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Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails grating across the soft palms. She tried to keep her voice level.
‘Companion, signore? I don’t think I understand.’
‘It’s quite simple. You will remain here, signorina, to make reparation for the insult which has been made to my home—my family—by you and your—acquaintances.’
‘I’ll remain?’ She took a startled breath. ‘But that isn’t fair...’
Giulio Falcone shrugged. ‘By your own admission you cannot afford proper recompense for the damage that has been done. However, there are other methods of payment.’ His smile barely touched the corners of his mouth. ‘I believe we can reach a settlement that would be—agreeable to us both.’
‘Then you’re wrong,’ Lucy said furiously. Cold no longer, she was now burning with shame and anger, and an odd sense of disappointment. ‘How dare you even suggest such a thing? Who the hell do you think you are—and what do you take me for?’
‘I am Falcone.’ He threw back his head, the dark face arrogant, brooding. ‘And you are a girl who has twice trembled in my arms. Can you deny it?’
‘I was upset,’ she flung at him defensively. ‘The first time I’d nearly been robbed, and the second I was running away. I thought you realised that—and why...’
‘Ah, yes.’ His voice was reflective. ‘But, in that case, why tempt a man by wearing a dress that begs to be taken from your body and then deny him the pleasure? Your companions, after all, showed no such reticence,’ he added, his mouth curling slightly.
She said shortly, ‘I’m responsible for no one’s conduct but my own, and I don’t play games like that.’
‘Are you a virgin?’
She gasped, the colour deepening to fiery red in her face. ‘You have no right to ask me that.’
‘A simple “no” would have sufficed,’ he said mockingly. ‘Although—’ he sent her a narrow-eyed glance ‘—your eyes do not have the look of a woman who has known all the satisfaction that love can bring.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lucy said haughtily.
He laughed. ‘I’m quite sure you don’t, but it will be an exquisite pleasure to teach you some day—or some night.’
There was a caress in his voice which shivered down Lucy’s spine and danced in her pulses. She felt the muscles in her throat tauten.
She managed a brief shrug of her own. ‘Fortunately, I shan’t be around that long. As I said, I’m leaving for Pisa.’
‘Ah,’ the count said meditatively. ‘And just how do you propose to get there?’
Lucy paused in the act of locking her case. ‘Why— drive there, of course.’
‘I did not realise you had brought your own vehicle.’
‘Well, I haven’t, but...’ Her voice trailed into silence as she saw his smile deepen mockingly, and the slow negative movement of his dark head.
She said unsteadily, ‘Of course, the car is yours too. I should have realised.’
‘Not mine,’ he corrected her. ‘It belongs to the contessa.’
She was very still for a moment, her thoughts whirling blankly. The idea that he could be married had never even crossed her mind. Not, of course, that it made the slightest difference...
She said brusquely, ‘Then she has my sympathy.’
‘Why?’ His brows lifted enquiringly. ‘Is the car so difficult to drive?’
‘Certainly not,’ Lucy snapped. ‘I meant that I—I pity anyone who’s involved with a—a Lothario like you.’
‘You imagine, perhaps, that Lothario was an Italian.’ Giulio Falcone shook his head again. ‘You are wrong, signorina. He was the invention of an English dramatist. Just as you seem to be inventing me,’ he added, his tone dry.
‘It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination,’ Lucy retorted. ‘Nina was right, after all. You Italian studs are all the same.’
‘The looks of a dove and the tongue of a wasp,’ he said silkily. ‘An intriguing combination.’
‘Not for much longer.’ Lucy swung the case off the bed. ‘Will you loan me your—contessa’s car to drive to Pisa, please?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not.’
She lifted her chin. ‘Right—then I’ll walk there.’ ‘In that dress?’ He surveyed her mockingly. ‘You’d be lucky to get half a kilometre. Even if the police did not stop you first,’ he added, almost casually.
‘I planned to change, given some privacy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think jeans and a shirt would make me liable to arrest.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But there is the matter of trespass, which you seem to have overlooked.’
Fright was building up again, making her stomach churn. Her fingers tightened almost convulsively round the handle of her case.
She said jerkily, ‘You can’t be serious, signore. I—we acted in good faith. We didn’t know this was your house.’
‘That is hardly a defence,’ he said. ‘Especially when added to the acts of vandalism committed against my possessions.’
She couldn’t argue. Her knowledge of Italian law was nil. Perhaps it ws one of those countries where you were guilty until you proved yourself innocent, she thought faintly.
She tried again. ‘But you can’t put all the blame on me. There were others involved.’
‘True,’ he said softly. ‘But they have gone, and you, columbina, are the only one left to make the recompense I require.’
‘You think I’m like them—like Nina and the others.’ Her voice shook. ‘But I’m not—I swear to you.’
‘I believe you.’ He lifted a negligent shoulder. ‘Otherwise I would not want you.’
The amber eyes, hooded, watchful, swept over her, lingering on her breasts, the curve of her hips, the slender line of her thighs.
The dark face was coldly, almost dispassionately absorbed. Like his namesake, the falcon—the ultimate predator—with its prey in sight, and helpless, Lucy thought wildly, her body trembling, her brain teeming with desperation.
She said, ‘You have no right—no right at all to keep me here against my will.’
‘I think, under the circumstances, I have any rights that I choose to assume, Lucia mia.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
Giulio Falcone frowned. ‘I was told it was your name.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t give you permission to use it.’ She stood her ground, glaring at him.
‘A minor detail,’ he said softly. ‘At such a time.’ He paused. ‘And when we are already on terms of such intimacy.’
‘Because I ran to you for help?’ Lucy asked scornfully. ‘In that situation I’d have run to Frankenstein’s monster.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Because you have been occupying my room. Sleeping, mia bella, in my bed, which presumably you chose out of all the others. Doesn’t that establish some kind of bond between us?’ He watched the shocked colour storm into her face and laughed. ‘Don’t tell me you hadn’t guessed.’
‘Think what you like.’ Lucy gritted her teeth. ‘But I’ll never spend another night in it, or anywhere else under your roof.’
‘I don’t think that is your choice,’ he said. ‘Make me the restitution I require, and I promise that afterwards you will be driven to Pisa, your air fare paid, and a suite at the best hotel put at your disposal while you await your flight.’
‘No deal.’ Lucy made her tone brief and cutting. ‘I am not for sale, signore.’
‘And I am not buying, signorina. But I am prepared to—hire you for a while.’
‘You disgust me.’ In spite of herself, her voice trembled. ‘Call the police, why don’t you? Even jail would be better than another minute in your company. And I shall have my own story to tell them too,’ she added bravely.
‘In my bedroom—in that dress?’ He sighed. ‘I think appearances would be against you, Lucia.’
‘Your wife might take a different view,’ Lucy flashed. ‘Or does she take your lousy, deceitful behaviour completely for granted?’
‘It would be worth keeping you here if only to teach you to speak civilly,’ Giulio Falcone said grimly. ‘Anyway, you are under a misapprehension. I have no wife.’ He paused. ‘You are also ludicrously wrong about my motives for detaining you.’
He saw the sudden bewildered question in her eyes and smiled sardonically. ‘The little comedy is over between us, signorina. My interest in you, alas, is more practical than romantic. I hope you are not too disappointed.’
She said between her teeth, ‘Not in the slightest—if I had the least idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Actually, it’s quite simple. I have a problem to which you could provide the solution.’ He gave a slight grimace. ‘Early yesterday, my sister was in a car accident. Neither she or the two children were badly hurt—cuts, bruises and shock, that’s all. But the governante—the nanny—was not so fortunate. She broke her leg, and has to spend some time in the clinic.
‘Fiammetta wishes to come here to rest and recuperate, but there is no one now to look after the children, and Marco and Emilia can be more than a handful.’
He spread his hands. ‘I thought, of course, that Maddalena would be here to take charge until Alison recovers. The children are accustomed to her.’ He paused. ‘But, of course, there is no Maddalena. Only you, Lucia.’
‘Me?’ Lucy swallowed, aware that relief was being overtaken by a curious sense of deflation. ‘But I’m not a nanny.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘But you are here at this moment. You have admitted you owe me a debt you cannot pay. In turn I have ruined your holiday.’ The amber eyes looked into hers, and she felt her heart thud suddenly and painfully. ‘Tell me truly, Lucia, do you really wish to leave Tuscany so soon, when you could stay here, and be paid for doing so?’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Lucy denied, trying to control her flurried breathing.
‘Why not? With my sister and the children, you would be well chaperoned, if that is your concern.’
Lucy saw the amusement in his eyes, the sensuous curve of his mouth, and decided it would be safer not to explore that particular avenue.
‘But I’d be totally unsuitable,’ she protested instead. ‘You don’t know anything about me, after all.’
‘You are unused to children, perhaps?’
‘Well, no,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I have nephews.’
‘Of what age?’
‘Six and four,’ she admitted, an involuntary smile curving her mouth. She saw him assimilate that betraying tenderness, and added hastily, ‘But it’s still out of the question.’
‘I don’t see why. Marco and Emilia are slightly older, it is true, but they have had a bad experience and they need someone who will care, as well as give them companionship.’ He added softly, ‘In spite of your temper, Lucia, you do not strike me as heartless.’
She said shakily, ‘That’s emotional blackmail.’
He shrugged. ‘You say you cannot be hired, and will not be bought. What else is left to me?’
She tried again. ‘But your sister may have other ideas.’
‘Fiammetta, as usual, will take the line of least resistance. And this is an emergency. They will be released from the clinic tomorrow morning, and will be coming straight here. I cannot allow them to find a scene of such devastation.’
‘And this is where I come in?’ Lucy’s tone was hollow.
‘Until tomorrow, when I can mobilise help from the estate, certainly.’ He gave her a measuring look. ‘If this had been a genuine rental, you would have been expected to keep the house clean and tidy, after all.’
She bit her lip. ‘I suppose so. But if all you want is a glorified housemaid-cum-nanny, why did you pretend—let me think...?’ She halted, vexed with herself for asking.
‘Because you were so ready to believe that I was just some—latter-day Casanova.’ The firm lips twisted slightly. ‘The temptation to confirm your worst fears became quite irresistible, believe me. But while you are in my employment and under my roof you are quite safe.’ He flicked a glance towards the tumbled bed. ‘Unless, of course, you insist.’
She was angrily aware that her face had warmed again. ‘I don’t,’ she said tersely.
‘Then I suggest you find yourself another room.’ Both his tone and smile were pleasant, and untinged by even a modicum of regret, which, oddly enough, seemed to increase her annoyance.
She met his gaze stonily. ‘So, if I agree to help out, you promise that will cancel all obligations between us?’
‘More than that,’ he said. ‘I will ensure you suffer no financial loss as a result of Moressi’s trickery.’
He paused. ‘You will also take with you, I hope, some unforgettable memories of Tuscany, as well as the undying gratitude of the Falconese,’ he added sardonically.
‘Naturally, that would be one of my main considerations.’ Her tone was sarcastic.
Giulio Falcone inclined his head gracefully. ‘I knew you would see things my way.’
‘Did you?’ Lucy gave him an assessing look. ‘Tell me, signore, are you related to the Medici by any chance?’
His mouth twitched. ‘Only on my mother’s side, signorina,’ he returned silkily. ‘Why do you ask?’
She shrugged. ‘I gather they were hard men to refuse in their day. And so are you, Count Falcone.’
‘Then don’t refuse me.’ He smiled at her, reminding her unnecessarily of the power of his attraction. ‘And I don’t use my title, unless I have to. Call me Giulio.’
Oh, no, she thought, the breath catching in her throat. That was an intimacy she didn’t need.
Aloud, she said, ‘I don’t know what to say—what to do...’
‘Then obey your instinct, columbina.’
Instinct was telling her to get out while she could. To put herself at the furthest, safest distance possible from this man. From his smile. From the charm that seemed to reach out to her like a caressing hand. From the sheer sexual charisma that turned the blood in her veins to warm honey. And which, she reminded herself, he seemed able to exercise at will.