by Mary Lyons
‘No! You clearly do not understand what I am trying to say!’ His lips tightened in annoyance for a moment at having to deal with the complexities of the English language.
‘On the contrary, my dear Antonia…’ he continued softly, raising her hand again and pressing her fingers to his warm lips. ‘I wished to make it clear that I now very much regret having given you my word of honour the other day.’
Oh, Lord! She’d really got hold of the wrong end of the stick, hadn’t she? It looked very much as if—far from wanting to get rid of her services—Lorenzo Foscari now wanted to change the ground rules, to include services of a distinctly personal nature.
Unfortunately, it was no good trying to fool herself any longer. The aura of dynamic, forceful masculinity, which seemed to positively ooze from every pore of Lorenzo’s tall, muscular figure—not to mention that toe-curling, sexy Italian accent of his—was clearly having a disastrous effect on her normally level-headed, down-to-earth personality.
Although, over the last few days, she’d been fiercely determined to deny the fact, Antonia had become increasingly aware that she was teetering on the brink of a dangerous abyss. In fact, if she didn’t watch out, she was in serious danger of succumbing to Lorenzo’s utterly fatal charm and overwhelming sex appeal…
And—just as clearly—it was obviously now imperative that she pull herself together, as quickly as possible.
For almost the first time in her life, she was having to make a determined and strenuous attempt not to give in to an almost overwhelming urge to lean helplessly against that hard, firm body, and feel his strong arms encircling her now trembling figure. But it had to be done. And the sooner the better.
‘I’m sorry, Lorenzo. I…I meant what I said the other day. This really is where I do have to draw the line,’ she told him as firmly as she could. ‘We’ve had a very pleasant…er…working relationship. And I’d be sorry if I was forced to tender my resignation.’
For a few moments he stared down at her, his tall figure frozen into sudden stillness. It was impossible for her to read any message in the eyes gazing down at her from beneath their heavy lids. Only a slight tightening of the hand holding her fingers was evidence that this was anything but a pleasant exchange between them.
And yet…somehow it suddenly felt as though she was surrounded by a force-field of crackling electricity, the hair at the back of her neck tingling with alarm and apprehension, and all the nerve-ends in her body quivering with tension.
A few seconds later, she found herself wondering if she’d been mistaken. In fact, it seemed as if the brief episode might have been a product of her over-heated imagination, as Lorenzo gave a nonnchalant, casual shrug of his broad shoulders.
‘You are, of course, quite right,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘I, too, would regret having to accept your resignation. So, please consider my words as having been unsaid, hmm?’ he added, quickly pressing his lips to her hand once more, before letting it go.
However, as she made her way to her own room, on legs which felt distinctly unsteady, Antonia caught what she thought was the sound of a heavy sigh as he shut the door of his suite behind her departing figure.
So, maybe he really had been making a serious proposition? On the other hand, she told herself firmly, it was far more likely that after a pleasant dinner—and plenty of wine—Lorenzo had merely been exercising his charm a little too freely.
However, if she’d feared that the relationship between them was likely to have been affected by the brief scene in his suite, Antonia soon realised that she’d been quite wrong. In fact, it rapidly became obvious that he’d completely dismissed it from his mind as being a matter of no importance.
Knocking on the door of his suite at the crack of dawn this morning, she’d found that Lorenzo was his normal calm, imperturbable self. Ordering her around like a lackey, as usual, he’d appeared to be in an excellent mood, and clearly looking forward to spending a day in the English countryside.
It had been a deliberate decision on his part to make an early start to the journey, in order to avoid the weekend traffic. But Antonia now found herself having to slow down as she drove carefully through the congested, narrow streets of the centre of Cambridge.
Two of her older brothers had been students here, at Trinity College, and as a young girl she’d frequently visited the town, which contained so many old medieval buildings, some of them dating from the fourteenth century.
Maybe it was a trick of her memory, but the streets now seemed far smaller and more crowded than in the past. So, it was some time before she found herself driving into the underground car park of the hotel, overlooking the green expanse of Parker’s Piece, where Lorenzo had arranged to meet his young niece, Maria.
Later, seated in the large comfortable lounge of the hotel, Antonia smiled to herself as she watched the very pretty young Italian girl chatting to her uncle. As she animatedly waving her arms in the air, barely drawing breath as she chatted away in rapid Italian, it sounded as if Maria was ecstatically thanking Lorenzo for his generous gifts.
She was interested to note that, when in the company of a member of his family, he appeared to be far more relaxed and at ease than normal.
He was smiling, even throwing back his head to roar with laughter as Maria related some of her experiences in a strange country. It was clear that not only was he a fond and indulgent uncle, but that his niece held him in no awe whatsoever.
Initially explaining Antonia’s presence as being that of merely a friend who’d kindly driven him up from London, Lorenzo had laughingly confessed that it was Antonia who, against his better judgement, had chosen the pair of Paloma Picasso silver earrings with which Maria appeared to be so especially delighted.
During their shopping expedition to Bond Street, and ignoring her freely expressed doubts, Lorenzo had clearly been determined to give his niece a present of real, lasting value. Stubbornly clinging to the idea of ‘a nice string of pearls’, he’d eventually—after visiting umpteen shops—found what he was looking for at Asprey’s.
However, having no problem recalling what she herself would have wanted when Maria’s age—despite the possible horror of her elders and betters—Antonia had persuaded him to visit Tiffany’s. There, she’d instantly spotted the small, delicate pair of silver earrings, in the shape of an X.
‘My sister, Claudia, would definitely not regard them as at all suitable,’ he’d said dismissively. ‘Besides, Maria is far too young to wear such earrings—particularly ones which look as if they are supposed to represent a kiss!’ he’d added, frowning with heavy disapproval.
‘Hey, relax! There’s no need to be so stuffy!’ she’d protested. ‘They’re just a bit of fun, that’s all.’
‘Claudia has always refused to let her daughter have her ears pierced,’ he’d continued, totally ignoring her interjection. ‘There is no way she would approve of me giving my niece such a ridiculous present.’
However, after she’d pointed out that the earrings weren’t particularly expensive, Lorenzo had allowed himself—much against his better judgement—to be persuaded to add them to his main present.
‘You were right—and I was wrong!’ Lorenzo now admitted with a rueful grin as Maria leapt to her feet, ignoring the string of lustrous pearls in their silk-lined leather box as she ran across the lounge towards a large mirror on the far wall.
Watching his niece excitedly admiring her reflection—and the small pair of silver earrings nestling in the ears she’d had pierced as soon as she arrived in England—he gave a low rumble of laughter.
‘Dio! My sister will surely never forgive me! How did you guess?’
Antonia laughed. ‘Oh, come on! If you were a young man, leaving home for the first time, and your father had expressly forbidden you to drink any alcohol—what’s the first thing you’d do? Quite frankly, Lorenzo,’ she added with a grin, ‘I’m fairly certain that as soon as possible you’d be in the nearest bar—busy downing a large glass of beer or whis
ky!’
‘Yes, of course. You’re quite right, as usual,’ he admitted, with another snort of laughter.
‘It’s no big deal—and she is very young,’ Antonia told him with a shrug. ‘It’s far better for Maria to confine her teenage rebellion to piercing her ears, rather than getting involved with highly unsuitable men.’
‘You’re so right,’ he agreed, rising to his feet as the girl danced happily back across the carpet towards them, impatient to take her uncle and his friend on a tour of some of the old colleges.
‘Oh, no—I’m not going in that!’ Lorenzo exclaimed some time later that morning as he gazed down at the thin, narrow punt, tethered to the bank of the River Cam. ‘It looks far too dangerous!’
However hard she tried, Maria was unable to persuade him to join herself and a bunch of young friends on a picnic boating trip up the river to Grantchester, which had apparently been planned for some days.
‘You go off and enjoy yourself.’ he smiled down at the girl, before giving her a hug and promising to try and see her once again before he left the country.
‘Oh, dear—I’m suddenly feeling very old!’ Lorenzo murmured with a grin, watching Maria and her friends. Clearly not used to handling a punt, they were struggling to steer the long, narrow boat on what looked like a hazardous, unsteady expedition up river.
‘In fact,’ he added, after taking Antonia’s arm and suggesting that they make their way back to the hotel for lunch, ‘I am profoundly thankful that Maria can swim like a fish. Because I have not the slightest doubt that most of those young people will, before long, find themselves in the water!’
Surprised by how pleasant it was to be walking arm in arm with Lorenzo, and how much she was enjoying his company as they strolled slowly up King’s Parade, admiring the ancient brickwork of the old colleges, Antonia gradually found her attention being drawn to a possible problem.
The crowds filling the pavement and spilling over on to the street were far greater than she would have expected, even for a Saturday morning in late June, when the city would undoubtedly be crowded with tourists.
If there was one set of circumstances which bodyguards dreaded, it was those occasions when they found themselves involved in trying to protect their client amidst a large crowd of people. Not only did it make their job more difficult, but also far more dangerous. So, while she had no real expectation of an assassin suddenly emerging from the mass of people, every instinct told her that she should get Lorenzo out of this situation as quickly as possible.
Stopping to enquire of some passers-by the reason for the large crowd, Antonia learned that it was the annual degree ceremony, held at this time of the year in the Senate House. An important occasion, usually drawing large crowds, it was designed for the official bestowal of honorary degrees on distinguished people in public life. It was also, of course, when degree certificates were given to those students who had completed their studies, and passed their final exams that year.
Unfortunately, Lorenzo appeared determined to ignore her suggestion that they should slip off down a small side street and avoid being drawn further into the milling throng of people.
‘But no—I find this very interesting,’ he said, refusing to move from where he stood as the crowd parted for the vice chancellor of the university, in cap and long black gown trimmed with gold, leading a procession of various university dignitaries, all of whom were also wearing medieval-style hats and gowns, trimmed with silk or fur.
Definitely uneasy as the noise levels increased, and finding herself jostled by the crowd of people, all craning to gain a view of the procession, Antonia could only do her best to stick like glue to Lorenzo’s tall figure, constantly scanning the area around them for any potential troublemakers.
She was just telling herself that the sooner she extricated her client from this crowd the better, when she was almost deafened by the sound of large explosions.
The air was immediately filled with a cloud of nauseous yellow smoke—and what sounded distinctly like the crack of rapid gunfire.
Without a moment’s thought, and acting purely on gut instinct, she swiftly grabbed hold of the back of Lorenzo’s jacket, spinning him around behind the shelter of her own figure, while at the same time kicking his legs out from beneath him. Barely a second later, she was crouching protectively over his body, now lying hunched beneath her on the pavement.
Totally ignoring the terrified shouts and screams of the people in the crowd, panic clearly taking hold as they surged helplessly around her, Antonia stared with intense concentration through the drifting cloud of smoke, towards the area from which the gunfire had seemed to originate.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN thinking about the incident later, it seemed to Lorenzo as if the whole world had suddenly spun violently on its axis, before exploding in a hazy, dense fog of yellow smoke.
There he’d been, quietly minding his own business as he watched the procession making its way to the Senate House—a Palladian style of building, which he’d thought looked interesting—when there had been an enormous Bang…and all Hell had seemed to break loose.
Not that he was able to do anything about it at the time, of course. In fact, he had barely registered the loud noise, before he found himself almost flying through the air, and crashing down hard on the pavement.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember anything after that. Nothing. A complete blank. And then, as jagged shafts of daylight began to gradually break through the darkness, and it felt as if he was rapidly spiralling upwards through a long, narrow tunnel towards the light, it seemed as though each and every one of his senses was suddenly under assault.
There was an ear-splitting noise of loud shouts and screaming, overlaid with the piercing clamour of what, he slowly realised, must be the sound of police sirens, while the air seemed filled with a strange smell, which he could only liken to that of rotten eggs. He was having difficulty in clearing his bleary vision, which seemed to be confined to a sea of hard grey paving stones—and it felt as though a heavy weight was pressing down on his sore, bruised body.
It wasn’t until he was groggily attempting to pull himself together that he became aware of a whole mass of people, milling about in a highly disturbed state of panic. Out of the general mayhem, he heard someone screaming, ‘Oh, my God—they’re shooting at us!’ and the high-pitched note of terror in the voice produced an even louder volume of wild shrieks, which was almost deafening.
However, his view was restricted to mainly feet and legs, surging around before his dazed eyes. And it wasn’t until he found himself being helped up into a kneeling position that he realised it was Antonia, herself, who’d been covering his body.
‘Keep calm. There’s no need to worry,’ she told him, her mouth pressed closely to his ear, in order to make herself heard above the noise. ‘It looks as if you might have been knocked out for a while. Do you feel OK?’
It seemed to take a long time before he understood what she was saying.
‘Sì. Yes. Yes, I…I think so.’
‘Can you manage to stand up?’
He nodded his dazed head, grateful for the girl’s strength as she helped him to stagger to his feet.
‘I shouldn’t move you, if you’ve had concussion. But if this crowd gets any more out of hand you’re in serious danger of being trampled underfoot,’ she shouted, placing one of his arms over her shoulder. ‘We’ve got to get out of here—as fast as possible!’
Determinedly elbowing her way through the milling horde of people, she steered them along the road, towards a nearby church.
Still trying to focus his hazy vision, Lorenzo felt as if he was somehow moving through a dream landscape, the feeling of total unreality still gripping his dazed mind as they entered the church porch.
‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she said, helping him to sit down on one of the hard stone benches running down each side of the porch. ‘But, at least it’s a bit quieter in here.’
Brush
ing the dust from her cream trousers, and pacing up and down over the flagstones, Antonia ran the sequence of events back and forth through her mind, before sitting beside him.
‘I’m almost certain that it wasn’t real gunfire,’ she said slowly. ‘And, with any luck, the police will soon have things under control.’
‘Va bene…’ he murmured, leaning back against the ancient stonework and shutting his eyes for a moment as he tried to pull himself together.
‘Oh, dear—I don’t like the look of that,’ he heard her mutter under her breath, and a moment later was aware of her removing the silk handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket.
‘Che…?’ he murmured. ‘What…what is it?’
‘You seem to have a slight cut on your head,’ she told him as she leaned across the long, tall figure seated beside her, carefully dabbing the graze on his forehead.
Concentrating on her task, and frowning at the bruised, small area of grazed skin which was already swelling up into a hard lump, she glanced down to see that Lorenzo’s eyes were now wide open, staring fixedly at her face, only inches away from his own.
Much later, when trying to account for what happened next, Antonia could only conclude that both she and Lorenzo must have been in a bad state of shock, due to the explosion. It was the only explanation which seemed to make any sense at all.
Unfortunately, she had no idea that there was anything wrong with her as she found herself gazing deeply into Lorenzo’s glittering blue eyes. No prior warning of the fact that, for some odd reason, the noisy clamour in the street was now becoming strangely muted. Nor could she account for why the daylight within the porch appeared to be gradually shrinking about them, until there remained nothing but an oasis of calm silence amidst the dark void surrounding their two, still figures.
It was…it was as if all the clocks had suddenly stopped ticking. The very concept of time, as a measurement of minutes and seconds, appeared to have no meaning as they sat staring at one another. She was only aware of a drowsy, rather peculiar feeling of heavy languor as he slowly raised his hand to take the handkerchief from her fingers.