you?’
‘I don’t know what I know,’ she whispered, ‘except that you’re the last man in the world I ought to marry-if I had any sense.’
‘Are you a sensible woman?’
‘I try to be.’ She gave a little gasp of laughter. ‘Sometimes it’s hard.’
‘And I’m a man of no sense at all,’ he growled. ‘Because if I had, I’d throw you out of my house as a man would throw a fiend who’d come to torment him.’
She made a slight movement and instantly the arm tightened about her shoulders, drawing her over him again. ‘But all my sense seems to have deserted me,’ he growled. ‘I’m going to keep my fiend here to torment me, in defiance of all sanity.’
‘And if she has other ideas?’
He grinned. ‘She has nothing to say about it.’
‘You’re forgetting that I heard you say some pretty damning things about what made a good husband. “Keep her happy in bed and the rest will follow.” But that’s not good enough for me. I want fidelity, and I think you’d find that hard.’
He eyed her sardonically. ‘It might have been hard with Catalina, but not with you. No other woman, I swear it. Do we have a deal?’
She smiled. ‘I guess we have a deal.’
She let her head fall until it rested against his chest. She could hear the soft thunder of his heart and knew that it matched her own. The lines of their bodies fitted well together, and she knew now that together they had a magic that could take them to the brink of ecstasy and beyond. It would be so easy simply to let herself be carried forward by his inevitable momentum.
But it wasn’t enough. She knew that, even while she prepared to surrender to it. If only her mind would take command, instead of being in thrall to her treacherous senses. It couldn’t, because deep down she didn’t really want it too, but as she lay there, pillowed on his chest, she knew that she’d made a terribly dangerous decision, one that she might regret, but couldn’t go back on.
Sebastian had predicted no trouble about getting the necessary documents, and sure enough Alfonso visited her next day, saying that he was just about to leave for the airport, and needed her instructions. Maggie explained the confusion over her name, and gave him the dates of her birth and her husband’s death.
Slightly to her surprise, he shrugged aside any thought that this might cause problems. But of course, Alfonso was thrilled at the developments. He no longer had to endure the sight of Catalina marrying his employer. True, she’d now set her heart on Jose, but while Sebastian was forbidding that match, Alfonso could hope. And if Sebastian planned to marry Maggie, Alfonso would make sure that all problems were ironed out.
There were a million matters to be seen to before her wedding, such a short time away. First Catalina must be told, and Maggie was dreading this job. For surely the girl would now divine the truth about the attraction that had smouldered between herself and Sebastian from the first moment, and feel betrayed?
But Catalina astonished her by exploding with laughter. ‘You and Sebastian?’ she shrieked. ‘Oh, Maggie! Maggie!’
‘I know it must seem a bit sudden-’ she began awkwardly.
‘Oh, but I understand. I know everything,’ Catalina gasped.
‘You-do?’
‘You are doing it for me. OK, perhaps a little bit for yourself, because it’s good for you to have “an establishment” of your own, and you must be thinking of these things.’
Maggie remembered how Catalina had dismissed Sebastian as ‘old’, and realised that she herself now ranked in the same category: a widow who had to be thinking of her future because time was rushing on. She concealed a smile.
‘You are such a good friend,’ Catalina said eagerly. ‘And you will speak to Sebastian about my wedding to Jose?’
‘One thing at a time. Let the dust settle before you say anything about that.’
‘But I must marry Jose,’ Catalina pouted. ‘I love him desperately, passionately.’
It was a child talking. Catalina still hadn’t discovered true passion, and her only desperation was to have her own way. She proved it the next moment when her face fell and she said, ‘Oh, but now I don’t get to go to New York.’
Maggie nearly tore her hair. ‘Since that was to be your honeymoon, I should think not.’
‘Perhaps I could go anyway, if-’
‘Forget it,’ Maggie said wryly. ‘I get New York as a consolation prize for taking Sebastian off your hands.’
‘You are right,’ Catalina agreed. ‘You will suffer enough.’
She plunged eagerly into helping with the wedding, especially the making of a new dress. Together they visited Senora Diego and selected a roll of pale cream satin, which Maggie felt was more suitable to her widowed status than white.
Senora Diego pulled in all her seamstresses who had it ready for a fitting in a day. The satin had a special weave that made it extremely heavy, trailing slowly as Maggie walked in a way that spoke of grandeur and magnificence, an effect that was greatly increased by the matching lace with which it was heavily trimmed. When Maggie ventured to demur at the spiralling cost, Catalina was scandalised.
‘Do you want people to say I helped choose you a dress that wasn’t as nice as my own? And you must also have clothes to wear for your honeymoon, so why don’t you try on something else while I-?’
‘Slip round the corner to see Jose,’ Maggie finished. ‘I’ve got a better idea. While I try on other clothes, you stay right here and give me your opinion.’
‘You have no heart,’ Catalina said mournfully.
Then a crisis blew up on one of Sebastian’s distant estates. Anxious to get it dealt with before the wedding, he announced that he was leaving for a few days.
‘Now’s your chance to escape,’ Maggie teased him. ‘A man who was regretting a rash proposal could use this opportunity to vanish into the mists.’
‘If it comes to that, this is
‘I’ve given my word.’
‘And so have I.’ He brushed a finger against her cheek. ‘I think neither of us is going to seek escape.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SEBASTIAN was due home two days before the wedding. As the time neared, Maggie found she was anticipating him with an urgency that made her blush. She didn’t know whether she loved this man, but she knew that they were bound together by a mysterious power. She’d promised herself that this would never happen again, but she had no regrets. Her feelings could flare into love, perhaps soon. If only…
If only he would let them.
For she knew that something was still unsettled between them, would not be settled for a long time-if ever. She had yet to penetrate the dark secret of the man. She knew his pride, and had glimpsed his gentleness. To the world he showed his strength, but she wanted to know his weaknesses. When he let her see them, she would know that he trusted her.
By the same token, she thought with a little smile, when she showed him her own weakness, she would know that she trusted him.
On the day he was expected a storm blew up. Rain and lightning lashed the house and hadn’t abated by the evening. At bedtime there was still no sign of Sebastian. Maggie wished she could sleep, but the wind howled and raged with a violence she’d never heard before. She wondered where he was now: probably stopped somewhere for the night rather than risk the remainder of the journey in this weather.
Suddenly a door banged. It sounded loud, as though it had come from the corridor outside her room. She sat up
