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‘Oooh...’ a soft voice moaned on top of him.
Thomas reached up and his hand met soft fabric. If he wasn’t much mistaken there was a woman lying on top of him, but he had no idea where she had come from.
‘Excuse me,’ he said in Italian eventually when the woman made no attempt to move. He almost laughed at the stiff formality of the words—even after three years of living abroad you still couldn’t remove his innate good manners.
There was some wriggling, then fingers digging into his ribcage as she manoeuvred herself upright. Thomas watched in a daze as the young woman ran her hands over her body as if checking for bumps and bruises, caressing her abdomen through the material of her dress.
‘Are you hurt?’ she asked eventually, once Thomas could see she was satisfied she had not injured herself in any obvious way. She spoke in Italian, but there was an accent that made him wonder if she was not native to this part of the world.
Testing out his theory, Thomas replied in English, ‘Just a little winded.’
‘You’re English.’
He could hear the note of fear in her voice and noticed how she begun to lean away from him as if he were about to do her harm.
‘Yes,’ he replied tersely. ‘Would you mind letting me up?’
‘Oh,’ the young woman said, mortification in her voice as she looked down and realised she was still straddling him. Quickly she stood, but as she transferred her weight to her left foot she cried out in pain. From his position on the ground Thomas saw her stumble and then come lurching back towards him. This time it was her elbow that caught him in the stomach and a slender knee in the groin area. For a moment Thomas felt the whole world blur with pain before he was back on the dusty country road with a woman on top of him.
‘I’m sorry,’ the young woman mumbled, too focused on her own pain to realise the extent of the damage she had inflicted on him.
Thomas just grunted, lying still until the ache had subsided, before gripping the young woman around the waist and firmly setting her on the road beside him.
Before deciding what to do next, he regarded the woman in front of him for a few moments. She was dusty and dishevelled, and at the moment her face was screwed up with pain, but if Thomas wasn’t much mistaken this was no common thief or intruder trying to escape the Di Mercurio property. She was too well dressed, her bearing and her speech too polished.
‘Why did you jump off the wall?’ Thomas asked.
Immediately he saw the young woman bristle.
‘I didn’t jump. I fell.’
‘Let me rephrase the question. Why were you climbing over the wall in the first place?’
‘That is none of your concern,’ she said primly.
Thomas watched her for a few seconds and then shrugged nonchalantly. He wasn’t about to browbeat the information from her, but she would tell him.
‘Would you like me to escort you back to the Di Mercurio villa, or fetch someone to come and get you?’ he asked lightly.
He actually saw the pallor bloom on her face as the blood drained away.
‘Please do not concern yourself,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get on my way and you can continue with your evening.’
‘You will need my help...’ he motioned to her left ankle ‘... I’d wager you won’t get far on your own.’
‘Truly, please do not let me detain you further,’ she said with exaggerated politeness. Thomas could see he was beginning to irk her, but found himself unable to stop with his goading. He was enjoying this interaction more than he had any for months now.
He looked on with interest as she tottered to her feet, grimaced and bit down forcibly on her lower lip, presumably to stop her crying out in pain as she tried to put weight on her left foot. Thomas’s concern turned to amusement as she began hopping down the road and he had to stop himself from laughing out loud.
‘I don’t think anyone has ever gone to such lengths to avoid my company before,’ he mused loudly as he pushed himself upright and began to stroll along beside her.
She didn’t even spare him a look, just hopped resolutely onwards.
‘I hope you didn’t need to be somewhere in a hurry. You’re rather slow at hopping.’ This did earn him a glance, but no conversation.
Suddenly she stopped, changed direction and hopped unsteadily to the side of the road. Thomas watched with interest as she hefted a heavy fallen branch from the ground and tested it as a makeshift crutch. It didn’t look that helpful.
‘So let me guess,’ he said as she staggered onwards. ‘You’re a disgraced maid and you stole the family silver.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Two more steps, then she rested, looking back over her shoulder and appearing disappointed with how little progress they’d made.
‘You’re being forced to marry one of the unpleasant Di Mercurio boys and you’re fleeing on the eve of the wedding.’
‘That would be a very good reason to run,’ the young woman muttered under her breath.
‘I’ve got it,’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘They were going to offer you up as a ritual sacrifice to the devil.’
‘Why are you following me?’ she demanded.
‘I thought you might need some assistance.’
She stared at him with wide eyes and motioned to the nearly useless crutch. ‘You’re not providing any assistance so will you just leave me alone.’
‘I could provide you with assistance,’ Thomas said with a charming smile, ‘If you ask nicely. And tell me what you were doing climbing over the wall.’
She had a stubborn streak running through her, Thomas mused as she limped a few more paces with her head held high before relenting.
‘I was being held prisoner. Now, please will you help me?’
‘Well, that wasn’t the most gracious of pleas, but a gentleman can overlook these things.’ Thomas scooped her up into his arms, hiding a grin at her squeal of surprise and the initial stiffness of her body. ‘Where to, my lady?’
No reply was forthcoming and Thomas could see the thoughts tumbling through her head. For some reason she had felt she was being held prisoner by the well-to-do Di Mercurios and had manufactured her escape, but he would wager his entire inheritance that she hadn’t really planned beyond getting over the wall.
‘Maybe to the residence of the local magistrate so you could report your imprisonment?’ Thomas suggested, suppressing a smile as she tensed. ‘Or we could go straight to the governatore, the man in charge, seeing as they are such an influential family in the region.’
Still no reply from the woman in his arms.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Miss Rosa Rothwell.’
‘Well, Rosa,’ he said, enjoying her scowl of indignation at his use of the overfamiliar form of address, ‘it is decision time. What’s the plan?’
‘I would be grateful if you would take me to a local pensione,’ she said decisively.
‘I don’t like to criticise a well-thought-out plan, but won’t the village guest house be the first place the Di Mercurios look for their runaway?’
‘I will ask the owner to be discreet.’
‘It will all come down to who has the bigger purse, you or the wealthiest landowners around the lake.’
Rosa fell quiet again and Thomas adjusted his grip on the pensive young woman in his arms.
‘Are you sure you can’t sort this feud out with the Di Mercurios?’ Thomas asked softly, the levity gone from his voice. ‘It would be the easiest way.’
‘No.’ The force behind that one short word told Thomas all he needed to know about Rosa’s predicament. She was in trouble, real trouble, and it wasn’t going to be sorted with an apology and a friendly handshake. He couldn’t imagine the Di Mercurios had actually kept Rosa locked up, they were a respected and important family, but he was well aware he didn’t know the details. ‘I need to get away from here,’ Rosa said quietly. ‘I need to get back to England.’
Thomas quickened his pace along the dusty road and felt Rosa squirm in his arms.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I’m renting a villa about a mile from here,’ Thomas said. ‘You will stay tonight and arrangements can be made in the morning.’
‘I’m not sure that is an appropriate—’
‘You don’t really have a choice,’ Thomas interrupted her. ‘It’s this or the Di Mercurios finding you within the hour.’
‘I am a young woman of a good family,’ Rosa said stiffly.
‘Trust me, there is nothing further from my mind than ravishing you. You’ll be perfectly safe.’
Not that she wasn’t pretty enough, in a wholesome, innocent sort of way, but Thomas had not been tempted in a long time and he wasn’t going to let this dishevelled young woman be the reason he stepped off his predestined path.
Chapter Two (#ubd57f08c-9d83-5f2f-9c3a-fa00c677f409)
Thomas set her down gently on a wooden chair positioned on the terrace to the rear of his rented villa. Rosa was momentarily mesmerised by the view over the lake to the mountains beyond, the inky blackness of the water giving way to the solid outlines of the snowy peaks silhouetted against the starry sky. Although she’d been in Italy for a month she hadn’t seen past the walls of the Di Mercurio villa since her arrival.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Thomas commented as he caught her looking at the view.
She regarded her host for a few moments, trying to decide what she thought of him. He was confident and arrogant, a man used to getting his own way. She had bristled earlier when he’d made the decisions about her immediate future without really consulting her, but she’d bitten her tongue because...well, because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.
‘Who are you?’ Rosa asked as she took in the expensive furniture and no doubt expensive view.
‘Hunter. Lord Thomas Hunter. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Rosa Rothwell.’ Her name sounded seductive on his tongue.
‘Do you live alone here?’ Rosa asked.
‘Don’t worry,’ Thomas said, flashing her a lazy grin, ‘I meant what I said, your virtue is safe.’
Rosa instinctively laid a hand on top of her lower abdomen, stroking the fabric of her dress and thinking of the growing life that was to be her ruin. She’d lost her virtue long ago, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t hold some moral values. Staying in a house alone with a single, rather attractive gentleman was certainly on the list of Things a Young Lady Must Never Do that her mother had often recited to her when she was younger. Nevertheless, here she was, without any other option and ready to put her fate and her already sullied virtue into the hands of Lord Thomas Hunter. Her mother would be appalled.
Lord Hunter disappeared for a few minutes before re-emerging from the villa holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. Rosa watched as he pulled out the cork and filled both glasses, before pushing one towards her.
‘So, tell me, whatever have you done to make the Di Mercurios lock you away?’ He held up a hand as he took a mouthful of wine. ‘No, no, no. Let me guess. It’s more fun that way.’
‘It’s a private matter,’ Rosa said, watching as Hunter leaned back in his chair and swung both feet on to the table.
‘Did you steal something?’
Rosa refused to be drawn in and focused instead on her wine glass.
‘Something more scandalous, then,’ Hunter mused. ‘Did you insult one of the old women, the ones that look like mean English Bulldogs?’
‘Those old women are my grandmother and great-aunt.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. Well, maybe you won’t be quite so wrinkly when you’re older. All is not lost.’ He paused, then pushed on, ‘So they’re family, are they? The plot thickens.’
Rosa took a sip of wine and felt the warmth spreading out from the throat and through her body. It was warming and delicious and already a little intoxicating.
‘I was sent here in disgrace,’ she said eventually.
‘Your family sent you all the way to Italy? You must have done something pretty unsavoury for that amount of distance to be required.’
She supposed getting pregnant before marriage was pretty disgraceful, her mother at least had enough to say on the matter. Rosa was a disgusting harlot, an ungrateful wretch and as bad as a common streetwalker. The strange thing was, despite having been brought up with her mother’s strict set of moral values, Rosa didn’t feel disgusting or unsavoury, and she couldn’t summon anything but warmth for the small life blossoming inside her.
Uninvited tears sprung to her eyes at the thought of the venom in her mother’s voice as she’d told her she never wanted to see Rosa, or her child, ever again. They’d always had a difficult relationship, but the finality of her mother’s goodbye had hurt Rosa more than she would have imagined.
What had hurt even more had been the look of shock on her father’s face when Rosa had admitted her pregnancy. She and her father had always shared a close and loving relationship. It was her father, not her mother, who had played with her as a child, who often would call her into his study so they could spend hours discussing books. So when he’d been unable to rally on hearing the news that his only daughter was expecting a child out of wedlock Rosa had felt her heart rip in two.
Dipping her head, Rosa quickly blinked away the tears. She would not cry in front of a stranger, not about something that could not be changed.
‘I suppose it was unsavoury,’ she said, smiling sadly.
‘The Di Mercurios were meant to look after you?’ Hunter asked and Rosa was glad of his change of direction.
Rosa shrugged. She didn’t know what their instructions had been, but as soon as she had arrived it had been made clear she was not a welcomed guest.
‘They locked me in my room for a month.’
‘And fed you gruel, no doubt.’
She looked at him sharply, wondering if he was mocking her, but saw the joviality that had filled his eyes earlier had gone.
‘Well, sometimes they treated me to stew and a stale piece of bread.’
‘How generous. No wonder you wanted to escape.’
Rosa looked past her host, out over the dark water and to the night beyond and knew she would have put up with the cruelty if it hadn’t been for the threat of losing her child. On one of her daily walks around the grounds a maid had sidled up to her and whispered, ‘Don’t worry, signorina, the family they have chosen are kind and loving. Your little one will be well looked after.’
The girl had risked a beating for just talking to her and the words had meant to be reassuring, but Rosa had felt her heart fill with dread and known there and then she needed to escape. No one would take her child from her. She would fight with every ounce of strength and determination in her body and nothing would keep them apart.
‘So what is the plan, Rosa Rothwell?’ Hunter asked.
‘I will seek passage to England.’
‘Back to the family that sent you here?’
