by Lynne Graham
When Richard had changed his mind about marrying her three years earlier, Darcy had ended up taking their honeymoon trip solo. Of course it had been dismal. Blind to the glorious sights, she had wandered round Venice as if she was homeless, while she struggled to cope with the pain of Richard’s rejection. Then, one morning, she had witnessed a pair of youthful lovers having a stand-up row in the Piazza San Marco. The sultry brunette had flung something at her boyfriend. As the thick gilded card had fluttered to rest at Darcy’s feet the fiery lovers had stalked off in opposite directions. And Darcy had found herself in unexpected possession of an invite to a masked ball at one of the wonderful palaces on the Grand Canal.
Two days later, she had finally rebelled against her boredom and her loneliness. She had purchased a mask and had donned that magical green evening dress. She had felt transformed, excitingly different and feminine. In those days she hadn’t owned contact lenses, and since her spectacles combined with her long mane of hair had seemed to give her the dowdy look of an earnest swot she had taken them off, choosing to embrace myopia instead. She had had a cold too, so she had generously dosed herself up with a cold remedy. Unfortunately she hadn’t read the warning on the packaging not to take any alcohol with the medication...
When she had seen the vast palazzo ablaze with golden light she had almost lost her nerve, but a crush of important guests had arrived at the same time, forcing her to move ahead of them and pass over her invitation. She had climbed the vast sweeping staircase of gilded brass and marble. By the time she’d entered the superb mirrored ballroom, filled with exquisitely dressed crowds of beautiful people awash with glittering jewels, her nerve had been failing fast. At any minute she had feared exposure as a gatecrasher, sneaking in where she had no right to be.
After hovering, trying desperately hard not to look conspicuous in her solitary state, she had slowly edged her path round to the fluttering curtains on the far side of the huge room and slid through them to find herself out on a big stone balcony. One secure step removed from the festivities, she had watched the glamorous guests mingle and dance—or at least she had watched them as closely as her shortsightedness allowed.
When an unmasked male figure in a white jacket had strolled out onto the balcony with a tray bearing a single glass, to address her in Italian, she’d quite naturally assumed he was a waiter.
‘Grazie,’ she said, striving to appear as if she was just taking the air after a dance or two, and draining the glass with appropriate thirsty fervour.
But he spoke again.
‘I don’t speak Italian—’
‘That was Spanish,’ he imparted gently in English. ‘I thought you might be Spanish. That dress worn with such vibrant colouring as yours is dramatic.’
In the lingering silence of her disinterested shrug, he remarked, ‘You appear to be alone.’ Not easily disconcerted, he lounged lazily back against the stone balustrade, the tray abandoned.
‘I was,’ she pointed out thinly. ‘And I like being alone.’
He inclined his dark head back, his features a complete blur at that distance, only his pale jacket clearly visible to her in the darkness as he stared at her. In a bolshy mood, she stared back, nose in the air, head imperiously high. All of a sudden she was sick to death of being pushed around by people and forced to fulfil their expectations. Her solo trip to Venice had been her first true rebellion, and so far she could not comfort herself with the belief that she had done much with the opportunity.
‘You’re prickly.’
‘No, that was rude,’ Darcy contradicted ruefully. ‘Outright, bloody rudeness.’
‘Is that an apology?’ he enquired.
‘No, I believe I was clarifying my point. And haven’t you got any more drinks to ferry around?’ she prompted hopefully.
He stilled, wide shoulders tautening, and then unexpectedly he laughed, a shiveringly sensual sound that sent a curious ripple down her taut spine. ‘Not at present.’
His easy humour shamed her into a blush. ‘I’m not in a very good mood.’
‘I will change that.’
‘Not could, but will,’ she noted out loud. ‘You’re very sure of yourself.’
‘Aren’t you?’
In that instant, her own sheer lack of self-confidence flailed her with shamed bitterness, and she threw her head back with desperate pride and a tiny smile of wry amusement. ‘Always,’ she murmured steadily then. ‘Always.’
He moved forward, and as an arrow of light from the great chandeliers in the ballroom fell on him she saw an indistinct image of the hard, bitingly attractive angles of his strong bone structure, the gleam of his thick black hair, the brilliance of his dark eyes. And her heart skipped a startled beat.
‘Dance with me,’ he urged softly.
And Darcy laughed with undeniable appreciation. Only she could gatecrash a high society ball and end up being chatted up by one of the waiters. ‘Aren’t you scared that someone will see you and you’ll lose your job?’
‘Not if we remain out here...’
‘Just one dance and then I’ll leave.’
‘The entertainment doesn’t meet with your approval?’ he probed as he slid her into his arms, his entire approach so subtle, so smooth that she was surprised to find herself there, and then flattered by the sensation of being held as if she were fashioned of the most fragile and delicate spun glass.
‘It’s suffocatingly formal, and tonight I feel like something different,’ she mused with perfect truth. ‘Indeed, tonight I feel just a little wild...’
‘Please don’t let me inhibit you,’ he murmured.
And Darcy burst out laughing again.
‘Who did you come here with tonight?’ he queried.
‘Nobody...I’m a gatecrasher,’ she confided daringly.
‘A gatecrasher?’
‘You sound shocked...’
‘Security is usually very tight at the Palazzo d’Oro.’
‘Not if you enter just in front of a party who require a great deal of attentive bowing and scraping.’
‘You must’ve had an invitation?’
‘It landed at my feet in the Piazza San Marco. A beautiful brunette flung it at her boyfriend. I thought you asked me to dance,’ she complained, since they had yet to move. ‘Are you now planning to have me thrown out?’
‘Not just at present,’ he confided, folding her closer and staring down at her with narrowed eyes. ‘You are a very unusual woman.’
‘Very,’ Darcy agreed, liking that tag, which hinted at a certain distinction.
‘And your name?’
‘No names, no pack drill,’ she sighed. ‘Ships that pass and all that—’
‘I want to board...’
‘No can do. I am not my name...my name wasn’t even chosen with me in mind,’ she admitted with repressed bitterness, for Darcy had always been a male name in her family. ‘And I want to be someone else tonight.’
‘Very unusual and very infuriating,’ he breathed.
‘I am a woman who is very, very sure of herself, and a woman of that stature is certain to infuriate,’ she returned playfully, leaning in to his big powerful body and smiling up at him, set free by anonymity to be whatever she wanted to be.
And so they danced, high above the Grand Canal, all the lights glittering magically in her eyes until she closed them and just drifted in a wonderful dreamy haze...
CHAPTER FOUR
A BURST of forceful Italian dredged Darcy out of that sleepy, seductive flow of memory. Eyelids fluttering, she returned to the present and frowned to find the Land Rover at a standstill, headlights glaring on the high banks of a narrow lane.
‘What...where—?’ she began in complete confusion.
‘We have a flat tyre,’ Luca delivered in a murderous aside as he wrenched open the rattling driver’s door.
Darcy scrambled out into the drizzling rain. ‘But the spare’s in for repair!’ she exclaimed.
Across the bonnet, Luca surveyed her with
what struck her as an overplay of all-male incredulity. ‘You have no spare tyre?’
‘No.’ Darcy busied herself giving the offending flat tyre a kick. ‘Pretty far gone, isn’t it? That won’t get us home.’ She looked around herself. ‘Where on earth are we?
‘It is possible that in the darkness I may have taken a wrong turn.’
Considering that they were in a lane that came to a dead end at a field twenty feet ahead, Darcy judged that a miracle of understatement. ‘You got lost, didn’t you?’
Luca dealt her a slaughtering, silencing glance.
Darcy sighed. ‘We’d better start walking—’
‘Walking?’ He was aghast at the concept.
‘What else? How long is it since you saw a main road?’
‘Some time,’ Luca gritted. ‘But fortunately there is a farmhouse quite close.’
‘Fat lot of use that’s going to be,’ Darcy muttered. ‘At two in the morning, only an emergency would give us the excuse to knock people up out of their beds.’
‘This is an emergency!’
Darcy drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. ‘I am not rousing an entire family just so that we can ask to use their phone. In any case, who would you suggest I contact?’
‘A motoring organisation,’ Luca informed her with exaggerated patience.
‘I don’t belong to one.’
‘A car breakdown recovery business?’
‘Have you any idea what that would cost?’ Darcy groaned in horror. ‘It’s not worth it for a flat tyre! The local garage can run out the spare in the morning. They’ll only charge me for their time and petrol—’
‘I am not spending the night in that filthy vehicle,’ Luca asserted levelly.
‘You figure cosying up to those cows would be more fun?’ Darcy could not resist saying, surveying the curious beasts who, attracted by the light and the sound of their voices, had ambled up to gawk over the gate at them.
‘I passed through a crossroads about a kilometre back. I saw an inn there.’ With the decisive air of one taking command, Luca leant into the car. ‘I presume you have a torch?’
“Fraid not,’ Darcy admitted gruffly.
Not a male who took life’s little slings and arrows with a stiff upper lip, Darcy registered by the stark exhalation of breath. Not remotely like the charming, tolerant male she had encountered in Venice three years ago. And how the heck she had contrived to imagine the faintest resemblance now quite escaped her. This was a male impatient of any mishap which injured his comfort—indeed, almost outraged by any set of circumstances which could strand him ignominiously on a horribly wet night in a muddy country lane.
So they walked.
‘I should have paid some heed to where we were going,’ Darcy remarked, proffering a generous olive branch.
‘“If onlys” exasperate me,’ Luca divulged.
Rain trickling down her bare arms, Darcy buttoned her lips. With a stifled imprecation, Luca removed his dinner jacket and held it out to her.
‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ Darcy muttered in astonished embarrassment at such a gesture. ‘I’m as tough as old boots.’
‘I insist—’
‘No...no, honestly.’ Darcy started walking again in haste. ‘You’ve just come from a hot climate...you’re more at risk of a chill than I am.’
‘Per amor di Dio...’ Luca draped the jacket round her narrow shoulders, enfolding her in the smooth silk lining which still carried the pervasive heat and scent of his body. ‘Just keep quiet and wear it!’
In the darkness, a spontaneous grin of appreciation lit Darcy’s face. As she stumbled on the rough road surface Luca curved a steadying arm round her, and instead of withdrawing that support, kept it there. It was amazing how good that made her feel. He had tremendously good manners, she conceded. Not unnaturally, he was infuriated by the inefficiency that had led to the absence of a spare tyre, but at least he wasn’t doggedly set on continually reminding her of her oversight.
The inn perched at the juncture of lanes was shrouded in darkness. Darcy hung back in the porch. ‘Do we have to do this?’
Without a shade of hesitation, Luca strode forward to make use of the ornate door-knocker. ‘I would knock up the dead for a brandy and a hot bath.’
An outside light went on. A bleary-eyed middle-aged man in a dressing gown eventually appeared. Darcy heard the rustle of money. The security chain was undone at speed. And suddenly mine host became positively convivial. Getting dragged out of his bed in the middle of the night might almost have been a pleasure to him. He showed them up a creaking, twisting staircase into a pleasant room and retreated to fetch the brandy.
‘How much money did you give him, for heaven’s sake?’ Darcy demanded in fascination.
‘Sufficient to cover the inconvenience.’ Luca surveyed the room and the connecting bathroom with a frowning lack of appreciation.
‘It’s really quite cosy,’ Darcy remarked, and it was when compared with her own rather barn-like and bare bedroom at the Folly. The floor had a carpet and the bed had a fat satin quilt.
The proprietor reappeared with an entire bottle of brandy and two glasses.
Darcy discarded the jacket, studying Luca, whose white shirt was plastered to an impressive torso which gleamed brown through the saturated fabric. Her attention fairly caught as she stood there, tousled hair dripping down her rainwashed face, she glimpsed the black whorls of hair hazing his muscular chest in a distinctive male triangle as he turned back to her. Her face burned.
‘Give me a coin,’ Darcy told him abruptly.
A curious brow quirking, Luca withdrew a coin from his pocket. ‘What—?’
Darcy flipped it from his fingers. ‘We’ll toss for the bed.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
But Darcy had already tossed. ‘Heads or tails?’ she proffered cheerfully.
‘Dio—’
‘Heads!’ Darcy chose impatiently. She uncovered the coin and then sighed. ‘You get the bed; I get the quilt. Do you mind if I have first shower? I’ll be quick.’
Moving to the bathroom without awaiting a reply, Darcy closed the door with some satisfaction. The trick was to get over embarrassing ground fast. Had money not been in short supply, she would’ve asked for a second room, but why bother for the sake of a few hours? Luca was highly unlikely to succumb to an attack of overpowering lust and make a pass... I should be so lucky, she thought, and then squirmed with boiling guilt.
Stripping off, she stepped into the shower. In five minutes she was out again, smothering a yawn. After towel-drying her hair, she put her bra and pants back on, draped her sodden dress over one exact half of the shower curtain rail and opened the door a crack.
The room was empty. Darcy shot across the bedroom, snatched the quilt and a pillow off the divan, and in ten seconds flat had herself tucked in her makeshift bed on the carpet.
Ten minutes later, Luca reappeared. ‘Accidenti... this isn’t a schoolgirl sleep-over!’ he bit out, sounding as if he was climbing the walls with exasperation. ‘We’ll share the bed like grown-ups.’
‘I’m perfectly happy where I am. I lost the toss.’
Luca growled something raw and impatient in Italian.
‘I’ve slept in far less comfortable places than this. Do stop fussing,’ she muttered, her voice muffled by the quilt. ‘I’m a lot hardier than you are—’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’
Her wide, anxious gaze appeared over the edge of the satin quilt. She collided with heartstopping dark golden eyes glittering with suspicion below flaring ebony brows. Her stomach clenched, her breath shortening in her dry throat. ‘Why don’t you go and get your hot bath and your brandy?’ she suggested tautly, and in so doing tactfully side-stepped the question.
Dear heaven, but he was gorgeous. She listened to him undress. She wanted to look. As the bathroom door closed on him she grimaced, feverishly hot and uneasy and thoroughly ashamed of herself. He was a decent guy and he had
made a real effort on her behalf tonight. A Hollywood film star couldn’t have been more impressive in his role. And here she was, acting all silly like the schoolgirl he had hinted she was, reacting to him as if he was a sex object and absolutely nothing else. Didn’t she despise men who regarded women in that light?
Sure, Darcy, when was the last time a male treated you like a sex object? Venice. She shivered. Instantly she remembered that passionate kiss out on the balcony high above the Grand Canal, how that fierce sizzle of electric excitement in her veins had felt that very first time. Excitement as dangerously addictive as a narcotic drug. And tonight she had experienced that same wild hunger all over again...
A hot, liquid sensation assailing the very crux of her body, Darcy bit her lower lip and loathed her weak, wanton physical self. But no wonder she had been shaken up earlier. No wonder she had briefly imagined more than a superficial resemblance of looks and nationality between Luca and her daughter’s father. But there was no mystery. Her own shatteringly powerful response to both men had been the sole source of similarity.
The bathroom door opened, heralding Luca’s return.
‘Darcy...get into the bed,’ Luca instructed very drily.
Darcy ignored the invitation, terrified that he might sense her attraction to him if she got any closer. ‘I never really thanked you properly for tonight,’ she said instead, eager to change the subject. ‘You were a class act.’
‘Grazie... would you like a brandy?’
‘No, thanks.’
After the chink of glass, she heard the blankets being trailed back, the creak as the divan gave under his weight. The light went out. ‘You know, when I said you’d make a great gigolo, I was really trying to pay you a compliment,’ she advanced wearily.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Emboldened by that apparent new tolerance, Darcy relaxed. ‘I suppose I owe you an explanation about a few things...’ In the darkness, she grimaced, but she felt that he had earned greater honesty. ‘When I was a child, Fielding’s Folly paid for itself. But Margo liked to live well and my father took out a mortgage rather than reduce their outgoings. I only found out about the mortgage a couple of years ago, when the Folly needed roof repairs and the estate couldn’t afford to pay for them.’