Prince's Virgin In Venice

by Trish Morey

  Much too soon he was before her, a man mountain of leather tunic and braid and chain, his shoulder-length hair loose around a face that spoke of power. A high brow above a broad nose and a jawline framed with steel and rendered in concrete, all hard lines and planes. And eyes of the most startling blue. Cobalt. No, he was no mere warrior. He must be a warlord. A god. He could be either.

  Her mouth went dry as she looked up at him, but maybe that was just the heat that seemed to radiate from his body on this cold, foggy evening.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said, in a voice as deep as he was tall.

  He spoke in English, although with an accent that suggested he was not. Her heart was hammering in her chest, and her tongue seemed to have lost the ability to form words in any language.

  He angled his head, his dark eyes narrowing. ‘Vous-êtes perdu?’ he tried, speaking in French this time.

  Her French was patchier than her English, so she didn’t bother trying to respond in either. ‘No parlo Francese,’ she said, sounding breathless even to her own ears—but how could she not sound breathless, standing before a man whose very presence seemed to suck the oxygen out of the misty air?

  ‘You’re Italian?’ he said, in her own language this time.

  ‘Si.’ She swallowed, the action kicking up her chin. She tried to pretend it was a show of confidence, just like the challenge she did her best to infuse into her voice. ‘Why were you watching me?’

  ‘I was curious.’

  She swallowed. She’d seen those women standing alone and waiting on the side of the road, and she had one idea why he might be curious about a woman standing by herself in a square.

  She looked down at her gown, at the stockinged legs visible beneath the hem of her skirt. She knew she was supposed to look like a courtesan, but... ‘This is a costume. I’m not—you know.’

  One side of his mouth lifted—the slightest rearrangement of the hard angles and planes of his face that turned his lips into an almost-smile, a change so dramatic that it took her completely by surprise.

  ‘This is Carnevale. Nobody is who they seem tonight.’

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘My name is Vittorio. And you are...?’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘Rosa,’ he said, with the slightest inclination of his head.

  It was all she could do not to sway at the way her name sounded in his rich, deep voice. It was the cold, she told herself, the slap of water against the side of the canal and the whisper of the fog against her skin, nothing more.

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’

  He held out one hand and she regarded it warily. It was a big hand, with buckles cuffing sleeves that looked as if they would burst open if he clenched so much as a muscle.

  ‘I promise it doesn’t bite,’ he said.

  She looked up to see that the curve of his lips had moved up a notch and there was a glimmer of warmth in his impossibly blue eyes. And she didn’t mind that he seemed to be laughing at her, because the action had worked some kind of miracle on his face, giving a glimpse of the man beneath the warrior. So he was mortal after all...not some god conjured up by the shifting fog.

  Almost reluctantly she put her hand in his, then felt his fingers curl around her hers and heat bloom in her hand. It was a delicious heat that curled seductively into her bloodstream and stirred a response low down in her belly, a feeling so unexpected, so unfamiliar, that it sent alarm bells clanging in her brain.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said, pulling her hand from his, feeling the loss of his body heat as if it had been suctioned from her flesh.

  ‘Where do you have to go?’

  She looked over her shoulder at the bridge. The crowds were thinning now, most people having arrived at their destinations, and only latecomers were still rushing. If she set off now, at least she’d have a chance of getting herself warm.

  ‘I’m supposed to be somewhere. A party.’

  ‘Do you know where this party is?’

  ‘I’ll find it,’ she said, with a conviction she didn’t feel.

  Because she had no idea where she was or where the party was, and because even if she did by some miracle manage to find the party there was the slight matter of an entry ticket no longer in her possession.

  ‘You haven’t a clue where it is or how to get there.’

  She looked back at him, ready to snap a denial, but his eyes had joined with his lips and there was no mistaking that he’d know she was lying.

  She pulled her cloak tighter around her and kicked up her chin. ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s not a crime. Some would say that in Venice getting lost is compulsory.’

  She bit her tongue as she shivered under her cloak.

  Maybe if you hadn’t dropped more money than you could spare on a ticket, and maybe if you had a phone with working GPS, you wouldn’t mind getting lost in Venice.

  ‘You’re cold,’ he said, and before she could deny it or protest he had undone the chain at his neck and swung his cloak around her shoulders.

  Her first instinct was to protest. New to city life she might be, but in spite of what he’d said she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this man’s offer of help came without strings. But his cloak was heavy and deliciously warm, the leather supple and infused with a masculine scent. The scent of him. She breathed it in, relishing the blend of leather and man, rich and spiced, and her protest died on her lips. It was so good to feel snug.

  ‘Grazie,’ she said, warmth enveloping her, spreading to legs that felt as if they’d been chilled for ever. Just for a minute she would take this warmth, use it to defrost her blood and re-energise her deflated body and soul, and then she’d insist she was fine, give his cloak back and try to find her way home.

  ‘Is there someone you can call?’

  ‘I don’t have my phone.’ She looked down at the mask in her hands, feeling stupid.

  ‘Can I call someone for you?’ he asked, pulling a phone from a pouch on his belt.

  For a moment Rosa felt a glimmer of hope. But only for a moment. Because Chiara’s phone number was logged in her phone’s memory, but not in her own. She shook her head, the tiny faint hope snuffed out. Her Carnevale was over before it had even begun.

  ‘I don’t know the number. It’s programmed into my phone, but...’

  He dropped the phone back in its pouch. ‘You don’t know where this party is?’

  Suddenly she was tired. Worn out by the rollercoaster of emotions, weary of questions that exposed how unprepared and foolish she’d been. This stranger might be trying to help, and he might be right when he assumed she didn’t know where the party was—he was right—but she didn’t need a post-mortem. She just wanted to go back to her apartment and her bed, pull the covers over her head and forget this night had ever happened.

  ‘Look, thanks for your help. But don’t you have somewhere to be?’

  ‘I do.’

  She cocked an eyebrow at him in challenge. ‘Well, then?’

  * * *

  A gondola slipped almost silently along the canal behind her. Fog swirled around and between them. The woman must be freezing, the way she was so inadequately dressed. Her arms tightly bunched the paper-thin wrap around her quaking shoulders, but still she wanted to pretend that everything was all right and that she didn’t need help.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  It was impulse that had him uttering the words, but once they were out he realised they made all kinds of sense. She was lost, all alone in Venice, and she was beautiful—even more beautiful than he’d first thought when she’d peeled off her mask. Her brandy-coloured eyes were large and cat-like in her high-cheekboned face, her painted curved lips like an invitation. He remembered the sight of her naked shoulder under the cloak, the cheap satin of the bodice cupping her breast, and a random thoug
ht amused him.

  Sirena would hate her.

  And wasn’t that sufficient reason by itself?

  Those cat-like eyes opened wide. ‘Scusa?’

  ‘Come with me,’ he said again. The seeds of a plan were already germinating—a plan that would benefit them both.

  ‘You don’t have to say that. You’ve already been too kind.’

  ‘It’s not about being kind. You would be doing me a favour.’

  ‘How is that possible? We’d never met until a few moments ago. How can I possibly do you any favour?’

  He held out his forearm to her, the leather of his sleeve creaking. ‘Call it serendipity, if you prefer. Because I too have a costume ball to attend and I don’t have a partner for the evening. So if you would do me the honour of accompanying me?’

  She laughed a little, then shook her head. ‘I’ve already told you—this is a costume. I wasn’t waiting to be picked up.’

  ‘I’m not trying to pick you up. I’m asking you to be my guest for the evening. But it is up to you, Rosa. Clearly you planned on going to a party tonight.’

  He eased the mask from where she held it between the fingers clutching his cloak over her breasts and turned it slowly in his hands. She had no choice but to let it go. It was either let him take it or let go of the cloak.

  ‘Why should you miss out on the biggest night of Carnevale,’ he said, watching the way her eyes followed his hands as he thumbed the lace of her veil, ‘just because you became separated from your friends?’

  He could tell she was tempted—could all but taste her excitement at being handed a lifeline to an evening she’d all but given up on, even while questions and misgivings swirled in the depths of her eyes.

  He smiled. He might have started this evening in a foul mood, and he knew that would have been reflected in his features, but he knew how to smile when it got him something he wanted. Knew how to turn on the charm when the need arose—whether he was involved in negotiations with an antagonistic foreign diplomat or romancing a woman he desired in his bed.

  ‘Serendipity,’ he repeated. ‘A happy chance—for both of us. And the bonus is you’ll get to wear my cloak a while longer.’

  Her eyes lifted to meet his—long-lashed eyes, shy eyes, filled with uncertainty and nerves. Again, he was struck by her air of vulnerability. She was a very different animal from the women he usually met. An image of Sirena floated unbidden into his mind’s eye—self-assured, self-centred Sirena, who wouldn’t look vulnerable if she was alone in six feet of water and staring down a hungry shark. A very different animal indeed.

  ‘It is very warm,’ she said, ‘thank you.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  She took a deep breath, her teeth troubling her bottom lip while a battle went on inside her, then gave a decisive nod, adding her own tentative smile in response. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not indeed?’

  He didn’t waste any time ushering her across the bridge and through the twisted calles towards the private entrance of the palazzo gardens, his mood considerably lighter than it had been earlier in the evening.

  Because suddenly a night he hadn’t been looking forward to had taken on an entirely different sheen. Not just because he was going to give Sirena a surprise and pay her back for the one she had orchestrated for him. But because he had a beautiful woman on his arm in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and the night was young.

  And who knew where it would end?

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROSA’S HEART WAS tripping over itself as the gorgeous man placed her hand around the leather of his sleeve and cut a path through the crowds, and her feet struggled to keep up with his long strides.

  Vittorio, he’d told her his name was, but that didn’t make him any less a stranger. And he was leading her to a costume ball somewhere, or so he’d said. But she had no more detail than that. And she had nobody and nothing to blame for being here but a spark of impulse that had made her abandon every cautionary lesson she’d grown up with and provoked her into doing something so far out of her comfort zone she wondered if she’d ever find a way back.

  ‘Why not?’ she’d said in response to his invitation, in spite of the fact she could think of any number of reasons.

  She’d never in her twenty-four years done anything as impetuous—or as reckless. Her brothers would no doubt add stupid to the description.

  And yet, uncertainty and even stupidity aside, her night had turned another corner. One that had tiny bubbles of excitement fizzing in her blood.

  Anticipation.

  ‘It’s not far,’ he said, ‘Are you still cold?’

  ‘No.’

  Quite the contrary. His cloak was like a shield against the weather, and his arm under hers felt solid and real. If anything, she was exhilarated, as though she’d embarked upon a mystery tour, or an adventure with an unknown destination. So many unknowns, and this man was at the top of the list.

  She glanced up at him as he forged on with long strides through the narrow calle. He seemed eager to get where he was going now, almost as if he’d wasted too much time talking to her in the square and was making up for lost time. They passed a lamp that cast light and shadow on his profile, turning it into a moving feast of features—the strong lines of his jaw and nose, his high brow and dark eyes, and all surrounded by a thick mane of black hair.

  ‘It’s not far now,’ he said, looking down at her.

  For a moment—a second—his cobalt eyes met hers and snagged, and the bubbles in her blood spun and fizzed some more, and a warm glow stirred deep in her belly.

  She stumbled and he caught her, not letting her fall, and the moment was gone, but even as she whispered her breathless thanks she resolved not to spend too much time staring into this man’s eyes. At least not while she was walking.

  ‘This way,’ he said, steering her left down a narrow path away from the busy calle. Here, the ancient wall of a palazzo disappeared into the fog on one side, a high brick wall on the other, and with each step deeper along the dark path the sounds of the city behind became more and more muffled by the fog, until every cautionary tale she’d ever heard came back to mock her and the only sound she could hear was her own thudding heartbeat.

  No, not the only sound, because their footsteps echoed in the narrow side alley and there also came the slap of water, the reflection of pale light on the shifting surface of the path ahead. But, no, that would mean—

  And that was when she realised that the path ended in a dark recess with only the canal beyond.

  A dead end.

  Adrenaline spiked in her blood as anticipation morphed into fear. She’d come down this dark path willingly, with a man of whom she knew nothing apart from his name. If it even was his name.

  ‘Vittorio,’ she said, her steps dragging as she tried to pull her hand from where he had tucked it into his elbow. ‘I think maybe I’ve changed my mind...’

  ‘Scusi?’

  He stopped and spun towards her, and in the gloomy light his shadowed face and flashing eyes took on a frightening dimension. In this moment he could be a demon. A monster.

  Her mouth went dry. She didn’t want to stay to find out which. ‘I should go home.’

  She was struggling with the fastening of his cloak, even as she backed away, her fingers tangling with the clasp to free herself and give it back before she fled.

  Already she could hear her brothers berating her, asking her why she’d agreed to go with someone she didn’t know in the first place, telling her what a fool she’d been—and they’d be right. She would never live down the shame. She would regret for ever her one attempt at impetuosity.

  ‘Rosa?’

  A door swung open in the recess behind Vittorio, opening up to a fantasy world beyond. Lights twinkled in trees. A doorman looked to see who was outside and bowed his head when he
spotted them waiting.

  ‘Rosa?’ Vittorio said again. ‘We’re here—at the palazzo.’

  She blinked. Beyond the doorman there was a path between some trees and at the end of it a fountain, where water rose and fell to some unseen beat. ‘At the ball?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and in the low light she could see the curve of his lips, as if he’d worked out why she’d suddenly felt the urge to flee. ‘Or do you feel the need to remind me once again that you are just wearing a costume?’

  Rosa had never been more grateful for the fog as she swallowed back a tide of embarrassment.

  Dio, what must he think of me? First he finds me lost and helpless, and then I panic like I’m expecting him to attack me.

  Chiara was right—she needed to toughen up. She wasn’t in the village any more. She didn’t have her father or her brothers to protect her. She needed to wise up and look after herself.

  She attempted a smile in return. ‘No. I’m so sorry—’

  ‘No,’ he said, offering her his arm again. ‘I’m sorry. Most people take a motorboat to the front entrance. I needed the exercise but walking made me late, so I was rushing. I should have warned you that we would be taking the side entrance.’

  Her latest burst of adrenaline leeched out of her and she found an answering smile as she took his arm and let him lead her into a garden lit with tiny lights that magically turned a line of trees into carriages pulled by horses towards the palazzo beyond.

  And as they entered this magical world she wondered... She’d been told to expect heavy security and bag searches at the ball, but this doorman had ushered them in without so much as blinking.

  ‘What kind of ball is this?’ she asked. ‘Why are there no tickets and no bag searches?’

  ‘A private function, by invitation only.’