by Lucy Gordon
‘Thank you,’ said Becky fervently.
‘Are you all right?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘Yes, thanks to you.’
She dismounted, and immediately realised just how tall he was. Now his grim face and dark, intense eyes were looking down at her, the traces of cold rage still visible.
The angry little crowd had been alarming because there were three of them. But this man was dangerous on his own account, and suddenly she wondered if she was any safer than before.
‘They’ve gone now,’ he said. ‘They won’t come back.’
It was a simple statement of fact. He knew nobody would choose to face him twice.
‘Thank you,’ she said, speaking English, as he had done, but slowly. ‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone. I thought there was nobody to help me.’
‘You don’t have to speak slowly,’ he said proudly. ‘I know English.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. Where did you appear from?’
‘I live just past those trees. You had better come with me, and I will make you some tea.’
‘Thank you.’
As they walked he said, ‘I know everybody around here, but I’ve never seen them before.’
‘They come from England. They were looking for my father, but he’s away and that made them angry.’
‘Perhaps you should not have ridden alone.’
‘I didn’t know they were there, and why shouldn’t I ride where I like on my father’s land?’
‘Ah, yes, your father is the Englishman everyone is talking of. But this is not his land. It belongs to me. Just a narrow strip, but it contains my home, which I will not sell.’
‘But Dad told me…’ She checked herself.
‘He told you that he’d bought all the land round here. He must have overlooked this little piece. It’s very easily done.’
‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ she said involuntarily.
They had turned a corner and come across a small stone cottage. It nestled against the lee of a hill in the shadow of pine trees, and her first thought was that it looked cosy and welcoming.
‘It is my home,’ he said simply. ‘I warn you, it is not so picturesque inside.’
He spoke the truth. The inside was shabby and basic, with flagstones on the floor and a huge old-fashioned range. He was evidently working hard at improving it, for there were tools lying about, and planks of wood.
‘Sit down,’ he said, indicating a wooden chair that looked hard but turned out to be surprisingly comfortable.
There was a kettle on the range, and he made tea efficiently.
‘I don’t know your name,’ she said.
‘I am Luca Montese.’
‘I’m Rebecca Solway. Becky.’
He looked down at the small, elegant hand she held out to him. For the first time he seemed to become uncertain. Then he thrust out his own hand. It was coarse and powerful, bruised and battered by heavy work. It engulfed hers out of sight.
His whole appearance was rough. His dark hair needed cutting and hung shaggily about his thickly muscled neck. He wore worn black jeans and a black sleeveless vest, and he was well over six feet, built on impressive lines.
Hercules, she thought.
The frightening rage in his face had disappeared entirely now, and the look he turned on her was gentle, although unsmiling. ‘Rebecca,’ he repeated.
‘No, Becky to my friends. You are my friend, aren’t you? You must be, after you saved me.’
For the whole of her short life, her charm and beauty had won people over. It was unusual for anyone not to warm to her easily, but she could sense this young man’s hesitation.
‘Yes,’ he said awkwardly at last. ‘I am your friend.’
‘Then you’ll call me Becky?’
‘Becky.’
‘Do you live here alone, or with a family?’
‘I have no family. This was my mother’s and father’s house, and now it belongs to me.’
The firm tone in which he said the last words prompted her to say, ‘Hey, I’m not arguing about that. It’s yours, it’s yours.’
‘I wish your father felt the same way. Where is he now?’
‘In Spain. He’ll be home next week.’
‘Until then I think it’s better if you don’t ride alone.’
She had been thinking the same thing, but this easy assumption of authority riled her.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He frowned. ‘There is no need to beg my pardon.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ she said, realising that his English was not as good as he’d claimed. “‘I beg your pardon” is an expression that means “Who the heck do you think you are to give me orders?”.’
He frowned again. ‘Then why not just say so?’
‘Because…’ But the task of explaining was too much. She abandoned English in favour of Tuscan dialect.
‘Don’t give me orders. I’ll ride as I please.’
‘And what happens next time, when I may not be there to come to your aid?’ he asked in the same language.
‘They’ll have gone by now.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘That’s-that’s got nothing to do with it,’ she floundered, unable to counter the argument.
A faint smile appeared on his face. ‘I think it has.’
‘Oh, stop being so reasonable!’ she said crossly.
The smile became a grin. ‘Very well. Whatever pleases you.’
She smiled back ruefully. ‘You might be right.’
He refilled her cup and she sipped it appreciatively. ‘You make very good tea. I’m impressed.’
‘And I am impressed that you speak my dialect so well.’
‘My grandmother taught me. She came from here. She used to own the house where we live now.’
‘Emilia Talese?’
‘That was her maiden name, yes.’
‘My family have always been carpenters. They used to do jobs for her family.’
That was their first meeting. He walked home with her, coming into the house, instructing the servants to take good care of her, as if he’d been commanding people all his life.
‘Will you be all right?’ she asked, thinking of him walking back alone in the gathering dusk. ‘Suppose they’re waiting for you?’
His grin was answer enough. It said that such fears were for other men. Then he walked out, leaving behind only the memory of his brilliant self-confidence. It was as strong as sunlight, and he seemed both to carry it with him, and leave it behind wherever he had been.
CHAPTER TWO
N EXT day Becky left the house early and rode down to find him. She had gone to bed thinking of him, lain awake thinking of him, finally slept, dreaming of him, then awoke thinking of him. She saw his face, young yet forceful, the mouth that was too stern for his years, until he smiled and became suddenly charming.
His mouth haunted her. With everything in her she wanted to kiss it, and to feel it kissing her back. And his arms, as powerful as steel hawsers, belonged around her. She knew that, as certainly as she had ever known anything, knew it with the conviction of a girl who had never seriously been denied anything she really wanted.
She had never even kissed a man before. But now that she’d met Luca she wanted him completely, in every way. It was as though her body had come alive in an instant, sending a message to her brain: this is the one.
The only question was how and when. It was impossible that the world, or Luca himself, could deny her.
As she approached he heard the hoof beats and looked up. She jumped down from the horse, facing him, and she knew at once, with joyful certainty, that he too had lain awake all night. But he turned away from her.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘I told you not to ride alone.’
‘Then why didn’t you come for me?’
‘Because the signorina did not give me orders to do so,’ he said proudly.
‘But I don’t g
ive you orders. We’re just friends.’
She stood looking into his face, willing him to let her have her wish. He gave the slow smile that already made her heart beat strongly.
‘Why don’t you go and make the tea?’ he suggested.
She did so, and spent the rest of the day helping him work on the house. He made rolls with salami, which was the most delicious food she’d ever tasted. But she hadn’t given up her determination to make him kiss her. Sooner or later he would yield.
It took her three days to crack his resistance. During that time she came to know the man a little. He had a touchy pride that could make his temper smoulder, although he always reined it in quickly for her sake.
On the first day he had said, ‘Whatever pleases you,’ and that became his mantra. Whatever pleased her was right for him. This big man, who could be so ferocious to others, was like a child in her hands. It gave her a delicious sense of power.
But she couldn’t make him do the one thing she wanted above all else. She created chance after chance, and he wouldn’t take any of them, until one day he said, ‘I think you should go home now.’ He added in slow, awkward English, ‘It has been very nice knowing you.’
Her answer was to pick up a bread roll from the table and hurl it at him. He ducked, but didn’t seem disconcerted.
‘Why don’t you like me any more?’ she cried.
‘I do like you, Becky. I like you more than I should. That is why you must go, and not come back.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense!’
‘I think you know just what I mean.’
‘No!’ she cried, refusing to understand what didn’t suit her.
‘I think you do. You know what I want with you, and I can’t have it. I must not. You’re a child.’
‘I’m seventeen. Well, I will be in a couple of weeks. I’m not a child.’
‘You talk like one. What you want, you must have. For the moment you want me, but I’m a man, not a toy to be played with then cast aside.’
‘I’m not playing.’
‘But you are. You’re like a kitten with a cotton reel. You haven’t yet learned that life can be cruel and bitter, and God forbid that you should learn it through me!’
‘But you said you wanted me. Why can’t we-?’
‘Becky, my grandfather was your grandmother’s carpenter. I’m still a carpenter. Sometimes I make a little money repairing cars, getting dirty.’
‘Oh, nobody cares about that any more.’
‘Ask your father if he cares about it.’
‘This has nothing to do with my father. Just you and me.’
Suddenly he lost his temper. ‘Don’t be stupid!’ he shouted.
‘Don’t call me stupid.’
‘You are stupid. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t come down here and be alone with a man who desires you as much as I do. If you called for help there’s nobody to hear you.’
‘Why should I need help against you? I know you and-’
‘You know nothing,’ he said, in a rage. ‘I spend my nights lying awake, thinking of you in my bed, in my arms, naked. I have no right to think these things but I can’t stop myself. And then you come here, smiling and saying “Luca, I want you”, and I go insane. How much do you think one man can take?’
Out of all this only one thing made any impact.
‘You desire me?’
‘Yes,’ he said curtly, turning away to stare out of the window. ‘Now go.’
‘I’m not going,’ she said softly, almost to herself. It was more than a decision. It was a declaration that she had chosen her path and would follow it.
She went close behind him, slipping her arms about his body. As she had known he would, he turned instantly, and fell straight into her trap. She had removed her upper clothing and he found himself holding her bare skin, her arms, her shoulders, her breasts.
He made one last, agonised effort.
‘No, Becky-please-’
But the words were drowned by her lips on his, and then it was too late. It had always been too late.
He kissed her tenderly, then with increasing urgency, while his hands explored her and hers explored him. He was wearing a shirt, the front partly unbuttoned. It took her only a moment to rip open the remaining buttons so that she could press her breasts against his body. Inexperienced though she was, she knew at once that the sensation was too much for his self-control. When she moved to pull the shirt right off, he did it for her.
She was completely trusting, without caution or defences, and he seemed to know it even through his passion, for his movements were as controlled as he could make them.
At first all she felt was his tenderness, leading her forward gently. She was already in a fever for him, helping him remove the last of her clothes, then his, following his every move, trying to anticipate, so that he gave a shaky laugh, saying, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’
‘But I want you, Luca, I want you.’
‘But you don’t know what you want, piccina,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I have no right-we must stop-’
‘No! I’ll thump you in a minute.’
‘Little bully,’ he whispered.
‘You’d better let me have my own way, then, hadn’t you?’ she teased.
That was the end of his control. After that, no power on earth could have stopped him exploring her, enchanted by her sweetness and her young, blazing passion for himself.
As soon as he entered her she gave a little cry of excitement and began to move against him, urging him on. Her frank eagerness to make love and her lack of false modesty delighted him, and he gave everything without holding back.
It was a swift, unsubtle mating which came to a climax almost at once. Becky felt dizzy. One moment she was simply enjoying herself, and the next moment something tossed her up to the stars in a fine frenzy of pleasure, before sending her swooping back to earth, wondering which planet she’d landed on. Because it wasn’t the same one that she’d started on.
‘Oh, wow!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Oh, wow!’
The next moment she leapt on him again, ignoring his laughing protests. This time he loved her more slowly, or at least as slowly as she would let him, teasing her breasts with lips and fingers, until she wrapped her legs about him, demanding fulfilment, and he could do nothing but yield.
Afterwards they lay entwined while they drifted down from the heights, rejoicing to find each other still there.
‘Why did you try to warn me off?’ she whispered. ‘It was beautiful.’
‘I’m glad. I want everything to be beautiful and wonderful for you, always.’
‘It is wonderful, and you’re wonderful, and everything in the world is wonderful, because you love me.’
‘I didn’t say I loved you,’ he growled.
‘But you do, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ He tightened his arms, pulling her naked body hard against his. ‘I love you, piccina. I love you with my heart and soul, with my body-’
‘Yes, I know that.’ She giggled, letting her fingers run races over his skin.
‘Don’t tease me,’ he groaned. ‘I can’t endure it.’
‘I don’t want you to endure it, I want you to give in.’
‘Don’t I always give in to you?’ he asked with a touch of sombreness in his voice.
But that mood couldn’t last. She wanted him to make love to her again, and he could never deny her anything.
On the day of Frank’s return Becky drove to Pisa Airport to meet him in her own car, delivered as an early birthday gift during his absence.
‘I thought you wouldn’t want to wait,’ he explained now as she thanked him.
‘You spoil me, Dad.’
‘That’s what daughters are for,’ he said cheerfully. He was on a ‘high’ of success, as he told her during the drive home.
‘Got everything I wanted at less than I expected to pay. Yessir!’
Becky had heard him talk like this many times before, but now the memo
ry of the Englishmen, and their desperation, made it sound different.
‘Will anyone be put out of work?’ she asked.
‘What was that?’
‘If you’re making such a profit, someone has to lose out, don’t they?’
‘Of course. Someone always loses out, but they’re the wimps, the people who deserve to lose because nature made them losers.’
‘But is it nature that makes them losers, or you?’
‘Becky, what is this? You’ve never had such ideas before.’
The thought flashed across her mind, Or any ideas at all! But all she said was, ‘You closed down a place in England, and some of the people who lost their jobs came out here to find you.’
‘The devil they did! What happened?’
‘They found me instead. I was out riding alone and three men appeared from nowhere.’
‘Did they hurt you?’
‘No, but only because a man appeared and saved me. His name’s Luca Montese and he lives near by. He was working on his cottage when he heard them shouting. He squared up to them, knocked one of them down and after that they all scurried away.’
‘Then I must meet this man and thank him. Where exactly did this happen?’
She described the spot and he frowned.
‘I didn’t know I had any tenants there.’
‘He isn’t a tenant, he owns that bit of land. He says you tried to buy him out but he wouldn’t sell.’
‘Montese?’ he muttered. ‘Montese? Good grief, that’s him? Carletti, my agent, told me of some fellow who’d been making trouble.’
‘He’s not making trouble, Dad. He just wants to keep his home.’
‘Nonsense, he doesn’t know what’s good for him. Carletti says the place is little more than a hovel. Squalid, unsanitary.’
‘Not any more. He’s done a wonderful job of rebuilding it.’
‘You’ve been there?’
‘He took me there after he rescued me, and made me some tea. It was nice and cosy. He’s worked so hard on it.’
‘Well, he’s wasting his time. I’ll get it in the end.’
‘I don’t think so. He’s determined not to sell.’
‘And I’m determined that he will, and I reckon I’m stronger than some peasant lad.’
‘Dad!’ she cried in protest. ‘A moment ago you were going to thank him for saving me. Now you’re planning to bully him.’