At The Sicilian Count's Command. Carole Mortimer
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and considerable beauty on a man so much older, for one? Had she chosen to take Stephen as her lover because she felt an older man would appreciate her youth and beauty in a way that a younger man didn’t? Did she think that a man of some years was more likely to remain enthralled by her loveliness? To remain faithful?
If that was what she believed about Stephen, then she had chosen the wrong man—Stephen hadn’t been faithful to the wife he had loved, let alone to any of the numerous mistresses he’d had over the years!
‘How did you and Stephen meet?’ Wolf asked as their horses trotted side by side, with Angelica showing a natural aptitude that he couldn’t help but admire, moving easily with the horse, her hands light on the reins.
She gave him a sideways glance before answering guardedly. ‘How did Stephen tell you we’d met?’
Wolf gave an appreciative grin at the way she had sensed his question was a trap. ‘He didn’t,’ he responded. ‘Only that he hadn’t found you, but that you had been the one to find him.’
She smiled, revealing small pearly-white teeth against her red lipgloss. ‘It’s true—I did.’
And? Wolf wondered frustratedly.
‘You are aware that Stephen does not have a history of—fidelity?’ he said aloud.
Her smile faded slightly at the same time as her chin rose in challenge. ‘Any more than you do, Count Gambrelli,’ she bit out scathingly.
His mouth tightened at the reference to his own reputation. ‘We are not discussing me—’
‘Aren’t we?’ Angelica interrupted. ‘Then perhaps we should.’ Her eyes flashed deeply grey. ‘Because it seems to me that you have absolutely no right to comment on Stephen’s lack of fidelity when you are obviously such a womaniser yourself!’ Her cheeks were flushed with indignant anger on Stephen’s behalf.
How dared Wolf Gambrelli presume to comment on Stephen’s behaviour when his own numerous relationships were such public knowledge?
He looked down the haughty length of his nose at her. ‘You should not believe everything you read in the gutter press!’
Angelica gave a derisive snort. ‘If only half the stories of your affairs are true, then that makes you something of a sexual athlete in my book—Let go of my reins, Count Gambrelli!’ she warned him nervously as he reached out and grabbed them, drawing her horse closer to his—something the black mare took exception to, if the way it moved skittishly was any indication. ‘You’ll pull us both out of the saddle in a minute!’ she said impatiently as she struggled to maintain control of her horse.
Despite her inexperience she had never become unseated yet—but there was always a first time!
She was finding Wolf Gambrelli’s obsession with her relationship with Stephen deeply irritating. Couldn’t he see that it really wasn’t any of his business? That it wasn’t anyone else’s business but her own and Stephen’s?
It was because of the delicacy, the newness of their father-daughter relationship, that she and Stephen had decided from the onset that it wasn’t yet a subject for public consumption. Stephen was all too aware, after years of having his every move reported in the newspapers, of just how the advent of an illegitimate daughter into his life could be sensationalised in the press.
But Wolf Gambrelli was like a dog—a wolf?—gnawing at a bone, refusing to be dissuaded from discussing a subject that was absolutely none of his business.
‘I—said—let—go!’ she repeated desperately as her horse continued to shift nervously. At the same time she slapped the end of her reins hard across Wolf Gambrelli’s restraining hand, digging her heels into her horse’s flanks as she felt Wolf briefly relax his grip at the sting of her strike. Bending low over the mare’s mane, Angelica urged her mount into a gallop.
But she could hear Wolf Gambrelli’s immediate pursuit of her, the thunder of the grey’s hooves close behind her, could almost feel its hot breath against her thighs as it began to gain on her.
She dug her heels even harder into her mare’s flanks, not caring at that moment that she had never galloped a horse as fast as this before, that she no longer felt completely in control. She was intent on getting away from Wolf Gambrelli—on getting away from his increasingly insulting remarks.
‘Stop, you little fool!’ he shouted to her impatiently.
Angelica ignored him, too busy concentrating on maintaining her seat in the saddle to even attempt to answer him. Her eyes widened in panic as she saw the mare wasn’t going in the direction of the open gate, but was instead rapidly approaching the four-foot wall that bordered the field. Her own frantic pulling on the reins seemed to have no effect on its nervous flight.
She wasn’t sure what happened next—whether the mare had suddenly decided she didn’t want to jump the wall after all, or if her own desperate pulling on the reins to get the horse to stop had finally had some effect. All Angelica was aware of was the horse coming to a sudden slithering halt, and her own momentum taking her up and over the mare’s head. Briefly she had a feeling as if she were flying, before landing so hard on her back on the ground that all the breath seemed to have been knocked from her body, forcing her to close her eyes as the world began to spin wildly around her.
Wolf had ground his teeth frustratedly as he’d watched Angelica gallop away from him, his eyes widening as he realised she had lost control of her horse. Instantly he had urged the grey in pursuit, and had almost been within touching distance of her reins when the mare had decided to come to an abrupt halt. Wolf’s face had paled, and he’d been able to do nothing but watch in horror as Angelica sailed over the mare’s head, to land on her back with a sickening thump several feet away on the hard ground.
Now, he pulled on the grey’s reins, barely waiting for the horse to come to a stop before sliding quickly out of his saddle and running over to where Angelica still lay stunned—dead?—on the ground.
‘You little fool!’ he ground out harshly, even as he went down on his knees beside her.
He didn’t feel in the least reassured by her closed, unmoving lids and the pallor of her cheeks, and pulled her roughly against him. Her hair, loosened from its band, cascaded silkily over his arm.
‘Why did you not listen to me?’ he rasped fiercely. ‘Angel…? Angel!’ he urged more forcefully as he saw a pulse beating reassuringly at the delicacy of her temple. ‘For God’s sake, open your eyes and look at me!’ he muttered harshly, relieved beyond belief to find she was still alive, but now needing to know whether or not she had broken any bones in the fall.
Her eyes remained firmly closed, but her throat moved convulsively and she spoke. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d really rather not,’ she murmured.
Wolf sighed his frustration with her comment. ‘Rather not what?’ he demanded impatiently.
Was she delirious? Had the fall somehow muddled her brain? What—?
‘Look at you,’ she answered him wryly. ‘This is embarrassing enough as it is, without that!’
‘Embarrassing…?’ he repeated uncertainly as his arms tightened their hold about her. ‘Angel, if you don’t open your eyes now and assure me that you haven’t broken anything, then I am going to be forced into giving you a sound shaking!’ he warned.
Angelica raised her lids with effort, relieved that the world seemed to have stopped spinning at least, a rueful smile curving her lips as she looked up into Wolf Gambrelli’s angry face. ‘And that’s really going to help!’ she commented wryly, not sure that she hadn’t broken anything, most of her still feeling numb from her sudden impact with the ground.
No, it didn’t feel as if anything were broken, she decided as she slowly flexed the muscles in her arms and legs. Her back was feeling bruised, but not particularly painful. Her teeth had been soundly rattled, but as she ran her tongue over them she could feel that they were all still in place too.