Her kiss was as devouring as his, her embrace as fiercely demanding. She twined her legs in his, urging him on with all her power. When she tried to speak his name, no words would come, only a gasp as he entered her and the pleasure mounted fast. She clasped him close, wanting more of him, wanting everything. And when she had everything, she wanted more. Then he gave more, and she gave back, and gave, and gave.

They were both trembling with the vigour of their mating as they fell apart, but not far apart. They still held on to each other while they recovered.

‘You were away too long,’ she said at last.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I was.’

Suddenly she gave a little gasp of laughter.

‘What is it?’ Sebastian demanded quickly.

‘I was just thinking of me, walking up the aisle in a bridal gown,’ she said. ‘It hardly seems appropriate somehow-after tonight, and the other night.’

‘The things we know are for us alone.’

‘Yes, but you have to admit that it has its funny side.’

He only scowled, and she realised he couldn’t admit anything of the kind. He was a Spaniard, and Spanish men never understood humour in anything that even remotely touched on sex. She smiled fondly. Sebastian wasn’t going to be easy to be married to.

But then he surprised her again, by laying his head between her breasts in a way that spoke of trust and tenderness. She put her arms about him, and held him tenderly.

There would be this too, she thought. Tenderness and the quiet moments when they would grow close in a different way from the wildness of their meetings. And the years would pass, and perhaps they would share love. Or perhaps they would only share something so like love that nobody could tell the difference.

When his head suddenly grew heavier she knew that he had fallen asleep, and then she slept too.

In the dawn light he stirred and sat up in bed. ‘I suppose I should go,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We don’t want a scandal.’

‘True,’ Maggie murmured, still half-asleep. She felt, rather than saw, him stand, shrug his shirt on and wander over to stand looking out of the window.

At last she yawned and stretched, sat up in bed, and realised that he was still there, looking down curiously at a small table by the wall, on which lay some papers.

‘It’s the paperwork for our marriage,’ she said. ‘You were right, Alfonso did everything in time-got all the certificates, the translations, the permission.’ She became aware of a strange silence. ‘What is it?’

‘Who is Señora Margarita Alva?’ he asked slowly.

‘Oh, that’s me. Cortez was my maiden name. I took it back after my husband died, but for our wedding formalities I had to give his name. I explained it all to Alfonso. I meant to tell you, but I forgot.’

‘You-forgot-’

‘Well, it’s not important, is it?’

He regarded her strangely. ‘All this time, you’ve let me refer to you as Señora Cortez, when you were really-Señora Alva.’

‘I told you, I rejected my husband’s name. And it wasn’t really anybody’s business, after all. I had no way of knowing it would matter. Anyway, all the paperwork is correct, and that’s what counts.’

‘And your husband was-Roderigo Alva?’

‘Yes. It says so there.’

‘How did he die?’

‘In prison.’

She wished Sebastian would turn and face her, but he stayed as he was, slowly looking through the papers, until at last he laid them back on the desk and left the room.

Her wedding was a flower-filled dream. By custom a Spanish bride had flowers hung around her home, and Maggie stepped out of her room to find that Catalina and Isabella had been to work. Winter roses were hung about her door, petals were strewn along the corridor as she made her way, more roses hung about the great front doors.

All Granada was in the cathedral. Maggie entered on the arm of one of Sebastian’s elderly uncles, and there were gasps of admiration at the sight of her. The heavy cream satin dress suited her tall figure admirably, and, for a veil, Catalina had persuaded her to wear a lace mantilla, which added to her air of magnificence. Everyone agreed that she was a fitting bride for a great man.

She had wondered how he would behave during the service, and wasn’t very surprised that his manner was distant. What they knew in the heat of their bed was for them alone, and Sebastian wasn’t the man to parade his feelings.

So she imitated his lofty bearing as the great choir sang them to their marriage, and the archbishop pronounced them united for ever. Their time would come, a time of hot lips and fevered bodies gasping, seeking, claiming, uniting. It would concern nobody but themselves.

After the wedding came the reception in the great hall, with five hundred guests standing, cheering as Don Sebastian de Santiago entered with his bride on his arm. As he walked the length of the huge room there was nothing on his face but pride and hauteur.

By tradition there were nine wedding cakes, made of sponge with caramel topping, lavishly adorned with fresh cream, and mounted on a spiral stand. For the wedding festivities of Don Sebastian de Santiago there were no less than a hundred and eighty cakes, mounted on twenty stands. Each cake must be officially ‘cut’ by the bride, for fear of offending many guests, so Sebastian led Maggie ceremoniously around the long tables so that she could briefly touch each cake with a silver knife.

By the time the long reception was over Maggie was feeling tired, but she knew the feeling wouldn’t last. The mere thought of Sebastian could drive out everything but eager anticipation.

The wedding dress was gone, its grandeur no longer needed. In its place was a nightdress of simple white silk, gossamer thin, an invitation to the man she had chosen to remove it.

Now, as she prepared for her wedding night, her thoughts were full of the last time she had lain in his arms, driven almost to madness by the force of her own desire. She didn’t know what else marriage to Sebastian might mean, but she knew it meant heart-stopping sensations, her very self burned up in the furnace heat of the passion they created between them. For the moment, that would be enough. The rest could come later.

For just a moment she was assailed by qualms. There was an uneasy echo in her head, an echo of herself in times past. Once there had been a young girl who tried to console herself for her failing marriage with the thought that their passion would bind them until matters improved. Because passion meant love. Didn’t it?

She’d learned better in bitterness and grief, and she wished that sad little ghost hadn’t come to haunt her tonight. She rubbed her eyes, banishing that other girl back into the past, where she belonged. Because Sebastian wasn’t Roderigo. He wasn’t a weakling, always taking the easy way. He was a difficult man in many ways, but she could trust his strength and his honesty.

As for herself, she knew that she was mentally the right wife for Sebastian as the scatterbrained Catalina could never have been. And he knew it too. They would have a good marriage.

Then she heard Sebastian’s step outside, and something quickened in her. She gave a wry smile of self-mockery. She’d been fooling herself with prosaic talk about mental suitability. She had married Sebastian de Santiago because he could bring her body to life, because the mere sound of his footstep could throw her into a fever. She thought of the night to come, and the joyous pleasure that would soon be hers…

The door opened, and Sebastian stood there with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. Maggie knew a twinge of disappointment. She’d pictured him as he’d been on their last night together, when he’d been as eager for their union as she. But Sebastian was still dressed as he had been all day, except that he’d discarded his tie and torn open the throat of his shirt. Still, she thought, consoling herself, she would have the pleasure of undressing him. She smiled into his eyes and was shocked to find there was no answering light.

She closed the door behind him as he came into the room and set the glasses down. His movements were measured, as though he were under great strain and enduring it with difficulty. He opened the bottle, filled both glasses and handed one to her.

‘It has been a long day, filled with toasts,’ he said. ‘But this is the one I’ve been looking forward to-with interest.’

How strange his voice sounded, she thought. How flat. How dead. How coldly angry. No, that couldn’t be right. But she’d never known until this moment that ‘interest’ was such a dismaying word.

‘The interest, of course, lies in deciding what she shall drink to,’ he continued. ‘To deceit, to treachery, to the poor fool taken in for the second time?’

‘What are you talking about?’

For answer he held up his glass sardonically. ‘I drink to you-Señora Alva.’

The old hated name could still make a cold hand clutch at her heart. And to it was added a nameless fear that he had chosen this moment to say such a thing.

‘Surely, I am Señora de Santiago now?’

‘To others, yes. But to me, you will always be Señora Roderigo Alva.’

His tone put her on her mettle, and she faced him. ‘In that case, it hardly seems worth your while to have married me.’

‘I married you because I had no choice. To have cancelled a second wedding within a few days would have given the gossips and the sneerers all they needed. Rather than endure that, I will endure the appearance of marriage to you.’

‘Cancel a second wedding?’ she echoed, bewildered. ‘But-why?’

‘Because Felipe Mayorez was my father’s closest friend,’ he said bleakly.

‘Felipe-Mayorez?’ she whispered.

‘You don’t even remember his name,’ Sebastian said scornfully.

But she did. Against her will it came shrieking out of the black night of things she didn’t dare look at. Felipe Mayorez, a kindly old man, who had surprised an intruder in his house one night, and been left bleeding on the floor.