Masquerade (50 page)

Later, much later, they lay on the beach under the stars, cloaked by the darkness of night.

Luz gazed up anxiously into her gypsy lover’s green eyes.

‘Andrés …’

His smile was languid and loving. ‘Umm,
Luz de mi vida, mi amor, mi dulci amor?’

‘I love you,’ she whispered.

‘Y te adoro,
and I adore you.’

‘Do you forgive me for all the terrible things I said to you?’

Andrés gazed down intently into her sapphire eyes. His lips brushed softly against hers. He grinned and tightened his embrace, drawing her closer. ‘What terrible things,
querida
? A great philosopher once said that forgiving implies remembering and I only remember beautiful things about you.’

At this he nuzzled his chin against her hair, inhaling its sweet scent, and closed his eyes. Luz settled deeper into his embrace, curving her body into his. Her heart gave a flutter of pure joy as she recognized the strong and unconcealed tremor of passion that coursed through him again: the sign of a hunger only she could assuage. Tenderly he stroked her hair and her cheek, her throat, her shoulder and then finally her breast. She moved sensuously under his touch and lifted her flushed face so he could read in her eyes the love and the need that mirrored his own.

‘Dios Mio, que te quiero,’
he whispered against her parted lips and then let his body say the rest.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading
Masquerade
. I hope that Luz and Andres’ story of forbidden love, truth and trust stirs your emotions as much as it did mine.

If you did enjoy the story, I’d be eternally grateful if you would write a review. Getting feedback from readers is incredibly rewarding and also helps to persuade other readers to pick up one of my books for the first time.

For news of my next releases, please come and visit me at my website –
www.hannahfielding.net
or join me on Facebook or Twitter.

Best wishes,

Hannah

HANNAH FIELDING was born and grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, the granddaughter of Esther Fanous, a revolutionary feminist and writer in Egypt during the early 1900s. Upon graduating with a BA in French literature from Alexandria University she travelled extensively throughout Europe and lived in Switzerland, France and England. After marrying her English husband, she settled in Kent and subsequently had little time for writing while bringing up two children, looking after dogs and horses, and running her own business renovating rundown cottages. Hannah now divides her time between her homes in Kent and the South of France. She has written three previous novels,
Burning Embers, Indiscretion
and
The Echoes of Love,
which won the Gold Medal for Romance at the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards and Silver at the 2014 Foreword Reviews IndieFab Book Awards.

What inspired you to write a Spanish trilogy?

When I first started to write
Indiscretion
, I had no idea that this first book in the trilogy would be the beginning of a long romance with Spain. As I visited that beautiful, flamboyant country and met its passionate, life-loving people, I immersed myself in the literature and culture, the architecture and history, and immediately realized I had a deep affinity with the Spaniards.

In my early draft of
Indiscretion
, the book was set in the seventies but, by the time I’d reached the middle of the book, I realized that it would be difficult for me to become involved with another country for my next novel – I had learnt so much about Spain that I was deeply in love with the country and with everything Spanish. That is when the seed of the next book,
Masquerade
, began to germinate in my mind.

General Franco’s regime was in full swing in Spain during the fifties and, for
Indiscretion
’s heroine, Alexandra, who arrives in Andalucía at the beginning of that decade, Spanish society seems to be frozen in the Dark Ages.

Masquerade
is set in the second half of the seventies. Franco is dead. Now that the tyrant is gone, the nation is reborn; Spain has opened its borders to outsiders and is preparing to enter what is now the European Union. Consequently Luz, Alexandra’s daughter and the heroine of
Masquerade
, has a much more emancipated attitude to life, as do her parents and the book’s hero.

In
Legacy,
the final book, the story takes place in the present day and Spain has changed out of all recognition. It is a much more liberal country now, where old prejudices and narrow-minded concepts are almost a thing of the past. However, the problems our hero and heroine have to face, the hurdles they must overcome, are of a more complex nature and are almost more challenging.

My Andalucían Nights Trilogy is a journey through Spain’s different historical periods and focuses on how my heroes and heroines confront the issues facing their respective generations – that is what I found fascinating to write.

What differences did you want to convey in this heroine, Luz, compared with Alexandra in
Indiscretion
?

In
Indiscretion
, Alexandra is escaping the stifling background of post-war England. She is a successful author in her own right but has been brought up by a strait-laced aunt. Intelligent, sensitive and curious but most of all a romantic, she embarks on a journey to Andalucía to meet her estranged Spanish family. Although she is faced with even more stifling traditions and rules at El Pavón than she was back home, Alexandra, being proud and a staunch individualist, recklessly follows her own naïve star and, in view of the place and the times, almost ruins her life.

More than twenty years later, in
Masquerade
, Alexandra’s passionate daughter, Luz, decides to return to Spain after an English education, wanting to embrace her Spanish nature. She is intelligent, energetic and flamboyant. Like her mother, she has a romantic view of the world and her strong independent streak makes her even more rebellious than Alexandra but, in the post-sexual-revolution seventies, the more lenient rules of Spain and the more modern attitude of her parents make for an easier confrontation with Spanish society. Adventurous and daring, she gets herself mixed up in a delicate and risky situation where her pride and trust will come up against her love. Will she recognize the dictate of her heart?

What gave you the idea for the Gemini theme?

I have always been interested in astrology but, most of all, by the sign of Gemini, which symbolizes the psyche of the human race – the duality in our personalities. We all have two sides to us: good and evil, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In Chinese philosophy,
yin
and
yang
describe how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary – two halves that together complete the whole. For one reason or another, we all wear masks concealing our inner thoughts and feelings, our ‘other side’.

The idea of ‘the mask’ hugely appeals to me because it spells mystery, adventure, excitement and, most of all, romance. Romance novels have frequently used disguised identity to enhance a story. Often the birth of a great hero is shrouded in mystery or he has a hidden past that has led him to separate himself from the present. For example, Sir Gawain is shrouded by typical Arthurian ambiguities and Sir Percy Blakeney dons an outlandish disguise to become the Scarlet Pimpernel. Byron created a model for the romantic hero in his long poem,
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
, which is still compelling today. The ‘Byronic hero’, possessed of so many different characteristics, is sophisticated, slightly dangerous but, most of all, mysterious.

Both heroes in
Masquerade
have some of those Byronic aspects and are shrouded in mystery, confusing Luz. On one hand, Leandro the fun-loving gypsy comes from a world of danger, darkness and violence; on the other, the ambiguous, tenebrous Andrés is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, affording him a good education, wealth and an enviable place in society. With their striking physical resemblance but such fundamentally different characters, they embody the two faces of Gemini. Both are attracted to Luz: so whom will her heart finally choose, the gypsy or the hidalgo?

What do you find most attractive about your heroes, Leandro and Andrés?

Leandro the gypsy and Andrés the gentleman are each in their own way handsome, charismatic and charming and, just like Luz, I was in love with them both while writing
Masquerade
.

Leandro is passionate, mischievous and impetuous, with a smile that mesmerizes and a devil-may-care attitude. He is proud and also kind, compassionate and loving.

Andrés has a darker personality. A sophisticated, successful businessman, he tends to be arrogant and is often enigmatic and taciturn. He is a real gentleman and sensitive, with feelings that run deep, keeping his passionate nature on a tight leash. Courageous and gallant, if he were the hero of a Medieval romance he would not hesitate to run to the rescue of his lady at his own peril.

What is your favourite scene in
Masquerade
?

The masked ball at El Pavón, the de Falla family home, of course. Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated by masked balls and so, in each of the books in the Andalucían Nights Trilogy, my main characters end up at such an event. What better protection can you have than to hide behind a mask in order to court, mystify, to be yourself, uninhibited and incognito, and to indulge in acts you wouldn’t do otherwise? Oscar Wilde said: ‘Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.’

Mountain/desert/jungle/ocean – which are you?

Definitely ocean. I have lived most of my life next to the sea. I grew up in a house in Alexandria, Egypt, where my bedroom had three windows looking over the Mediterranean. Later, when I came to England, my husband and I bought a house only ten minutes from the sea. And in France, where we live for half the year, our house and
its gardens overlook a beautiful bay that is so blue in summer it can be hard to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins.

What is your guilty travel pleasure?

Shopping for unusual items at the local
marché aux puces
(flea market) near my home in France. I’m especially drawn to glassware; it’s an exciting day if I spot a vase by Lalique, Baccarat, Daum or Schneider sparkling in the sun.

Who is your ideal travelling companion?

My husband, of course. If he is not available then my younger sister – we’ve had wonderful times and great laughs over the years.

Best meal on the road? And your worst?

Surprisingly enough, the best meal I’ve had was at the Restaurant de la Gare at Geneva train station. It was my father – who was a great gourmet – who tipped me off about this restaurant. They make the best steak tartare in the world.

Worst? In a café off the motorway in the former Yugoslavia in 1979, where I was presented with some sort of evil-smelling stew.

What was the first life-changing book you read and why?

I have my governess and the French nuns, my teachers, at Notre Dame de Sion to thank for my love of books. Balzac, Stendhal, Théophile Gautier and Victor Hugo were my introduction to beautifully written romantic stories, which were, to some extent, a part of the curriculum but which I also used to devour in my spare time.
Le Père Goriot, Le Rouge et le Noir
and
Notre Dame de Paris
are all wonderfully romantic tales that I have read again and again. I then graduated to the works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen. Their stories all had fascinating heroes and
heroines, wonderful yarns and settings, and the descriptions were so amazing I felt I was living and breathing the story.

How do you start writing?

I only start when I am totally satisfied with the plan of my novel. Having researched my facts thoroughly (through my travels, the internet, books, films, documentaries), I plan my novel down to the smallest detail. The muse is happy as long as I have a thesaurus to hand. I used to spend hours reading a thesaurus, totally engrossed in the nuances of words. Even now, when I’m looking up a word, I sometimes find myself absorbed in the subtle shadings of words – and time just flies by.

How do you finish?

I finish when I am absolutely sure that I have nothing more to say, being careful not to gild the lily.

Any good suggestions for overcoming writer’s block?

One of my favourite quotes about writer’s block is this, by Sir Philip Sydney: ‘Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: “Fool!” said my muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”’

I have two ways of dealing with writer’s block. The first is patience. If you sit there in front of a blank page – and I’ve done that, sometimes for as much as a couple of hours – the muse eventually takes pity on you and visits.

The second is to get into my car and drive to a place that has inspired me in the past. That also usually works. It might be a garden overlooking the sea, a meadow carpeted with wild flowers if I’m searching for a setting for a love scene, or a café bustling with people where I can find the description for one of my characters.

The captivating first novel in the
Andalucían Nights Trilogy

Set in 1950, in the wild landscape of Andalucía,
Indiscretion
is a compelling story of love and identity, danger and desire, and the uncertainty of happiness when two worlds collide.

Young novelist Alexandra de Falla abandons her privileged life in London and arrives in Spain to be reunited with her estranged family. But the de Fallas turn out to be riven with intrigues and secrets, mostly involving the elusive and mercurial heir to the estate, Salvador.

As this exotic country seeps into her blood, Alexandra’s electrifying attraction to Salvador grows, awakening emotions she hardly knew existed. But their path is strewn with obstacles: dangerous rivals, unpredictable events, and inevitable indiscretions.

So what does Alexandra’s destiny hold for her in this land of fiery music, dancing and all-consuming passions, where blood is ritually poured on to the sands of sun-drenched bullfighting arenas and mysterious gypsies are embroiled in magic and revenge?

Can love survive in a world where danger and scandal are never far away?

Her award-winning novel

Set in the romantic and mysterious city of Venice and the beautiful landscape of Tuscany,
The Echoes of Love
is a poignant story of lost love and betrayal, unleashed passion and learning to love again, whatever the price.

Venetia Aston-Montague has escaped to Italy’s most captivating city to work in her godmother’s architecture firm, putting a lost love behind her.

Paolo Barone, a charismatic entrepreneur whose life has been turned upside down by a tragic past, is endeavouring to build a new one for himself.

Venice on a misty carnival night brings these two people together. Love blossoms in the beautiful hills of Tuscany and the wild Sardinian maquis; but before they can envisage a future together they must not only confront their past, but also dark forces in the shadows determined to come between them.

Will love triumph over their overwhelming demons? Or will Paolo’s carefully guarded, devastating secret tear them apart forever?

Her mesmerizing debut novel

Set in the heart of Africa,
Burning Embers
is a tale of unforgettable passion and fragile love tormented by secrets and betrayal.

On the news of her estranged father’s death, beautiful young photographer Coral Sinclair is forced to return to the family plantation in Kenya to claim her inheritance.

But the peace of her homecoming is disrupted when she encounters the mysterious yet fearsomely attractive Rafe de Montfort – owner of the neighbouring plantation, and a reputed womanizer who had an affair with her own stepmother. Despite this, a mystifying attraction ignites between them and shakes Coral to the core as circumstances conspire to bring them together.

It is when Coral delves into Rafe’s past and discovers the truth about him, that she questions his real motives. Does Rafe really care for her, or is he hiding darker intentions? Should she listen to the warnings of those around her, or should she trust her own instincts about this man with a secret past?