Abruptly his expression changed, a deep frown bringing his black brows together.
‘Should I have made it different for you, Isabella? Should I have swallowed my pride, forgotten the arguments I’d had with my father and brought you here, married you…’
‘In a wedding like the one we’re having now? Do you want the truth, Luis?’
The memory of Catalina’s words that afternoon came back to haunt her, stiffening her pride and tightening her voice.
‘Because if you do, then the answer is no. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I loved you so much then. Couldn’t have been happier… This wedding can never be the same. And neither can our marriage.’
‘Okay, maybe we can never go back to that innocent, idyllic time, but perhaps we can find something to put in its place.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘Well…’
Abruptly Luis caught himself up, a prey to a sensation of doubt, as cold and sneaking as if a cloud had just passed in front of the sun.
I loved you, she had said. Not I love you. He wanted to tell her everything that was in his heart. Let her know that the past didn’t matter—that all that mattered was her and the way he felt about her. But if he did—and she didn’t feel the same way…
‘Something’ of that feeling was all she wanted back. Not the whole, heartfelt loving that had once been the most essential part of his life.
Better not to rush things. Better to take it one step at a time. To offer only a part of what he was feeling and then see where that took them. At
least then, if she couldn’t give him the same love back, he wouldn’t risk the pain of loss all over again. It had taken him two long years to get over that sensation, the feeling that she hadn’t loved him as he had loved her. He didn’t think he could ever recover from it a second time.
So he caught back the impulsive declaration he had been about to make, stamping down on the protestations of love and belief in her, and instead substituted a careful, controlled explanation of the future they might have.
‘We could have a future together—children…’
Her reaction was not at all as he had anticipated.
‘Children? You want children?’
Any hope she’d had that she’d been wrong, that Catalina had lied, died as soon as she looked into his face. Suddenly too much on edge to stay still, she got to her feet, pacing restlessly about the room.
‘Of course I want children. I told you—I want a proper marriage and everything that it entails.’
‘Your father wants you to have children too. I get the impression that he’d like us to have them as soon as possible.’
Luis nodded swift agreement.
‘I think it’s the most important thing in the world to him.’
Abruptly Luis got to his feet, moving to stare out of the huge arched window through which the vast gardens of the castle could just be seen in the moonlight. His head was bent slightly, his shoulders hunched, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers.
‘I really believe that he is holding on because of his dream of grandchildren. That he is fighting harder because he wants to stay alive for that.’
There, it was out. He had never thought that he would ever tell anyone the truth of his beliefs. But he had not been able to hold the words back. Somehow being with Isabelle again had broken into the reticence that was so much a part of his relationship with his parents. To her he had been able to say the things he had never been able to say to his mother or anyone else.
‘You could be right.’
Her voice behind him was surprisingly soft. He turned slowly back to face her.
‘A positive attitude seems to be a very strong weapon in the fight against such illnesses.’
‘You sound as if you know about such things.’
‘My grandmother—the one who brought me up after my parents were killed in that motorway pile-up—had cancer. She refused to give in to it. Believe me, I know what you’re going through.’