The Baby Gambit

by Anne Mather

  On Thursday evening, Julia told her that Matteo was sending a car to pick them up the following afternoon. ‘I’ll be finishing work at lunchtime,’ she added. ‘I’ve got some extra hours due to me with working last weekend, so I should be home by two o’clock. Is that all right?’

  Grace’s mouth compressed. ‘If I must go,’ she said, aware that her attitude could be misconstrued as sour grapes. She paused. ‘I’m surprised he’s not coming for you himself.’

  ‘For us,’ Julia corrected her impatiently. ‘And we couldn’t all fit into his Lamborghini, could we?’ She grimaced. ‘I hope you’re not going to spoil the weekend, Grace. I’d have thought that as a historian yourself you’d have been interested in Italian art and architecture.’

  ‘I am, of course—’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘It’s just—well, I’m sure I’m going to be in the way.’

  ‘Not a bit of it.’ Julia was vehement. ‘I’m hoping you’ll keep the old lady off our backs. You know what they say about three being a crowd.’

  Grace’s lips twitched in reluctant response, but the more she heard about Julia’s plans for the weekend, the more apprehensive she became. She couldn’t imagine Matteo’s grandmother welcoming two Englishwomen into her home when she’d objected to one. She was sure the next three days were going to be a disaster, and nothing Julia could say would reassure her.

  The car that arrived to take them to the villa was a vintage Rolls-Royce. Grace didn’t know what kind of car Julia had expected, but judging by her expression this wasn’t it. But for her part Grace was absolutely enchanted by its gleaming chassis and famous insignia. Inside, it gleamed just as brightly, with shiny leather seats and polished wood.

  ‘As if he couldn’t have sent the Mercedes,’ Julia grumbled as the uniformed chauffeur stowed their cases in the capacious boot. ‘It doesn’t even have seatbelts,’ she added as Grace joined her on the spacious rear seat. ‘And the suspension probably leaves a lot to be desired, too.’

  ‘Stop moaning,’ said Grace, her own spirits unaccountably heightened by the sight of the old car. ‘This thing is probably worth twice as much as the Mercedes. It’s a museum piece, Julia. I think we’re privileged to ride in it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Julia stared at her. ‘You think it’s worth twice as much as a Merc?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Grace wished she’d never made that comparison now. It sounded mercenary. ‘I just meant it’s a really beautiful vehicle.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  Julia’s scarlet-tipped fingers caressed the smooth leather of the armrest, and Grace could practically see the calculation in her face. It made her wonder about Julia’s real motives for wanting to marry Matteo di Falco. Did she love him? Or had her reasons for getting pregnant more to do with what he had to offer in other ways?

  It wasn’t something Grace wanted to even think about. Particularly not right now. The fact was, Julia was pregnant, and one way or another Matteo was going to have to pay. Whether Julia was right and he would agree to fulfil his responsibilities to her was not a situation she wanted to contemplate. The alternative was just as repugnant in her eyes.

  The journey to Valle di Falco took them away from the coastal strip and into the hills that surrounded the small port. And once off the coastal highway the road became much narrower and much more hazardous, winding its way around a series of hairpin bends with only a flimsy guardrail between them and the precipitous drop below. It was quite daunting looking down on the tops of swaying firs and cypress trees, but the smell of fresh pine was quite heady, with yellow broom and clumps of wild roses providing vivid slashes of colour.

  Now and then, they glimpsed the roofs of isolated dwellings, perched on the side of hills that were lushly spread with vegetation. Here and there, villages nestled in the valleys, and the tinkling notes of cowbells drifted on the afternoon air. Once they heard the distinctive toll of a monastery bell, and Grace wondered if it was the same monastery that Matteo had spoken about. Then she chided herself for even thinking of him. She distrusted everything about him, particularly the way he had manipulated her into seeing him again.

  It was late afternoon when they neared their destination and long shadows lay over the curving descent into the valley below. Grace caught her breath as a flock of goats was herded across the road in front of them, without any apparent regard for their safety, and the chauffeur leaned out of the window and indulged in a brief, but fiery, exchange with their keeper.

  ‘Goodness, I thought we were going to run them down,’ she murmured in an undertone as the car accelerated past, but her friend wasn’t listening to her. Instead, she was staring eagerly out of the window, and Grace’s nerves tightened again when Julia clutched her arm.

  ‘Look!’ she exclaimed, apparently unconcerned about the well-being of a flock of goats. She pointed a finger. ‘There: can you see it? On that rise at the far side of the valley. That’s the villa.’ She licked her lips in obvious anticipation. ‘Isn’t it a fantastic sight?’

  Grace forced herself to make some suitable comment, but the sprawling roofs of the collection of buildings she could see only filled her with a sense of apprehension. The castle-like towers and cupolas that were visible above a protective screen of dark green cypress trees hinted at the fact that the Villa di Falco was far more imposing than even she had imagined, and she pressed her palms together in her lap.

  ‘Of course, the vineyards are interesting, too,’ Julia continued, indicating the unmistakable rows of vines that grew on the terraced slopes and over the valley floor. ‘Did you know that black grapes can be used to make white wine as well as red? It’s the flesh under the skin that’s important. Matt told me that last weekend.’

  Grace tried to show some interest, but in all honesty she didn’t care what grapes the di Falcos grew. She wasn’t here to get a crash-course in viticulture. She had still to face his grandmother, which was something she was not looking forward to, and she prayed that when she saw Matteo again she would be able to hide her animosity from Julia.

  As well as the grapes, Grace saw groves of olive trees as they drove towards the villa. Hamlets, too, and farmhouses were dotted about the valley, some of them probably providing homes for the estate workers, she assumed. The inviting sound of a small waterfall tumbling down the hillside indicated the presence of running water, and as they reached the avenue of tall poplars that marked the approach to the villa she glimpsed the lake that lay in quiet splendour in front of its gates.

  * * *

  An hour later, Grace was sitting at an enormous satinwood dressing table, attempting to restore some colour to her unnaturally pale cheeks. She’d developed quite a headache, due no doubt to the fact that they hadn’t met their host and hostess yet. According to the black-clad housekeeper who had admitted them, the marchesa was resting and would join them for drinks before dinner, while Signor Matteo had been unexpectedly called away to Siena, and offered his apologies for not being there to greet them on their arrival.

  Not unnaturally, Julia hadn’t been at all suited at this news. Fortunately, her grasp of the language was much greater than Grace’s, and she’d conveyed what the housekeeper had said to her friend. Nevertheless, her attitude had been somewhat less than gracious, and it was partially due to her rudeness that Grace had a headache now.

  For her part, Grace was grateful for any time spent without the stress of Matteo di Falco’s presence, even if Julia had made their arrival something of an ordeal. And the fact that they were to be accommodated in the east wing of the villa, which Julia declared irritably was where she had stayed before, meant there was a satisfying distance between them.

  ‘I really thought Matt would have ignored his grandmother this time,’ Julia added as a uniformed maid escorted them along a cool, echoing corridor whose tiled floor reminded Grace of something she’d previously only seen in the museum. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have minded if we hadn’t been together, would you? Oh, I’ll just have to tr
y and persuade him to move me later.’

  Their apartments—Grace felt she could hardly call them rooms—were equally magnificent. In other circumstances, Grace knew she would have been fascinated by her surroundings. But Julia’s resentment was all-pervading, and she’d managed to dispel what little enthusiasm Grace had.

  Nevertheless, she couldn’t help but admire the villa’s elegance. They had each been given a suite of rooms, comprising a bedroom, a dressing room, and an adjoining parlour, and although the furniture was of stately proportions it was dwarfed by the rooms themselves. In the bedroom, where she was now, the embossed, linen-covered walls reached up to a ceiling which must have been at least twenty feet above her head. Alabaster nymphs and cherubs frolicked around the cornice, while the embroidered canopy of the tester bed drew attention to the bunches of grapes and other exotic fruits carved on its posts.

  A marble-topped washstand, also elaborately carved, was set with a porcelain jug and basin, which Grace guessed must once have provided the only means of taking a wash. But now one of the adjoining apartments had been converted into a bathroom, with a half-sunken tub that was almost big enough to take a swim in.

  A couple of comfortable armchairs and a table, plus various chests of drawers, made up the rest of the furnishings in the room, while the dressing room next door contained a pair of matching armoires, which had swallowed up the few clothes Grace had brought with her.

  It was living on the grand scale, she reflected, and not something she was used to. But it helped to explain Matteo’s attitude, she thought reluctantly. It would be hard to be brought up in these surroundings without acquiring a certain arrogance, and she wondered if Julia would really be happy here.

  She was in the parlour, fastening a pair of gold studs to her earlobes, when someone knocked at the door.

  ‘Come in. It’s open,’ she called, expecting it to be Julia, and then turned in dismay when Matteo di Falco came into the room.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, closing the door behind him, seemingly immune to her hostility. ‘I just came to see if you have everything you need.’

  Grace abandoned her attempt to insert the second stud and regarded him coldly. ‘I had everything I needed at the apartment,’ she said, aware that she was trembling. ‘Julia will be here any minute. I think you’d better go.’

  ‘Julia’s not ready yet. I checked,’ he replied dispassionately, surveying her with enigmatic eyes. ‘Are you?’

  Grace didn’t know how to take that. Not expecting to be attending any formal occasions, she hadn’t brought many clothes to Italy with her. Her ankle-length black sheath, with its knee-high slits at either side, was not an evening dress, and she could have worn it equally well to go into town.

  ‘As I’ll ever be,’ she declared, annoyed that his words should affect her. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t think I look smart enough to meet your grandmother.’

  ‘Did I say I didn’t like what you were wearing?’ In navy blue trousers and a matching silk jacket, no one could have accused Matteo of being underdressed, and her lips tightened at the realisation that she was assessing his appearance, too. His brows lifted. ‘As always, you look beautiful.’ His voice thickened. ‘Very beautiful.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, right.’

  Grace tried to sound as sardonic as her words but the look in his dark eyes was obsessive, and she could feel its magnetism piercing her flesh and spreading out through her body like some mind-numbing drug.

  To escape its consequences, she swung away, groping for the gold stud and trying desperately to slip it into her ear. But her hands were slippery with sweat and she dropped it, and it was Matteo himself who rescued the small fob from the woven rug beneath their feet.

  ‘Let me,’ he said huskily, and because Grace knew she hadn’t a hope in hell of doing it herself she turned obediently and presented her ear to him.

  She’d acted on impulse, without giving a thought to how she would feel when his cool fingers brushed her neck, and the unintentional intimacy it evoked caused the pulse behind her ear to palpitate alarmingly. His breath, warm and lightly tinged with the toothpaste he had used, fanned her heated skin, turning what she’d thought of as a convenience into a wholly sensual encounter.

  ‘Do I make you that nervous?’ he asked softly, and because his fingers were still touching her neck she couldn’t be sure whether he was finished or not.

  ‘I don’t know what you—’ she began, only to have him stroke the fluttering pulse with his thumb.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said mildly. ‘I’m hardly likely to make love to you here—’

  ‘As if I’d let you,’ she said in a hoarse voice, but when she tried to move away his hand descended on her neck with rather more force.

  ‘Do you want me to prove it?’ he demanded, the glitter in his eyes warning her that she was not dealing with an impassive Englishman here. The fingers of his free hand touched her lips. ‘It wouldn’t be difficult, believe me.’

  Grace’s eyes were wide. ‘Aren’t you making a mistake here?’ she asked tremulously. ‘It’s Julia you should be saying these things to, Julia who thinks you’ve invited her here again to make amends for what happened last weekend.’

  ‘But we know differently, don’t we?’ he inserted smoothly, and this time when he bent his head she felt his teeth against the skin of her neck. ‘It would be so easy,’ he muttered. ‘But I won’t do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  She had steeled herself against any attempt he might have made to draw her against his lean, muscled frame, but she was not prepared for the seductive appeal of his words.

  ‘Mark you,’ he said regretfully, lifting his head. ‘I think my grandmother might find that a rather primitive way of staking my claim.’ His eyes dropped to where her breasts betrayed her agitation. ‘I’ll have to think of another way.’

  ‘As you did with Julia?’ demanded Grace stiffly, and with a muffled oath his hands dropped to his sides and he stepped away from her.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘I should have known it was a bad idea bringing Julia here again, but I couldn’t think of any other way I could get you to agree to come—’

  ‘You got that right!’

  ‘So I shall have to think of a way to dispose of the problem she presents,’ he continued flatly. ‘But—for the moment—I suppose I deserve your condemnation.’

  Grace stared at him. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she exclaimed. ‘I don’t care what you do with Julia. I don’t care whether she’s here or not. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He regarded her sceptically. ‘That’s why you practically go to pieces every time I touch you. Think again, cara. You want to make love with me, every bit as much as I want to make love with you.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes.’ He stepped towards her again and took hold of the thick braid that as usual lay over her shoulder. He tugged on it until she tilted her head and his darkening eyes mirrored his satisfaction at the awareness he could see in her face. ‘I can’t wait to loosen your hair,’ he told her harshly. ‘I want to thread my fingers through every strand and spread it out around your head on my pillow. Yes, my pillow, cara. Not yours. I want you in my arms, in my bed, with your silken limbs bared for me and me alone, and nothing and no one is going to stop me.’

  Grace couldn’t speak. In truth, she could hardly breathe. His words had painted an indelible picture on her subconscious, and although he let her pull away from him she knew he was much cleverer than even she had imagined. Goodness, he didn’t need to seduce her; he didn’t even need to touch her. The connection he had so effortlessly created between them was far stronger than any physical bond, and she felt dizzy with the power he was exerting over her.

  ‘I want you to leave; now,’ she choked, and with a careless shrug of his shoulders he sauntered towards the door.

  ‘I’ll send Gina to show you the way to the loggia,’ he remarked, pausing in t
he doorway. Then, with one of those devastating changes of mood, his eyes gentled. ‘Don’t look at me like that, cara.’ he advised her softly. His lips twisted. ‘Especially not when Nonna is watching us, capisce? I wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea.’

  Grace quivered. ‘Could she?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ He conceded the point with a mocking inclination of his head. ‘Ceci, then. She’s much younger.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  BY THE time Julia appeared, accompanied by the young maid who was to escort them, Grace had succeeded in regaining a little of her composure. She was still edgy, of course, but she knew Julia would assume that was because she didn’t want to be here. And she didn’t, she thought despairingly. More than ever now.

  ‘This is Gina.’ Julia introduced the maid with careless arrogance, and Grace had to bite back the words, I know. ‘Apparently Matt has sent her to show us the way to the drawing room.’

  ‘The—drawing room?’ Once again, Grace almost betrayed herself, and Julia gave her an impatient look.

  ‘Yes, the drawing room,’ she repeated, with mild irritation. ‘What’s wrong? Are you afraid you’re not going to look sophisticated enough for their friends?’ Her lips twisted. ‘Don’t worry. Matt has assured me that we’re his grandmother’s only guests tonight.’

  ‘I see.’ Grace had the feeling there would have been more safety in numbers. ‘Um—don’t you think this dress is suitable?’

  Julia, who was wearing a layered chiffon gown whose hem ended at mid-thigh, gave her friend an indifferent look. ‘I don’t suppose it matters what you’re wearing,’ she said carelessly. ‘It’s okay, I suppose.’ She grimaced. ‘You’d look good in anything.’

  Grace caught her breath. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ But Julia was complacent. She covered the slight swell of her stomach with a triumphant hand and smiled. ‘Thank goodness I saw Matt before you did, hmm?’