CHAPTER SIX
‘ALL alone, my dear?’
‘What?’
Isabelle looked up in surprise, struggling to drag herself into the present as Luis’s father came towards her along the stone-flagged terrace.
‘Is that son of mine neglecting you?’
‘He—he had business to attend to. Something about one of the vineyards.’
It was an excuse that would do as well as any other, she told herself. It was the one Luis had used to explain his absences at first.
But lately he had stopped doing even that. He had just headed out at the start of the day, some mornings even before she was awake, and he was more often than not very late back.
‘The vineyards can take care of themselves.’ The duke frowned into the sun. ‘Luis should be here.’
‘He will be,’ Isabelle put in hastily, hoping she sounded more confident than she actually felt. ‘I think he just wants to make sure that everything is in order before we leave on our honeymoon.’
A honeymoon that was now not so far away. The days since she had come to Spain had flashed by so fast that she could hardly believe she had been here a month or more now. Every day had been taken up with some sort of planning or preparation for the wedding so that she had barely had time to think.
And if she was honest, she’d been grateful for the endless round of fittings, consultations, coffee mornings, visits to relatives that had filled her time and taken her away from Luis’s disturbing absences and his even more disturbing presence in the brief times he had actually spent in the castle.
‘How are you feeling today?’
Don Alfonso always looked pale, and his tall frame hadn’t an ounce of spare flesh on it. But the bronze eyes that were so like his son’s were bright and alert these days, his energy belying his state of health.
‘I feel fine,’ he assured her now, a smile lighting up his face. ‘So I was wondering if you’d like that history lesson now.’
‘The tour of the gallery?’ Isabelle was already on her feet. ‘I’d love to.’
It was something that she and the duke had discussed some days before. From the first, Isabelle had been fascinated by the long gallery of portraits of the de Silva family, ancestors of Luis, long-ago dukes and duchesses, dating right back to the time of the Spanish Inquisition. She had wanted to learn more about them, but the time had never been quite right.
The afternoon passed in total absorption. As Don Alfonso had said, this was a history lesson, but the characters involved were his family. Luis’s family. Her family by marriage now. And for the first time she had a real sense of how Luis must feel, with the weight of all that lineage behind him.
‘It must be amazing to know that you have ancestors who were brothers or sisters of kings,’ she said when a couple of hours later they made their way back down the long, sweeping stone staircase into the main hall again.
‘It’s an honour and a responsibility,’ the duke added sombrely. ‘Our family has great wealth but we also owe a great deal to our heritage and should never treat it lightly.’
‘Living here must make you feel like that. Knowing that this castle has been in the family for so many hundreds of years.’
‘And it will be into the future too. That has always been my dream. That is why in our family marriage and children are so important. When Diego died, I thought…’
He caught himself up, shaking his head, the golden eyes dimmed for a moment, but then he reached for Isabelle’s hand and squeezed it gently.
‘But your marriage to Luis will ensure that our line will go on. Your children will inherit the dukedom. Yours and Luis’s.’
The words caught Isabelle on the raw, stirring uncomfortable memories of yet another reason for her distress over the past weeks. Even the blazing passion that had flared between herself and Luis on that first night in York seemed to have died. He hadn’t even come to her room, hadn’t shared her bed since they had arrived.
There was a discreet cough behind them, a maid trying to get their attention.
‘Don Alfonso… You have a visitor. Señorita del Bosque.’
‘Catalina? I thought she was in America.’
Something in the way the older man said the name, his expression as he looked towards the room the maid had indicated, betrayed the way he was feeling. He would never admit to being tired, but clearly he had had enough.
‘Shall I see what she wants?’ Isabelle suggested. ‘I met Catalina once—back in England. I’ll talk to her if you like.’