Postcards From Madrid: Married by Arrangement / Valdez's Bartered Bride / The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride

Sophie shrugged. ‘Antonio doesn’t owe me any favours, so I had to be suspicious of his motives. I also have to look out for Lydia—’

‘It’s still not too late to call this wedding off. I don’t feel that it’s right for you to marry Antonio Rocha.’

Amazed by the older woman’s persistence on that score, Sophie frowned in bewilderment. ‘Why not? Antonio knows exactly what he’s doing. I bet he divorces me even faster than he said he would and shunts Lydia and I off to live somewhere well out of his way. He doesn’t care about Lydia the way I do—’

‘He hasn’t had the chance or the time. A lot of men feel uncomfortable around babies—’

‘Why are you so against me marrying him?’

Norah flushed and turned away, her discomfiture unconcealed. Sophie reckoned she knew why, but she was too fond of the other woman to hurt her feelings by being too blunt. Understandably, Norah did not want her to move to Spain. Sophie also suspected that Norah had secretly hoped that Sophie might eventually have a change of heart and start dating her son, Matt. Even though she had never given Matt the slightest encouragement, Sophie had always felt rather guilty about him. His stoic air of misery as the wedding day drew closer had made her feel worse.

‘I just thought there might be some other way of bringing up Lydia other than marrying the marqués,’ Norah muttered evasively.

‘This way Lydia will find out about the Spanish side of her family and learn how to be really exclusive and up-market like…well, like some rich kid,’ Sophie pointed out. ‘She’s going to pick up all sorts of stuff I could never teach her. It’s what Belinda would have wanted for her—’

‘Yes, it probably is.’ Norah nodded thoughtfully. ‘Your sister did set great store by that sort of thing. I shouldn’t have kept on nagging at you. I can see that belonging to a rich family like Antonio’s will give Lydia a terrific start in life and opportunities that she would never get here.’

‘She deserves the best.’ Sophie was grateful that the older woman was finally thinking along the same lines and accepting her reasons for marrying Antonio. ‘That’s the only reason I’m doing this…for her.’

Forty minutes later, Sophie studied the crowd of people waiting outside the church with some surprise. Had a previous wedding started late and overrun its time? Oh, dear, she thought, Antonio would not like that. Well, they would just have to wait their turn. She checked her reflection to see that the tiny concoction of pink chiffon and feathers perched on top of her curls was still at the right angle. She smoothed nervous hands down over the fitted skirt of her dress, which was made of an exuberant fabric covered with big splashy roses. The limo driver pulled in right at the church steps and jumped out to open the door.

With Lydia in a carrier seat, Sophie climbed out. Noisy people shouting piercing questions and waving cameras surrounded her.

‘What’s your name?’ someone asked.

‘Friend of the bride’s?’ someone else shouted from the back.

‘She’s not a guest, she is the bride!’ Norah proclaimed sternly. ‘Now move and let us inside the church…we’ve got a baby here!’

‘Are you Sophie Cunningham?’ a voice demanded in astonishment.

Momentarily transfixed as she was by the sound of her name on a stranger’s lips, a nervous giggle escaped Sophie. Taking advantage of the gap that had appeared in the crush as Lydia’s presence was acknowledged, she hurried on up the steps and into the porch. The elderly priest greeted her warmly.

Norah took charge of Lydia. Sophie’s heart started beating very fast. She sucked in a steadying breath and took a peek down the aisle. Sunlight was pouring through the stained-glass windows and bathing the interior in beautiful jewelled streamers of rich colour. Antonio was at the altar, another smaller, slighter man standing to one side of him, probably the lawyer he had mentioned. She was more interested in staring at Antonio. Even in profile, he looked incredibly handsome. His formal dark suit and white shirt were exquisitely tailored to his tall, powerful frame. As usual he exuded the quiet, distinguished elegance that seemed so much a part of him.

When she drew level with him, she wanted so badly for him to acknowledge her arrival with a look, a smile, the merest touch, but nothing happened. He had phoned her several times over the past three weeks but the calls had been brief and businesslike. As the nuptial mass began she listened carefully to every word. Each of them made their responses, her voice uneven with a sense of the gravity of the occasion, his cool and firm. He slid a gold ring on her finger without betraying a hint of proper masculine hesitance.

Only with the greatest difficulty was Antonio restraining his ire. The paparazzi were encamped outside. The discreet event he had had organised had been blown wide open. His family avoided publicity like the plague. Who had talked? One of his own staff? A hotel employee? Someone attached to the church? Or his bride? He had expected Sophie to show up in a very frilly over-the-top long white dress complete with veil. In a funny sort of way that he was reluctant to analyse, he had been rather looking forward to seeing her in a wedding gown. Instead she was sporting the most extraordinarily inappropriate apparel. Her outrageously floral dress was flashy enough to stop rush-hour traffic. He studied her ridiculously tiny perky hat. He knew he was being punished for not giving her the advice she had asked for: it was his own fault.

‘Stop right there…’ Norah instructed, holding up her camera as the bride and groom turned away from the altar.

Antonio looked down into Sophie’s misty green eyes fringed by curling dark lashes. Her soft pink mouth was the same shade as the hat and it was amazing how well that particular colour became her, Antonio reflected grudgingly.

‘Sorry about this…but there’s times when you have to bite the bullet and just do what you have to do,’ Sophie whispered apologetically, gripping hold of his arms to stretch herself up to him. ‘Act like you’re going to kiss me…this one’s for the album I’m going to make for Lydia.’

Antonio closed long, lean fingers into the toffee-coloured curls tumbling down her spine, tugged her head back and brought his hungry mouth down hard on hers. In shock, she jerked against him and gasped as if she were being ravished. Even as pure lust leapt through him he wanted to laugh. It was time she accepted that he was a Rocha and like every Rocha right back to the sixteenth century: he didn’t take orders; he handed them out.

His tongue delved deep in a bold invasion. A piercing, unbearable sweetness shot through Sophie followed by a fierce wave of heat. Dizzy, she locked her arms round his neck to stay upright, and as he released her tingling lips she struggled to catch her breath against his shoulder. He set her back from him in the thrumming silence. Norah was staring wide-eyed. Crimson with embarrassment, Sophie stared into space, her mind blanked out by shock at her own wanton behaviour.

Impervious to that kind of discomfiture, Antonio introduced her very briefly to the lawyer, who, having acted as their second witness, was already making his departure. The official photographer, whose services had been arranged, awaited them in the church porch. At Antonio’s request he produced his driving licence as proof of his identity.

‘I’m sorry but the presence of the journalists outside means that a photographic session will not be possible,’ Antonio imparted gravely. ‘That will not, of course, make any difference to your remuneration.’

Emerging from her fog of self-loathing over that kiss, Sophie exclaimed, ‘But you can’t cancel the photographs!’

‘I can do whatever I like, mi rica.’ His quiet tone audible only to her ears, Antonio gazed down at her with grim dark eyes. ‘If you’re responsible for that rabble of reporters out there, you’re likely to be very disappointed by the coverage they gain of our wedding. We’re leaving now by the rear exit.’

‘Those people are newspaper reporters?’ Sophie was bewildered by his speech. ‘Why are you suggesting that I might have something to do with them being here?’

‘We’ll discuss that later,’ Antonio informed her at a pitch that would have frozen volcanic lava in its tracks.

Sophie thought that perhaps she had misunderstood what he had said and returned to her main source of concern. ‘You can’t just cancel the photos!’

‘Might I suggest,’ the photographer dared in a deferential murmur, ‘That a change of location would suffice?’

Considerably more interested in heading direct to the airport and his flight home to Spain and normality, Antonio set his even white teeth together at that unwelcome suggestion.

‘Look,’ Sophie said urgently, ‘Let me go out and tell those reporters to get lost!’

Seriously taken aback by that suggestion, Antonio studied his bride. She might be five feet nothing in height, but there was a definite suggestion of belligerence in her irate stance. She was confrontational and naïve. He had a disturbing image of the headlines that would erupt if his wife waded in to exchange insults with a posse of paparazzi. It began to dawn on him for the first time that being married to Sophie might not be the equivalent of a walk in the park. It was a sobering reflection for a male who had intended to safeguard his freedom by taking a wife.

‘You can’t let them ruin the day,’ Sophie protested at his elbow. ‘That would be like giving way to blackmail.’

Antonio stifled a derisive desire to admit that all of a sudden he knew exactly how that felt. ‘We’ll use the grounds of the hotel.’

His reward for that peace-keeping concession was immediate and startling. Sophie flung both arms round him and gave him an enthusiastic hug. ‘Thanks. Thanks! You won’t regret it.’

Before the bridal couple left the building, however, Norah Moore also insisted on taking her leave of them. ‘No, I’m not coming one step further to play goose-berry,’ she responded wryly when Sophie took her off to one side in an effort to persuade her to accompany them to the hotel. ‘You should just have said that you and Antonio…well, that kiss said it all for you, didn’t it? I didn’t know where to look!’

Reminded of what an exhibition she had made of herself, Sophie squirmed in shame and chagrin. ‘It wasn’t like you think.’

‘It was just as it should be. Your getting married will be good for my Matt too,’ the older woman informed her bluntly. ‘He’s been trailing after you like a lovelorn puppy, but now he’ll have to get over you.’

In the limo on the way to the hotel, Sophie turned to Antonio and said, ‘Why did you suggest that I might be responsible for all those journalists turning up at the church?’

Stunning dark eyes unflinching, he looked levelly back at her. ‘Someone tipped them off.’

‘Not me…for goodness’ sake, I didn’t even know the newspapers would be interested in what you get up to!’

Antonio said nothing.

Her temper roused, Sophie watched him from below her lashes. ‘Aren’t you going to apologise?’

‘If I misjudged you, I’m sorry—’

‘If?’ Sophie was outraged by the wording he had chosen to use.

‘I don’t yet know who’s responsible for alerting the paparazzi,’ Antonio countered silkily, as immoveable as solid rock in his resolve not to yield the point.

‘Well, it wasn’t me and we’re not going to have a very friendly relationship if you keep on accusing me of things I didn’t do!’ Sophie warned him in high dudgeon.

‘Who said we have to be friendly?’ Antonio drawled with deliberate provocation, lounging fluidly back in his corner of the limousine to enjoy the entertainment. He liked watching her vibrate with emotion, for that intense capacity for feeling was as rare in his experience as a genuine Stradivarius violin.

‘But you just married me!’ Sophie condemned furiously.

‘Since when did matrimony and friendship go hand in hand?’ Having made that statement to keep her simmering, Antonio surveyed her from below lush black lashes. Once again his analytical mind was engaged in attempting to dissect the mystery of her pulling power. It wasn’t just her passion. Inexplicably that tiny hat anchored to her mane of curls now struck him as the very essence of femininity. His wide, sensual mouth compressed. In fact she looked amazingly sexy.

‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’ Sophie condemned.

‘I have a whole host of lifelong married ancestors who cohabited with hatred.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me one little bit!’ Sophie slung back.

Antonio was now endeavouring to work out why she looked so sexy. He still thought the dress was a mistake, but it did somehow contrive to accentuate her delicate grace to perfection. The neckline revealed only a modest hint of shadowy cleavage. She had surprisingly full breasts for her slender build. Even overblown roses could not conceal that ripe, rounded swell from his attention. At that point and very much to his annoyance, his libido kicked in with almost painful enthusiasm. She shifted position, her hemline riding up to expose a slim length of thigh. A wolf to the slaughter, his gaze lingered to trace the limb’s progression into a shapely knee and slender calf that concluded in amazingly narrow ankles and very small feet. Suddenly he wanted her under him with a ferocity that astonished him.

‘Pablo was cruel to Belinda,’ Sophie breathed abruptly. ‘I just want you to know I won’t put up with that kind of treatment!’

All desire stifled by that disquieting revelation, Antonio settled brilliant dark golden eyes on her. ‘What did he do?’

‘What didn’t he do?’ Sophie traded heavily with a slight shiver, her anger with Antonio ebbing while she remembered what her sister had told her. ‘He killed her confidence. He was always criticising her and telling her how stupid she was and cutting her off in front of other people.’

‘I am not my brother,’ Antonio spelt out with measured clarity.

‘Oh, I know that. Pablo wouldn’t have cared what happened to his niece. He would only have got involved if there was money in the offing,’ Sophie ceded grudgingly.

She was not in the mood to say anything that Antonio might construe as a compliment. But there it was, whether she liked it or not—Antonio was a positive prince among men when set next to his late brother.

‘I dislike being compared to Pablo,’ Antonio informed her with cold emphasis.

Feeling snubbed for having been generous enough to point out that he was much more responsible and caring, Sophie flushed with annoyance and pointedly devoted her attention to Lydia. Soon after that they arrived at the hotel.

The photographer had a tough time with the bridal couple. Although the hotel gardens were superb and the sun was shining, his clients refused to act like blissful newly marrieds. Sophie only came alive when the baby was in the picture and became as flexible as a stick of rock when Antonio had finally been induced to curve an arm round her. The photographer was not quite quick enough to hide his surprise at the complete absence of a bridal bouquet. Sophie said nothing, but the speaking glance that she cast in the groom’s direction would have withered a less powerful personality.

Unaccustomed to such a ferocious lack of appreciation, Antonio looked so scornful when asked to smile tenderly down at Sophie that Sophie gritted her teeth and hissed like a spitting cat, ‘Don’t bother yourself!’

Silence simmered all the way to the airport. Sophie was more out of sorts than she could remember being in years, but not at all sure why she felt quite so angry and humiliated and wretched. Antonio received a melodramatic call from his current mistress. She asked him to deny the ridiculous rumour flying round that he, a Spanish noble of ancient lineage, had just got married to the British equivalent of trailer trash. What his mistress said in response to his icy rebuke in defence of his bride’s honour led to her being unceremoniously dumped. At that point, Antonio truly felt himself to be a saint among men beset on all sides by unreasonable women.

At the airport, Sophie parted from Antonio to take care of Lydia’s needs. She was engaged in changing Lydia into a fresh outfit when the public address system announced her name and asked her to go to a certain desk. Instant panic assailed Sophie. As she frantically finished dressing her niece she was convinced that something utterly ghastly had happened to Antonio. He had fallen down dead in the concourse and she had never got to say goodbye. Businessmen died of heart attacks all the time, didn’t they? Antonio seemed to have so much money that he was a sure fire candidate for overwork and stress. On the other hand, perhaps she had been called to the desk to receive a message from Antonio. Could he have abandoned them at the airport because he just could not face taking the two of them back to Spain with him?

A helpless prey to her own fear, Sophie raced up with the buggy and identified herself with breathless urgency. But even as she did so she was frowning in surprise at the stockily built young man standing several feet away.

‘Matt…?’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’

Matt Moore went very red in the face. Inarticulate at the best of times, he pulled out the flowers he had been hiding behind his back and held the small bunch of candy-pink marguerites out to her like an offering.

‘Oh, Matt…’ Sophie said chokily, astonished that he had asked for her name to be announced.

‘You come back and visit now,’ Matt told her doggedly as she accepted the bouquet.

‘Did you come all the way here just to tell me that?’ Sophie gasped, tears burning her eyes and overflowing, for she was touched to the heart that he should have made so much effort when there was no prospect of reward. She reached for his hand and squeezed it tight, a sob catching in her throat.

‘Look after yourself and Lydia,’ Matt urged and then, without giving any hint of his intention, he gathered her into a clumsy bear-hug and kissed her.

It was as thrilling for Sophie as a wash with a wet flannel. But she felt very sorry for him and very guilty that in spite of all his nice qualities she had never fancied him. So she stood still and tolerated that one brief close-mouthed kiss because she could not bear to reject him yet again and it felt just then like the only consolation she could offer him.

Twenty feet away, Antonio was paralysed to the spot. He had headed to the relevant desk to investigate the instant he had heard Sophie’s name being called. He had however believed that that message might have been intended for another Sophie with the same name. Now seeing her share a passionate embrace with Norah Moore’s son, he felt betrayed beyond belief. She was his bride, his wife, the Marquesa de Salazar, and she was kissing another man and sobbing over him in a public place. His lean brown hands were clenched into furious fists of restraint. The dark, dangerous tide of rage consuming Antonio almost splintered through his hard self-control and provoked him into a violent intervention.

‘Thanks for the flowers…see you some time.’ Sophie pulled back from Matt and stoically resisted the temptation to wipe her mouth.

Barely a minute later, Antonio strode up while she was struggling to tighten Lydia’s safety harness. She felt hot and bothered and messy and had been planning to steal five minutes to freshen up before rejoining him.

‘Where did you come from?’ Sophie enquired, pausing in her endeavours to throw a dirty look at the gorgeous blonde eyeing him up from across the concourse. It was far from being the first such appraisal Antonio had attracted. He turned heads, female heads in particular and far too many of them, Sophie acknowledged miserably. His spectacular dark good looks seemed to entitle him to the same attention a movie star might have expected. In her vulnerability, she was not alone. She wanted to lock him up in a cupboard or, at the very least, put a paper bag over his head.

‘I heard your name over the public address system,’ Antonio imparted, his attention welded to the lush fullness of her lower lip. He was very much taken aback by the fierce sting of desire that assailed him in spite of what he had witnessed.

‘Oh…er, it was a friend just wanting to say goodbye,’ Sophie mumbled, wrenching at the harness in frustration. ‘I think this wretched thing is broken—’

‘Allow me…’ Antonio murmured flatly.

‘It’s very fiddly,’ she warned him.

Antonio sorted it using only one hand. Somehow the sight of his easy success infuriated Sophie even more. In the VIP lounge, she sat feeding Lydia out of the jar of prepared food she had brought with her for emergency use.

‘Couldn’t that wait until we’ve boarded the jet?’ Antonio asked as though it were the height of bad taste to be seen feeding a baby.

Sophie shook her head and buttoned her soft pink mouth. She had to. If she hadn’t she would have thrown a screaming fit. She had started the day with a crazy sense of adventure and happiness and her mood had gone steadily downhill ever since. Just then she was hitting rock-bottom. Antonio was gorgeous but she hated him. She hated fancying him like mad and she hated being married to him. At that moment she was convinced that a divorce from Antonio could not come quickly enough to satisfy her. She could have signed on the dotted line right there and then without a shred of regret.

He hadn’t even bothered to offer her lunch at the hotel and her stomach was meeting her backbone. He had treated her like wallpaper most of the day. And when he wasn’t treating her like wallpaper and ignoring her, he was either accusing her of doing something dreadful or criticising her. Sophie breathed in very deep, pent-up tears of self-pity clogging her throat. Here she was travelling off into the unknown to live in a different country, which was a quite terrifying prospect, and the only guy she had to depend on was behaving like an arrogant, insensitive bastard!

They boarded the private jet. Sophie cast a jaundiced eye over the luxury appointments and wondered what Antonio would do if she fainted from hunger. How bad would it make him feel? She reckoned she would have to die to get a real reaction from him. The jet took off. Her heart-shaped face adorned by two high spots of colour, Sophie was shown by the flight attendant into a sleeping compartment where a cot had already been secured in readiness for Lydia’s occupation. She tucked her niece in for a nap and surveyed the opulent bed for the grown-ups. How many women had Antonio had in there? She bit her lip painfully and screwed her eyes up tight in a desperate attempt to hold back the tears ready to flood out. The level of her own distress shocked her.

Although it was rare for Antonio to touch alcohol before evening, he was contemplating the non-existent joys of matrimony over a brandy. Getting married had proved to be the hell he had always dimly suspected it would be. Sophie had allowed him to put a wedding ring on her finger and had then allowed another man to put his hands on her. That betrayal struck at the very roots of his masculinity and plunged Antonio right back into the same elemental rage that challenged his rapier-sharp thinking processes. His rational mind endeavoured to point out that it had been a kiss exchanged in public, but the conviction that passion had overpowered common sense and decency was not a consolation.

He pictured her tear-stained face afresh, her green eyes like wet jewels as she clutched that pathetic bunch of flowers. A heartbeat later she had had her arms wrapped round the vertically challenged gorilla from the run-down shop on the caravan site. As he recalled from his first visit when he had been looking for Sophie, the guy tended to grunt rather than speak, Antonio reflected with raging incredulity. He tipped his brandy back in one fiery gulp. Why had she not told him that she had a boyfriend? Did she think she loved the gorilla? Were grunts really that appealing? Why had she kept quiet about the relationship? Was she in fact expecting to continue the affair in secret? He set the glass down with a hard snap that sent a crack travelling up the crystal stem.