At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command. Susan Stephens
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assessment of her graceful figure in the classically cut silk dress and jacket. In Dante’s favourite cornflower-blue, it matched her eyes. Into which, she’d thought with a pang of anguish when she’d selected it, he’d gazed with such devastating results.
‘You are thinner,’ he announced, his frown registering his disapproval.
She bridled immediately. Once she’d loved his intrinsically Italian interest in her body and clothes. Now his interest was insulting and intrusive. She lifted her shoulders in an eloquent uninterest.
‘My appearance is none of your business. Naturally I’ve been busy. Rushing here, dashing there…’
And from feeling sick at the sight of food. With agonising cramps in her stomach. Damn you, Dante! she inwardly seethed. Where is my son?
He corrected the frown which had drawn his brows together.
‘You’re right. Your appalling lifestyle in England is no concern of mine any longer, I am glad to say. Tea has been brought to my study,’ he said icily. ‘Follow me.’ When he began to climb the steps again she made no reply but stomped along behind him in silence, trying not to rise to his insult. ‘Nothing to say to me?’ he shot back at her.
‘No.’ She’d bide her time. See what he had to say—
‘I thought as much,’ he scorned as she caught him up. ‘You’ve just proved something to me.’
‘Oh? What might that be?’
‘That when I was around you only pretended that you loved Carlo.’
‘How on earth do you arrive at that conclusion?’ she demanded indignantly.
‘You’ve been separated from him for two weeks. But you haven’t bothered to ask where he is,’ he said with bitter contempt.
So much for his intuition, she thought, intensely irritated. Didn’t he know her whole mind was screaming for information?
‘I saw no point in wasting my breath. I imagined,’ she retorted drily, proud that there was hardly a tremor in her voice at all, ‘that you would tell me when you’re good and ready and not before.’
He gave a grunt of acknowledgement. ‘How well you know me, Miranda!’ he muttered, indicating that they should enter the building.
Know him? On the contrary. How could you know a devious, deceitful snake? She would never trust him again. Suddenly, doubts as to his motive for bringing her here filled her head and she came to a halt.
‘Just tell me one thing,’ she said evenly, ‘otherwise I see no reason to go any further. Am I going to see my son soon?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Dante’s eyes flickered. ‘I give you my guarantee that the two of you will be reunited. Please enter. We will talk inside.’
Her breath shuddered out. It seemed that her fears were groundless and all she needed to do was keep her dignity until Dante relented and let her take Carlo into her arms. Only then would she risk giving way to joy. And tears. She could hardly believe it. The nightmare was almost over.
CHAPTER THREE
SUDDENLY she felt unbelievably tired. It was as though all her mental and physical energies had carried her through to this moment. Now she and Carlo were about to be reunited, she could begin to let go.
Exhaustion washed over her as she followed his tall figure through the huge carved doors. If anything, he seemed better-looking than ever. Her resentful eyes noted the perfect curve that his neat black hair made on the rich, dark skin of his neck. The breadth of his shoulders in the crisp Milanese jacket.
And in her mind’s eye she could see his sensational back as if he were naked: the firmness of its triangular shape, the slender hips and tight, neat buttocks. The smooth flesh golden and inviting her touch, muscles moving beneath the well-fitted clothes, the thick cords on either side of his spine proclaiming his athleticism and physical power.
Her heart ached. She could have wept for everything they had lost. Not only those sweet, amazingly fierce explosions of erotic pleasure they’d shared, but also the intimacy, the companionship of the early years together. Even, she sighed, if that had been not real, but a clever deception on his part so that she had suspected nothing while his uncle was alive.
It had been an arranged marriage. The trouble was, she hadn’t known that. Her spirits sank lower.
‘Welcome to my home.’
He turned to her as though he might be inviting her opinion of it. She made a show of looking around as if that was what she’d been doing all along.
The palazzo—for that was what it must surely be—seemed no longer friendly, but daunting in its grandeur. In the cool darkness of the shuttered hall, glass and gold gleamed mysteriously. As they crossed the marble floor, her stilettos tapped with an intrusive echo.
Dante’s ancestors, captured in oils and enclosed in ornate gold frames, checked her out, their dark eyes following her speculatively as she and Dante approached the theatrical double staircase.
Her surroundings had the effect of making her feel uncomfortable. These were riches on a grand scale. Few ambitious men could have remained indifferent when tempted with such luxury, such power, and the prospect of heading a five-hundred-year-old dynasty.
If only she hadn’t been caught in Dante’s honey trap! Guido had explained that his brother knew she had fallen in love with him. Dante had leapt at the chance to marry hastily, before his sick uncle had carried out his threat to leave everything to a more distant, married member of the family.
She winced. The scheming Dante must have waited to hear of his uncle’s death like a vulture hovering over a sick animal. No wonder he’d enquired after Amadeo Severini’s health so often and so earnestly. Her eyes hardened. It must have been very frustrating when Amadeo had hung on to life for nearly four more years!
‘What do you think of the house?’ Dante asked coolly. ‘Does it appeal to your tastes?’
Her frosty gaze slanted chillingly in his direction. ‘I’m sure you don’t care about my opinion.’
‘It interests me to know what you think.’
Haughtily she lifted her chin. She had no intention of bolstering his inflated ego. ‘Too big for one man,’ she said in dismissal.
‘I agree,’ he said to her surprise, pausing as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘That’s why Amadeo didn’t live here and just used it for entertaining.’
‘But you will?’ she hazarded, her eyes narrowing, knowing the answer. He clearly adored his new position. He’d sacrificed a good deal for it.
‘Correct.’
The first doubt slid into her mind. If he thought it was too big for him on his own…surely he wasn’t thinking of keeping Carlo! Her pulses began to quicken with alarm but she hid her apprehension. Whatever game he was playing, he’d see no sign of weakness from her. Perhaps, she consoled herself, he was planning for his mother to join him. And Guido.
‘I was always under the impression that Amadeo’s main residence was the penthouse in Milan,’ she observed icily. ‘You didn’t tell me he owned a palazzo as well.’
And the implicit question was there: why not?
Dante regarded her with unreadable eyes. ‘I had my reasons.’
‘Which were?’ she pushed.
He hesitated and then said in a flat tone, ‘I had hoped that you would be marrying me for the person I was, not for any material benefits I could give you.’
So he’d wanted to be loved! Huh! She felt like hitting him. He’d wanted someone so wrapped up in him that he could remain in control. Someone who didn’t matter to him. What about her? Hadn’t she been entitled to love, too?
‘You were wrong,’