The Italian Count's Command

by Sara Wood

  Gently she replaced the covers, which Dante had drawn back so that she could see her son. Carlo snuggled into them, his dark head almost disappearing. From a few feet away it would be hard to know he was there.

  With loving motions she smoothed the oyster silk bedspread and hungrily watched her son sleeping. She was filled with happiness, with choking emotion, with uncontainable love.

  Two weeks. It had been an eternity. Days, hours, minutes, seconds of interminable misery. But they would not be parted again. Dante had promised…

  Remembering him, she looked around. He was watching her, his dark eyes silvery from the reflected light of the moon. For a moment it almost seemed as though they were full of tears but she knew it was an illusion when he growled in a surly tone,

  ‘I think I’m owed an apology.’

  Her eyes widened and she rose unsteadily to her feet.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You thought I’d brought you to my room to seduce you. Or do you think I might have tried rape?’ he grated.

  Her elation faded and she bit her lip. She pushed her hand through her tumbling curtain of hair, trying to tidy it.

  ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I panicked when I realised this was your room. It never occurred to me that Carlo would be here. It only goes to show how little I trust you, doesn’t it?’ she finished sadly. ‘Why is he in your bedroom, anyway?’

  He stalked to the door and motioned for her to leave. Once outside, he launched into a tightly controlled explanation.

  ‘Carlo wouldn’t sleep on his own. Each night he stayed up with me, constantly asking when you were coming home. He would only fall asleep if I held him in my arms. If I put him in a bed of his own he knew, even in his sleep, that he wasn’t being cuddled and he’d wake up yelling.’

  Miranda flinched. ‘Poor darling! He knew something was wrong—’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Dante said tightly. ‘Do you think it didn’t tear me apart? I couldn’t bear his misery. I began to take him into my own bed when I retired for the night. Now he’s happy to sleep there without me because he feels secure in it. In time I hope he’ll go to his own room. But for now, he needs love, Miranda!’ he added angrily. ‘He’s been starved of it, poor child—’

  ‘That’s absolute rubbish! Don’t you dare to accuse me without proof!’ she cried, close to breaking point.

  And to her dismay, the world seemed to whirl around and she swayed unsteadily on her feet.

  ‘Che Dio mi aiuti!’ he swore, his strong hands immediately steadying her. ‘No more of this. You need to eat. It’s past ten o’clock and you have hardly eaten anything all day, I imagine.’

  Miranda tried to remember. ‘I had coffee,’ she began. But could think of nothing else. She’d been too churned up to swallow a thing.

  ‘As I thought,’ he said with irritation. ‘No wonder you can hardly stand. Come down and eat with me.’

  She shrank from the idea and the memories it aroused. Sometimes they had fed one another. And they had gone on to satisfy other, more urgent appetites.

  ‘It’s late. I’m tired,’ she demurred, afraid of her weakness, of the hold he had over her senses. ‘I’ll be fine when I get to bed—’

  ‘Do you want to be well tomorrow?’ he demanded. ‘To play with Carlo? To have some energy? D’accordo. You will eat something. I insist.’

  She capitulated suddenly, realising that he was right. And discovered to her surprise that she was very hungry indeed. ‘Yes. I will. Now I’ve seen Carlo,’ she said, her face becoming soft and tender with motherly love, ‘I think I could eat for England.’

  Dante said nothing but his hands dropped from her arms abruptly and he turned away from her, his expression stone-hard. Her happiness evaporated in the teeth of his hatred and she vowed again to prove her innocence—though how, she couldn’t imagine.

  As they descended the stairs she felt alarmingly woozy from lack of food and too much caffeine, and grabbed the gleaming banister. She sensed an instinctive movement of Dante’s hand in her direction and then its withdrawal. He was very tense and she wondered why.

  The meal was conducted in total silence apart from the scrape of silver forks on plates and the soft background music Dante liked during dinner.

  Miranda concentrated on assuaging her hunger with an artistically arranged antipasto of Parma ham, pâté, pasta and diced vegetables, then prawns in raspberry vinegar followed by cheese and fruit. It was the kind of food which would once have pleased all her senses but Dante’s cold indifference ruined her enjoyment and turned it into nothing other than a necessary fuel for the body.

  The vintage wine, however, gradually made her feel as if all her muscles were oozing into her melting bones. Flushed and bright-eyed, with her hair tumbling about her face, she popped the last grape into her mouth and wiped her fingers on the soft napkin.

  ‘I’ll turn in now,’ she said quietly, wondering how many silent dinners she’d have to endure over the coming years. Unusually emotional, she blinked and swallowed before she was able to add, ‘Perhaps you’d show me my room.’

  He looked up and their eyes met. His frown smoothed out and was replaced by a longing so deep and visceral that she caught her breath, her lips parting and swelling. She had discarded her jacket and knew that the silk of her cream camisole was suddenly tight where her breasts had bloomed into new life.

  She couldn’t speak, dared not move, and could only stare at him helplessly and hope that her stupid desire for him would vanish in time. Preferably during the next few seconds.

  She took a deep breath and realised that she had innocently drawn Dante’s dark, hot eyes back to her straining breasts.

  The atmosphere thickened and became suffocating. The pool of heat between her legs intensified. The magic was still there. For both of them. In her fantasy, they’d fall into one another’s arms and he would declare that he’d loved her all along and his uncle’s inheritance was purely a coincidence…

  ‘Go into my bedroom, turn right through the double doors into the adjoining apartment. I’ll lock the doors when I come up in a moment,’ he rasped.

  It was as if he’d slapped her. He knew full well that she was aroused. The cynical curl of that sensuous mouth told her that. And because he believed her to be soiled goods, he was determined not to give way to his own desire. Or even to do the gentlemanly thing and escort her to her room.

  Humiliated and struggling for composure, she stalled until she felt certain she could walk away with dignity.

  ‘Fine. And what time does Carlo wake?’ she asked coolly.

  ‘About seven.’

  ‘Will you be dressed by then?’ she enquired.

  ‘If the door’s unlocked, I’ll be dressed.’

  ‘I’ll knock, just in case,’ she said tartly, and she rose to her feet and stalked out, her heart breaking.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘MIRANDA! Miranda!’

  She was being shaken. Crying in fright, she fought her assailant and this time, this time, instead of being unable to move a muscle, she found her fists connecting with flesh.

  This, too, had happened before, she thought. And sickness rose in her throat adding to the terror.

  ‘Get off me! Get off me!’ she screamed instinctively, utterly disorientated.

  A hand clapped over her mouth—again. Please, sweet heaven, not again!

  Normally her eyes stayed stubbornly shut during her nightmares, but now they snapped open. The light was on in her adjoining sitting room, allowing her to see Dante bending over her, his robe hanging loose to show his bare torso above pale gold pyjama bottoms.

  ‘Keep the noise down!’ he hissed.

  She cringed. Was this what had happened on that fateful evening? Dante assaulting her, she fighting him off…

  Groggy from sleep, not fully alert, she lashed out, her arms and legs pummelling him unmercifully. But he resisted, taking the blows with a wince and leaning unnervingly close.

  ‘Santo cielo! How oft
en must I say that I have no intention of raping you.’ he grated in her ear. ‘You shouted out in your sleep. Began to scream. You’ve had a nightmare, Miranda. Now calm down. I don’t want Carlo disturbed. I know you have a sitting room between here and my bedroom but you were yelling fit to wake the dead!’

  Her enormous sapphire eyes stared up at his icily angry face as she came to full consciousness. Yes. It had been that awful recurring dream again. Her tense body went limp and he removed his hand.

  In misery, she squeezed her eyes tight shut. Would she never be free of her nightmare? It came relentlessly night after night and she almost feared going to sleep, knowing that some time she would wake as she had now, bathed in sweat and shaking with a terror of something unknown.

  ‘Cover yourself up,’ he said curtly and in the dim light she saw to her embarrassment that one sleepy-nippled breast had escaped from her low-cut black satin nightdress.

  As she scrambled to draw the covers up to her chin, she shivered, the perspiration cooling on her heated skin.

  ‘I’m so cold!’

  The grim-faced Dante turned away and strode to the door. ‘I’ll get you a brandy.’

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ she cried desperately before she could stop herself.

  He stopped dead, his back still to her, fists clenched at his sides. Spoke in a low and husky tone.

  ‘What is it, Miranda? You never used to have dreams like this.’ He jerked his head around to look at her. ‘Have you been involved in something dark and unpleasant—or with someone who’s taken you to depths you wish you’d never known?’

  ‘No! Nothing like that!’ she whispered, still in shock from the experience.

  ‘Something must have caused this! You were frantic. Hysterical.’ His eyes went cold and hard and his voice shook with fury. ‘This is what comes of living dangerously! Inviting God knows who back to our home—’

  ‘No—!’

  ‘Drinking, taking drugs—’

  ‘No—!’

  ‘And not knowing what the hell happened next!’ he grated, his mouth twisted in disgust. ‘How could you put our son at risk—?’

  ‘I didn’t! I didn’t!’ she cried piteously. ‘I wouldn’t, honestly, not in a million years—!’

  ‘You’ve no idea what you did!’ he fumed. ‘And I don’t know how many times it had happened before. I can’t believe you could be so stupid, so irresponsible—’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ she moaned, her hands covering her face.

  His accusations were making her feel worse. She fought to control the waves of nausea as they rolled through her gut and rose to her throat. But she couldn’t defend herself any more because she was unable to speak or to stop the violent shaking. Her teeth chattered and the lines of his mouth flattened out with irritation.

  ‘Maledizione!’ he muttered.

  And in a moment she was being encircled by warm, comforting arms. Held to a naked chest in which a heart beat with such force that it sounded like a rapid drumbeat. The faint rasp of stubble on Dante’s jaw settled firmly against her cheek and he was murmuring soothing words in Italian as if she were a frightened child.

  She gave in to her needs. Put her arms around his neck and crushed him hard against her.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered helplessly. ‘Stay with me!’

  Dante groaned. She took his face in her hands to plead with him and found her mouth opening invitingly, her eyes lowering drowsily as she contemplated the incredibly sensual arch of his lips.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said, seething with barely controlled anger. With almost indecent haste he pulled away. ‘I won’t go far. I’ll get you some water instead,’ he snapped curtly, standing up and striding to the bathroom. ‘And a towel to wipe your face. You’ll feel better then.’

  He continued to talk even when she couldn’t see him, his tones losing their rasping quality and becoming more matter-of-fact as if she were a fractious child to be soothed.

  ‘…and then we can both get some sleep,’ he was saying in a nannying tone when he re-emerged. ‘Here.’

  He thrust a hand towel at her and she obediently used it to wipe the beads of perspiration that had broken out all over her face and throat. But her hand shook too much to hold the glass of water. Dante held it to her lips and frowned as she took small, nervous sips.

  ‘Are you coming off drugs? Is that the reason for the bad dreams, your loss of weight and this uncontrollable trembling?’ he demanded with a sudden harsh suspicion.

  ‘How can you think that?’ she cried in horror.

  ‘You show all the classic signs. I warn you, Miranda,’ he snarled, his face close to hers, ‘if you ever let any illegal substances get within snorting distance of this house, you’ll be on the next flight to England before you know it. Carlo will never see you again—nor will he ever want to! You’ll be wiped from our lives as if you never existed!’

  ‘I’ve never taken any drugs! Never would in a million years!’ she choked out. ‘I had a nightmare, that’s all. But it was horrible!’ she muttered, shuddering. Her eyes grew enormous, and thinking of it, she began to breathe fast with fear, hating the feeling of helplessness in her dream. ‘So horrible that I daren’t sleep!’ she blurted out. ‘It’ll come back again if I do, I know it.’

  Dante frowned. ‘This is not like you to be so negative and defeatist.’

  ‘I know! But this isn’t any ordinary nightmare, Dante! I live every vile, terrifying second. Someone is assaulting me and I can’t raise a finger to stop it even though every sense is intensified. I smell bad breath. I taste something foul. I feel…’

  She clammed up. Would not tell him of those rough, hurting hands. And the frightening blank in her mind that came next. That was even worse and it fed her imagination in ways she didn’t want to know. But he had seen in her face the extent of her horror because he said gruffly,

  ‘Take it easy. Maybe you’ve learnt your lesson and it’s over—’

  ‘That’s the trouble!’ she jerked in despair. ‘It isn’t. It returns to haunt me even in the daytime. And comes back night after night.’

  A little more of the dream unfolded each time. One day maybe the whole horrific event would reveal itself—and she dreaded that more than anything.

  His expression was bleak. ‘Relax,’ he advised tautly. ‘Don’t try to relive it. You have to forget it.’

  If only she could! She closed her eyes in misery and felt his hand cover hers, stilling its trembling in an instant. He had the ability to make her feel secure. Even if it was an illusion.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, with a grateful glance at his harrowed face. ‘I feel safe with you. No, please!’ she protested when he made to draw his hand away.

  ‘Be realistic. I can’t stay, can I?’ he said, not unkindly.

  But she gripped his wrist to stop him leaving, overwhelmed by an illogical sense of hysteria and trying desperately to locate the protective barrier of her self-control, which seemed to have deserted her for the moment.

  ‘I need someone here for a short time, till I’ve got myself together again,’ she pleaded, hating the sense of panic that had turned her into a pathetic wimp. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me, Dante. I’m sorry to be a nuisance and I hate feeling so feeble about this. But the truth is, I’m absolutely terrified of being alone and falling asleep. Please. I am begging you. Stay for a while!’

  The tip of his tongue moistened his lips as he contemplated her doubtfully.

  ‘If this is a ploy—’

  ‘It’s not! I swear!’ she half sobbed.

  ‘You must talk to an expert—’

  ‘I’m not mad!’ she protested.

  ‘No, but you’re disturbed. You need to discover what has caused this,’ he gritted. ‘I’ve never seen you like this before. Something happened which is festering in your subconscious. You need to know what you did. Only then will you be able to deal with it.’

  There was a long pause while she gazed at him anxiously, willing him to remain w
ith her. Holding his warm, dry hand, she felt his strength flow into her. Dizzily she conceded that she needed him badly. Longed to feel his arms around her again, protective and comforting.

  ‘Stay!’ she croaked, full of longing for him.

  He gave a small and resigned sigh. ‘Very well. Just till you fall asleep,’ he muttered grudgingly.

  Virtually snatching his hand from hers, he sat down on the bed, plumping up the pillows behind him and settling down so that his back was turned to her.

  In relief, Miranda snuggled as close as she dared. ‘I wish I could understand why I have these dreams,’ she mumbled.

  He grunted. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. When did they begin?’

  ‘The night after you left.’

  An icy silence stretched long into the semi-darkness. ‘As I expected. I think you’d better go to sleep,’ he growled.

  But she wasn’t ready to do so. Dante had found her that fateful night when she’d had that fever. Perhaps he could throw light on what had happened. He might have seen something that would explain what she’d done in her delirium—maybe an overturned table which might have caused her bruises, sheets which had wrapped themselves about her and made her think she was being restrained…

  She had to know. A part of her life was missing and her brain was trying to fill in the gaps by giving her these awful nightmares. She’d ask him to discuss it. Now.

  ‘Dante!’

  Tentatively she touched his shoulder, the silk of his robe slipping beguilingly beneath her fingers. He flinched and she withdrew her hand. His body was hot, every muscle held in tension. He was hating this enforced togetherness. And she supposed that he was only staying with her to keep her quiet.

  ‘Don’t—do—that!’ he gritted out.

  She pressed her lips together in dismay. The days of curling up together like two spoons in a drawer were long gone. This was probably the last time he’d ever be physically close to her.