by Donald Robyn
Sure enough, he lifted a dismissive black brow. ‘If it has to happen, it has to happen.’ His aloof tone indicated she’d stepped over the mark.
Well, she was no longer that lovesick adolescent, shattered when he frowned. ‘You’ll make an excellent ruler,’ she said in a voice that matched his for calm detachment.
A measuring glance from crystalline, green-gold eyes set her heart beating faster, but he made no comment, merely saying as they reached the car, ‘Normally I’d have brought the chopper, but it’s busy flying the valley.’
Instantly she concentrated on why she was there. Feeling slightly sick, she demanded, ‘Another outbreak?’
‘Possibly.’ After a second he amended that to ‘Probably,’ and nodded at the man who guarded her luggage. ‘Thank you. I’ll deal with this now.’
Covertly Rosa watched him open the boot. Powerful muscles in his shoulders rippled beneath the fine cotton of his shirt as he loaded her bag and straightened up. Something stabbed her in the heart. Such blatant male strength drove everything from her mind except an urgent, elemental appreciation.
He caught her looking, and gave her a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, his detached tone establishing an unbridgeable distance between them. ‘We have an industry to save.’
Furious with herself, she slid into the front seat and turned her head to gaze through the side window until she could say sedately, ‘I do like the way the new parts of town blend so well with the old.’
‘You can thank Grandfather for that,’ Max advised, skil-fully negotiating the chaos of the city roads. Horns hooted vigorously, and in the donkey-cluttered streets people shouted and sang and gossiped beneath a sky as blue as the sea that surrounded the island. ‘He hates what’s been done in other Mediterranean cities, so he’s kept a tight grip on development here.’
Rosa leaned back and closed her eyes, fighting a stupid sense of rejection. Once more in his face, in his voice, was the barrier he’d erected all those years ago when he’d realised that she was weaving adolescent fantasies, with him as the hero.
Well, this time she’d be as distant, as neutral, as damned controlled as he was.
But it was going to be a long trip to Cattina.
‘Rosa.’
The voice, deep and dark and fascinating, wove itself into her dreams. ‘Rosa,’ it persisted, and she smiled, lifting her lashes to meet cool eyes, their green-gold irises ringed by a tawny rim.
‘Max? Where are we?’ she asked drowsily, then woke to full alertness. The car had stopped.
His mobile mouth twisted in an ambiguous smile. ‘Cattina. Welcome to the real Niroli, little cousin.’
Rosa had had enough. With stiff formality she said, ‘Max, I’m no longer a foolish adolescent with a crush on you—I’m a scientist with a job to do.’ She tempered her remarks with a slight smile. ‘And as I’m an adult and taller than most women, I’m exasperated when you call me little cousin. It sounds like a put-down.’
His smile vanished, and she saw a harder, grimmer Max, his cold green gaze lacking its subtle golden highlights. In a tone that iced across her nerves he stated crisply, ‘I’m ten years older than you, so you’ll always be my little cousin. Whatever words I use to address you, nothing will ever change that. Accept it, Rosa.’
The cold warning was like a slap in the face, delivered brutally and without emotion. Something inside Rosa—hope?—shrivelled and died, and she hurt so much she couldn’t speak.
Hard-won composure came to her rescue. Collecting herself, she shrugged and met his eyes with all the confidence she could summon. ‘I suppose those ten extra years—not to mention your new status as heir—give you the right to respect. But if you want the vineyard owners to have confidence in me, you must show it yourself. Calling me little cousin in that patronising tone isn’t going to do it. When I insist on drastic measures like uprooting whole vineyards, you’ll have to back me up, not undermine me by treating me like a child.’
His eyes narrowed and a cynical smile curled his controlled mouth. ‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ he said after a taut few moments. ‘You sound very grown-up. Very well—I’ll only call you my little cousin in private.’
He made it sound like a major concession. Gritting her teeth, Rosa forced herself to drag her gaze away from him and look around the courtyard of the castle, a fortress built to protect the pass through the mountains and the river that had made it. In dry, sunny Niroli, water was life.
For centuries the castello had protected this fertile valley from invaders, although some had been successful enough to stamp their mark on the stone walls and battlements.
Hoping she sounded professional and mature, she said, ‘I suspect it’s going to be difficult to convince the grape-growers that I know what I’m doing. Are they still bound by tradition when it comes to the status of women?’
No, she sounded neither professional nor mature, she thought wearily—just stilted and absurdly formal.
Her cousin looked straight ahead, his angular profile a slashing statement against the mellow stone walls. ‘The women have never been as subservient as they seemed, and your sister has changed a lot of ideas about what women can and can’t do. Her success with her tourist empire is everyone’s pride.’
Isabella had always had spirit and guts and the sheer, dogged determination to succeed. Even though Rosa admired and loved her, Isabella’s success made her feel lacking in some vital way.
Warily she watched Max get out and walk around the front of the car. As he was opening her door a manservant came down the steps from the huge doors and efficiently removed her luggage. Rosa climbed out, wincing at the immediate protest of muscles that had barely been used in the past thirty-six hours.
‘Jet-lagged?’ Max asked, taking her arm.
Sensation arced through her, swift and daunting and clamorous. Her teeth clenched a moment on her bottom lip and she stared blindly ahead, mounting the steps by guesswork and will power. ‘I’m just a bit stiff,’ she managed to say brightly. ‘It’s a long way from New Zealand to Niroli.’
Perhaps he felt that powerful charge too, for he released her. In a steady, almost bland voice he said, ‘If you hadn’t jumped the gun you could have travelled in much more comfort in the royal plane.’ And then, in an entirely different voice, guarded and remote, ‘Welcome to my home, Rosa.’
‘Thank you,’ she said automatically, walking beside him into the cool dimness of the great hall.
Chapter 2
Isabella had raved about Max’s conversion of the castle’s rugged austerity into a habitation that combined the authority of the past with modern luxury. But before Rosa had time to notice much more than a splendid—and probably priceless—Oriental rug and a huge Renaissance coffer, a massive yawn split her face.
Oh, how adult and sophisticated! she thought in mortification, hastily covering it with her hand.
Max looked amused. ‘Poor little one—you must be exhausted. I’ll take you to your room, and I suggest you have a small snack and then sleep.’
‘I certainly won’t say no to something to eat.’ Rosa salvaged what poise she could and smiled at the manservant.
‘What would you like?’ Max asked.
‘Food from the island?’ she suggested. ‘Just olives and a salad, with coffee?’
One glance from Max sent the beaming manservant on his way.
She said firmly, ‘Then I’ll wash the journey away, and after that I want to see the vineyards that are under quarantine.’
Max indicated the staircase that swept up ahead of them. They were halfway up the flight when he said silkily, ‘Proving something, Rosa?’
‘Possibly,’ she returned, meeting his sardonic gaze directly. Her stomach clamped and a shiver of response whispered the length of her spine, but she needed to establish her competence in this. ‘I’m sure you know that time is of the essence when it comes to dealing with shot blight. I need to have those vines—and the lab results too.’
; ‘You look tired. You’ll be better able to make sense of things when you’ve had a proper night’s sleep.’
‘I can cope,’ she said, utterly determined that she should prove herself to be—what? Competent? Independent? Knowledgeable?
All of those, and then some. If she were Isabella he wouldn’t be treating her like a fractious ten-year-old.
Max’s shoulders lifted a fraction. ‘Of course,’ he said smoothly. ‘I wasn’t implying that you couldn’t.’
He delivered her to the door of her room, told her that he’d see her soon, and left. Once inside she stood a moment, letting her eyes roam while her heartbeat settled back into its normal pace.
A difficult mixture of exhilaration and caution blended into apprehension. She’d been so sure she was over him, and she’d been so wrong. Oh, she no longer assumed that her response was love—she’d learned something in the years since she’d been sixteen! This was lust, simple, uncomplicated animal attraction; the turbulent, rather degrading flash-fire reaction that set hormones surging in mindless hunger.
OK, so her wretched body seemed compelled to goad her into heady awareness whenever he came near her, but at least she’d shown him that her mind was her own. She bit her lip and headed for the bathroom.
Spending the rest of her life longing for a man she could never have wasn’t an option. Especially, she thought wryly, when it was obvious that he still saw her as the kid who’d embarrassed him with her unruly emotions five years ago.
She splashed cold water over her face, and stood a moment, staring at herself in the mirror. The en suite was cool and luxurious yet spare, almost austere, befitting a castle that had seen Saracens and Crusaders and various other marauders come and go.
Pride insisted that Max accept her as a responsible adult. If she achieved that she’d go back to New Zealand with the knowledge not only of a job well done—she hoped—but of her own progress from girlish infatuation to adult autonomy.
‘You sound like a self-help book,’ she scoffed beneath her breath. ‘Clearly you need a cold shower to clear your brain.’
Refreshed by the play of cool water on her skin, Rosa wrapped herself in a towel and strolled into the bedroom to discover a maid unpacking her clothes and transferring them into a walk-in wardrobe. They exchanged smiling greetings before Rosa chose a simple cotton dress to wear.
She was frowning at her reflection when a knock on the door brought the food she’d asked for. Perhaps she should try for a more professional image instead of this informal comfort? After all, she needed to look reliable and competent.
And as she was going to be walking around vineyards, it had to be practical.
A swift examination of her wardrobe revealed casual cotton trousers and a shirt in a paler shade of olive. A loose scarf in olive and copper and dark blue would protect her neck from the sun, still bold and burning in late summer. She changed, and pulled on a pair of ankle-height leather boots, frowning when she imagined what several dowsings in antiseptic troughs would do to them.
‘Memo—buy gumboots,’ she said ironically into the silent room.
Satisfied, she sat down to eat at the table set in the narrow window. It was poignant to be here relishing the tastes of Niroli without her parents or her sister. She blinked back a swift ache of tears for the dead, and concentrated on Isabella, happily enjoying life with the new husband who adored her.
Her grief subsided slowly as she enjoyed the crisp salad with local green olives and olive oil, and the hard, tasty cheese made only on the island from the milk of the ewes pastured high in the mountains.
‘How was your lunch?’ Max asked as he drove her to the first vineyard, navigating narrow twisty lanes with the familiarity of long acquaintance.
‘Delicious,’ she said on a sigh. ‘New Zealand has the best food in the world, but it’s impossible to achieve the exact flavours of Niroli there. Even their herbs taste subtly different.’
‘What do you think of New Zealand?’
Because it was a safe, neutral subject, she enlarged on her experiences in the small South Pacific country. ‘It’s—wild,’ she finished, her mind seeing again a range of mountains rising above plains, the thick rainforest of the north with its massive trees, and perfect beaches set like melon slices against a sea as green as emeralds that stretched for infinity. ‘Here everything bears the mark of mankind; there, vast areas are untouched and pristine. And there are so few people—well, except for the cities, of course. But even they’re small.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been there.’
Startled, she looked at him. When? Had it been while she was there? And because she couldn’t ask him, she said in a neutral voice, ‘What did you think of it?’
‘Like you, I loved the wildness.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘And although it was five years ago, before things really got going with their wine industry, I liked what I saw—and drank—of their wine.’
Some stupid part of Rosa was relieved that he hadn’t come to New Zealand and ignored her.
He went on thoughtfully, ‘I envied them the opportunity to build a whole industry from scratch, to take it to the world.’
Intrigued, Rosa pointed out, ‘But that’s what you’ve done here.’
His wide shoulders lifted. ‘Perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘But the grapes and the knowledge were already here—the local conditions were as familiar to the growers as their own wives’ faces. It was a matter of modernisation rather than innovation, and of course I had help.’
She sent him a curious glance.
Answering her unspoken question, he said, ‘Giovanni could see the need for progress, and because he’d made such a success of the royal vineyards he has great prestige amongst the peasants. If it hadn’t been for his support it would have been a much harder fight.’
Rosa nodded. She was learning things about him, small, precious nuggets of information to be hoarded away in the deepest recesses of her brain like stolen gems.
‘Even without Giovanni you’d have won them around,’ she said drily. ‘Failure doesn’t seem to be a word you accept.’
‘It happens,’ he said, an aloof note in his voice slamming barriers against her. ‘Here’s the first vineyard.’
Two soldiers with rifles manned the barricade across the road that led to the afflicted vineyards. When they realised who was driving the car they sprang to attention and saluted, then drew back the bar so the car could make its way through a wide shallow bath of disinfectant.
‘No entrance without a permit,’ Max said briefly. ‘So far the precautions seem to be working. The vines were pruned immediately and every leaf and twig burnt.’ He glanced at her intent face. ‘I hope to God we can save them.’
‘So do I,’ she said quietly. ‘But it’s not likely—once the blight gets into the plants, they’re doomed and have to be burnt, roots and all. The best we can hope for is to stop the infection from spreading beyond the immediate vicinity.’
‘How?’ His voice was almost aggressive. ‘It’s devastated every other area it’s struck.’
‘We’ve developed an antibiotic that might turn the tide. It’s carefully targeted to the bacterium that causes shot blight, so it won’t kill every other good thing in the soil. But even if it works, it won’t save infected vines; what we’re hoping is that it will stop the spread of the disease for long enough to contain it.’
‘So the vineyards that are affected will still be destroyed.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ she admitted quietly. ‘But if we drench the soil between them and their neighbours, we might save the others.’
Giovanni was waiting for them with a small group in the walled courtyard between the house and the road. Rosa smiled at him as the car stopped, wondering at the odd flash of recognition that teased her brain. The years might have wrinkled his face, but nothing could hide its magnificent framework. In his youth he must have been gorgeous.
Those Mediterranean genes, she thought wryly, had a lot to answer for.
Getting out o
f the car, she stood too quickly and stumbled. To an instant outcry, she grabbed the car door and clung to the hot metal, willing her legs to straighten and her head to remain erect.
Max got to her before anyone else. Strong arms closed around her and she was held against his lean body, her face pressed into his chest.
‘You should damned well have gone to bed, you silly little idiot!’ Above her whirling head he directed a stream of orders to the waiting family, orders that resounded in Rosa’s ears with all of the meaning of distant thunder.
But she heard enough to say faintly, ‘I’m perfectly all right! I mean it, Max! I am not going to lie down.’
Apart from the brief handshake at the airport, it was the first time he’d touched her. At sixteen she’d woven dreams around him, obsessively read newspapers that detailed his conquests, and wept in secret because she’d known she was never going to look like his elegant lovers.
But she’d always known she could never be close to him. So although the heat of his body was a potent lure now, summoning rivulets of fire in her bloodstream, she managed to stiffen and pull herself away, using stubborn will-power to hold her head high.
‘Are you all right?’ he demanded, inspecting her narrowed eyes, his voice rough with anger. And something else.
Men could feel passion for any woman; love wasn’t necessary. But even as she saw him reimpose the control that rejected her, some secret, wicked part of Rosa rejoiced at the arousal she’d felt in his body, the swift, heated response he hadn’t been able to hide.
She drew in a deep breath and smiled mistily at the concerned family and Giovanni. ‘Jet lag,’ she said succinctly. ‘I’m so sorry for startling you like that.’
The owner of the vineyard turned to his wife and barked, ‘Mirella, woman, what are you thinking? Don’t stand there—get the princess a glass of wine.’
‘No, no, I’d rather have water,’ Rosa said hastily.
The water was already on its way, handed over by the daughter of the house.