The Italian Count's Defiant Bride

‘No more desperate than I am,’ said Alicia, with heat that brought a startled look from Meg. ‘Well, it’s true. For years I was in love with a photograph, but Francesco in the flesh is a dream come true.’

‘Emotive word, “flesh”,’ said Meg uneasily. ‘Until now you’ve never shown the slightest interest in any man—unless he was covered in mud on a rugby pitch.’

‘So isn’t it about time I did?’ Alicia sucked in a deep breath. ‘Oh Meg—I’m so in love with Francesco.’

‘I know you are! It’s frightening.’

‘You feel the same about Rhys!’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’

‘You’ve only just met Francesco.’

‘I feel as if I’ve known him forever. Maybe I knew him in another life.’

‘You’re beginning to worry me, Lally.’

Alicia’s wistful smile brought a lump to her friend’s throat. ‘No need. We’ve had a wonderful holiday in Florence, and Francesco was part of it; an experience I can look back on and dream about.’ Her mouth drooped. ‘But it’s going to be so hard to say goodbye tonight.’

‘I know. That’s why I’m giving you time to yourselves.’ Meg wagged a stern finger. ‘Just make sure you’re in by midnight, Cinders.’

When the three of them walked back to the hotel after their early dinner that evening, Megan gave Francesco a beaming smile. ‘As a small return for the meals you’ve paid for, and the restaurants we’d never have discovered on our own, I’m giving you a goodbye present.’

He eyed her in surprise. ‘But I need no present, cara. I have enjoyed your company very much.’

‘I know that. Otherwise I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself so much. But now I’m going up to our room on my own to pack and make my phone calls, so you can have Alicia to yourself for an hour or so as a parting gift.’

Francesco leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘You are a very kind lady. This is also your wish?’ he demanded, turning to Alicia, and gave her a smile that turned her heart over when she nodded in eager consent. ‘Then it is a present I accept with gratitude, Miss Megan Davies. Mille grazie.’

When they’d seen Megan inside the hotel Francesco took Alicia’s hand to walk back to the Piazza della Signoria. ‘I am going to make a request,’ he said, oddly sombre. ‘You must say no if you do not wish to grant it, tesoro.’

By this time finding it hard to imagine saying no to Francesco, no matter what he wanted, Alicia looked up at him expectantly. ‘You’ll have to tell me what the request is first.’

‘You have not asked where I am staying.’

‘I took it for granted you were at one of the grander hotels.’

He shook his head. ‘I keep an apartment here in Firenze.’

‘For your business trips?’

Francesco’s quiet laugh was mirthless. ‘Officially, yes. But it is also my rifugio, my sanctuary, where I can relax alone occasionally away from the demands of my life in Montedaluca. My intention was to spend only two days here this time. But then, Miss Alicia Cross, I met you. And could not leave until you do.’

A statement which sent Alicia’s pulse into overdrive. She gazed up at him, starry-eyed. ‘This request, Francesco—are you asking me to have coffee in your apartment?’

His smile was answer enough. ‘Yes, carina. Will you?’

‘Of course I will,’ she said impatiently. ‘Do we have to walk far?’

‘No.’ To Alicia’s surprise he led her to a building in the piazza itself, and took her up to the top floor in a lift. ‘Allora,’ he said as he unlocked a door. ‘Welcome to my rifugio.’

The apartment was impressive, with a high, raftered ceiling. But instead of the antiques Alicia had expected the comfortable furniture was contemporary, and the colourful paintings on the walls were abstracts.

‘This is so lovely, Francesco,’ she said, impressed. ‘You could make a fortune letting it out to visitors.’

‘There are other apartments in the building for that,’ he informed her. ‘This one I keep only for myself.’

Alicia’s eyes rounded. ‘You own the building?’

‘It was part of my mother’s dowry when she married my father. But she uses it only when she comes to Florence to buy clothes. The responsibility for running it as a commercial enterprise is mine.’ He shrugged. ‘But I do this willingly, because it gives me an excuse to escape here sometimes to my—what do you say in English?—bolt hole?’

She smiled crookedly. ‘A very smart bolt-hole.’

‘But I have not shown you the best part,’ he said, and put his arm round her.

Sure he meant to rush her off to a bedroom, Alicia wasn’t sure whether she was relieved or disappointed when he led her to a window and threw back the shutters. Then she gave such a raucous, boyish whistle he hugged her close, laughing.

She beamed at him in rapture. ‘A room with a view, Francesco! And what a view.’

They were opposite the Palazzo Vecchio, with a perfect view of the Loggia dei Lanzi and most of the Piazza della Signoria.

‘You may gaze on Perseus from here as much as you like,’ he said softly, and cleared his throat. ‘I shall make coffee.’

She shook her head. ‘In the time we’ve got left, can’t we just sit and talk?’

He took off his jacket and led her to one of the sofas. ‘D’accordo. Some talk is necessary.’ He hesitated for a moment, then put his arm round her, and she leaned against him, so pliant and trusting he gave a husky little laugh. ‘So innocent, so sweet.’

She turned her head up to give him a wry look. ‘I may have gone to school in a convent, Francesco, but I didn’t take vows!’

‘For which I am passionately grateful,’ he said, and kissed her.

And this time, knowing she’d never see him again, Alicia responded with fire fuelled by despair. With a groan Francesco drew her onto his lap, and she caught her breath, thrilled to feel his heart hammering against her. Elated by the effect she was having on him, she returned his kisses with mounting fervour as she breathed in the heady scent of aroused male mingled with something she identified as Aqua di Parma cologne.

At last Francesco tore his mouth away and turned her face into his shoulder, his hand unsteady as he held her head hard against him. ‘Tesoro, forgive me.’

‘For what?’ she whispered, and pulled away to look up into the tense, handsome face. ‘I wanted you to kiss me.’

‘I know.’

‘How could you tell?’ she said, frowning.

He smiled ruefully. ‘You made it very plain, carina. But,’ he added, sobering, ‘if you kiss a man like that it is dangerous; he will want more.’

Alicia eyed him with interest. ‘Do you?’

‘Yes,’ he said starkly. ‘But I will not take it.’

‘Why not?’

He smoothed an unsteady hand over her hair. ‘For many reasons. You are young, and in a country foreign to you—and you are a virgin, no?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a virgin, yes.’

‘You are making fun of me!’

‘No, I’m not.’ As she wriggled closer he caught his breath, and she felt his erection harden against her thighs through the thin fabric of her dress. Now what? she thought in panic. Should she stay where she was and pretend to ignore it, or should she slide tactfully from his lap and say it was time to go? But it wasn’t time yet, and she didn’t want to go. She quite desperately wanted him to make love to her, for him to be her first lover, even if this was the last time she’d ever see him. ‘Francesco,’ she whispered, and looked up into eyes which blazed as they met the invitation in hers.

To her dismay he jumped up and set her on her feet. ‘Carissima, you must not look at me like that.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘I am not marble, like the statues out there. I am flesh and blood, and you know well that I desire you.’ He gave a wry laugh and held her close. ‘When Megan gave us this last time together, I told myself I would be content just to talk to you for a while. But I am human, and a man—’

‘And I’m a woman, Francesco,’ whispered Alicia against his chest. ‘Make love to me. Please!’

‘Dio!’ he exclaimed in anguish. ‘You must not say this.’

‘Why not?’

‘You know well why not,’ he said fiercely, his accent more pronounced as he spoke rapidly into her hair. ‘I want you. You know this because a man cannot hide his desire. But I have wanted you from that first moment out there below, at the Rivoire. When you took off your hat and sunglasses I looked into those great, dark eyes and felt such an urge to kiss you I was—how do you say?—spellbound.’

Alicia moved away slightly to look up at him, her eyes alight with pure joy at his confession. ‘I thought you were put off by my freckles.’

Francesco’s eyes softened as he stroked a finger across her cheekbones. ‘I adore your freckles. I adore you, Alicia, so much that although I desire it desperately I will not take this precious gift you offer me. At least,’ he said, in a tone which made her tremble, ‘not tonight.’

‘But I’m going home tomorrow,’ she said forlornly.

He led her to the sofa again. ‘So let us sit down and enjoy this last time for a while together.’

‘For a while?’

Francesco took her hand. ‘I must go home to Montedaluca first, but very soon I will fly to visit you in your home.’

Alicia’s eyes widened to dark saucers as she stared at him. ‘Are you serious?’

‘You do not wish me to come?’ he demanded.

‘You know I do!’ She swallowed hard. ‘I just never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d see you again once I left.’

‘Ah, carina,’ he said caressingly, and kissed her fingers one by one. ‘I told you I wanted you from that first moment. Did you feel the same for me?’

‘Oh yes.’ She dimpled at him so mischievously he caught his breath, so obviously wanting to kiss her that she touched a hand to his cheek. ‘So I think it’s time I told you a little story, Francesco da Luca.’

He kissed her nose and sat back, holding her hand. ‘Talk then, diletta mia.’

‘Once upon a time a girl found a picture in a rugby magazine, with a feature and a shot of a Treviso winger scoring a spectacular try. The girl was so impressed she cut the picture out and added it to the gallery of Welsh rugby stars on her bedroom wall.’

Francesco looked down at her in astonishment. ‘This is true?’

‘We convent-educated girls don’t tell lies,’ she said sternly, and smiled up at him. ‘Every night since then your face has been the last thing I see before going to sleep. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I bumped into you out there in the piazza.’

‘Un miraculo!’ He kissed her swiftly. ‘I was too restless to concentrate on paperwork that afternoon, and suddenly felt a great need to be part of life out there. Fate sent me to catch you when you fell.’ Francesco put a finger under her chin. ‘And I will never let you go. Ti amo, Alicia Cross. Must I translate?’

She shook her head, smiling radiantly. ‘I love you too, Francesco da Luca.’

His answering smile took her breath away. ‘Do you love me enough to live with me in Montedaluca one day as my wife?’

‘Yes,’ she said without hesitation.

This time his kiss was not gentle, and she responded to it with joy, then trembled as his hands caressed her through the thin fabric of her dress.

He buried his face in her hair. ‘I want you so much.’

She pulled his mouth down to hers. ‘Make love to me, Francesco. Now. But you’ll have to teach me what to do.’

He gave a stifled groan and crushed her to him. ‘I will take much, much pleasure in teaching you the art of love, tesoro, but not until our wedding night.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Because I want our first time together to be perfect, with all the time in the world to love each other.’ He smoothed the tumbled curls back from her forehead. ‘I shall come next week to ask your mother for her daughter’s hand. Will she be willing to give you to me?’

Alicia bit her lip. ‘She probably won’t be, Francesco. She expects me to go to college.’

‘For the love of God, do not ask me to wait that long for you, Alicia.’ He kissed her with mounting urgency. ‘Life is short, carissima,’ he said against her lips. ‘Let us not waste any of it apart. Fate meant us to be together. Do you not believe this?’

Alicia did believe it, utterly. But trying to make her mother believe it would be another matter. ‘Bron will take some persuading,’ she warned.

‘You call her by her name?’ he said, diverted.

‘Yes.’ Alicia hesitated. ‘You’ll probably be surprised when you meet her. She looks too young to be my mother.’ She took in a deep breath. ‘Francesco, if we really are going to be married—’

‘You doubt this?’ he demanded, and kissed her hard. ‘Believe it, amore. You will be my wife as soon as it can be arranged.’

‘You’d better learn a bit more about me first.’

‘Nothing you could tell me would change my mind,’ he assured her.

CHAPTER THREE

TO HIS credit it had not, Alicia conceded now as she reached the hotel chosen as the venue for the party. She handed her raincoat in, then hurried off to the flower-banked function room overlooking Cardiff Bay. She checked with the catering manager, to be told the waitresses were ready to serve the canapés, and the waiters were lined up at the bar, champagne bottles at the ready. At her signal the pianist began to play, and she returned to the entrance to smile in welcome as the first batch of guests arrived.

‘Looking good, Alicia,’ said the managing director jovially. ‘Excellent job.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled, pleased.

For the next hour Alicia’s entire attention was focussed on making sure that everything ran to plan, and that the press had access not only to the sponsor’s management but to all the celebrities, rugby and otherwise, who were present. Satisfied that drinks were circulating fast enough, she checked that dinner would be served on time—welcome news, since her only meal that day had been a sketchy breakfast. As she rejoined the party the marketing director, who had once played at centre for Cardiff, caught her by the arm.

‘Come with me, my fair Alicia,’ said David Rees-Jones. ‘A guy’s just arrived who says he knows you. I played against him once in a game against Italy.’

She stiffened, alarm bells ringing as David relentlessly towed her through the crowd to join the man at one of the great windows looking down on the water. ‘You remember Francesco da Luca? How come you two know each other?’

Alicia’s eyes narrowed in fierce warning at Francesco.

‘We met years ago in Florence,’ he said smoothly, and took her hand to kiss it. ‘Com’esta, Alicia? You look very beautiful tonight.’

‘She looks beautiful every night, friend,’ said David cheerfully, and with a wink atAlicia excused himself to greet some late arrivals.

‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed, pinning on a bright, social smile.

Francesco’s triumphant answering smile set her teeth on edge. ‘I was invited.’

‘By David?’

‘No.’ He manoeuvred her nearer the window, neatly isolating her from the rest of the room. ‘Last night I dined with some old rugby friends who introduced me to John Griffiths. He was most kind to invite me here tonight.’

Alicia stared, seething, through the window. If his invitation had come from the managing director, she had to grin and bear it. Even if it choked her. ‘Are you here long?’ she asked politely, as though they were strangers.

‘For as long as necessary,’ said Francesco with emphasis, and moved closer. ‘I insist that we talk tonight, Alicia.’

She turned narrowed, hostile eyes on him. ‘Insist?’

He laid a hand on his heart. ‘Mi dispiace. Request is better?’

‘No. As far as I’m concerned, we have nothing to talk about.’

‘But we do, Alicia.’ He took her hand. ‘I will take you home when the party is over.’

She shook her head. ‘The party was over for us a long time ago, Francesco.’

His grasp tightened. ‘Ah no, contessa, you are mistaken.’

‘Neither mistaken nor interested, Francesco. And don’t call me that! Now, let me go, please. Dinner is about to be served.’ Not that she felt hungry any more.

‘Wait,’ he commanded. ‘Why did your mother move from Blake Street?’

Conscious of curious eyes turned in their direction, Alicia kept her smile pinned in place as though they were just indulging in party chat. ‘She got married.’

His eyes softened as he released her. ‘And do you like her husband?’

‘Yes, very much. Now, I’ve got to go—’

‘Not until you tell me where you live.’

Oh well. He had to know sometime. ‘I rent a flat right here in the Bay.’

‘You live alone there?’

She nodded curtly, and hurried off through the crowd.

It seemed like hours before the meal and the speeches were finally over. At last Alicia collected her raincoat and went down to the foyer, where most of the management and their wives and partners were waiting for taxis. And, with them, Francesco da Luca.

‘Well done, Alicia. A triumph for Wales and for the party tonight,’ said John Griffiths with satisfaction. ‘Can we drop you on our way?’

‘I have a taxi waiting,’ said Francesco swiftly.

‘Ah. We leave her in good hands, then.’

Goodnights were exchanged, and before Alicia could argue that she lived near enough to walk home she was giving a taxi driver her address, which Francesco noted down in something he took from his wallet. He needed the information anyway, thought Alicia, resigned. Ever since Bron’s surprise marriage and her move to her husband’s home in Cowbridge, there had been no way for Francesco to demand news of his missing bride. And presumably he wanted to marry again and provide an heir for Montedaluca. In which case he could just send her the necessary papers to sign and that would be that. Mission accomplished.

The ridiculously short journey was accomplished in fraught silence, which lasted after Francesco paid the driver and continued as he followed Alicia into the lift in the foyer of her waterside building. By the time the doors opened at her floor, every nerve in her body was tied in knots.

When she ushered him into her sitting room, Francesco made straight for the glass doors which opened onto a minuscule balcony overlooking the Bay. He turned to her with a smile. ‘You also have a room with a view, Alicia.’

‘It’s why I couldn’t resist the flat,’ she admitted, ignoring the memory his words brought to life. ‘Though the basement swimming-pool and parking facilities make it worth the steep rent.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘Would you like some coffee, or a drink? I can give you some passable wine.’

‘Grazie, nothing.’ He looked round the room, at the small sofa and the one chair that could be remotely described as comfortable. ‘Let us sit down.’

Alicia took off her raincoat, and conscious, now that she was alone with Francesco, that her caramel silk shift stopped short of her knees and left one shoulder bare, excused herself to put her raincoat away. Feeling defenceless without it, she snatched up an elderly black cardigan and wrapped herself in it to rejoin her uninvited guest.

She took the chair and waved him to the sofa. ‘All right, Francesco. But I warn you, I’m tired. So I hope this won’t take long.’

He sat down, eyeing the cardigan in amusement. ‘If that garment is meant to hide you from me, Alicia, it does not succeed.’ His eyes moved over her in slow, nerve-jangling scrutiny. ‘You have changed much from the shy young girl I first met.’

He had changed too. His face was harder, older, but no less striking than the first time she’d seen it, caught on camera in grinning triumph. ‘I grew up, Francesco. It took me longer than most girls, but the treatment you and the contessa dished out fast-forwarded me into adulthood pretty rapidly in the end.’

Francesco’s jaw clenched. ‘My mother is dead,’ he reminded her.

‘And, as I said in my letter, I’m truly sorry for your loss.’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course. She was the most important person in your life. You must miss her very much.’

‘I do. But I do not pretend that, now she is dead, she was a saint.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I regret that she did not welcome you to our home with warmth.’

That was an understatement for the permafrost which had chilled Alicia to the bone. She shrugged. ‘But she was right when she told me I was an unsuitable bride for her son.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Mamma said this to you?’

‘I’m sure she said it to you, too.’

‘Davverro, but I made it plain to her that you were the only bride I wanted.’

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A pity you didn’t make it plainer to me. Once I arrived in Montedaluca, I began to doubt it more with every passing day. Most people in the castello took their cue from the contessa and made me feel like an outsider. Which I was, of course. Apart from your great-aunt Luisa, and the lady you hired to teach me Italian, hardly anyone spoke to me for the six weeks I lived there—including you. You were so busy during the run-up to the wedding you had no time for me. You turned into a stranger.’ Alicia smiled coldly. ‘Which you were, of course. Until then, I didn’t even know you had a title.’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘Such things mean little now.’

‘It meant a great deal to your mother. The only time she deigned to spend with me was filled with instructions on how a future Contessa da Luca must behave.’ Alicia smiled sardonically. ‘She must have been utterly delighted when I bolted.’

He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. She was ravaged with worry.’

‘You surprise me. I thought she would have been over the moon because you were free again.’

‘But I am not free.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Having married you in the cattedrale in Montedaluca, I am bound to you for life.’

Alicia’s eyes flashed. ‘Cut the drama, Francesco. You can get a divorce easily enough. Or easier still you could just get the marriage annulled after what happened—or didn’t happen—between us.’

‘No one knows this,’ he said, his tone so harsh it startled her. ‘Unless you told your mother, or Megan?’

Alicia shivered and drew the cardigan closer. ‘How could I bear to talk about—about that to anyone?’

‘So what reason did you give your mother for leaving me?’

‘I said I’d made a huge mistake; that it was better to make a clean break right away.’ She smiled. ‘Bron, not surprisingly, wished I’d decided before the ceremony rather than after, but she sympathised totally with my refusal to return to Montedaluca. The contessa was no warmer to her than she was to me, even though Bron did her the courtesy of agreeing to hold the wedding in Montedaluca instead of Cardiff.’

‘But Signora Cross soon had her revenge,’ he said grimly.

Alicia frowned. ‘How, exactly?’

‘When my mother accompanied me to Cardiff to see her—’

‘She did what?’

Francesco’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not know this?’

‘I most certainly did not!’

‘It was very soon after you left me, Alicia.’

She stared at him in blank astonishment.

‘You do not believe me?’ He shrugged. ‘It is the truth. Your mother swore to me that you had gone away.’

Alicia regrouped hurriedly. ‘I had. When I got back from Paris I was so—so miserable I was sent off with Megan to stay with her grandmother in Hay-on-Wye for a while to recover. Or try to.’

Francesco’s jaw tightened. ‘I was told nothing of this during the visit. Megan’s parents were there to support your mother. Also the large brother.’ He smiled grimly. ‘They were unmoved by my anguish. Your mother insisted that you never wanted to see me again.’

Alicia stared at him, shaken, feeling the warmth drain from her face.

‘You are very pale. Do you have brandy, Alicia?’ asked Francesco gently. He got up to take her by the hand and led her to the sofa.