Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride. India Grey

she felt the brambles snag at the hem of her dress and the damp grass cling to her legs. The walkway was narrow, the boards old and very smooth, but stepping tentatively onto them Lily could feel that it was sturdily made.

      From across the lawn she could hear more yells of hilarity above the bass beat of the music as the party escalated, which only strengthened her resolve and refuelled her fury. The sound of the doves at the top of the tower was a soft murmur, but it was comforting as she stepped onto the dark island.

      In spite of the warmth of the evening she shivered. Everything was inky, insubstantial; layers of grey that melted into each other until it was impossible to say what was real and what was shadow. The air was heavy with the scent of roses and through the indigo dusk Lily could see their pale globes clustered around a small door in the tower.

      Her heart was knocking so violently against her ribs that she could feel it shaking her whole body as she went towards the door. Hesitantly, almost hoping that it would be locked, she put her hand against the blistered wood.

      It sprang open, without her even pushing. Lily gasped; a sharp indrawn breath of pure fear as a figure appeared in the doorway, white shirt ghostly in the opaque light. She leapt backwards, pressing her hand to her mouth, choking with fear as the man reached out and caught her, pulling her back towards him.

      ‘Helen of Troy.’ The voice was very deep, very scathing, very Spanish. He gave her a little shake. ‘You followed me, I suppose?’

      Lily’s heart was almost beating out of her chest, but the arrogance of his words penetrated her shocked haze. ‘No! I came to look for a bird…an injured dove. Some…idiot with a bow and arrow took a shot at it when they were released and it flew in this direction. When I came to look for it I saw that they’d flown up to the roof of the tower, but I didn’t know that you were here—’ She stopped suddenly, as the most likely explanation for Tristan Romero to be discovered on a secluded island in the middle of a party popped into her horrified mind, and then tried to take a hasty step backwards. ‘Sorry. I’ll go.’

      His hand tightened around her arm. ‘No. Don’t let me stop your mission of mercy,’ he drawled. ‘There’s a dovecote on the roof. Go up and look for it.’

      She hesitated, remembering the Pocahontas girl. ‘Are you here alone?’

      ‘Yes.’ Against his white shirt his skin looked very dark, and the hollows beneath his hard cheekbones were inky. Apart from that it was impossible to see his face in any detail, but his voice was like sandpaper and when he laughed there was no humour in it. ‘I take it Tom’s warned you off. Perhaps you’d prefer to come back with a chaperone?’

      His fingers were still circling her wrist. She could feel her rapid pulse beating against his thumb. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, with a brave attempt at scorn. ‘I just didn’t want to interrupt anything, that’s all. Now, if you’d like to tell me where to go?’

      He let go of her, stepping back into the shadows with a sweep of his arm. ‘Up to the top of the stairs.’

      Inside the tower the air was chill and damp. A stone staircase spiralled above them, and Lily’s bare feet made no sound on the ice cold stone as she began to climb up. The staircase opened onto a small landing halfway up, where a narrow, arrow-slit window spilled soft light onto a closed door. Lily stopped outside the door, but Tristan walked past her, leading the way up another twisting staircase.

      At the top he pushed open another door and stood back to let her through first. Lily stepped out and turned around slowly, letting out a low exhalation of awe as she did so.

      From below it looked as if the tower were half ruined, the stone walls crumbling and uneven, but now she could see that this was a deliberate illusion. The platform she now stood on was paved with smooth stone flags, and all around the insides of the thick stone walls that looked so dilapidated from the other side of the lake were recessed ledges where birds could nest. But this hardly made an impression. It was the view that stole her breath. Over the lowest part of the wall she could see the pink stained sky beyond the trees that fringed the far side of the lake. At the front of the tower the wall was higher, but a narrow gothic-style arched window framed a view over the lake to the gardens and the castle and the fields beyond, making it possible to look out without being observed. Lily walked over to it.

      ‘It’s amazing. I thought this was a ruin; an empty shell.’

      ‘That’s the idea,’ said Tristan from the doorway. ‘It was commissioned by one of Tom’s more inventive ancestors, and intended to appear decorative but functionless. In reality it’s an incredibly cleverly designed gambling den. Where you’re standing now is a lookout post, so that anyone approaching could be seen long before they had any chance of getting here.’

      Lily shook her head and laughed softly, tilting her head back and looking up at the violet velvet sky, feeling suddenly light and breathless. Tristan levered himself away from the low door-frame where he’d been leaning, and came slowly towards her.

      Her pulse quickened, and she felt the laughter die on her lips as electricity crackled through her. In the hazy half-light his eyes were dark blue, his face grave, and she sensed again that weary despair she had glimpsed in him earlier. Suddenly she found it impossible to reconcile this achingly beautiful man who wore sadness like an invisible cloak with the sybaritic playboy whose libertine lifestyle so fascinated the gutter press.

      ‘You’re right.’

      Lily gave a small, startled gasp, wondering how he’d managed to read her mind, but then he raised one hand, gesturing to a recess in the wall beside her.

      ‘The injured dove,’ he said tonelessly. ‘There it is.’

      ‘Oh…’ She frowned, stooping down and letting her hair fall across her face as she felt heat spread upwards. The bird was huddled in the back of the nesting recess, its wing held up awkwardly. The white feathers were stained with crimson at the place where the wing joined the body. ‘Poor thing…’ Lily crooned gently. ‘Poor, poor thing…’

      Tristan felt his throat tighten inexplicably. Her voice was filled with a tenderness that seemed to slip right past his iron defences and go straight into the battered, shell-shocked heart of him.

      Usually he slipped between lives with the insouciant agility of an alley cat, letting the doors between the two halves of his world swing tightly shut behind him. But tonight—Dios—tonight he was finding it hard to leave it all behind. The raucous revelry of the party had grated on his frayed nerves like salt in an open wound, which was why he’d had to get away. But this…

      This gentle compassion was almost worse. Because it was harder to withstand.

      ‘I think its wing is broken,’ Lily said softly. ‘What can we do?’

      He looked out over the lawn to the glittering lights of the party. ‘Nothing,’ he said, hearing the harshness in his voice. ‘If that’s the case it would be best to end its suffering quickly and kill it now.’

      ‘No!’ Her response was instantaneous and fierce. She stood up, placing herself between him and the bird, almost as if she were afraid he was going to grab it and wring its neck in front of her.

      ‘You couldn’t. You wouldn’t…’

      ‘Why not?’ he said brutally as images of the place he had been earlier flashed into his head with jagged, strobe-lit insistence. This was just a bird, for God’s sake. An injured bird; a pity, not a tragedy. ‘Why not end its suffering?’

      ‘Because you don’t have the right to play God like that,’ she said quietly. ‘None of us do.’

      Standing in the last light of the fading day, she looked remote and almost mystically beautiful. Not of this world. What did she know about suffering? He could feel the pulse beating loudly in his ears, but her words cut through it, exploding inside his head. No? he wanted to say. Then who will? It’s not power that makes men behave like God, but desperation.

      He turned away abruptly,