‘Does my home please you now that you know it better?’ came a voice from the darkness. He appeared from beneath the trees, a silvered outline in the moonlight. He was wearing the clothes in which he’d dined, but now the frilled evening shirt was torn open to the waist. His chest was thick with hair, rising and falling as though he had been running.

‘I think you live in the most beautiful place on earth,’ she agreed.

He was carrying two wine glasses, one of which he gave to her, almost as if he had known that she would be there. ‘How does Catalina seem to you?’ he asked. ‘Is she happy?’

‘She is now, because she’s surrounded by pretty things and she’s going to be the centre of attention on the big day. But after that?’

‘After that, I shall spoil her, like the child she is, and she will want for nothing. Of course, she may find life a little short of intellectual pursuits-’

‘We’ve already agreed that Catalina isn’t an intellectual,’ Maggie said wryly.

‘She’s a scatterbrain who’ll always be content as long as she has a large dress allowance and girlfriends to gossip with,’ he said indulgently.

It annoyed Maggie not to be able to dispute the point, but she’d come to see that Sebastian’s assessment of his bride was largely correct. That didn’t make her agree with him about his marriage, but it did make him hard to fight.

‘And what about you?’ she asked. ‘How will you manage with a wife who cannot share your thoughts?’

He shrugged. ‘I share my thoughts with men, not women.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ she cried to the sky.

‘You demand too much of marriage. No relationship can fulfil all needs. Catalina and I will make a home together. I will keep her safe, give her children, and satisfy her need for passion.’

‘You’re very sure you can satisfy that?’ she snapped.

He shrugged. ‘I’ve had no complaints so far.’

‘Stop right there. I don’t want to hear about your easy conquests.’

‘Why do you assume that they were easy?’

‘Because I know about you now. I know how they speak of you-Don Sebastian, the man of authority, of respect, of power. The man whose eye everyone wants to catch-’

‘Like your friend tonight,’ he murmured.

‘Yes. Good heavens, he nearly jumped through hoops when he heard I knew you.’

‘Why, Margarita,’ he said softly, ‘I didn’t realise that I filled so large a part of your conversation-or your thoughts.’

‘Don’t try to lay traps for me-’

‘You lay them for yourself. Why do you dislike me so much?’

‘Because-’ it was suddenly hard to answer ‘-because I feel sorry for Catalina. You mean to be a good husband by your lights, but your lights are very narrow. I see her being frog-marched into this marriage without having a chance to find something better.’

‘Something better than a home in which she will be petted and indulged, and given safety in which to rear her children? Yes, I shall be a good husband by my lights. But my lights include something you never speak of, perhaps because you think it doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do. She is beautiful. I am a man who knows how to please a woman, and how to teach her to please him. Strange, how you never allow for passion, Margarita. A man might almost think you knew nothing of it.’

‘Oh, I know about passion,’ she said with a bitterness she couldn’t suppress. ‘I know how dangerous it is, and how overrated. You think if you blind her like that nothing else will matter.’

‘I think that a man who satisfies his wife in bed is a good husband, and has protected the sanctity of his home.’

Suddenly time rolled back and she was confronting Roderigo again, beating her head against his selfish conviction that his technical skill as a lover should silence all argument. Terrified, she hurled the cruellest words she could find.

‘And how will he know if she’s truly satisfied, Sebastian? How can he be sure that what he sees isn’t a pretence, the prisoner placating her gaoler? That’s the trouble when a man has too much power. He’s never quite certain, is he?’

The sharp intake of his breath told her that she’d struck home. ‘Be careful,’ he said harshly.

‘It’s true. Admit it!’

She didn’t know what demon was lashing her on to drive him past the point of safety. She only knew that she would do anything to crack his control and wipe the complacency from his face. And that she was succeeding.

‘Stop there,’ he said harshly.

‘Why should I? What did you think I meant when I spoke of your “easy conquests”? They’re very easy, aren’t they, Sebastian? I’m sure women flock to your bed, but is it you that pleases them, or your money and power? You’ll never be sure, will you?’

‘Then you can be the judge,’ he snapped.

She read the intention in his eyes and backed off, but too late. His hand was behind her head and his mouth on hers before she had time to think. There was no chance to even try to push him away as his other arm clamped itself around her waist, grinding her body against his. She had driven him too far. Now he had a point to make, and she knew within seconds that he was going to make it with devastating force. No quarter asked or given.

But that went for her too, she thought furiously. What a pleasure it would be to lie, frozen, in his arms, and let him know how little impact he made on a woman who wanted nothing from him. It would be satisfying to teach him a lesson.

She let her hands fall to her side and stood, unresisting, while his lips moved over hers, skilled, purposeful. There was coaxing in those movements, but she ignored it. It was harder to ignore the hot, spicy smell of him and the feel of his body moulded against hers. She was conscious of the lines of his thighs, his lean hips, and the fact that he had come swiftly to full arousal.

To her dismay, that knowledge sent little sparks of excitement through her. That wasn’t what she’d meant to happen, and she wouldn’t give in to it. She must remember how much she disliked him, because then she couldn’t possibly want to press herself closer to him.

He raised his head and looked down at her face, closed against him in the moonlight. He smiled.

‘It isn’t going to be that easy,’ he said softly. ‘For either of us.’

‘Go to the devil!’

‘Of course. That’s where you’re driving me. Let’s go together.’

‘No!’

‘Too late to say no. Too late for both of us. You should have thought of this before you taunted me. Now we have to go on to the end.’

He covered her mouth with a swift, ravishing movement, and she clenched her hands. It was hard to keep them at her side when they wanted to touch him, excite him. She resisted the impulse, but she guessed he must sense her struggle. At all costs she must prove herself stronger than him at this moment.

As though he read her thoughts he murmured against her lips, ‘Why do you fight me?’

‘Because somebody must,’ she said fiercely, trying not to let her voice shake.

Astonished, he drew back and searched her face.

‘You have more power than any man should have,’ she flung at him. ‘But while I’m alive, it will never be complete. I’ll never give you power over me. Not for an instant.’

‘I believe you really would fight me to the last moment,’ he murmured huskily.

‘Believe it! Because I’ve seen through you.’

‘And what do you think you see?’

‘This is all an act. You don’t really want me at all, any more than I want you. You just can’t bear someone who doesn’t jump when you snap your fingers. If I let you overcome me, you’d shrug at another conquest and forget me the next moment.’

‘Are you so sure?’

‘Completely sure.’

‘Shall we find out?’

‘It will never happen,’ she said slowly and deliberately. She wrenched herself free and backed away from him. She was breathing hard, but in command of herself. She wasn’t so sure of Sebastian’s control. There was a wild look in his eyes, and she was suddenly aware how isolated they were in this distant part of the garden. He was a man used to taking what he wanted.

‘I’m leaving this house,’ she said.

‘I forbid it!’

‘And you think you have only to give your orders? Don’t try to order me, Sebastian. I’m going first thing tomorrow. And think yourself lucky if I don’t tell Catalina the kind of man she’s marrying.’

‘Do you know the kind of man she’s marrying?’

‘I know that whatever else you offer your wife, it isn’t fidelity.’

‘I find it hard to think of fidelity when you’re around. Perhaps you should blame yourself for that. Why do you incite me if you have nothing to give?’

‘Don’t try to blame me! I don’t incite you.’

‘You incite me just by living and breathing. You incite me when you walk in the room, when I see you-’

‘Then the sooner you see me no more, the better.’

She walked away from him quickly. As she went she listened for his footsteps coming after her, but there was only the silence and she managed to reach the building. She was shaking with the violence of what had happened to her, not what he had done, but what she had felt. Her heart was thundering and her whole body shook with the force of the sensations he had aroused. Everything he said was true. She was no girl but a woman who had learned the secrets of desire and couldn’t forget them. She’d forced them back, tried to deny what she knew, but they were there, waiting for the wrong man to bring them back to life.

She hurried to her room, longing to get out of sight, but suddenly Catalina appeared, smiling at the sight of her. Now was her chance, Maggie thought. She’d wanted to stop this wedding, and if she told the girl the truth about her future husband, that was all it would take.

Or would it? Catalina probably didn’t expect perfect behaviour from Sebastian, but she would expect it from her friend. Her revelations might cause pain without doing any good.