Page 99 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

‘I was visiting a compadre in the next valley.’ He nodded. ‘We like to get together once a week to—compare flocks. But I was sorry to be out when you called.’

Pleasantries over, it was a bit difficult to know where to go from there. so she covered her own feeling of awkwardness by inviting him to sit down. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she offered. ‘Tea, coffee—or something cooler, perhaps?’

But he shook his white head and with a slight wave of one beautifully slender hand invited her to sit before he would allow himself to do so.

‘You liked our little church?’ he enquired when they had both settled into Louis the Fifteenth chairs still wearing their original upholstery.

Caroline smiled. ‘It’s the prettiest church I’ve ever set foot in,’ she answered honestly. ‘But then this whole valley is the prettiest I’ve ever stepped foot in,’ she added with a warm twinkle in her eyes.

‘But very isolated,’ the father pointed out.

‘Part of its charm,’ Caroline immediately defended, with that same teasing twinkle.

‘And also very—Catholic…’

Ah, she thought, losing the twinkle. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ she asked. ‘Luiz and I marrying in your church with me not being a Roman Catholic, I mean?’ she went on, thinking silently—where are you Luiz? You should have seen this problem arising!

In his neat black robe with its round white collar the father eyed her thoughtfully from his thin, wise face. ‘Is it a problem for you?’ he countered eventually.

‘Only if you expect me to make a sudden conversion,’ she answered candidly.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not expect that sacrifice of you—as I would hope your English church would not expect the same thing of Luiz if the situation were reversed. See, we are emancipated here.’ He smiled then. ‘Even in our sleepy little valley.’

‘But there is a problem?’ Caroline prompted shrewdly. It was written in his thoughtful stare.

‘The problem is more one of—sincerity than religion,’ he murmured slowly, and when Caroline began to frown in confusion he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Let me be blunt, Miss Newbury,’ he said. ‘It has come to my attention that you and Don Luiz are intending to exchange sacred vows with each other which may not be exactly truthful, and indeed are merely a means to a rather sinister end…’

Sinister? Caroline picked up on the word and pondered it frowningly, suddenly very wary as to where the priest was going with this. ‘Are you trying to suggest that every marriage in your church has been a perfect love-match?’ she questioned, aware that if any culture was known for arranging loveless marriages, then surely Spain had to be it!

‘In this particular case, it is only your marriage to Don Luiz that I am concerned with,’ the priest replied smoothly. ‘You met for the first time only five days ago, I have been led to believe. Within hours of that meeting Don Luiz was announcing your intention to marry and your own father was collapsing due to the shock. It has also been suggested that your father is in debt to Don Luiz for a rather large amount of money which may well be the motive behind this—arrangement.’

‘Suggested by whom?’ Even as the full weight of his words came as a bit of a blow Caroline’s hackles were rising—and it showed in the sudden glint in her amethyst eyes.

‘The source of my information is not really important,’ he dismissed with a wave of one slender hand. ‘My concern here is really for you, señorita,’ he explained. ‘I came here today with serious concerns that you were being—coerced into the marriage for reasons beyond your control.’

‘Are you trying to tell me, that you are refusing to marry Luiz and I?’ she challenged, coming stiffly to her feet. She simply had not been expecting him to question their sincerity like this.

Inherent good manners made him rise to his feet also. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘Don Luiz is the new conde here in this valley. If he tells me to marry him to a lady gagged and chained to his side, then I marry them.’ He shrugged, adding with a wry smile, ‘There, the old ways are not quite dead, heh?’ And now it was his turn to flick her a twinkling smile.

But Caroline was in no mood to twinkle back at him. ‘Then let me put your mind at rest,’ she said coolly. ‘Your information is wrong,’ she declared. ‘Luiz and I have known each other for seven years. We have been lovers for seven years.’ Which was not quite a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth. But in this situation it served her purpose very nicely to make that point.

Surprised though the priest undoubtedly was by her correction, it didn’t faze him. ‘But have you loved Don Luiz for seven years?’ he threw right back.

Love? Caroline repeated to herself, and smiled a half-smile that was more rueful than cynical, though she had a feeling it should have been the other way round. ‘I’ve always loved Luiz,’ she responded dryly. ‘But if you are going to ask me if he feels the same way about me,’ she added, ‘then please don’t.’

‘Then of course I will not,’ he instantly conceded, and with eyes which conveyed a gentle apology for making her feel compelled to add that final remark, he gently touched one of Caroline’s hands. ‘Forgive my intrusion into what you clearly feel is your private business. But I had to be sure that you cared for Don Luiz before I could carry out his father’s last wish.’

His father’s last wish? Her eyes grew curious, but the priest had already turned away and was walking across the room to where a rather bulky attaché case she hadn’t noticed before lay on a table by the door.

‘I am now going to place something into your care señorita,’ he explained, ‘that I must make you promise to guard with your life and show to no one…’

For some obscure reason, watching him open the attaché case as he spoke those words made her feel suddenly afraid. ‘If it’s something that will hurt Luiz, then you can keep it,’ she told him.

‘I commend your desire to protect him,’ he replied, turning with what looked like several thin ledgers in his hands. ‘And—yes—these will hurt Don Luiz if he ever sees them. He is, of course, the one exception to the promise I am about to make you swear. Can you read Spanish as well as you speak it?’ he asked suddenly.

Caroline nodded. She had spent most of her summers since she was a small child right here in Spain, and that meant that Spanish had become her second language.

‘Then, having read these—’ he indicated the ledgers ‘—I will leave it to your discretion to decide whether you think he needs to know all that has been written in here…’

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