The Bride of Montefalco

She shut the door and reached for her suitcase. In a few minutes she’d donned fresh jeans and a green print blouse. At one-thirty in the morning she didn’t feel like dressing in the suit she’d brought.

Once she’d put on her sneakers, she finished the little packing she had to do. Before leaving the room, she found her purse and left two hundred dollars on the dresser.

One more look around to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind and she joined the older woman who stood in the foyer waiting.

Ally rushed up to her. “I’m so sorry you had to be wakened at this late hour because of me. Especially after you were kind enough to take me in. I’ve left money on the dresser for you and your brother. Thank you again for everything, including the delicious meal and the chance to shower. Please tell your brother thank you, too. I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

The other woman nodded impatiently. “I’ll tell him. Now you must go!”

She opened the door onto an ancient narrow alley. The woman’s house was one of several built at street level. Yet all Ally could see was a gleaming black sedan parked right outside the door.

The light from the foyer illuminated the gold falcon insignia of the Montefalco crest emblazoned on the hood.

As Ally ventured over the threshold, a man dressed in black like the palace security guards stepped away from the stone wall connecting the houses.

Since Ally was only five foot five, she was immediately aware of a tall, solidly built male with hair black as night. Something about his imposing demeanor and the almost hawkish features that distinguished him from so many other Italian male faces she’d seen today sent a little shiver of alarm through her body.

With breathtaking economy of movement he relieved her of her purse and suitcase.

“Give that back!” she cried. Ally tried to wrest the suitcase from his hand, but it was no use. She was no match for him. Besides, he’d already stashed everything in the trunk.

She felt his glance mock her before he opened the rear door.

The interior light revealed a broad shouldered man of unquestionable strength. The sun had darkened his natural olive toned skin. He was more than conventionally handsome. The words splendid and fierce came to Ally’s mind before she climbed in the back seat.

Following that thought she wondered if she wasn’t crazy to let a total stranger whisk her away from her only place of refuge in this foreign country. She didn’t know a soul here except the taxi driver and his sister.

Worse, she’d somehow lost her cell phone during the train ride, so she couldn’t call for help. Someone had probably pilfered it.

The premonition that she might need a phone to the outside world was growing stronger as he climbed in behind the wheel and set the locks.

After he turned on the engine, they shot down the empty alley to the main road. Three blocks later and Ally sensed she was in trouble.

Instead of climbing to the top of the hill, the driver drove them through the lower streets of the town. He appeared to have a destination in mind that wasn’t anywhere near the ochre-colored ducal palace clinging to the side of the cliff.

Rather than leave the old woman’s protection at such an unorthodox hour, Ally should have obeyed her instincts and stayed in her room until morning.

She leaned forward in the leather seat. “This isn’t the way to the palace.” She’d said it in as steady a voice as she could muster.

“Please take me back to that woman’s house.”

The enigmatic guard ignored her demand and kept driving until they entered another alley behind some municipal buildings.

“Where are you taking me?”

“All in good time, signora.” The first words out of his mouth were spoken in impeccable English with only a slight trace of accent.

He pulled in front of a steel door with a single light shining overhead. In the next instant he’d come around to her side of the car and opened the door for her.

“After you, signora.”

She lifted her proud chin, refusing to budge. “Where have you brought me?”

His heavily lashed eyes looked like smoldering black fires.

“The Montefalco police station.”

Police? “I don’t understand.”

“Earlier this evening you asked to speak to the Duc Di Montefalco, did you not?”

“Yes. Are you telling me I didn’t have the right?”

“Let’s just say he doesn’t grant interviews.”

“I didn’t want an interview. I’ve flown a long way to talk to him in private.”

He shifted his weight, drawing her attention to the play of raw muscle power in his arms and chest.

“Anyone who wants to make contact with him has to go through me.”

That explained why she could never get anywhere on the phone or in front of the security guards.

Ally couldn’t prevent her gaze from traveling over his distinctive masculine features. Those piercing eyes were framed by startlingly black brows. Never had she looked into such an arresting face.

“Are you a police officer who doubles as one of his bodyguards or something?”

A dangerous smile curled the corners of his mocking mouth. “That’s one way of describing me.”

CHAPTER TWO

A STRANGE chill rippled across Ally’s skin. “How did you know where to find me?”

“The guards took down the license plate of your taxi. A simple phone call to the driver told me what I needed to know.”

As easy as that.

“I told the palace guards who I was. They didn’t even try to help me.”

His lips twisted unpleasantly. “Any woman could claim to be Mrs. James Parker.”

“But that’s who I am! I have my passport to prove it.”

“Passports are a dime a dozen. I believe that’s the American expression.”

She shook her head in exasperation. “Why are you being so hateful to me? I came to Italy expressly to meet with Mr. Montefalco for very personal reasons. You act like I’ve committed some crime.”

“Trespassing is a crime,” he muttered just loud enough to heighten her anxiety.

“This is impossible! I demand you call the American Embassy and let me talk to someone in charge.”

His mouth formed a contemptuous line.

“No one there will be available before morning.”

“In America you’re innocent until proven guilty!” she flung at him, starting to feel desperate.

“Then you should have stayed there, or wherever you really came from, signora,” he retorted in a voice of ice.

Trapped and painfully tired, Ally made the decision not to fight him. He was too formidable an adversary. This was all a terrible mistake, the kind you were supposed to be able to laugh about after you’d returned home from being abroad.

Once this man went through her belongings and found out the truth of her identity, she didn’t expect an apology. However she could hope for a quick release and the chance to talk to Mr. Montefalco before too much more time passed.

Wrapping her dignity around her like a cloak, she got out of the car and waited for him to open the door.

He pressed a button on the wall of the building. In a minute the door swung open electronically.

She’d never been inside a jail of any kind. In the small reception area there were two armed police officers, one of them seated at a desk.

They nodded to her captor.

After an exchange in Italian she couldn’t possibly understand, he left her in their charge and disappeared out the door.

“Wait—” she called out to no avail.

At that point she was photographed, fingerprinted and escorted down a passageway to a tiny room with a cot and a chair.

The door closed behind her, leaving her to her own devices.

The whole situation was so surreal, she wondered if she was hallucinating on the painkiller she’d taken before going to bed. It had been a preventive measure to ward off another sick headache.

Suddenly she heard the click of the electronic lock and the door opened. She swung around in time to see the driver who’d abducted her step inside. The door shut behind him, enclosing her in this tiny closet of a holding cell with a man who could overpower her before she took her next breath. He’d brought her purse with him.

“During your interrogation you have your choice of the chair or the bed, signora.”

She was feeling pretty hysterical about now.

“I’d rather stand.”

“So be it.”

He opened her purse. After examining the contents including her wallet and bottle of medication, he pulled out her passport.

She watched him study the picture that had been taken three years earlier. At that point in time she’d been a radiant fiancée with long blond hair and sparkling green eyes, anticipating a skiing honeymoon in the French Alps with Jim.

Ally could no longer relate to that person.

The stranger’s enigmatic gaze flicked to her face and hair. He scrutinized her as if trying and failing to find the woman in the photo.

He put the passport in his pocket, then tossed her purse with its contents on the cot next to the pathetic looking lump that was supposed to be a pillow.

Only now did she realize her suitcase was still in his car.

“I’d like my luggage. There are things I need,” she explained. “I have to have it, you know? Like clean clothes?”

“First things first, signora. Until I get the answers I’m looking for, we’ll be at this all night. Since you already appear unsteady on your feet—no doubt from fear that you’ve been caught in the act—I suggest you sit down before you pass out.”

“In the act of what?” Ally questioned, totally shocked by his assumption she’d done something wrong.

“We both know you’re one of the unscrupulous paparazzi, willing to do anything for an exclusive. But I’m warning you now. After trying to impersonate someone else, you’re facing a prison sentence unless you start talking.”

“I am Mrs. James Parker.”

“Just tell me the name of the tabloid that sent you on this story.”

Heat swept through her body into her face. “You’re crazy!” she blurted in exasperation. “My name is Allyson Cummings Parker. I’m an American citizen from Portland, Oregon. I only arrived in Rome from Switzerland this afternoon, or—or yesterday afternoon. I’m all mixed up now about the time. But I’m the widow of James Parker. He was a ski clothes salesman who worked for an American manufacturing company called Slippery Slopes of Portland. He died in a car accident outside St. Moritz, Switzerland, with Mr. Montefalco’s wife four months ago!”

“Of course you are,” he said in a sarcastic aside that made her hackles rise.

Her breathing grew shallow.

“Since you tracked me down through the taxi driver, he’ll tell you he picked me up at the train station, and had to do all the translating while I tried to find a room because I don’t speak Italian.”

Her captor nodded. “He admitted you put on a convincing performance. That is…until you gave yourself away by asking him to drive you to the palazzo. That was your fatal mistake.”

Her hands curled into fists. “How else was I supposed to talk to Mr. Montefalco? He doesn’t list his phone number. When I reached Rome, I was on the phone with an Italian operator for half an hour trying to get a number for him.”

“He doesn’t talk to strangers. If you were an innocent tourist who didn’t have a place to spend the night, you would have been much more concerned about that than brazenly attempting to ramrod your way into the ducal palace that has always been off limits to the public.”

“But I didn’t know that!”

“You’re a good liar, I’ll grant you that, but it was a dangerous act of idiocy on your part no matter how greedy you are for money. It’s the one credential you sleazy members of the media carry every time you trespass on sacred ground for a story. You have no decency or thought for the precariousness of the situation. None of your kind has a conscience.”

He folded his arms, eyeing her with chilling menace.

“As you’re going to find out, I don’t have one, either. So you can start talking now, or look forward to being incarcerated here indefinitely.”

Her mouth had gone dry. “You’re going to be sorry you’re treating me like this,” she warned him with a mutinous expression. “When Mr. Montefalco finds out I’m here anxious to talk to him, you’ll be lucky if it’s only your job you lose.”

His black eyes felt like lasers, scanning beneath the surface for any abnormalities.

“Who sent you to do their dirty work?” he rapped out as if she hadn’t spoken. “Tell me now and I’ll use my influence with the judge to get you off with a light sentence.”

A pulse throbbed at the corner of his hard jaw. He was in deadly earnest. That made the situation so much worse for Ally.

She spread her hands. “Look—there’s been a huge misunderstanding here. If you think my passport and driver’s license are doctored, then look at my airline tickets again. It proves I just flew here from Portland, with a stopover in Switzerland to see where my husband’s accident happened.”

His gaze searched hers relentlessly. “You call that proof when you could have flown from Italy to Oregon on your tabloid’s money to begin your impersonation? You’re wasting my time.”

He pressed a button above the door, no doubt sending a signal that he was ready to leave. This was a nightmare!

“No—don’t go yet—” she begged as the door swung outward.

He paused in the aperture, almost filling it with his tall, powerful body.

“Please—” she beseeched him. “There’s someone you could call who will vouch for me. His name is L—”

She broke off talking because she suddenly realized she didn’t want him to talk to Lieutenant Davis. She would be too embarrassed for the detective to know she’d flown here to satisfy her curiosity about Donata. It was a private matter she’d rather no one else knew about. Until she talked to Mr. Montefalco, it was absolutely crucial her activities and whereabouts remain a secret to everyone including her mother. Ally’s mom thought she was spending the weekend with friends from the orchestra. If she knew the truth, there would have been a battle Ally couldn’t have handled.

“Yes?” her adversary mocked again. “You were saying?”

He stood still as a tree trunk. By now she was so beside herself she felt light-headed. Her ears started to buzz.

Out of self-preservation she sank down on the end of the cot and lowered her head so she wouldn’t faint.

“Anything you’d like to confess before lights out, signora?” he asked without an ounce of concern or compassion.

His voice sounded far away. Ally had to wait until the worst of her weakness had passed before she could talk.

By then, he’d gone…

Vaguely disturbed by the woman’s insistence that she really was the wife of Donata’s last lover, Gino sped faster than was prudent through the dark streets toward his family home at the top of the mount. He wanted total privacy before searching the woman’s suitcase. En route he phoned Carlo.

“Thank you for helping me carry out my plan. The suspect is in her cell, but I realize we won’t be able to hold her for long. I asked the desk sergeant to run her passport through the scanner for verification, then report to you. Do me a favor and let me know what he finds out. When we’ve learned it’s counterfeit, I’ll expose her in my own way so she never gets another job. I’m sick of the media.”

Once they’d hung up, he used his remote to enter the estate.

After slipping in a private side entrance to the palazzo with his prisoner’s luggage, he entered Marcello’s study and set it on one of the damask couches.

Upon opening it, he was surprised to see how lightly she traveled. The interior was redolent of her flowery scent. There were only a few changes of outfits and feminine underclothing, all modest and for the most part American brands.

Frowning because he couldn’t find a camera or film, in fact nothing that sent up a red flag, his hands dug deeper.

“What’s this?”

He felt something solid, wrapped in a towel.

“I knew it!” he whispered fiercely as he pulled out a silver laptop.

No wonder she’d wanted to hold on to her luggage.

He carried it over to the desk and plugged it into the wall adaptor.

“You and your paper are about to be exposed. Believe me, signora, you’re going to pay—”

He turned it on, then sat down in the leather chair and waited to see what flashed on the screen.

He was ready to seize on anything that linked her to one of the tabloids.

Her home page popped up. He immediately clicked on her favorite pictures icon. Before long he came face-to-face with photos of Donata.

Gino let out a curse. He counted thirty pictures showing his sister-in-law in various stages of dress and undress. The outdoor pictures had been taken in Prague. He recognized the landmarks.

How in the hell had that impossibly green-eyed imposter gotten hold of these?

Donata, Donata.

He gritted his teeth. If these were to make it onto the streets… If Sofia were ever to see them…

He felt his gut twist in reaction.

There was only one reason why the champagne-blonde with the voluptuous curves locked up in the cell hadn’t gone public with them yet. Perhaps she’d decided to approach Marcello first to extort more money from him than her paper would pay out.

Sick to the depth of his being because he knew these photos were only the tip of the iceberg, he packed up the laptop, closed her suitcase and carried both out to the truck he kept on the estate.

Leaving by a hidden road that came out on a side street, he headed for the jail.

Later at the farmhouse when he had the luxury of time, he’d delve into the e-mails and other secrets of the computer’s hard drive. Until then, Gino would break her down until she was grist.

He wanted the name of the tabloid she worked for, how many more photos existed and the length of time she’d been on Donata’s trail in order to obtain those particular photos.

Ally heard the door open. When she saw a tall dark figure coming toward her before it closed again, she let out a bloodcurdling scream and pulled the sheet over her head. “Nightmares, signora?” sounded the devilish voice of her captor. “With the kinds of things you have on your conscience, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“Get out!” she shouted into the darkness. “The only person I’ll speak to is a diplomat from the American Embassy. Do you understand me?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have a long wait.”

She heard something scrape against the cement floor. She shivered to realize he’d pulled the chair next to her bed and had sat down.

“What you’re doing is against the law!”

He gave a caustic laugh.

Fear of a sort she’d never known before emboldened her to say the first thing that came into her mind.

“What a tragedy that such a lovely, beautiful town produces monsters like you.”

The rhythm of his breathing changed, letting her know she’d struck a nerve. Good!

“For someone in your kind of trouble,” he began in a frighteningly silky voice, “I’d advise you to stop fantasizing and tell me everything before the chief prosecutor of the region gets here and you’re arraigned before the magistrate.”

She sat up on the cot and pressed herself into the corner of the wall, as far away from him as possible.

“Whether you believe me or not, I’m Mrs. James Parker. So far, all you’ve told me is that I trespassed. But I don’t see how I did that when the guards wouldn’t let me past the gate.”

She heard him shift in the chair.

“If you’re telling the truth, and you really are the hapless wife who was the last person to know what your husband was up to, explain what those pictures are doing in your laptop.”

Pictures? Ally rubbed her bloodshot eyes with her palms. She was so desperately tired, maybe she was dreaming this horror story.

“I asked you a question, signora.”

No—she wasn’t dreaming. He was sitting there next to her, intimidating her by his very presence. All two hundred pounds of him, hard as steel physically and every other way.

“It’s my husband’s laptop. I don’t know anything about any pictures.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath.

“So you carried his laptop with you all the way to Montefalco for no particular reason?”

“I didn’t say that!” she protested. “I told you earlier that I came to have a private talk with Mr. Montefalco and no one else.”

“In order to show him the photographs and extort thousands of dollars in the process.”

Thousands of dollars? What pictures would be worth that kind of money? She took a deep breath, scared of what she might discover.

“If there are pictures, I haven’t seen them.”

At her hotel in St. Mortiz, Ally would have looked inside the laptop, but she hadn’t brought an adaptor to fit in the foreign outlet and figured she would have to wait until she returned to Portland. Part of her knew that was just an excuse. She didn’t want to know.

“I planned to talk to him about things that aren’t your business or anyone else’s.”

After a pause, he said, “You can tell me. I have his ear.”

“Prove it! For all I know you’re just a lowly policeman pretending to be Mr. Montefalco’s bodyguard.”

Suddenly he was on his feet. She could feel his rage as he pushed the chair away. She hid her face behind the sheet even though it was dark in the room.

Still bristling she said, “Now you know how it feels to be told you’re a liar and a sleazy con artist out to cash in on someone’s private tragedy. I repeat.” Her voice throbbed. “I’m not saying another word until I can speak to someone from the Embassy.”

While she waited for his response, the door opened, then slammed shut.

The next thing she knew the light in her cell went on.

She checked her watch, which she’d changed to Italian time on the train. It said 7:30 a.m.

How long were they going to leave her in here before allowing her to freshen up?

In desperation she dragged the chair over to the door so she could push the button he’d pressed earlier.

Suddenly the door swung open, almost causing her to fall.

A guard she didn’t recognize waited for her to climb down, then ordered her to follow him.

She grabbed her purse and trailed him down the hall and around the corner to the bathroom. There was no sign of her captor. She sincerely hoped she would never have to see or talk to him again.

After brushing her hair and putting on some lipstick, she felt a little more human. When she emerged minutes later, the guard escorted her back to her cell where a tray of food was waiting on the chair.

Just looking at the chair reminded her how her interrogator had shoved it across the room in a fit of anger.

In spite of the precariousness of her situation, the fact that she’d been able to infuriate him caused her to smile.

The guard noted it before disappearing.

Locked in once more, her gaze fell on the sparse continental breakfast. Rolls and coffee. But she wasn’t about to complain. It might be a long time before she was allowed to eat again, so she consumed everything in short order.

She kept thinking about those pictures he’d mentioned. Jim had evidently stored some in one of his files. Maybe they were photos of all the women he’d had affairs with in Europe. At this juncture she didn’t put anything past him. Her husband had truly lived a double life.

Ally let out a sound of abnegation.

What a fool she’d been not to have confronted him when she’d first suspected there was another woman.

Her abductor’s words stung more than ever.

If you’re telling the truth, and you really are the hapless wife who was the last person to know what your husband was up to, explain what those pictures are doing in your laptop.

Ally hadn’t been hapless. It was a case of not wanting to admit something was wrong and have her mother say, “I told you so. A man with good looks and knows it can’t be satisfied with one woman.”