The Brabanti Baby

And a bigger fool not to! Yet here she was, complete with sleeping babe, waiting to confront the unpleasant Signor Brabanti whom she’d never met, because Marcia had wasted so little time marrying him that none of her family had known about the wedding until it was over. And before they’d had time to get used to that idea, the marriage was over, too.

…Tall, dark and handsome, and so arrogant you won’t be able to miss him. Just head for the guy acting as if he owns the place….

So Marcia had described him, but eyeing the group clustered before her now in the executive lounge, Eve saw no one fitting that description. Instead she was approached by a gray-haired man of medium height, in crisp white trousers and a navy blazer with a gold-braided coat of arms emblazoned on the breast pocket. “Signora Brabanti?” he inquired.

“Caldwell,” she said, wondering why he’d think she was her cousin, when she knew Marcia had let Gabriel know she was sending Eve in her place. “Signorina Caldwell.”

He inclined his head in apology. “Scusi. I am looking for an American with a baby and—”

“You’ve found her.” She gestured at Nicola who, worn-out with screaming pretty much nonstop during the flight from Amsterdam, had at last fallen asleep. “This is Signor Brabanti’s daughter.”

“Capisco! I am Paolo, sent by the signor to drive you to the Villa Brabanti.”

“He couldn’t spare the time to come and meet us himself?”

“The signor sends his apologies.” Paolo’s tone was as neutral as his glance. “A matter of some importance arose which prevented him from being here.”

“More important than meeting his daughter?” She raised her eyebrows, making no secret of her disdain. “And here I had the impression he was anxious to see her as soon as possible. Silly me!”

The chauffeur coughed and glanced away, clearly unused to hearing anyone criticize his employer. “You have had a long journey,” he murmured soothingly. “If you care to wait in the car, signorina, I will collect your luggage, then we will be on our way. You and the bambina will soon be home.”

Hardly ‘home’, she thought, following him through the main arrivals hall to the black Mercedes Benz limousine parked directly outside the building. Although it was only a little past seven-thirty in the evening, already it was dark, but floodlights illuminated the handsome curved facade of the airport.

“Allow me, signorina.” Relieving her of the infant seat, Paolo lifted it into the roomy interior of the car, deftly buckled it in place in the middle of the back seat, and ran a gentle finger down the sleeping baby’s cheek. “Molto bella, si?”

Although her grasp of Italian was minimal, Eve understood well enough to reply, “Yes, she’s beautiful, but I’m afraid all this traveling has been very hard on her.”

He murmured sympathetically, and waited for Eve to get settled before handing her the overloaded diaper bag and her purse, then disappeared into the building again to retrieve the rest of her luggage, a task he accomplished with amazing speed and efficiency. Within minutes, he was behind the wheel and the limousine was gliding away from the curb, and dovetailing smoothly into the stream of traffic heading toward Valletta.

“A bit of history goes a very long way with me, but you’ll soak up all that antiquity,” Marcia had predicted. “You can’t turn a corner anywhere in Malta, especially not Valletta, without coming smack up against some ancient relic.”

Although Gabriel lived just outside the city itself, as the car headed northeast and the ramparts of the capital came into floodlit view, Eve could well understand her cousin’s remarks. Even after dark and from a distance of several miles, those soaring, massive walls, built centuries before by the Knights of Saint John, made an impressive sight, and despite all her reservations about making the trip, she found herself hoping for a few days to herself, to explore the famous islands.

Any such ambition faded, the minute the limousine swept through the iron gates guarding the entrance to the Villa Brabanti. The house rose up in the night, huge and dark, a barren, looming pile of stone with not so much as a speck of light shining from its windows. Only the moon, cool as ice, glimmered on the glass panes. Not for a second could she imagine leaving Nicola in the care of a man who chose to live in the sort of mansion lifted right out of a gothic horror movie.

“Are you quite sure we’re expected?” she asked Paolo, an undeniable quiver of apprehension slithering down her spine. “I don’t see any sign of the welcome mat being rolled out.”

“It is the emergency of which I spoke,” he explained, coming around to open the limousine’s rear door. “Unfortunately the main fusebox in the villa has developed a problem which poses a fire hazard. As you know, signorina, Malta has adopted the British electrical system, supplying 240 volts. When trouble arises, it is not something to be ignored. We could roast in our beds otherwise.”

Her disquiet increasing with his every word, Eve remained firmly seated and said, “What a comforting thought! Perhaps I’d be better off taking the baby and staying in a hotel until the problem is resolved.”

“Quite unnecessary,” Paolo assured her. “Signor Brabanti has the situation well in hand.”

As if he’d uttered some magical incantation, the property suddenly came alive with light. It poured from the windows, flowed from hidden spotlights in the garden, and fell in a bright golden swath from the open front door to illuminate the forecourt where the limousine stood.

“Per favor, signorina.” Paolo extended his hand, less in invitation than command. “The signor will have heard us arrive.” He didn’t need to add, And he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. The way his tone verged on the imperious said it for him.

“Very well.” Suspending her reservations for the present, Eve leaned over to unbuckle Nicola’s infant seat. “Come on, munchkin. We might as well get this over with.”

The night air lay warm and heavy with the scent of flowers. A cluster of fat white blooms hung ghostlike over the edge of a stone retaining wall sturdy enough to hold back an army. Tall palm trees stood sentinel-like along either side of the long driveway leading to the forecourt. Somewhere to the right, below a sweep of lawn, the soft boom and swish of waves breaking over rocks swept the silence like a lullaby.

“This way, signorina.”

Paolo ushered her through the front door and into an entrance hall of such grand proportions that it would have done justice to a royal residence. Checkerboard black and white marble tiles covered the floor. Tapestries, faded by age to softly muted tones of ecru and rose and blue, hung from the walls. Directly in front of her, a magnificent marble staircase rose to a central landing, then branched in two to lead to a gallery that ran around the entire second story. Overhead, some forty feet above the ground floor, frescoed cherubs cavorted among a sea of clouds around the perimeter of a domed ceiling with a stained-glass window at its center.

Gazing around, Eve’s first impressions of the place underwent change. Old the house might be, but “elegant” more properly described it than “gothic” “sumptuous” rather than “barren.” In fact, she was so entranced with the visual feast surrounding her that she failed to notice a recessed door at the rear of the hall, until it thudded open and the figure of a man appeared silhouetted on the threshold.

Even without Marcia’s description, Eve would have recognized him as Gabriel Brabanti. Never mind that the door cast him in such deep shadow that she couldn’t tell whether he was handsome as sin, or homely as a board fence. Only the lord and master of the manor could have exuded such presence; such an air of unshakeable, aristocratic authority.

For a second or two, he remained motionless and fixed her in an unblinking gaze, stroking his thumb the entire time over the barrel of the enormous steel flashlight he carried. The intensity of his stare, not to mention the way he caressed the flashlight as if it were a weapon he was debating using, unnerved Eve enough. But when he finally approached her, crossing the wide expanse of marble floor in long, purposeful strides, it took all her considerable will-power not to cringe against the tapestry-hung wall.

He did not look like a father eager to see his baby for the first time. He looked coldly outraged by the intrusion of strangers in his home.

“Who the devil are you?” he asked, his voice rich as textured velvet, his accent an intriguing mix of Italian over-laid with Harvard English.

Flabbergasted, Eve stared at him. Up close, he was all lean, hard angles and olive skin burnished by the sun. A tall, elegant creature of exquisite proportions; broad across the shoulders, deep in the chest, narrow at the waist.

And his face? He had the face of an irate angel. A face at once so arresting it stole a person’s breath away, and so darkly brooding it chilled the blood.

His eyes, she noticed with a faint sense of shock, were a remarkable shade of crystal clear blue. Against the contrasting fringe of dense black lashes and olive skin, they were astonishingly beautiful. As for his mouth…her own ran dry just thinking about it.

Marcia’s description of him as dark and handsome ran pitifully short of the mark. He was the epitome of male beauty; a god among mortals. A sight to make rational men grind their teeth in envy, and sophisticated women to fall at his feet. In short, Gabriel Brabanti was the most strikingly beautiful man Eve had ever seen.

“What sort of question is that?” she croaked. “You know very well who I am. Marcia wrote and told you.”

But even as she spoke, she knew her words were meaningless, and she knew why. Because, of course, her cousin had done no such thing. Instead Marcia had behaved just as she always did when faced with a sticky situation: she’d lied, then run for cover. It was a habit of such long-standing that the shame was Eve’s for having expected anything else.

“What I know,” Gabriel Brabanti replied stonily, “is that unless she has undergone extensive cosmetic surgery, you are not my ex-wife. As for her having written to me, apart from a brief note advising me that she would be arriving today, I’ve had no contact with Marcia since her equally brief message informing me of my daughter’s birth.”

Still stunned by his appearance and feeling like an utter fool because of it, Eve said, “She’s never been much of a letter writer.”

His mouth thinned scornfully and she could hardly blame him. Such a lame excuse deserved nothing but contempt. “She appears to possess few commendable qualities. That, however, does not answer my question. Who are you?”

“Her cousin, Eve Caldwell.” She deposited the infant seat on the floor, fumbled to shift the heavy diaper bag from her right arm to her left and thrust out her hand. Discomfited when he ignored it, she rushed to explain, “I’m Nicola’s aunt. Sort of—well, not really. Technically I suppose she’s really my first cousin once removed. But Marcia and I are like sisters—twins, even. Our fathers are brothers, and she and I share the same birthday, you see. So it seemed the natural thing for me to assume the role of aunt to her baby.”

“Do you always babble like this in reply to a simple question, Signorina Caldwell?” he inquired, his gaze never once wavering. “Or is it something you resort to only when you’re nervous?”

“I’m not nervous,” she said. But that she had to swallow twice and run the tip of her tongue over lips gone suddenly dry made a mockery of her answer.

“You should be. Within minutes of your arrival, you discover your cousin has betrayed your trust. Only a complete simpleton would assume her store of unpleasant surprises ends there.”

His marriage to Marcia might have been brief, Eve decided glumly, but clearly it had lasted long enough for him to get to know her altogether too well. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to confront him again. “I can deal with anything Marcia dishes out.”

“And so,” he said, “can I. I suggest you remember that, Signorina Caldwell, should you ever feel tempted to aid and abet her in any schemes she might be hatching. I’m sure she’s regaled you with tales of how miserable and intolerant a husband she found me, but she hasn’t the first idea of how formidable an enemy I can be when I really put my mind to it.” He stepped closer and made a move toward the infant seat. “Now, having made my position clear, I would like to meet my daughter.”

Acting purely on instinct, Eve beat him to it and hauled Nicola out of reach. “She’s sleeping.”

“So I see. But since I don’t expect her to engage in conversation with me, it hardly signifies. Hand her over, per favor!”