to his personal life!
But he didn’t, so she now had to go and face the padre without knowing a single thing about the wedding proposed for next week, because Luiz hadn’t bothered to discuss it with her!
It was going to make her look really good in the padre’s eyes if he discovered that he knew more about it than the bride herself!
I’m going to kill you very soon, Luiz Vazquez, she promised him silently as she checked over her cream skirt and lavender top—which were beginning to look a little the worse for wear now, along with the other things she had brought to Spain with her.
When she’d left London she had packed for a three-day short break in a hotel. She had not packed for parties in villas and cross-country travelling, or exploring the many admittedly interesting rooms inside a castle!
She found the padre waiting for her in the small sitting room the family tended to use during the day because it opened directly into the garden. Tı´a Consuela was waiting with him, but once she had introduced Caroline to Padre Domingo, she left them alone.
In truth, Caroline felt sorry for Consuela. In the last few months she had lost her husband, seen her own son being disinherited of everything she must know he had every right to consider his, and was about to lose her right to live in the home that had been hers for the last thirty-odd years. Yet the way she had remained on here, taking whatever Luiz wanted to throw at her, had in Caroline’s view been rather impressive.
Personally she couldn’t have done it. Pride alone would have sent her running for cover well before her estranged nephew could show his face. But, cold and remote though she always was, she had answered all Luiz’s intense, sometimes acutely detailed questions about the running of the castle, and was quick to refer him on to those who knew more about the running of the rest of the estate.
While her son did nothing, offered no information and kept himself very much to himself by riding one of his beautiful Andalusian horses out each morning and not coming back until it was so dark that he had to.
Felipe had gone from charmer to brooder in a couple of very short phases. And he might have remained on here, like his mother, but unlike her he did nothing to hide his simmering resentment.
Not that Caroline could really blame him for feeling like that. For, no matter what legal right Luiz had to be here, Felipe, had every excuse for feeling angry and bitterly betrayed by his father.
She just wished she could like him more on a personal level, then maybe she could become a kind of go-between for the two half-brothers, give them a fine line of communication which might help bring them closer together.
‘Señorita Newbury,’ Padre Domingo greeted her smilingly. ‘It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance at last.’
Taking his proffered hand, Caroline smiled in answer. ‘I called to see you yesterday but missed you.’
‘I was visiting a compadre in the next valley.’ He nodded. ‘We like to get together once a week to—compare flocks. But I was sorry to be out when you called.’
Pleasantries over, it was a bit difficult to know where to go from there. so she covered her own feeling of awkwardness by inviting him to sit down. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she offered. ‘Tea, coffee—or something cooler, perhaps?’
But he shook his white head and with a slight wave of one beautifully slender hand invited her to sit before he would allow himself to do so.
‘You liked our little church?’ he enquired when they had both settled into Louis the Fifteenth chairs still wearing their original upholstery.
Caroline smiled. ‘It’s the prettiest church I’ve ever set foot in,’ she answered honestly. ‘But then this whole valley is the prettiest I’ve ever stepped foot in,’ she added with a warm twinkle in her eyes.
‘But very isolated,’ the father pointed out.
‘Part of its charm,’ Caroline immediately defended, with that same teasing twinkle.
‘And also very—Catholic…’
Ah, she thought, losing the twinkle. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ she asked. ‘Luiz and I marrying in your church with me not being a Roman Catholic, I mean?’ she went on, thinking silently—where are you Luiz? You should have seen this problem arising!
In his neat black robe with its round white collar the father eyed her thoughtfully from his thin, wise face. ‘Is it a problem for you?’ he countered eventually.
‘Only if you expect me to make a sudden conversion,’ she answered candidly.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not expect that sacrifice of you—as I would hope your English church would not expect the same thing of Luiz if the situation were reversed. See, we are emancipated here.’ He smiled then. ‘Even in our sleepy little valley.’
‘But there is a problem?’ Caroline prompted shrewdly. It was written in his thoughtful stare.
‘The problem is more one of—sincerity than religion,’ he murmured slowly, and when Caroline began to frown in confusion he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Let me be blunt, Miss Newbury,’ he said. ‘It has come to my attention that you and Don Luiz are intending to exchange sacred vows with each other which may not be exactly truthful, and indeed are merely a means to a rather sinister end…’
Sinister? Caroline picked up on the word and pondered it frowningly, suddenly very wary as to where the priest was going with this. ‘Are you trying to suggest that every marriage in your church has been a perfect love-match?’ she questioned, aware that if any culture was known for arranging loveless marriages, then surely Spain had to be it!
‘In this particular case, it is only your marriage to Don Luiz that I am concerned with,’ the priest replied smoothly. ‘You met for the first time only five days ago, I have been led to believe. Within hours of that meeting Don Luiz was announcing your intention to marry and your own father was collapsing due to the shock. It has also been suggested that your father is in debt to Don Luiz for a rather large amount of money which may well be the motive behind this—arrangement.’
‘Suggested by whom?’ Even as the full weight of his words came as a bit of a blow Caroline’s hackles were rising—and it showed in the sudden glint in her amethyst eyes.
‘The source of my information is not really important,’ he dismissed with a wave of one slender hand. ‘My concern here is really for you, Señorita,’ he explained. ‘I came here today with serious concerns that you were being—coerced into the marriage for reasons beyond your control.’
‘Are you trying to tell me, that you are refusing to marry Luiz and I?’ she challenged, coming stiffly to her feet. She simply had not been expecting him to question their sincerity like this.
Inherent good manners made him rise to his feet also. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘Don Luiz is the new conde here in this valley. If he tells me to marry him to a lady gagged and chained to his side, then I marry them.’ He shrugged, adding with a wry smile, ‘There, the old ways are not quite dead, heh?’ And now it was his turn to flick her a twinkling smile.
But Caroline was in no mood to twinkle back at him. ‘Then let me put your mind at rest,’ she said coolly. ‘Your information is wrong,’ she declared. ‘Luiz and I have known each other for seven years. We have been lovers for seven years.’ Which was not quite a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth. But in this situation it served her purpose very nicely to make that point.
Surprised though the priest undoubtedly was by her correction, it didn’t faze him. ‘But have you loved Don Luiz for seven years?’ he threw right back.
Love? Caroline repeated to herself, and smiled a half-smile that was more rueful than cynical, though she had a feeling it should have been the other way round. ‘I’ve always loved Luiz,’ she responded dryly. ‘But if you are going to ask me if he feels