In Name Only. Diana Hamilton

herself, hardly able to contain her relief when the Mercedes swept through a wide arch in a long white wall and came to a well-bred halt in a courtyard that billowed with scarlet geraniums in huge terracotta pots.

      However, for all her shame, she refused to hand Johnny over as Campuzano held the car door open, managing with unsteady defiance to lever herself to her feet, feeling the heat of the sun-baked cobbles burn through the soles of her sensible low-heeled shoes.

      Seen at close quarters, the house was impressive: low and sprawling with thick, white-painted walls and a sturdy double-storey square tower at one end. The arcaded front elevation seemed to offer a cool refuge from the sun, with the harsh contrasts of the white walls, the deep blue of the sky, the vibrant, living colour of the purple bougainvillaea, all those spicescented scarlet geraniums.

      Cathy closed her eyes on a wave of homesickness, overpowered as much by the personality, the lithe strength, the sheer untamed grace of the Spaniard as by the almost bludgeoning vitality of his native Andalusia.

      Transplanted from the soft greens and greys and blues of a reluctant English spring, she felt suddenly that the enormity of having to do battle with Javier Campuzano on his own territory was beyond her.

      But, despite her quiet temperament, she was a fighter, she reminded herself. She would not simply give in, as the Spaniard was so obviously convinced she would. Straightening her drooping shoulders, she produced a hopefully imperious tone.

      ‘Show me where I can feed and change the baby. He needs to be out of this sun.’ Out of her need to hold her own she had managed to make it sound as though the vibrant energy of the Andalusian heat were in some obscure way obscene, and the eyes that challenged him were glinting with a purple spark of defiance.

      ‘Of course.’ He was clearly unimpressed by her attitude, and the lowering black bar of his brows put an edge on the courtesy of his smooth reply. He said something rapid in Spanish to Tomás, who was already extracting the luggage from the car. And the hand that gripped her elbow, steering her over the cobbles, wasn’t gentle at all and she tugged distractedly away, shocked by the electrifying sensation produced by the hard pads of his lean fingers against her skin.

      ‘Ahhh! El niño!’

      A short, amazingly stout woman emerged from the arcaded shadows at a trot, black-clad arms extended, her wrinkled face wreathed with smiles, her attention all for the wide-eyed Johnny, the merest dip of her still glossy dark head for Cathy herself.

      Admiring baby-talk had a universal language all of its own, Cathy learned as Johnny’s chubby solemn face quickly dissolved in a smile of heart-wrenching brilliance, little arms held out to the newest member of his fan club. And before Cathy could catch her breath the baby was expertly whisked out of her arms and was carried away, chortling perfidiously, into the cool shade of the house.

      ‘He will be perfectly safe,’ Campuzano said with a taunting smile that set her teeth on edge. ‘I’m sorry Paquita didn’t stay long enough to be introduced, but you must excuse her lapse of manners—the Spaniard’s love of children is legendary.’

      ‘And that makes it all right, does it?’ Cathy sniped. How could she get through to him, make him understand that she wouldn’t be taken over, and, more importantly, wouldn’t allow her baby to be, either?

      He had moved infinitesimally closer and the harsh light of the sun illuminated the grainy texture of his tanned skin, the darker shadowing of his hard jawline, the golden tips of the black fan of the lashes that lowered in an unsuccessful attempt to hide the gleam of satisfaction in the smoky depths of his eyes.

      Cathy’s breath caught in her throat, an unborn sob, half frustration, half something else entirely—something she couldn’t put a name to—choking her. And she looked away quickly, her soft lips drawn back against her teeth as she reiterated edgily, ‘I told you—he needs to be fed and changed. He’s not a plaything; he’s—’

      ‘I know precisely what he is.’ His voice was a lash of rebuke. ‘He is my nephew. And Paquita knows exactly what she’s doing. She and Tomás, besides keeping house for me here, have brought up nine children of their own to lusty maturity.’

      ‘Bully for them!’ Cathy snapped with a cold curl of her lips. She knew what he was up to. She was to be relegated to the status of a spare wheel, a punctured one at that. The taking-over of the child had begun and all Campuzano had to do was wait until she grew bored enough to take herself off, back to her former glitzy career—or so he thought.

      And her heated suppositions were proved entirely correct when he extended a slight smile—one that didn’t touch his beautiful, cynical eyes—and offered, ‘I will show you to your room. We dine at nine—I’m sure you can occupy yourself somehow until then.’

      He moved towards the house, the effortless, almost unbelievable male arrogance and grace of his easy, long-legged stride making her hate him. Anger took her by the throat and her eyes were smouldering with resentment as she caught up with him, demanding, ‘You can show me where that—that woman has taken my child. Looking after him will keep me occupied.’ She wasn’t about to be pushed into the background of Johnny’s life. That wasn’t the reason she had agreed to come to Spain, and the sooner he understood that, the better.

      But he looked at her coldly, the ice in his eyes taking her breath away as he warned harshly, ‘Be careful, señorita. I don’t like your attitude any more than I like your morals. Paquita’s position in my household demands respect. See that she gets it, and mind your manners. Come.’

      Bristling with temper, Cathy followed stiff-leggedly into the house. She was aware of space and airiness, of white walls and cool, tiled floors, but of nothing much else until he paused before a plain cedarwood door, gave her a cursory dip of his handsome head, and said smoothly, ‘Your room. Rosa, Paquita’s youngest daughter, will come for you at nine to show you to the dining-room. I suggest you relax and try to mend your temper.’

      He turned on his heels and was gone, leaving the memory of a definitely feral smile, leaving her even more incensed at his high-handed treatment of her. Pushing the door open, her lips tight, she scowled into the silent, beautiful room, noted that the cases she had brought from England were stacked at the foot of a handsomely carved fruitwood bed, and closed the door again, leaning against it briefly as she glanced up and down the long corridor.

      Every last one of the million and one things that a baby needed were packed in those cases. Which meant that Paquita couldn’t be attending to his now urgent needs but probably tossing him like a cuddly football around her own multitudinous offspring, displaying the newest member of the oh, so dominant Campuzano family to an admiring audience. But admiration didn’t satisfy hunger pangs or change wet nappies!

      Determined to rescue him if it was the last thing she did, Cathy set off down the corridor, her chin at a pugnacious angle, opening each and every door. The arrogant Spaniard was going to have to learn that he couldn’t, as of divine right, have everything his own way.

      The three other bedrooms she glanced into were as beautiful and as silent as her own and, after the corridor angled, she found the communal living-rooms, places to eat, relax. And one study full of highly technical data and communications systems.

      And then the kitchen, which must be the ground floor of the two-storey tower, because a curved wooden staircase led up from among the quietly humming electrical equipment which gleamed against the whitewashed stone walls. She spared a reluctant thought for the nice mix of ancient and modern, the great stone chimney breast, the terracotta-tiled floors and lovingly polished carved dressers, before her eyes narrowed to glinting purple slits as she heard the unmistakable sound of crooning Spanish baby-talk coming from the room above.

      So! She had tracked Johnny down, as she had known she eventually would. And this was where Paquita learned that she couldn’t snatch the baby out of her arms and carry him off to play with him without so much as a ‘May I?’ while Campuzano stood by, gloating, that look of satisfaction on his hard, impossibly arrogant features!

      Anger, fuelled by the fiercely protective mothering instinct that had hit her the moment it had become