The Vengeful Husband

‘Let us leave it at Luca for now. The wording of your ad suggested that the employment on offer could be of a somewhat unusual nature,’ he drawled softly. ‘I would like some details before we go any further.’

Darcy bristled like a cat stroked the wrong way. She was supposed to be interviewing him, not the other way round!

‘After all, you have not given me your real name either,’ he pointed out in offensively smooth continuance.

Darcy’s eyes opened to their fullest extent. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Before I came down here, I checked you out. Your surname is Fielding, not Darcy, and you do not live here in this cottage; you live in the huge mansion at the top of the driveway,’ he enumerated with unabashed cool. ‘You have gone to some trouble to conceal your own identity. Naturally that is a source of concern to me.’

Stunned by that little speech, Darcy sprang upright and stared down at him in shaken disbelief, her angry bewilderment unconcealed. ‘You checked me out?’

He lifted a casual brown hand and slowly removed the sunglasses. ‘The light is dim enough in here...’

He studied her with a curiously expectant quality of intensity.

And without warning Darcy found herself staring down into lustrous dark eyes fringed by glossy, spiky black lashes. He had the sort of eyes that packed a powerful punch. Gorgeous, she thought in helpless reaction, brilliant and dark as night, impenetrably deep and unreadable. With the sunglasses on he had looked as if he might be pretty good-looking, without them he zoomed up the scale to stunningly handsome, in spite of the fact that he badly needed a shave. And she now quite understood that hint of expectancy he betrayed. This was a guy accustomed to basking in female double takes, appreciative stares and inviting smiles.

But Darcy tensed and took an instantaneous step back, her retreat only halted by the armchair she had vacated. Yet the tiny twisting sensation of sudden excitement she had experienced still curled up deep in the pit of her taut stomach, and then pierced her like a knife with sudden shame. Her colour heightening, Darcy plotted her path out of the way of the armchair behind her, controlled solely by a need to put as much distance as possible between them.

Throughout that unchoreographed backing away process of hers, she was tracked by narrowed unflinchingly steady dark eyes. ‘Signorina Fielding—’

‘Look, you had no right to check me out...’ Darcy folded her arms in a defensive movement. ‘I guaranteed your privacy. Couldn’t you have respected mine?’

‘Not without some idea of what I might be getting into. It’s standard business practice to make enquiries in advance of an interview.’

Darcy tore her frustrated gaze from his. Antipathy darted through her in a blinding wave. With difficulty, she held onto her ready temper. Possibly the reminder had been a timely one. It was, after all, a business proposition she intended to make. And this Luca might think he was clever, but she already knew he had to be as thick as two short planks, didn’t she? Only a complete idiot would turn up for an interview with a woman unshaven and dressed like a Hell’s Angel. A financial advisor? In his dreams! Conservative apparel went with such employment.

Bolstered by the belief that he could be no Einstein, and rebuking herself for having been intimidated by something as superficial and unimportant as his physical appearance, Darcy sat down again and linked her small hands tightly together on her lap. ‘Right, let’s get down to business, then...’

The waiting silence lay thick and heavy like a blanket. Settling back into the sofa in a relaxed sprawl of long, seemingly endless limbs, Luca surveyed her with unutterable tranquillity.

Her teeth gritted. Wondering just how long that laid-back attitude would last, Darcy lifted her chin to a challenging angle. ‘There was a good reason behind the offbeat ad I placed. But before I explain what that reason is, I should mention certain facts in advance. Should you agree to take the position on offer, you would be well paid even though there is no work involved—’

‘No work involved?’

Darcy was soothed at receiving the exact response she had anticipated in that interruption. ‘No work whatsoever,’ she confirmed. ‘While you were living in my home, your time would be your own, and at the end of your employment—assuming that you fulfil the terms to my satisfaction—I would also give you a generous bonus.’

‘So what’s the catch?’ Luca prompted very softly. ‘In return you ask me to do something illegal?’

A mortified flush stained Darcy’s perfect skin. ‘Of course not,’ she rebutted tautly. “The “catch”, if you choose to call it that, is that you would have to agree to marry me for six months!’

‘To...marry you?’ Luca stressed the word with a frown of wondering incredulity as he sat forward on the sofa. ‘The employment you offer is...marriage?’

‘Yes. It’s really quite simple. I need a man to go through a wedding ceremony with me and behave like a husband for a minimum of six months,’ Darcy extended, with the frozen aspect of a woman forcing herself to refer to an indecent act.

‘Why?’

‘Why? That’s my business. I don’t think you require that information to make a decision,’ Darcy responded uncomfortably.

Lush black lashes semi-screened his dark eyes. ‘I don’t understand... Could you explain it again, signorina,’ he urged, in a rather dazed undertone.

You certainly couldn’t call him mentally agile, Darcy thought ruefully. Having got over the worst, however, she felt stronger, and all embarrassment had left her. He was still sitting there, and why shouldn’t he be? If he was as single as he had said he was, he stood to earn a great deal for doing nothing. She repeated what she had already said and, convinced that the financial aspect would be the greatest persuader of all, she mentioned the monthly salary she was prepared to offer and then the sizeable bonus she would advance in return for his continuing discretion about their arrangement after they had parted.

He nodded, and then nodded again more slowly, still focusing with a slight frown on the worn carpet at his feet. Maybe the light was annoying his eyes, Darcy decided, struggling to hold onto her irritation at his torpid reactions. Maybe he was just gobsmacked by the concept of being paid to be bone idle. Or maybe he was so shattered by what she had suggested that he hadn’t yet worked out how to respond.

‘I would, of course, require references,’ Darcy continued.

‘I could not supply references as a husband...’

Darcy drew in a deep breath of restraint. ‘I’m referring to character references,’ she said drily.

‘If you wanted a husband, why didn’t you place an ad in the personal column?’

‘I would have received replies from men interested in a genuine and lasting marriage.’ Darcy sighed. ‘It was wiser just to advertise my requirements as a form of employment—’

‘Quiet... domesticated... well-behaved.’

‘I don’t want someone who’s going to get under my feet or expect me to wait on him hand and foot. Would you say you were self-sufficient?’

‘Si...’

‘Well, then, what do you think?’ Darcy demanded impulsively.

‘I don’t yet know what I think. I wasn’t expecting this kind of proposal,’ he returned gently. ‘No woman has ever asked me to marry her before.’

‘I’m not talking about a proper marriage. Obviously we’d separate after the six months was up and get a divorce. By the way, you would also have to sign a pre-nuptial contract,’ Darcy added, because she needed to safeguard the estate from any claim an estranged husband might legitimately attempt to make. ‘That isn’t negotiable.’

Luca rose gracefully upright. ‘I believe I would need a greater cash inducement to give up my freedom—’

‘That’s not a problem,’ Darcy broke in, her tone one of eager reassurance on that point. If he was prepared to consider her proposition, she was keen to accommodate him. ‘I’m prepared to negotiate. If you agree, I’ ll double the original bonus I offered.’

Disconcertingly, he didn’t react to that impulsive offer. Darcy flushed then, feeling more than a little foolish.

Veiled dark eyes surveyed her. ‘I’ll think it over. I’ll be in touch.’

‘The references?’

‘I will present them if I decide to accept the...the position.’ As Luca framed the last two words a flash of shimmering gold illuminated his dark eyes. Amusement at the sheer desperation she had revealed in her desire to reach agreement with him? Darcy squirmed at the suspicion.

‘I need an answer very soon. I have no time to waste.’

‘I’ll give you an answer tomorrow...’ He strode to the door and then he hesitated, throwing her a questioning look over one broad masculine shoulder. ‘It surprises me that you could not persuade a friend to agree to so temporary an arrangement.’

Darcy stiffened and coloured. ‘In these particular circumstances, I prefer a stranger.’

‘A stranger... I can understand that,’ Luca completed in a honey-soft and smooth drawl.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SO WHAT sort of impression did Lucas make on you?’ Karen demanded, minutes later.

‘It’s not Lucas, it’s Luca... My impression?’ Darcy studied her friend with a frowning air of abstraction. ‘That’s the odd thing. I didn’t really get a proper impression—at least not one I could hang onto for longer than five seconds,’ she found herself admitting in belated recognition of the fact. ‘One minute I thought he was all brawn and no brain, and then the next he would come out with something razor-sharp. And towards the end he was as informative as a brick wall.’

‘He didn’t accuse you of dragging him down here on false pretences? He didn’t laugh like a drain? Or even ask if you were pulling his leg?’ It was Karen’s turn to look confused.

Darcy shook her head reflectively. ‘He was very low-key in his reactions, businesslike in spite of the way he was dressed. That made it easier for me. I didn’t get half as embarrassed as I thought I would.’

‘Only you could conduct such a weird and loaded interview with a male that gorgeous and not respond on any more personal a level.’

‘That kind of man leaves me cold.’ But Darcy’s cheeks warmed as she recalled that humiliating moment when she had reacted all too personally to the sheer male magnetism of those dark good looks.

Karen’s keen gaze gleamed. ‘He didn’t leave you stone-cold... did he?’

Cursing her betrayingly fair skin, Darcy strove to continue meeting her friend’s eyes levelly. ‘Karen—’

‘Forget it... I can tell a mile off when you’re about to lie through your teeth!’

Darcy winced. ‘OK...I noticed that Luca was reasonably fanciable—’

‘Reasonably fanciable?’ her friend carolled with extravagant incredulity.

‘All right.’ Darcy sighed in rueful surrender. ‘He was spectacular...are you satisfied now?’

‘Yes. Your indifference to men seriously worries me. Now at least I know that you’re still in the land of the living.’

Darcy pulled a wry face. ‘With my level of looks and appeal, indifference is by far the safest bet, believe me.’

Karen compressed her lips and thought with real loathing of all the people responsible for ensuring Darcy had such a low opinion of her own attractions. Her cold and critical father, her vain and sarcastic stepmother, not to mention the rejections her unlucky friend had suffered from the opposite sex during her awkward and vulnerable teen years. Being jilted at the altar and left to raise her child alone had completed the damage.

And these days Darcy dressed like a scarecrow and made little effort to socialise. Slowly and surely she was turning into a recluse, although the hours she slaved over that wretched house meant that she didn’t know what free time was, Karen conceded grimly. Anyone else confronted with such an immense and thankless challenge would’ve given up and at least sold the furniture by now, but not Darcy. Darcy would starve sooner than see any more of the Folly’s treasures go to auction.

‘I get really annoyed with you when you talk like that,’ Karen said truthfully. ‘If you would only buy some decent clothes and take a little more interest in—’

‘Why bother when I’m quite happy as I am?’ Visibly agitated by the turn the conversation had taken, Darcy glanced hurriedly at her watch and added with a relief she couldn’t hide, ‘It’s time I picked up Zia from the play-group.’

As Darcy left the gate lodge, however, that final dialogue travelled with her. Demeaning memories had been roused to fill her thoughts and unsettle her stomach. All over again she saw her one-time fiancé, Richard, gawping at her chief bridesmaid like a moonsick calf and finally admitting at the eleventh hour that he couldn’t go through with the wedding because he had fallen in love with Maxie. And the ultimate insult had to be that her former friend, Maxie, who was so beautiful she could stop traffic, hadn’t even wanted Richard!

That devastatingly public rejection had been followed by the Venetian episode, Darcy recalled wretchedly. That, too, had ended in severe humiliation. She had got to play Cinderella for a night. And then she had got to stand on the Ponte della Guerra and be stood up like a dumb teenager the following day. She had waited for ages too, and had hit complete rock-bottom when she finally appreciated that Prince Charming was not going to turn up.

Of course another woman, a more experienced and less credulous woman, would have known that that so casually voiced yet so romantic suggestion had been the equivalent of a guy saying he would phone you when he hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so, only she hadn’t recognised the reality. No, Darcy reflected with a stark shudder of remembrance, she had been much happier since she had given up on all that ghastly embarrassing and confusing man-woman stuff.

And if Luca, whoever he was, decided to go ahead and accept her proposition, she would soon be able to tune him and his macho motorbike leathers out entirely...

Perspiration beading her brow, Darcy wielded the heavy power-saw with the driven energy of necessity. The ancient kitchen range had an insatiable appetite for wood. Breathing heavily, she stopped to take a break. Even after switching off the saw, her ears still rang with the shattering roar of the petrol-driven motor. With a weary sigh, she bent and began laboriously stacking the logs into the waiting wheelbarrow.

‘Darcy...?’

At the sound of that purring, accented drawl, Darcy almost leapt out of her skin, and she jerked round with a muttered exclamation. Luca stood several feet away. Her startled green eyes clung to his tall, outrageously masculine physique. Wide shoulders, sleek hips, long, long legs. And he had shaved.

One look at the to-die-for features now revealed in all their glory struck Darcy dumb. She wasn’t even capable of controlling that reaction. In full daylight, he was so staggeringly handsome. High, chiselled cheekbones, sharp as blades, were dissected by an arrogant but classic nose and embellished by a wide, perfect mouth. Even his skin had that wonderful golden glowing vibrancy of warmer climes...

‘Is there something wrong?’ An equally shapely ebony brow had now quirked enquiringly.

‘You startled me...’ Heated colour drenching her skin as she realised that she had been staring, Darcy dragged her attention from him with considerable difficulty. As her dazed eyes dropped down, she blinked in disbelief at the sight of her cocker spaniels seated silently at his feet like the well trained dogs they unfortunately weren’t. Strangers usually provoked Humpf and Bert into a positive frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Instead, her lovable but noisy animals were welded to the spot and throwing Luca upward pleading doggy glances as if he had cast some weird sort of hypnotic spell over them.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Darcy said abruptly.

‘I did try the front entrance first...’ His deep-pitched sexy drawl petered out as he studied the sizeable stack of wood. ‘Surely you haven’t cut all that on your own?’

Threading an even more self-conscious hand through the damp and wildly curling tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead, she nodded, aware of the incredulity in those piercing dark eyes.

‘Are there no men around here?’

‘No, I’m the next best thing...but then that’s nothing new,’ Darcy muttered half under her breath, writhing at her own undeniable awkwardness around men and hating him for surprising her when she wasn’t psyched up to deal with him.

Forgivably thrown by that odd response, Luca frowned.

Darcy leapt straight back into speech. ‘I assumed you would phone—’

‘Nobody ever answers your phone.’

‘I’m outdoors a lot of the time.’ Stripping off her heavy gloves, Darcy flexed small and painfully stiff fingers and averted her scrutiny from him, her unease in his presence pronounced. What on earth was the matter with her? She was behaving like a silly teenager with a crush. ‘You’d better come inside.’

Hurriedly grabbing up an armful of logs, Darcy led the way. The long, cobbled passageway that provided a far from convenient rear entrance to her home was dark and gloomy and flanked by a multitude of closed doors. Innumerable rooms which had once enjoyed specific functions as part of the kitchen quarters now lay unused. But not for much longer, she reminded herself. When she achieved her dream of opening up the house to the public all those rooms full of their ancient labour intensive equipment would fascinate children.

And she was going to achieve her dream, she told herself feverishly. Surely Luca wouldn’t take the trouble to make a second personal appearance if he intended to say no?

She trod into the vast echoing kitchen and knelt down by the big range at the far end. Opening the door, she thrust a sizeable log into the fuel bed. ‘Did you come all the way from London again?’

‘No, I stayed in Penzance last night.’

Darcy was so rigid with nervous tension, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she breathed tautly, ‘So what’s your answer?’

‘Yes. My answer is yes,’ he murmured with.quiet emphasis.

Her strained eyes prickled with sudden tears and she blinked rapidly before slamming shut the door on the range. The relief was so immense she felt quite dizzy for a few seconds. Feeling as if a huge weight had dropped from her shoulders, Darcy scrambled upright and turned, a grateful smile on her now softened face. ‘That’s great...that’s really great. Would you like some coffee?’

Lounging back against the edge of the giant scrubbed pine table, Luca stared back at her, not a muscle moving in his strong dark face. It was a rather daunting reaction and she swallowed hard, unaware that that shy and spontaneous air of sudden friendliness had disconcerted him.

‘OK...why not?’ he agreed, without any expression at all.

Darcy put on the kettle and stole an uneasy glance at him in the taut silence. She didn’t know where the tension was coming from, and then she wondered if his brooding silence was a kind of male ego thing. ‘I suppose this isn’t quite the sort of work you were hoping to get,’ she conceded awkwardly. ‘But I promise you that you won’t regret it. How long have you been unemployed?’

‘Unemployed?’ he echoed, strong features stiffening.

‘Sorry, I just assumed—’

‘I have never been employed in the UK.’

‘Oh...’ Darcy nodded slowly. ‘So how long have you been over here?’

‘Long enough...’

Darcy scrutinised that slightly downbent dark glossy head, taking in the faint darkening of colour over his sculpted cheekbones. He was embarrassed at his lack of success in the job market, she gathered, and she wished she had been a little less blunt in her questioning. But then tact had never been her strong point. And when she had interviewed him she had been so wrapped up in her own problems that it hadn’t occurred to her that Luca must have been desperate to find a job to come so far out of London in answer to one small ad. Furthermore, now that she took a closer look at those leathers of his, she couldn’t help but notice that they were pretty worn.

Sudden sympathy swept Darcy. She knew all about being broke and trying to keep up appearances. She had looked down on him for wearing motorbike gear to an interview, but maybe the poor guy didn’t have much else to wear. If he hadn’t worked since he had arrived in the UK, he certainly couldn’t have financed much of a wardrobe. Smart suits cost money.

‘I’ll give you half your first month’s salary in advance,’ Darcy heard herself say. ‘As a sort of retainer...’

This time he looked frankly startled.

‘You probably think that’s very trusting of me, but I tend to take people as I find them. In any case, I don’t have a lot of choice but to trust you. If you were to get the chance of another job and decide to back out on me, I’d be in trouble,’ she said honestly. ‘How do you like your coffee?’

‘Black...two sugars.’

Darcy put a pile of biscuits on a rather chipped plate. Setting the two beakers of coffee down on the table, she sat down and reached for the jotter and pencil lying there. ‘I’d better get some details from you, hadn’t I? What is your surname?’

There was a pause, a distinct pause as he sank lithely down opposite her.

‘Raffacani...’ he breathed.

‘You’ll need to spell that for me.’

He obliged.

Darcy bent industriously over the jotter. ‘And Luca—is that your first and only other name? You see, I have to get this right for the vicar.’

‘Gianluca...Gianluca Fabrizio.’

‘I think you’d better spell all of it.’ She took down his birthdate. Raffacani, she was thinking. Why did she have the curious sense that she had come across that name somewhere before? She shook her head. For all she knew Raffacani was as common a name in Italy as Smith was in England.

‘Right,’ she said then. ‘I’ll contact my solicitor, Mr Stevens. He’s based in Penzance, so you can sign the prenuptial contract as soon as you like. Those references you offered...?’

From the inside of his jacket he withdrew a somewhat creased envelope. Struggling to keep up a businesslike attitude when she really just wanted to sing and dance round the kitchen with relief, Darcy withdrew the documents. There were two, one with a very impressive letterhead, but both were written in Italian. ‘I’ll hang onto these and study them,’ she told him, thinking of the old set of foreign language dictionaries in the library. ‘But I’m sure they’ll be fire.’

‘How soon do you envisage the marriage ceremony taking place?’ Luca Raffacani enquired.

‘Hopefully in about three weeks. It’ll be a very quiet wedding,’ Darcy explained rather stiffly, fixing her attention to the scarred surface of the table, her face turning pale and set. ‘But as my father died this year that won’t surprise anyone. It wouldn’t be quite the thing to have a big splash.’

‘You’re not inviting many guests?’

‘Actually...’ Darcy breathed in deep, plunged into dismal recall of the huge misfired wedding which her father had insisted on staging three years earlier. ‘Well, actually, I wasn’t planning on inviting anybody,’ she admitted tightly as she rose restively to her feet again. ‘I’ll show you where you’ll be staying when you move in, shall I?’

At an infinitely more graceful and leisurely pace, Luca slid upright and straightened. Darcy watched in helpless fascination. His every movement had such... such style, an unhurried cool that caught the eye. He was so self-possessed, so contained. He was also very reserved. He gave nothing away. Well, would she have preferred a garrulous extrovert who asked a lot of awkward questions? Irritated by her own growing curiosity, Darcy left him to follow her out of the kitchen and tried to concentrate on more important things.

‘What did you mean when you said you were the next best thing to a man around here?’ Luca enquired on the way up the grand oak staircase.

‘My father wanted a son, not a daughter—at least...not the kind of daughter I turned out to be.’ As she spoke, Darcy was comparing herself to her stepsister. Morton Fielding had been utterly charmed by his second wife’s beautiful daughter, Nina. Darcy had looked on in amazement as Nina twisted her cold and censorious parent round her little finger with ease.