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After Anna had gone, and he’d lost his son, it had felt too big and too empty. It had reminded him of being seventeen once again, of losing his parents and walking the halls, feeling as if the silence and the guilt was pressing in on him. Crushing him.
After Anna, he hadn’t been able to get out of the place fast enough, filling up his life with music and talk and laughter. With the sound of life.
A cold sensation sat in his gut as the car drew up on the gravel area outside the massive front doors. Why had he thought coming back was a good idea? He didn’t want to go inside. The whole place had felt like a tomb the last time he’d been here and nothing would have changed.
Something’s changed. You have Leonie.
She was already getting out of the car, walking towards the doors, looking up in open amazement at thecastillotowering above her.
Ah, but he didn’t have her, did he? She wasn’t his. She’d made that very clear.
Still, if he was going to make her his duchess he wanted it to happen on Velazquez ground, and he’d already sent messages to his PR company to let them know he’d be bringing his ‘fiancée’ back to his estate, and that more information would follow. They were naturally thrilled that the duke of San Lorenzo, infamous for his pursuit of pleasure, would be marrying again. The press would be ecstatic.
Gathering himself, Cristiano got out of the car and strolled after Leonie, letting none of his unease show. He’d called his staff here before he’d left Paris, telling them to prepare for his arrival, so everything should be in place.
Sure enough, they were greeted in the huge, vaulted stone entrance hall by one of his family’s old retainers. The woman spoke a very old Spanish dialect that no one spoke outside the valley, and the memories it evoked made the cold inside him deepen.
He answered her in the same language, issuing orders while Leonie wandered around, looking up at the bare stone walls and the huge stone staircase that led to the upper levels. Portraits of his ancestors had been hung there. He’d always hated them—dark, gloomy paintings of stone-faced men and women who looked as if they’d never tasted joy in their entire lives and perhaps hadn’t.
Leonie had started climbing the stairs to look at them and he walked slowly after her, the familiar cold oppressiveness of the ancient stones wrapping around him, squeezing him tight.
‘Are these people your family?’ she asked, staring at the portraits.
‘Yes. Miserable bunch, aren’t they?’
‘They don’t look that happy, no.’ She frowned. ‘But...they’re so old. How long has your family been here?’
He climbed up a little way, then stopped one step below her, looking at her since that was better than looking at those ghastly portraits. She was all pale skin, bright hair and deep blue-violet eyes. Life and colour. Unlike these dim, dark portraits of people long dead.
‘Centuries.’ He thrust his hands in his pockets, his fingers itching to touch her. ‘Since medieval times, if not before.’
‘Wow...’ she breathed, following the line of portraits on the walls. ‘And what about this one?’
She pointed at the last picture, the most recent—though it didn’t look like it, given it had been painted in the same dark, gloomy style. Her earlier anger at him seemed to have faded away, and interest was alight in her face.
Cristiano didn’t look at the picture. He knew exactly which one it was. ‘That one? Those are my parents. They were killed in a car accident when I was seventeen.’
She flicked him a glance, a crease between her brows. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
It sounded almost as if she really meant it—not that he needed her sympathy. It had happened so long ago he barely remembered it.
That’s why you can never escape the cold of this place. That’s why you carry it around with you wherever you go. Because you can’t remember how you tried to warm it up...
Cristiano shoved the thoughts away. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘Your mother was pretty.’ She leaned closer, studying the picture. ‘Your father was handsome, too. But he looks a little...stern.’
‘If by “stern” you mean aloof and cold, then, yes. He was. And my mother was far more interested in parties than anything else.’ He was conscious that he hadn’t quite managed to hide the bitter note in his voice.
Leonie straightened and turned, studying his face. ‘They weren’t good parents?’
He didn’t want to talk about this. ‘What happened to Hélène, Leonie?’ he asked instead. ‘What happened to your mother?’
Her lashes fluttered; her gaze slid away. ‘She left. I was sixteen. I came home from school one day and she was just...gone. She left me a note, saying she was leaving and not to look for her. But that was it.’
His fingers had curled into fists in his pockets, and that same tight sensation that Leonie always seemed to prompt was coiling in his chest. ‘She just left? Without saying why?’
‘Yes.’ Leonie was looking down at the stairs now. ‘I’ll never know why.’
