Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress Part 4

Striding ahead of her, Raphael had come to a halt outside the ruins of what had once been a pretty garden temple.

'Down here there is something I particularly want to discuss with you,' he told her, indicating a set of steps that led downwards to a heavy wooden door. 'But take care on the steps-they are damaged and slippery.'

Charley hesitated. She didn't like underground places-never had done since she had been accidentally locked in the vicarage's cellar as a child. But she knew she couldn't refuse without making a fool of herself and showing a vulnerability she did not want Raphael to see, so she followed Raphael down the stone steps, trying to control her reluctance and anxiety as he unlocked the door.

Just the sound of it creaking back on its hinges when Raphael pushed it open was enough to increase Charley's apprehension.

'Down here is the chamber containing the mechanism for the fountains. I've had someone looking at it, and it's still working, although the fountains and sprinklers themselves need repairing and restoring. Once they are in working order again they should prove a tremendous draw for visitors. One of the things I want to do-the only modernisation of the gardens I will permit-is the addition of lighting. The cabling for that will need to be put in at an early stage, and you will need to make arrangements for that.'

Charley nodded her head. He was quite right that specially designed lighting would enhance the garden.

'It is my intention that the money brought in via future visitors to the garden will go directly to the town, for the benefit of its people-especially the young people, to provide them with the opportunity to learn new skills. There is no industry here, no work for the young, and without them the town will eventually die.'

His altruistic plans surprised Charley. They seemed at odds with her own judgement of him-or was it just her he felt didn't deserve to earn a living?

Charley was just about to respond when she saw a small shadow flit past her out of the corner of her eye, followed by another.

'What...?' she began anxiously, but Raphael antic.i.p.ated her.

'It is nothing to worry about,' he told her casually. 'It is only bats. They have made a home here. If you come down here and look closely you can see them hanging up in the roof. We've obviously disturbed them.'

Look closely? Charley shook her head, and then whirled round as another bat flew past her, losing her balance on the crumbling stone as she did so.

Raphael must have moved quickly, because he had been several feet away from her when she had slipped and now he was holding her.

The bats were forgotten. All Charley could think about was her proximity to Raphael. Her heart was thudding into her ribs with a mixture of forbidden excitement and longing. She must not feel like this, she warned herself. She must not raise her head and look at him. She must not let her gaze rest yearningly on his mouth. She must not let her heart thud with antic.i.p.ation and longing whilst she looked up into his eyes, her own eyes telling him what she most wanted.

She must not, but she was.

This was not what he should be doing, Raphael knew, but his hard grip on Charley's upper arms still softened into a hold that was more a caress, the pads of his fingertips smoothing the soft leather against her skin. He could see the pulse beating frantically in her throat, inciting him to capture it with his lips and then trace his way up to her mouth. He'd already lifted his hand, preparatory to cupping her face so that he could hold her still beneath his kiss. What harm would one kiss do? At least then he would know.

Know what? That he wanted her? He didn't need to kiss her to discover that.

Raphael was going to kiss her! Charley leaned helplessly towards him, and then stopped when he released her abruptly, almost thrusting her away from him.

'I thought you said that your leg was fine,' he said angrily. 'If you are still having a problem with it you should have said so. The last thing I want is to have-'

'To carry me out of here?' Charley stopped him. She was shamefully close to tears, foolishly hurt by his anger and his lack of understanding. 'Well, you needn't worry. There's nothing wrong with my leg. The bats made me stumble, that's all.'

Carry her? The savage surge of physical reaction hardening his body at the thought of holding her in his arms increased Raphael's fury-not against Charley but against himself. He could feel it burning through him, beating at the defences of his self-control: anger against himself for not recognising that she might be in pain; anger against himself for wanting her; anger against the strictures placed upon him because of what and who he was, forbidding him from living as other men did. Anger, but not rage. Not that feeling he had sworn he would never allow to possess him ever again-that wall of savagery that had once risen up inside him, sweeping over him like a red mist, obliterating reason and humanity, possessing him with its violence, forcing him to accept the cursed reality of what he had inherited, the reality of what he was.

That feeling, experienced once and never forgotten by him, was his dark shadow-always with him, always reminding him, a warning of what might lie ahead of him in his future if it wasn't controlled. And who could say that it always would be? Who could say that it wouldn't grow and take over like some progressive disease? Like the form of madness that it was? So that he ended up not only risking pa.s.sing on his own tainted inheritance to a future generation but also, in the grip of his own madness, destroying those he should most protect.

Images he had kept locked away burst past the doors he had closed against them. His mother's pretty sitting room, its air carrying her scent, the sunlight falling on the pet.i.t point that was her favourite hobby laid down on a small table, the chair on which she always sat whilst doing it beside the table.

Like a film inside his head Raphael could see himself reaching for that chair in a fit of anger-of madness-and then hurling it against the marble fireplace with such force that it had lain broken and splintered, its red silk seat covering resembling a pool of blood against the white marble.

No! The denial, silent and agonising, was wrung from deep inside of him, but Raphael knew that no amount of regret could take back what he had done in the savagery of his rage against his mother-the person who had loved him so very much and who had least deserved that rage. For the rest of his life he must be on his guard against that rage-against that madness ever possessing him again-and that meant controlling his emotions, not allowing himself to get close emotionally to anyone-for their own sake and protection.

CHAPTER SIX.

IT WAS no use. She could mentally castigate herself as much as she liked for being too vulnerable to her emotions when she should have been listening to her head. Raphael was not someone she could afford to let her guard down around, Charley warned herself as she paused in front of the portraits of Raphael's parents-painted just after their marriage, so Anna had told her when she had asked about them.

She looked up at the portrait of Raphael's mother, dark-haired like her son, and dark-eyed like the husband whose portrait she was turning towards. What had struck Charley the first time she had seen the portraits was the s.h.i.+ning happiness in Raphael's mother's eyes as she looked towards her husband, and the tenderness with which he looked back at her.

They had been very much in love, Anna had told her, the young d.u.c.h.ess having fallen in love with the twenty-two-year-old Duke at her own fourteenth birthday party, swearing that she would marry no one else. Witnessing now that look of s.h.i.+ning love, and knowing of the grief that had driven her to take her own life after her husband's death, touched Charley's own emotions. Poor lady. And poor Raphael too? After all, he had lost his parents as she had lost hers, and at a much younger and more vulnerable age. She shrugged the thought away. She did not want to feel sorry for Raphael. She did not want to feel anything for him at all. Charley's heart started to beat unsteadily as she tried to deny what her body was telling her-that it was already too late for her to tell herself that.

She had spent the morning exchanging e-mails with the contractors who were to clear the site. It had taken some hard bargaining on her part to secure their agreement to do the extra work in the timescale Raphael had stipulated, and at a cost that was not excessive. She had also sourced three contenders for the lighting Raphael wanted installed, sending them copies of the original plans and asking for their suggestions for effective lighting and projected costs.

Raphael had sent for her, and no doubt he would want to know exactly how much progress she had made. Apprehensively and reluctantly, Charley knocked on the door to Raphael's office and then pushed it open.

'You wanted to see me?'

'Yes,' Raphael confirmed. 'I've been in touch with someone I know in Florence-a member of a committee responsible for the maintenance of some of the city's most historic buildings. He has supplied me with the contact details for both a landscape architect and the head of Florence's most prestigious academy for craftsmen. Men and women who study there learn the skills of traditional arts. My contact tells me that this is where we will find the very best sculptors to recreate the garden's ornaments. First, though, we shall need to convince Niccolo Volpari, who runs the school, that our project is worthy of his students.'

'That sounds excellent. If you give me his e-mail address I'll get in touch with him and arrange for him to come out and see the garden.'

Raphael shook his head.

'This is a very important and a very busy man. We will have to go to Florence to see him, not the other way around. The decision as to whether or not he will accept us onto his list of clients will be his and not ours,' he repeated. 'It is from the academy that the city of Florence finds sculptors and painters, gilders and carvers, stonemasons and master builders when any restoration work needs to be undertaken. It is Niccolo's teachers who will examine what is left of the garden's ornaments and then recommend the pupil who will replicate the damaged pieces.'

Raphael got up from behind his desk and walked towards the window. Charley watched him, her glance clinging to the broad span of his shoulders and the way his body tapered down to his hips. His s.h.i.+rt, which was no doubt handmade and expensive, somehow delineated the male shape of his body without in any way clinging to it as her avid gaze was doing. Why was it that Italian men, or at least this Italian man, seemed able to wear a pair of chinos in a way that focused female attention on the powerful muscles in his thighs? The way his muscles moved when he moved filled her female mind with mental images of hard-muscled flesh, and the power it contained, its maleness emphasised by the dark silkiness of body hair.

Charley dragged her gaze away, panicking when it wanted to linger, as she heard Raphael speaking.

'Niccolo Volpari is insisting on seeing both of us. He is known for his eccentricity, apparently, where the projects he takes on are concerned, and I am told by those with whom he works that it would not do to refuse.'

And he had wanted to refuse, Raphael acknowledged-all the more so when he had discovered that members of a convention of Michelangelo admirers from all over the world were currently filling virtually every hotel bedroom in Florence.

'Unfortunately the only time he can see us is for dinner tomorrow evening, which means that we shall have to stay in Florence overnight-Italians do not eat until late in the evening.'

Unfortunately? Charley couldn't think of anything she'd rather do than have the chance to spend time in Florence. She might even be able to s.n.a.t.c.h enough time to visit its famous market and buy herself an inexpensive change of clothes to supplement the jeans and jacket Raphael had given her and her two tee s.h.i.+rts.

'We shall stay overnight in my Florence apartment.'

Now her excitement had become a complex mix of emotions, some of which were far too dangerous for her to want to question.

'We will leave first thing tomorrow morning. I warn you that my contact tells me that Niccolo Volpari does not suffer fools gladly, and he will have many questions he wants to ask, many tests the project will have to pa.s.s before he is satisfied and prepared to recommend that his artistes work on it. Their work is the best of the best, and he boasts that Michelangelo himself would not be able to tell the difference between his own David and a copy made by Volpari students. Now, what progress have you made with regard to the restoration of the lake?'

'I've been in touch with English Heritage and the National Trust, and they have given me the names of three Italian-based organisations that have the knowhow to take on the project. I've e-mailed all three of them, but as yet I have not received a response. I've also informed the company clearing the site that you now want the work done in two months, and they have agreed to supply an extra team to ensure that that target is met. It will mean floodlighting the whole area, which will add to the cost, and paying overtime. I've got the figures here. I wanted to get your approval of them before I give them the go-ahead.'

Raphael reached the desk just as Charley was placing the papers on it. One of the papers slipped, and as she retrieved it somehow her knuckles inadvertently brushed against the soft fabric stretched against Raphael's thigh. The shock of sensation that burned through her was such that Charley immediately released the papers and withdrew her hand, not daring to look at Raphael, her whole body burning up with discomfort. Why on earth was she behaving like such a gauche fool? Her touch had been accidental, probably not even felt by Raphael, and yet here she was, behaving like a virgin who had found her hand resting unexpectedly on a full-on male erection, instead of an adult woman whose hand had merely brushed accidentally against a piece of fabric.

'I'm always so clumsy,' she heard herself saying apologetically. 'My parents were always telling me that.'

She started to bend down, to retrieve the piece of paper that was now on the floor, but Raphael stopped her, his voice harsh as he instructed, 'No, leave it. I'll look at it later. Right now I have some estate business to deal with, and some phone calls to make, and I am sure that you have work to do also.'

Hot-cheeked, Charley nodded her head and quickly made her escape from his office.

Raphael waited until Charley had gone before he bent down to retrieve the fallen piece of paper, his knuckles showing white through the tan on his skin as he did so. Had he allowed Charley to kneel down and retrieve the paper, as she had plainly intended to do, she would have seen quite plainly his arousal and known the cause of it. What manner of man was he that the mere accidental touch of a woman he desired was enough to breach the defences of his self-control?

Back in her room, Charley tried to concentrate on her work, knowing even as she did so that concentrating on anything other than the fool she had just made of herself was going to be impossible. Inside her head were images of Raphael: the way he stood, the way he moved, the way her imagination stripped the clothes from his body, the way her whole body had trembled when she had touched him. Charley gave a small groan of defeat. Thinking about work was impossible now that she had unleashed the dangerously sensual awareness of Raphael that was building inside her-wildly reckless and foolish thoughts of an intimacy between them that could never happen and that she should not even want to happen. But her body did want it to happen, and every day it wanted it to happen a little more. A little more? Didn't she mean an awful lot more? Charley questioned herself. She was like a girl in the grip of an impossible s.e.xual crush on an idol, not a woman who ought to know better. Beneath her tee s.h.i.+rt her nipples peaked and ached on the surge of s.e.xual longing that rushed through her.

Charley groaned again. She must not feel like this. She must not!

CHAPTER SEVEN.

FLORENCE and Raphael! Florence with Raphael! Was she really sure that was a good idea? Charley asked herself. But then did she really have any choice? A s.h.i.+ver, half expectation, half dread, but wholly sensual, stroked taunting fingertips down her spine, immediately sending into disarray all the promises she had made herself the previous day about stopping herself from thinking about the effect he had on her s.e.xually. Couldn't her body understand how humiliating it was for her to want a man who had made it plain how little time he had for her? Raphael did not want her in his life in any capacity at all, and he most certainly did not want her in his bed. Her breath caught on a savagely sweet ache of longing, which she had to fight to suppress. Why should Raphael want a woman like her-a woman devoid of beauty and female grace, a woman devoid of s.e.xual expertise and sensual allure? He didn't, and he wouldn't, and if she had any self-respect she would find a way to stop herself from reacting to him in a way that could easily end up with her making a total fool of herself if she ever accidentally betrayed to Raphael himself what had happened to her.

What she should be doing was focusing on the job she had to do.

It wasn't even as though she could blame Raphael for the way she felt, or claim that he was the one who had deliberately made her feel the way she did. The truth was the opposite. Charley had grown up being honest with herself-especially when it came to her own shortcomings and failures. She couldn't blame Raphael for the fact that she was so acutely and intensely susceptible to him. The responsibility for that lay with her, and within her. But it wasn't too late for her to change things. She could draw a line under her vulnerability to him and set herself some new conditions and rules for the way she would permit herself to react to him. First and foremost amongst those rules would be at all times observing a proper professional att.i.tude towards him, maintaining a proper professional distance between them. She could do it. She must do it, Charley told herself as she made her way downstairs. After all she had texted her sisters now, to tell them that she would be staying on in Italy to begin immediate work on the garden restoration, so it was too late to change her mind.

There was no sign of Raphael in the hallway, so whilst she waited for him Charley was free to study the frescoes in more detail, marvelling at the skill of the artist who had painted them. Every expression told its own story about the character who wore it, but it was the expressions on the faces of the three children grouped together that drew Charley. The tallest of them, a boy obviously meant to represent the young heir, had all of Raphael's arrogance and pride in his expression as he stood slightly in front of his mother and brother and sister, his clothes richer than theirs, his gaze fixed on the distant landscape, as though aware that one day those lands would belong to him. To his side, his sister, in her ermine-trimmed gown, was looking to her mother for approval as an envoy dressed in livery kneeled before her, offering her a roll of parchment on a s.h.i.+eld-perhaps meant to signify a marriage agreement? Charley wondered. The youngest child, another boy, was seated on his mother's lap, reaching for the gold cross she was wearing. As a second son he might well have been destined for high office in the church, Charlotte recognised.

'The third d.u.c.h.ess with her children.'

The sound of Raphael's voice sent a frisson of forbidden pleasure curling down Charley's spine. Not trusting herself to turn round, she told him, 'The eldest son looks a little like you.'

'He was killed when the castle came under attack from enemy forces. He died defending his mother and his sister.'

Charley s.h.i.+vered. Raphael's words showed her that despite the air of arrogance and superiority the boy carried with him, underneath it he had still been vulnerable. Unlike Raphael, who she was sure would never be vulnerable to anything or anyone.

'You are ready to leave?'

Charley nodded her head, wondering as she followed him out to the waiting Ferrari what had caused the swift frowning look Raphael had given her.

It had rained in the night, and the morning suns.h.i.+ne was filling the air with the rich scent of damp earth and growing things-of life returning to the world after the darkness of winter.

At least now there was no need for her to feel deprived because her stay in Italy would be too brief for her to see all those things she longed to see, Charley told herself. There would be ample time for her to visit its cities and its art galleries, to breathe in its magic and fill her senses with its beauty.

The Ferrari made nothing of the kilometres, each signpost promising that they were getting closer to Florence.

'We shall go first to my apartment,' Raphael announced, 'since we shall be staying there.'

Charley's heart rolled over inside her chest. She didn't trust herself to say anything, but then what could she say? I don't want to stay in your apartment because I want you and I'm afraid of betraying that to you? Hardly.

The sound of Raphael's voice cut across her uncomfortable thoughts, giving her a welcome excuse not to dwell on them.

'This evening, as you know, we shall be dining with Niccolo Volpari, Antonio Riccardi, the landscape architect, and their wives.' Another frowningly a.s.sessing look, just like the one he had given her earlier when they had left the palazzo, raked her from head to toe, leaving her feeling vulnerable but reluctant to demand an explanation.

They had reached the outskirts of the city and were turning off the autostrada, heading for the River Arno.

'The Ponte Vecchio is to your left, beyond the Ponte alle Grazia,' Raphael informed her, as though guessing what was on her mind as they reached the river.

It made Charley feel dizzy to think of the history that lay before her, like a precious jewel waiting to be admired. Now Raphael was driving through a maze of narrow streets with names straight from history, bordered by buildings that had Charley silent with awe. In a small square she saw a sign for the Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizi, and her heart leapt with excitement. People, many of them tourists, Charley suspected, spilled from the pavements into the narrow streets. Car horns sounded, impatient Italian drivers gesturing from open windows, and a crocodile of uniformed schoolchildren caught her eye as the crowds and the traffic spilled out into another square dominated by an ancient church. To their left was the river, but Raphael turned right.

'This is the Via de' Tornabuoni,' he told Charley. 'At the next intersection you will see the Palazzo Strozzi, belonging to the family who once plotted against the Medicis and paid for their crime with banishment.'

The street was lined with imposing buildings, many of them housing designer shops, and the pavement was busy with elegantly clothed women who held themselves with that confidence that Charley thought uniquely continental. Charley was so busy watching one of them stepping out of a store that it took her by surprise when Raphael suddenly turned into a narrow opening between the buildings, guarded by a pair of heavily studded wooden doors. The doors opened automatically, allowing Raphael to drive in, then down a ramp into an underground car park.

'This building was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and originally came into the family via marriage,' he explained to Charley once they were out of the car and standing in a lift. 'It fell into disrepair after my parents' death. I had it restored, but decided to retain only two of its five floors and let out the others.'

The lift had stopped, allowing them to step out of it and into a magnificent eighteenth-century marble hallway, with curved niches containing polished marble busts, and a wrought-iron banister curling upwards with the marble staircase. But where Charley imagined gilt-framed traditional family portraits must have once hung on the staircase wall, the walls now had a distinctly modern air to them, with their dark grey paint and their white-framed black and white photographs of street scenes and buildings. The effect somehow suited the hallway. It certainly spoke of a man who had the confidence and the arrogance to follow his own artistic instincts rather than adopt those of someone else. She couldn't imagine herself having the confidence to impose such a modern style on a traditional building.

'I don't employ any staff here; I use a concierge service instead,' Raphael was informing her. 'I will show you to your room, so that you can leave your things there, and once you have done that I suggest you rejoin me in the living room, which is through that door to the left of us.'

She and Raphael were going to be alone in the apartment? Charley fought to remain composed as she followed Raphael towards the stairs, wide enough for them to climb side by side, thankfully with a good few inches between them.

The room Raphael showed her to was furnished in a French empire style and decorated in soft blue, grey and white. It had, as she discovered once Raphael had left her to 'make herself at home', a huge en suite bathroom, with an enormous claw-footed bath and several wall mirrors gilded with swags and cherubs. Charley could easily imagine someone like Napoleon's sister Pauline relaxing in the deep tub as she gloated over her brother's conquest of Italy. Despite its delicate colour scheme, somehow the rooms possessed an air of sensuality that reminded Charley of her own awkwardness. This was a bedroom for a woman confident in her s.e.xuality-a purring, sensual seductress of a woman, who wore silks and satins and spent long, lazy summer afternoons lying in the arms of her lover.

Was this where Raphael brought his lovers? Sophisticated, knowing women who-Quickly Charley clamped down on thoughts she had no right to have, and which were an intrusion on Raphael's privacy that surely shamed her just as much as the betraying ache which had now started to pulse through her lower body. She must not let herself feel like this. She must not and she would not, Charley a.s.sured herself as she made her way back downstairs-just in time to see a small plump man stepping out of the lift to shake Raphael's hand.

'Charlotte, your timing is excellent,' Raphael told her. 'Come and meet my friend, Paulo Franchetti. It is Paulo who has acted as go-between for us with Niccolo Volpari.'

Impossible for her to pull away when Raphael reached out to take hold of her arm and draw her towards them.

'Buongiorno, Charlotte.' Paulo greeted her with a smile and a handshake.

Fifteen minutes later, after a brief discussion about the garden, Paulo left. Flicking back the cuff of his pale blue s.h.i.+rt, Raphael studied his watch and then told her, 'Soon we shall have some lunch, but first there is something else we have to do.'

Since he was already striding towards the main door to the hallway, plainly expecting her to follow him, there was nothing else Charley could do.

The moment he opened the door bright sunlight streamed in, making Charley blink.

'This way,' Raphael directed her, putting his hand beneath her elbow and taking the outside edge of the pavement. Somehow, almost miraculously, the crowd seemed to part to allow them through, and within a few short yards Raphael came to a halt in front of the plate gla.s.s windows of the store of an internationally famous Italian designer of women's clothes.

'You will need a working wardrobe commensurate with your position,' Raphael informed her. 'We may as well deal with that now, whilst we are here in Florence.'

Charley looked at him.

'I have plenty of clothes at home that my sisters can send out to me.'

Raphael raised one eyebrow in a way that made her face burn.

'Let me guess: these clothes that you have at home are dull, plain garments that are two sizes too big for you? Si? They will not be suitable for your new role. You will be dealing with artists and craftsmen who value beauty-Italian men,' he emphasised. 'It is vitally important, since you are representing me, that they respect you and recognise that you understand the importance of quality craftsmans.h.i.+p. To the master stonemason the correct drape of fabric against a woman's body is as important to his artistic eye as the correct choosing of a piece of stone, and that applies to all those with whom you will be dealing. In addition to that there will be many occasions on which I shall require you to accompany me to meetings and business dinners. Tonight, for instance, I do not want...'