The Caged Tiger

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT would be evening before the plane landed in Seville. It had been the only flight she had been able to get at such short notice and during the height of the season. It had been cheaper too, because of a sudden cancellation, but it had been a long day—all that hanging around at Heathrow to make sure they got the seats. She pushed a slim pale hand through her silver-blonde weight of hair, her amethyst eyes clouding as she shifted Jamie’s baby weight from one arm to the other. Baby… She stifled a small smile. At three he considered himself a very grown-up young man. She often had difficulty convincing people that she was actually his mother—not just because she looked younger than her twenty-four years. Her small, slender body looked far too fragile to ever have carried a child. But it had. She wasn’t a fool; she knew that despite the plain gold wedding ring she wore people wondered if she had actually ever been married—if Jamie was not simply the result of a youthful indiscretion. They were wrong, though. She had most emphatically been married; had had a husband… There were still faint traces of his orange juice round Jamie’s mouth, and as she reached into her pocket for a tissue the letter crackled ominously.

She didn’t need to take it out, to look at the heavy, expensive crested paper again. Every word written on it was engraved upon her heart, and had been agonised over ever since the letter arrived a fortnight ago.

Only a fortnight? It felt more like years. The letter was brief, couched in words as dry as dust, making it impossible for her to think it had been written with any feeling. But then it hadn’t. Any feeling that had ever existed between Jamie’s father and herself had long since turned to ashes.

So what was she doing on this plane, flying back to Spain, taking her son to his unknown father?

She glanced down quickly at the sleeping child. Under the baby plumpness lay even now the signs of his recent illness. Enteritis was so frightening in a child—one could do nothing but hope and pray. He was over it now, the doctors assured her, but she was haunted by the fear that another poor summer would lower his resistance to the point where he would be ill again come winter. In Spain he would thrive in the warmth and luxury which were his birthright; his skin would take on the mahogany hue of his father’s, his hair would gleam blue-black as a raven’s wing in, the strong sunshine… Hair that reminded her unbearably at times of Ruy… She stroked it back from his forehead where it had fallen in unruly curls. Even in sleep his profile had a subconscious arrogance inherited from a long line of Spanish hidalgos…

She had done her best for him, but it could never come anywhere near to matching what Ruy could give him. She was lucky in that she had been able to work from home, but her illustrations for children’s books and cards did not bring in enough to keep them in luxury, nor to provide the winter away from the English climate which the doctor had suggested might be as well.

Jamie stirred in his sleep, the almost purple eyes which were what she had passed on to him remaining tightly closed. She had always been honest with him. When she thought he was old enough to understand she had explained that his daddy lived far away in another country, without going into too much detail. He had been curious, but had accepted her matter-of-fact explanations without evincing any surprise or distress. At play-school several of the other children lived alone with their mothers, and he saw nothing odd in their own aloneness. Which was wrong, something inside her told her, as she remembered her own parents’ happy marriage. If a child did not grow up knowing that love could exist between adults of both sexes then how could he in turn pass that knowledge on to his own children?

She was being sentimental, she warned herself. Jamie was unlikely to learn anything good about human relationships from observing hers with his father. Which brought her thoughts back full circle. Why had Ruy written to her? Why did he want his son—now?

She had been so sure when she left that he would find some way of having their marriage set aside—it had been a Catholic ceremony in accordance with his religion, but his family were influential and rich, and there were always ways and means… His mother had never liked the marriage. ‘Liked!’ She almost laughed. It would have been truer to say that her mother-in-law detested her, if one could apply such a word to the ice-cold contempt the Condesa de Silvadores had evinced each time their paths had crossed—and they had been many. The Condesa had seen to that. In the end a million tiny pinpricks could be more fatal than one crippling blow.

The plane landed, and a smiling stewardess helped her with Jamie. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she commented as she held him so that Davina could collect all their possessions, ‘but not a bit like you.’

‘No, he takes after his father,’ Davina answered briefly, trying not to let her voice falter.

The stewardess could not know what the words had cost her. How much it always cost her to admit how much Jamie resembled his father—the father who had never wanted him, who never had seen him; never once sent him a birthday or Christmas present, made no attempts whatsoever to see him–until now. And even now he had left it to his mother—the woman who had always derided and scorned her—to write the letter summoning her back to the Palacio de los Naranjos—the Palace of the Orange Trees—the home of the Silvadores family set among the orange groves from which the family’s fortune was derived and whose scent hung sharply and sweetly on the early morning air.

A shiver trembled through her, and mistaking it for coldness, the stewardess touched her arm, motioning her towards the airport building. Despite the huge number of people who passed through her life daily, something about Davina intrigued the other girl. She looked so frail, spiritual almost, her beauty tinged with a contemplative acceptance that touched the heart far more than any more overt signs of grief. What had happened to her to give her that look? She might have posed for some great painter of the Renaissance. Her expression told of great suffering and resignation, and yet surely she had all the things any woman could want? Youth, beauty, this adorable baby, and somewhere the man who had loved her enough to give her his son.

When they emerged from the Customs hail it was dark. Davina walked out into the soft silkiness of the Spanish night, Jamie in her arms. Spain! How the scents of the night brought back memories. Herself and Ruy wandering hand in hand through the orange groves during their honeymoon, and later, when the moon had risen fully and he had taken her so paganly in that shadowed garden, teaching her and thrilling her until her passion matched his. She had been happy then—deliriously happy, but she had paid for it later. She had thought Ruy loved her, had never realised that to him she was merely a substitute for the girl he had really loved; that he had married her to punish that girl.

In the shadowed garden of his home she had thought she had found Paradise. But every Eden must have a serpent and hers had held Ruy’s mother, the woman who hated her so much that she had deliberately opened her eyes to the truth.

And now Ruy wanted her back—no, not her; it was his son. The only one he was ever likely to have, or so the letter had told her. Jamie was his heir, and his place was with his father, learning all that he must learn if he was to take it successfully. And Davina could not deny it, although she could not understand why Ruy had not been able to get his freedom—Freedom to marry the girl he had loved all along, the girl he had really wanted to be the mother of the son who would succeed him, as Silvadores had succeeded Silvadores in an unbroken line from the sixteenth century onwards.

The letter had said that she would be collected from the airport. A porter brought her cases and she smiled as she tipped him. His eyes rested appreciatively on her face, and her hair, like spun silver, and so very different from the girls of his own race. Her features were patrician and perfect, her lips chiselled and firm, her complexion as fine as porcelain, her huge amethyst eyes fringed with luxuriously thick dark lashes.

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, Ruy had once told her. But he hadn’t meant it.

‘Davina?’

She hadn’t heard the opulent Mercedes drive up nor seen its driver emerge to come and touch her lightly on the arm, and she spun round, startled, her eyes widening slightly as she found herself looking into a face she remembered as being a boy’s.

‘Sebastian?’

‘Let me take the boy. He looks heavy.’ Her brother-in-law lifted Jamie from her arms with a competence which would have amused her four years ago. Then he had been nineteen, and still at the university studying viticulture in preparation for taking over the family’s vineyards. Now, at twenty-three, he had matured considerably. Although superficially he resembled his brother, Sebastian lacked Ruy’s totally male grace. Where Ruy was lean and muscled Sebastian showed a tendency towards what would develop into plumpness in middle years. He was not as tall as Ruy, his features nowhere near as tautly chiselled, but for all that he was still a very handsome young man. Especially when he smiled—which he had been doing as he held his small nephew. However, the moment he turned towards Davina the smile was replaced by cool formality. She was handed back her child and ushered into the expensive car, her luggage stowed in the boot, and then Sebastian was sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. It surprised Davina that if one of the brothers had to meet her, it had not been Ruy. Surely he must be anxious to see his son to permit his presence?

She voiced her opinion of her husband’s lack of manners as they drove out of the city. In the driving mirror Sebastian’s eyes met hers, before moving away evasively. She remembered that he had always hero-worshipped his elder brother. Twelve years separated them, and Ruy had already been a man while Sebastian was still a child in school.

‘He was unable to meet you,’ was all the explanation Sebastian would vouchsafe, and Davina was glad she had played down the meeting with his father to Jamie. The little boy would have been sadly disappointed had he been expecting him at the airport. In point of fact Davina was surprised that Sebastian had come for them. She had half expected to be collected by the family chauffeur, rather like a piece of unwanted luggage.

Before her marriage to the Conde de Silvadores Ruy’s mother had lived in South America, the only daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and had been brought up very strictly. She had never learned to drive and was always taken wherever she wished to go by a chauffeur. That had been yet another cause of dissent between them. Davina had found it very hard to adjust to being the wife of a rich nobleman without having to behave like some Victorian heroine, not permitted to put a foot out of doors without an escort. Used to running her own life and relatively untrammelled freedom, she had rebelled against the strictures Ruy’s mother had wanted to impose upon her.

Her small sigh brought Sebastian’s eyes to her face. She was very beautiful, this silver-haired girl who had married his adored brother—even more beautiful now than she had been when they married. Then she had been merely a girl; now she was a woman… His eyes rested on his brother’s child. Madre would be well pleased. The boy was all Silvadores.

Unaware of her brother-in-law’s covert inspection, Davina stared out into the dusk of a Spanish evening, forgotten memories surfacing like so many pieces of flotsam, things she had vowed never to remember filling her mind, like the vivid beauty of the sunset, the subtle smell of oranges on the evening air, peasants trudging contentedly homewards after a day in the fields, donkeys with panniers laden. She sighed.

The Palacio lay between Seville and Cordoba, and this journey was the very first she had taken with Ruy after their marriage. They had left Barcelona straight away after the ceremony and flown to Seville…

More to bring a halt to her errant thoughts than out of any real curiosity, she questioned Sebastian about his life since she had left.

Yes, he had now left the university, he answered politely, and was running the family’s vineyards. Davina had a hazy recollection of a young Spanish girl whom his mother had wished him to marry, and when she mentioned her Sebastian told her that they had been married for two years. ‘But, alas, without any little ones,’ he volunteered sadly. ‘The doctors say that Rosita will probably never have children. An operation to remove her appendix caused some complications…’ He shrugged philosophically, and Davina’s heart went out to his young wife. She knew all too well what importance was placed on the bearing of children—especially sons—in her husband’s family. Hadn’t she had it drummed into her time and time again by her mother-in-law that Silvadores had been linked with the history of Spain for hundreds of years and how important it was for the name to continue?

Now she could understand why the family were so anxious for Jamie to be brought up in the full knowledge of what his role would one day be, although previously she had always expected, when Ruy had their marriage set aside so that he could marry Carmelita, that Jamie would be disinherited in favour of the sons she would bear him. She was not au fait with the Spanish inheritance laws, nor had she made any attempt to be. She had left Ruy swearing that never would she ask him for a single penny towards his son’s upbringing, and she had stuck rigorously to that vow, and at the first suggestion that she had come to Spain with any thought of material gain, she would leave at once. They were the ones who wanted Jamie. AH she wanted for her son was his restored health, and had there been any other means of achieving it she would have gladly taken them. She had no wish to be indebted to her husband or his family, but as the solicitor she had gone to see in England had gently pointed, out, there was a possibility that Ruy might appeal to the Spanish courts to have custody of Jamie given to him, and as the child was his heir they might very well grant it.

With that threat hanging over her Davina had had no choice but to comply with the terms of the letter. That way at least she would still be able to be with her child.

They were starting to climb, driving towards the Sierra de los Santos. High up in those mountains was a monastery which had once belonged to the monks of the Inquisition, and she shivered as she remembered Ruy telling her about the ancestor of his who had been to England with Philip of Spain and fallen in love there with one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting. He had married his English Rose, as he had named his bride, and carried her back to Spain with him, but despite the fact that Jane Carfax was of the same religion as himself, the priests of the Inquisition had insisted that in reality she was an English spy. They had demanded that Cristo hand over his wife so that she could be questioned, but the Spaniard knew too much about their torture chambers to relinquish his wife. Instead he had made secret plans to leave his country with his bride and start a new life far beyond the reach of the burning fires to which the priests wished to sacrifice his love.

On the very night they were to leave for the coast the house had been surrounded and they had been taken to the monastery. Their secret had been betrayed by Cristo’s brother, and the two young lovers had perished together in the flames. The brother himself had died shortly after, after an agonising illness—punishment from God, the villagers had called it. The story had haunted Davina. And now, as she raised her eyes to the black bulk of the mountains she shivered, holding Jamie tightly.

‘Soon be there,’ Sebastian told her over his shoulder. ‘Everything is in readiness for you. Madre has given you your own suite of rooms. She has engaged a nurse for the little one. She will help him to learn Spanish, although he is not yet old enough for formal lessons, but he must learn his father’s tongue…’

How much they took for granted, these arrogant Spaniards! Davina thought resentfully. Already her mother-in-law seemed to be usurping her place. Well, she would soon learn that Davina was no shy, awkward girl now, eager to please and terrified. Jamie was her child, and she would be the one to say what he would and would not learn.

And yet half an hour later when the Mercedes stopped in the courtyard of the beautiful Moorish house which had been the home of her husband’s family for centuries, and Sebastian took the sleeping child in his arms, she had to admit that when it came to loving children, Englishmen could learn a good deal from their Spanish counterparts. As they walked towards the house Jamie stirred, and half frightened that he would think she had left him, Davina darted forward to take his hand. Two dimples appeared in his chubby cheeks as he smiled, his arms extended towards her. As she took him from Sebastian, she buried her face in the small baby neck, suddenly overwhelmed by dread, by the fear that she had done the wrong thing.

Too many memories that were best left dead had been stirred already. She might be able to close her heart against her husband, but she could not close her mind to her memories… Memories of the very first time she had seen this house; of how she had been entranced by Ruy’s casual explanation that it had once been the home of a Moorish prince and that much of the original architecture remained. Even now she could hear the music of the fountains playing in the courtyard which had once been the sole property of the ladies of the harem, and even before the massive wooden doors opened, already in her mind’s eye she could see the gracious hallway with its mosaic-tiled floor and elegant Moorish architecture. Everything was the same—but different. Then she had arrived with a husband she had thought loved her as totally as she loved him. This time she arrived with her son—the product of that union.

The doors opened, and in the light from the chandeliers Davina saw her mother-in-law waiting to greet them, regal and feminine in one of the long hostess gowns she always wore in the evening—always black, always elegant. How intimidated she had been on the first occasion! But not this time. Oh, definitely not this time.

Her head held high, she stepped past Sebastian and into the house. Her mother-in-law’s eyes flickered once as Davina greeted her and then went straight to Jamie with a hunger no amount of sophistication could hide. She held out her arms, but Davina did not place Jamie into them. He was busily staring around his new surroundings.

‘So this is Ruy’s child.’

Davina ignored the other woman’s emotion, her eyes hard as they probed the shadows of the room, as she forced herself to damp down the feeling nothing would make her admit was disappointment.

Sebastian had walked into the salón, plainly expecting that they would follow him. Her mother-in-law indicated that Davina should precede her into the room, and with her legs trembling a little Davina did so.

The room was much as she remembered. Rich Persian carpets glowed on the floor, the antique furniture was still as highly polished as it had always been, the room looking more like a film set than someone’s home, and her heart sank at the thought of condemning Jamie to a house where his inquisitive little fingers would be forbidden to touch and explore.

A small, slight girl in a demure cotton dress stood up as they walked in. Davina guessed at once that she was Sebastian’s wife, Rosita, and this was confirmed when Sebastian introduced her. Like her mother-in-law, Rosita’s eyes went immediately to the child in Davina’s arms, and she turned to her husband whispering something huskily in Spanish.

‘She says that the child very much resembles Ruy,’ Sebastian explained to Davina.

‘I know.’

Davina could see that the dry words had surprised them. She had not been able to speak Spanish when she married Ruy, and as he spoke excellent English she had only made a halfhearted attempt to learn. But during the lonely weeks after her return to England she had bought herself some foreign language tapes, partially to pass the time, and partially because then she still hoped that it had all been a mistake and that Ruy loved her and would come to take her home. To her own surprise she had shown quite a facility for the language, and could now speak it reasonably well. She could tell by her mother-in-law’s expression that the older woman thought her knowledge of her language had been gained purely to impress them, and to show her exactly how little she cared what they thought about her she lifted her chin proudly and said coolly:

‘I was given to understand that Ruy was anxious to see his son. Where is he? Out somewhere with Carmelita?’

Rosita paled and started to tremble. Sebastian gripped her hand, his mouth white, and only the Condesa appeared unmoved by her question. What was she supposed to do? Pretend ignorance? Pretend that she didn’t know that her husband loved someone else?

Before anyone could speak Davina heard an unfamiliar sound in the hall. For a moment it reminded her of her own days spent pushing Jamie’s pram, which was quite ridiculous, for who would push a pram through the immaculate rooms of this house?

The salón had double doors, both of which stood open. All three members of the Silvadores family were staring towards them with varying degrees of tension evident in their faces. Only Davina’s expression was openly puzzled. Sebastian walked towards her, his hand touching her arm, as though he wanted to say something, but before he could do so Davina knew the reason why her husband had not met her at the airport but had sent his brother instead. For the sound she had heard was made by a wheelchair and in it, his face drawn in tight lines of pain, was Ruy.

CHAPTER TWO

‘RUY!’

His name burst past her lips of its own volition in a shocked gasp, his expression going from sheer incredulity to bitter anger as he stared from her slender body, half hidden by the child in her arms, to the faces of his relatives.

‘Madre de Dios!’ he swore angrily, his nostrils pinched and white with the force of his rage. ‘What kind of conspiracy is this? What is going on?’ he demanded harshly. ‘What is she doing here?’

If she had felt shocked before, it was nothing to what she was feeling now, Davina admitted, her face going as white as his, but before she could say anything, Ruy’s mother was speaking.

‘She has come because I requested her to,’ she told her son, holding his eyes coolly.

Davina wasn’t paying much attention to them. She was still too stunned by the fact that this was actually Ruy, the proud and strong, in a wheelchair, to appreciate the full enormity of what her mother-in-law had done.

‘You requested it?’ The thin nostrils dilated further. ‘By whose authority?’ he demanded softly. ‘I am still master in my own house, Madre. I can still say who may and may not rest under its roof, even if I can no longer walk as other men, but must needs propel myself about like a babe in arms.’