Behind the Castello Doors

by Chantelle Shaw

  She lifted her head and met Cesario’s gaze. ‘I don’t have a great opinion of fathers. I thought you wouldn’t want Sophie—just as my father didn’t want me—and I only came to Sardinia because I promised Mel I would search for you. I don’t want your money,’ she continued fiercely. ‘Even if the test proves that you are Sophie’s father I don’t expect anything from you. All I want is to be a mother to her.’

  Beth pictured Sophie’s sweet little face and she felt an ache of longing to hold the baby in her arms. She had only been away from Sophie for an hour, and already she missed her. What must it be like for Cesario to live every day missing his little boy? she thought. No wonder he seemed so grim. She understood only too well that grief felt like a lead weight inside. Most nights she still shed tears for Mel. But she sensed that Cesario kept his emotions locked deep in his heart, and his way of dealing with his pain was to ignore it.

  The dog was lying quietly and appeared to be comfortable. After tucking more straw around it, Beth stood up and hurried over to the stable door. ‘I must get back. I’ve been away from Sophie for far too long.’

  Cesario also got to his feet. ‘Dinner will be at eight again tonight. Teodoro will come to the nursery to escort you to the dining room.’

  A shudder ran through Beth as she recalled the bitter confrontation that had taken place between them the previous evening. She was ashamed to remember how excited she had felt when she’d changed into her only nice dress in preparation for having dinner with Cesario. But he had shattered her silly romantic fantasy when he had accused her of being a thief while she had worked at Devington Hall.

  She paused in the doorway and turned back to him. ‘I would prefer to eat in the nursery tonight. If Filomena is too busy to serve my dinner upstairs I’ll pop down to the kitchen and make a sandwich.’

  Cool grey eyes trapped her gaze. ‘Be ready for eight o’clock, Beth,’ he murmured, in a pleasant voice that held an underlying hint of steel. ‘Or I’ll come and fetch you.’

  His arrogance was infuriating. She felt an uncharacteristic spurt of temper and opened her mouth to argue, but the warning gleam in his eyes made her reconsider and she chose to walk away in dignified silence.

  Her faithful grey skirt was beyond repair, Beth discovered later, after she had bathed and fed Sophie and settled her in her cot. She was trying to decide what to wear to dinner. Her green dress was out of the question—after the way Cesario had humiliated her last night she doubted she would ever wear it again. Her only other choice was her black skirt, which was even older than the grey one and several inches too long. Fortunately her relatively new navy blouse had been laundered and returned to her wardrobe by Carlotta. It couldn’t be helped that she looked as though she was attending a funeral. She did not want Cesario to think she had dressed to impress him, she reminded herself, as she pulled her hair back from her face and secured it in a tight knot on top of her head.

  Teodoro was waiting for her when she stepped out of the nursery, and as she followed him down the stairs she was conscious of her heart thumping erratically beneath her ribs. Just as on the previous evening, Cesario was already in the dining room, looking dangerously sexy in tailored black trousers and a white silk shirt open at the throat to reveal a vee of olive-gold skin and a smattering of black hairs that Beth knew from the night of the landslide covered his chest and arrowed down over his abdomen.

  She felt a rush of nervousness when Teodoro left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with the enigmatic master of the Castello del Falco. She wished he would speak, or give one of his rare smiles, but he subjected her to a silent, intent scrutiny, his eyes lingering on the pulse thudding at the base of her throat.

  ‘Did you think you could hide your beauty from me by dressing like a nun?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Or were you hoping that your drab attire would quash my desire for you? If so, you were mistaken.’ He reached out a hand, and before Beth realised his intention he released the clip that secured her chignon so that her hair tumbled in a stream of brown silk down her back.

  ‘How dare you?’ Her shocked response died on her lips as he slid his hand beneath her hair and cupped her nape, exerting gentle force to draw her inexorably closer to him. His eyes glittered like tensile steel, but she recognised the savage hunger in their depths and trembled as the memory of how he had kissed her in the rain flooded her mind.

  All the time she had been bathing and playing with Sophie after she had returned to the castle she had determinedly not allowed herself to think about the wild passion that had exploded between her and Cesario. But now, as she stared at his hard-boned face, she was consumed by a primitive urgency for him to crush her against his chest and claim her mouth with fierce possession.

  As his head slowly lowered she held her breath. She trembled with longing to feel his lips slide over hers, for his tongue to probe between them, demanding access to the moist interior of her mouth. Mindlessly, she swayed towards him, but to her shame and dismay he stiffened and jerked his head back, as if he was determined to fight the sexual alchemy that smouldered between them.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ he said curtly, and he stepped away from her and held out a chair for her to sit down at the table. ‘Filomena has left food on the hot-plate so that we can serve ourselves. What would you like to drink?’

  ‘Lemonade, please.’ Somehow Beth managed to make her voice sound normal and act as if she was unaffected by Cesario, even though inside she was shaking with reaction to him. She could not risk drinking wine tonight, when it was imperative she keep a clear head, she thought desperately.

  She ate the starter of fish soup without fully appreciating its delicate flavour. To follow, Cesario served her a plate of round-shaped pasta, similar to ravioli, which Beth discovered was filled with potato and mint and was accompanied by a tomato and basil sauce.

  ‘The dish is called sa fregula and is a traditional Sardinian recipe,’ he explained, when she tasted the pasta and commented on its delicious flavour. He took a sip of his red wine and glanced across the table at her. ‘Teodoro told me you were asking him about the history of the castle?’

  Relieved that their conversation seemed to be avoiding her personal life, Beth nodded. ‘It’s such a fascinating place. How old did you say it is?’

  ‘The original building dates back to the thirteenth century. Over time it was extended, and in more recent years modern additions such as electricity and a better plumbing system were installed. I imagine my ancestors did not bathe very often when water had to be drawn from the well and carried to the bedchambers on the upper floors of the castle,’ he said, amusement glinting in his eyes.

  He went on to tell her more about the history of the Castello del Falco, and Beth gradually relaxed, intrigued by his stories and seduced by his deep, accented voice that caressed her senses like velvet against her skin.

  ‘It’s amazing to think of people living here hundreds of years ago,’ she murmured, surprised to realise that while she had been listening to him she had eaten the whole plate of food he had served her.

  ‘The Nuragic civilisation is known to have lived on Sardinia much longer ago than mere hundreds of years,’ he said, handing her a cup of coffee. ‘The landscape is dotted with more than seven thousand ancient stone structures called Nuraghi. Archaeologists believe they were built round about the fifteenth century BC and they are thought to have been homesteads of communities who lived in the Bronze Age.’

  Beth’s eyes widened. ‘And the buildings are still standing today? I’d love to see them.’

  ‘Many have become ruins over time, of course, but the basic structures remain. There is a settlement called Serra Orrios close to Oliena, at Dorgali, and also an ancient tomb called the Giant’s Grave of Thomes which, as the name suggests, is believed to have been a burial chamber.’ His smile held genuine warmth at her enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps there will be time while you are staying here for you to visit Dorgali.’

  Beth’s stomach dipped at his word
s which were a stark reminder that the length of her stay at the castle was determined by when the DNA test could be done. If Mel had been wrong and Cesario wasn’t Sophie’s father she would take the baby back to England. But if Sophie was his—what would happen then? she wondered fearfully.

  Desperate for something to say, she glanced around the room at the many paintings that lined the walls. One portrait in particular, of a stern-faced man dressed in modern-day clothes, caught her attention.

  ‘My father,’ Cesario told her, following her gaze.

  ‘He looks …’ Beth hesitated, wishing she had not started the conversation. ‘Very aristocratic.’

  ‘He was a cold, remote man.’ Cesario stared at the portrait. ‘I was terrified of him when I was a child. He was never physically violent towards me,’ he explained, when Beth looked horrified, ‘but there are other forms of cruelty. He believed that Piras men should never feel emotions and certainly never reveal them.’

  He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘You see the pennant hanging on the wall, decorated with the family crest of two swords? The translation of my family motto is “Victory and Power are All”. For my father the Piras name and the pursuit of power were all he cared about, and he was determined to instil those values into me.’

  ‘What about your mother?’ Beth asked, trying to hide her shock at Cesario’s revelations about his upbringing by the man whose austere features were staring down at her from above the fireplace. Teodoro had told her that Cesario’s father had died several years ago, but the butler had not mentioned his mother. ‘Her portrait isn’t in here,’ she noted, realising that the only paintings of women hanging in the dining room were probably a few hundred years old.

  ‘No, my father had every trace of her removed from the castle when she ended their marriage. When I was seven years old I came home from boarding school, excited at the prospect of seeing her. But she had gone without even saying goodbye and I never saw her again.’

  ‘Didn’t she ever visit you, or invite you to her new home?’

  He shook his head. ‘My father paid her a large sum of money in return for her agreement to sign sole custody of me over to him. When I asked my father if I could see her he told me what he had done, and I swear he took pleasure in explaining that my mother had preferred money to her only child.’ His mouth curled into a mirthless smile. ‘It was a salutary life lesson,’ he said harshly.

  Beneath his sardonic tone Beth glimpsed the hurt young boy he had once been. She glanced at the portrait of his grim-faced father and her heart softened towards Cesario. Rejection by a parent was something she had experienced too, and she wondered if, like her, Cesario found it hard to trust. Some parents, like her mother, were wonderful role models, she mused. But others, like her father and both of Cesario’s parents, could cause untold harm to a child’s emotional stability.

  ‘Not all women are like that,’ she said quietly. ‘Not all women think money is more important than a loving relationship.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Cesario drawled cynically, casting his mind over past affairs he’d had with women who had regarded his wealth as his main attraction. Yet he knew there was some truth in Beth’s words. He had never considered offering to pay Raffaella off, as his father had done his mother. Raffaella had loved Nicolo, but her desperate bid to snatch him from the castle had resulted in tragedy.

  The peal of the castle’s internal phone shattered the tense silence that had fallen in the dining room. Cesario stood up and strode across the room to answer it. ‘Sophie is awake,’ he relayed a few moments later. ‘Carlotta can’t settle her.’

  ‘She’s due a feed.’ Beth glanced at her watch and was shocked to see how late it was. The hours she’d spent with Cesario had flown by, and even more startling was the realisation that she had enjoyed his company. She felt guilty that she had forgotten about Sophie’s 11:00 p.m. feed and jumped up from the table.

  Cesario opened the door and followed her out of the dining room. ‘I’ll escort you up to the nursery. I doubt you can remember the way yet through the rabbit warren of corridors.’

  Sophie’s cries could be heard as they walked along the first-floor landing. As soon as they reached the nursery Beth hurried over to the cot and lifted the red-faced, sobbing baby into her arms.

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, I’m here now,’ she soothed, her guilt that she had left Sophie again for a few hours increasing when she discovered that the baby’s sleepsuit was wet. She deftly stripped off the wet suit, changed Sophie’s nappy and popped her into clean nightwear, working quickly while the baby yelled indignantly at having to wait for her milk.

  ‘Is her formula ready?’ Cesario queried.

  ‘No.’ Beth groaned. ‘I need to make up a couple of feeds for the night.’

  ‘Let me take her while you prepare her bottle.’

  As he cradled Sophie against his chest Cesario felt a strange sensation inside him, as if tight bindings around his heart were slowly unravelling. He did not know if she was his child but it did not seem important. All that mattered was that he comforted her, and he murmured to her in Italian the lullaby ‘Stella Stellina’—Star, Little Star—that he had often sung to his son.

  Sophie stopped crying and focused her big brown eyes on him. If she was his daughter he would love her as he had loved Nicolo, Cesario vowed fiercely. But what would he do about Sophie’s guardian? Beth had convinced him with her utter devotion to the baby that she loved Sophie as much as if she were her own child. It would not be fair to send her away.

  Perhaps he could employ her as Sophie’s nanny? he brooded. That way they could both be part of the baby’s life. But he did not relish the idea of Beth living at the castle while he was plagued by this damnable fascination with her. She had only been here for two days and he was racked with an unprecedented hunger to possess her slender body.

  In many ways it would be easier if Sophie was not his. That way he could send Beth back to England with a clear conscience and get on with his life. No doubt he would soon forget her once she could no longer cast her siren spell over him with her slanting green eyes, he thought self-derisively.

  The sound of her voice dragged him from his thoughts. ‘I knew you had a magic touch,’ she said as she emerged from the small kitchen area adjoining the nursery, holding a bottle of baby formula. ‘Nothing normally pacifies Sophie when she’s due a feed.’

  The way Sophie responded to Cesario was uncanny, Beth thought when he carefully transferred the baby into her arms and she settled down in a chair to feed her. Was it possible that she somehow sensed Cesario was her father? Was it blood calling to blood? And if that was true then surely Sophie belonged here at the Castello del Falco.

  Sophie was almost asleep by the time she had finished her milk, and after laying her in the cot Beth walked over to the window where Cesario was standing, looking out at the impenetrable darkness that cloaked the castle and the surrounding mountains.

  ‘I think she’ll settle now—until she wakes for her early-morning feed,’ she murmured, feeling her heart give a little flip when she glanced at him and found that he had turned his head and he was watching her with an indefinable expression in his grey eyes.

  ‘You should get to bed too, after your eventful day. I hear you’ve sweet-talked Filomena into allowing your dog to sleep in her kitchen?’

  She flushed and gave him an anxious look, relieved to see amusement in his eyes rather than annoyance. ‘Harry was lonely on his own in the stables.’

  Dark brows winged upwards. ‘Harry?’

  ‘I had to call him something,’ Beth said defensively. ‘When I was a little girl we had a dog called Harry who I loved to bits. But my father said he had enough to do looking after my mother and he sold him.’ She sighed. ‘Filomena says her sister might give Harry a home. I won’t be able to take him back to England with me, and it wouldn’t be fair to keep a dog in a one-bedroom flat on the fifth floor.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound an ideal place to bring up a child, eith
er.’

  She bit her lip. ‘No, it isn’t. If it turns out that Sophie is not your child, I’ll apply to the local council to see if we can be rehoused. Somewhere with a garden for her to play in would be nice.’ She thought of the beautiful castle gardens and imagined Sophie as a toddler, running across the grass. ‘But there’s a long waiting list for housing in London.’

  ‘Agreeing to be the guardian of your friend’s baby was a huge undertaking,’ Cesario said brusquely. ‘You are young and you have your whole life ahead of you—a career, relationships. You have sacrificed the independent life you could have had to bring up another woman’s child.’

  ‘My life is different, certainly, but I don’t regard having Sophie a sacrifice. I love her more than anything, and I intend to do everything I can to give her a happy childhood.’

  Beth gave a faintly wistful smile. ‘When I was a little girl I dreamed of being a ballerina. I was desperate to go to ballet classes like the other girls at school, but Mum couldn’t afford it—especially after my father left us. When Sophie is older I want her to have the opportunity to do everything she wants to do.’

  Cesario dragged his gaze from Beth’s earnest face and resumed his contemplation of the night sky, where silver stars were now pinpricking the velvet blackness.

  ‘You have a ridiculously soft heart, Beth Granger,’ he said roughly. He paused. ‘So who planted Alicia Devington’s diamond earrings in your room?’

  Beth gave him a startled look. In the darkened nursery his profile seemed all angles and planes, and the glimmering moonlight flickering over his scar made him look as harsh and unyielding as his ancestors who had once strode along the battlements of the Castello del Falco.