The Count's Blackmail Bargain

‘For me, it has never been a game.’ Paolo smote himself on the chest. ‘For me—it is my life! I need my mother to know that my future is my own affair, and that I will not be dictated to by her or anyone. And that I am not going to marry Beatrice Manzone.’ He lowered his voice. Made it coaxing. ‘Laura—you promised you would help me. We have an agreement together. And it is going well. Just two weeks—that is all. Then you will be free. You will have had your Italian vacation, and also been paid. This is so easy for you.’

He dropped a hand on her shoulder, making her move restively. ‘After all,’ he went on persuasively, ‘what can possibly happen in two short weeks? Tell me that.’ He smiled at her, then moved to the door. ‘I tell you there is nothing to worry about.’ His voice was warm—reassuring. ‘Nothing in the world.’

CHAPTER THREE

LAURA did not sleep well that night. She was constantly tossing and turning, disturbed by a series of fleeting, uneasy dreams. Or, she wondered as daylight imposed itself at last, was she simply troubled by finding herself under the roof of a woman who cordially detested her—and with no reprieve in sight?

It was no particular surprise to find that the early start to Besavoro did not transpire. The car arrived punctually with Giacomo, its uniformed chauffeur, and there the matter rested while the Signora, after a leisurely breakfast, issued a stream of contradictory orders, made telephone calls, and wrote a number of last minute notes to friends.

Laura had discovered to her dismay that Caio was to accompany them and more time was wasted while Maria hunted the apartment for the special collar and lead he wore on holiday, and the new cushioned basket specially bought for the trip.

By the time the luggage was finally put in the car, Paolo looked as if he was about to become a basket case himself, Laura thought without particular sympathy.

It was one of the most luxurious vehicles she’d ever travelled in, but, seated in the back with the Signora and her dog in the opposite corner, she found it impossible to relax.

She’d expected another barrage of questions, and steeled herself to fend them off, but it didn’t happen. The Signora seemed lost in thought, and, apart from lifting his lip in the occasional silent snarl if Laura glanced at him, Caio seemed equally detached.

There were numerous stops along the way—comfort breaks for Caio featuring frequently. But there were also pauses to buy coffee, chilled mineral water, and, once, some excellent rolls crammed with ham and cheese, at the busy roadside service stations. The Signora did not deign to leave the car on these occasions, but Laura was glad to stretch her legs in spite of the heat outside the air-conditioned car.

Her back was beginning to ache with the tension of trying to remain unobtrusive, she realised wryly.

She’d chosen her thinnest outfit for the journey—a loose-fitting dress in fine cream cotton with cap sleeves and a modestly square neckline. She wore low-heeled tan sandals, and a broad brimmed linen hat that could be rolled up in her bag when she was in the car. Apart from the obligatory sunblock, she’d put nothing on her face but a shading of mascara on her lashes, and a touch of light coral lustre to her mouth.

She tried to comfort herself with the reflection that the Signora might loathe her, but she couldn’t truthfully complain about her appearance. Still it seemed small consolation.

The car didn’t really need air conditioning, she thought ruefully. Paolo’s mother could have lowered the temperature to arctic proportions with one look. And the cost of her brother’s school trip was rising by the minute. He’d better enjoy it, that’s all, she muttered under her breath.

But as they drove into Umbria she found herself succumbing to the sheer beauty of the scenery around her, all other considerations taking second place. Everywhere she looked seemed to be composed of endless shades of green, and every hilltop seemed crowned with its own little town, clinging precariously to its rocky crag.

Half an hour later they reached Besavoro, which seemed to be hardly more than a large village on the bank of a river, which Paolo told her was a tributary of the Tiber. The central point was the square, where houses and shops huddled round a tall, ornate church. There was a market taking place, and the cramped space had to be negotiated with care.

Once free of the village, they began to climb quite steeply, taking a narrow road up the side of the valley. They passed the occasional house, but generally it was rugged terrain with a steep rocky incline leading up to heavy woodland on one side, and, on the other, protected only by a low wall, a stomach-churning drop down to the clustering roofs, and the river, now reduced to a silver thread, below them.

She remembered Paolo’s comment about a death trap, and suppressed a shiver, thankful that Giacomo was such a good driver.

‘We are nearly there, signorina.’ To her surprise, Laura found herself being addressed by the Signora. The older woman was even smiling faintly. ‘No doubt you are eager to see where you will be spending your little vacation. I hope it lives up to your expectations.’

Any overture, however slight, was welcome, and Laura responded. ‘Has the house been in the family long?’ she enquired politely.

‘For generations, although it has been altered and extended over the years. At one time, it is said to have been a hermitage, a solitary place where monks who had sinned were sent to do penance.’

‘I know how they feel,’ Paolo commented over his shoulder. ‘I am astonished that Alessio should waste even an hour in such a place. He has certainly never repented of anything in his life.’

His mother shrugged. ‘He spent much of his childhood here. Perhaps it has happy memories for him.’

‘He was never a child,’ said Paolo. ‘And his past is what happened yesterday—no more.’ He leaned forward. ‘Look, Laura mia. You can see the house now, if you look down a little through the trees.’

She caught a glimpse of pale rose stonework, and faded terracotta tiles, and caught her breath in sudden magic.

It was like an enchanted place, sleeping among the trees, she thought, and she was coming to break the spell. And she smiled to herself, knowing she was being utterly absurd.

Impossible to miss the sound of an approaching car in the clear air, Alessio thought. His unwanted guests were arriving.

Sighing irritably, he swung himself off the sun lounger, and reached for the elderly pair of white tennis shorts lying on the marble tiles beside him, reluctantly dragging them on. For the past few days, he’d revelled in freedom and isolation. Basked in his ability to swim in the pool and sunbathe beside it naked, knowing that Guillermo and Emilia who ran the villa for him would never intrude on his privacy.

Now his solitude had ended.

He thrust his feet into battered espadrilles, and began walking up through the terraced gardens to the house.

Up to the last minute, he’d prayed that this nightmare would never happen. That Paolo and his ragazza would quarrel, or that Zia Lucrezia would love her as a daughter on sight, and withdraw her objections. Anything—anything that would let him off this terrible hook.

But her phone call the previous night had destroyed any such hopes. She’d been almost hysterical, he remembered with distaste, railing that the girl was nothing more than a gold-digging tart, coarse and obvious, a woman of the lowest class. But clever in a crude way because she obviously intended to trap into marriage her poor Paolo, who did not realise the danger he was in.

At the same time, she’d made it very clear that her threat to expose his fleeting affair with Vittoria, if he did not keep his word, was all too real.

‘I want the English girl destroyed,’ she had hissed at him. ‘Nothing less will do.’

Alessio had been tempted to reply that he would prefer to destroy Vittoria, who was proving embarrassingly tenacious, bombarding him with phone calls and little notes, apparently unaware that her voluptuously passionate body in no way compensated for her nuisance value.

If she continued to behave with such indiscretion, Fabrizio and his mother might well smell a rat, without any intervention from Zia Lucrezia, he told himself grimly.

He’d been thankful to escape from Rome, and Vittoria’s constant badgering, to this private hideaway where he could remain incomunicabile. He hoped that, during his absence, she would find some other willing target for her libido, or he might ultimately have to be brutal with her. A thought that gave him no pleasure whatsoever.

And now he was faced with another, worse calamity. This unknown, unwanted girl that he had somehow to entice from Paolo’s bed into his own. Probably, he decided, after he’d deliberately made himself very, very drunk…

If I emerge alive from this mess, I shall take a vow of celibacy, he thought moodily.

Guillermo was already opening the heavy wooden entrance door, and Emilia was hovering anxiously. He knew that his instructions would have been minutely carried out, and that the arrangements and the food would be perfect. But visitors at the villa were still a rarity, and the servants were more accustomed to their employer’s own brand of casual relaxation. Zia Lucrezia’s presence would prove taxing for all of them.

He stepped out of the shadowy hall into the sunlight. The car had halted a few feet away, and the chauffeur was helping the Signora to alight, while Caio yapped crossly from her arms.

But Alessio’s attention was immediately on the girl, standing quietly, a little apart, looking up at the house. His first reaction was that she was not his type—or Paolo’s, for that matter, and he found this faintly bewildering. In fact she fitted none of the preconceived images his aunt’s fulminations had engendered, he thought critically as he observed her. Nearly as tall as Paolo himself, with clear, pale skin, a cloud of russet hair reaching to her shoulders, eyes like smoke, and a sweet, blunt-cornered mouth.

Not a conventional beauty—but curiously beguiling all the same.

Probably too slim, he mused, although the cheap dress she was wearing was singularly unrevealing.

And then, as if in answer to some silent wish, a faint breeze from the hills behind them blew the thin material back against her body, moulding it against the small, high breasts, the slight concavity of her stomach, the faintly rounded thighs, and long, slender legs.

Alessio, astonished, felt the breath catch suddenly in his throat, and, in spite of himself, he found his body stirring with frank and unexpected anticipation.

I’ve changed my mind, he thought in instant self-mockery. I shan’t get drunk after all. On the contrary, I think this ragazza deserves nothing less than my complete and sober attention.

He became aware that the Signora was approaching, her eyes studying him with disfavour.

‘Is this how you dress to receive your visitors, Alessio?’

He took her hand, bowing over it. His smile glinted coldly at her. ‘Ten minutes ago, Zia Lucrezia, I was not dressed at all. This is a concession.’ He eyed Caio grimly. ‘And you have brought your dog, I see. I hope he has learned better manners since our last encounter.’ He looked past her to his cousin. ‘Ah, Paolo, come stai?’

Paolo stared at him suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here?’

Alessio gave him a look of mild surprise. ‘It is my house, which makes me your host. Naturally, I wish to be here to attend to your comfort.’

‘You are not usually so concerned,’ Paolo muttered.

Alessio grinned at him. ‘No? Then perhaps I have seen the error of my ways. And the house has enough rooms for us all. You will not be required to share with me, cousin,’ he added blandly, then looked at the girl as if he had just noticed her. ‘And the name of your charming companion?’ Deliberately, he kept his voice polite rather than enthusiastic, noting the nervousness in the grey eyes under their dark fringe of lashes.

Paolo took her hand defensively. ‘This is Signorina Laura Mason, who has come with me from London. Laura, may I present my cousin, the Count Alessio Ramontella.’

He saw that she did not meet his gaze, but looked down instead at the flagstoned courtyard. ‘How do you do, signore?’ Her voice was quiet and clear.

‘Allow me to welcome you to my home, signorina.’ He inclined his head with formal courtesy, then led the way into the house. ‘Emilia, please show the ladies where they are to sleep. And the dog. Guillermo, will you take my cousin to his room?’

As he was turning away Paolo grabbed his arm. ‘What is this?’ he hissed. ‘Where are you putting Laura?’

‘In the room next to your mother’s—at her request.’ Alessio shrugged. ‘I am sorry if you are disappointed, but you also know that she would never permit you to sleep with your girlfriend under any roof that she was sharing. Besides, if you even approach that part of the house, that little hairy rat of your mamma’s will hear and start yapping.’ His grin was laced with faint malice. ‘Like the old monks, you will have to practise chastity.’

‘A lesson you have yet to learn,’ Paolo returned sourly.

‘In general, perhaps, but I have never brought a woman here,’ Alessio told him softly.

‘Talking of which,’ Paolo said, ‘what do you think of my little English inamorata?’

‘Do you need my opinion?’ Alessio gave him a steady look. ‘If she satisfies you, cousin, that should be enough.’ He paused. ‘Although usually you like them with more…’ He demonstrated with his hands.

‘Sì,’ Paolo agreed lasciviously. ‘But this girl has—hidden depths, if you take my meaning.’ And he laughed.

It occurred to Alessio that he had never particularly liked his cousin, and at this moment it would give him great pleasure to smack him in the mouth.

Instead he invited him to make himself at home, and went off to his own room to shower and change.

Laura felt dazed as she followed Emilia and the Signora along a series of passages. The Villa Diana was a single-storey building, and it seemed to ramble on forever in a leisurely way. But she was in no mood to take real stock of her surroundings. Not yet.

That, she thought with disbelief, that was the Count Ramontella, the august head of the Arleschi Bank? That half-naked individual with the unruly mane of curling black hair, and the five o’clock shadow?

She’d assumed, when she first saw him, that he must be the caretaker, or the gardener.

She’d expected an older, staider version of Paolo, conventionally good-looking with a figure that would incline to plumpness in middle age. But the Count was fully six feet tall, with a lean, muscular golden-skinned body that she’d had every opportunity to admire. The shorts he’d been wearing, slung low on his narrow hips, just erred on the right side of decency, she thought, her face warming slightly at the recollection.

And he was nowhere near middle life—hardly more than in his early thirties, if she was any judge. Not, she supposed, that she was.

As for the rest of him—well, his face was more striking than handsome, with a high-bridged beak of a nose, a frankly cynical mouth, and eyes as dark as midnight that looked at the world with bored indifference from under their heavy lids. Or at least, she amended, that was the way he’d looked at her.

And he wasn’t his aunt’s greatest admirer either, as Paolo had suggested. She hadn’t understood their brief exchange, but she’d detected a certain amount of snip, all the same.

But, if that was how he felt about his visitors, why was he here, when he wasn’t expected and it was clear that he had better places to go? It seemed to make no sense.

Whatever, she could not imagine him being pleased to find he was entertaining a very minor cog from his London branch’s PR machine. All the more reason, she told herself, for her connection with Harman Grace to remain a closely guarded secret. So—she’d continue to be the girl Paulo had met in a bar, and let his noble relative pick the bones out of that.

But her troubled musings ceased when Emilia, a comfortably built woman with a beaming smile, flung open a door with a triumphant, ‘Ecco, signorina,’ indicating that this was her bedroom.

Laura took a step inside, and looked round, her eyes widening with delight. It couldn’t have presented a greater contrast to the opulent and cluttered apartment where she’d stayed yesterday. For one thing, it was double the size of the room she’d occupied there, she realised, with a floor tiled in a soft pink marble, while the white plaster walls still bore traces of ancient frescos, which she would examine at her leisure.

But that was the only suggestion of the villa’s age. For the present day, there was a queen-sized bed, prettily hung with filmy white curtains, which also graced the shuttered windows. A chest of drawers, a clothes cupboard, and a night table comprised the rest of the furniture, and a door led to a compact but luxurious shower room, tiled in the same shade of pink. The only other additions to the bedroom were a lamp beside the bed, and a bowl of roses on the chest.

She turned to Emilia. ‘Perfect,’ she said, smiling. And, managing to ignore Signora Vicente’s disdainful glance, ‘Perfetto.’

When she was alone, she went over to the window, and pulled it wide. It opened, she saw, onto a three-sided courtyard, bordered by a narrow colonnade, like a medieval cloister, and she stepped through, gazing around her. There was a small fountain in the centre of the paved area, with a battered cherub pouring water from a shell into a shallow pool, while beside it stood a stone bench.

Directly ahead of her, Laura saw, the courtyard itself opened out into the sunlit grass and flowers of the garden beyond, and from somewhere not too far away she could hear the cooing of doves.

But it wasn’t all peace and tranquillity, she realised wryly. From even closer at hand, she could hear the raised autocratic tones of the Signora, mingled with Emilia’s quieter replies.

A salutary reminder that this little piece of Eden also had its serpents, not to mention wolves and bears, she thought, gazing up at the thickly forested slopes that brooded above her.

Suddenly, she felt tired, sticky and a little dispirited. She’d seen that there were towels and a range of toiletries waiting in the shower room, so decided she might as well make use of them.

She stood under the powerful jet of warm water, lathering her skin luxuriously with soap that smelt of lilies, feeling as if her anxieties were draining away with the suds and she were being somehow reborn, refreshed and invigorated.

Most of the towels were linen, but there were a couple of fluffy bath sheets as well, and when she was dry she wound herself in one of them, and trailed back into the bedroom.

While she’d been occupied, her case had arrived and was waiting on the bed, so she busied herself with unpacking. She hadn’t brought nearly enough, she thought, viewing the results with disfavour, and very little that was smart or formal enough for someone who found herself staying with a count at his private villa.

The outfit that had survived with the fewest creases was a wrap-around dress in a silver-grey silky material, and she decided to try and create a good impression by wearing it for dinner that night.

She had a solitary credit card, kept for emergencies, and maybe she could persuade Paolo to risk the road from hell on a trip to Perugia, so that she could supplement her wardrobe a little.

Whatever she wore, the Signora would sneer, and she accepted that. But for reasons she could not explain, or even admit to, she did not want Count Ramontella looking at her with equal disdain.

She wanted him to accept the fiction that she and Paolo were an item. Perhaps to acknowledge, in some way she hadn’t worked out yet, that she was an eligible bride for his cousin, and welcome her as such.

And pigs might fly, she thought morosely.

In the meantime, she wasn’t sure what to do next. The whole villa seemed enveloped in sleepy heat. There was even silence from the adjoining room, the only sound being the faint soothing splash of the fountain.

Laura felt she could hardly blunder about exploring her new surroundings, alone and uninvited, in case she committed some kind of social faux pas.

So, she decided, she was probably better off remaining where she was until summoned.

She was just about to stretch out on the bed with her book when there was a knock at the door.

Paolo, she thought instantly, wishing she were wearing something more reliable than a big towel. But when she cautiously opened the door, and peeped round it, she found Emilia waiting with a tray.

Beaming, the older woman informed her in halting English that His Excellency thought the signorina might need some refreshment after her journey, then placed the tray in her hands and departed.

Laura carried the tray over to the bed and set it down with care. It held a teapot, with a dish of lemon slices, a plate of tiny crustless sandwiches containing some kind of pâté, and a bowl of golden cherries faintly flushed with crimson.

It was a kindness she had not anticipated, she thought with faint bewilderment. In fact the Count Ramontella seemed positively full of surprises.

But perhaps she was reading too much into this. Clearly his hospitality was primarily aimed at his aunt, and she’d been included as an afterthought.

Because her host didn’t seem like a man who went in for random acts of kindness, Laura thought, remembering uneasily the faint curl of that beautifully moulded mouth.

So, she might as well make the most of this one, while it was on offer.

She ate every scrap of the delicious sandwiches with two cups of tea, then lay back with a contented sigh, savouring the cherries as she read. Later, she dozed for a while.

When she eventually awoke, the sun was much lower in the sky, and shadows were beginning to creep across the courtyard outside.

She donned a lacy bra and briefs, then sat down to make up her face with rather more care than usual, before giving her glossy fall of russet hair a vigorous brushing and fastening silver hoops in her ears. Finally, she sprayed her skin with the fresh, light scent she used, then slipped into the chosen dress, winding its sash round her slender waist and fastening it in a bow.

She’d brought one pair of flattish evening sandals in a neutral pewter shade—light years away from the glamorous shoes with their dizzyingly high heels that Italy was famous for. But even if she’d possessed such a pair, she wouldn’t have been able to wear them, she conceded regretfully, because that would have made her slightly taller than Paolo, who was sensitive about his height.

Count Ramontella, of course, had no such concerns, she thought. The highest heels in the world would only have raised her to a level with his chin. And God only knew why such a thing had even occurred to her.

It was time she concentrated on Paolo, and the task she’d agreed to perform.

She let herself out of her bedroom, and started down the passage, trying to retrace her earlier steps. She had more time to observe her surroundings now, and she realised that the whole place was a series of courtyards, some completely enclosed, each of them marked by its own fountain, or piece of statuary.

And a good job too, because it’s like a labyrinth, she thought, hesitating, totally at a loss, as the passage she was negotiating crossed another. To her relief, the white-coated manservant who had been at the entrance when they’d arrived appeared from nowhere, and indicated politely that she should follow him.

The room she was shown to was enormous, its focal point a huge stone fireplace surmounted by a coat of arms. It was also empty, and Laura hesitated in the doorway, feeling dwarfed by her surroundings, and a little isolated too.

Obviously, she had left her room much too early. The Italians, she recalled, were apt to dine later than people did in England, but she decided to stay where she was rather than attempt that maze of passages again.