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CHAPTER ONE

LEANDRO CARRERA MARQUEZ, Duque de Sandoval, ahen his valet opened the bedrooood rihtest bit different from any other day in recent months Fresh toere laid out in the bathrooner business suit and atie were asse dressed

Elegant and, as always, inificent staircase of the farand forebears He knew that he was bored and he scorned the feeling, well aware that he was bountifully blessed with health, wealth and success The walls he passed bore the portraits of his predecessors-the very flower of proud Castilian aristocracy-ranging from the first duke, who had been a famous soldier and a contemporary of Christopher Coluuished banker who had died when his son was barely five years old

‘Your Excellency’ Having been greeted by Basilio, his major-domo, and two maidservants at the foot of the stairs with much the same pomp and ceremony that the first duque would have received in the fifteenth century, Leandro was ushered into breakfast where the day’s papers, including the leading financial publications, awaited hi His every need and ere carefully foreseen by his devoted staff and perfect peace reigned while he ate, for his preference for silence at the breakfast table ell known

A phone was brought to hier Duquesa, Doña Maria, was on the line asking him to lunch with her at the town house in Seville later that day It didn’t suit him He would have to reschedule business appointments at the bank But Leandro, uneasily aware that he spent little tiave reluctant assent

As he sipped his coffee his brilliant dark eyes rested on the full-length portrait of his late wife, Aloise, on the wall at the other end of the room He wondered if anyone else in the faht hours the anniversary of Aloise’s death would take place Aloise, his childhood friend, who in dying al hole in the settled fabric of his life He wondered if he would ever get over the guilt induced by her tragic demise and decided that it would be wise to spend that day away fro in London Sentis

He spent a very busyat the Carrera Bank, an institution that had been handling the saenerations and where his own services as one of the financial world’s most fabulously successful investifted in the field of wealth preservation and asset enius at analysing world ave him considerable pleasure and satisfaction Numbers, unlike people, were easy to understand and deal with, he acknowledged wryly

When he kept his luncheon appointment he was surprised to see that his mother’s sister, his aunt Isabella, and his oo sisters, Estefania and Julieta, were also present

‘I felt that it was tiful look at her only son over the appetisers

Leandro elevated a questioning ebony brow ‘About what, precisely?’

‘You’ve been a er for a year now’ It was Estefania who responded

‘Is there a point to that obvious statement?’ Leandro enquired drily

‘You’ve spent enough ti to satisfy the conventions It’s tie,’ his mother informed him

His lean, strong face rigidly controlled, Leandro stared steadily back at the older woree’

Julieta, his younger sister piped up, ‘Nobody is going to replace Aloise, Leandro We don’t expect that and neither can you-’

‘But you must put the family’s unbroken line of inheritance first,’ Doña Maria declared with gravity ‘There is presently no heir to the title or the estate You are thirty-three years old Last year when Aloise died we all learned how fragile and fickle life can be What if so similar were to happen to you? You must remarry and father an heir, my son’

Leandro compressed his handsoed less determined opponents to drop the subject He had no need of such re made aware daily of his many responsibilities Indeed he had never known an hour’s freedohty burden of expectations that accoreat wealth He had been raised in the same traditions as his ancestors to put duty and honour and family first But an exceptional spark of rebellion was finally firing inside his lean, well built body