by Romy Sommer
He was a mystery, this man who dressed as a fisherman one day, yet wore gentleman’s clothing another. Yet he wore them like no gentleman she’d met before in her sheltered life.
She glanced sideways again, glimpsing hard muscle beneath the shirt, and her heart did another dance.
Christopher Barrett would not dream of going outdoors, even on such a day as this, without a blazer and tie. The thought made her smile.
Stefano turned and caught her looking at him. His crinkling eyes dropped to her mouth and heat washed through her, flushing her cheeks and leaving her emotions transparent.
She looked away.
They strolled in comfortable silence, the only sound the cicadas humming in the trees. After less than half a mile they turned off the road, onto a cart track that ran beneath fragrant pines, their sweet resin smell heavy on the still air.
“There it is,” he said at last. “The private chapel of the di Cilento family, one of the oldest noble families of the Campania region.”
“It’s charming,” she breathed.
The building was simple in design, a rectangular shape with a squat bell tower at the far end. Its unadorned honey-coloured walls glowed in the sunlight. The chapel stood in a glade, encircled by a near perfect circle of cedars.
“Won’t they mind us trespassing on their land?”
“They won’t mind.”
He led her beneath the portico, unlocked the chapel with a large key that hung on a rusty nail beside the door, then they stepped into the cool shadows of the church. Isobel unpinned her hat, and gasped as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.
Roman-style arches rose to a round, vaulted ceiling bright with colour. The church was unadorned but for the large wooden crucifix behind the altar, its walls plain and white-washed, drawing the eye upwards to the heavens and the spectacular frescoes painted there.
In the centre of the ceiling sat a young girl with her head bowed. An angel stood before her, wings outspread, a hand extended in blessing. All around them stretched a sky as blue and cloudless as the one outside. At the very edges of the painting, where the vault met the walls, wove a band of intertwined vines and acanthus leaves.
“This chapel is dedicated to the Madonna.” Stefano’s whisper echoed off the walls. “But this place was sacred long before the chapel was built. That circle of cedars outside is all that remains of an ancient pagan temple.”
“I can feel the magic.” Isobel spun around, arms outstretched. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not the sort of thing Giotto usually painted, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was only a student of his, working in his style.” A roguish look lit his eyes. “But the local legend says that the Conte di Cilento brought Giotto here from Naples and gave him free reign to paint whatever his heart desired. And this is what he created.”
She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The fragrance of the cedars was prominent even here.
“You are not like other English girls I’ve known,” Stefano said.
She opened her eyes but did not look at him. “And how many English girls have you known?” She ignored the sudden pang. Did he do this often, pick up easy English tourists?
“I lived in London for a while. And New York.”
“Oh.” To cover her relief, she turned her eyes back up to the magnificent painted ceiling. “How am I different from other English girls?”
“You have more warmth and passion in you.”
She shook her head, rueful. “My art teacher always told me I lacked passion.”
He took a step closer, and she turned to look at him at last, her heart missing a beat. The look of mischief had gone from his eyes, replaced by a smouldering heat. “Perhaps because Italy had not yet awakened you. But it’s there in your eyes. You are open to new ideas, to new experiences. You want to explore. You are not afraid. Most English girls I’ve met are afraid.”
She contemplated this new vision of herself, and liked it. Except that she was not as brave as he seemed to think her; there were a lot of things she was afraid of.
He looked up at the ceiling, and her gaze followed his.
When he spoke again, his voice was light, conversational, without the heat and fire that discomforted her as much as it stirred her. “It is also said that the Conte di Cilento who commissioned these paintings was a heathen, and that he built this chapel not as a place to worship God, but as a place to worship pleasure.”
“And what do you think?”
His full mouth quirked into a smile. “I think I would have liked him. He was a man who appreciated God’s finest creations, nature and art, and he brought them together. He was a man who appreciated the beauty in everything he saw.”
He was no longer talking about the paintings or a long-dead nobleman. Once again, the bare skin of her arms prickled where his gazed touched her.
Needing a respite from the simmering tension beneath the surface of her skin, Isobel walked away down the length of the chapel, eyes turned to the ceiling. She marvelled at how beautifully preserved the paintings were, how fresh the colours. Whoever the di Cilento family were, they took care of this place. The appreciation of art was clearly still a family trait.
The stillness seemed unnatural though. The churches she knew were community places, alive with the small sounds of life passing through. This church felt like a museum, beautiful, revered but unlived in.
“Is the chapel still in use?”
“Not for a long time. The family use it for marriages and christenings, but the di Cilentos have had neither in many years.”
“That’s sad. This was a place built for celebration, for family and friends.” For laughter and exuberance and life, all the things that Italy had come to represent for her.
His eyes burned. “Yes.”
If she could choose any place in the world to be married, it would be here. Too easily could her vivid imagination paint the scene. Afternoon light falling through the high windows; the blur of a congregation she could not see, for her eyes were only for the man who waited before the altar for her. In her imagination, the man turned to look at her as she walked down the aisle, and her heart soared.
The face that turned to her was Stefano’s.
She swallowed against the sudden constriction in her throat and resumed her stroll around the nave. When she reached the pulpit, a plain raised dais carved of the same cedar wood as the circle outside the church, she paused to look up again.
Though she did not hear him move, she knew that Stefano had come to stand behind her. Then his hands were on her arms, holding her safe and tilting her body back so that she could look up at the ceiling without straining her neck.
“She prays for what her heart desires.” His voice brushed against her cheek, soft as silk. “And the angel grants her prayers, as he grants the prayers of everyone who is brave enough to ask for what they want. What do you pray for, Bella?”
Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I don’t know.”
She turned in his arms. Though she wasn’t yet sure what she wanted for her future, she knew what she wanted right now. She dragged her gaze away from his mouth, aware of the heat flushing her cheeks as their gazes caught.
The chapel faded away and she was aware of nothing but his darkening eyes, bright as though illuminated from within. She was sure her breathing must be as unsteady as her hammering heart.
“I know what I pray for.” He leaned close, reaching up to slide his hands into her hair, slowly unpinning the weight of it until it spilled around her shoulders. Hair pins clattered to the uneven floor.
“Bellissima.” His voice was low, reverent. “The colour of spun gold.” He ran his fingers through the loose curls that fell around her face. She resisted the mad urge to close her eyes and arch her head back.
Then his hands cupped her face, drawing her inexorably closer, and she was helpless to resist. No, not helpless. She smiled to herself. She didn’t want to resist. Inspired per
haps by his vision of her, she boldly lifted her chin.
As his lips touched hers, her eyes drifted closed. Her entire body, all her senses, focussed on that one point of contact, the slow, soft brush of his mouth across hers.
The pressure of his lips deepened, and she sighed, opening her mouth. His tongue, as though awaiting the opportunity, slid into her mouth. Her eyelids fluttered in surprise, but she could not open them, so deliciously heavy did they suddenly feel.
She laid her hand on his chest, fingers spread as if to push him away. The warmth of his body seeped through her fingers, and unbidden her hand slid down over the hard planes of his torso, feeling his heartbeat through the thin cloth of his shirt.
His mouth tasted of coffee and almonds, a bitter-sweet taste that sent her senses into overdrive. The madness inside her grew insistent, irrepressible. She darted out her own tongue, to explore the heat and hardness of his mouth. His lips curved against hers in a smile. He wasn’t put off by her boldness. He liked it.
Then slowly he pulled his mouth away from hers, and her body cried out in agony, not wanting to be separated from him. It was as well his hands had slipped down to her shoulders. Without his support, she might have sunk to the floor. She seemed incapable of standing on her own.
“Grazie,” he said.
She fought the mad urge to wrap her arms around him and pull him close again, to explore him and press her mouth once more to his. Instead, she dropped her hand from his chest and took a shaky step backwards.
Where had this new, wanton Isobel emerged from? Was this her, allowing a strange man to caress her, to drive her beyond all propriety, when she should have pushed him away? A man she didn’t even know!
“Isabella.” His voice was gentle, turning her name to music. “I must tell you who I am, what I am …”
“No.” She lifted a finger to his lips, silencing him. “I don’t want to know.”
She wasn’t ready to let reality intrude on the fantasy yet.
His brow furrowed, and he pressed his lips together.
“Please.” Her voice sounded so low and sultry she barely recognised it as her own. “This moment is magical. Please don’t spoil it with talk.”
His expression darkened, turning stormy as a thundercloud. “It would spoil the moment to learn anything about me? A man who kissed you?”
Too late. The magical spell shattered. “It doesn’t matter who you are, or who I am. This was wrong, and we should not have done this.”
Stefano’s shoulders stiffened. “I must get you home.”
“Yes.”
On the shaded porch she fussed with pinning her hat back in place as Stefano locked the doors. She didn’t want to leave this place. Didn’t want to leave him.
Not this way, with this new tension in the air that was so different from the delightful other kind of tension. But she had no idea what to say or do to change it, and no time to puzzle it out.
She had to get back to the villa. Soon the rest of the household would wonder where she’d gone.
They strolled back the way they’d come, arms swinging at their sides, close enough almost to touch, but it was now as though there was a vast gulf between them. As though Stefano had pulled away and left her. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She’d never been so miserable.
Did every kiss end in this desolate feeling? She didn’t think so. She hoped not.
As they walked in silence, her desolation turned to anger.
? Should she have allowed him to speak, to tell her about himself? No matter what he said, surely he had to know that the moment they faced the reality of their situation, the dream was over. Surely he couldn’t have contemplated taking this any further than one wild kiss?
It was better this way, better to have the fantasy. Better not to know.
Too soon, they were back at the gap in the low wall where the path stretched up the hill to the villa where sanity and reality both awaited her.
He helped her up the slope, then leaned his hip against the wall to look at her, arms crossed over his broad chest; that hard, muscled chest that she could still imagine beneath her fingertips. His eyes were dark, inscrutable.
This was not how she wanted to end it.
He had opened her eyes to a part of herself she had never seen before; a part of her that hungered for things she hadn’t even known existed. He had shown her the person she could be, the passion that could be hers, if she were only brave enough. She took a deep breath, swallowing the urgency of her need for him.
“Goodbye, Stefano.”
It was the first time she had said his name out loud. It seemed to flow off her tongue, as though the sound belonged there. She clamped down on the sudden pain that spiked through her.
He took her hand, lifted her fingers to his mouth and brushed a kiss across the palm of her hand. She shuddered as his breath caressed the exposed skin, a kiss as soft as a whisper. She registered the flare in his eyes as he dropped her hand. She was not alone in feeling this spark between them.
“Ciao, Bella.”
Chapter Six
Isobel walked slowly back to the villa, using the time to get her whirling emotions back under control; to clear the wild sobs that threatened to choke her.
She had never said goodbye before now and meant it as an ending.
She veered from ecstasy to despair as quickly as the feathery clouds that skittered across the sky. From the moment she’d arrived in Italy, her emotions had been as wild as a Brighton merry-go-round, as out of control and dizzying. She could only imagine that these wild mood swings were caused by the cloying heat. Maybe this was why the Italians seemed so volatile compared to the staid English.
Whatever the reason, and in spite of the constricting pain in her chest, she’d rather experience every emotion than allow her heart to wither away untouched.
She thought of the sketch she’d done of Frances and her lover, a sketch she had carefully torn into a thousand pieces.
Yes, she’d rather feel the pain and know she was alive. She’d rather be able to capture those emotions in her art, than never live to her full potential.
She paused at the edge of the formal terraced gardens and looked out over the impossibly blue sea. The air in Italy smelled so different from England, so fertile and fragrant. She breathed in deeply, enjoying the rich, clean smell, the tang of citrus and the salty sea. She wished she could bottle it and take it home with her, to keep the memories alive while she endured the upcoming Season.
Into the distance, sunlight glinted silver on the sea, the sight so beautiful it robbed her of breath. Both sea and sky were vast and eternal, making her problems seem slight in comparison.
With a new-found calm, she re-lived those last terrible moments when Stefano’s face had hardened against her. And now she saw herself as he must have seen her.
Her conduct had been so wanton, so careless, that she had kissed a man and not even wanted to know his name. If it had been the other way around, and he had kissed her and not cared who she was, would she not have been hurt too?
Hope blossomed in her chest. He had been cross with her because he cared.
His interest in her had not been merely because he thought her easy; his interest was because he liked her. He wanted to know her; for her to know him.
And she had ruined it.
Stefano had said that anything was possible if you only wanted it enough. With all her heart, she wished for a chance to make it right.
The summer wasn’t over yet. Perhaps Stefano would be at the Festival. Perhaps, if she wanted it enough, she could have the chance to say a different goodbye.
She turned her back to the sea, and climbed the stairs to the uppermost terrace of the villa, where the servants were laying out brunch under the watchful eye of the stiff-backed English butler the Harringtons had brought with them from London.
“Where have you been?” Christopher asked, looking up from behind his newspaper. He sat alone at the table. In spite of the heat, and the u
nattractive flush creeping up his pale, elegant face, he wore both a blazer and a tie. The sight of him brought a smile to her lips. Christopher was nothing if not conventional.
“I went out for a walk in the olive groves. It’s such a lovely morning.” She sank into a chair across the table from him and gratefully accepted the tea the butler offered.
“Alone?” His voice was sharp. The heat had clearly robbed him of his sense of humour.
“Of course. I hardly need a chaperone to walk in the olive groves. Isn’t that true, Edwards?”
The butler bowed. “Certainly, ma’am. The privacy of these grounds is inviolate.”
Christopher’s lips thinned. She wasn’t entirely sure whether it was because she had included a servant in their conversation, or whether he simply disapproved of her venturing out alone. His mouth thinned more as she unpinned her hat, allowing her hair to tumble loose about her shoulders. Irritation flared as she took in his pinched look. What did it matter whether she wore her hair free or dressed it up? Did these small strictures really matter in the bigger scheme of things? Decorum was so much more than a way of dressing hair. Manners and morals came from the heart, after all, not from outside observances.
But mercifully Christopher said nothing, and she was saved the necessity of keeping up a polite conversation by the arrival of Tom and his vivacious wife.
“You should wear your hair down more often,” Tom commented reaching out to twist one of her fair curls between his fingers as he passed. “It suits you.”
She didn’t think Christopher’s lips could press any harder.
It wasn’t long before the breakfast table was a throng of people, the servants hovering with fragrant dishes. The noise and activity drowned out her irritation.
She’d built up a healthy appetite after her long walk, and eating outdoors, with the view over the impossibly blue sea, only seemed to make the food taste even better. It was almost enough to help her forget the pleasure and pain of her morning expedition. Almost, but not quite. She felt different than she had a few hours ago, when she’d slipped quietly out of bed.