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The first kiss was soft and assessing, as though he were getting the taste of her, smelling her skin, gauging the smoothness of her lips. She had the fleeting thought that expertise like this must have been gleaned at the expense of a hundred women in a hundred taverns along this rocky Sicilian coast.
He smelled warm, masculine, of the sea. His body was all male, living muscles swelling against her slim body as he enfolded her further into his embrace, the second kiss deepening as his lips caressed hers, pressing against her mouth.
In fact…
In fact, she was to recall later, by some weird chemistry of the female mind, it was not until she started to kiss him in return that she also started to struggle.
And that was what she was doing now, kissing him passionately and yet fighting him all the way. Her nails digging into those powerful shoulders, her knees trying to thrust at his groin, even as her mouth opened to his like a flower in the sun, and her eyes closed in ecstasy.
His hard, flat belly pressed to hers, the crisp curls caressing her skin.
Isobel’s heart was pounding wildly, her breath rushing hotly, mingling with his. The inside of her chest felt as though it were filled with some molten metal; her legs were boneless; her mind was whirling with emotions. Fury that he should do this to her. Resentment that her hormones should respond so vehemently to such an indignity. Relief that this brigand had just proved Michael Wilensky wrong. Imperious and sarcastic she might be, but an iceberg who had never responded to a man she was not.
Not any more.
And he kept kissing her, until his erotic mastery was so intense that, although he had not touched her breasts or anywhere else, she felt that swelling, rapturous pressure in her womb that only came when…
She shuddered violently in his arms, her emotions peaking almost unbearably inside her, holding her on a pinnacle of suspense for a long eternity until her body sagged in his arms like a released rag doll.
‘Mmm,’ he purred, releasing her at last, ‘the legend was right.’
In a hot blur, she saw that he was smiling at her, holding out one hand. Her fingers trembled as she took the coin from him. It was warm and heavy. She clutched it weakly.
Did he have any idea what he had just done to her?
Any idea?
‘You—’
She ran out of words after that first pronoun. ‘Sorry I took more than one kiss,’ he said in that husky, accented voice. ‘But it wasn’t breach of contract. There is actually a whole amphora of coins down there.’
‘Amphora…?’ she said weakly.
‘I don’t know what you would call it. Some kind of ancient pot. Full of coins.’ He gave her that dazzling smile. ‘Plenty more where that came from, siren lady.’
‘But—where?’
‘You’ll find them where I left a marker.’ He rose to his feet, a magnificent, bearded creature from some ancient myth, smiling down at her with knowing eyes. The black Neoprene clung to his thighs, revealing the swelling, male muscles of his body. ‘I will see you again.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ she said, dragging her dignity back together again. ‘Unless it’s in a criminal courtroom!’
‘Nobody has committed any crime,’ he said softly. ‘Arrivederci.’
And now she could tell why he was so anxious to leave: the purring of an outboard motor could be heard threading its way between the rocks towards them. It was the others in the dive boat, coming to see why she was taking so long.
‘Don’t come back!’ was her parting shot.
He slipped into the water like a dolphin, leaving her with a final memory of a broad back and tight buttocks. Then he was gone.
Isobel sat clutching her coin, hot and cold flushes chasing one another across her skin as she waited for the other archaeologists to arrive.
The coin told her she was triumphant. So why on earth did she feel as though she had just been conquered?
CHAPTER TWO
FOR her pains, she had to endure a morning of merciless ribbing about her ‘encounter with Poseidon’.
None of the others had actually seen her mystery man, not even Antonio Zaccaria, their Sicilian liaison with the Beni Culturali, who normally saw everything. The boat, piled with diving gear, had rounded the little cape just after her Poseidon had vanished beneath the waves.
By their grins she could tell that they suspected she had had some kind of daydream, inspired by finding the beautiful gold coin—she did not tell them about the kiss—until David Franks and Theo Makarios strapped on scuba gear and went down, and found the floating marker attached to the pot of coins.
They were still talking about it late in the afternoon as they crowded around the workbench that they had set up in the vaults of the Palazzo Mandalà.
‘It’s a fantastic collection!’ Theo exclaimed, bright brown eyes alight with pleasure. He was carefully rinsing the coins with his ‘magic formula’ liquid cleaner. He was the coin expert among them, his lean fingers expertly sorting through the mass of metal discs, many of which had been welded together by corrosion. ‘Mostly bronze, and so corroded by the sea water that it’ll take weeks to separate and identify them. But there’s plenty of silver here, and that’s in wonderful condition. Stuff from Syracuse, a couple of super ones from Agrigentum, things from all over, really. But this gold Poseidon is just magnificent. A real treasure. Can’t believe you rescued it! I wonder how we came to miss this amazing treasure trove?’
‘The storm, yesterday,’ Antonio Zaccaria said. ‘It must have uncovered the pot. That’s how Poseidon found it this morning.’
They looked at each other. A storm had uncovered the wreck in the first place, shifting the sand so that the debris had been spotted by a fisherman, who had reported his find to the Duke of Mandalà, the major landowner on this stretch of the coast—who in turn had reported it to the Berger Foundation. Which was why they were here.
But another storm could just as easily bury the wreck again, perhaps for centuries. Thieves like Poseidon weren’t the only danger to a fragile site like this one.
‘The trouble is,’ Isobel said slowly, putting the thoughts of all of them into words, ‘that it’s not really a wreck at all. We’ve found no traces of the timbers—the boat itself must have rotted away a thousand years ago. All that’s left is the cargo, strewn along the sand, with nothing to protect it.’
Antonio nodded. ‘And the site’s so shallow that rough weather pulls it around, throws the material in different directions, covers it with sand…’
‘We need to work fast,’ Isobel said decisively. As the team leader, it was up to her to take decisions. ‘Between the weather, the tides and visitors like Poseidon, that material may not be down there much longer. We’ll have to work double shifts until we’re sure there’s nothing else left down there.’
The others nodded. Isobel glanced at what they had recovered so far. Not a bad haul for a few days’ work: a row of wine and olive oil amphorae, heavily encrusted with barnacles, but intact and, according to David, the pottery expert, of extremely rare shapes and sizes; the bronze fluke of an anchor and some other bronze fittings, yet to be identified; and now this hoard of coins.
All the finds lay soaking in neutralizing solution in plastic boxes, ranged rather incongruously along the carved marble bench that ran the length of the workroom they had set up. The Palazzo Mandalà was a magnificent, seventeenth-century palace that bore little resemblance to the rough quarters Isobel and the others were more accustomed to working in. Even the laundries and kitchens of the palazzo, which led off the vaults, were echoing marble halls, studded with carved angels and saints—no doubt to edify the souls of generations of skivvies.
The palace was the family home of Ruggiero, Duke of Mandalà, now in his eighty-first year, a noted benefactor of many causes, including the Berger Foundation, which employed Isobel, Theo and David. It was that lucky connection that had secured them the invitation to come and investigate the sunken Greek galley that had turned up practically on the duke’s doorstep, thanks to a Mediterranean storm.
And the old duke had extended his personal hospitality to the archaeologists, so that they were billeted in stunning chambers hung with Tintorettos and Caravaggios, instead of the leaky tents they were more used to.
The workroom, set aside especially for them, was a good place, spacious and secure, with an immense door like the portal of a cathedral, which could be locked with a key that weighed about three pounds.
‘The carabinieri have promised to keep an eye on the site,’ Antonio Zaccaria said as they made their way up the flamboyant marble staircase to the first floor, where they were roomed. ‘And the Coastguard say they’ll send a patrol past there every couple of hours.’
‘Think that’ll help?’ Isobel asked.
Antonio shrugged. ‘This is Sicily,’ he replied.
‘This is Sicily?’ she repeated. Of the three of them who had come from New York, she was the only one who had never been to Sicily before and, good archaeologist as she was, she sometimes felt out of her depth. ‘What does that mean, ‘‘This is Sicily’’? The cops have to keep that jerk away!’
‘I’m sure they will,’ Antonio soothed. ‘You were very brave to confront Poseidon like that, but not very wise. Especially since you say he had a knife. You were lucky he just backed off.’
‘He won’t come back,’ she said confidently. The story she had told the others had been highly edited. If it got out that she had allowed herself to be kissed by the marauder, her reputation as the Ice Princess of Archaeology would melt in a second!
‘We’ll see. We’ll ask the old man for help on this—I’ve just been informed that he’s joining us for dinner.’
‘The duke?’ Isobel asked, raising her arched eyebrows.
Antonio nodded. ‘He apparently arrived while we were at the wreck. He’s resting in his room.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting him,’ Isobel said. She had only seen the noble-looking, white-bearded Duke of Mandalà in photographs, but his contribution to the arts had been legendary. The author of many scholarly books, he had also bestowed his vast wealth among several carefully selected museums and trusts, including the Berger Foundation. He had been away from the palazzo since before their arrival. ‘It’ll be a great honour for me.’
Antonio, a lean, dark-eyed man with a saturnine face, favoured her with a smile. ‘For all of us. We’re eating in the principal dining-room, by the way. I’m going to shower. See you at supper.’
Isobel made her way to her own room. It was a ravishing bedchamber that always made her sigh with delight as she entered it. There was no question that it was a woman’s room, and she had often wondered which languid duchess it had been arranged for. The pale-rose-coloured walls were hung with exquisite paintings, the eighteenth-century gilt-wood furniture was upholstered in violet satin, and the bed, an operatic production in itself, was a four-post affair in amaranth and mahogany, dressed in mountains of ivory voile. It had its own marble-balustraded balcony, which looked out over a grove of orange trees, so the rich, spicy scent of blossoms drifted up to her bed all night long.
Some more recent Duke of Mandalà had added an en suite bathroom, a gleaming symphony of white marble and gold taps, and it was here she now headed to wash off the salt of the day’s dive.
She stood under the warm rush of water, closing her eyes as she sluiced her long auburn hair. Alone with her own thoughts for the first time since that morning, Isobel allowed herself to remember what had happened to her. Not the edited version.
The real story.
How on earth had she allowed such a thing to happen to her? To be embraced by a total stranger on a rock, to be kissed on the mouth by him…It was humiliating in the extreme.
He was a very big, strong brute, she told herself. She had had no way of fighting back. She should just count herself lucky it hadn’t gone further. As with a thug like that, it might well have done.
But as she soaped the womanly curves of her body a more honest voice whispered that it hadn’t been that simple. Something very important had happened on that rock today.
He had been the most magnificent man she had ever seen, and she had wanted that embrace, had kissed him back, even as she’d fought with him. And what had happened to her then, in the matter of a few seconds, was something that had very seldom happened with Michael Wilensky.
Almost never, in fact.
Her rich, sophisticated New York City lover had not been able to do to her, with all his polish, what Poseidon had done to her with a single kiss.
And that had momentous implications. Doors were opening in her mind, each one leading into stranger and stranger rooms.
Maybe the reason she was so ‘cold and unresponsive’ had more to do with Michael Wilensky than with any problem in herself.
Maybe, for all her own polish and sophistication, it had taken a rough Sicilian brigand to unlock her sexuality.
Maybe she was, after all, the sort of woman she had always despised, the sort of woman who responded to the most brutish kind of man, the kind of man who would steal from an archaeological site, who would look at a strange woman, like what he saw, and take what he liked.
And maybe it had taken her until twenty-seven to learn all these things about herself.
She felt dizzy as she cupped her own neat breasts under the spray, remembering the rapture of that moment, the feeling deep inside her that had exploded into delight, just from one kiss.
‘Don’t be such a damned idiot.’
The cold voice was her own. The doors to those strange and exotic chambers in her mind slammed shut, one by one. She released her breasts and turned the cold tap on full. The stinging, icy needles brought her to her senses swiftly.
This wouldn’t do at all.
Oh, no.
It hadn’t happened. Not to her. That was some other woman out on that rock today. A siren lady who had nothing to do with her. Not Isobel Roche, the youngest PhD in the Berger Foundation, the Ice Princess of Archaeology.
Which reminded her that it was coming up for lunch-time in New York, and she was due to report back to her boss, Barbara Bristow, today. She gathered her notes of progress to report, information to impart and questions to ask, and, wrapped in a towel, made the call from her bedside phone.
Professor Barbara Bristow, a rather formidable woman in her seventies, had been one of the people chiefly responsible for Isobel’s prestigious appointment at the Berger. She was the foundation’s current Director. Her lifelong friendship with Isobel’s father, an authority on Roman architecture, had certainly helped, but Isobel also knew that Professor Bristow expected great things of her, and had already entrusted her with several important acquisitions and other missions for the foundation.
The first thing she had to report was the security problem.
‘I’m absolutely fine, Professor,’ she said, in answer to the immediate question. ‘He was scared off when the dive boat arrived. I don’t think he’ll be back—he seemed more of an opportunist, grabbing what he could find, rather than a systematic robber. There were dozens of coins in that pot and he only had one in his hand.’
‘The best one,’ Professor Bristow pointed out sharply. ‘He evidently knew what he was doing, Isobel. And these people can be very dangerous. Don’t tangle with him again. That’s an order!’
‘I understand.’
‘I don’t want to have to go to your father and explain how you’ve had your throat cut by a tomb robber. What did Antonio Zaccaria say?’
‘He’s spoken to the carabinieri and the Coastguard, and they’ve promised to keep an eye on the site. I’m also going to speak to the duke about it—apparently he’s arrived back in the palazzo and we’re going to have a formal supper with him.’
‘Excellent! Please give him my best wishes. It’s some years since we met. He is a wonderful source of information, Isobel. You can learn a lot from the old gentleman.’
‘I’ll be sure to pass on your good wishes, Professor. And I’ll email photos of the coins some time tomorrow.’
‘All right. Keep me posted. And buon appetito!’
Under the languorous eyes of the half-naked ladies in the rococo frames, Isobel dressed carefully for dinner. She wanted to look her best for the Duke of Mandalà. The old man’s health had been frail for years, but he was a major philanthropist, and an important figure to the Berger Foundation through his donations.
She looked at herself in the oval mirror. She had not come to Sicily equipped with a trunk of formal clothing, and this sleeveless amethyst silk top and black skirt were going to have to stand in place of a ruff and pearls. At least, she thought, tilting her head, the top showed off her creamy skin. She had piled her red-gold hair on the top of her head, emphasizing her long neck—Isobel was not a woman who felt obliged to disguise her height in order to pander to fragile male egos—and she was pleased that her bra flattered her breasts under the clingy top. She had never understood women who bought expensive clothes and cheap underwear.
The amethyst silk was shot through with crimson as the light caught it, bringing out the colour of her hair and eyes. She did not favour a lot of make-up—just some baby-pink gloss for her perfect, leaf-shaped mouth, and a touch of blusher on her high cheek-bones so she didn’t look too pale. The shimmering sound of the dinner-gong was rippling through the palazzo. She fastened black pearl drop earrings in her ears, kicked on black sandals and there she was—ready to rock and roll.
Up until now, they had eaten in the ‘small’ dining-room, which was actually a very grand room. None of them had been in the ‘big’ dining-room yet, and Isobel was interested to see just how big it was.
As she joined the others, staring around her, she could not help gasping. The big dining-room was not all that much bigger in sheer size; it was the scale of the furnishings that made it, in every sense, big.
Two enormous candelabra stood at the ends of the table, their dozens of flickering rose candles providing the only lighting. On each of the side walls, a huge Canaletto oil painting showed views of Venice. At the ends of the room were equally imposing studies of naked nymphs frolicking with ditto shepherds and gods that had to be by Rubens. Nobody else could paint women’s bottoms with such voluptuous delight.
There were just the four of them present—the old man had not as yet joined them—and Theo Makarios nudged her, looking upward as he fiddled with his tie. She followed his gaze. The baroque vaulted ceiling was painted with frescoes—naked angels and cherubim, this time, frolicking among clouds. Celestial bosoms and thighs winked naughtily from beneath feathery white wings.
‘I feel positively overdressed,’ she murmured.
The three men were all wearing jackets and ties, and looking very uncomfortable with it. Theo’s choice had been a red-spotted bow-tie, which he had badly mangled. Swiftly, she pulled it loose and tied it properly for him.
‘Thanks,’ he whispered.
David Franks picked up a fork and showed it to her. ‘Think it’s solid?’
It was gold, and looked to be eighteenth-century, like all the cutlery spread out on the snowy tablecloth. ‘No doubt about it,’ she replied. ‘The contents of this room are worth approximately thirty million dollars. Why would they compromise on cheap, gold-plated cutlery?’
Antonio Zaccaria smiled. Isobel stared around the room at the magnificent furniture, the marble statuary, the elaborate dining chairs. The wealth of the Dukes of Mandalà was legendary. So much beauty, so much great art, assembled to please one family. As someone who herself had been raised with money, she knew how the wealthy lived. But this—this was different.
