Kate Walker - The Duke's Secret Wife

Kate Walkerwas born in Nottinghamshire but she grew up in Yorkshire and has always felt that her roots were there. She met her husband at university and she originally worked as a children’s librarian, but after the birth of her son she returned to her old childhood love of writing. When she’s not working, she divides her time between her family and their three cats. Her interests include embroidery, antiques, film and theatre, and, of course, reading. You can visit Kate at www.kate-walker.com

by

Kate Walker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

SO SHE was here at last.

Luis de Silva watched from the shadows as the small group strolled towards him. There were perhaps twelve or fifteen of them, of assorted ages and nationalities. About them there was the buzz of faint excitement and anticipation, and they were clearly oblivious to the chill of the early spring evening.

But it was the young woman in the middle of the group who caught and held Luis’s attention.

‘Isabella…’

The name hissed through his teeth on the instinctive indrawn breath he couldn’t control.

It was two years since he had seen her but he would have recognised her anywhere. There was no mistaking the sleek, shining cap of blonde hair that gleamed silver in the moonlight. Her tall, slender figure was clothed in a dark velvet dress; green, he suspected, though the gathering shadows of evening made it impossible to tell for sure. Full length, and mediaeval in style, it had wide, silk-lined sleeves, falling almost to the ground from her fine-boned wrists. It was cinched around her slim waist with an ornate gold belt, and over the top she wore a heavy black cloak that swirled around her with every graceful movement.

‘ Madre de Dios! ’

Luis choked back the exclamation that rose to his lips, taking several hasty steps backwards into the shadows of the nearby buildings. He did not want to be seen until he was ready. It would mean losing the element of surprise he was determined would be on his side when he finally revealed himself to her.

But for now he was content to watch.

‘And so, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the site of one of the darkest events in the whole of the history of York…’

Her voice was light and sweet-toned; her actor’s training meant that it carried clearly across to where he stood watching her.

‘This building is Clifford’s Tower…’

The words blurred and scrambled inside his head, making no sense. Instead, he was swept away on a tide of memory he neither wanted nor welcomed as just the sound of that once well-known voice opened up the door to the part of his past he would sooner forget.

Once that voice had made his heart lift so high he had thought it might actually escape his body. It had made his senses kick on a pulse of desire so hot and strong that he had been totally at their mercy.

But most of all, it had once spoken to him of love and trust and belief in another until he had forgotten all his natural caution and fallen head over heels into the first, the most powerful, the only love of his life.

But then she had taken that love and crushed it underneath the heel of one of her elegantly shod feet. And now…

‘ No! ’

Furious with himself, he refused to let his thoughts wander any further. He would not let himself think of those times. Could not let himself remember or he would turn and walk away from here, never looking back.

And he couldn’t afford to look back.

In the background a church clock chimed the half-hour, reminding Luis that the young man, a student he presumed, he had bribed to let him take his place had said that it was around now he should hear his cue. What was it he had said?

‘But before we move on…’

He’d waited long enough. He was going to have to do this so it was better to get it over with.

The muscles in his jaw tightened, his shoulders tensed, and he stepped out into the light of the street lamp.

‘Isabella…’

It was the last thing Isabelle had anticipated. With her mind firmly fixed on following her script, determined to get her timing exactly right, she had been oblivious to everything else around her. This group of tourists who had followed her around the carefully planned route of the York City Ghost Walk had clearly enjoyed every minute of it. Their enthusiasm bubbled in the air, sparking off her invention so that she had ad-libbed outrageously. And now they were approaching the climax of the night.

But first there was one more ‘apparition’ to tantalise them. Any minute now, when she spoke his cue, Andy would appear from the darkness, dressed as Dick Turpin, the famous highwayman, and say…

‘Isabella…’

The voice came from behind her, from where she had expected that Andy would appear. But it was not Andy. The voice was nothing like Andy’s Yorkshire tones for one, and…

Isabella .

Only one man had ever called her that. Had ever added the extra syllable to her name. To make it easier, he had always claimed, for his Spanish tongue.

Only one man had pronounced the four syllables in quite that lilting way, turning her name into a form of poetry that twisted in her heart with the bitterness of memory.

Only one man had ever spoken to her with quite that accent. But this could not be him. That man had left her life two years before, vowing never, ever to return. He was thousands of miles away, in another country, another world.

He could not be here!

‘ Buenas tardes, mi mujer ,’ that taunting, terrifyingly familiar voice continued, pushing her into whirling round, eyes wide, fearful of who she might see.

‘Luis!’

It was a choking cry of stunned disbelief and horror as she took in the lean, powerful height of him, the forceful width of chest and shoulders, under the black jacket and jeans, the dark, glossy hair and brilliant, gleaming eyes, and she took a couple of hasty steps backwards in an instinctive urge to flight.

‘L-Luis? Is that you?’

The tall, dark man took another couple of steps forward, moving right into the pool of light shed by a street lamp. And Isabelle knew with a terrible sense of inevitability that there was no chance of escape. No hope that she had made a mistake.

The two years since she had seen him had changed him little. He had matured in that time, obviously, and now, at thirty, he was a man in his prime. He had filled out, any lingering awkwardness of youth being replaced by powerful muscles and a dignified control that gave every movement an elegant restraint, like the approach of a prowling hunting cat.

‘Good evening, querida .’

The rich, deep voice seemed to curl around her senses like warm smoke, making her nerves prickle just under the delicate surface of her skin. With her ears accustomed to the flat vowels of the Yorkshire accent, his intonation seemed even more exotic and foreign than ever, making her feel as if some alien and dangerous visitor had just intruded into her happy and secure way of life.