Count Valieri's Prisoner

chapter EIGHT



SHE COULD NOT even feel surprise. Just a trembling sense of the inevitable.

As he held her, she was aware of the scent of his warm clean skin, mingled with the musky fragrance of the cologne he used.

She felt something unfold inside her like the opening of a flower and began to struggle all the more, beating at his chest with clenched fists. But it was like trying to push over that damned mountain and his grip on her did not relax for an instant.

‘Let go of me.’ She gasped the words frantically. ‘Oh God, can’t you see? Are you blind or just crazy? There’s a wolf...’

‘There was,’ he said. ‘It has gone now.’ He turned her to look back down an empty street. ‘See?’

She saw. Realised also that she had escaped one predator only to fall back into the power of another, and that she had been living in a fool’s paradise during these past few hours to think she could really get free of him. That he would not find her.

The Count held her at arm’s length, surveying her frowningly. ‘Santa Madonna, what have you done to yourself?’

She could well ask him the same, she thought, dressed as she’d never seen him before in cord pants and long boots, and wearing what appeared to be a canvas jacket with an array of pockets over a dark shirt.

She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I had an accident. There was a snake hanging from a tree right in front of me, and I was terrified so I ran, and fell down a slope.’

He said tersely, ‘My sympathies are entirely with the snake. Have you injured yourself?’

‘Just my ankle.’ Trying to run had been stupid and the joint was throbbing badly now.

He said something under his breath, then reached for her, swinging her up into his arms and carrying her towards one of the crumbling houses.

She began to struggle again. ‘Put me down.’

‘Basta! Be still.’ It was an order not a request, and she subsided unwillingly against the strength of him.

As they neared the house, she saw that, unlike its neighbours, it had a door, even if it was no longer attached, but merely propped against an outside wall.

And as he carried her inside, she discovered it was furnished in a rudimentary manner with a table, two chairs, a sink served by a single tap, a fireplace and a decrepit stove. Also that, at the rear, an archway half-covered by a ragged curtain led to another room, equipped even more basically with a mattress on the floor.

She also noticed a large, serviceable backpack leaning against the wall, and next to it, a long case that quite clearly contained a gun.

He placed her on a chair and went down on one knee. ‘Let me see your ankle.’

She jerked her foot backwards, stifling an instinctive cry of pain. ‘Don’t touch me.’

He gave her a long icy look. ‘Attempting to escape was the act of a fool. Why compound your stupidity by refusing help that you clearly need?’

Oh, don’t let him guess the reason. Please—please don’t let him guess...

For a moment, she was silent, then she nodded as if defeated, and sat back, hurriedly dragging her torn skirt together over her bare thigh as he removed her shoes. He examined the blisters on her toes and heels, his mouth compressed into a hard line.

When he touched her ankle, his fingers were firm but gentle.

‘There is no fracture,’ he diagnosed eventually.

‘I could have told you that,’ she muttered, aware that her skin was tingling at his touch. Despising herself...

‘Just a slight sprain,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘It needs ice, but Giacomo has no freezer, so we must use what is available.’

‘I didn’t know you had medical training,’ she said. ‘In addition to all your other talents.’

‘I don’t,’ he returned brusquely. ‘Instead I have common sense. Permit me to recommend it.’

He looked her over again, frowning as she shivered suddenly, then stood up and went over to the fireplace, taking a box of matches from one of his jacket pockets and lighting the small pile of kindling in the hearth. Once it had caught, he added more wood from a sagging cardboard box, picked up a pot like a witch’s cauldron and filled it at the sink before hanging it from a hook over the flames.

Then he went into the adjoining room, returning with a tin hip bath which he set in front of the fire.

Maddie drew a sharp breath. ‘You have to be joking.’ Her voice wobbled.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Some of those scratches need attention, and must be cleaned first. But do not distress yourself,’ he added with a faint curl of the lip. ‘I shall not insist on witnessing the process.’

He opened a rickety cupboard under the sink, and produced some stubs of candles in chipped pottery holders, making her realise how quickly the light was fading

‘Does this Giacomo actually live here?’ she asked as he set the candles on the table, and lit them. ‘He must find it lonely.’

He shrugged. ‘He is a shepherd. He is accustomed to his own company, and he finds this place useful when he has sheep or goats to move.’

‘And he doesn’t mind visitors?’

‘In this region, we help each other.’ He looked at her with the first glimmer of a smile. ‘It was Giacomo who told me he had seen you today and where he believed you were heading. Later Aldo, who was out looking for wild boar with his son, confirmed what he had said, and I came to find you.’

Maddie gasped. ‘You mean I was being watched? All the time?’

‘You think a blonde with hair like sunlight would not attract attention?’ he countered, adding drily, ‘The description is theirs, not mine. Besides, they were concerned for you. This is no country for someone without proper clothing or footwear.’

She bit her lip. ‘Or anything to drink.’ The admission cost her. ‘I’m so thirsty.’

‘Dio mio.’ He cast a despairing glance at what was left of the roof before going to his backpack and producing a bottle of still water and a tin cup. ‘Drink it slowly,’ he cautioned as he filled the cup and gave it to her.

She sipped. ‘But how did they let you know they’d seen me?’ She added with constraint. ‘After all, you were away.’ In Viareggio. With your mistress. Something that shouldn’t matter because I’m in love with Jeremy—engaged to him—soon to be married. And I can’t let myself forget that even for a second.

And gulped some more water.

‘I returned just as it was realised you were missing,’ he said. ‘And Giacomo and Aldo contacted me by radio.’

‘Radio?’ she repeated. ‘Up here?’

‘Sì.’ He nodded. ‘Hunting parties use them all the time to communicate with each other. The latest have a range of over ten kilometres.’

‘How efficient of them,’ Maddie said bitterly.

‘It is for the best,’ he said, shrugging again. ‘You would not have wished to spend the night alone up here, even in surroundings as comfortable as this,’ he added drily. ‘What would you have done, per esempio, if you had found you were sharing your accommodation with a scorpion?’

She put the cup down. ‘Is there one?’ Her voice was hollow.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But they often come in at night.’

‘Scorpions,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Wolves. Snakes. It’s a jungle out there.’

‘It was probably a rat-snake if it was hanging from a tree.’ He sounded infuriatingly casual. ‘They are not particularly venomous, and prefer to crush their prey.’

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘How fascinating. I only wish it had explained that to me before I ended up at the bottom of a hill.’

She paused. ‘And how did you manage to get here before I did? You certainly didn’t pass me on the way.’ Otherwise, somehow, I would have known, she thought and controlled another shiver.

‘There is another road,’ he told her. ‘Camillo left me there at the crossroads, and I walked across country to wait for you.’

‘You mean the car’s not far away?’ She closed her eyes. ‘Thank heaven for that.’

‘You are so anxious to return to your jail?’ He was pouring water again, this time into the bath using a jug from the sink cupboard, before adding the contents of the cauldron.

‘On the contrary.’ Her denial was instant, her tone defiant. ‘But at least it’s better than this.’

‘I am glad Giacomo cannot hear you insult his hospitality.’ He indicated the tub. ‘Your bath awaits, signorina. I regret there is no soap or any towel. You will have to dry yourself on what you are wearing.’

She flushed. ‘But that’s impossible. It—it’s all I have.’ As he knew perfectly well.

He took off his coat, hanging it on the back of the other chair, then began to unbutton the charcoal grey shirt he wore beneath it.

She said hoarsely, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Calm yourself. I am not planning to join you in the bath.’ He stripped off the shirt and tossed it to her. ‘Wear this when you have washed.’

His skin was bronze, the sculpting of bone and muscle strong yet, at the same time, intrinsically elegant. His chest was shadowed with hair which arrowed down into the waistband of his pants.

Unlike Jeremy, whose skin was smooth and paler in spite of assiduous tanning. And whose shoulders were less broad. Less powerful...

She looked away hastily, dry-mouthed.

‘I—I couldn’t possibly...’

‘Don’t be foolish.’ The amber eyes swept her. Lingered ironically. ‘You will certainly find it more modest than what you are wearing now.’

Her face burned as she watched him walk to his backpack, produce a thin wool sweater with a roll-neck and pull it over his head.

Finally, he took out a small jar and placed it on the table. ‘Antiseptic cream,’ he said, and disappeared into the street.

Swallowing, Maddie shed the overall, and stepped into the bath. It was one of the strangest she’d ever taken, but, whatever her misgivings, it felt warm and infinitely soothing as she sat, knees to chin, carefully washing away the smears of earth, before standing up and letting the water pour in small, blissful rivulets from her cupped hands down her aching body.

She kept a careful eye on the doorway, but there was not so much as a shadow to disturb her.

When she had finished, she turned the overall inside out and patted herself dry with the cleanest part. She applied the cream to the worst of her grazes, then, slowly and reluctantly, she picked up his shirt and put it on.

The scent of him lingered quietly in its folds, as potent as when he’d held her in his arms, making her fingers clumsy as she struggled with the buttons, fastening them from throat to hem.

He was right, she conceded unwillingly when she’d finished. Its covering was more than adequate—longer in fact than some of the dresses she’d worn recently in England. The sleeves hung over her hands, and she rolled them back to her elbows.

Then, taking a deep breath, she called, ‘I’ve finished.’

But the immediate response she’d expected did not come. The doorway was filled only with the gathering darkness. Wincing, she ran to the door, peering out.

Calling, ‘Andrea,’ her voice high and urgent.

And saw his tall figure taking solid, reassuring shape among the clustering shadows as he approached.

‘Is something wrong?’ he enquired as he came up to her. ‘Another snake, perhaps?’

‘No.’ She felt foolish. Angry too that she’d betrayed her vulnerability yet again. ‘I didn’t know where you were.’

‘I took a walk,’ he said, adding drily, ‘As I am not a saint, I decided to remove myself from temptation.’

She knew she was blushing again, and was glad of the darkness.

She hunched a defensive shoulder. ‘I—I thought the wolf might have returned. And you didn’t take the gun.’

‘Because there is no need,’ he said calmly. ‘You are quite safe.’ He put a hand gently on her shoulder, turning her back into the room. The warmth of his touch seemed to penetrate every bone in her body. ‘Now, if you sit, I will attend to your blisters.’

She sat, hands folded in her lap, waiting while he carried the bath outside to empty it, before returning to the backpack and taking out a roll of bandage and a small tube.

‘This is a gel,’ he told her. ‘It acts as an artificial skin.’

‘Will it hurt?’ My God, she thought. She sounded about five years old.

‘A little,’ he said. ‘But it will help.’ He added drily, ‘I hope you heal quickly, mia bella. When I promised to return you undamaged, I had not bargained for how reckless you might be.’

Return you...

She said quickly, ‘Is there news from London? Am I going home?’

‘They have made no reply of any kind.’ He was deft with the gel, but it stung all the same, giving her an excuse for the sudden tears welling up in her eyes.

She said huskily, ‘And if they never answer, what will happen then?’

‘You need not consider that,’ he said. ‘They will respond eventually, I promise.’ He put the cap back on the tube. ‘You will have to be patient, Maddalena.’ He paused. ‘And take no more stupid risks,’ he added as he began to strap up her ankle swiftly and efficiently.

‘Oh, that’s so easy for you to say.’ She wiped away an errant tear with an angry fist.

There was a silence, then he said quietly, ‘You will feel better, mia cara, when you have had some food.’

She rose. ‘Then please take me back to the house. I’d prefer to eat in my cell—alone.’

‘You will be very hungry by tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We will eat now.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated, her voice rising. ‘Tomorrow? You don’t mean that. You can’t imagine I’d spend the night here.’ She didn’t add, ‘With you.’ She didn’t have to.

She saw his face harden. ‘Purtroppo, I fear that neither of us has any choice in the matter.’

‘But Camillo brought you by car. You said so.’

‘And I sent him back.’

‘No.’ Maddie’s stomach was churning. ‘No, I don’t believe it. Why would you do that?’

‘Because the road here, like the village, has been abandoned, and is dangerous. I would not ask Camillo to take such a risk in fading light.

‘So he will come for us in the jeep tomorrow.’

He added bleakly, ‘And you, Maddalena, must live with the consequences of your own foolishness.’

She sank back on to the chair. ‘What’s so foolish about wanting to be free?’ she asked bitterly. ‘To be back with the man I love?’

His voice was equally harsh. ‘Nothing. But for the moment, there is only soup, bread and sausage. You may eat or go hungry as you wish.’

She sat, arms folded defensively round her body, watching his preparations. He added more wood to the fire, refilled the cauldron, coaxed the rusty stove to light, poured soup from a jar into a metal pan produced from his pack and set it to heat.

While it was doing so, he unrolled what she now saw was a sleeping bag attached to his pack, and took it into the other room. Maddie noticed uneasily that he was unzipping it completely and arranging it across the bare mattress as a coverlet. Turning it into a double bed.

She stiffened, feeling her heartbeat quicken. Oh God, no, not that...

Then she smelt the wonderful aroma coming from the stove, and her mouth began to water, rendering other considerations secondary, even if only on a temporary basis.

He shared the soup, thick with chicken, herbs and vegetables, between two tin basins, and brought it to the table with wooden spoons that had clearly been hand-carved, and a platter of bread and sausage cut into chunks with his hunting knife.

In spite of her apprehensions, Maddie ate every scrap put in front of her, and even managed a constricted ‘Grazie, signore,’ when she had finished.

‘Prego,’ he returned laconically. ‘And earlier you called me by my given name.’

So, he had noticed after all, she thought, vexed with herself.

She said shortly, ‘A slip of the tongue. I was—nervous.’

‘Che peccato,’ he said lightly. ‘My hopes are dashed once again.’

She kept her voice cool. ‘Given the situation, you can’t be hoping for very much.’

‘No? But every man is allowed, surely, to dream.’

Instinct warned her that Andrea Valieri’s dreams should remain strictly a no-go area.

She shrugged. ‘Yes, if he has time to waste.’

‘Yet don’t you dream, mia bella, of the day, the hour, the minute when you will become a bride? And do you consider that a waste?’

Did she still dream, she wondered, startled, or had it all become swallowed up by swathes of fabric, floral decorations and place cards? Subsumed by the ongoing battle with Esme over every detail?

She couldn’t be sure any more. Only certain that she wanted this conversation to stop.

Back at the House of the Wolf, she would have made some excuse and gone to her room. Here she did not have that luxury, and she was acutely conscious the only thing waiting for her was that mattress and its makeshift quilt. Which might well be waiting for him too.

She pulled herself firmly together. ‘But my dream is coming true, signore. That makes a difference.’ She paused. ‘How is Jolanda’s hand? Did it need stitches?’

‘How good of you to ask,’ he said mockingly, letting her know that the abrupt change of direction had been duly noted. ‘It has already been attended to at the nearest clinic.’ He added softly, ‘A little drama, of which you took full advantage, mia cara.’

‘Perhaps, but I can still be concerned. And I hope Luisa won’t get into trouble for forgetting to lock me in.’

‘She has been reprimanded.’ He added grimly, ‘And Domenica too will have something to say when she returns.’

‘No surprise there,’ Maddie said crisply. ‘Does she really have to be so obnoxious?’

‘She has another side. She is, per esempio, devoted to my mother.’

That startled her. ‘Your mother’s still alive?’

His smile, tender, affectionate, lit his entire face. Suddenly he was someone she had never seen before but wanted very badly to know, she realised, as her heart turned over.

He said, ‘Very much so, I assure you.’

Oh,’ she said. ‘I—I just assumed...’

‘Of course,’ he said ironically ‘Because to ask about my family, and use my given name would be to treat me as a human being, and it is easier to think of me as a monster.’

She looked down at the table. ‘Hardly that. In spite of everything, you’ve been—kind tonight.’

‘You are important to my strategy, mia cara.’ His response was brusque again. ‘Percio, I cannot afford to let you go. Matters have gone too far for that.’

Too far, she thought, hazily as the candle flame seemed to swim in front of her eyes. But no further. She realised she was going to yawn, and tried to stifle it behind her hand, but, of course, he noticed.

‘You have had a trying day, Maddalena. It is time you went to bed.’ His voice was expressionless. ‘I regret the other facilities are only a hut outside the back door, but I have a torch.’

She said too quickly, ‘I’ll be fine right here.’

The dark brows lifted. ‘Tired almost to death, mia bella, yet still fighting me? Tuttavia, I must insist. The mattress can easily accommodate us both, and I prefer to keep you beside me. I am sure you understand why.’

She said, stumbling a little, ‘If I promise not to run away again, will you sleep out here?’

‘No,’ he said, adding with faint grimness, ‘because, thanks to you, I too have had a wearing day, so you are in no position to make terms.’

Maddie got to her feet. ‘But you said—you told me that you wouldn’t do this. You promised.’ She drew a swift sharp breath. ‘I should have known I couldn’t trust you—you bastard.’

‘I said I would not take you against your will,’ he corrected her. ‘And I am in no mood to test your resolve tonight. I desire sleep, not pleasure.’

Her voice shook. ‘You are—vile.’

‘And you, mia carissima, are a painful and persistent thorn in my flesh,’ he said harshly. ‘Which I pray to God I shall soon be rid of.’

‘Amen to that,’ she shot back at him.

For a moment they glared at each other across the table, then suddenly and unexpectedly he burst out laughing.

‘Now we have said our prayers, Maddalena, we can indeed go to bed.’

He paused. ‘Can you walk, or shall I carry you?’

The question hung in the air between them for what seemed an eternity. Her mind was suddenly empty of everything but memories—the strength of his arms—the scent of his skin. His smile...

So much that was best forgotten. That should never have existed in the first place. That she should have fought from the start with every atom of strength she possessed before it took her unawares. Turned her world—her certainties to chaos.

She said huskily, ‘I—I can manage.’

‘Then do so.’ His tone was briskly impersonal. He went to his pack and retrieved the torch which he handed to her. ‘I will clear up here and wash before I join you.’

She nodded wordlessly and made her way carefully into the other room. Thanks to the strapping, her ankle was not aching nearly as much, she thought as she braved the few feet of darkness beyond the narrow back door.

As he’d said, it was just a hut, and primitive was a compliment. Also she was unnerved by the rustlings and scratchings she heard all around her, which the wavering torchlight did not dispel.

She was almost glad to be back inside the house. The mattress was old and smelt of straw, but it was marginally better than the floor. She put the torch down beside her and lay for a moment, looking up at the stars which were plainly visible through the holes in the roof, trying to control her inner trembling. Waiting.

The candles in the outer room were extinguished, signalling his approach, and she turned hurriedly on to her side, seeking the furthest edge of the mattress, and digging her fingers into its sagging contours to avoid rolling off.

Her eyes were closed so tightly that coloured lights danced behind her lids, but she was fiercely aware of him just the same. Every sense telling her that he had come round to her side of the mattress. That he was standing above her, looking down at her. Oh God, bending towards her...

His voice was soft, its tone sardonic. ‘I will take charge of the torch, mia bella. It occurs to me it is a heavy one and I have no wish to wake with a fractured skull. So now you may stop pretending and sleep well.’ He paused. ‘E sogni d’oro.’

He moved away, and she felt the mattress dip under his weight. In spite of his assurances, she was rigid with tension, waiting for him to reach for her. But his only movement was to turn on his own side away from her, and a short while later, his deep, regular breathing told her that he at least had fallen asleep.

Slowly, gradually, she relaxed her grip on the mattress. She pillowed her head on her arm, breathing him again, as his shirt sleeve brushed her face, absorbing the male scent of him with a sudden, passionate hunger, which she could no longer dismiss or even deny.

The shame of it was corrosive. She’d known him only a matter of days, during which he’d been her jailer—her enemy. Anger and fear should have kept her safe. So why had nothing protected her from this strange turmoil of confused emotion?

I told myself I just wanted my freedom, she thought, her throat tightening. To get back to England, whatever the cost.

But it was never that simple. Because what I’ve really been doing is running away from myself. And from him.

And now there is nowhere left to go.