Secret Love-Child: Kept for Her Baby / The Costanzo Baby Secret / Her Secret, His Love-Child

‘And tell me just why it’s better to have you manhandle me…’

‘I did not manhandle you!’

She’d caught him on the raw there, sending sparks into the darkness of his eyes and making him bite out the words in a tone of barely controlled fury that had her flinching back against the pillows and pulling the duvet even more tightly around her in spite of the warmth of the sun that was coming in through the narrow arched window. Beyond that window she could hear the calm blue waters of the lake lapping lazily against the stony shore and then ebbing back again with a faint sucking sound as they pulled against the tiny pebbles. It seemed unnaturally loud in the dangerous silence that descended before Ricardo drew in a long harsh breath.

‘I have never ‘manhandled’ a woman in my life and I do not intend to start with my wife. Because surely that is the point here—that I—as your husband—performed this duty for you myself rather than leave it to a stranger.’

‘You are not my husband!’

Lucy wouldn’t have believed that it was possible for Ricardo’s expression to grow any more glacial or for the cold anger in his eyes to burn any more savagely but clearly her words had provoked him into darker fury as he flung a glance of bitter recrimination in her direction.

‘We took the vows,’ he declared icily. ‘We were married.’

‘But only to make sure that our son was born legitimate with two married parents to be named on his birth certificate. Beyond that, the whole thing meant nothing—and the vows less than nothing. I didn’t want to marry you and you…’

‘I wanted you as my wife.’

‘Because I was Marco’s mother. Oh, come on, Ricardo, are you telling me that if I hadn’t got pregnant you would still have asked me to marry you?’

‘No…’

‘No.’ She tried to make it sound as if his answer satisfied her, but the truth was that there was no satisfaction to be found in the single word. ‘I thought not.’

‘I wanted you…’

‘Oh, I know…’ She couldn’t keep the bleakness, the bitterness from her voice. ‘You made that only too plain. But you could have had me in your bed without tying yourself—without tying both of us—down to marriage. But I got pregnant and that trapped us, Ricardo. Trapped us in a marriage that neither of us wanted.’

It was weak, it was foolish—it was downright masochistic—but all the same she couldn’t stop herself from pausing, waiting just a second, just long enough for her stupidly vulnerable heart to give a couple of unsteady, jerky beats just in case Ricardo actually thought about denying that statement.

Well, if she’d hoped it might happen then she was destined for disappointment. He remained stubbornly silent, forcing her to go on.

‘And now I want to get out of it. We both want to get out of it. Which is why it’s not…appropriate…for you to…’

‘For me to do what?’ Ricardo cut in, satire burning in the words. ‘Not appropriate for me to help a woman who is evidently unwell and who has fainted at my feet? Not appropriate to pick her up and carry her inside, put her into a comfortable bed—and perhaps remove her outer clothing so that she may sleep more comfortably? I think that only you would assign some sort of sexual motive to that.’

His cynicism lashed at her, making her flinch inwardly. Her face was burning once more but this time with a very different sort of embarrassment. Hearing it like that, it did sound so perfectly innocent. Did she really think that she was so sexually irresistible that he was unable to keep his hands off her?

If she had been foolish enough to even consider any such thought then his tone and the blazing fury in his eyes would have very soon disillusioned her. Ricardo might have once been so determined and so hungry to get her into his bed that he had broken what he had told her was normally an indestructible rule and made love to her without using a condom, but it clearly was not the case any more. He had seen her as nothing more than some woman who needed help and he had acted accordingly.

‘You did that?’ Her whole body was burning with embarrassment so that the words quavered on her tongue. ‘Thank you—and I’m sorry.’

A swift, curt nod was Ricardo’s only acknowledgement of her response and almost immediately it seemed that his mind had moved on to something else.

‘Someone had to take care of you. You obviously weren’t taking care of yourself. Tell me, Lucia—when did you last eat?’

The question was unexpected, catching her off guard and forcing her to consider.

‘Yesterday…’ she said slowly, still thinking about it.

‘Are you sure?’

No, she wasn’t sure. Yesterday morning she had known that she was going to try to get onto the island. That she was going to try to see Marco. And that had left her nerves so tightly strung that her stomach had clenched painfully from the moment that she had woken up, and it had stayed like that all day. And the day before…

‘You told me that you had been ill.’

She’d told him but, if he was honest, he hadn’t considered that it was serious, Ricardo admitted to himself. But when she had collapsed at his feet then he had had to take notice. And picking her up to carry her indoors had sent a sensation like a brutal kick straight to his guts.

She had lost so much more weight than he had realised. In his arms she had felt as fragile and vulnerable as a lost bird, one that had fallen from the nest before it had quite learned how to fly. Beneath the protection of her clothing, she was skin and bone, and the way that stabbed at his conscience was uncomfortable and disturbing.

‘But you didn’t say what was wrong with you.’

He’d touched on a raw nerve there. Those concealing eyelids flickered up, fast but hesitant, and the blue eyes flashed one swift, wary and defensive look in his direction before she stared down again, focusing on where her hands were twisting in the protection of the quilt, revealing an uncertainty she didn’t want him to know about.

Yesterday he had wanted to hate her. It had been easy to hate her when she had come sneaking onto the island like a thief in the night, invading the world he had built around Marco since she had walked out on them. He hadn’t wanted to listen then.

And hatred—hatred and rejection—had been uppermost in his mind when she had declared to his face the truth of why she was here. That she had come to try to claim Marco. Then his rage had been like a red mist in front of his eyes and he had had to turn away from her rather than give in to the murderous fury that boiled inside him.

He wished he still felt like that. To stay feeling that way would have been so much simpler. It would have made things so much more easy and straightforward. This woman had walked out on their marriage, their child so carelessly and selfishly, without even a backward look. Now she was back, walking into the life he had made without her.

And demanding her son.

No!

Even now the roar of rejection was wild and savage inside his head. It obliterated every other consideration in a storm of savage feeling. It felt wonderful, simple, strong—and right.

But then she had fainted. She had turned white, all the blood draining from her face, had just seemed to shrivel up at his feet. She had lain there unconscious and he had had to kneel beside her, checking her pulse, her breathing, her temperature. Knowing that he had to take her somewhere more comfortable, he had had to bend to lift her up…

And that was when everything had changed.

‘No, I didn’t say,’ Lucy flung at him now. ‘Are you saying you want to know what happened? Do you really…’

She had to break off the question as a knock came at the door. Of course—Tonia with the food he had told her to prepare for Lucy. Food it was obvious she needed.

‘Eat your breakfast,’ he commanded gruffly. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

‘I want to talk now…’ Lucy protested, struggling to sit up enough to take the tray on her knees without letting the covers fall down at the same time.

The sudden pretence of modesty set his teeth on edge so that with a muttered imprecation under his breath, he strode to the wardrobe and wrenched open the door. Snatching a white robe from a hanger inside, he tossed it in Lucy’s direction, gesturing to the maid to leave at the same time.

‘You need to eat.’

Now she was trying to pull on the robe while still balancing the tray.

‘Dio santo!’

Clamping his jaw tight shut against the irritation that almost escaped him, he lifted the tray again, carrying it to the small table set in the bay window and dumping it down. Then he moved back to the bed, taking the robe from her while she still struggled with it and holding it open for her to get into it.

‘If it will speed up the process, I assure you I am not looking,’ he told her satirically when she still hesitated.