Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride

The name of the small province in a remote corner of Eastern Europe had become synonymous with despair and violence in the course of a decade-long war, the original purpose of which no one could remember any more. Power rested in the bloodstained hands of a corrupt military government and a few drugs barons, who quashed any sign of civil unrest quickly and ruthlessly. Reports had filtered through in the last week of a whole village being laid to waste.

‘You could say that.’ A door in Tristan’s mind swung open, letting the images flood back into his head for a moment before he mentally slammed it shut again. ‘One of our drivers was caught up in it. His family were killed—everyone apart from his sister, who’s pregnant.’ His mouth quirked into a bitter smile. ‘It seems that the military were keen to make use of the brand new cache of weaponry they have courtesy of funds from the Romero bank.’

Pausing at the entrance to the marquee, Tom laid a hand on his arm.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine,’ he said tersely. ‘You know me. I don’t get involved in the humanitarian side. I’m just there to help out with practicalities. Redress the balance.’

He didn’t meet Tom’s eyes as he spoke, looking instead over his shoulder and into the distance, where the lake lay in its hollow of shadows, the tower in the centre wreathed in mist. A muscle flickered in his jaw.

‘Anything I can do?’ Tom said quietly.

Tristan flashed a brief, ironic smile as they moved into the damp, alcohol-scented warmth of the marquee. ‘I haven’t been seen anywhere for a while, so I could do with giving the press their pound of flesh. If any word got out tying me to activities over there it would be a security nightmare.’

Tom’s smile didn’t waver as he shouldered his way through to the bar, nodding a welcome to his guests. Speaking quietly, he said, ‘That’s easily arranged. The usual tame photographers are here, the society event ones who have progressed slightly further up the evolutionary scale from the paparazzi, but if you pick someone high profile and enjoy a little bit of public affection, I’m sure they’ll regress into mindless savages who’ll sell your picture to every glossy magazine and sleazy gossip rag by Monday morning.’ He took two glasses from the tray on the bar and handed one to Tristan. ‘Cheers, old chap. So—who’s it going to be?’

‘Lily.’ Tristan tossed back the dark coloured liquid in the shot glass, feeling it burning a path down his throat as he watched Tom’s open face fall. He was gauging his reaction before admitting what had already happened. It wasn’t positive.

‘No. No way. Not a good idea.’

‘Why not? She’s high profile.’ And beautiful, there was no doubt about that. Even Tristan, tired and jaded, had been jolted by it, which had surprised him. It was more than that, though. For a moment back there when she was in his arms he had found himself looking into her slanting, silvery grey eyes and felt almost…

Almost human?

‘She’s also Scarlet’s best friend,’ Tom said firmly. ‘You screw her up—which let’s face it, you certainly will—and you screw things up for me.’

‘Why would I screw her up?’ Tristan picked up another shot glass and looked restlessly around. ‘She’s a model, Tom; hard as nails and, judging from what I just saw, not really all there. She’ll end up with something shiny and expensive from Cartier, and a whole raft of publicity, and I’ll feed the press appetite to portray me as a pointless playboy and throw them off the scent. Everyone’s happy.’

Tom looked worried. ‘I don’t think she’s like that.’

‘You’re too nice, Tom, my friend,’ Tristan said grimly, draining his glass. ‘They’re all like that.’

CHAPTER TWO

AS TWILIGHT fell it brought with it a kind of enchantment. Paper lanterns glowed palely in the trees and the scattering of diamond stars that glittered in the purple heavens looked as if they’d been placed there purely for the delight of the guests.

Lily wouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing was impossible here tonight.

Earlier, as waiters had circulated with cool green cocktails that tasted of melons and champagne, masked girls dressed as dryads and wood nymphs had appeared from the shadowy trees that fringed the lawn on white horses, with delicate, spiralling unicorn’s horns on their foreheads. To the haunting strains of a full orchestra headed by a stunning girl playing an electric violin they had performed a display of equestrian dance, weaving around each other, making the horses rear and pirouette, until Lily wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. Once, through the writhing, stamping figures of the unicorns, she found herself staring straight into the eyes of Tristan, standing opposite, his shirt half unbuttoned and his arm around a well-known young Hollywood actress dressed as Pocahontas. A shock, like a small electrocution, sizzled through her.

The next time she looked he was gone.

She had hardly touched her cocktail. She didn’t need to. Already she felt heavy and languid with tiredness, but beneath that there was an edge of restlessness, a throbbing pulse of desire and impatience and wild longing that alcohol would only exacerbate. The riding display finished and the unicorns melted back into the darkness that had gathered beneath the trees. Lily turned to say something to Scarlet, but she had moved away slightly and was standing with Tom. His arms were looped around her waist and as Lily watched he pulled her into him and spoke into her ear.

Lily felt a beat of pain, of anguish, deep inside her chest and turned away.

She and Scarlet had been a team for so long. All through school at a fairly rough comprehensive in Brighton it had been the two of them—united by both being tall, skinny and teased for it—until the day when Maggie Mason had spotted them shopping together in The Lanes and invited them both up to London for an interview at her famous modelling agency. Lily had been so set on going to university, if it hadn’t been for Scarlet there was no way she would have even taken Maggie’s card. But they had been in it together, two halves of the same whole—as different as it was possible to be. But always together.

Which was, she told herself firmly, why she was so pleased for Scarlet. Tom was lovely, and when she thought of some of the unsuitable men that her friend could have fallen in love with…

Tristan Romero de Losada Montalvo, for example.

The violinist was playing solo now, a gentle, haunting melody that echoed across the mist-shrouded fields and gentle hills enfolding the castle. Another horse cantered into the ring, this time with the most fantastic pair of wings attached to its saddle. A murmur of delight ran around the crowd, which quickly turned to a gasp of surprise as the scantily clad girl rider opened the lid of the basket she carried.

There was a flurry of feathers, a whispered beat of wings and a flock of white doves spiralled upwards into the sky. In the smudged violet light their wings were almost luminescent. For a moment they seemed to hang motionless in the air, as if uncertain what to do with their unexpected freedom, and out of the corner of her eye Lily caught a movement in the crowd opposite. She turned her head, and was just in time to see a man in a Robin Hood costume raise his bow and arrow and take a shot.

A macho jeer went up from the group around him as one of the doves faltered, losing height for a minute in a ragged tumble of feathers. Lily could see the arrow, hanging tenuously from the bird’s side, seeming to drag it downwards. Miraculously the bird didn’t fall but, with an odd, lopsided flapping, flew down towards the lake.

Rage exploded inside her. The display was over and the crowd began to drift away towards the next entertainment, but Lily began to run, down the sloping lawn to the water. The grass was cool and damp beneath her bare feet and as she got near the lake the ground grew softer. Heart hammering, she pushed her way through the thick tangle of undergrowth and looked around, across the glassy surface of the water to the island in its centre.

The ruined walls of the stone tower were dark against the faded lilac sky behind, but in the stillness she could hear the agitated beating of wings. Doves rose from the broken ramparts at the top, and she strained her eyes into the gloom to see if the injured one was amongst them. What if the arrow was still there, lodged in the bird’s flesh?

Her eyes stung and frustration drummed in her head as she peered up into the nebulous sky, but it was impossible to make anything out clearly. With a gasp of exasperation she was just about to turn back when she noticed a wooden walkway at the back of the tower leading across the stretch of water to the island. Hurrying round, she felt the brambles snag at the hem of her dress and the damp grass cling to her legs. The walkway was narrow, the boards old and very smooth, but stepping tentatively onto them Lily could feel that it was sturdily made.

From across the lawn she could hear more yells of hilarity above the bass beat of the music as the party escalated, which only strengthened her resolve and refuelled her fury. The sound of the doves at the top of the tower was a soft murmur, but it was comforting as she stepped onto the dark island.

In spite of the warmth of the evening she shivered. Everything was inky, insubstantial; layers of grey that melted into each other until it was impossible to say what was real and what was shadow. The air was heavy with the scent of roses and through the indigo dusk Lily could see their pale globes clustered around a small door in the tower.

Her heart was knocking so violently against her ribs that she could feel it shaking her whole body as she went towards the door. Hesitantly, almost hoping that it would be locked, she put her hand against the blistered wood.

It sprang open, without her even pushing. Lily gasped; a sharp indrawn breath of pure fear as a figure appeared in the doorway, white shirt ghostly in the opaque light. She leapt backwards, pressing her hand to her mouth, choking with fear as the man reached out and caught her, pulling her back towards him.

‘Helen of Troy.’ The voice was very deep, very scathing, very Spanish. He gave her a little shake. ‘You followed me, I suppose?’

Lily’s heart was almost beating out of her chest, but the arrogance of his words penetrated her shocked haze. ‘No! I came to look for a bird…an injured dove. Some…idiot with a bow and arrow took a shot at it when they were released and it flew in this direction. When I came to look for it I saw that they’d flown up to the roof of the tower, but I didn’t know that you were here—’ She stopped suddenly, as the most likely explanation for Tristan Romero to be discovered on a secluded island in the middle of a party popped into her horrified mind, and then tried to take a hasty step backwards. ‘Sorry. I’ll go.’

His hand tightened around her arm. ‘No. Don’t let me stop your mission of mercy,’ he drawled. ‘There’s a dovecote on the roof. Go up and look for it.’

She hesitated, remembering the Pocahontas girl. ‘Are you here alone?’

‘Yes.’ Against his white shirt his skin looked very dark, and the hollows beneath his hard cheekbones were inky. Apart from that it was impossible to see his face in any detail, but his voice was like sandpaper and when he laughed there was no humour in it. ‘I take it Tom’s warned you off. Perhaps you’d prefer to come back with a chaperone?’

His fingers were still circling her wrist. She could feel her rapid pulse beating against his thumb. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, with a brave attempt at scorn. ‘I just didn’t want to interrupt anything, that’s all. Now, if you’d like to tell me where to go?’

He let go of her, stepping back into the shadows with a sweep of his arm. ‘Up to the top of the stairs.’

Inside the tower the air was chill and damp. A stone staircase spiralled above them, and Lily’s bare feet made no sound on the ice cold stone as she began to climb up. The staircase opened onto a small landing halfway up, where a narrow, arrow-slit window spilled soft light onto a closed door. Lily stopped outside the door, but Tristan walked past her, leading the way up another twisting staircase.

At the top he pushed open another door and stood back to let her through first. Lily stepped out and turned around slowly, letting out a low exhalation of awe as she did so.

From below it looked as if the tower were half ruined, the stone walls crumbling and uneven, but now she could see that this was a deliberate illusion. The platform she now stood on was paved with smooth stone flags, and all around the insides of the thick stone walls that looked so dilapidated from the other side of the lake were recessed ledges where birds could nest. But this hardly made an impression. It was the view that stole her breath. Over the lowest part of the wall she could see the pink stained sky beyond the trees that fringed the far side of the lake. At the front of the tower the wall was higher, but a narrow gothic-style arched window framed a view over the lake to the gardens and the castle and the fields beyond, making it possible to look out without being observed. Lily walked over to it.

‘It’s amazing. I thought this was a ruin; an empty shell.’

‘That’s the idea,’ said Tristan from the doorway. ‘It was commissioned by one of Tom’s more inventive ancestors, and intended to appear decorative but functionless. In reality it’s an incredibly cleverly designed gambling den. Where you’re standing now is a lookout post, so that anyone approaching could be seen long before they had any chance of getting here.’

Lily shook her head and laughed softly, tilting her head back and looking up at the violet velvet sky, feeling suddenly light and breathless. Tristan levered himself away from the low door-frame where he’d been leaning, and came slowly towards her.

Her pulse quickened, and she felt the laughter die on her lips as electricity crackled through her. In the hazy half-light his eyes were dark blue, his face grave, and she sensed again that weary despair she had glimpsed in him earlier. Suddenly she found it impossible to reconcile this achingly beautiful man who wore sadness like an invisible cloak with the sybaritic playboy whose libertine lifestyle so fascinated the gutter press.

‘You’re right.’

Lily gave a small, startled gasp, wondering how he’d managed to read her mind, but then he raised one hand, gesturing to a recess in the wall beside her.

‘The injured dove,’ he said tonelessly. ‘There it is.’

‘Oh…’ She frowned, stooping down and letting her hair fall across her face as she felt heat spread upwards. The bird was huddled in the back of the nesting recess, its wing held up awkwardly. The white feathers were stained with crimson at the place where the wing joined the body. ‘Poor thing…’ Lily crooned gently. ‘Poor, poor thing…’

Tristan felt his throat tighten inexplicably. Her voice was filled with a tenderness that seemed to slip right past his iron defences and go straight into the battered, shell-shocked heart of him.

Usually he slipped between lives with the insouciant agility of an alley cat, letting the doors between the two halves of his world swing tightly shut behind him. But tonight—Dios—tonight he was finding it hard to leave it all behind. The raucous revelry of the party had grated on his frayed nerves like salt in an open wound, which was why he’d had to get away. But this…

This gentle compassion was almost worse. Because it was harder to withstand.

‘I think its wing is broken,’ Lily said softly. ‘What can we do?’

He looked out over the lawn to the glittering lights of the party. ‘Nothing,’ he said, hearing the harshness in his voice. ‘If that’s the case it would be best to end its suffering quickly and kill it now.’

‘No!’ Her response was instantaneous and fierce. She stood up, placing herself between him and the bird, almost as if she were afraid he was going to grab it and wring its neck in front of her.

‘You couldn’t. You wouldn’t…’

‘Why not?’ he said brutally as images of the place he had been earlier flashed into his head with jagged, strobe-lit insistence. This was just a bird, for God’s sake. An injured bird; a pity, not a tragedy. ‘Why not end its suffering?’

‘Because you don’t have the right to play God like that,’ she said quietly. ‘None of us do.’

Standing in the last light of the fading day, she looked remote and almost mystically beautiful. Not of this world. What did she know about suffering? He could feel the pulse beating loudly in his ears, but her words cut through it, exploding inside his head. No? he wanted to say. Then who will? It’s not power that makes men behave like God, but desperation.

He turned away abruptly, walking back towards the door to the stairs. ‘It’s not about having the right,’ he said bleakly. ‘It’s about having the guts.’

‘Wait!’

He heard her come down after him, and the blue twilight darkened as she shut the door at the top of the stairs again. Tristan stopped on the landing, his shoulders against the closed door, and watched her come down the stairs, melting out of the shadows like something from a dream.

Slowly she came down the last couple of steps and stood in front of him, shaking her head. ‘I don’t,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I don’t have the guts to kill it. What shall I do?’

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes you just have to accept that there’s nothing you can do.’

‘But that’s—’

‘Life,’ he said flatly. ‘That’s—’

But he didn’t finish, because at that moment the dusk was shattered by two loud explosions that detonated a chain of night-marish images and sent an instant tide of adrenaline crashing through him. He saw her start violently, her head snapping round to the window, her eyes wide with shock. Pure instinct took over. Without thinking he reached for her, pulling her into his body, against his crashing heart as he shouldered open the door behind him and dragged her into the room beyond.

The next moment the sky beyond the two tall, arched Gothic windows was lit up with showers of glittering stars.

Fireworks. It was fireworks. Not bombs and mortars. Relief hit him, followed a heartbeat later by another sensation; less welcome, but every bit as powerful as he became aware of the feel of her breasts beneath the silk of her dress, crushed against his chest. As another volley of blasts split the sky she pulled away from him, laughing shakily.

And then she looked around her at the hexagonal room, with its pale grey walls and its arched windows and the bed with the carved wooden posts at its centre, and suddenly she wasn’t laughing any more.

‘Yours?’ she whispered.

He nodded briefly. Over the years he’d lent Tom more money than either of them bothered to keep track of. The tower was a token return for his investment. ‘It’s where I come when I want to be alone.’

Their gazes locked. Time hitched, hanging suspended. Her full lips were parted, her breathing was rapid and her grey eyes shone with shimmering colour from the fireworks that exploded above them. Then she blinked and looked away.

‘Oh. I see, I’m sorry—I’ll go.’

She moved towards the door, but he got there first, slamming it shut and standing with his shoulders against it.

‘Tonight I don’t want to be alone.’

CHAPTER THREE

ADRENALINE was pulsing through Tristan, making the beat of his heart hard and painful. It vibrated through his whole body as the explosions continued outside—audacious reminders of the things he had travelled around half the world to forget.

In the grainy, blurred light Lily’s luminous beauty had an ethereal quality. Her eyes were still fixed on his, and as he gazed into them he felt the panic recede a little, washed away by the warm, anaesthetising tide of desire. Rationality slipped away, like sand through his fingers. For a moment he battled to hold onto it, to anchor himself back in the world of reason, but then she moved forward so she was standing right in front of him and he could see the spiked shadows cast by her lashes on the high arc of her cheekbone and feel the whispering sigh of her breath on his skin as she exhaled shakily.

‘I don’t want to be alone, either,’ she said in a low voice. ‘But I don’t want to go back to the party.’

Slowly, almost reluctantly, he reached out and touched the gleaming curve of her bare shoulder with his fingertip. He felt her jerk slightly beneath his touch, as if it had burned her, and an answering jolt of sharp, clenching desire shot through him.

With deliberate slowness he bent his head, inhaling her scent as he brought his lips down to her shoulder. ‘You don’t like parties?’

‘I don’t like crowds. I prefer…’ she breathed, then gave a soft, shivering gasp as his mouth brushed her skin ‘…privacy. I don’t like being looked at.’

‘You’re in the wrong job,’ Tristan said dryly.

‘Tell me about it.’

There was a wistful ache in her voice that made him lift his head and look into her face. For a fleeting moment he glimpsed the bleakness there, but then she was tilting her head up to his, her lips parting as they rose to meet his, and the questions that were forming in his head dissolved like snow in summer.

He didn’t want to know anyway. He didn’t want to talk to her, for pity’s sake. This was purely physical.

Not emotional.

Never emotional.

Her hands came up to cup his head, her fingers sliding into his hair, pulling him down, harder, deeper. He sensed a hunger in her that matched his own. The silk dress hung loosely from her shoulders and he knew that simply slipping the narrow, gathered straps downwards would make it fall to the floor, but he forced himself to wait, to take it slowly, to suppress the naked savagery of his need.

Above all, this was why he had come. Tom and the press were just convenient excuses.

This was his salvation, his purifying baptismal fire. This was where he lost himself, purged himself of all the images from the last week that haunted him whenever he closed his eyes. It didn’t matter whose body he lost himself in, whose lips he was kissing. It meant nothing. It was simply a means to an end.

A way of remembering the joy of being alive, the pleasures of the flesh.

A way of forgetting.

Lily pulled away, taking a deep, gasping breath of air, trying to steady herself against the swelling tide of pure desire that threatened to sweep her away. The light was fading quickly now; the sky beyond the arched windows was the soft, lush purple of clematis petals and the walls of the tower room had melted into it, making it feel as if they’d been cut adrift from reality and were floating far out at sea. Tristan’s hands rested on her shoulders, his thumbs beneath her jaw, stopping her from dropping her head, ducking away from meeting his gaze. In a world of smudged inky shades of blue and mauve his eyes were as deep and dark as a tropical ocean.

‘I have to warn you,’ he said roughly, ‘this is just tonight. One night. No strings, no commitment, no happy ever after. Is that what you want?’

His honesty made her breath catch. No promises, no lies. Somewhere, distantly, she was aware of pain, of disappointment, but it was numbed by the dizzying lust that circulated through her body like a drug. In the morning she was leaving for Africa—a different world, a new direction in her life. Tonight stood alone; a bridge between the old and the new. There were no rules, only the imperatives of the moment. Of forgetting about tomorrow, and giving herself something to remember when it came.

‘Yes,’ she whispered, lifting her hands to the neck of his shirt, sliding them beneath the open collar. ‘Just tonight.’

Outside another explosion ripped the sky apart with a shower of pink stars and she felt him flinch slightly. Carefully she began to undo the buttons of his shirt. There was nothing hurried about her movements, though her hands shook a little with the effort of keeping them steady, of reining back the powerful need that was building within her. He stood completely still as caressingly she trailed the backs of her fingers down the strip of lean, well-muscled flesh that was revealed by his unbuttoned shirt, and the only evidence of his desire was the quickening thud of his heart.