A Royal Wedding

chapter FOUR



SHE heard his growl of frustration as he swung away, leaving her with only heated air scented by his musky scent and wondering shakily why she was trying to bait him, what she was trying to achieve. What was happening to her?

‘Do you want to see these papers or not?’ he said, already heading deeper into the secret cellar, and she thanked her lucky stars that one of them was thinking straight. For what had she been thinking? That he was going to kiss her? A man she’d met barely an hour ago? A man who had made it plain she was not welcome here, who had objected to her presence and then set out to make her uncomfortable in his?

Difficult? The description didn’t come close. The sooner she was finished with her assessment and away from the Isola de Volta, and its scarred Count, the better.

Tentatively she followed him into a smaller cavern, the doorway rammed firm with beams the size of tree trunks. The room was sparsely furnished, with an old table and two chairs. There was a well-thumbed pack of cards in one corner, and what looked like a bunch of old ledgers on a shelf nearby.

‘Over there,’ he said, indicating towards the shelf. ‘Do you see it?’

Her hopes took a dive. Surely she hadn’t been brought all the way out here—surely she wasn’t being subjected to all this—for a bunch of mouldy old records? But then to one side she saw something else—what looked like some kind of cleft in the rock-face, almost invisible except for the shadow cast by the torch he’d shoved into a ring set into the wall. Intrigued, she took a step closer. Could that be what he meant?

He was already there—impatient to be rid of her, she guessed—his hand seemingly disappearing into the rock-face before it re-emerged, this time holding a flat parcel.

In the flicker and spit of torchlight she held her breath, excitement fizzing in her veins as he brought the package to the table, depositing it more gently there than she could imagine someone his size doing anything. And then he stood abruptly. ‘This is what you want so desperately to see?’

He was angry with her, but right now his bad mood rolled off her. Her eyes, her senses, her full attention were all focused on the parcel on the table. She licked her lips, her mouth dry with anticipation, her eyes assessing. A quick estimation told her the size was about right for something containing the long-lost pages, but that didn’t mean this was it.

She took a step closer, and then another, the man beside the table and his disturbing presence all but forgotten now as her eyes drank in the details of the worn pouch that looked as if it was made from some kind of animal skin, of the rough clasp that had been fashioned to keep the parcel together.

A pin of ivory, she guessed, stained yellow by the passage of time.

‘May I?’ she said, with no more than a glance in his direction, unwilling to take her eyes from this precious discovery for more than a second lest it disappear in a puff of smoke. She should wait until they’d brought the package back to the castle and she had the right lighting and the right conditions. She should wait until she had her tools by her side.

She should wait.

Except that she couldn’t.

Adrenaline coursed through her. She had to look. She had to see. So she slipped her arms from her backpack and pulled a new pair of gloves from the pocket where she kept them and drew them on, fingers almost shaking with excitement. Calm down. She heard the Professor’s voice in her head, heeded it, and willed herself to slow down. To breathe.

She knew what she was looking for. She’d studied what little remained of the Salus Totus. She knew the language and the artwork. She knew what inks the artists had used and how they’d been sourced, and she knew what animal’s skin had gone to make the parchment. And nothing on this earth—nothing—was more important to her than the thrill of seeing what could be those missing pages and seeing them now.

With gloved hands she gently prised the clasp open and pulled back the leather wrapping, folded like an envelope around the treasure within.

A blank page met her hungry eyes, but the bubble of disappointment was happily pricked in the knowledge that, whatever their purpose, whoever had taken these pages had realised they needed some form of protection.

She took a steadying breath. A big one. Gingerly, she lifted the cover sheet and moved it to one side.

And what little breath she had left was knocked clear out of her lungs.

Colour leapt from the page—vivid reds, intense blues, yellows that ranged from freshly picked corn to burnished gold. And even in the flicker of torchlight the quill strokes of another age stood out clear and bold, the Latin text as fresh as the day it had been written, although it was clear the parchment itself was old, despite being in amazing condition.

Her eyes drank in the details. The similarities to the remnants of the Salus Totus were unmistakable. And tears sprang to her eyes. Whether authentic or a cleverly crafted fraud, it was a thing of beauty.

‘Well? Do you think it’s what you’re looking for?’

She jumped and swiped at her eyes, suddenly embarrassed at the unexpected display of emotion. She’d been so absorbed she’d forgotten completely there was anyone else present.

And the last thing she wanted was for this man to see her shed tears. So she turned away and delved through her backpack again, pulling out one of the acid-free boxes she’d packed, thankful for the excuse to have something to do so that she didn’t have to look at him.

‘I don’t know. I have to get it back to the castle. Do you have somewhere I can use as a study?’ Reluctantly she replaced the protective cover over the page and refolded the bundle before slipping it into the slim box. She had to get it back before she was tempted to look at the next page, and then the next. She could prove nothing down here but her insatiable curiosity.

When finally she did look up, wondering why he hadn’t responded, his features looked strained, a flicker of inner torment paining his eyes. But then he merely nodded and said through gritted teeth, ‘I’ll take you there now.’

He said nothing as he led the way back to the castle along the twisted passages and for that she was grateful. Her blood was alive and sparking with possibilities. Her mind was already processing the little she’d seen and working through the steps she’d take once she got the package back somewhere with decent lighting and her tools.

And as for her other senses? They seemed one hundred percent preoccupied with the Count. That damned evocative scent teased her at every turn, the fluid movement of his limbs was like a magnet for her eyes, and then there was his shadow, looming menacingly against the wall …

She swallowed. He was so big he dwarfed her. He was powerful and dangerous and he was angry, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want her here. He should frighten her. That would make sense. But instead she felt something no less primal and every bit more confusing.

Because he excited her on a level so deep she’d never known it existed. He caused a quickening of her heart and an ache in her breasts and made her wonder what he’d have tasted like if he’d kissed her back there …

Madness, she decided. He’d done the right thing in turning away. She didn’t want to kiss him. She was here to do a job. She didn’t need the complications.

Yet still she wondered …

Soon they were back in the castle, past the stone door and making their way up the winding stairs. There was space here, and light, though gloomy and thin. The sound of the wind was growing louder. She wondered if things might be different now they were above ground, not so strained and tense between them. And then a shutter banged somewhere and curtains fluttered on unseen draughts.

‘A storm is building,’ he told her over his shoulder. Unnecessarily, she thought. Given the setting and her dark companion, she would have been more surprised if a storm wasn’t building.

Then he did surprise her, by showing her into the room that was to be her office. It was remarkably well thought out. No external windows to let in draughts or damp. A large desk to spread her things out with lamps for extra lighting. A heater in one corner. A dehumidifier in another. She circled the room, stopped before the desk and nodded her appreciation as she took it all in.

‘Did the Professor give you a shopping list?’

She turned and took a step back and gasped, so surprised to find him within a metre of her that she took another involuntary step backwards against the desk, one hand reaching down to steady her, the other over her pounding heart, willing it to slow. So much for his impact being less intense above the ground. An aura surrounded him, a mantle of power and presence, and a scent that wove its way into her senses like a drug. So how exactly was she supposed to calm her racing heart?

His eyes glinted, his lips curving into the slightest smile, as if he was relishing her reaction. ‘You really think I would take chances with something potentially so precious?’ He nodded knowingly before she could reply. ‘But of course, you do. You thought I was irresponsible to leave it in the caves, didn’t you? In the place that had harboured it safely for perhaps hundreds of years.’

She licked her lips, regretting the gesture immediately when his scent turned to taste on her lips. Regretting it more when she saw his eyes follow the sweep of her tongue.

‘I’ll admit it,’ she said, trying to get a foothold on the conversation and justify her position. Because she had thought exactly that. Until she’d felt the air down there and realised it was probably the reason why the pages were in such good condition. ‘It did seem a trifle reckless, at least—’

‘Reckless? ‘ he repeated, jumping on the word, his eyes gleaming, refusing to let hers go. ‘I take it you’re not a fan of being reckless, Ms Hunter?’

‘No, but—’

‘But you make exceptions?’

‘No! That wasn’t what I was going to say at all.’

His eyes gleamed, searching hers with a heated intensity that left her breathless, until with a blink they cooled and flicked towards his wristwatch and then at the door, as if he had somewhere he had to be. ‘No. You really don’t seem the type. And now I shall leave you. Anything else you need, Bruno will see to it for you.’

Right now she could uncharacteristically do with a stiff drink, though she’d quite happily settle for tea. She was still strangely stinging from that ‘you really don’t seem the type’, and she wasn’t even sure why. She’d never been reckless in her entire life. She’d been too driven, so focused on what she wanted that even her friends at university had affectionately labelled her a nerd.

‘How will I find Bruno?’ she asked, surprising herself with how calm she sounded now that he’d eased away and given her space. ‘If I need him?’

‘Bruno will find you. He has a way of anticipating one’s needs.’

A psychic henchman? But of course a count would need one of those, along with his secret tunnels and his crumbling castle. It was just what she needed to improve her mood. ‘Excellent,’ she rejoined, with exaggerated enthusiasm and a smile designed to get right under his skin. ‘Then it appears I’m all set. I’d better get to work.’

And with a glower and a nod he was gone and she could breathe again.

She slumped into the nearest chair. The pages, she thought, her fingers pressed to her temples. Think about the pages and all they mean to you. And she would, she promised herself, just as soon as she’d caught her breath. Being with the Count was like being caught in a whirlwind and spun in circles until she was spat out again, dizzy and confused.

Difficult? The man was turning out to be her worst nightmare.

A sharp rap on the door and she jumped, instantly alert, but it was only Bruno, bearing a tray.

‘Something to eat,’ he grunted, placing the tray on a side table.

Grace blinked and caught a whiff of something warm and savoury. Frittata, she realised as she approached, feeling suddenly hungry and remembering she hadn’t eaten for hours. And, if she was not mistaken, a pot of tea. She lifted the lid and took a sniff. English breakfast. Maybe he really was psychic. ‘How did you know I’d prefer tea to coffee?’

He shrugged. ‘You’re inglese, no?’

‘Australian,’ she corrected. And he shrugged again, as if it were the same thing, and disappeared.

Lucky guess, she figured, and poured herself a cup, enthusiasm once again building inside her. A quick meal and she could get to work. Strange, though, given how excited she’d been at getting this opportunity, that something could distract her to such an extent that at times she almost forgot the book completely.

Well, not something—someone. And maybe he was difficult and dangerous and tortured and gave her heated glances that made her squirm—still, it wasn’t like her at all.

He paced his office, walking past windows rattling with the wind and splattered with raindrops from the first of the coming squalls. Clouds obliterated what was left of the sun until day turned almost to night.

He paced the room uncaring. He saw nothing but the expression on her face when she’d turned that cursed page. It had been bad enough when she’d thought they were close. She’d looked so alive with hope and anticipation. He hadn’t thought it could get any worse, that she could look any more alive than she had in that moment.

And then she’d turned that cover page and her eyes had widened, her face had lit up and her whole body had damned near ignited.

He’d damned near combusted watching her. He’d been rock-hard with need and so hot it was a wonder he hadn’t turned to a column of ash right there and then. And all he’d been able to wonder since then was if that was the way she looked when she was looking at some piece of ancient parchment, how good might she look when she came apart in his arms?

He wanted to find out.

He burned to find out.

What was wrong with him? She was a scientist, with scraped-back hair and a passion for ancient relics, and he was lusting after her? Damn! What on earth had possessed him to let her stay?

Alessandro threw himself into his chair and then spun straight out of it, reaching for his phone. God, he didn’t need this!

Bruno answered on the second ring.

‘Fetch the woman from the village,’ he growled.

There was hesitation at the end of the phone and he could almost hear Bruno’s mind working out that it was not quite a month since her last visit. But instead he said, ‘The boat will not come with the storm brewing.’

‘Offer them double,’ he ordered, and hung up.

Five minutes later Bruno called back. ‘The captain says it’s too rough. He will bring her tomorrow.’

‘I don’t want her tomorrow!’ This time he slammed the phone down, turning his gaze out through the windows to where the waves were wearing white caps from which the wind whipped spray metres into the air. And then rain lashed the windows until they were running like a river and the sea beyond blurred to grey.

Curse the damned weather! How dared it confound him when he needed a woman?

But there was already a woman on the island.

He wheeled away, trying hard to lose that thought. He could see her even now, poring over her precious pages as if they were the Holy Grail. In that moment he’d seen inside her. He’d seen beyond the scientist who made out she had no desires. He’d seen the woman beneath—a woman born for passion.

And she was waiting for you to kiss her.

He strode down the passageway, raking hands through his hair, not knowing where he was going, refusing to give credence to the sly voice in his head that refused to shut up.

She baited you.

She didn’t know what she was asking.

She wants you.

No. No. And no! She did not want him. She was a fool. She had no idea.

But you want her …

He found himself outside her room, the sliver of light under the door telling him she was still working, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

Would she welcome his visit?

Would she welcome being spread over that wide desk, scattering her precious papers, while he buried himself in her depths? Would her eyes light up for him the way they had in the cave? Would her entire body shimmer with desire and explode with light?

Blood pounded in his ears. His fingers were on the doorknob.

Or would she close her eyes and turn away?

He could not bear it if she turned away.

Blackness, thick and viscous, oozed up from the depths. His fingers screwed into a ball as he forced it down.

Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she was different. She didn’t shy away from him. She didn’t recoil in horror. She treated him as if he was almost normal—as if his scars didn’t exist.

But you’re not normal, the dark voices said. You can never be normal again.

The blackness welled up like a rolling wave. What had he been thinking? Why was he doing this to himself?

He should have made her leave when he’d had the chance!

He pushed away from the door, forced his feet to walk, but he’d gone no more than a few paces when he heard the door open behind him.

‘Count Volta?’

He dragged in air, turned and nodded stiffly. ‘Dr Hunter.’

She had a hand on her chest, as if she’d been frightened of who or what she might find in the passageway. ‘I was just about to go to bed. I thought I heard a noise. Did you want something?’

God, yes.

‘No. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’ He didn’t want to think about Dr Hunter and bed. And then, because he should be interested, ‘How does your investigation progress?’

Her eyes lit up that way they did until he would swear they almost shimmered with excitement. ‘The pages are wonderful. Do you want to have a look before I put them away?’

On that same desk, when all he wanted was to spread her limbs and plunge into her slick depths and feel her incandescent exhilaration explode around him?

‘No! ‘ he said, so forcefully that she took a small step backwards and he had to suck in air to regain his composure. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he added more gently. ‘It’s getting late. Goodnight, Dr Hunter. Sleep well.’

He wouldn’t sleep, he knew, as he descended the wide stairs leading to the ground floor. Not now, not after seeing her again. Instead he would read in the library and listen to the storm continue to build outside. He would take comfort in the savagery of the elements and the pounding violence of the sea. He would be at one with its endless torment.

And perhaps in the morning he might have Bruno fetch the woman from the village after all. God knew, books weren’t going to cut it tonight. He would need something.

In the gloom of light he passed the doorway to the ballroom, a flash of lightning illuminating the empty space. Empty but for the grand piano sitting bereft in the far corner of the room.

He paused and gazed at the imprint the lightning had left behind and felt a pang for something long gone. Across the marble tiles, under the rumble of thunder, he approached the instrument like a one-time friend whose friendship had been soured by time. Cautiously. Mistrustfully.

Once he’d known her intimately. Known her highs and her lows and how to wring every piece of emotion from her. She’d been a thing of beauty when the world had been all about beauty.

Before life had soured and turned ugly.

Yet still she sat there, black and sleek, totally shameless. And even now she beckoned, luring him like the memories of a mistress he hadn’t quite finished with before they’d parted company.

And what surprised him more than anything was that he was tempted. He lifted the lid, ran his fingers along the keys, hit a solitary note that rang out in the empty ballroom and felt something twist inside him.

He could have put the lid down then. He could have walked away. But the way his fingers rested on the keys, familiar yet foreign, wouldn’t let him go. Outside the waves crashed; the thunder boomed until the windows rattled. Inside his fingers reacquainted themselves with the cool ivory. He let them find their own way. He let them remember. Let them give voice to his damaged heart.

She woke with a start, her breath coming fast, her heart thumping, not knowing what had woken her, just grateful to escape from her dreams. She reached over to snap on her bedside light but the switch just clicked uselessly from side to side. Great. The storm must have taken out the power again.

The wind howled past the windows, searching for a way in. The sea boomed below, the waves pounding at the very foundations of the island.

What had woken her? Maybe it had been nothing. Certainly nothing she could do anything about now. She settled back down, willing her breathing to calm, not sure if she wanted to head straight back into the heated confusion of her dreams. She ran her hands thought her hair. No way did she want to go back there.

Often when she was working on a piece she would dream of her work, her mind busy even in sleep, imagining the artists and scribes who had produced whatever artefact she was studying. Often her mind would work at solving the puzzles of who and what and why, even when those answers had been lost in time.

But not tonight. Tonight her dreams had been full of one man. A scarred count. Menacing and intense. Unwelcoming to the point of rudeness and beyond, and yet at the same time strangely magnetic. Strangely compelling.

He’d been watching her in her dream, she remembered with a shudder. Not just looking at her—she knew the difference—but watching her, his black-as-night eyes wild and filled with dark desires and untold heat. And even now she could remember the feel of that penetrating gaze caress her skin like the sizzling touch of a lover’s hand. Even now her skin goose-bumped and her breasts firmed and her nipples strained to peaks.

She shook her head, trying to clear the pictures from her mind; she punched her pillow as if that was the culprit, putting them there when she knew it probably had more to do with the storm. The lightning and thunder were messing with her brainwaves, she told herself. All that electrical energy was messing with the connections in her mind. It was madness to consider any other option. Madness.

She didn’t even like the man!

She was just snuggling back down into the pillow-soft comfort of her bed, determined to think about the pages and the translations she would commence, when she heard it—what sounded like a solitary note ringing out into the night. But the sound was whisked away by the howling wind before she could get make sense of it.

She’d almost forgotten about it when there came another, hanging mournful and lonely in the cold night air. She blinked in the inky darkness, her ears straining for sounds that had no place in the storm.

And then, in a brief lull in the wind, she heard what sounded like a chord this time, an achingly beautiful series of notes that seemed to echo the pain of the raging storm. Curious, she stretched out one hand, reaching for her watch, groping for the button to illuminate the display and groaning when she saw what time it was. Three-forty-five.

She had to be imagining things. Lightning flashed outside, turning her room to bright daylight for a moment before it plunged back into darkness. A boom of thunder followed, shaking the floor and windows and sending a burst of rain pelting against the windows.

She pulled back her arm and buried herself deeper under the thick eiderdown. She had to be dreaming. That or she really was going mad.