His Spanish Bride by Teresa Grant

swallowed. Her eyes looked even more luminous than usual. “Thank you.”
    He kissed her nose. “I’m the one who owes you my thanks, sweetheart.” For any number of things. Most of which he couldn’t put into words. Could scarcely even articulate to himself. But they were there on the edge of his consciousness. Dangerous possibilities. He tore his gaze from her and glanced round the room. Two more prints leaned against the bookcase. “You’ve been shopping.”
    “Addison helped me find a printshop. It’s quite a nice room, but I thought the walls were a bit bare.” She stepped back and scanned his face. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t? I didn’t think—I should have checked with you first—”
    “On the contrary. I told you to do as you wished.”
    “It’s your home. I don’t want to change—”
    “It’s our home.” He glanced at the bare walls of the rooms he had inhabited for the past four years, then looked back at his wife. “And it could use a change.”

8
    S uzanne knelt before the altar in the chapel of San Juan and crossed herself. She might be quite without religious feeling, but one couldn’t help but feel the beauty of the altar table. The deep carnelian of the cornices, the gleaming lapis lazuli of the front piece, the sparkle of the central surface of jasper inlaid with porphyry and amethyst. Very different from the oak table before which she had taken her wedding vows only four days before. She got to her feet, the folds of her mantilla shadowing her face, and moved aside to make room for a party of English officers who had entered the chapel, tour books in hand. The chapel of San Juan, all mosaic save for the altar table, was considered one of the wonders of Lisbon. She moved into the shadows to the side, beneath a mosaic of the Pentecost.
    A few moments later another party of tourists came into the chapel. A greatcoated figure, who had at first appeared part of the group, detached himself from their wake and moved into the shadows beside her.
    “We have the letter back,” Suzanne said. “Linford’s useless hide is saved. More to the point, Isabella Flores and his other lovers are protected from his thoughtlessness.”
    “My compliments,” Raoul said.
    “It was at least half Malcolm’s work.”
    “You evidently make a good team.”
    She drew a breath of the cool, still air. Her throat had turned raw. “Irony of ironies.”
    “And other developments?” Raoul asked in a quiet voice.
    “The wedding came off smoothly.”
    “And?” Raoul said. She could feel his gaze on her in the shadows.
    The English officers were arguing loudly over the orthography of the Church of St. Roque in which the chapel of San Juan stood. She drew another breath. “It isn’t at all as I suspected. It—it means more to him than I realized.”
    “It?”
    “Marriage.” She realized her gloved fingers had curled into knots against the corded lustring of her gown. She forced them to relax.
    “So you can’t remain as detached as you anticipated?”
    She could feel the weight of Malcolm’s arms round her last night, the way his fingers tangled in her hair, the way he’d turn his head to kiss her temple on waking. Not that any of that was anything she could go into with Raoul. Not that it could matter. “I’ll be all right. It was bound to be an adjustment.”
    “If you have qualms—”
    “You can’t think I’d run now.” She could feel a betraying pressure behind her eyes. Tears. Damnation. She forced a smile to her face. “It’s just getting interesting.”
    “Querida—”
    “I’m fine.” Her hands locked together so tight she could feel the scrape of bone against bone through her gloves. She forced them to unclench, put up a hand to smooth the lace at the neck of her gown, and palmed the paper tucked into her corset. “I think you’ll find this of interest.” She slipped the paper, her notes from the discussion about troop disposition over dinner the night of their wedding,