhood, and he had admitted he’d only stayed at the party for a very short time. And she hadn’t put him right, had she?
She wasn’t at all easy about the deception; in fact if she thought about it for too long she ended up feeling definitely ill! But she’d had no option and would keep up the pretence to the bitter end, because if he ever found out that she was merely Johnny’s aunt, that his real mother had done a bunk, then he would take control of the baby and make sure there was nothing she could do about it.
But it wouldn’t come to that. She would lie until she was blue in the face if she had to. And on that positive—if reprehensible—thought she stiffened her spine and strode forth to do battle with the man who was her enemy.
CHAPTER THREE
‘AN APERITIF, Cathy?’
She hovered in the open doorway and watched as he laid the papers he’d been engrossed in aside, his urbane smile not quite reaching his eyes as he rose to his feet.
‘Thank you.’ She sound breathless. Her heart was performing a mad tattoo against her breastbone. He rarely used her given name, preferring the formal ‘señorita’, investing it with the delicate sarcasm she had come to dread. And now his lightly hooded eyes were making a lazy yet thorough inspection of her black-clad body and she saw his wide shoulders rise in a minimal shrug that barely moved the surface of the fine white alpaca jacket he wore.
Cathy turned on teetering heels, trying not to stumble as she made for one of the soft leather-covered armchairs arranged around the massive open fireplace, the chimney breast soaring way up to the raftered ceiling. The drift of his cool eyes had been a slow sexual insult, making her shatteringly aware of all that dominant Spanish machismo so tenuously concealed beneath the suave veneer of grace and good manners.
Warily, she watched as he poured the pale golden liquid from a bottle bearing the distinctive Campuzano label, and he sounded as if he were purring as he placed the curved, slender glass beside a silver bowl of plump olives on the low table at her side.
‘Try the fino. If it is too dry for your palate we can substitute an oloroso. The British used to be our biggest market for the sweeter, heavier sherries—the drink for elderly maiden ladies, we consider it here— but now their tastes appear to have changed; we now export far more fino to your country—’
‘Don’t knock it!’ Cathy advised in a cold little voice. ‘Maybe all those elderly ladies have acquired more sophisticated tastes. Or drink gin.’
Did he have to act so superior all the time? Or couldn’t he help it because it was an integral part of his nature? The latter, she suspected, and was thrown off balance when he smiled—really smiled this time—as he assured her,
‘I don’t knock it, believe me. When Drake singed the beard of the King of Spain he also carried home around three thousand casks of sherry and so founded our highly profitable trade links with England. So no, I wouldn’t dream of knocking one of our best markets!’ He seated himself almost directly opposite her with an indolent grace that only served to remind her of his powerful masculine virility, his grey eyes appearing almost seductively drowsy as he questioned, ‘Is the drink to your taste?’
Pulling herself away from the mesmeric spell of his hooded gaze, Cathy took a hasty sip and then another. The pale wine was crisp and delicious, slightly aromatic, the chilled liquid sliding down her throat, tasting like sunlight gently touched by frost.
‘Very much so.’ Her eyes smiled into his, her heart warmed by this rare moment of something she could almost believe to be closeness. ‘I confess, I could become addicted.’ Idly she traced a line in the condensation on the curved surface of the glass and heard herself asking with an interest she had never expected to feel, ‘If the market for the sweet sherries is declining, why don’t you produce more dry?’
‘It is not so simple. It all depends on the development of the flor... However—’ he spread his strong, finely made hands at her look of incomprehension and rose to refill her glass ‘—when we visit Jerez I will take you to the bodega where I shall attempt to explain. If you are interested.’
She was, almost in spite of herself, in spite of those feelings of mutual mistrust which flowed so strongly between them, the deceit on her part and the dictatorial arrogance on his. But he had given her an opening she couldn’t pass and, taking another fortifying sip, she leant back in her chair, making an effort to relax, crossed her legs above the knee, and asked, ‘When, exactly, shall I get to visit Jerez and your mother?’
‘Why the hurry?’ There was a touch of contempt in the steady grey gaze, a flick of something that made her shudder as his eyes deliberately assessed the long, exposed elegance of her crossed legs. ‘Is the finca too quiet, too rustic for your tastes? Lo siento—I’m sorry you have become so quickly bored.’
Horrible, horrible man! Cathy’s face turned an uncomfortable red as she hastily set her feet side by side and tugged down her skirt. He’d been looking at her unthinkingly exposed legs as if they were goods on offer—shoddy, second-hand goods—and instantly rejected them. Cordy—or her reputation—had a lot to answer for!
‘My main reason for agreeing to come to Spain was to allow your mother to see her grandson,’ she told him with a cool dignity she was proud of. ‘If you won’t take us to her, then I must find some means of going on my own. I’m sure Tomás—’
‘My mother will receive you when she is ready,’ he injected suavely. ‘It is not so long since Francisco’s death; she needs time to adjust to the idea that he left a child. And Tomás will take you nowhere; I forbid it.’
Forbid? Yes, he was perfectly capable of doing so. As far as he was concerned, his word was law and Tomás and every other subject in his kingdom would obey it right down to the very last letter. Something sharp and hot rose in her throat to choke her and her voice was hoarse with anger as she flung at him, “Then what the hell am I doing here? Couldn’t you have waited until she was ready to see him? Why waste my time?’
Anger turned back on her in waves of frustration as it met the unbreachable wall of his apparent disregard. There was not a flicker of emotion on those dark, impressive features, merely the schooled control of a man who had witnessed the demeaning antics of a fishwife but was too polite to comment. And she sagged back in her seat, suddenly drained, as he rose with inherent grace and pressed a discreetly concealed button near the wide cedarwood door.
‘Come, it is time to eat.’
Just like that. Just as if her angry questions had never been asked, Cathy fumed, rising in a jerky movement, following him, wanting to get the meal over and done with and get back to her room, shut herself in with the sleeping baby, and try to work out what to do.
Facing him across the oval table, Cathy spread her linen napkin over her lap with a fierce twist of her wrist and waited for Paquita to serve her with, as she proudly announced, ‘Sopa de mariscos al vino de Jerez,’ which, for her benefit, Campuzano translated more prosaically as sherry and shellfish soup.
Whatever, it was delicious and welcome. Cathy ate quickly and appreciatively, fully aware that she wouldn’t have agreed to share his table at all if she hadn’t been ravenously hungry.
The warm crusty bread served with the tangy, ocean-flavoured soup was irresistible, and Cathy, her mouth full, saw the lean brown hand slide a glass over the linen cloth, found her eyes held by the dusting of dark hair between the white of his cuff and the soft leather strap of his wafer-thin watch, and felt her throat close up for no reason at all.
‘Manzanilla makes the perfect accompaniment. Part of the pleasure of savouring a meal,’ he said softly, coolly, and she replaced the spoon in her bowl and swallowed her mouthful with immense difficulty. He was letting her know that her table manners were no better than a greedy child’s. He never lost an opportunity to put her down. Her appetite disappeared very suddenly.
‘This comes from the Campuzano vineyards in the area of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It is believed that the breeze from the Atlantic gives it its unique and slightly salty flavour.’ He took a reflective sip from his own glass, his lightly veiled eyes challenging her fulminating violet stare and, more as a reflex action than anything else, she took an apprehensive sip. Salty sherry?
But it was crisp and cold and intriguingly tangy, paler in colour than the chilled fino he had given her as an aperitif, and if he noted the surprise, followed by the pleasure in her eyes, he made no comment other than, ‘Finish your soup. Paquita will be devastated if you don’t clear your plate.’
‘I am not a child,’ Cathy returned stiffly.
She felt his eyes slide over the lush curves of her breasts, heard him agree, ‘Obviously not,’ and decided to maintain a dignified silence, and managed to do exactly that, right through the Sevillana salad, the chicken with garlic and one glass too many of a light Rioja wine.
‘You will take a little caramel flan?’ Paquita had withdrawn, and the silver cake knife was poised in long, lean fingers. Cathy shook her head. She couldn’t eat another crumb, and the wine, on top of all that sherry, had gone straight to her head. She wasn’t used to alcohol in such profligate quantity.
The silver serving knife was gently placed back on the linen-covered table and Campuzano leaned elegantly back in his chair, his attractively accented voice much too smooth as he remarked, ‘I hear you have made Rosa redundant.’ A smile curled at one corner of his wide, sensual mouth, but his eyes were cold. ‘If it was done in an attempt to persuade me of your sterling qualities as a mother, it was misguided.’ Again the unmistakable challenge in those deep grey eyes, and Cathy bit back the heated words of rebuttal. She couldn’t trust herself to speak without getting her tongue in a tangle and could have boiled herself in oil for drinking all that sherry—not to mention the wine.
Hoping he would put her silence down to a refusal to dignify his snide remark with any comment at all, she rose from her seat, wobbled alarmingly as her head began to spin, and sat straight down again, only to hear his dry, sarcastic, ‘For Juan’s sake, I hope he is not in need of your ministrations tonight. If he is, then might I suggest you call Rosa out of her enforced retirement?’
Drunk in charge of a baby! Cathy thought, her head whirling. The hateful wretch had probably done it on purpose, feeding her one innocuous-looking measure of alcohol after another, inviting her opinion in that suave, wickedly sexy voice of his, intent on giving himself the proof that she wasn’t a fit mother for an earthworm—let alone his nephew!
How she regained her feet and got herself to the door in more or less a straight line, she never knew. She even managed a stiff ‘Goodnight’ before he slewed round in his chair, one black brow tilted in sardonic enquiry as he questioned,
‘Tell me, you say your name is Cathy, so why do your colleagues and friends know you as Cordy—or Cordelia?’ A very slight shrug, an even slighter smile. ‘I am sure there is a logical reason, but I don’t like puzzles. So humour me.’
Cathy could only stare at him, her eyes going so wide that they began to ache. He suspected; she knew he did. Had he waited until her fuddled brain would be incapable of thinking up some credible lie? Was that another of his devious reasons for systematically getting her drunk?
Somehow her tongue had got fused to the roof of her mouth, and her heart, tripping with alarm, didn’t help her to think clearly, and his smile had a definite feral quality as he added with a cool politeness that made her skin crawl, ‘Perhaps your memory requires a little help.’ White teeth glittered between those sensual lips. ‘After I read those letters, particularly the second, telling of the existence of my brother’s alleged son, I made a few initial enquiries. I found the signature indecipherable, as you recall, but my description, my reminders of the party to mark the end of the assignment you were part of, all produced the same name. Cordelia Soames. Or Cordy to her friends—who, I might say, seemed to be numerous and almost exclusively male and, practically to a man...intimate.’
If nothing else could have sobered her, the hateful inflexion he placed on that last word did the trick. How dared he make her sister out to be a tramp, happy to fall in bed with anything in trousers? Cordy simply loved the reflected glamour of her job, the glitzy parties and socialising. And flirting was just a game to her, had been since she was fifteen years old. She wasn’t promiscuous, not really. Surely the fact that she had got pregnant pointed to that? If she’d been in the habit of sleeping around she would have made sure she was protected.
Her head now miraculously clear, Cathy gave him a withering smile, her voice dripping with acid as she told him, ‘Far be it from me to allow you to lose any sleep over such a tricky puzzle, señor. Cordelia was my professional name. I thought plain old Cathy a little too homespun. Satisfied?’
He would have to be, she thought as she swept out of the door. He would have to come up with better trick questions than that before he caught her out—tipsy or sober. She was getting quite expert at the game of deceit!
Cathy closed her eyes against the brilliant white dry heat and pulled the shady brim of the floppy straw hat Rosa had lent her further down over her face.
She had hitched a ride on a tractor with Rafael, the eldest of Paquita and Tomás’s brood, right to the edge of the vineyards, and now she set her sights on the shade offered by the grove of parasol pines she could see in the distance.
Behind her the tractor roared out of sight, leaving a cloud of white dust on the still air—the dust of the Albariza soil which made this vast triangle, stretching between the sherry towns of Jerez, Puerto de Santa Maria and Sanlúcar de Barrameda and encompassed by the rivers Guadalquivir and Guadalete, the one place in the world where the unique wine could be produced. So much she had teamed from Rosa, who had been determined to educate as well as befriend her, Cathy thought with a quirky smile.
