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She headed left, away from the house, dropping down stone steps between white marble pillars to terraces over-hung with luxuriant plant life and strewn with classical statues. Gina revelled in the beauty of it all against the clean, clear blue of the sky.
On one level lay a pond laced with water lilies of every hue, the carved stone bench at its edge positioned to take full advantage of the harmonious view across the valley. She slowed her steps on sight of the man already seated there.
‘I didn’t realise anyone else was up and about yet,’ she said a little awkwardly. ‘I thought I’d take a look around before breakfast.’
‘I saw you from my window,’ Lucius admitted. ‘It seemed probable that you would eventually reach this spot.’ His regard this morning was fathomless. ‘So, how do you find our home?’
‘It’s truly beautiful,’ she acknowledged. ‘A dream of a place! Why didn’t you tell me you were a Count?’ she tagged on.
He gave a brief shrug. ‘I have no use for status symbols.’
‘Ottavia doesn’t appear to share the aversion.’
‘My sister clings to an order long gone.’ He patted the seat at his side. ‘Come sit with me.’
‘I have to get back,’ she said hurriedly. ‘It must be getting on for breakfast time.’
‘Food will be served whenever and wherever required,’ he advised. A hint of amusement in his eyes now, he added, ‘You are afraid of me, perhaps?’
‘Of course not!’ she denied.
‘Then, of what I make you feel?’ he continued imperturbably.
Pretending not to know what he was talking about would be a waste of time and breath, Gina knew. ‘You take a great deal too much for granted,’ she retorted.
The amusement grew. ‘That is your English half speaking. Your Barsini blood responds to mine.’
The time to tell him the truth was now, but the words wouldn’t form themselves.
‘Grateful as I am to you for what you’re doing with my car, I’m not about to become your playmate for the week,’ she said coolly instead.
‘Playmates are for children,’ he returned, not in the least rebuffed. ‘We are neither of us that.’
‘But we are strangers,’ she replied with deliberation. ‘You don’t really know anything about me.’
‘Then, tell me,’ he invited.
The moment was there again, but Gina still couldn’t bring herself to take advantage of it.
‘I should be getting back,’ she repeated.
‘Then, I will come with you,’ he said.
He got to his feet, lean and lithe as a panther in the black trousers and shirt. Gina steeled herself as he moved to where she stood, but he made no attempt to touch her, falling into step at her side as she turned back the way she had come. Catching the faint scent of aftershave, she was supremely conscious of the fact that she had yet to shower, yet to put a brush to her hair.
‘Are you always up this early of a morning?’ she asked.
‘I rise when I awaken,’ he said easily. ‘No later than six, sometimes as much as an hour before that.’
‘Even when you don’t get to bed until the early hours?’
‘A matter of custom. If I tire in the day I may take siesta. It depends on my commitments.’
‘I imagine those are extensive.’
‘Not too much so.’
Doing her best to keep the conversational ball rolling, she said, ‘You speak excellent English.’
‘But somewhat structured compared with the way you speak, yes?’
Gina cast a glance at the chiselled profile, responding to the curve of his lips. ‘My old English teacher would approve every word. It’s usually tourists who introduce bad habits.’
‘Few tourists find Vernici,’ he said. ‘It is off the regular routes.’
‘I know. I had some difficulty finding it myself.’
It was Lucius’s turn to slant a glance, expression curious. ‘Why were you looking for Vernici at all if your father came from Naples.’
Do it now! an inner voice urged her, even as she mentally cursed the slip-up. ‘Latterly,’ she heard herself saying regardless. ‘But he was apparently born in Vernici, so I thought it worth taking a look there too.’
‘I see.’ From his tone, it was obvious that he was wondering why she hadn’t mentioned that fact last night. ‘The name is unfamiliar to me,’ he went on after a moment, ‘but the older townsfolk will surely recall the family. I will have enquiries made.’
She was getting deeper and deeper into the mire, thought Gina unhappily. What the devil was wrong with her that she kept on fabricating things?
They had reached the front of the house. Lucius preceded her up the steps to open a door for her to pass through, too close by far for comfort as he followed her in. Soles wet from their passage across the grass, her sandals had no purchase on the terrazzo. Lucius shot out an arm as she skidded, hauling her up against him, his hand warm at her waist.
‘You must take more care,’ he said, making no immediate attempt to let her go again.
‘I will,’ Gina assured him. ‘I’m fine now, thanks.’
His laugh was low, the brief pressure of his lips at her nape where the curtain of hair had parted stirring her blood in a manner she deplored.
‘I’d prefer you didn’t do that,’ she got out.
He laughed again, but this time released her. Gina made herself meet the dark eyes. ‘I realise you probably won’t be used to it, but I’m telling you again that I’m not…available.’
‘Do you not think that you might be the one now taking too much for granted?’ Lucius returned with mock gravity.
‘Am I?’ she challenged, and saw the glint return.
‘No. I would be only half a man if I could look at you and not want you in the instant, cara.’ He gave her no time to reply—if she could have come up with a reply at all. ‘I will begin enquiries about the Barsini family this very morning. I would hope to have news of them before the day is over.’
A forlorn hope, Gina reflected ruefully. The longer this charade of hers continued, the harder it became to revoke.
‘There’s something I—’ she began, breaking off as Guido heaved into view.
‘Something you…?’ Lucius prompted.
She shook her head, courage lost. ‘Forget it.’
Leaving him standing there, she ran lightly up the stairs to head for her room. The situation was becoming increasingly difficult. If it weren’t for her lack of transport, she would be tempted to abandon the whole idea and return home. She was vitally attracted to a man who might just be a close blood relation, a man who was making no effort to conceal his objective. Even if there should prove to be no connection, she wasn’t into the kind of casual, ships that pass in the night, relationship that was all Lucius would have in mind.
Despite last night’s refusal, breakfast was brought to her at eight o’clock. Gina ate it out on the balcony, enjoying both the view and the warmth. The sky was so blue, the quality of light a joy in itself. It was possible that her father had viewed the same scene—perhaps even from this very room. Could she really bear, Gina asked herself, not to know for certain?
She went downstairs again with no notion of how she was going to spend the day. Wandering out to the terrace, she found Ottavia stretched out on a lounger beneath an opened umbrella. She was wearing a gold-lamé bikini that barely covered her voluptuous curves, her eyes shielded by designer sunglasses. Her toenails, Gina noted, were painted the same shade of scarlet as her fingernails and lips, the whole effect more reminiscent of the film world, she thought, than Italian aristocracy.
‘Buon giorno,’ she proffered tentatively.
Ottavia pulled down the sunglasses a fraction to run a disparaging eye over the cotton dress Gina had elected to wear. ‘You are quite recovered from your weariness, I trust?’ she enquired, without bothering to respond to the greeting.
‘Quite, thank you,’ Gina confirmed. She felt it necessary to add, ‘The breakfast was very good, but I really don’t expect to be waited on while I’m here.’
‘As you are here at my brother’s invitation, you are entitled to be treated as any other guest,’ came the smooth reply. ‘You realise, of course, how fortunate you are to have gained his support in this affair.’ She didn’t wait for any answer. ‘A word of warning, however. Lucius may pay you some attentions because he is a man and you are attractive to look at, but it means nothing.’
‘In other words, don’t run away with the idea that he might be about to offer marriage,’ Gina returned. ‘I’ll certainly bear it in mind.’
The irony left no visible impression. ‘Good,’ was the only comment.
Her presence wasn’t exactly welcome, Gina gathered, as the glasses were replaced and the head returned to the supporting cushion. She was tempted to stay anyway, just for the hell of it, but there was little to be gained from keeping company with someone who so obviously didn’t want her there.
She had only covered a small part of the immediate grounds earlier. Now would be the right time to take a turn round the other side of the house before the heat became too great for comfort. With several days to fill, and nowhere else to go, she was probably going to be spending a lot of time out of doors. Which in this climate would be no great hardship, she had to admit.
She was crossing the drive when a low-slung sports car came roaring round the bend. Gina leapt instinctively for safety, missed her footing and went down on one knee in the gravel, steeling herself for the impact she was sure was to come. The car screeched to a halt with its front bumper bare inches from her. Spouting Italian at a rate of knots, the driver leapt out without bothering to turn off the engine, a look of concern on his handsome face as he came to lift her to her feet.
‘Inglese,’ Gina said for what seemed like the millionth time in response to what she took to be a spate of solicitous enquiry. ‘Non capisco.’
‘English!’ he exclaimed on a note of surprise.
‘That’s right.’ Gina gave a wry grimace as she eased her knee. ‘Does everybody round here drive like bats out of hell?’
His brows drew together in puzzlement. ‘Bats?’
‘It’s just a saying,’ she explained, regretting the use of it. ‘It means fast, that’s all.’
The frown cleared. ‘Ah, fast!’ Concern leapt once more in his eyes as he caught sight of the trickle of blood running down her leg. ‘You are hurt! Why did you not tell me you were hurt?’
‘I hadn’t realised it was grazed,’ Gina admitted, lifting the edge of her skirt to view the not inconsiderable damage. ‘I thought I’d just knocked it.’
‘It must be cleaned and dressed,’ he declared. ‘Before it becomes infected.’
‘It will be,’ she assured him. ‘Just as soon as I get back to the house. I’m a guest there,’ she added, in case he was in any doubt. ‘Gina Redman.’
‘A friend of the family?’ He sounded intrigued.
‘Not exactly. There was an accident. My car was badly damaged. Lu—Signor Carandente very generously invited me to stay until it’s repaired.’
His lips curved. ‘But of course. Lucius is the most generous of men. I am Cesare Traetta. You must allow me to drive you to the villa.’
‘It’s hardly any distance,’ Gina protested. ‘I might get blood on the upholstery.’
‘If so it will be cleaned.’ He went to open the passenger door. ‘Please to get in.’
Gina wiped away the trickle of blood with her handkerchief before doing so. The soft leather seat cocooned her, its contours designed to hold the body in position. Definitely needed, she thought, as Cesare set the car into motion again with a force that caused the rear wheels to spin. She judged him around Lucius’s age, which made him Donata’s senior by fifteen years, yet the two of them appeared to be on a par when it came to road sense.
They rounded the final bend to come to a further screeching stop outside the house. Switching off the engine, Cesare got swiftly from the car to help Gina from the seat she was struggling to vacate without having her skirt ride up any further than it already had.
‘I think I can manage, thanks,’ she said drily when he made to assist her up the steps. ‘A damp flannel, and I’ll be as good as new!’
‘You are bleeding!’ exclaimed Lucius from the doorway, startling her because she hadn’t seen him arrive. ‘What happened to you?’
‘I slipped and fell on the drive.’ Gina saw no reason to go into greater detail. ‘Signor Traetta was kind enough to give me a lift.’
‘Cesare,’ urged the man at her back. ‘You must call me Cesare.’
She gave him a brief smile. ‘Cesare, then.’ To Lucius she said, ‘I’ll go and clean myself up.’
‘The necessary materials will be brought to you.’ he said. ‘We must be sure no foreign substances remain in the wound.’
‘Of course.’ Gina was fast tiring of the fuss. ‘I can cope.’
‘I am sure of it.’ His tone was dry. ‘Your self-sufficiency does you credit. You will, however, wait for assistance in this matter.’
He took her agreement for granted, indicating that she precede him into the house. Gina battened down her instincts and meekly obeyed. ‘I’m sure you know best,’ she murmured in passing, tongue tucked firmly in cheek.
The dress was not only dirty but torn at the hem, she found on reaching her room. Not beyond repair, she supposed, examining the rip, though she was no expert needle-woman. At any rate, she had plenty of other things to change into, so it could wait until she got home.
Despite instructions, she ran hot water in the bathroom basin and began cleaning off the worst of the mess. The graze was quite extensive, with tiny pieces of gravel embedded in the shredded flesh. Concentrating on extracting them, she was taken unawares when Lucius entered the room bearing a first-aid box.
‘You were to wait until I brought this!’ he exclaimed.
Seated on a padded stool, her foot raised on the bath edge to enable her to see what she was doing, Gina resisted the urge to pull down the skirt she had raised to mid thigh.
‘I hardly expected you to bring it up yourself,’ she said lamely.
Dark brows rose. ‘You think such a task beneath me?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. I just took it…’ She left the sentence unfinished, holding out her hand for the box. ‘It’s very good of you, anyway.’
Lucius made no attempt to hand it over. Placing it on the long marble surface into which the double basins were set, he seized soap from the dish and washed his hands. Gina watched in silence, reminded that she should have done the same before attempting to touch the graze at all.
His presence in the confines of the bathroom—spacious though it was—made her nervous. She found it difficult to control the quivering in her limbs when he took a pair of tweezers from the box and sat down on the bath edge to start work on the gravel.
The hand he slid about the back of her calf to hold her leg still was warm and firm against her skin, his fingers long and supple, the nails smoothly trimmed; she could imagine the way they would feel on her body—the sensual caresses. Her nipples were peaking at the very notion.
Stop it! she told herself harshly, ashamed of the sheer carnality of her thoughts. It might be a long-established fact that women were as capable as men of enjoying sex without love, but she had never followed the trend. From her mid teens she had determined not to settle for anything less than the real thing: the kind of love her mother had known for Giovanni Carandente. The possibility that Lucius could be her father’s nephew was enough on its own to prohibit any notion she might have of relaxing her ideals.
‘I am sorry if I hurt you,’ Lucius apologised as her leg jumped beneath his hands. ‘There are only a few more small pieces to come, and then we are finished but for the antiseptic.’
