driving through the village and everyone was out. It was like a replay of the first time they had come through here. Only then it had been daylight and the expressions had been curious. Now they looked pale and worried and anxious. So she waved and smiled and hoped to goodness they couldn’t tell that she was just about ready to cry her eyes out.
It was the same when they got back to the castle. Everyone was huddled around Neptune, waiting with anxious eyes as Luiz brought the car to a stop then grimly told her to stay exactly where she was.
He got out, ignored everyone, and came around the car to lift her out of her seat. Some gasped when they saw the state of her lovely dress and her pale face.
Her father stepped up and took hold of her hand. He looked dreadful. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him, and another one of those reassuring smiles appeared.
‘You don’t look it,’ he rasped. ‘Well, I am—I am,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Nevertheless, I will come with you…’
It was Luiz’s uncle Fidel. He fell into step beside Luiz as they walked into the great hall with her father still clinging to one of her hands. The first person she saw inside was Consuela. She was just standing there by the huge banqueting table, her face so white it could have been marble.
‘Put me down, Luiz,’ Caroline insisted.
He paused in his step but didn’t immediately comply.
‘Please,’ she pleaded.
Without a word, and with his dark face still that tightly closed book, he set her feet onto the cool stone floor and made sure she was steady before letting go of her. Caroline walked up to Consuela and simply—sadly—just put her arms around the older woman.
Instantly Consuela stiffened so violently that Caroline thought it was with rejection. Then she realised, as that stiff body began to tremble, that Consuela just wasn’t used to being held in any way. For all she had deserved punishment for what she had done to her own sister, she had paid for it—with thirty-five years of a barren marriage living in a barren atmosphere where love and affection had been non-existent.
‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, for the other woman’s ears only. ‘He’s fine. Luiz’s men are looking after him.’
‘He should not have done it,’ Consuela said, but some of the tension eased out of her.
‘He’s bitter,’ Caroline explained. ‘And he has a right to be bitter, Tı´a Consuela,’ she added gently.
The older woman looked into Caroline’s face and sighed knowingly. ‘The padre gave you the diaries,’ she said.
At Caroline’s nod, she nodded also. That was all. They understood each other. If Caroline had read the diaries then she knew that if Luiz thought his life had been hard, growing up in the slums of New York, then Felipe’s life had been no easier, living here with a father who had despised him and a mother who had locked herself away in an emotional prison of her own making.
Then Consuela said. ‘We will leave here tonight.’ It was a decision that made Caroline glance at her anxiously.
‘You don’t have to do that, Consuela,’ she told her. ‘This is your home. It’s Felipe’s home. Can’t we at least try to live here together?’
‘No.’ Consuela shook her head. ‘In truth, I will be glad to go. It is time. Perhaps…’ She heaved out a heavy sigh. ‘Perhaps more than time that we began making a life for ourselves.’
In a lot of ways Caroline could only agree with her. Felipe, at least, needed to get away from here. It was the only way he would learn to put aside his bitterness.
The sound of another car arriving alerted Caroline to the return of the others, and her immediate concern turned to getting Luiz away from the hall before his men brought Felipe into it.
Releasing Consuela, she turned back to Luiz. He looked so big and grim that she felt the threat of tears tighten her chest muscles as she walked back to him. She turned impulsively to Luiz’s uncle. ‘Felipe will need you more than I do, Tı´o,’ she told him.
There was a moment when he looked as if he might argue with her, then with a glance at Luiz he changed his mind and nodded. To her father she gave a hug and a kiss. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said quietly.
He too understood. He was being dismissed. Standing back, he watched her slip her hand into Luiz’s hand, saw the larger fingers tighten possessively around her more slender ones, and together the two of them moved up the stairs.
Behind them, not a single word was spoken.
Instead of to her old room Luiz took her directly to his. It was the master suite of the castle. Huge. Grand. All heavy baroque furniture and ancient artefacts. The moment the door shut behind them Caroline felt reaction begin to set in.
Her legs felt suddenly weak, sending her over to the nearest chair to drop shakily down into it. Still without a word, Luiz walked across the room and into his bathroom. Ten seconds later she could hear the sound of running water.
Coming back into the room, Luiz found her sitting there, with her face hidden in her hands. A muscle along his jaw clenched, but that was the only reaction he showed as he came to stand over her, then bent to gently remove the tiara and veil from her hair before scooping her into his arms again.
‘Oh, very macho,’ she said, trying to lighten the leaden atmosphere.
He didn’t respond to it. Grim-eyed, tight-lipped, he carried her into the bathroom, then set her down on her feet and turned her back to him so he could begin untying the silk lacing that was holding the bodice of her wedding dress together.
‘If you don’t start talking to me, I’ll throw a tantrum,’ she informed him quite casually. The lacing gave, the bodice slipped, sending her hand up to catch it before it revealed her breasts.
‘Luiz!’ she snapped, spinning round to face him.
His eyes caught fire. The fury he had been keeping severely banked down now came bursting out through those hot, bright, burning black eyes to completely envelop her at the very moment his arms did the same. And he was lifting her off her feet, so he could bring her startled mouth on a level with his own mouth.
It was a kiss like no other. It didn’t just burn, it consumed. Her arms went up, slender forearms using his wide shoulders as a brace to keep that fierce mouth-to-mouth contact. She didn’t care now that the dress was slipping, that her breasts were bursting free to press against him. She didn’t care that the knock on her head hurt or that her bare feet were stinging or that he was holding her so tightly that he was in danger of crushing her ribs.
But she cared that she could feel him trembling, that even his mouth, where it fused with hers, was struggling to maintain some control over what was finally pouring out of him.
‘I love you,’ she murmured through a fevered grab at air. ‘I love you so much, and I hate it when you hide away from me!’
‘It’s either hide or devour you,’ he muttered. And he meant it, fantastic though the statement might seem. He meant every harsh, rasping word of it.
He claimed her mouth again, putting a stop to any more talking, because at this moment doing was more important. Caroline wound her thighs around his hips, long skirts rustling as she locked her bare feet together at his back. Her fingers were in his hair, her thumbs urgently caressing the tension along his rigid jaw.
On a driven groan he turned back to the bedroom.
‘The bath,’ she reminded him.
He issued a hoarse curse against her lips and changed direction without breaking the heated contact of their mouths until he absolutely had to. But he refused to let go of her as he bent to turn off the taps. And when he straightened again she was waiting for him, flushed-cheeked, misty-eyed, the two creamy slopes of her breasts heaving against the boned bodice now resting beneath them.
His dark lashes