The Soldier's Rebel Lover

He was still sitting, seemingly relaxed, at the table, but there was an edge to his voice that should have warned her to drop the subject. Isabella popped another segment of orange into her mouth. ‘It is not a question of blood, Mr—Finlay. It is a question of money.’

‘They all too often go hand in hand, I find, señorita. One begets the other. Lack of one tends to mean lack of the other.’

‘But you are the son of a farmer, and yet you became a major in Wellington’s army, and now you are a wealthy merchant. You are, as I seem to remember you telling me before, the— I forget the English phrase.’

‘The exception that proves the rule.’

Isabella nodded. ‘That was it.’

‘The Jock Upstart, is what Wellington calls—called me. A man who does not know his allotted place in the scheme of things.’

‘The Jock Upstart,’ Isabella repeated slowly. ‘Ah, I see, because it rhymes with Urquhart. That is clever. Though also condescending.’

‘Add in licentious, ruthless and charming, and you have encapsulated the essence of the Duke of Wellington, taking the fact that he is on the whole a brilliant strategist as given.’

Isabella raised her brows. ‘You don’t like him very much.’

‘No, but then he does not like me very much, either. It doesn’t stop him thinking me useful.’

‘You use the present tense, I think?’ Isabella asked sharply. ‘But you have left the army...’

This time she was sure she saw a flicker of unease in his eyes, though he smiled blandly. ‘Useful in terms of supplying him with the best wine in Spain. If your brother will sell it to me.’

Isabella could not argue with the sense of this, though still, she was sure he was not telling the whole truth. ‘You know, for a man who is so successful, you are very—I don’t know, contradictory? You look down your nose at the Duke of Wellington and at my brother, and at me, too, I think, and you say to yourself, you are our equal, if not our superior. But you don’t really believe it.’

‘What precisely do you mean by that?’

She had no idea what she had meant, save to rile him into betraying himself. He was sitting perfectly still, but his expression was forbidding. She ought to back down, but she was exceeding tired of biting her tongue and eating her words and quelling her so unladylike thoughts. ‘You don’t realise how lucky you are,’ Isabella said. ‘You are a man.’

‘I’m lucky because I’m a man? You’ll have to explain yourself a bit more, if you please.’

On the contrary, what she ought to do was keep her mouth closed. Isabella pushed her plate away with some force. ‘It is obvious. When you walk into a room, people do not think, there is that—what was it?—Jock Upstart? They don’t think about your family tree or your bloodlines or any of those things. They think, there is a man who knows who he is. A confident man. A man who commands respect as well as admiration. Do you think my brother would be taking such pains to cultivate you if he thought anything else?’

‘I’m still not getting your point, lass.’

Exasperated, she jumped to her feet and threw back the curtains that kept the sunlight Consuela dreaded from the room. ‘You are a man! Do you not understand, that is the most salient point! You can do what you want with your life, make of it what you want. I am a mere woman. All I have is my bloodline and my family tree. When I walk into a room, people think, there is Señorita Romero, sister of Xavier Romero, whose dowry would make an excellent addition to our family coffers.’

‘That’s not what I think when you walk into a room, I can tell you, and I’d be very surprised indeed if it was the first thing any man thought.’

‘If you are going to mention my derrière again...’

His low chuckle made her turn away from the window. The wicked look was back in his eyes. ‘There, that’s the problem, you see. When you walk into a room, you do not make a man want to treat you like a lady. Well, not this man, at any event. And that was a compliment, incidentally, just in case you weren’t sure.’

Isabella folded her arms. ‘You make it very difficult to argue with you.’

‘I wasn’t aware that we’ve been arguing.’

‘I think that behind the bravado, you have a very low opinion of yourself, Major Finlay Urquhart.’

‘No, Señorita Romero, I leave that to other people.’

‘You don’t. That is what we were arguing about.’ Smiling triumphantly, Isabella got to her feet. ‘You see, contrary to popular opinion, I am not just a pretty face,’ she said, patting Finlay lightly on the cheek. ‘I will meet you at the winery in half an hour, Mr Urquhart, and you shall have your tour of the cellars. Although I am sure an acknowledged expert such as yourself should be giving me the tour.’

She left that remark hanging in the air as she swept from the room.

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