The Stand-In Bride. Lucy Gordon

“Why should I want his picture?” Now, let’s try it. I say, “I wish you had his picture”, and you say—?’

      ‘I say if I have his picture here, I stamp on it.’

      Maggie gave up.

      ‘Maybe he’s only middle-aged outside, but he’s old in here.’ The girl tapped her forehead, then her chest. ‘And it’s in there that counts.’

      Maggie nodded. She knew only too well how a man could look one thing and be another. Four years of marriage had taught her that. Blissful happiness, followed by disillusion, then heartbreak, disgust and despair. To cover her sudden tension she ordered more tea.

      The two women made a study in contrasts—the one still in her teens, all proud, passionate Spanish beauty, dark, glittering eyes and a warm complexion, and the other in her late twenties, with soft fair skin, dark brown eyes and light brown hair. Catalina was tiny, built on dainty lines, but her lively temper and excitable personality tended to make her the centre of attention.

      Maggie was tall and statuesque, but her manners were so quiet that she could be overlooked beside the magnificent Catalina. Yet she too had a touch of the Mediterranean. Her grandfather had been Alfonso Cortez, a Spaniard from Andalucia who had fallen madly in love with an Englishwoman spending a week in Spain. When it was over he’d pursued her all the way home, never seeing his own country again.

      From him Maggie had inherited her large, dark eyes that suggested unfathomable depths. They were alluring in themselves, but doubly so against the Anglo-Saxon pallor of her skin. Observers would have summed Catalina up in an instant, but would have lingered over Maggie, puzzling over her mystery, and the pain and bitterness that she strove to hide. They might have read the sensuality and humour in her mouth. The sensuality she tried to conceal, even from herself. The humour was her weapon against the world. Once, and it seemed a long time ago, she had laughed all the time. Now she laughed to protect her privacy.

      ‘If you feel like that about your fiancé, you should tell him,’ she said.

      ‘You think Sebastian would let me go, after he’s spent two years grooming me? Everything I do is under his control. I am taught what he wants me to know—languages, how to dress, how to eat, how to behave.

      ‘Even on this tour of Europe, I have no freedom because he has organised everything. In Rome, in Paris, in London I stay in hotels he chooses, and do what he say.

      ‘And now, it’s Christmas and there are so many lovely things in London: decorations and Christmas trees, and children singing carols, the stores are full of lights, and we buy lots of lovely presents, and visit Santa in his grotto…’

      ‘I’m not taking you to any more grottoes,’ Maggie interrupted with a shudder. ‘You nearly got us thrown out of the last one for flirting with an elf.’

      Catalina giggled. ‘Wasn’t he the most handsome boy you ever saw?’

      ‘But you’re practically a married woman.’

      The girl’s laughter faded. ‘Si! And when all these lovely Christmas things are happening, Sebastian want me to see a worthy play. Why not a pantomime? Widow Twanky and Principal Boys. We don’t have that in Spain, so is part of my English education, si? But no! Julius Caesar!’

      It would be impossible to convey the depth of loathing and disgust she put into the last two words. Maggie sighed in sympathy.

      Having exploded, Catalina settled to submerge her sorrows in chocolate éclairs doused in cream. ‘And always there is Isabella,’ she sighed. ‘Spying on me.’

      ‘That’s not fair,’ Maggie protested. ‘She’s kind and very fond of you.’

      ‘I’m fond of her, but I’m also glad that tonight we could come out without her. She means well, but she is Sebastian’s poor relation, and she thinks he’s God. Always she say, “Don Sebastian’s wife would never do this,” and “Don Sebastian’s wife would always do that.” One day I will reply, “Then Don Sebastian’s wife can do it, but I’m going to do something else.”’

      ‘Good for you. Tell him that the wedding’s off.’

      ‘If only I dared! Oh, Maggie, I wish I was like you. You had the courage to follow your heart and marry the man you loved.’

      ‘Never mind that,’ Maggie said hastily. Catalina’s curiosity about her marriage was making her tense and edgy. To change the subject she said, ‘We’ve still got time for a show.’

      ‘Oh, yes, we must go somewhere, or we shall look nice for nothing,’ Catalina said fervently.

      She seized any excuse to wear her loveliest clothes, so even for an outing with her chaperone she was done up to the nines. The floor-length peacock-blue dress looked glorious with her warm colouring. The diamonds, perhaps, were a little old for her, but she knew she looked beautiful, and was happy.

      Maggie would have preferred to dress with restraint, but Catalina viewed restraint with horror. She had insisted on a shopping trip and, with an unerring eye, steered Maggie towards a black silk cocktail gown that moulded itself to her womanly curves.

      ‘It’s a bit low,’ Maggie had said hesitantly.

      ‘So what? You have a magnificent bosom; you should show it off,’ Catalina had said imperiously.

      Even Maggie could see that the dress had been made for her, and she bought it, compromising with a black silk chiffon scarf that she could whisk about her shoulders. She was wearing the scarf now but, even so, she wished that the dress was a little less revealing.

      ‘What shall we choose?’ she asked now.

      ‘Your Place Or Mine?’ Catalina said at once. ‘I have wanted to see that ever since I read that it was very rude and naughty.’

      ‘Just the sort of thing Don Sebastian’s wife shouldn’t see,’ Maggie teased.

      ‘No, she shouldn’t,’ Catalina said happily. ‘So let us go immediately.’

      Isabella turned her heavy bulk over in bed, trying to ignore the nagging pain in her side. She wondered when Maggie and Catalina would return, but a glance at the clock told her they had been gone barely an hour.

      A sudden noise made her stiffen. It came from the other side of her bedroom door, where there was the large sitting room of the luxurious suite she shared with Catalina. Somebody had entered by stealth, and was looking around.

      Summoning her courage she slipped out of bed, found her bag, dropped a heavy ashtray into it, and crept to the door. Then, with one wild movement, she yanked the door open and swung the bag at the intruder.

      The next moment her arm was seized in a grip of steel, and she was looking at the astonished face of Don Sebastian de Santiago.

      ‘Merciful mother of heaven!’ she moaned. ‘What have I done?’

      ‘Nearly brained me,’ her employer said wryly, feeling into the bag and removing the ashtray.

      ‘Forgive me, Señor. I thought you were a burglar.’

      The habitual stern, haughty look on Don Sebastian’s face softened. ‘It is I who should ask your forgiveness for intruding on you without warning,’ he said courteously. ‘I ought to have knocked, but knowing it was your night for going to Julius Caesar I assumed the place would be empty, and persuaded Reception to give me a key.’ He regarded her face with concern. ‘Are you un-well?’

      ‘A little, Señor. It is nothing, but I preferred not to go out, and I knew I could entrust Catalina to Señora Cortez.’

      ‘Ah, yes, you mentioned her in your letters. A respectable English woman, who teaches languages.’

      ‘And the widow of a Spaniard,’ Isabella said eagerly. ‘A most cultivated and reliable person, with a mature outlook and the highest principles.’ Fearful that her chaperonage might be found wanting, she continued to expatiate on Maggie’s