Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance)

by Sally-Ann Jones

  She made up her mind that if she couldn’t win the love of her second cousin, she would have his respect. She blushed now to think of her silly, quickly-abandoned scheme to look like Claudia Silvestro. Annabella Smith would be proud of her curves and her wayward red curls. And she’d prove to Allesandro de Rocco that even a woman who did not have a sylph-like figure could be worthy of a man’s deep admiration.

  Annabella took the stairs two at a time and went into the vast bathroom on the first floor where she turned on the taps and poured salts into the big old claw-footed bath. This was a beautiful room with black-and-white tiles on the floor and, on the walls a peeling, faded fresco depicting galleons on a calm ocean filled with benign and picturesque sea-monsters. A high, open window gave the bather a glimpse of the sky, which was now filling with stars.

  She stripped off the filthy clothes and boots in which she’d been working and was about to step into the perfumed water when she had an idea. It would be perfect to sip a glass of chilled, local white wine from the vineyards growing all around while she luxuriated in the suds. Sure there was nobody in the house except the two dogs, she walked naked down the staircase to the entrance hall, then turned to the right where the kitchen and, underneath that, the wine cellar, were. She enjoyed the feeling of the tendrils of her long hair brushing against the small of her bare back as she moved and the soft warmth of the summer air wafting close to her unclothed skin.

  A single light burned in the kitchen, where she planned to cook her evening meal as soon as she was clean. She didn’t really want carbonara if her second cousin wouldn’t eat it with her, but she refused to let his absence prevent her from enjoying it. A wooden trapdoor in the stone floor, easily pulled up with a round brass handle, led to the wines. Really thirsty and keen to celebrate her new-found resolve, Annabella lifted the trapdoor and flicked on the light switch inside. She selected a local vin santo and climbed up with it, placing the bottle on the kitchen table while she found the corkscrew.

  In seconds, she had the wine open and was sipping her first glass, savouring its cool, blond fruitiness. She sat on the kitchen table, unaware of her nakedness, bewitched by the moonlight garden she glimpsed through the window. Italy had certainly caught her in her spell. But Annabella wouldn’t confess, even to herself, that while she sipped she was remembering, again, how wonderful her cousin had looked on the bare back of the black stallion the day of the Palio. All she was willing to admit was that vin santo was the perfect drink after a long, hot day spreading manure in the orchard, the distilled essence of Tuscan sunshine, birdsong, and the cheerfulness of the villagers.

  She smiled as she recalled walking down to Fortezza Rosa with Tonia that morning. Earlier, she’d come across the housekeeper crying silently to herself as she hung a load of washing on the line and, putting her arms around her, Annabella had asked her what was the matter.

  “It’s my sister, Bella,” Tonia wept. “She’s not well. And she lives all alone in a house with many stairs. I’m afraid for her.”

  “Then you must go to her, Tonia. I have some money I can give you if you need to take a taxi or a train.”

  “She lives down in the village. Only a short walk away. Are you sure you wouldn’t mind if I popped down to see her for a while?”

  “Not for a while, Tonia. Stay until she’s better. I can look after Casa dei Fiori.”

  Tonia’s face shone with joy. “You are so kind, Bella. Thank you a million times. May God bless you, cara.”

  “Can I walk with you? I can help carry your things.”

  “Of course you may. I’d be glad of your company. Shall we eat breakfast and then go?”

  “Si. That’s what we’ll do.”

  The walk down the hillside was spectacular. There was a little rocky path that wound between cypress and ilex, offering beautiful views of the scenery with every twist and turn. Beside a rocky grotto the two women stopped to cross themselves with holy water which lay in a little pool under a small statue of the Madonna. Fresh flowers were strewn around the statue and, in the darkness deep inside the cave, thousands of candles glowed.

  “People visit her every day,” Tonia explained. “And they light candles for their loved ones.”

  “May I light one?” Annabella asked. “I’d like to thank my great-grandfather for bringing me here.”

  Soon they were on their way again, entering the cobbled main street of the tiny medieval village whose small but tall three and four storey houses were so old they leaned together over the narrow lanes. Each house was a different colour of peeling, faded paint – palest blue, green, pink and yellow – and from every window-box tumbled bright geraniums. Cats sunned themselves on walls and steps and, in the tiny market square, farmers were already setting up the stalls from which they would sell their wares. Tonia led Annabella to a quaint yellow house overlooking the square and opened the unlocked door.

  “Wait here while I go and see how Tomasina is,” Tonia whispered, showing the younger woman into a small sitting room in which a big porcelain doll dressed in a wedding gown occupied pride of place on the red sofa.

  Seeing Annabella looking at the doll, Tonia told her quietly that her sister’s beloved fiancé had been killed in a motorcycle accident on the eve of their wedding and that she’d never really recovered from the tragedy.

  Annabella waited while Tonia climbed the steep stairs. She emerged several minutes later, looking relieved. “She’s not as bad as I feared, thank God. A little cough coupled with her usual complaint – a bad migraine. She suffers from headaches two or three times a year. I’m certain the cough can be relieved and then her head will be better too. I told her you were here and she sends you her love.”

  “Thank you. Now, Tonia, I’m going to walk back to Casa dei Fiori and leave you here for as long as you want to stay. Have some fun with your sister when she is better. Don’t rush back, si?”

  Tonia smiled and took both Annabella’s hands in hers. She nodded. “Arriverderci, Goodbye, Bella. Don’t work too hard. Your great-grandpapa didn’t expect you to restore the villa and the estate to their former glory in just a few days, you know.”

  They embraced and Annabella walked out into the morning sunshine. By now, the stalls were laden with mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, zucchini flowers, pastas of all colours and shapes, and fresh eggs, cheeses and cured meats. She wandered from stall to stall, unaware of the stir she was causing with her flame-red hair, milk-white skin and young, ripe body.

  At last, one of the young men who had been weighing salami, plucked up the courage to ask her if she were the heiress up at the villa. He remembered seeing her with the old man, years ago, and she had grown very beautiful since then.

  “Si,” she answered, flashing him a radiant smile. She wasn’t surprised people knew that Alessandro hadn’t been made the heir – that sort of news travelled rapidly in small communities. It was certainly the kind of thing she and her friends would natter over on a Friday evening at the pub.

  “You need men to work the fields, no?” he asked, optimistically. He had plenty of brothers who could help their father in the family butcher shop.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “Domani. Tomorrow. If you like, you can meet me there in the morning and I’ll give you plenty of work. I am Annabella,” she added, holding her hand out to him.

  He took it readily and, smiling broadly, said, “And I am Carlo. I will be there alle otto. At eight o’clock.”

  Heartened by his enthusiasm, Annabella grinned back and hiked back to the estate, where she spent the whole day shovelling manure. The back-breaking work certainly took her mind off her cousin – to a certain extent.

  Still sitting on the kitchen table, Annabella sighed contentedly and took another sip of her wine before leaving the kitchen and walking up the stairs to her bath.

  The little hussy!, Alessandro fumed. He’d cooked his pasta and taken it outside, to watch the stars come out as he ate. There was a low stone wall from which he could s
ee the valley below, the Silvestro villa as well as Casa dei Fiori. Totally inexperienced in cooking, he boiled his spaghetti for too long and it had lost its wheaty flavour and texture. It was barely edible, and his former hunger all but evaporated as he ate, looking longingly up at his former home. When he’d almost finished, he glimpsed a human shape through the square, uncurtained windows of the stairwell and was suddenly anxious. Annabella was in the house alone, apart from the sleepy old dogs, and had said she was going to have a bath. Was there an intruder he should frighten off?

  Leaving his bowl on the wall, he crept up to the house. A light was on in the bathroom, as he expected, but there was another in the kitchen. Perhaps the intruder was looking for a sharp knife. Stealthily, Alessandro crept around the house, not making a sound and keeping well down, below the window sills. He would kill, with his bare hands, anyone who dared touch his little cousin!

  At last, he reached the kitchen window and looked into the room. What he saw made his gasp in shock, delight and frustration. This was no intruder, but the heiress herself, sitting on the wooden table, absolutely naked, sipping vin santo, an inviting smile on her lips. For a minute, he couldn’t tear himself away. She was even more beautiful than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. There wasn’t a blemish on her perfect, creamy skin. Her breasts, hips, buttocks were wonderful, soft and round and her hair, loose and spiraling down her back, hung around her like a veil. In her huge, green eyes he read deep contentment. Again, he was struck by her strong resemblance to a woman he knew but couldn’t remember. Like that mystery woman of whom Annabella reminded him, his cousin wore a look of complete serenity. Her face spoke of the kind of happiness a woman could only experience if she were in love, he was sure. And her lips told wordlessly of unspeakable joys.

  This was a woman who’d been loved by a man, he was sure of it. And that man could only be Umberto Esposito. He’d seen how Annabella clung to his arm at the Palio, and how she was so looking forward to a romantic dinner with him.

  Feeling nauseous with jealousy, Alessandro crept away from the window and, once he was out of view of his second cousin, stood up to teeter down the hill, his senses alive with what he had seen, everything else blotted out.

  Annabella lay in the silky water, sipping her wine and watching the twinkling stars through the high window. She was more excited than she’d ever been, now that she’d resolved to prove she could be a good manager of her great-grandfather’s beloved estate. In a few days, when she was more familiar with the way things were done around here, she’d go down to the cottage and ask Alessandro for the estate books. But they could wait. There were more urgent things to attend to. In the morning, Carlo from the village would come and together they’d tackle the weeds, the broken irrigation pipes, the tumble-down fences and walls.

  And Alessandro could put that in his pipe and smoke it!

  Alessandro’s new year resolution that January had been to give up smoking – but since his second cousin had arrived at Casa dei Fiori he’d done little else, he realized with a jolt. He knew he couldn’t expect to sleep tonight, having seen her looking so radiantly lovely and unselfconscious on the kitchen table, sipping wine and smiling rapturously. Even Claudia wasn’t at home to distract him, just a little, from what was becoming a ridiculous obsession.

  Mentally, he cursed their great-grandfather. How could the old fellow had been so, so …What was the word? Downright annoying, that was it. For never in his whole life had Alessandro de Rocco been so angry and frustrated.

  He tossed and turned on top of the bed, not having bothered to get between the sheets for he knew there’d be no sweet dreams for him tonight. Only unwelcome memories of Miss Smith’s voluptuous body and even more unwelcome fantasies created, unwillingly, inside his own head. He knew she’d be only too happy to befriend him, to …. Damn their great-grandfather! Damn Annabella! Alessandro was far too proud a creature to allow himself to be used by that little upstart from the colonies. Let Dottore Umberto Esposito be worn out by her!

  Alessandro finally fell into a disturbed, fitful sleep just as dawn was breaking. But it was short-lived, disturbed by the roar of a car engine past the unsurfaced road close to the cottage. Because there had been no rain for more than a week, a gust of white, powdery dust blew in through the bedroom window, causing him to cough and splutter and wipe his eyes. He planted both feet on the floor in fury, wondering who could be visiting Casa dei Fiori at this hour. Peering out through the same window, he recognized none other than the doctor’s red Fiat.

  Alessandro had never suffered that most enervating of human emotions – jealousy – until his second cousin’s arrival in Tuscany. A beautiful, beloved baby, he’d been adored by his parents, great-grandfather and Tonia. As a school-boy, he’d been driven down to the village school by the old man every morning, sitting up beside him in the Bentley like a little prince. And that was exactly how the other children, and even the school’s two teachers, had treated him. He’d never been stung by a friend’s betrayal, never felt abandoned or alone. Even in the big high school in Siena, where he’d boarded, he was the most popular boy in his class. He was not only taller than most, he was effortlessly good-looking, confident, intelligent and brilliant at sports. And, because of having known love, he knew how to be lavish with it.

  His great-grandfather had been most proud of him not for the As and Bs he always received for his school-work, or for having been voted head boy in his final year. It was a simple comment on an academic report made by one of his teachers when he was fifteen, a time when, the old man knew, some youths are so eager to impress their peers they can be heartless.

  “Alessandro is a kind, compassionate and brave class-member,” the teacher had written.

  The postman had delivered the report to Casa dei Fiori from the village post-office, having cycled up the steep hill on his rickety old bicycle. Tonia had, as she always did, given him cold milk and some of her delicious almond biscuits before allowing him to continue his rounds. She’d taken the mail into the book-lined library where the old man was sitting at his desk, the dog at his feet. Alessandro was on holidays for a few weeks before returning to sit his final high school exams and was sprawled on an old leather sofa, thoroughly engrossed in a novel his great-grandfather had recommended.

  “Grazie, thankyou, Tonia,” the old man said, taking the pile of letters from the housekeeper. “More bills, I suppose?”

  “The postman says there is a report from Alessandro’s school among all the bills,” Tonia replied candidly. Nobody was ashamed of being interested in his or her neighbours’ business in this part of the world. She leant over the pile that her employer had put on his desk, riffled through the envelopes and drew out one from the rest. “Here it is,” she smiled triumphantly, peering interestedly over his shoulder as he opened it.

  The old man was used to Tonia’s slavish devotion to his great-grandson and didn’t turn her away. After all, when the boy’s parents had been killed, Tonia had been like a mother to him and she was entitled to enjoy his success at school.

  “More wonderful marks,” Alessandro senior said, smiling across his desk at the teenager opposite. “But here’s something interesting. Apparently, you are brave, as well as kind and compassionate. How so, caro?”

  Alessandro coloured under his deep tan and the old man’s curiousity was even further roused.

  “Well?” the elderly gentleman prompted.

  “I … er … I helped someone, that’s all,” the youth replied, embarrassed.

  “Tonia and I would like to know exactly what happened,” the old man said. “Come on, boy, out with it.”

  “But it was nothing, really. I’d rather not…”

  “Alessandro,” his great-grandfather said firmly. “I am an old man and you are the most important and wonderful thing in my life. Give me the great pleasure of being able to boast about you to my friends in the village. Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

  The teenager mellowed. “All right,�
� he conceded with an amused shrug. “I will tell you, if I must.”

  “You must,” said Tonia, who had settled into a comfortable chair in anticipation of a story she, too, would enjoy repeating.

  “A group of boys were picking on another kid and I stopped them, that’s all,” he said quickly.

  “How many boys?” the old man wanted to know.

  “Five,” Alessandro muttered.

  “Scusi, excuse me, what did you say? I did not hear you,” the great-grandfather asked.

  “Five,” he repeated.

  “You fought off five other boys?” Tonia asked, incredulous. “You were not hurt?”

  Alessandro smiled and shook his head.

  “And how old were these boys?” the great-grandfather demanded.

  “About seventeen. And they were teasing a classmate because he had a lisp. I just couldn’t stand it,” Alessandro explained, becoming heated as he remembered the injustice of the situation. “They were taunting him and he was close to tears. I told them to stop but they laughed at me too. So I swung a few punches and that shut them up. Then one of the teachers came to see what all the fuss was about, because a big crowd of kids had gathered to watch the fight. The bigger boys had blood noses and ripped shirts and at first, the teacher thought I had started it and he was very angry with me. But the kid with the lisp put him straight. And I suppose that’s why I got that comment on my report.”