She tossed and turned and discovered that she was sliding again on the sheets. Damn! she thought. They didn’t go with her gown at all!
Concentration was the name of the game, she reminded herself. And as she had learned in several classes, she started contracting her muscles tightly starting with her toes, then forcing them to relax. Finally either the exercise worked or exhaustion took over, and she drifted into a deep sleep, one from which she was awakened with a startling jarring thud.
Chris’s eyes flew open. It was dark except for the moonlight. Still night. Then why…?
She sighed. She had awakened because she had fallen to the floor. Sleeping on silk in silk was like being on a slip ‘n’ slide. The top sheet and spread were tangled around her, and she was a disheveled mess on the tile. Probably bruised in a dozen places, she decided ruefully.
“What are you doing, Miss Tarleton?”
The deep husky voice was so startling in the night that Chris gasped. She stared at the doors leading to the terrace and saw a tall form there. A man. Marcus di Medici.
He moved into the room silently and turned on the bedside lamp. Light flared all around her and Chris realized that a nightgown was hardly the attire she wanted to greet someone in, especially him. His eyes were raking over her in amusement and no sign at all of humble apology. He was still in his suit. His arms were crossed casually over his chest, and his lips were curved in a wry smile.
“I fell!” Chris snapped, but when she tried to rise, she discovered that she was too tangled to do so. He laughed and reached for her hands, pulling her from the welter of bedding. Chris found herself swallowing as she was set on her feet—too close to Marcus, too aware of his lean sinewed physique and his heated sensual power. He smiled as he held her there for a moment, and suddenly she was also all too aware of her own lack of clothing. The nightgown cut a deep V between her breasts, and the material hid little if anything from his imagination.
He kept smiling. He still had her hands, trapping her just inches away from him. “I’m sorry. We have nothing but silk here. It seems so cool when the air is hot.”
She wasn’t really touching him, yet she could have sworn that she felt the entire hard length of his body against her own. Suddenly she broke the searing contact of his eyes and tore her hands away.
“Where did you come from, anyway?” she demanded irritably, dragging the sheet and spread from the floor and hugging them in front of her. His lashes flickered and his grin deepened as if he were completely aware that her action had been caused by an uneasy fear.
“My room is next to yours. The terrace connects them. I heard the crash and came to see if you were all right.”
“I—I’m fine. I’ll just have to learn to sleep in the center of the bed.”
He laughed huskily. “Or without the nightgown.”
“Yes, quite. Well, if I con one of you fascinating di Medicis into marriage, I won’t have a worry in the world, will I?”
She had the pleasure of seeing the amusement fade from his features. But then she was sorry that she had been so flippant because his hands were on her again, drawing her to him, and this time the length of her body was crushed to his, and she did feel all the strength of his well-muscled shoulders, arms and thighs.
“Christi, cara, take heed. All the di Medicis do not care to be conned.”
His breath warmed her cheeks, and violent tremors, hot and insistent, ravaged the pit of her abdomen. She was about to do something, anything, to escape his touch when he released her, brushing her cheek with his knuckles in a surprisingly tender gesture.
“Again, Miss Tarleton, I wish you buona notte.”
And then he was gone, silently disappearing into the night.
CHAPTER 3
They were talking about her when Chris came down to the courtyard the next morning.
She hadn’t the least idea what they were saying because they were speaking very rapidly in Italian, and it was only her name that she caught, assuring her that she was indeed being discussed.
She had been walking along the same great hallway she had followed the night before, and she paused when she reached the large inner patio. She wanted to get her bearings before joining the group.
Marcus and Tony were both there. Tony was talking excitedly; Marcus was reading a newspaper and sipping espresso, apparently paying little heed to the discussion. Alfred was at one end of the table; Marcus at the other. Tony was to his brother’s left, while Sophia was near Alfred. The other woman at the table had to be Gina di Medici, Mario’s widow. The hardest of the lot to face calmly, Chris decided.
No, Marcus would always be the hardest of the lot to face calmly.
There were two girls who appeared to be little more than teenagers serving the group. The offerings seemed to be coffee, rolls, fruit and cheese. Breakfast, Chris realized, was not a major meal to Italians. But then, she had accustomed herself to nothing but coffee and croissants in Paris.
She cleared her throat and moved into the morning sun. All talk immediately stopped, and she was glad she was also accustomed to being stared at, since it seemed that everyone was staring at her now.
“Buongiorno,” she murmured, stepping forward confidently.
“Buongiorno, Chris, buongiorno!”
Bless Tony! He was instantly on his feet, rushing around to greet her. Marcus closed his newspaper more slowly and stood; Alfred would have done so as well, but Chris quickly begged him to remain seated.
“Christi,” Alfred said to her as Tony seated her on his other side, “Sophia tells me you met last night; now you must meet Gina di Medici and you’ll have no strangers in this house, eh?”
Chris nodded. No strangers! These people were strange even for strangers. But she smiled down at Gina di Medici, praying fervently that Gina would accept her smile at face value.
Gina di Medici was a striking woman and, like Sophia, she had aged very well. It was difficult to believe she could have grown sons, except that it was quite obvious that Marcus and Tony were her sons. Gina’s eyes, too, were a beautiful blue—a shade more like Tony’s than Marcus’s—and stunning in their clarity. But whereas Marcus and Tony had hair as dark as midnight, Gina di Medici was fair. Her hair remained a true blond, with no hint of gray. Her face was a lovely oval, hardly touched by the lines of age.
She smiled at Chris in return, and yet it was as if she wasn’t smiling at all. Rather, it seemed that she had curved her lips in an automatic gesture. There was no malice in her eyes when she looked at Chris, but something that hurt far more deeply: sorrow, and the deepest remorse.
“Christina, child,” she murmured softly. “It is good to see you again.”
Chris swallowed, fully aware despite the gentle words that Gina di Medici wasn’t happy to see her at all. To Gina, Christina’s presence was like having gravel scraped over an open wound.
Chris decided right then that she could make a promise to Tony never to harass his mother with questions. She would never intentionally hurt Gina.
“Grazie, Gina,” Chris murmured, lowering her eyes. When she raised them, she found Marcus staring at her. Strangely, it was he who looked away first.
“Does the palazzo bring back memories, Christi?” Alfred boomed out.
“I’m, uh, not sure yet,” Chris murmured. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Sophia was rising. “What would you like, Christina? Tea, coffee, espresso, cappuccino?”
“Coffee, please,” Chris said. Sophia lifted a hand and murmured something in Italian. One of the girls brought Chris a delicate china cup and filled it with pitch-black coffee. Tony pushed back his chair, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got to go. Christi, don’t forget, wait for me!” he teased her. He kissed her hand, then moved around the table to kiss his mother’s cheek.
“Marcus, if you decide we need anything else, call me,” Tony told his brother.
Marcus replied with another of his rare genuine smiles. “I’ll be lucky to find you in, Tony.�
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Tony laughed, waved to the group and left. Alfred asked Marcus something about the workmen who were coming, and Gina di Medici leaned across the table a little to talk to Chris.
“How is your mother, Christina?”
“Fine, thank you,” Chris replied. She told Gina about her mother’s remarriage, then paused awkwardly. She didn’t really know what to say to Gina.
Sophia said something a bit sharply in Italian. Chris looked at her blankly, and thought that Sophia was smiling a little smugly. “Christina, answer me!”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I don’t speak Italian.”
“But it was your first language!” Sophia exclaimed.
“Sophia!” Alfred remonstrated with a frown. “Leave the girl be.”
“I never knew it was my first language,” Chris said a bit stiffly. “And I haven’t had occasion to use it since I left, I suppose.”
Marcus stood, tossing his newspaper down again. “Mother, Sophia, Alfred, have a good day. Christina, I’ll be back for you right after lunch.”
“Back for me?” Chris murmured with more confusion than she would like to have shown him. But there had been something a little less disturbing about Marcus seated than Marcus standing. Looking up at him, all Chris could remember was the way he had touched her last night, and she wasn’t at all sure whether she disliked the man, or was totally fascinated by him.
Strangely, though, she already felt as if she had known him for a long, long time. As if their relationship had been formed on a distant intangible level where all that mattered was an elemental heat.
His lips curved just slightly, and she wondered if he was aware of her disturbing reaction to him.
“The galleries, Christina. I told you I would show you the galleries. Will two this afternoon be all right?”
“Fine, thank you,” she said, glad to have regained a cool voice and her senses. Marcus, she reminded herself, was going to have to be the direct line of her attack.
He gave them all a brief wave and disappeared in Tony’s wake. Chris felt as if both Sophia and Gina were watching her. Alfred started talking again as soon as Marcus had disappeared from view.
“Would you care to join me on the roof this morning, Christi? You can bathe in the pool while enjoying the sun.”
“Certainly,” Chris told him.
“You haven’t eaten anything, Christina,” Gina commented. “You must eat something.”
Chris automatically reached for a roll. Gina smiled at her again, and Chris felt that Gina was trying very hard to get past her memories in order to make her feel welcome.
Alfred asked Chris about Paris as she ate, and Chris was glad to talk about her time in that city. It seemed like a safe subject.
She had a second cup of coffee while Gina and Sophia agreed that Rome offered more than any city on earth, to which Chris made no comment. But when they all rose at last and Chris returned to her bedroom to change into her bathing suit, she let out a long sigh of relief.
She had survived her first morning at the Palazzo di Medici.
Survived. It was a strange word to use, but that was exactly how it felt, she mused.
* * *
The pool on the roof was unlike anything Chris had ever seen, and she loved it immediately. It was tiled all in black, red and gold, and the family crest was set in the center beneath the water, shimmering in the sun. The pool was surrounded by a little wall, making it entirely private. There was a Jacuzzi in one corner that created a cascading waterfall running into the main body of the pool. It was wonderful, and Chris was pleased to stay there, swimming lap after lap and convincing herself that she had rid herself of what she was beginning to think of as the “di Medici tremors.”
At length, though, she pulled herself from the water to lay out a towel on a bench at Alfred’s side.
“How was your swim?” he asked her, his dark eyes sparkling with happiness. Chris was amazed that her presence could mean so much to him.
“Wonderful,” she said, smiling. “This—” she waved a hand around to encompass the palazzo “—is wonderful. Thank you so much for inviting me here.”
He gazed at her, and his smile slowly faded. “You did not come just to amuse an old man,” he told her.
Chris shook some of the water out of her hair and smiled. “I’m very glad that I’ve met you, Alfred—as an adult, that is. And I’m very happy if I’m making you happy. But you’re right; I came because I want to know what happened.”
He shrugged, looking uncomfortably upward. He stared at the sun when he spoke. “Can it matter now, Christi? Can any of it really matter now?”
“It matters to me,” she said quietly. “Alfred, you didn’t tell me that my father had been accused of killing Mario di Medici.”
Alfred lifted a slim hand, then allowed it to fall helplessly back to his lap. “It was so long ago. And…and I do not blame your father, Christi. I—I do not believe that he killed Mario.”
“Alfred, won’t you tell me about it?” Chris pleaded. “I need to know what happened. I can’t make any sense of it if I don’t know what went on!”
“Sometimes I think it is best that family skeletons remain locked away,” he murmured. “And then…”
“Alfred,” Chris pressed him urgently.
He shrugged. “It was that damned statuette!”
“Why was one little statue so important?” Chris demanded.
“Because its value would be immense—if it was what we thought it was. A Michelangelo, Christi! It was, we believed, a working model for a tomb relief.”
“And it just…disappeared?”
“Yes, but the statuette was not what really mattered in the end. It merely brought on the clash of tempers on the ketch that day and—”
“Mario di Medici died,” Chris finished. “But, Alfred, it sounds like there were a number of people on board that boat. My father and mother, Gina and Mario, Sophia and you. Genovese…and didn’t you say there were others, too?”
“Si, si, Christi. Fredo Talio and Giuseppi—Joe—Conseli. They are…they are still with us.”
“Still with us?”
“Yes, they work for Marcus. Or the galleries.” Alfred closed his eyes and leaned back. “Marcus heads it all now. I have no more interest. Too many deaths…Christi, what of your father? What happened to him?”
Chris looked down at the brick deck that rimmed the pool. “He died of a heart attack right after my thirteenth birthday. It was…instantaneous, they told us.”
“That would be God’s way to depart this life,” Alfred murmured. “God knew him to be innocent.”
“Then he was innocent! Alfred, help me prove it!”
He sat up suddenly, staring at her intensely, then looking all around them like a startled rabbit. “Christi,” he murmured, and she was concerned because it suddenly seemed that he was breathing much too fast. “Christi, we will not talk about it here, per favore? Even the air, it has ears. The walls here, they listen. Didn’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?” she asked him.
“The sound…someone coming. Christi, swear to me that you will not talk about it here!”
His face had grown very flushed, and Chris could still sense his too-rapid breathing.
“I swear, I swear!” she promised solemnly. “Please, Alfred, per favore, don’t upset yourself! I won’t say another word.”
Slowly he seemed to relax. At long last he smiled again and swept out an arm to encompass Venice.
“Venezia! Ah, Christi, once she was the jewel of the sea. All merchants knew Venezia! Marco Polo brought back his gifts and crown jewels from Kublai Khan. It was from here that he left for his journeys, and it was here that he returned. Ah, what a great city! The doges kept power, but the merchants were princes! She was a city where people lived and breathed and laughed and knew the beauty of song and the great artistry of her Italian sons! But we weren’t always ‘Italian.’ Did you know that Venice belonged once to the Austrians?”
“No,” Chris murmured, watching him and smiling but feeling as if his sense of unease had become hers. She had the horrible feeling of being secretly watched.
“We were a young state once. A Venetian republic, Romanized in the third century, of course! The French put an end to our independence in 1797, and we were provisionally assigned to Austria. We joined the new kingdom of Italy in 1866.”
Though Chris was listening to him, she felt as if she were in a fog. The unreasoning uncanny fear remained with her. And it was absurd. They were on the roof. There was only one place where someone might be—in the marble archway that protected both the new elevator shaft and the ancient winding stairway to the roof.
Chris looked quickly to the arch and swallowed.
Gina di Medici was there, standing with the breeze catching her hair and her skirt. She might have been a young girl, anxiously looking for her lover. She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand.
“Alfred! Christina! You must dress for lunch!” she told them.
“Coming!” Chris tried to call, but the sound that came out of her mouth was more like a croak.
How long had Gina been standing there, watching her and Alfred?
Chris rose and Alfred did the same. She started toward the arch ahead of the old man, forcing a smile. She almost started violently when she realized that Sophia was there, too, hidden in the shadows behind Gina.
Gorgons. Tony had called the two women gorgons. Perhaps that was just what they were, like the multitudes of imps that guarded Notre Dame in Paris, these two guarded the Palazzo di Medici and all its secrets.
Chris gave herself a firm mental shake. They were two middle-aged ladies, very attractive at that, and she was the intruder here, not the two of them.
“How was the pool?” Gina asked her.
“Lovely!” Chris replied, and she wrapped her huge towel about her like a cape and hurried past the two women.
The Di Medici Bride Page 6