LITMIR.BIZ

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the case, Antonio conceded. The baby was of his blood and part of his family and he would raise her as though she were his own daughter.

      ‘You’ll have to get married, of course,’ his grandmother murmured in a voice as soft and light as this-tledown.

      Startled by that disconcerting assurance, Antonio swung back to survey the old lady, who was carefully addressing her attention to her needlework. Grudging amusement glinted in his clear dark golden eyes, for he was well aware that his grandmother was eager for him to take a wife. ‘With all due respect, Abuela…I don’t think that a sacrifice of that magnitude will be necessary.’

      ‘A baby needs a mother. I’m too old to take on the role and the staff cannot be expected to fill the gap. You travel a great deal,’ Doña Ernesta reminded him. ‘Only a wife could ensure the continuing level of care and affection which a young child will require.’,

      As Antonio listened the amusement slowly evaporated from his gaze. ‘I don’t need a wife.’

      Glancing up without apparent concern, Doña Ernesta treated her grandson to an understanding smile. ‘Then, I can only offer you my admiration. Obviously you’ve already thought this matter over—’

      ‘I have and in depth,’ Antonio slotted in rather drily, for he was unimpressed by his wily grandmother’s pretence of innocence.

      ‘And you’re prepared to sacrifice all your free time for your niece’s benefit. After all, with only you to depend on, she will need so much more of your attention.’

      That angle had not occurred to Antonio. His brilliant eyes grew bleak. He was most reluctant to contemplate that level of commitment. He could not imagine assuming the role of a hands-on parent in constant demand. The very idea of such a thing was ridiculous. He was the Marqués de Salazar, head of an ancient and noble family line, as well as being a powerful and influential businessman on whom many thousands of employees depended. His time was too valuable. His importance to the success of his business projects was limitless. What did he know about children? Babies?

      At the same time the very idea of embracing the imprisonment of marriage banged the equivalent of a sepulchral cell door shut in Antonio’s imagination and made him pale.

      In the act of changing Lydia’s T-shirt, Sophie succumbed to temptation and blew a raspberry on her niece’s tummy. Convulsing with chuckles, Lydia held up her arms to be lifted, her little face below her soft brown curls lit by a sunny smile.

      ‘I don’t know which one of you is the bigger kid!’ Norah Moore quipped while her stocky, well-built son, Matt, set the old highchair out beside the pine kitchen table.

      Tiny in stature and slender as a ribbon, Sophie thrust her own curls back off her brow in a rueful gesture and resisted the urge to admit that grief, stress and a heavy workload were combining to make her feel more like a hundred years old. Staying financially afloat was a constant struggle and since Lydia’s birth had required her to do two jobs. Her main income came from working as a cleaner for the Moores. Mother and son owned the trailer park where she had lived for almost four years. At present she cleaned the caravans that were rented out as holiday lets. But quite a few were lived in all the year round by people like herself who could not afford more expensive accommodation. She made extra cash from embroidering clothes for an exclusive mail order firm. Her earnings might be poor in comparison to the hours she put in but she was grateful for any work that she could combine with caring for Lydia.

      ‘But I know which one of you is the prettiest,’ Matt declared with a meaningful look in Sophie’s direction.

      As Sophie strapped Lydia into the high chair she contrived to evade his admiring gaze and wondered why Mother Nature was always encouraging the wrong men to chase her. She liked Matt. She had tried, she really had tried to find him attractive because he was hardworking, honest and decent. He was everything her irresponsible father had not been and a solid gold choice for a sensible woman. As always she wished that she were less fanciful and more prudent.

      ‘Right now, I should think Sophie’s more concerned about what this solicitor might have to say to her,’ Norah, a thin woman with short grey hair, told her son brusquely. ‘I can’t understand why Belinda even bothered to make a will when she had nothing to leave.’

      ‘She had Lydia,’ Sophie pointed out to the older woman. ‘Belinda had the will drawn up after Pablo died. I think it must’ve been her way of making a new start and showing her independence.’

      ‘Yes, your sister was very keen on her independence,’ Norah Moore said with a sniff. ‘And not so fond of being tied down to a kiddie once Lydia was born.’

      ‘It was hard for her.’ Sophie lifted a slight shoulder in a noncommittal shrug because it hurt that she could not actively defend Belinda’s rash behaviour during the last months of her life. At least, not to a woman who had repeatedly helped her out with the task of caring for Belinda’s daughter. But then that was what she most liked about the Moores, she reminded herself. They spoke as they found and there was nothing false about them.

      ‘It was even harder for you,’ Norah told her squarely. ‘I felt very sorry for Belinda when she first came here. She’d had a tough time. But when she took up with that new boyfriend of hers and landed you with Lydia, I lost patience with her silliness.’

      ‘I loved being landed with Lydia,’ Sophie declared staunchly.

      ‘Sometimes what you love may not be what’s good for you,’ the older woman retorted crisply.

      But at a time when Sophie’s heart still ached from the cruelly sudden death of her sister, her baby niece was her only real comfort. Although Sophie and Belinda had had different fathers and had not met until Belinda had sought Sophie out. Sophie had grown very fond of her older sister. Belinda had, after all, shown Sophie the first family affection that the younger woman had ever known.

      Yet the stark difference between their respective backgrounds might more easily have ensured that the two sisters remained lifelong strangers. While Belinda had grown up in a lovely country house with her own pony and every childhood extra her parents could afford, Sophie had been born illegitimate and raised in a council flat by a father who was always broke. Sophie was the result of their mother, Isabel’s extramarital affair. After her infatuation had subsided, Isabel had won her estranged husband back by leaving Sophie behind with her lover. Sophie’s feckless father had brought her up with the help of a succession of girlfriends. She had learned when she was very young that her wants and wishes were rarely of interest to the self-seeking adults who surrounded her.

      At first meeting, Sophie had been in awe of her beautiful, sophisticated sister. Five years older, Belinda had been educated at a fancy boarding-school and she had talked with a cut glass accent that put Sophie in mind of the royal family. Her warm and affectionate nature had however soon won Sophie’s trust and love. Perhaps more slowly and rather more painfully, Sophie had come to appreciate that Belinda was not very clever and was extremely vulnerable to falling for handsome men who talked big and impressed her. But wild horses would have not have dredged that unhappy truth from Sophie, who was loyal to a fault.

      Leaving her niece in Norah Moore’s capable care, Sophie climbed into Matt’s pick-up. He gave her a lift into Sheerness and, stopping right outside the solicitor’s office, he offered to wait for her.

      As always in a hurry to escape Matt’s hopeful air of expectation, Sophie had already jumped out onto the pavement. ‘There’s no need,’ she said breezily. ‘I’ll catch the bus.’

      Matt behaved as if she hadn’t spoken and told her where he would be parked.

      A young car driver waiting at the lights buzzed down his window to call, ‘Hiya, sexy!’

      Sophie flung him a pained glance from eyes as deep and rich and green as old-fashioned bottle glass. ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

      He looked startled by the comeback. Sophie pondered the decided embarrassment of still looking like a sixteen-year-old when she was almost twenty-three years old. She blamed her youthful appearance on her

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