The Stand-In Bride

threatened to tear her apart. She switched off the light and stepped out onto the balcony. Down below she could see the lights, and their reflections in the water. After the turbulence of the evening, the place was silent and deserted.

No, not quite deserted. The man who sat by the water was so still that at first Maggie didn’t see him. He might have been made of stone, like the birds who flanked the pool. Once she’d discerned his outline she could see him clearly under the lights, a man who had lost his bride, honour, dignity and reputation in one night.

That was nonsense, she told herself. Other men had been jilted before without making a major tragedy of it. He didn’t even love Catalina, and much of it was his own fault.

But they were rationalisations, and they had no power to quell her twinge of sympathy. His attempt to coerce her into marriage had been disgraceful, but she should allow for the feelings of a man at the end of his tether. Impulsively Maggie left her room and went downstairs.

The ruins of the party were all around. She found two clean glasses, filled them with wine and went quietly out to the courtyard, moving so quietly that he didn’t hear her. For a moment she caught a glimpse of his face and what she saw made her catch her breath. All the arrogance had been stripped from it, leaving behind only a kind of desolation. It was as though he’d retreated into his own inner world, and found nobody there but himself.

And that was true, she thought. He had power, but no warmth. Respect, but no love. Now, perhaps, he didn’t even have respect.

He glanced up and saw her, giving her a slight frown of surprise. She held out a glass and he took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said with a touch of wryness. ‘How did you know that I needed this?’

‘I guessed.’ She smiled to let him know that all was forgiven.

‘Have you got one? Yes? Then what do we drink to? Your last evening?’

‘It’s for the best.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Well, you must admit, it was a mad idea.’

‘It seemed to have some merit at the time.’

‘It was the voice of desperation,’ she informed him. ‘But Don Sebastian de Santiago only listens to the voice of reason.’

‘Are you making fun of me?’ he asked in a strained voice.

She laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Of course, I should have listened to you in the first place. I admit it. Do you think it makes it any easier to know that I set myself up for this?’

‘No. It makes it far, far harder to bear,’ she said gently.

Suddenly they were in darkness. The lamps around the water had gone out. Sebastian gave a grunt.

‘They’re on a time-switch. I’d forgotten. Let’s go inside. You can go on talking reason to me. Maybe I’ll even come to believe it.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

MAGGIE had never been inside Sebastian’s study before tonight, and her first visit had been too crowded with incident to leave her time to observe anything. Now she saw that it was decorated in the same style as the rest of the building, but with dark, masculine colours. Although functional, it was beautiful. One wall was taken up by a huge, oriental rug, and a counterpane that exactly matched it lay over a large couch in the corner. Maggie remembered Catalina saying that sometimes Sebastian worked in this room all night, pausing to catnap briefly before returning to his desk.

On one wall hung two large portraits of men with sharp eyes and beaky noses. They were sufficiently like Sebastian for Maggie to guess that this was his father and grandfather.

He took a bottle of wine and two clean glasses from a cupboard, handing one to her. ‘Tonight I wish I could get very drunk,’ he said grimly. ‘I won’t, but the thought is tempting.’

‘Why won’t you?’

He shrugged. ‘I never do.’

‘Perhaps you should,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Stop being so much in control all the time. Drown your sorrows tonight, pass out on that couch and wake up with a hangover that will make you forget your other troubles. It might help you get it in proportion.’

He gave a faint smile. ‘You almost make me want to try. But I long ago resolved never to drink more than my capacity. My father’s brother was a drunkard. People laughed at him and imposed on him. He was the family fool and I-oh, God!-I swore that would never happen to me. And yet now-now!’ His voice was suddenly savage. ‘It was a really good night’s entertainment, wasn’t it? There was the groom, throwing open his home, showing off his bride to the neighbourhood, introducing her to friend and foe alike-because there were as many enemies as friends there tonight-so proud, just asking to be cast down and turned into a complete idiot. Oh, yes, let’s all have a good laugh at that!’

He rose and went to stand in front of the two portraits.

‘If anyone had treated my father so, he would have made them sorry they were born,’ he said bitterly. ‘If they’d done it to my grandfather, he would have killed them. But me, I have to behave as a modern man. I can only writhe at my shame.’

He turned to look back at her, watching him. ‘You don’t understand what I’m talking about, do you?’

‘A little. My grandfather came from these parts. There’s enough of him in me to know that this has to be felt deeply. But murder-’

‘It was never considered murder when a man avenged his honour. That’s what your cold English blood fails to understand, because you no longer know how to take the tie between men and women seriously. Off with the old, on with the new. People change their minds all the time. Find a new girl next week. That’s how you think in your country of mists and fogs.

‘But here, we know better. We know that the union of a man and a woman is the centre of life, and all else springs from it.’

‘But if the choice was mistaken in the first place,’ Maggie argued, ‘isn’t it better to pass on and make a new choice, rather than suffer for ever? You’re wrong when you say I don’t understand. But the choice must be good, so that the foundations are strong.’

He gave a grunt. ‘You have a clever way with words. You can always make me doubt my own wisdom.’

‘Which makes me a woman to avoid,’ she said lightly, and he flung her a suspicious glance. ‘Don’t brood about it, Sebastian. It’ll be a nine-day wonder. Then they’ll find something else to talk about.’

He drained his glass, and she took it from him to set down. Somehow her fingers became entwined with his. He looked at their clasped hands for a moment. ‘They’ll never quite forget to laugh at me,’ he murmured. ‘I’m too good a target.’

It was true. And he wouldn’t be able to cope, because nobody had ever dared to laugh at him before. Maggie felt a wave of pity for him. She had told herself that it was his own fault, but faced with his bleak self-knowledge she suddenly felt as though she had seen a lion brought low by jackals.

He gave her a crooked smile. ‘Why don’t you help me, Margarita? Rescue me with some of that English humour I’ve heard so much about.’

‘I don’t think English humour would be much use in this situation.’

‘Can’t you teach me to laugh at myself?’

‘Could anyone do that?’ she asked gently.

‘I don’t really have a sense of humour at all, do I?’

‘I’ve thought sometimes that there was one fighting to get out, but it isn’t a large part of you, no. And tonight-well-you’d have to be a saint.’

‘I’m no saint, just a man who wants to lash out at those who hurt him, and use force to make the world do his will. But the world turns out to be one silly little girl, and a boy with a pretty face.’

‘And you can’t murder them,’ she said gently. ‘It would be overreacting.’

He managed a half-smile. ‘When English humour doesn’t work, English common sense. What dull lives you must