The Stand-In Bride. Lucy Gordon

made several, mostly harmless ones. But then she met and fell in love with Roderigo Alva. And that had been the stupidest mistake of all.

      They were introduced by friends on what was to be his last day before returning home to Granada. By the end of the evening he had deferred his departure indefinitely, to Maggie’s delight. At thirty, he was older than any man she had dated before, yet he’d kept the lightheartedness of a boy. He was full of laughter, and he plunged into life’s pleasures as though afraid they might be snatched away. His face was swarthily handsome, and his lean, elegant body moved with the grace of a cat. How wonderfully they danced together, and how desperately every dance increased her mounting passion for him.

      He told her about his import-export business in Granada, the wonderful deal he had just pulled off. Everything about him seemed to confirm the picture of a successful man, son of a wealthy family who’d made his own fortune by hard work and skill. He was always well dressed and he showered expensive gifts on her.

      He was enchanted to find her one quarter Spanish, and able to speak his language. Her dazzled eyes saw only a man of the world, who might have had any woman, but who declared that she was his first true love. She was eighteen. She believed him.

      When she announced their engagement, the few family members she had left begged her to wait. ‘You know nothing about him—he’s so much older than you—’ She brushed the warnings aside with the blind confidence of youth. She loved Roderigo. He loved her. What else mattered?

      Unlike the boys of her own age, he kept his hands to himself, insisting that his bride must be treated with respect. But he wanted to marry her in England. She would have liked to have the wedding in Spain, with his family there, but Roderigo overbore her.

      Later she wondered what would have happened if she’d held out and seen his home before committing herself. Because then she might have discovered that his ‘business’ was little more than a shell, that his creditors were dunning him and some of his activities were under investigation by the law.

      Or suppose he’d come to her bed before the wedding? With her passion slaked, she might have seen him with clearer eyes, and not rushed headlong into legal ties. That too he had prevented, ensuring that when they reached Spain the cage door had already slammed shut behind her.

      She rubbed her eyes, knowing the moment was drawing nearer when they would land. Beside her, Catalina was checking her face in a small mirror. On the far side of the aisle Sebastian sat absorbed in papers, as he had been since they took off. There was something down-to-earth about that sight that made Maggie feel she had been fanciful.

      Now she forced herself to look out of the window at the white-capped Sierra Nevada mountains far below her, just like her first view of them on her honeymoon. Then she’d been blissfully happy. Now her heart was grey and empty. But the mountains were unchanged.

      Had any bride ever had such a romantic honeymoon, skiing by day and making love by night? Roderigo was technically a skilled lover and in many respects their physical life was good. Perhaps even then she sensed something wrong, but she was too young and ignorant to know what it was—that she was doing with her whole soul what he was doing only with his body.

      She met his family, not the solid merchants he’d described, but shysters living on the edge of the law, prosperous one day, hand-to-mouth the next. If they made money, they spent it before it was in hand. His mother wore expensive jewellery which would vanish—re-claimed by outraged shopkeepers, tired of waiting for payment.

      The only one of the family Maggie took to was a young cousin, José, a boy of fifteen, who idolised her and constantly found excuses to visit their house. His infatuation was so youthfully innocent that neither she nor Roderigo could take offence.

      Maggie had blotted out many of the details of that time, so that now she could no longer be sure exactly when she’d begun to see that Roderigo lived mainly on credit. He had expensive habits and very little way of servicing them. The ‘business’ was a joke through which he could claim tax breaks without making a profit. And why should a man bother with profit when he’d just married a wife with money?

      He went through Maggie’s modest wealth like water. When the ready cash had gone the house in England was sold and the money brought to Spain. Maggie tried to insist that it should be banked for a rainy day, but he bought her an expensive gift and swept her off on vacation, both of which she paid for.

      He silenced her protests with passion. In his view, as long as he was a good husband in bed, she had nothing to complain of. When she argued he began to show the other side of his character, the bully. How dared she criticise her husband? This was Spain, where the man was the master.

      Maggie began to see with dreadful clarity that Roderigo was a fair-weather charmer, delightful while things were going well, but unpleasant when life was hard. And over the four years of their marriage, life grew bitterly hard. In that time she grew up fast, changing from a naive girl into a clear-eyed woman, surviving the disintegration of her world. Romantic dreams vanished, replaced by a realism that was almost, but not quite, cynicism.

      She managed to cling onto a little money, standing up to Roderigo in a way that once wouldn’t have been possible. But it was a waste of time. When threats didn’t work he simply forged her signature, and then the money was gone.

      Why hadn’t she left him, then? Looking back, she often wondered. Perhaps it was because, having paid such a terrible price for her love, she couldn’t bear to admit that it had all been for nothing. And besides, she was pregnant.

      When she found out she entertained one last pathetic hope that Roderigo would finally discover in himself a sense of responsibility, and put some work into his business. Instead, he resorted to crime, petty at first, then more serious, always just managing to get away with it. Success went to his head. He grew careless. A theft was traced to him, and only the best efforts of an expensive lawyer got him off. His confidence grew. He was untouchable.

      Then the police called again. A man had broken into a wealthy house in Granada, and been disturbed by the owner. The thief attacked him and fled, leaving the man in a coma. Roderigo’s fingerprints had been found in the house.

      He protested his innocence, swearing falsely that at the time he had been at home with his wife. Sick at heart, Maggie refused to confirm the lie. He was arrested, tried and found guilty.

      The day before the trial began she went into premature labour. Her six-month daughter was born, and survived a week. During that time Maggie never left her side. The news that Roderigo had been found guilty and sentenced to ten years seemed to reach her from a great distance.

      She would never forget the last time she saw him, in prison. Once this had been the man she loved. Now he stared at her, hard faced, his eyes bleak with hate. ‘Be damned to you!’ he raged. ‘You put me here. What kind of a wife are you?’