‘I said I’d try to open her eyes. I never meant anything like this to happen.’
‘Don’t lie to me!’ he said savagely. ‘You practically threw her into that pretty boy’s arms. You invited him to this house, you told him about your skiing trip so that he could follow, and when I found him there you told me it was you he was chasing.’
‘Because I believed it,’ she cried. Horrified, she was beginning to see how everything looked.
‘You told him you were going to Sol y Nieve.’
‘Only in passing. It wasn’t a hint for him to follow.’
‘To be sure, I believe you,’ he said bitterly.
‘How dare you call me a liar?’ Maggie snapped.
‘That is nothing to what I would like to call you. I’ve been insulted in front of the world, and that lies at your door, you scheming, manipulative witch.’
‘It wasn’t like that. It was a chapter of accidents, and-’
‘To think that I brought you into this house!’ he brooded, not seeming to hear her.
‘And I didn’t want to come,’ she reminded him. ‘But you were so set on having your own way that you mowed me down, as you do everyone. You brought me here as your fiancee’s chaperone, and I hadn’t been under your roof two days before you tried to seduce me.’
‘Don’t talk like an ignorant girl, because you’re not one. You’re a woman of the world who’d only take a man to her bed as an equal.’
‘But I didn’t take you to my bed. And how glad I am now that I didn’t. To you it’s nothing but a kind of power game and, I told you before, you’ll never have power over me.’
‘No, you prefer the power to be on your side,’ he said, his eyes glinting with a strange light. ‘You demonstrated that very effectively tonight.’
‘How can I make you believe that it wasn’t some kind of conspiracy?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t try. It was all just a little bit too convenient to be an accident.’
Maggie sighed. ‘Believe what you like, Sebastian. You will anyway. Let’s just make an end of this.’
‘And how do you suggest we do that?’
‘I’d have thought it was obvious. It’s time for me to go. You must be longing to see the last of me.’
He stared at her. ‘Do you really think you’re going to simply walk out of here without putting right the injury you’ve done me?’
‘How can I do that? If you think I’m going to bully Catalina into marrying you-’
He made a gesture of impatience. ‘Of course not. Our marriage is impossible now. But there’s still the inconvenient matter of the cathedral, the archbishop and several hundred guests, all arranged for ten days’ time.’
‘You’ll have to cancel them. People will understand.’
‘Oh, yes, they’ll understand-and they’ll laugh themselves sick.’
‘Well, what else can you do? It’s happened now.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Margarita. The answer must be as obvious to you as it is to me. I have arranged to be married on the sixteenth, and that’s what I mean to do. Anything else would simply give the town more cause for derision.’
‘But you haven’t got a bride,’ she said incredulously, wondering if she was dealing with a deaf man. ‘What are you going to do? Call in one of your conquests to make up the numbers? Will any woman do?’
The strange light was there in his eyes again. ‘Not any woman,’ he said. ‘You.’
She stared at him. Then something caught in her throat and she forced herself to give a brief, choking laugh.
‘I’m not laughing,’ he said quietly.
‘You’re right. It’s the unfunniest joke I’ve ever heard.’
‘I was never further from making jokes in my life. You don’t understand Spanish honour. Perhaps your race has no honour, but here it’s a deadly serious matter. The one who does the injury is the one who makes reparation. You have injured me, and it is you, and nobody else, who must make it right.’
‘I think you must have gone mad,’ she said coldly.
He nodded. ‘Maybe that’s it. My brain is whirling with so many terrible thoughts that perhaps I’ve gone mad. But beware my madness, Margarita, because it will brook no opposition. A madman isn’t civilised. A madman will do whatever he has to in order to gain his end.’
‘Then he’d better listen to some common sense,’ she flashed. ‘It’s not me who’s forgotten that this is Spain, but you-this is one of the most bureaucratic countries in the world. First we would have to apply to the authorities for permission, and that can take a month-’
‘I have friends who will see that it doesn’t.’
‘Oh, yes, your friends in high places. Will they also get my birth certificate from England, and translate it into Spanish, and my husband’s death certificate?’
‘That will be Alfonso’s job.’
‘It’s impossible in the time.’
‘He’ll leave for England first thing tomorrow morning.’
‘And so will I.’
He laid a hand on her arm. ‘No,’ he said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear. ‘You will stay here, because in ten days’ time, we are going to be married.’
She began to sense the force of his will. He spoke softly because his steely inflexibility left no need for noise. Sebastian had said what he wanted, and that was what he would have. Meeting his eyes, it was almost possible to believe that she would meekly do his will.
Almost. But she too had a core of strength deep within that would tolerate no surrender. It asserted itself now, making her throw him off.
‘We are not going to be married,’ she said clearly. ‘I’m sorry for what’s happened to you, but I think you brought it on yourself. We’ll never agree on this, and the sooner I’m gone the better. I’ll say goodbye now, because I’m going very early tomorrow, and we won’t see each other again.’
She half expected him to stop her, but he only stood in silence as she walked out of the room.
‘Are you really going to leave me?’ Catalina asked mournfully as she watched Maggie packing.
‘Now, you stop that! You’ve got your own way tonight, so don’t ask me to feel sorry for you.’
‘How have I got my own way? Sebastian says he won’t let me marry Jose.’
‘What did you expect him to say, after the way you dumped him?’ Maggie demanded. After having urged Catalina to just this course, she now found herself exasperated at the girl’s youthful egotism.
‘You wanted me to dump him.’
‘Not in front of nearly six hundred people. Why couldn’t you have spoken to him quietly?’
‘I lost my nerve. Anyway, I never meant to be found like that.’
No, Catalina would never mean anything, Maggie realised. Despite her fire and charm, she wasn’t a strong character. She would let things drift until they reached a crisis, but she wouldn’t voluntarily confront the crisis.
‘I suppose I needn’t ask where you went while I was having dress fittings?’ Maggie added.
‘I went to visit Jose. We loved each other from the moment you introduced us-’
‘All right, there’s no need to rub it in that I played a part in this. I suppose he really came up to Sol y Nieve to see you?’
‘Oh, yes, only then Sebastian was there, and we had to snatch a few moments of love under his nose.’
‘If you don’t stop seeing yourself as the heroine of a tragic romance, I shall get cross. Sebastian isn’t an ogre, even if he acts like one sometimes. You’re eighteen, legally of age. He can hardly stop you getting married.’
‘He controls my fortune until I’m twenty-one,’ Catalina said tragically.
‘Well, if Jose’s so worried about your fortune, you’re better off without him,’ Maggie said, speaking more sharply than Catalina had ever heard her before.
She had never felt so little charity towards the girl, who seemed to have no understanding of the earthquake she’d caused in Sebastian’s life. Despite his outrageous accusations and demands Maggie felt he was entitled to more sympathy than he was getting. He was certainly right about one thing. The world would laugh itself silly at his public humiliation.
Her packing was finished now. In a few hours she would be free of this place, its emotions and tensions that
