Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper

The light from the hallway spilled out into the wet night. Standing back to let her go ahead of him, he saw her blink in the sudden brightness, and then watched her eyes widen, her lips part in silent shock as realisation hit her.

Her hand flew to her mouth, colour blooming in her rainshiny cheeks as she took a couple of steps backwards into the darkness. Lorenzo reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into the hallway.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he said softly. ‘Not this time.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THIS time.’

Pressing herself back against the closed door, oblivious to the grandeur of the enormous room in which she found herself, for a moment the only words Sarah’s shocked brain could come up with were a numb echo of his. ‘This time? So you knew? All this time I’ve been out there making a complete and utter spectacle of myself, you knew it was me.’ Horror crept over her as her mind replayed the events of the past hour in this new, humiliating light. ‘You could have said.’

‘And if I had?’

‘I would have stayed up on the roof.’

She closed her eyes, hot shame flooding her as she thought about what she must have looked like from below in her skimpy shirt. How she must have felt when he’d lifted her down.

Oh, God.

Having to surrender your scantily clad self—all too-many stones of it—to the arms of a stranger was bad enough, but discovering that he wasn’t entirely a stranger was infinitely worse. The man who had been shining a torch up her soaked-to-transparency shirt, the man who had lifted her considerable weight down from the roof, was the same man who had kissed her as a joke on her sister’s hen night. It was almost more than she could bear.

‘Exactly,’ he said gravely.

At that moment they were interrupted by a familiar voice from the doorway. ‘Oh, there you are, darling! Honestly, talk about drowned rat!’ Sarah felt the colour deepen in her glowing cheeks as her mother advanced towards them, still in her nightdress and coat but now with a large drink in one hand, as if she were at a slightly bohemian cocktail party. ‘Come through and get a towel, darling—we’re all drying out in front of a lovely fire and warming up with some of Signor Cavalleri’s excellent brandy.’ She batted her eyelashes in Lorenzo’s direction. ‘He’s been so kind, I can’t tell you.’

Sarah gritted her teeth, feeling the way she had when she was at school and Martha and Guy used to turn up at her sports day in the open-topped Rolls-Royce, and loudly uncork bottles of vintage champagne while everyone else was opening flasks of tea. ‘Mum, please,’ she hissed, following her across the inlaidmarble floor and through a doorway on the right. ‘I really don’t think we can…’

She stopped. The room she found herself in had the same majestic proportions, the same ornate plaster panelling as the hall, but here the stately impact was lessened by the fact that it was incredibly untidy. Papers covered every surface, from the vast antique desk that stood between the windows, to the low table in front of the fire and the deep leather chesterfield sofa. Or the bits of it that weren’t taken up with Angelica, Fenella, Lottie and a large grey dog.

‘Lottie’s fast asleep already, bless her,’ Martha continued, peering down at her small pyjama-clad form. ‘Isn’t she sweet? Signor Cavalleri, I really must thank you for taking pity on us in our hour of need. Now we’re all here, please let’s introduce ourselves properly.’

Standing shivering in her wet shirt, Sarah gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that. I believe that Angelica and Signor Cavalleri already know each other.’

Angelica blinked and shook back her silky blonde hair.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so, but I believe you’ve met my fiancé, Hugh? You were kind enough to come and offer your advice on—’

Beside her Fenella nudged her and murmured something inaudible, glancing at Sarah. Angelica’s blue eyes widened. ‘Oh, my goodness, yes! You were in the pub that night, weren’t you? The Rose and Crown, on my hen night.’

Sarah felt as if there were something wrapped tightly around her neck as Lorenzo gave a curt nod.

‘Oh, gosh—I don’t believe it! What an amazing coincidence, isn’t it, Fenella?’

‘Amazing,’ smirked Fenella, unfolding herself from the sofa in one elegant movement and letting the long cashmere cardigan she was wearing fall open to reveal little shorts and a vest top beneath it. ‘Of course, if we’d had the chance to talk we might have discovered the coincidence sooner but, as I recall, Sarah rather naughtily monopolised you. You both disappeared rather suddenly too.’

Sarah snatched up a towel and began vigorously rubbing her hair, which was the only way she could stop herself from taking Fenella’s elegant neck in her hands and wringing it. It also provided her with a diversion as she struggled to fit this new and unexpected information into the mental slot marked ‘Bastard’ she had created for the Screaming Orgasm man.

If Angelica and Fenella hadn’t set him up that night, then why the hell had he kissed her?

From behind the towel she watched as he briefly shook the hand Fenella held out. ‘As I recall,’ he said casually, turning away, ‘you were monopolising the rest of the males in the vicinity, so I’m sure it was no loss.’

‘Well, how astonishing that you should find yourself in our very sleepy corner of darkest Oxfordshire,’ Martha interjected hastily. ‘I’m Martha, by the way. Martha Halliday.’

Lorenzo stopped, tensing into complete stillness for a second. Then he turned round again, his narrow eyes very dark.

‘Not so sleepy, Signora Halliday.’ Sarah noticed the slight emphasis he placed on her mother’s surname. ‘Certainly not on the night I was there. Have you lived there for long?’

‘Since I was nineteen and I fell in love for the first time. You’re right—it’s nothing like it used to be,’ Clearly eager to steer the conversation back into harmless waters, Martha was at her most chatty and expansive. ‘I grew up in suburbia and it was like being dropped into the middle of a Thomas Hardy novel. Wildly romantic in theory, but the reality was harsh. In those days The Rose and Crown was a tiny little country inn where regulars used to help themselves from behind the bar and put the money in a box. Francis—that was my first husband—spent more of our married life in there than at home. He used to sit at a table in the corner by the inglenook and write. Said it was the only place he could keep warm enough to think in winter.’

‘Write?’

‘Yes. Poetry, mainly, but—’

‘Mum,’ Sarah hissed, ‘it’s three o’clock in the morning. I hardly think this is the time to be discussing literature.’

Especially not the singularly unsuccessful literary efforts of her father. Sarah just knew what Martha had been about to say next— that as well as endless volumes of strenuous, angry poems describing the industrialisation of the rural landscape, the late Francis Tate’s canon also included a book, set in Oxfordshire and Tuscany. The fact that it too had been a complete commercial flop never stopped Martha from talking about it as if it were some work of staggering, underrated genius, much to Sarah’s embarrassment.

‘Sorry. Of course, darling, you’re right,’ Martha laughed, putting down her empty brandy glass. ‘We’ve caused you quite enough disruption already, Signor Cavalleri. It’s not too inconvenient to put us up for the night, I hope?’

‘Not at all,’ Lorenzo said tersely. ‘Although I can’t promise five-star service, I’m afraid. I should explain that I’m here alone at the moment. My housekeeper left a while ago and I haven’t got round to finding a replacement yet, so you’ll have to look after yourselves. You found the rooms all right?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ Martha beamed. ‘You have such a beautiful home, and perhaps tomorrow we can see it properly, but now, girls, I think it’s time we took ourselves out of Signor Cavalleri’s way.’

The dog lifted its head mournfully as Angelica and Fenella got up from the sofa and said their goodnights, but it didn’t move. Sarah eyed it warily as she looked down at Lottie, wondering how best to pick her up without waking her. In the warm glow of the firelight she was curled up tightly, her hands tucked neatly beneath one rosy cheek, like a child in an old-fashioned picture book.

She jumped as a low voice broke the silence. ‘So, you have a daughter.’

Her sudden indrawn breath made a little hiss in the quiet room. Lorenzo was standing on the other side of the sofa, watching her expressionlessly.

‘Yes.’ She wasn’t as good as he was at keeping the emotion from her voice, and the short word bristled with defensiveness.

This was the point at which most men would say something bright and howlingly insincere about how sweet Lottie was, how adorable, whilst mentally calculating the quickest method of exit, but Lorenzo Cavalleri simply nodded. His eyes never left hers. It was as if he was looking right inside her. Sarah felt her stomach tighten with reluctant excitement as heat zigzagged down to her pelvis. And then she remembered that she was wearing nothing but a wet shirt, and that she’d towel-dried her hair so vigorously that she was probably doing a very good impression of Neanderthal woman. Quickly she bent over Lottie, hoping he wouldn’t see that she was blushing.

‘I’ll help you get her to bed,’ Lorenzo said flatly, and she was aware of him moving round the sofa to where she stood.

‘No. It’s fine. I can manage.’

‘How did I know you were going to say that?’ he said, his voice laced with sardonic mockery. ‘Do you ever accept help?’

‘I’m used to doing things myself, that’s all,’ Sarah muttered, wondering how she was going to bend down enough to gather Lottie up without completely exposing herself. Again. She wasn’t sure if the fact he’d pretty much seen it all already made it worse or better. ‘Lottie’s father wasn’t exactly the hands-on type.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘In bed with his ice-blonde, beautiful fiancée, I imagine,’ she said bitterly.

Lorenzo nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

She gave a harsh gust of laughter. ‘I doubt it,’ she snapped, sitting down abruptly on the sofa beside Lottie, bending forward to gather her into her arms from there.