Behind the Castello Doors

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘Sometimes men like to buy me presents,’ Mel had explained vaguely. ‘We both know it’s a tough world, and I’m not going to refuse if some guy wants to spend his money on me.’

  Memories of her closest friend brought tears to Beth’s eyes. The years of abuse Mel had suffered as a child had given her a hard edge, and only Beth had understood that Mel’s brittle outer shell had disguised the scared little girl who still lived inside her.

  ‘We don’t need stupid foster parents,’ Mel had declared. ‘We’re as close as sisters and we don’t need anyone else.’

  Now Mel was gone, and her dying wish had been for Beth to be a mother to her baby daughter. ‘Love Sophie for me,’ she had whispered with her last breath. Beth had given her word. It was a promise she had vowed to keep for ever, and if a DNA test proved that Cesario was Sophie’s father she was determined to convince him that she must play a role in the baby’s life.

  Her stomach dipped at the prospect of having dinner with him as an image of him as she had seen him in the courtyard filled her mind. Even with that cruel scar he was the most devastatingly sexy man she had ever met. He exuded an air of strength and power, and when he had smiled at her she had felt again that strange sensation as if an arrow had pierced her heart.

  She must not let her imagination run away with her, she told her reflection firmly. But she could do nothing about the glitter of excitement in her eyes or the flush of pink on her usually pale cheeks, and her hand shook a little as she applied a coat of tinted gloss to her lips. Her just-washed hair was too silky to wear up so she left it loose, wishing that she had luscious curls rather than her sleek, dead straight style.

  The only piece of jewellery she possessed was a gold locket containing a photo of her mother. Flat ballerina pumps that she had dyed the same shade as her dress completed her outfit. With a final glance in the mirror she walked through the door from her room into the nursery and smiled at the maid, Carlotta, who was to watch over Sophie for the evening.

  Assured that the baby was fast asleep, and that Carlotta would call her if she woke, Beth stepped into the corridor and discovered Teodoro waiting to escort her down to the dining room. She caught his look of faint surprise and guessed he was remembering the ghastly wool coat she had been wearing when she had arrived at the castle the previous night. It had not been one of her better purchases from the charity shop, she thought wryly, but she had needed a winter coat and it had been all she could afford.

  Like the ballroom, the dining room was a huge, high-ceilinged room, with dark wood-panelled walls and an enormous, intricately carved fireplace. Patterned rugs on the stone floor gave some much needed colour to the rather sombre décor. A long polished oak table stretched the length of the room and Beth estimated that thirty or more people could be seated at it. Only two places were set at one end of the table, however, and as she entered the room Cesario swung round from the window where he had been staring into the darkness outside and walked towards her.

  The simmering anger that had gripped Cesario following the telephone call he had taken half an hour ago burned hotly inside him as his eyes roamed over Beth. To his disgust, he could not control the sharp tug of desire that arrowed through him and wondered how he could have dismissed her as unworthy of a second glance when she had first arrived at the castle.

  She was as slender as a reed in a green dress which emphasised the vivid colour of her eyes. Other than a faint sheen of gloss on her lips her face was bare of make-up, and he was once again struck by her air of innocence. But he knew now that it was an illusion, he thought darkly. For all the simplicity of her dress, he could tell that it was couture and undoubtedly expensive. Either wages for office cleaners were higher than he had realised, he mused sardonically, or Beth had acquired the dress the same way she had helped herself to a pair of diamond earrings.

  His jaw hardened, but he disguised his fury with a smile that only those who knew him well would have recognised—and feared.

  ‘Good evening, Beth.’

  His eyes lingered on her for a moment, watching the soft stain of colour flare along her delicate cheekbones, and he felt a spurt of savage triumph that she could not hide the betraying sign of her awareness of him. He had no control over the sudden quickening of his pulse, and it took all his will-power to turn his head from her and glance at his butler.

  ‘That will be all, thank you, Teodoro. Please see that Miss Granger and I are not disturbed.’

  The click of the door as Teodoro left the room sounded faintly ominous, indicating as it did that she was now alone with Cesario, Beth thought with a sudden rush of nervousness. She silently ordered herself to stop being stupid as she sat down on the chair he pulled out for her. But she had always been acutely sensitive to atmosphere, and her skin prickled as she sensed an undercurrent of tension in the room.

  ‘What would you like to drink? Filomena has prepared a chicken dish, and I was going to serve a Sauvignon Blanc with it, but there is red wine if you prefer?’

  ‘White is fine, thank you.’ She did not want to appear gauche by asking for lemonade, and perhaps a glass of wine would help her to relax. When he handed her the drink, she offered him a shy smile, but it was not reciprocated.

  Instead, his eyes narrowed and glittered with an expression Beth could not define.

  He raised his glass and drawled in a faintly mocking tone, ‘To new acquaintances.’ Taking his place opposite her at the table, he indicated the first course—a selection of cold meats, local pecorino cheese and figs. ‘Please begin. And while we eat,’ he murmured dulcetly, ‘you can tell me more about Beth Granger.’

  The curious nuance in his voice caused Beth’s stomach to knot and her appetite deserted her. She forced herself to sample a piece of ham and then set down her fork. ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘Why don’t you start with your career?’

  ‘I’m not sure that working as a cleaner could be described as a career,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Ah, but I understand you are a qualified nanny and worked until fairly recently for a family in Berkshire.’

  Beth’s mouth suddenly felt dry. She reached for her glass and took a sip of wine, unaware that Cesario had noticed her hand shaking slightly. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I had you investigated.’ His brows lifted at Beth’s sharp intake of breath. ‘How could you think I wouldn’t? You’ve turned up at my home with a fantastical story. It is only natural that I should want to know everything about you.’

  ‘It isn’t a fantastical story. Mel was certain you are Sophie’s father.’

  Cesario could not possibly know what had happened when she had worked for the Devingtons, Beth assured herself desperately. Alicia Devington had agreed not to involve the police in return for Beth leaving Devington Hall immediately and without the month’s pay she had been owed. It had been Hugo Devington’s suggestion, of course, she thought bitterly. He hadn’t wanted the police called in case she told them what he had done.

  But she’d had no proof. It would have been the word of a lowly nanny against that of a highly respected barrister. And after Hugo had cleverly set her up to look like a thief no one would have believed her accusation that he had attempted to sexually assault her.

  The memory of Hugo Devington QC’s arrogant smirk as he had peeled a five pound note from the wad of cash in his wallet and offered it to her to pay for her taxi to the station was as clear in her mind as the memory of his red face and hot breath as he had shoved his sweaty hand up her skirt.

  Feeling slightly sick, she forced herself to meet Cesario’s gaze. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Really?’ He paused for a heartbeat, as still and watchful as a panther preparing to spring on its doomed prey. ‘I thought you would want to keep the fact that you once stole a pair of diamond earrings worth forty thousand pounds well and truly hidden.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Her denial was swift and fierce, but inside she was utterly mortified by Cesario’s contemptuous ex
pression. ‘It’s true there was … an incident. But the police weren’t involved and the only people who knew of it were Mr and Mrs Devington and me. I don’t understand how your investigator could have heard about it,’ she said in a low tone.

  He shrugged. ‘The Devingtons employ several domestic staff, all of whom were aware of the reason for your abrupt departure from Devington Hall. People like to gossip—especially after a few drinks. My private eye learned a great deal from the Devingtons’ cook when he met her in the local pub.’

  ‘Nora doesn’t know the truth about what happened. Nobody does.’ Beth’s voice shook. ‘Except me and Mr Devington.’

  ‘Are you saying that the Cartier earrings Hugo Devington had given to his wife as a birthday present did not disappear from her jewellery box, and were not later found hidden in a drawer in your room?’ Cesario demanded relentlessly.

  The blood drained from Beth’s face. She wanted to defend herself, but she felt intimidated by Cesario’s barely leashed aggression. She hated any sort of confrontation. Her mind flew back over the years to an incident at school, when one of the girls in her class had announced that an expensive watch had disappeared from her locker.

  Stephanie Blake had been one of the pretty, popular, well-off girls, and Beth had never been included in her circle of friends. When she had found the watch on the playing field, where Stephanie must have dropped it, she’d hurried to return it. But instead of thanking her the other girl had given her a suspicious look, and later Beth had overheard her discussing the probability that she had stolen the watch in the first place.

  ‘My father says you can’t trust children in care,’ Stephanie had stated to her cronies. ‘Beth was probably going to sell my watch, but lost her nerve.’

  At fourteen, she had been too shy and lacking in self-confidence to defend herself, Beth remembered dismally.

  She darted a glance at Cesario’s autocratic face that looked as though it had been carved from stone and caught her lower lip with her teeth.

  ‘I swear I didn’t take the earrings. I was shocked when they were found in my room, but … I know who put them there.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you say so at the time?’

  She flinched at his sardonic tone and realised it was pointless to try and convince him of her innocence. Because no one would have believed me, she answered his question silently. She had been an unimportant nanny, while Hugo Devington was a member of the landed gentry whose father had a place in the House of Lords. It had been easier to leave her job rather than risk being arrested for a crime she could not prove she hadn’t committed.

  Beth was clearly as guilty as hell, Cesario thought furiously as he stared at her across the table and noted how she refused to meet his gaze. He did not understand why the Devingtons hadn’t pressed charges. Presumably they had wanted her out of their home and away from their children as quickly as possible. An opportunistic thief was hardly a good influence for innocent young minds.

  She darted him a fleeting glance, and to his fury he felt a tugging sensation in his gut when he saw the faintly pleading look in her eyes. How could he feel sorry for her? he asked himself with bitter self-contempt. Her air of vulnerability was not real, and it was highly likely that her story about him being the father of her friend’s baby was something she had dreamed up in an attempt to con money out of him.

  ‘I’m giving you one last chance to tell me the real reason why you have come here,’ he said coldly. ‘I don’t believe the child upstairs in the nursery is mine. But if by some miracle Sophie is my daughter I will not allow you to have anything more to do with her. You say she needs a mother? With your questionable morals you are hardly an ideal role model.’

  Beth felt as humiliated as she had done all those years ago, when she had overheard her classmate unfairly accusing her of stealing the watch she had found. At school she had been labelled a care home kid, unwanted, unloved, and unworthy of being trusted. Nothing had changed, she thought painfully. Cesario had set himself up as judge and jury and he would never believe her side of the story.

  She scraped back her chair and stood up, trembling with pent up emotion. ‘My morals are not questionable,’ she said fiercely. ‘I am not a thief, and I never touched Alicia Devington’s wretched earrings. I don’t think a notorious playboy who sleeps around would be a good role model for Sophie,’ she went on, after snatching a ragged breath. ‘You’ve admitted you were too drunk that night to remember if you slept with Mel. Why don’t we assume that you are not the man she spent the night with and drop the idea of doing a DNA test? I’ll take Sophie back to England and you can forget about both of us.’

  ‘You mean you would be prepared to bring her up on your own? Without any financial pay-out?’ Cesario demanded, his black brows drawing together.

  ‘I only ever wanted a bit of money to give her the things I never had when I was a child—nice clothes, trips to the cinema, maybe the occasional holiday. I don’t mean expensive foreign holidays,’ Beth assured him, ‘just a week at the seaside somewhere. But material things don’t really matter. I love Sophie, and for a child to know it’s loved is the most important thing of all.’

  Dio, she sounded so convincing. Could he have misjudged her? Doubt filtered into Cesario’s mind. Could the story about her stealing from her employers be untrue? Perhaps nothing more than spiteful gossip and hearsay that the investigator had reported as fact?

  ‘For Sophie’s sake we must go ahead with the test,’ he said abruptly. ‘Her biological mother is dead, and however much you might love her she has a right to know who her father is.’

  He exhaled heavily, his temper cooling as he considered the possibility that the investigator might be wrong. It had been unfair of him to react the way he had without verifying the information he had been given, he admitted. But if he was honest with himself he was annoyed by his attraction to Beth. He didn’t like the way she made him feel, and he had seized on a reason to think the worst of her.

  ‘Sit down,’ he commanded, lifting his glass and taking a long sip of wine. The only way he could form a fair opinion about Beth Granger was to get to know her better; and perhaps over dinner and a few glasses of wine she would relax and open up to him. ‘I’ll ring for Teodoro to serve the main course.’

  His arrogance was breathtaking, Beth thought furiously. She did not often lose her temper, but she was so hurt and angry she wanted to throw something at Cesario and wipe the superior expression from his face.

  ‘Do you really expect me to continue with dinner after you’ve made those awful accusations and threatened to take Sophie from me?’ she said bitterly. ‘Do you think I have no feelings? That because I have no money or family I am somehow a lesser person and don’t deserve to be treated with consideration?’

  She lifted her head and met his gaze, unaware that he had noticed the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t want to eat with you. You are not pleasant company and I’d probably choke,’ she told him tightly, before she wheeled away from the table and raced from the room. ‘It’s stopped raining at last.’ Beth sighed as she stared at the sullen sky which promised more rain to come. ‘I had no idea that it rained so much in Sardinia,’ she said, turning away from the window to Filomena, who had brought her lunch up to the nursery and was now clearing away the plates of hardly touched food.

  ‘You did not like my pasta with my special recipe tomato sauce?’ the cook demanded.

  ‘It’s lovely, but I’m afraid I’m not hungry today.’

  Filomena gave her a sharp look, but said no more about her lack of appetite. ‘Some years we have a wet spring,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But you will see—in a few weeks the sky will be blue all day long and the sun will be too hot for your fair skin.’

  Would she still be in Sardinia when the weather improved? Beth wondered. Would the results of the DNA test be known? And if, as she suspected, they proved that Cesario was Sophie’s father would she be embroiled in a battle for the right to have a
role in the baby’s life?

  After last night’s confrontation with him she had been so worried she had barely slept. Maybe Sophie had sensed her tension and that was why she had been so unsettled all morning, she thought, glancing over to the cot where the baby was finally sleeping peacefully after screaming for almost an hour.

  ‘Leave the bambina with me,’ Filomena suggested softly. ‘Go for a walk in the gardens while the rain has stopped. It is not good to be inside all the time.’

  Beth shook her head. ‘I don’t want to leave her in case she wakes up and wants me.’

  ‘I can take care of her if she wakes. You think I don’t know about babies?’ Filomena demanded. ‘I have brought up six sons.’

  It wouldn’t do any harm to get some fresh air, Beth conceded. Maybe a walk would help get rid of her headache. She gave the cook a faint smile. ‘All right. I’ll go for twenty minutes. Sophie should sleep for at least an hour.’

  It was too warm for her coat, she discovered, when she stepped outside a few minutes later. A pale sun had emerged from behind the clouds, although many of the higher peaks of the mountains were still shrouded in mist. Ignoring the path that led to the gardens, she walked across the courtyard and out of the main gateway. The Castello del Falco felt brooding and oppressive today, and she was glad to escape its towering grey walls.

  Turning off the road that wound down the mountain, she followed a narrow footpath that at first dropped steeply before the land levelled out into fields strewn with wild flowers and bordered by dense woodland. The countryside was ruggedly beautiful, its silence only broken by birdsong and the occasional bleat from the sheep grazing some way in the distance.

  It was good to forget all her worries for a while and simply enjoy being outside. The Gennargentu Mountains seemed a world away from the busy streets of East London, and as Beth walked she lost all sense of time. A strange sound carried on the breeze made her halt. It seemed to come from somewhere in the trees—a mournful howl that sent a shiver through her. She glanced around fearfully, wondering if there were wolves in Sardinia. The howling came again. Thinking it could be a child’s cry, she forgot her fear and ran towards a copse of tall pine trees—but stopped dead as a sickening sight met her eyes.