Diana Hamilton - In Name Only

‘Why the hurry?’ There was a touch of contempt in the steady grey gaze, a flick of something that made her shudder as his eyes deliberately assessed the long, exposed elegance of her crossed legs. ‘Is the finca too quiet, too rustic for your tastes? Lo siento—I’m sorry you have become so quickly bored.’

Horrible, horrible man! Cathy’s face turned an uncomfortable red as she hastily set her feet side by side and tugged down her skirt. He’d been looking at her unthinkingly exposed legs as if they were goods on offer—shoddy, second-hand goods—and instantly rejected them. Cordy—or her reputation—had a lot to answer for!

‘My main reason for agreeing to come to Spain was to allow your mother to see her grandson,’ she told him with a cool dignity she was proud of. ‘If you won’t take us to her, then I must find some means of going on my own. I’m sure Tomás—’

‘My mother will receive you when she is ready,’ he injected suavely. ‘It is not so long since Francisco’s death; she needs time to adjust to the idea that he left a child. And Tomás will take you nowhere; I forbid it.’

Forbid? Yes, he was perfectly capable of doing so. As far as he was concerned, his word was law and Tomás and every other subject in his kingdom would obey it right down to the very last letter. Something sharp and hot rose in her throat to choke her and her voice was hoarse with anger as she flung at him, “Then what the hell am I doing here? Couldn’t you have waited until she was ready to see him? Why waste my time?’

Anger turned back on her in waves of frustration as it met the unbreachable wall of his apparent disregard. There was not a flicker of emotion on those dark, impressive features, merely the schooled control of a man who had witnessed the demeaning antics of a fishwife but was too polite to comment. And she sagged back in her seat, suddenly drained, as he rose with inherent grace and pressed a discreetly concealed button near the wide cedarwood door.

‘Come, it is time to eat.’

Just like that. Just as if her angry questions had never been asked, Cathy fumed, rising in a jerky movement, following him, wanting to get the meal over and done with and get back to her room, shut herself in with the sleeping baby, and try to work out what to do.

Facing him across the oval table, Cathy spread her linen napkin over her lap with a fierce twist of her wrist and waited for Paquita to serve her with, as she proudly announced, ‘Sopa de mariscos al vino de Jerez,’ which, for her benefit, Campuzano translated more prosaically as sherry and shellfish soup.

Whatever, it was delicious and welcome. Cathy ate quickly and appreciatively, fully aware that she wouldn’t have agreed to share his table at all if she hadn’t been ravenously hungry.

The warm crusty bread served with the tangy, ocean-flavoured soup was irresistible, and Cathy, her mouth full, saw the lean brown hand slide a glass over the linen cloth, found her eyes held by the dusting of dark hair between the white of his cuff and the soft leather strap of his wafer-thin watch, and felt her throat close up for no reason at all.

‘Manzanilla makes the perfect accompaniment. Part of the pleasure of savouring a meal,’ he said softly, coolly, and she replaced the spoon in her bowl and swallowed her mouthful with immense difficulty. He was letting her know that her table manners were no better than a greedy child’s. He never lost an opportunity to put her down. Her appetite disappeared very suddenly.

‘This comes from the Campuzano vineyards in the area of Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It is believed that the breeze from the Atlantic gives it its unique and slightly salty flavour.’ He took a reflective sip from his own glass, his lightly veiled eyes challenging her fulminating violet stare and, more as a reflex action than anything else, she took an apprehensive sip. Salty sherry?

But it was crisp and cold and intriguingly tangy, paler in colour than the chilled fino he had given her as an aperitif, and if he noted the surprise, followed by the pleasure in her eyes, he made no comment other than, ‘Finish your soup. Paquita will be devastated if you don’t clear your plate.’

‘I am not a child,’ Cathy returned stiffly.

She felt his eyes slide over the lush curves of her breasts, heard him agree, ‘Obviously not,’ and decided to maintain a dignified silence, and managed to do exactly that, right through the Sevillana salad, the chicken with garlic and one glass too many of a light Rioja wine.

‘You will take a little caramel flan?’ Paquita had withdrawn, and the silver cake knife was poised in long, lean fingers. Cathy shook her head. She couldn’t eat another crumb, and the wine, on top of all that sherry, had gone straight to her head. She wasn’t used to alcohol in such profligate quantity.

The silver serving knife was gently placed back on the linen-covered table and Campuzano leaned elegantly back in his chair, his attractively accented voice much too smooth as he remarked, ‘I hear you have made Rosa redundant.’ A smile curled at one corner of his wide, sensual mouth, but his eyes were cold. ‘If it was done in an attempt to persuade me of your sterling qualities as a mother, it was misguided.’ Again the unmistakable challenge in those deep grey eyes, and Cathy bit back the heated words of rebuttal. She couldn’t trust herself to speak without getting her tongue in a tangle and could have boiled herself in oil for drinking all that sherry—not to mention the wine.

Hoping he would put her silence down to a refusal to dignify his snide remark with any comment at all, she rose from her seat, wobbled alarmingly as her head began to spin, and sat straight down again, only to hear his dry, sarcastic, ‘For Juan’s sake, I hope he is not in need of your ministrations tonight. If he is, then might I suggest you call Rosa out of her enforced retirement?’

Drunk in charge of a baby! Cathy thought, her head whirling. The hateful wretch had probably done it on purpose, feeding her one innocuous-looking measure of alcohol after another, inviting her opinion in that suave, wickedly sexy voice of his, intent on giving himself the proof that she wasn’t a fit mother for an earthworm—let alone his nephew!

How she regained her feet and got herself to the door in more or less a straight line, she never knew. She even managed a stiff ‘Goodnight’ before he slewed round in his chair, one black brow tilted in sardonic enquiry as he questioned,

‘Tell me, you say your name is Cathy, so why do your colleagues and friends know you as Cordy—or Cordelia?’ A very slight shrug, an even slighter smile. ‘I am sure there is a logical reason, but I don’t like puzzles. So humour me.’

Cathy could only stare at him, her eyes going so wide that they began to ache. He suspected; she knew he did. Had he waited until her fuddled brain would be incapable of thinking up some credible lie? Was that another of his devious reasons for systematically getting her drunk?

Somehow her tongue had got fused to the roof of her mouth, and her heart, tripping with alarm, didn’t help her to think clearly, and his smile had a definite feral quality as he added with a cool politeness that made her skin crawl, ‘Perhaps your memory requires a little help.’ White teeth glittered between those sensual lips. ‘After I read those letters, particularly the second, telling of the existence of my brother’s alleged son, I made a few initial enquiries. I found the signature indecipherable, as you recall, but my description, my reminders of the party to mark the end of the assignment you were part of, all produced the same name. Cordelia Soames. Or Cordy to her friends—who, I might say, seemed to be numerous and almost exclusively male and, practically to a man...intimate.’