The Spanish Duke's Virgin Bride (19 page)

‘I'm going to visit my father…for a few days,' Grace muttered, refusing to admit that she had no intention of coming back.

‘Oh, really?' Lucita's black eyes suddenly gleamed. ‘With you out of the way, I'll have a chance to patch things up with Javier.' She threw back her head so that her luscious curls flew around her shoulders. ‘Do me a favour, and don't rush back.'

Clinging to her dignity, Grace took out her keys and marched out of the castle, but as she ran down the steps tears blinded her eyes. Desperate to get away before Javier returned, she slid behind the wheel of the fancy sports car he had bought her and started the engine.

The snow that covered the mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada never fell at this level, but the driving rain obscured her vision, despite the windscreen wipers working at double speed. Within minutes of leaving the castle she was desperately trying to negotiate the steep, winding road, and she gripped the wheel, remembering the first time she had driven to El Castillo de Leon.

Had she known then that she would lose her heart to the stern-faced Duque, would she have come? she wondered as tears streamed down her face. The answer was an unequivocal yes. She had been prepared to do anything to help her father—but now she had to protect her baby.

As she rounded the next bend she saw a car coming towards her, and to her utter shock she realised that it was Javier behind the wheel. Panic stricken, she hit the accelerator and the powerful sportscar surged forwards. The wheels spun on the wet ground and suddenly she was hurtling towards the trees that were all that stood between the road and the sheer drop over the side of the mountain.

She was going too fast—she couldn't stop—and she screamed before she plunged into blackness.

‘Grace, open your eyes.'

The strangely disembodied voice sounded again, and with an effort Grace forced open her eyelids to stare up at an unfamiliar face. ‘Who…?' Her whisper was a tiny breath of sound and the stranger smiled gently.

‘You've been in an accident, but everything's going to be okay. You're husband's here.'

Grace barely heard the doctor's words. Vague, broken images flashed into her mind—trees racing towards her at an incredible speed, the sound of the windscreen shattering, and she was filled with a feeling of utter dread. ‘My baby…?'

She was aware of a ragged groan from the other side of the bed, but all her attention was focused on the doctor as he slowly shook his head.

‘I'm sorry. You were in the early stages of pregnancy, but I'm afraid there was nothing we could do. I realise it's no consolation right now, but your injuries are relatively minor and there's no reason why you shouldn't have another baby in the future.' The doctor patted her awkwardly and stood up. ‘I'll leave you alone now,' he murmured to Javier. ‘Your wife was incredibly lucky that the trees acted as a barrier and prevented her car from crashing down the mountainside. Her cuts and bruises will heal, but losing your child must be devastating for both of you.'

Grace closed her eyes and tears seeped from beneath her lashes. Her heart felt as though it had been scraped raw, and she just wanted to be left alone to cry in private.

Had Javier gone? She opened her eyes again and met his dark, unfathomable gaze. His face looked as though it had been sculpted from granite and as she stared at him she noted the nerve that jumped in his cheek. ‘I'm sorry,' she whispered, although she didn't know why. It was herself she felt sorry for, and her baby who she had let down so terribly.

More tears fell and Javier watched them, no flicker of emotion on his face. ‘You weren't going to tell me about the baby, were you?' he said, his voice rasping in his throat.

‘How could I?' she demanded bitterly. ‘When I'd just learned from Lucita that you had deliberately planned for me to conceive your child and intended to take him…or her…from me after our divorce.' Her voice faltered but she forced herself to go on. ‘I know about the final clause in your grandfather's will.'

‘
Dios,
there is no final clause,' Javier growled, making an effort to keep his voice down. ‘What you heard, and chose to believe, was the spiteful, overactive imagination of a spoiled girl who had become more obsessed with me than I realised.'

Grace stared at him wildly, unable to take in what he was telling her. ‘But Lucita…'

‘Told you a pack of lies. I never told her the reason for our marriage, but her father and my grandfather were old friends and she overheard Carlos telling Miguel about the marriage stipulation he had added to his will. The rest she made up.'

‘She was so convincing,' Grace whispered as the stark reality of what she had done sank in. She had denied Javier the chance to defend himself and instead had listened to a schoolgirl who was plainly jealous of her. She had paid the price of her mistrust by losing her unborn child, and from the look in Javier's eyes she'd also lost any chance she might have had of winning his love. The realisation was unbearable, and she turned her head away from him.

‘Grace…'

The unexpected tenderness of his tone tore her to shreds and she refused to look at him, unable to bear the contempt that she was sure she would see on his face. ‘Go away, Javier,' she wept, hiding her face in her hands. ‘Just go away and leave me alone.'

J
AVIER
stood outside Grace's bedroom door and listened to the muffled sound of her weeping. It couldn't go on, he thought savagely. It was six weeks since he had brought her home from the hospital, and every night had been the same—him lurking in the corridor, too afraid to walk in and risk her rejection, and her sitting alone and crying.

He would do anything to see her smile again. Her unhappiness was tearing him apart, but worst of all was the knowledge that he was responsible for her tears. He should never have married her, he told himself bleakly. He should have followed his gut instinct and had her thrown out of the castle when she'd first visited him to plead her father's case, instead of being seduced by her elusive, shy smile.

It was terrifying to realise how easily she had bewitched him. For most of his thirty-six years, he had imposed iron self-control over his emotions and had prided himself on being immune to feminine wiles. But somehow, without him being aware of it, Grace had slipped beneath his defences until she was all that mattered in his life. Letting her go would rip his heart out, he accepted grimly as he gripped the door handle. But he couldn't keep his little grey dove caged in the castle any longer.

Grace emerged from the en-suite bathroom and stopped abruptly at the sight of Javier standing at the end of her bed. He had lost weight, she noted with a frown. His face was drawn, with deep grooves on either side of his mouth, but he was still the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen, and she felt the familiar ache around her heart.

He had treated her with such kindness these past weeks. Beneath his cool reserve she was convinced he had a warm heart, and despite the way she had treated him, mistrusted him so terribly, he had never once blamed her for the loss of their child. Perhaps he saw no need when she blamed herself.

The realisation that she was pregnant had been so new, she had barely had time to accept it before her happiness had been snatched away. She'd cried until her heart felt as though it would burst for the loss of the tiny life she had carried so briefly, but for the past few nights her tears had been of despair as she'd faced up to the reality that Javier would never love her.

He spared her a brief, searing glance as she moved towards him, before returning his attention to the photographs scattered on the bed. ‘I take it that the woman in the wheelchair is your mother,' he said quietly as he stared at the serene smile of the woman who had blessed Grace with her gentle beauty. ‘I didn't realise she was unable to walk.'

Grace nodded and picked up one of the photos. ‘Unfortunately Mum lost the use of her legs in the early stages of her illness. The breathing and feeding tubes came later, towards the end, but even during her worst moments she never stopped smiling,' she told him, her voice ringing with love and pride for her mother.

‘Did you care for her at home?'

‘Yes. At first Dad and I managed on our own but later, when she was in a lot of pain, he arranged for round the clock, qualified nursing care. It was expensive, of course, as were the trips to Lourdes and other places around the world where the promises of miracle cures were all he had left to hope for. Nothing worked, of course,' she confided sadly. ‘But he loved her so much he would have done anything to save her—including stealing from you,' she added huskily. ‘Despite everything that's happened, I can't blame him. She was the love of his life, but I don't expect you to understand.'

‘You think that because I have never experienced love I can't recognise it and respect it in others?' Javier demanded harshly.

She gave him a startled glance. ‘You once told me that you don't believe in love.'

Streaks of colour briefly flared along his cheekbones. ‘
Dios
, I said a lot of damn stupid things—are you going to throw them all back in my face? Anyone looking at the photos of your parents couldn't fail to see the love they shared. Your father must have been destroyed by your mother's death. If I had listened when you first came to me, perhaps I would have understood the reasons why he acted as he did and felt sympathy, instead of exacting a bitter vengeance by forcing you to marry me.' His face twisted and Grace could have wept at the depth of emotion in his eyes.

‘It wasn't like that,' she whispered. ‘I had a choice, and I chose to marry you.'

Javier stared down at the photo and then thrust it at her. ‘You only accepted my proposal out of love for your father. It wasn't what you wanted. You saw your parents' happy marriage as a blueprint for your own future, but what did I give you? A heartless business contract—and the expectation that you would make the vows that are so important to you
knowing
that they were a lie. I watched your face in the chapel, Grace,' he said huskily. ‘And I knew how much it hurt you to say those words to me rather than a man you loved and hoped to spend the rest of your life with.'

He walked over to the huge stone fireplace and stared moodily at the flames dancing in the grate. ‘I've decided that you should go back to England,' he said suddenly, his voice shattering the silence that had fallen between them. ‘You're so pale and sad—you need to spend time with the people who love you.'

‘I see.' Grace felt a shaft of pain slice through her but she refused to let him see how much his words had hurt her. He couldn't have made it plainer that he had no feelings for her, she thought as she dashed her tears away impatiently. He was probably sick of the sight of her crying all the time. She bit down on her lip until she tasted blood, and forced her voice to sound unemotional. ‘When do you want me to leave?'

‘Whenever it suits you—tomorrow, if you like,' he replied with a shrug. His indifference was like a knife in her chest and she choked back a sob, but as she stood silently, wishing he would go and leave her to her misery, he spoke again. ‘Grace…I want you to know that the past months that you've lived here at the
castillo
have been the happiest of my life—apart from the last few weeks, which have been hell,' he added on a raw undertone.

He was still staring at the fire, his face turned away from her as if he was deliberately avoiding her gaze, but his startling admission was too much for Grace. ‘In that case, why are you sending me away?' she demanded, marching over to him. Her nightdress was a prim floor-length white gown with a high neck and long sleeves designed for warmth rather than seduction. In her haste she tripped on the hem and muttered an oath as she gathered up the material in one hand and stood before him.

‘There are still over four months remaining of our marriage contract, and I'm fully prepared to honour them,' she said fiercely. ‘I thought you needed me here to convince the bank's board members that you no longer lead a playboy lifestyle and are a happily married man.'

For a moment he said nothing, simply slid his fingers into her hair and smoothed the silky strands down to her waist. ‘I've resigned from my position at El Banco de Herrera and relinquished all rights to it. From now on, my cousin Lorenzo Perez has total control.'

‘But…' Grace gaped at him until he put a finger beneath her chin and gently closed her mouth. ‘The bank is everything to you, the most important thing in the world.' In her urgency to understand, she gripped the front of his shirt and stared up at him. ‘You don't have to give it up now, when you're so close to winning your rightful place as its head.'

She closed her eyes as comprehension suddenly dawned. ‘That's why you're sending me back to England, isn't it? You can't wait another four months until you can divorce me. You must really hate me if you're prepared to lose your birthright rather than remain married to me for a few short months,' she said thickly, her throat aching with tears.

‘Of course I don't hate you!' he denied explosively. He gripped her shoulders and forced her to look at him, his eyes softening at the abject misery in hers. ‘How could you ever think it?'

‘It was my fault that I lost the baby,' Grace wept. ‘If I had trusted you more, instead of listening to Lucita's lies, I would still be carrying our child.'

‘A child that you believed I only wanted to fulfil the terms of my grandfather's will.' Javier gave a harsh laugh. ‘Even I am not as ruthless as that,
querida
, but the fact that you thought me capable of such cruelty is proof of your opinion of me, and after the way I've treated you I deserve your contempt.'

His face was a taut mask as he struggled to control his emotions. There would be time enough after she had gone to deal with the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. ‘Don't cry any more, Grace,' he pleaded huskily as he drew her against his chest and felt her tears soak through his shirt. ‘It's time to end this madness. You're free to go home to your father, and you have my word that Angus is safe from prosecution. If I had been in his shoes, watching helplessly as the woman I loved suffered, I would have done the same thing,' he confessed, his voice so low that Grace had to strain against him to hear it. ‘I forgive him,
querida
, and I can only hope that one day you might find it in your heart to forgive me for the way I hurt you.'

‘You've never hurt me—at least, not intentionally,' Grace said firmly as she rested her cheek on his chest and listened to the erratic thud of his heart. She closed her eyes for a moment and absorbed his strength, her senses flaring at the scent of his cologne. She could stay like this for ever, but she was probably embarrassing him, she acknowledged ruefully—she knew how he hated signs of affection.

She took a deep breath and eased out of his arms so that she could look at him properly. She felt humbled by his admission that he sympathised with her father and now it was time she repaid his honesty with her own. All his life he had believed himself to be flawed in some way. His own mother had told him he was unlovable, and it was little wonder that he had built a protective wall around his heart.

Pride had caused her to deny her feelings for him, and she had cruelly allowed him to believe that she could never love him. How wrong he was!

‘It's not your fault that you don't love me,' she murmured, lifting her chin to bravely meet his gaze. ‘You made it clear from the beginning that you never would, and it's my own fault that the idea of leaving you…of never seeing you again…breaks my heart.' She ignored the look of stunned disbelief in his eyes and pressed on while her nerve held. ‘I don't believe you're cold and heartless, Javier. You have a heart and as much love inside you as any man—maybe more—but your childhood taught you to bury your emotions and they're still locked within you, waiting for the right woman to turn the key.'

Suddenly she couldn't go on and she turned away from him, tears streaming down her face. ‘I wish I was that woman.' She choked. ‘Because I love you with all my heart. You were right when you guessed the reason why I came to you in Madrid. I couldn't resist you—but I would never have slept with you if I hadn't loved you.'

‘Then why were you leaving me?' In an agony of frustration, Javier spun her round and literally shook her before he dragged her up against the solid wall of his chest. ‘
Dios
,' he muttered hoarsely. ‘When I forced the car door open and discovered you slumped over the wheel…' A shudder ran through him and he closed his eyes briefly as tears burned the back of his throat.

The last time he'd cried he had been eight years old, huddled beneath his mother's caravan after she'd locked him out—hungry and alone. Since then he'd learned to control his emotions, a self-defence mechanism against getting hurt. But Grace could see into his soul. She'd ripped down his defences one by one, leaving him raw and exposed. The memory of those few seconds after the accident when he'd thought he'd lost her were too much to bear, and he buried his face in her hair as tears seeped from beneath his lashes.

‘All my life I have rejected love, until I believed I was immune to it,' he groaned as he pressed desperate, feverish kisses over her face and throat. ‘But I love you, Grace—more than I thought it possible to love another human being.'

He threaded his fingers into her hair and tilted her face so that he could stare down at her. His amber eyes blazed with so much emotion that Grace wondered how she could have ever thought him cold. It was as if he was making up for all the years that he had locked his feelings away, and when she caught the gleam of moisture in his eyes she wanted to weep for the lonely boy he had once been.

Reaching up on tiptoe, she took his face between her hands and kissed him with all the pent-up love that she had kept hidden for so long. Incredibly, she felt him hesitate before his lips moved over hers with gentle reverence, slow and sweet, in an evocative caress that made her tremble in his arms.

‘At first I kidded myself that I was in control,' he admitted when he finally lifted his head. ‘I couldn't keep my hands off you, but I told myself it was just good sex.' His mouth curved into a rueful smile. ‘The best sex ever—I had never experienced such pleasure, such
joy
, as when I made love to you. But afterwards I had to force myself to move away from you in case you realised how weak I was where you were concerned.'

‘I thought it was your way of demonstrating that you only wanted me for sex and nothing else,' Grace whispered shyly. ‘I longed for you to give me some small sign that I meant something to you, and I was so jealous of the easy familiarity you shared with Lucita. I'm sorry I believed her rather than trusting you,' she murmured shamefacedly, but when she dropped her head Javier lifted her chin.