The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress

by Penny Jordan

  Charley walked slowly over to the mirror and studied her reflection. Tentatively she touched her waist, and then, driven by an impulse she couldn’t control, she pulled off her clothes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had looked at her own naked body. How would she, when she normally avoided looking at it? It must be the sunlight that was giving her skin that soft glow, that sheen that said it wanted to be touched and admired. She lifted her own hand to her body, touching it as and where Raphael had done, trying to see it with his eyes, and then tensing. What was she doing? Wasn’t the situation difficult enough for her already, without her adding even more potential discomfort to it?

  She looked at the bedroom door, reminding herself that she didn’t have much time to get downstairs if she was to keep to the schedule Raphael had given her.

  Ten minutes later Charley looked down at the jeans she was wearing. They were a perfect fit—a far better fit and a far better cut than the ones she had been wearing, their slim shape emphasising the length of her legs and clinging to her hips.

  She was also wearing the new tee shirt and the leather jacket, its fabric soft against her fingertips. When she’d looked at herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror she’d been caught off guard by the difference the new clothes made to her appearance. Even the hair clouding round her face looked different. Her reflection was more feminine somehow—but of course that was impossible. She was seeing what she wanted to see because of the way she felt about Raphael. Because, foolishly and dangerously, she wanted him.

  Angry with herself, she used the dark brown ribbon that had been wrapped round the tissue-folded clothes to tie back her hair. She couldn’t stay up here any longer. If she did Raphael might come and look for her—or was that what she secretly wanted? No! Grabbing her shoulder bag, she headed for the door.

  Almost the second she stepped off the final marble stair and into the hallway the door to Raphael’s office opened and he came out, acknowledging her presence with the briefest nod before heading for the open double doors through which the sunlight was streaming.

  What had she been expecting? Charley asked herself as she lengthened her own stride to follow him. That he would make a comment about the way she looked? A flattering comment? She was far too sensible for that kind of silliness, and the slightly leaden feeling inside her chest cavity was not disappointment, but merely the effect of eating a cold croissant, Charley told herself firmly.

  Raphael had already reached the Ferrari, and was holding open the passenger door for her, closing it firmly once she was in the passenger seat without having looked directly at her or even spoken to her.

  She felt the car depress slightly as Raphael got in and started up the engine. The warmth of the sun had released the scent of the leather interior, along with a more subtle scent which her senses recognised as belonging to Raphael.

  It didn’t take them long to reach the outskirts of the town. The ruins of a medieval castle and its curtain wall, the ancient stone painted soft rose by the sun as they approached it across a flat agricultural plain filled with crops and livestock, were etched against the skyline. A single tower, ruined and roofless, pointed up towards the clouds.

  ‘What happened to the castle?’ Charley couldn’t resist asking Raphael.

  ‘It and the town were attacked and put under siege by a more powerful force than my ancestor had at his command. Fortunately he had friends who came to his aid and drove the attackers back, saving the town and the lives of my ancestors, but not the castle. It was as a result of that attack that the then duke decided to build a new home for himself, away from the town.’

  Charley nodded her head as they drove into the town through an arched gateway in the medieval wall.

  Ancient buildings leaned into one another as though for support on either side of the narrow cobbled street, and splashes of sunshine where it was intersected by another street turned the paving soft gold. High above their heads Charley could see lines of washing, and here and there a heavy wooden door was open to reveal a glimpse of a private courtyard basking in the sunlight.

  She could smell fresh-baked bread, olive oil and herbs coming from the baskets of a group of elderly women dressed in black with faces seamed like walnuts, standing talking outside what was obviously a bakers, and then they were out of the narrow street and in the town square—the Piazza Grande.

  In the centre of the square was an ornate fountain, and opposite the town hall there was what was obviously a market area, although there were no stalls on it today, so that she had a clear view of the pedestal topped by a life-size statue of an eagle.

  ‘The eagle is part of our family emblem,’ Raphael told her, following the direction of her glance. ‘There is a legend that our land here in Tuscany was originally given to a Roman legionnaire who fought for Caesar and saved his life. This ancestor then adopted the Imperial Eagle from his legion’s standard into his personal arms.’

  Charley tried not to look as entranced as she felt. Imagine having that kind of lore as part of your personal family history. Had the mother Raphael had lost taken him on her lap and told him stories about his family’s past? An ache of sadness filled her as she thought of her own childhood. It had been such a terrible time for them all when their parents had died—especially when they had learned that the lovely vicarage in which they had been brought up was heavily mortgaged, and that their parents had no savings nor any life insurance which might have eased their orphaned daughters’ financial position.

  The traffic had cleared and they were now travelling down another narrow street, and then through another archway in the town’s wall. Charley gripped the sides of her seat as Raphael changed gear and the sports car surged forward.

  The hard look he gave her derided her timidity as he told her, ‘I don’t know what kind of men you normally share a car with, but I can assure you that I am not the kind of driver who over-estimates his skill or takes foolish risks.’

  ‘I’m not used to such a powerful car.’ Or such a powerful man? Charley looked away from Raphael’s face, only to realise that her gaze was slipping helplessly over the tanned flesh to his wrist as he manoeuvred the gear lever. Her foolish imagination was painting vivid images inside her head of Raphael’s hand on her body. A surge of self-conscious heat burned through her. Why was he able to have such an effect on her? It had never happened before with any other man, and she didn’t want it happening now. She could all too easily picture the mixture of arrogant disdain and mockery with which he would look at her if he knew what she was feeling. Her, a clumsy, unfeminine woman, untutored in the arts of feminine seduction, ill equipped to please a man of his undoubted experience? He would no doubt reject her desire for him with haughty contempt.

  She had been so preoccupied with her own thoughts that it took her several seconds to realise that the car was slowing down and they had reached the entrance to the garden.

  Charley looked at the dilapidated double colonnade that marked the entrance. Most of its columns were either missing or damaged, and over the top of it there was a tangle of overgrown wild vines on which the leaves were just beginning to open in the spring sunshine.

  Silently Charley got out of the Ferrari when Raphael opened the door for her. Now, having seen the original drawings, she could well understand why Raphael wanted to see the garden restored to its original glory.

  ‘This way,’ Raphael instructed, producing the key to unlock the bolts that secured the heavy wood doors.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHARLEY had seen the garden before, of course, but then Raphael hadn’t been with her, she acknowledged nearly two hours later. She stood almost knee-deep in a tangle of undergrowth and weeds in the middle of what, according to the original plans, had once been a beautiful parterre garden, with neatly clipped borders and central features of cherubs playing musical instruments mounted on classically inspired plinths.

  Standing here, in the middle of this ruined paradise, Charley was filled with sadness for the loss o
f so much beauty, and a yearning to do everything she could to restore it to what it should have been.

  ‘There was a fountain here, according to the original designs, connected to the ornamental lake by a system of formal waterways and canals. If I remember correctly, your renovations called for the lake to be filled in.’

  Raphael’s comment brought her back to reality.

  ‘It’s filled with rubbish and leaking. It would cost nearly as much again as the town council had allowed for the entire renovation just to restore the lake and to put in the safeguards that modern laws demand,’ she pointed out.

  ‘It is my wish that everything will now be restored to match the original design—and that includes the lake.’

  Raphael heard Charley sigh, and saw her look across the tangled mass of overgrowth and damaged masonry in the direction of the lake, now hidden from view.

  ‘You do not agree with me, I take it?’ Raphael demanded.

  Charley turned towards him in astonishment.

  ‘On the contrary—I can’t think of anything that would be more rewarding than to see this place become once again what it was. It’s a project anyone would give their eye teeth to be involved in…bringing to life something so wonderful.’ Emotional tears momentarily blurred Charley’s vision, as her feelings got the better of her. ‘The people of the town are fortunate to have you to do something so generous, and I…I feel that I am fortunate too, to be a part of such a project,’ she admitted.

  Now it was Raphael’s turn to look away from her. Her honesty surprised him. He hadn’t been expecting it, and nor had he been expecting her open emotional reaction to the garden. Perhaps, after all, he did have the right person to manage the project—a person who had just shown him that she was capable of being touched to the deepest part of herself by what had once been and what was now lost. Such a person would give everything she had to give to a project that engaged her emotions. And to the man who engaged them as well?

  Charlotte Wareham’s sexual passions were hers to give to whomsoever she chose and no concern of his, Raphael reminded himself. It was as a project manager that he was interested in her, and not as a bedmate.

  ‘If you’re serious about the lake—’ Charley began, breaking into the silence.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘My guess is that the restoration work will require the advice of proper experts who have experience in that kind of work. There is a team booked to come in and start clearing all the mess away, but I don’t think they will be the right people to deal with the lake. It might be best to get in touch with… Well, in England I’d probably try English Heritage or the National Trust. Any organisation with artistic appreciation, that believes in the importance of preserving the heritage we’ve been left by artists of the past, couldn’t help but want to be part of a project like this one. It would have been a dream come true for me when I was studying Fine Art.’

  She was intelligent, and proactive, but above all her passion for the project was so strong that it shone from her eyes and could be heard in her voice. Why on earth would a woman who felt as she so obviously did give up her Fine Arts degree to study accountancy, and then take a job that involved her in projects calling for the appalling replicas he had seen her with? Raphael wondered, his probing mind curious against his better judgement. There was something here that didn’t add up. His curiosity aroused, Raphael decided to put his suspicions to the test.

  ‘Feeling as you so obviously do, it must have been hard for you to give up your Fine Arts course?’ he began, deliberately making his question sound casual.

  Still wrapped in the emotions the garden had evoked, and in the understanding and harmony they had shared, Charley forgot to be on her guard, and responded without thinking.

  ‘Yes, it was.’

  She was shocked back to reality when Raphael asked, ‘Then why did you?’

  His question made her suddenly aware of the foolish relaxation of her guard, and she was doubly a fool for having let him see just how much the garden had affected her.

  ‘You don’t answer? Why not, I wonder? Is it perhaps because there is something you wish to hide? Perhaps it was not so much that you decided to change to another course, but that you were requested to do so by your tutors.’

  Stung by Raphael’s subtle allegation that she had had to drop her course because she had not been good enough, Charley told him fiercely, ‘No. It was nothing like that.’

  ‘Then what was it like? You are in effect now working under my command. I have a right to ask this question and to receive a truthful answer,’ Raphael pressed.

  Charley lifted her hands in a gesture of defeat.

  ‘Very well then. If you must know, I applied for the course without telling my family what I was going to be studying. They thought… That is to say I really wanted to do an arts degree and study Fine Arts, but I knew my father would laugh at me, and say that I was far too much of a clumsy tomboy to be allowed anywhere near fine art. My sisters are both so pretty, and so feminine; I am the plain, awkward one of the family. I knew that for my own sake my father would try to persuade me to study something else—something more practical.’

  Charley gave a small sigh, whilst Raphael digested her words in silence. He would certainly not have described Charley as either awkward or plain. It was true that hers was not the chocolate box variety of ‘pretty’, but in Raphael’s estimation Charley possessed something far more potent. His body certainly thought so, from the way it responded to the delicate air of hidden sensuality she carried with her.

  ‘But I was offered the course so they let me do it. I was less than a year into it when our parents were killed. Then we found out there was no money and that the house, our childhood home, was heavily mortgaged and would have to be sold. Lizzie, my elder sister, was working in London at the time for a top-notch interior designer, and then Ruby told us that she was pregnant. She was only seventeen. Lizzie and I both felt so guilty; she was practically still a baby herself. We had to do something. We couldn’t just abandon Ruby and her babies as the babies’ father had, so Lizzie moved back to Cheshire and set up her own small business, and…’

  ‘And you decided to sacrifice your own plans in order to earn money to help support your family?’

  ‘It wasn’t a sacrifice,’ Charley protested immediately. ‘We wanted to stay together and support one another.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t a sacrifice then, but I think you feel that it is now,’ Raphael corrected her. ‘I think that now, here in Italy, you have become aware of all you have denied yourself.’

  Charley couldn’t look at him. Was it just her plans to take a Fine Arts degree and all that went with it to which he was referring? Or had he guessed about the other things she had denied herself—things like being free to be herself, and not the family tomboy, to explore and enjoy her sexuality as that self? She hoped not. That would be too humiliating for her to bear.

  ‘Being in Italy has made me realise how much I would have enjoyed studying art,’ she admitted in a stifled voice, unable to look at him as she did so. ‘And of course the recession has changed things. Before it happened I told myself that if my job got too unbearable I could always leave and find another one, and that maybe one day I’d get the opportunity to study and travel, but now of course that’s impossible. I do wish—’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘There’s no point in talking about what one can’t have, and I am very grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to work on something so very special.’

  Inwardly Charley cursed herself. She had done it again—admitting that she was grateful to him, humbling and even humiliating herself, making herself far too vulnerable by her tacit admission that she so desperately wanted to be part of the renovation project. Maybe so, but at least she had been true to herself and to her own code, Charley comforted herself. She couldn’t pretend that she had no wish to be involved in the project to renovate the garden when the exact opposite was the case.

  Raphael turned away from Cha
rley, not wanting her to see in his expression the feelings he didn’t even want to acknowledge to himself. Her speech, her gratitude, the fact that her emotions about the garden were so in accord with his own, had rubbed against a vulnerable place within himself—a wound only half healed that he had believed until now was fully healed. Beneath the thin skin that covered that wound lay emotions and regrets so painful and dark that he could not bear to admit they were there. A whole adult lifetime dedicated to pretending that such a wound did not exist was now in danger of being ripped aside to reveal the truth. But that truth could not be acknowledged. He must adhere to the course he had set himself. He must not waver. Inwardly Raphael cursed Charley for the effect she was having on him, and damned himself for even thinking of weakening.

  Raphael’s silence made Charley feel anxious. Something had changed. She could almost feel the coldness now emanating from him, replacing what had previously been close to a shared openness about the importance of the garden. Now that was gone, and when Raphael swung back towards her, his expression shielded by the shadows, his voice was hard with warning as he told her, ‘According to your project notes, you’ve allowed three months for clearing the site.’

  Charley nodded her head.

  ‘I want to see that work done in two months, not three.’

  ‘That can’t be done,’ Charley protested. The intimacy they had shared earlier was over, she recognised, and Raphael was once again a man who was making it plain exactly how he felt about her and her ability to do the job he would no doubt have preferred to give to someone else.

  ‘Anything can be done if one goes about it in the right way.’ And that included finding a way to stop his senses from being so aware of her and his body from aching for her, Raphael reminded himself inwardly. ‘As I have already told you,’ he informed Charley, ‘I expect my orders to be followed and carried out. There is no room on this project for a project manager who cannot achieve what needs to be achieved. If you feel you cannot do that…’