The Stand-In Bride

‘suitable’ smile. To Sebastian’s suspicious eyes, it seemed less adoring than predatory, but he knew better than to voice this thought.

The past was still a threatening shadow, but he knew that Maggie had somehow come to terms with it, and he wouldn’t risk disturbing that delicate equilibrium. So he retrieved the picture and handed it to her, smiling to hide his jealousy.

‘I thought I’d destroyed them all,’ she said.

‘There’s no need to destroy it because of me,’ he said, longing for her to do so.

He thought for a moment that she would, but then she gave a tense smile and slipped the picture away in a drawer.

‘You still feel guilty?’ he asked.

‘Only because I have so much. It seems dreadful to be happy when he’s dead.’

‘Are you really?’ he asked with a touch of wistfulness.

‘You know I am.’

‘I know only of the joy you give to me,’ he said, dropping to one knee and laying his hand over her swelling. ‘I wish there was some gift I could give you in return.’

‘But you give me everything.’

‘I don’t mean that kind of gift. I mean peace of mind-the freedom to be happy-’

‘The freedom to be happy,’ she echoed longingly. ‘Does anybody have that?’

‘I have it-or rather, I would, if you had it too. I wish-’ He stopped and sighed. ‘But what can I do?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, understanding him. ‘We must treasure what we have, and not ask for more.’

He couldn’t find the words to say that this couldn’t be enough for him. Somehow, somewhere, there was a gift of love he could make her, and if he watched for the chance, it would surely come. If only, he thought, it didn’t take too long.

Yet when the moment did arrive, he almost missed it.

Catalina was passionately interested in Maggie’s pregnancy. She read baby books, she studied diets, she argued about names, and grew closer to Isabella who was similarly absorbed. Sebastian, noting these changes, observed that it was time she married.

‘Then you’d better ease up about Jose,’ Maggie observed as Sebastian gave her his arm to cross the short distance to their bed.

‘I have. I allow him to haunt the house like a sick donkey. She goes out with him, always returns home later than she promised, and I turn a blind eye. And today I told her that if she wished to become betrothed I could probably put up with it.’

Maggie chuckled as he settled her pillows. ‘Done with all your grace and charm, in fact.’

‘Well, I told you,’ he growled, ‘I don’t like it, and I’m damned if I’m going to pretend that I do.’

The following evening Catalina had dinner in town with Jose. When she returned she went straight to Sebastian’s study. He looked up, surprised to see her alone. ‘Where is Jose?’

‘He didn’t want to come in.’

Something constrained in her manner made him frown. ‘But isn’t this a night for celebration? Didn’t you get engaged? Catalina, what has happened?’ For the girl shrugged and looked awkward.

‘I’m not sure-that is-we don’t know each other so well.’

‘After all this time? Besides, I thought you were determined to marry him.’

‘That was when you were saying no,’ Catalina said in a burst of honesty.

Sebastian grinned. ‘I see. Now I’ve said yes, it becomes a boring, conventional courtship, without the spice of drama.’

‘The world is full of handsome young men,’ Catalina said dreamily. ‘I’ve told Jose that I will still see him, but we can’t be engaged, and I consider myself free to see other men.’

‘You’ve what?’

‘Alfonso is very nice.’

‘Alfonso is a damned sight too good for you.’

Catalina giggled. ‘He doesn’t think so. He says I’m so far above him that he dare not hope-but I told him no man should give up hope.’

‘Spare me the details. So you plan to keep them both on tenterhooks. I begin to pity Jose. I was thinking of you as his victim, but in fact he is yours. Was he very upset?’

Catalina shrugged. ‘I may marry him one day-if I don’t marry Alfonso-but I want some fun first.’ Then her smile faded and she looked uneasy.

‘Is something else the matter?’ Sebastian asked.

‘Jose gave me this,’ she said, producing an envelope from her bag. ‘For Maggie.’

Frowning, he took the envelope. It bore no name, and was sealed. ‘Did he tell you what’s in it?’ he asked.

‘Only that it’s a letter, from Roderigo. He’s had it for years, and now he wants her to see it. He says he should have given it to her long ago, but she was so bitter and unhappy that he feared it would make things worse. Oh Sebastian, don’t you see what that means? Roderigo must have written this in prison, while he was dying, and entrusted it to Jose. It’s his last letter to her. Let me burn it.’

‘What?’

‘What good can it do her to read it now? You can guess what it says, can’t you?’

‘Doubtless he repeats his protestations of innocence,’ Sebastian said wearily. ‘Which we now know are true.’

‘But suppose it’s worse than that. Suppose he says he loves her? That’s just the sort of tricky thing he’d do to spoil everything for her. Maggie is yours, now, but if she reads this-’

Then her husband’s last declaration of love, made from his deathbed, would reconcile her to his memory with a completeness and finality that could shut out Sebastian again. He knew the bitter truth.

How much better, then, to do as Catalina said? It could only increase Maggie’s grief, while doing no practical good. To destroy it would help him keep her heart for himself, and her heart was the only thing in the world that mattered to him now. He turned away from Catalina’s shrewd eyes and went to stand by the window, racked with temptation.

‘Why do you hesitate?’ Catalina demanded. ‘Burn it, now-for both your sakes.’

‘For my sake? Perhaps she needs to see this.’

‘But what good could that do-now that it’s too late?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said heavily. ‘I only know that not to give it to her would be dishonest. And if two people don’t have honesty between them, they have nothing.’

‘Is this you talking, Sebastian? I’ve heard you say that sometimes a man must deceive a woman a little, for her own good.’

‘Did I say that? Well, perhaps-a long time ago, in another life.’

‘So what am I to do?’

‘Leave this with me. And, for the moment, say nothing to Margarita.’

When Catalina had gone Sebastian stared at the blank, unrevealing envelope. Now his own fine words rose up to mock him. Honesty, yes, but at what price? The price of seeing Roderigo Alva’s memory vindicated in the heart of the woman who had loved him-perhaps, still did?

His life had been built on fine-sounding principles-honesty, duty, honour. Suddenly they were impossibly hard, demanding an act that could tear the heart out of him. But if it could ease her suffering and bring her peace-what right did he have to deny her that?

Once he had thought it would be so easy to love. A man loved a woman; she loved him. What more was there?

Now he saw that love could devastate a man, and give him nothing in return but the knowledge that he had sacrificed himself for a woman, and that she neither knew nor cared. Should anyone be asked to pay such a price?

He took up the envelope, turning it this way and that between his fingers, wishing he knew what was inside. At last he rose and went to the fireplace. Summer had come, but in the foothills it was still sometimes chilly at night, and a few logs glowed. He stood for a long time, staring into the flickering light. Then, slowly, he held out the letter to the flames.