The Last Illusion. Diana Hamilton
from Pilar, Teresa or Francisca—whoever could spare her the time.
She hadn’t told Sebastian she was learning his language; that was to be her big surprise. Olivia was able to converse fluently—a necessity, she had once told Charley, her manner vaguely patronising. For although Cadiz had a longer history than any other city in the Western world it didn’t turn itself inside out to attract foreign tourists. Cadiz stayed exactly as it was because that was the way the Gaditanos wanted it, and very few people spoke English. If you wanted to become accepted, do business with them, or socialise, then speaking the language was essential. The Gaditanos were full of defiant independence.
So Charley had beavered away, and as soon as she had been confident enough she had taken the conversational initiative over the dinner-table, sure that her achievement would be applauded, taken as a compliment, by her very own defiantly independent Gaditano.
But she hadn’t properly thought it out. If she had done, she would have waited until Olivia was back in England, stamping around in her role of manager of the UK branch of the Machado import-export company. Because Olivia had raised one perfectly arched brow, her smile slightly withering as she’d commented, ‘Well done. But what a deplorable accent! Who taught you? A gitano?’
Sternly ignoring the sudden ache in the region of her heart, Charley pushed the exquisite clothes as far as she could along the hanging rail to make room for the few bits and pieces she’d brought with her.
This room was having a bad effect on her, bringing back floods of unwanted memories. She was going to have to do something about it.
Beginning with getting rid of all those clothes. If Teresa didn’t know someone who could make use of them, then Pilar or Francisca would. She wouldn’t be using them herself. No way. Besides, she thought with a heartening quirk of her lips, nothing would fit.
Getting her act together wasn’t so difficult, was it? she chided herself. It was an easy matter to push all those unpleasant memories aside. As long as she kept reminding herself that she wasn’t the same person she’d been all those years ago she would manage just fine.
But, coming out of the adjoining bathroom after a refreshing shower, coming face to face with Sebastian, she wasn’t so sure.
A mixture of shock and outrage, coupled with something she couldn’t define, had her frozen, her hands above her head as she rough-dried her hair, her fingers turning to stone in the fluffy folds of the towel she was using. Then the sultry slide of his black eyes released her locked muscles and she whipped the towel down, covering her nakedness.
The gall of the man! The utter, utter gall! Oh, how dared he...?
His eyes swept up to meet her own, and the look in the burning depths made hot colour sweep over every last inch of her skin. She hadn’t blushed for years—not since she had taken charge of her own life—and the fact that this ogre had the power to do that to her made her very angry indeed. And her voice was harsh as she hurled at him, ‘Get out of my room, damn you!’
‘You were not always so unwelcoming, Charlotte.’
The velvet, sexily accented softness of his voice, the way he said her name, his despicable reminder of the way she had been, confused her emotions, jumbling them up until she didn’t know whether she was on her head or her heels, and through that turmoil grew the need to retaliate, to hurt him as he had hurt her. And her voice was thin and acidic, and she clutched the towel against her until her knuckles gleamed whitely, telling him, ‘I didn’t welcome you. I just put up with you. There is a difference.’
‘Mentiras!’ The lithe, powerful body stiffened immediately, his jawline taut with cold aggression as he accused her of lying. He could accuse her, but he could never be sure. The thought was a triumph in itself. She was learning lessons from him and learning them fast. Before she lost the stimulus she manufactured a look of total uninterest and told him coolly, ‘As it’s all well in the past, the subject’s academic, wouldn’t you say?’ She shrugged, taking care not to dislodge the towel by so much as a millimetre. ‘Anyway, what was it you wanted?’
‘Simply to tell you that Teresa will serve dinner in fifteen minutes.’ His voice would have frozen a raging inferno, and the cold breath of his anger touched her, raising goose-bumps. Merely a reaction to the high she’d been on, she told herself, and nothing at all to do with the way he looked.
As if he would like to kill her but wouldn’t demean himself by touching her.
For the first time she noted he was already dressed for dinner, in sleekly fitting black trousers, oyster silk shirt and a superbly cut, colour-toned lightweight dinner-jacket. He was, as ever, spectacular, the icy anger of his wounded Andalucían pride giving a diamond-hard brilliance to his brooding dark male beauty.
It wasn’t outward appearances that counted, she reminded herself, looking quickly away from him, because the merest glimpse of him had always sent her senses haywire. It was what was on the inside that mattered, and inside Sebastian Machado was as rotten as a hundred-year-old egg!
‘You’ve changed your habits,’ she remarked, doing her best to sound offhand, not willing to let him know that being in the same room with him threw up the kind of emotions that were definitely bad for her health. ‘Dinner was never served before ten, and it was more often nearer eleven before we sat down to eat. And I’m not very hungry, anyway.’
‘Hungry or not, you will eat.’ His black eyes glittered into the topaz defiance of hers. ‘The meal was brought forward because you have been travelling for the best part of the day. You must be tired.’
‘How thoughtful!’ Charley made it sound like a sneer. ‘Another change. Thoughtfulness was never one of your strong points, as I recall.’ She would have stalked back into the bathroom, if she’d had the nerve. But she wasn’t too sure about the security of the towel, and she wasn’t at all sure that he wouldn’t stalk right after her and drag her back. No one left the presence unless expressly commanded to do so.
But he merely reiterated, ‘Fifteen minutes,’ and walked out of the room as if he couldn’t bear to be near her for one more moment. And that makes two of us! Charley fulminated, her face going white with temper as she snatched up the skirt and blouse she had put out earlier.
Fully dressed, she didn’t look as if she were about to light any fires. But then that wasn’t the object, was it? And if the features that stared back at her from the mirror were strained and pinched, could it be wondered at?
A heavier hand than normal with the make-up she’d brought with her didn’t make her feel any better, but banished the wrung-out-old-dishcloth look. Got to keep my end up, she rallied herself as she left her room. And so far she was doing fine. If she was keeping score she would give six to one and half a dozen to the other!
Rooting around a bit, she discovered a lavishly arranged table in the smaller, more intimate of the three courtyards that bounded the graceful fortress of the house. In the centre, one of the fountains for which the house was named permeated the soft darkness with the song of water. The Moors, coming from dry lands, had deeply appreciated the gift of water; it refreshed the eyes and ears as much as it refreshed a parched throat. And here, as in many parts of the province, the Moorish influence was strong.
And the night was richly perfumed, an evocative mixture of roses, lilies, rosemary and oleander that went straight to her head, more intoxicating than wine. And added to the music of the water was the rustle of palms from the gardens beyond, and lamps in iron brackets cast a glimmering, magical light, enhancing the quality of soft mystery—merely hinting, never revealing, giving a glimpse of the curving purity of a white rose, heavy with fragrance, drawing a gauzy veil over the half-seen line of a piece of marble statuary...
Charley caught her thoughts and slapped them roughly down. Once, years ago, she would have nearly gone out of her tiny mind at the thought of dining alone with her idolised Sebastian in such a romantic setting. She would happily have licked his boots in adoring gratitude.
But not any more. And when he stepped out from the arcaded shadows she put the wave of pain that tore through her down