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‘Come, señorita…quick, quick!’
Releasing her into safe hands, Ramon left her to thank everyone who had manned the search parties.
Annalisa found the finca full of excited women. They whisked her straight upstairs, where she found a warm fragrant bath waiting for her. Then later, as she was rooting through her wardrobe to find something to wear, she heard a tap at the door.
‘Yes?’ she said distractedly, as she held up a turquoise floor-length dress in fine, flower-sprigged voile.
Poking her head into the room, Maria Teresa smiled. But when she saw what Annalisa was doing she shook her head vehemently. ‘No, no, Señorita Wilson. We have brought you something special to wear.’
Annalisa hesitated, then, seeing all the other women standing behind Maria Teresa, she beckoned them in.
With an urgent gesture Maria Teresa summoned two young girls into the room. They carried between them the most exquisite gown Annalisa had ever seen. In heavy silk the colour of clotted cream, every inch of the figure-hugging sheath was intricately embroidered with tiny bugle beads that shimmered subtly like moonbeams on a lake. ‘It’s absolutely stunning,’ Annalisa breathed. But, knowing it had to be someone’s treasured possession, she shook her head. ‘I couldn’t possibly wear it.’
‘But señorita,’ Maria Teresa began, ‘the dress was your mother’s. She would want you to wear it.’
‘But my mother—’ Annalisa stopped, swallowed, and started again. ‘My mother never owned anything so…’
‘It was to have been her wedding dress, Señorita Wilson. For her marriage to your father, Don Pedro,’ Maria Teresa said gently.
Annalisa froze, her thoughts in confusion, while Maria Teresa chivvied everyone out of the room. Before they left the two girls reverently laid the dress on top of Annalisa’s smooth white bedspread.
When the door had shut quietly behind them Maria Teresa continued her explanation. ‘Before Claudia told your father she was pregnant he bought this dress for your mother to wear at their wedding. It has never been out of the beautiful box…or even out of the tissue paper…before today.’
Annalisa stared at it again. Her mother’s hopes for the future had been invested in the ravishing gown. The pleasure of wearing it should have been hers. She leaned forward, wistfully tracing the beautiful fabric with her finger. Ramon had told her to build on the past… ‘Will you help me to put it on?’ she said, turning to Maria Teresa.
On Maria Teresa’s signal everyone trooped back into the bedroom.
Annalisa turned to face them. ‘Do I look all right?’
‘All right?’ Maria Teresa scoffed. ‘You look beautiful, Señorita Wilson.’
Another woman stepped forward to place a crown of orange blossom on Annalisa’s hair, while someone added a mantilla of ivory lace to float bewitchingly around her shoulders.
‘Thank you,’ Annalisa exclaimed, grasping hold of as many hands as she could reach. ‘You saved my wedding.’
‘You saved the finca,’ Maria Teresa countered, shooing her out of the door.
Annalisa had expected to find Ramon at the church, but when Maria Teresa opened the door of the finca, he was there waiting for her in the courtyard. Dressed as a proud Castilian, and mounted on his prancing ebony stallion, his eyes grew stormy with passion when he caught sight of her in her wedding dress for the first time.
Annalisa watched, mesmerised, as slowly he removed his broad-brimmed black hat and bowed low over Dardo’s sleek withers. But as her gaze strayed to the powerful thighs that held the stallion so firmly beneath him her breath caught in her throat to think of the moment when she would feel their steely pressure. And then she saw the barouche, decked out with bridal wreaths and ribbons. Even the gentle Andalucian mares had garlands of blossom looped through their bridles. And in place of the sour-faced chauffeur—
‘Enrique is ready!’ the impish tree surgeon declared, stabbing the air with his own battered traditional black hat.
‘Ready, Señorita Fuego Montoya?’ Maria Teresa demanded, reverting to the name everyone on the island believed was Annalisa’s due.
‘Ready,’ Annalisa confirmed, gazing up at Ramon.
As she settled herself down onto the bank of white satin cushions their gazes locked. And in that moment she knew that she trusted him with all her heart and more… She trusted him with the life of their child.
‘Le adoro, Annalisa.’
And as she heard his impassioned murmur reach her across the courtyard, Annalisa’s hand strayed to mould the gentle swelling of her belly.
She knew then that the power of Ramon’s love was more telling than words, and infinitely more precious than diamonds.
