Prince's Virgin In Venice

by Trish Morey

  The ground shifted under his feet. Longevity ran through the line of Andachstein Princes—the last had died at ninety-seven. The youngest ever to die had been seventy-eight. He’d imagined his father, in these modern medicine times, had at least another twenty years to run down on his body clock.

  ‘No,’ Vittorio said, and his father’s head jerked up, as if Vittorio was rejecting his demand out of hand. ‘Not Enrico,’ he said. His father’s secretary had just as poor judgement for who would make a good wife as his father did. ‘I’ll get Marcello to help me.’

  His father cocked one wiry eyebrow. ‘She needs to be the right kind of woman,’ he said. ‘With the right family connections.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Not to mention good breeding stock.’

  Vittorio almost raised a smile. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to assess that, but he simply said, ‘Next you’ll be insisting she’s a virgin.’

  The older man looked over at him. ‘I may be dying, but I’m not stupid. The search will be difficult enough without making it impossible.’

  This time Vittorio did smile. There was no way he wasn’t trying before buying.

  His father nodded, taking his son’s smile as agreement, seemingly satisfied with how the meeting had gone. ‘You have three months. Don’t let me down. I would very much like to meet the next Princess of Andachstein before I die.’ His voice cracked on the final word and he put his head down and gave a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘Now, leave me.’

  Vittorio nodded, and left his father at his desk, and as he walked down the long corridor that led from his father’s official rooms to his own apartment he wondered about the glint that he’d seen in his father’s eyes.

  Tears?

  It hardly seemed possible. He’d never seen his father cry. Not when they’d been sitting at the bedside of his wife of thirty years and she’d given up her last breath and slipped silently away. Not even when they’d interred her in the family crypt and the hound she had loved for twelve years had howled uncontrollably and mournfully at their feet, as if he knew he’d just lost his best friend. Every other mourner except his father had lost it right then.

  But tears would mean that his father was almost human.

  Was that what knowing you were going to die—having an end date rather than a vague statistic—did to you? Made you confront your own mortality? Made you human?

  His father.

  Dying.

  It was an impossible concept to grasp.

  He’d always been closer to his mother. She’d never been warm, exactly—he’d felt far more welcome in the kitchen than in his mother’s salon—but she’d been the one who’d held the two men in her life together, and when she’d died the yawning chasm between father and son had widened. And that had been before Valentina had died and the gulf and the resentment between them had grown still wider.

  Vittorio was in no hurry to get married again. His experience of marriage was no fond memory. And his parents...? They were hardly shining lights for the institution. No, he was in no hurry.

  But he was heir to the throne of Andachstein. A position he might be forced to take up long before he had ever imagined. And it was his duty to sire an heir.

  And, when it all came down to it, Guglielmo was still his father—the only father he’d ever had. So, despite their differences over the years, didn’t he owe him something?

  Vittorio’s footsteps echoed in the old stone stairwell that led up to his apartments the back way. There was a flashier terrazzo-tiled staircase that went the front way, but he preferred the feel of the stone under his feet, the stone steps that held the grooves of the feet of his ancestors and their servants. Ever since he was a child he’d liked stepping into those grooves and wondering how many footsteps it would take to make a dent in the stone. He liked to think he was doing his bit by contributing his own footfall.

  Every few steps there was a long narrow window that offered glimpses of the tree-covered hills behind the coast and the city. Once used by archers against marauding invaders, now they were glassed in against the weather. He stopped at one near the top and gazed out over the countryside, not really seeing, just thinking.

  Maybe it was time. He was thirty-two and he was tired. Tired of the Sirenas of this world hunting for a title. Tired of the life he was leading.

  There had to be something else.

  Something more.

  It couldn’t be too hard to find himself a wife once he set his mind to it, surely? It shouldn’t take long to vet the candidates. It wasn’t as if he had to go through the motions of falling in love with the woman first.

  He’d been in love with Valentina and what a disaster that had turned out to be. But then, was it any wonder? Look at his role models. He wasn’t sure his father had ever loved his mother. They’d had separate suites as far back as Vittorio could remember. He’d never once witnessed a display of affection between them.

  When it came down to it, it was a miracle he even existed...

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE CAME OUT of the fog in blue leather trimmed with gold, his long cape swirling in his wake. He emerged tall and broad and powerful, his cobalt eyes zeroing in on her, as if he’d sensed her presence through the mist.

  He strode purposefully towards her, stopping bare inches away, so close that she could feel the heat of his body coming at her in waves...so close that she was sure his intense eyes would bore into hers and see inside her very soul.

  ‘Rosa...’ he said, in a deep voice that threatened to melt her bones.

  ‘Vittorio,’ she said, breathless and trembling, ‘you came for me.’

  ‘I had no choice,’ he said, and he opened his arms for her.

  She stepped into the space he had created just for her and felt his arms ensnare her in his heat and strength as he dipped his head to hers.

  Her lips met his. She sighed into his mouth and gave herself up to the delicious heat of his mouth. His tongue. His taste. She felt herself swung into his arms, as if she were weightless, and then time slipped and they were in bed, and he was poised over her, and his name was on her lips as he drove into her...

  ‘Rosa!’

  The voice was wrong. It didn’t fit. It was in the way.

  She tried to ignore it. Tried desperately to hang on to what was happening even as the vision wobbled at the edges.

  ‘Stop mooning,’ someone said.

  Someone who sounded like Chiara.

  But what would she be doing at Vittorio’s palazzo?

  ‘It’s time to get up!’

  Rosa blinked into wakefulness, feeling a soul-crushing devastation. Feeling cheated. She’d thought Vittorio had come back for her, but it had been nothing but yet another pointless and cruel dream.

  ‘All right,’ she said, blinking, getting herself out of bed. ‘I’m coming.’

  ‘Forget about him,’ Chiara said, brushing her hair.

  ‘Forget about who?’

  ‘Vittorio, of course. He must have been something special for you to dream about him all the time.’

  ‘Who says I was dreaming about him?’

  Chiara raised her eyebrows. ‘Why else would you call out his name? You’ve really got it bad.’

  Rosa kicked up her chin as she headed for the bathroom. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was a dream, that’s all.’

  ‘When are you going to tell me what happened that night?’

  ‘I told you what happened.’

  Chiara just laughed. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘Or you’ll be late for work.’

  Rosa stepped under the shower spray. How could she share the events of that night with Chiara and convey the magic of the evening without cheapening it? No. She held the secret of what had happened that night like a precious jewel, still too new and too special to share with anyone.

/>   She didn’t have stars in her eyes. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that despite the dreams that plagued her nights she’d never see Vittorio again. Not that the knowledge stopped her looking out for him every time she ventured anywhere near the Grand Canal. She’d hear a deep voice or see a broad pair of shoulders up ahead and for a split second she’d be hurtled back to that night and think she’d found him again. But the voice always belonged to someone else, and the man with broad shoulders would turn and the likeness would end there.

  She didn’t mind. He’d told her how it would be. She didn’t expect to see him ever again.

  He’d just been so wonderful that night. So tender and gentle, so generous in his willingness and desire to ensure her pleasure, so generous in the knowledge he’d shared.

  She knew about lovemaking now. She knew what she liked in bed and how to pleasure a man. She had Vittorio to thank for introducing her to the ways of the bedroom.

  She didn’t really mind that she would never see him again.

  She just had a horrible feeling he had ruined her for any other man.

  * * *

  ‘So this is the list Enrico gave you?’

  Marcello looked up and down the three-page printout listing the eligible noblewomen his father’s secretary had assembled who might just be persuaded to take on Vittorio and the title of Princess of Andachstein. There was a photograph of each woman alongside her name, together with a sketchy bio giving height, age and weight.

  Vittorio snorted. ‘I see Enrico’s covered all the important details.’

  ‘A veritable smorgasbord of aristocratic talent,’ Marcello said drily ‘But one thing worries me.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You’ve only got three months until the date of the wedding. Does that give you enough time to sleep with them all?’

  The would-be groom crossed his legs at the ankles and smirked. Now that he’d made up his mind to fall in with his father’s crazy plan and find himself a wife—a princess for Andachstein—he found he liked the idea more and more. An arranged marriage, a convenient marriage—but this time without foolishly falling in love. All he had to do was produce an heir. If the marriage itself floundered after that, so be it. It would be nobody’s fault. Nobody would be hurt. It was perfect. Failsafe.

  Besides, he was growing tired of his lifestyle. Tired of fighting his destiny. But he wasn’t interested in searching for a wife by any other means. So he’d had Enrico clear the appointments that could be cleared, undertaken those that couldn’t be avoided, and now, within the space of a week, was sitting in one of the reception rooms in Marcello’s palazzo.

  ‘Did you see who’s at the top of the list?’

  Marcello cocked an eyebrow. ‘I did notice that. Maybe your father ascribes to the view that it’s better the devil you know?’

  Vittorio laughed. ‘He might. But I’m not that much of a masochist.’ He sat up, forearms on knees, hands clasped. ‘So what do you think?’

  Marcello flicked between the pages, exhaling long and loud as he shook his head. ‘Well, it’s not the list I would have given you.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Doormats, one and all.’

  Vittorio leaned forward and snatched the pages out of his friend’s hands. ‘They can’t all be doormats?’

  Marcello nodded. ‘Every last one of them.’

  ‘Apart from Sirena, you mean.’

  ‘Well, apart from her, clearly. Otherwise that’s a carefully curated list of “women who won’t.”’

  Vittorio frowned. ‘Won’t what?’

  Marcello shrugged. ‘Argue. Object. Have an opinion on anything or speak their own mind.’

  Vittorio gazed at the list more enthusiastically. ‘Sounds exactly like what I want!’

  ‘Ah, Vittorio,’ Marcello said, shaking his head. ‘Some of us know that you’re not entirely the bad boy Prince that you like to make out. But you’re no walkover either. You’d be bored with any one of these before she’d made it halfway down the aisle. By the time she did you would have plucked a woman from the choir who showed a bit more spirit.’

  ‘All right,’ said Vittorio, thrusting the papers onto the nearby coffee table. ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Marcello, a man in his moment. ‘Three of the best.’ He pushed a folder across the table and flipped open the cover to reveal candidate number one. ‘Katerina Volvosky. Former ice-skating supremo, now an international rights lawyer working with the UN. She comes with good, if not royal lineage. Her father is a former ambassador to the USA. Her mother is a doctor—a burns specialist.’

  Vittorio nodded. She was attractive, and looked intelligent. ‘She definitely looks like she wouldn’t be afraid to voice an opinion. What makes you think she’d want to get married?’

  ‘She’s just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend, she’s thirty-five, and her body clock’s ticking. She’d have time for an heir and a spare at the very least. I think, given the right inducement, she could be persuaded to marry you.’

  ‘Huh. As if anyone would need an inducement to marry me.’

  Marcello snorted. ‘You just go right on believing that, Vittorio.’ He turned the page. ‘Potential bride number two—Emilija Kozciesko, former animal activist turned environmentalist, a woman with a passion for protecting the Mediterranean in particular. Her mother was president of Ursubilia for ten years, her father is a concert pianist who put his career aside to support his wife’s political aspirations. And—get this—she speaks eight languages.’

  Vittorio looked at the picture. She was beautiful too, but with a feistiness in her features that said she would fight tooth and nail for what she believed in. No doormat there. She was standing on the bow of a boat, looking out to sea, with the wind catching her long hair. Dark hair that reminded him of something. Someone. He dug his hand deeper into his pocket.

  ‘And her body clock?’

  ‘No issues. She’s twenty-eight, but she’s a rebel who recognises that it’s easier to agitate when you’re attached to a title.’

  Vittorio held out one hand. ‘Pass me that list of doormats again.’

  ‘Hah!’ Marcello said, sweeping them out of reach. ‘Be serious. Now, option number three...’ He flipped the page to a photograph of a stunning blonde with Nordic good looks. ‘Inga Svenson. Shipping heiress whose family has fallen on hard times. Former model, B-grade actress and now children’s ambassador. She’s also fluent in French, Italian, English...along with all the Scandinavian languages, of course.’

  Vittorio was impressed. ‘And she hasn’t found a husband yet because...?’

  ‘She was engaged to be married when the family business imploded. She got unceremoniously dumped and the fiancé promptly found himself another heiress.’ Marcello eyed his friend. ‘She’s vulnerable, and I know how you like to rescue vulnerable things.’

  Vittorio’s fingers squeezed tight.

  ‘What’s that in your hand?’ asked Marcello.

  ‘What?’ Vittorio looked down to see Rosa’s earring in his fingers. He hadn’t even realised he’d been playing with it. ‘Oh, just a trinket,’ he said, putting it back in his trouser pocket.

  Marcello looked at him levelly. ‘A trinket that you keep in your pocket? Have you taken to collecting souvenirs, Vittorio? Because if you have that could be a precursor to something entirely more sinister.’

  Vittorio snorted and leaned forward in his chair. ‘You make me laugh, my friend.’

  He lined up the three photographs next to each other and pushed away the middle one—Emilija, with the dark hair that reminded him of someone.

  ‘Right, how do you propose we do this?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘ROSA!’ CHIARA YELLED, thumping her roommate on the chest with a pillow. ‘Get out of bed. You’ll be late.’

  ‘Ow, that stung,’ Rosa s
aid, rubbing her sore chest as she struggled to come to. Her head felt full, as if it had somehow absorbed her pillow in the night. But Chiara was right—she needed to get up. Rosa was usually the first of the two to get ready, but lately that was changing, and Chiara was already dressed in her uniform and tying her hair back.

  Rosa swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself upright—and immediately wished she hadn’t. She put her hand to her mouth. Whatever had been on that pizza last night must have disagreed with her.

  ‘God, you look awful,’ Chiara said, watching her. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I don’t feel—’

  She didn’t get any further. A wave of heat welled up inside her and Rosa bolted for their tiny bathroom, where she collapsed boneless while her stomach rebelled against the world.

  ‘You really are sick,’ said Chiara, handing her a wet hand towel once the heaving spasms had passed, leaving Rosa breathless and almost too weak to wipe her heated face.

  ‘Must have been the pizza,’ Rosa said, gasping, pressing her face into the towel.

  ‘We shared the pizza. It can’t be that.’

  ‘You feel okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. And I had all the wine, because you said you didn’t like how it smelt, so if anyone should feel sick it’s me.’

  ‘So if it wasn’t that pizza, and it couldn’t have been the wine, what else can it be?’ Rosa struggled to her feet and splashed more cold water on the towel, wiped her neck and throat. ‘Please let it not be the flu. I can’t afford to take time off.’

  She put her hands on the sink and leaned against them, waiting for her body to calm. She took a breath and looked up, and caught sight of her roommate’s scowling expression in the mirror over the sink.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You felt queasy yesterday at breakfast too.’

  She shook her head, pushing herself away from the sink. She really needed to get moving. ‘The coffee was too strong. I felt fine all day after that.’