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He didn’t respond, just pulled off the handbrake and drove along the stretch of road towards the palace, orange groves flanking their progress. Despite the vile day, despite an exhausted mind that just wanted to switch from all that was happening, Meg couldn’t help but be impressed at the sheer splendour of the building she’d till now only glimpsed from a distance. A huge fourteenth-century castle, it stood proud on the edge of the ocean as if carved out of the rocks itself, and Meg could scarcely believe that this was where she would be calling home for the next few days.
Even before the car had slid to a halt, despite the lateness of the hour the door was opened by waiting staff, but Luca barely greeted them, just exchanging a few words with a burly, suited gentleman before taking a stunned and shivering Meg by the arm and leading her to a side entrance, which Meg soon realised was the access to the palace’s private apartments.
‘That was my bodyguard, Luigi,’ Luca needlessly explained his earlier conversation. ‘He is annoyed that again I did not tell him I was leaving the casino. I will speak with him in the morning—if you need to leave the palace for any reason, he is to drive and accompany you.’
‘I don’t need an escort,’ Meg responded tightly.
‘Perhaps not,’ Luca answered as he pushed open the door to his apartment, ‘but since I signed your bail papers you are my responsibility. I want to be sure I know where you are—and, more importantly, that you will return.’
She was too tired to be indignant or even attempt a smart retort. She stepped inside Luca’s luxurious apartment. Someone on the gate must have alerted the staff, because even though it was only a matter of minutes since the car had entered the palace grounds there was a fire taking hold in the magnificent marble fireplace and the lights were all on. A large whisky had been poured and set on an occasional table, which Luca downed in one gulp while Meg still stood at the doorway taking in her surrounds. Lavishly furnished, the apartment had been exquisitely refurbished—somehow managing to combine the fourteenth-century décor with all the luxuries of the twenty-first century. Vast high walls were broken by voile curtains that swept the shuttered windows, a papal purple carpet runner softened the cool Italian marble floor. The apartment was a virtual treasure trove of antiques and under any other circumstances Meg would have been thrilled to explore, but all she could do was stand and shiver, overwhelmed with fatigue, and Luca, for the first time since the prison, was gently perceptive, guiding her limp body across to the warmth of the fire.
‘Even in summer the castle is cool at night,’ Luca explained, but there was a worried edge to his voice, his hand running over her forehead as if she were a child and he were checking her temperature, ‘The doctor will be here soon.’
‘You’ve called him?’ Meg frowned, worried that she couldn’t remember, but Luca shook his head. ‘I told Luigi to take care of it.’
There was clearly no trouble arranging a rapid house call when you were Niroli royalty, and the doctor arrived shortly afterwards. Any worries Meg might have had about explaining her injuries were quashed when Luca did what little talking was required.
‘You need two stitches on your …’ Luca tapped his own eyebrow by explanation, then gave a small wince as the doctor said something else to him. ‘He says he can give you an injection to make it numb before he stitches you, but that will hurt as much as if he just goes ahead and puts in the stitches without it.’
‘No injections!’
‘Il donatore il suo anestetico locale’ Luca fired at the doctor in rapid Italian. Too quick for Meg to grasp. ‘What did you say?’ Meg asked as the doctor nodded.
‘I said that he was to numb it first for you.’ ‘Well, that’s not what I want. Can you please tell him to just go ahead and do the stitches?’ Meg countered. ‘But it will hurt.’
‘So will the anaesthetic,’ Meg pointed out, ‘and next time you decide to act as a translator for me, please, allow me to answer for myself!’ As Luca opened his mouth to argue, Meg got there first. ‘What is he saying now?’
‘That he will use the finest silk, and that with make-up the cut will not show. After he has tended your wound you are to bathe and sleep.’ He checked his understanding of the order of events with the doctor, who was setting up his tools, then elaborated. ‘You are to bathe, have a light supper and then sleep—he will come and check on you again some time over the weekend. I’ll have the housekeeper run you a bath.’
‘I’d prefer a shower.’ Meg screwed her eyes closed as the doctor poured out antiseptic and proceeded to clean her wound.
‘Would you?’ Luca snapped. ‘Or are you just determined to contradict everything I say?’
‘Yes to both,’ Meg answered cheekily. As Luca let out a hiss of indignation, she caught his eyes and gave him a tiny glimmer of a smile, which, after a beat of hesitation, he reluctantly reciprocated. ‘Let’s just get this over with.’
The stitches hurt, though not that much, and Meg bit hard on her lip as the needle went in and out. When Luca reached for her hand to comfort her, she pulled it back, preferring to see this through by herself.
‘You are very brave,’ Luca commented once the doctor had gone and finally they were alone. ‘Not many people would sit there so still. In fact.’ His voice trailed off—the only other person he could think of who would react as Meg had, who would barely offer a reaction as their wounds were tended, was his mother.
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