‘Why?’ she began, but Luis shook his head, silencing her.
‘This is between you and her. She knows why she’s here.’
Isabelle could only watch in confusion as he left the library, shutting the door firmly behind him.
‘Why are you here this time?’ she tried again with Catalina.
‘Are you telling me you don’t know?’
Clearly the other woman had regained a little confidence with Luis’s departure.
‘I thought you’d sent that crazy husband of yours after me and told him to bring me here.’
‘But Luis has never even mentioned your name. I never told him you were here.’
‘But he already knew. He tracked me down where I was on holiday in America and said he wanted to see me. He even paid my fare back to Spain. That was why I was here yesterday.’
‘You came to see Luis, not the duke?’
‘I thought he wanted me back. So you can imagine how I felt when I found that you were here.’
The black eyes burned with jealous fury and suddenly Isabelle knew without being told that the story the other woman had told her the day before had been nothing but a lie.
‘Luis found out you were here yesterday—and he wants you to tell me that everything you said then was just a pack of lies?’ she hazarded nervously.
‘That and the rest.’ Catalina showed little sign of any repentance. ‘He came to me today and told me that he only wanted me back here so I could apologise to you.’
‘Apologise. For what?’
But deep down she knew and so, clearly, did Catalina. She looked most uncomfortable, pushing her hands deep into her jacket pockets, then taking them out again, shifting from one foot to another.
‘For that night in York.’
And then of course there was no need to explain. They both knew exactly which night she meant. Just remembering, Isabelle shivered faintly.
‘He sought you out so that you could prove to him that I was innocent that night?’
To her consternation, the Spanish woman shook her dark head emphatically.
‘Now that I could understand. But, no—that’s the weird thing. He didn’t want me to tell him anything. There was no doubt in his mind that I was behind it all and that I owed you an apology.’
‘You?’
Isabelle’s head was spinning now. If Luis had brought Rob to her, to apologise, then that she could have coped with. But Catalina?
‘Do you know how much I hated you?’ The Spanish woman’s tone was almost conversational but the way her black eyes flashed, the burn of anger in them, told its own story.
‘Hated me?’ She had never shown any sign of it. ‘But I thought you and Luis had broken up long before.’
‘Not long enough. I always thought we’d get back together. That one day we would be married. Dios, how I dreamed of being Duquesa! And you ruined all that! And I vowed I’d have my revenge.’
‘You…’
Isabelle was remembering now. Recalling the way she had felt miserable, missing Luis and suffering with a cold.
‘The tablets…’
‘You thought they were cold relief, but in fact