Count Valieri's Prisoner

by Sara Craven

  ‘And I knew if I took you—enjoyed the sweetness you were offering—that I would break my word and never let you go.’ He spread his hands almost helplessly. ‘And I had no guarantee that you would want to stay, even if we’d become lovers. Persuading you to give yourself for one night is very different to asking you to be with me forever.’

  He added more gently, ‘And from the beginning, time after time, you told me all you wanted was to return to England and the man you were to marry. So, to have you and then lose you again if you realised that your heart truly belonged with him—that had all the makings of a special kind of hell.

  ‘So I sent you back to him—my enemy that you loved—to find your real happiness—the happiness you believed in—and told myself I must learn to live without you. And that too was hell, especially when I learned you were once again wearing your ring, and preparing for your wedding.’

  She said wonderingly, ‘How did you know that?’

  His mouth twisted ruefully. ‘Because in spite of all my brave intentions, I could not release you. Could not say, “This, too, is over.”

  ‘You might be separated from me forever, but I still needed to know what you were doing—how you looked—if you were indeed happy. And I still had the means to find out.’

  He saw the shock in her face and flung up a hand. ‘Ah, mia cara, I am not proud of this. But I was desperate—desperate to prove that you, with your courage and your strength, could not commit your life to such a man.

  ‘As before, I devoured every scrap of information that came to me about you, but this time for very different reasons. And I suffered.’

  He shook his head, ‘Holy Madonna, I did not know such pain existed. That this was what love could do. I realised then that I had been insane to put my given word before what I felt for you, especially when I was dealing with a family themselves without honour,’ he added grimly.

  ‘I told myself that instead of sending you back to them, I should have gone on my knees to you and begged you to stay with me for the rest of our lives. To love me and be my wife.’

  He paused, and she saw the naked vulnerability in his face. The fear and yearning in his eyes.

  He said in a low voice, ‘The good God knows I have given you no reason to care for me, Maddalena, but perhaps, if I am patient, you could learn. I ask only for that chance, my sweet one. The chance to hope.’

  He took another step. ‘Do I have that chance? Say something, even if it is again “no”.’

  A smile trembled on her lips. ‘You haven’t given me much opportunity to speak.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When you left as you did, I—I was devastated. I felt ashamed because I’d made a fool of myself, and guilty because, in doing so, I’d betrayed Jeremy. And I told myself he didn’t deserve that because he wasn’t responsible for what his father had done, and probably didn’t even know about it.

  ‘I wanted to make amends to him, to start over and recapture what we’d once had. But I couldn’t. Because I wasn’t the same person. But neither was he, and I realised that perhaps I’d never really known him. Just seen what I wanted to see. Believed what I wanted to believe.

  ‘As I did when I first met you.’

  ‘Carissima...’

  ‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Let me finish, my darling. Since I came back, I haven’t been living, I’ve been existing. And I also thought I had nothing to hope for. That all I would ever have was loneliness and regret. But here you are—like a miracle. And it makes no sense, because we hardly know each other, and maybe we’ll both need patience, but if you truly want me, I’m yours.’

  Andrea repeated, on a shaken laugh, ‘If I want you? If...?’ He took one long stride and she was wrapped in his arms, his mouth locked to hers in a deep and passionate kiss. She yielded rapturously, pressing closer against his body as if she wished to be absorbed into him, flesh, blood and bone.

  He muttered hoarsely, ‘So much for patience.’ Then lifting her into his arms, he carried her into his bedroom.

  She expected to be taken quickly, their mutual hunger swiftly appeased, and would have given herself without reserve to his urgency.

  Only she was wrong. Because suddenly it seemed there was all the time in the world for them to savour every delicious, intimate minute. For her to discover that his hands were gentle and unhurried as he dealt with the fastenings of her clothing, smiling his delight into her eyes as he uncovered her completely. Whispering his encouragement as she began, shyly, to undress him in turn.

  At last knowing the joy of his naked body against hers as she lay in his arms. The remembered pleasure of his fingers caressing her breasts, his tongue liquid fire as he teased her hardening nipples. The accompaniment of slow, sweet kisses as he stroked her belly and her slackening eager thighs. The flurried excitement of her breathing as his hand slid between her legs, pushing into her heated wetness while one fingertip played with her tiny engorged mound, making her entire body clench with aching desire.

  And she was touching him too, running her hands along his shoulders, across his chest, and down over the flat abdomen to clasp the power and strength of his arousal, her fingers moving delicately, provocatively from the base of the rigid staff to its tip, until he groaned his pleasure aloud.

  But when Andrea moved over her, lifting her towards him to enter her, she tensed involuntarily and he paused, his eyes searching her face.

  ‘What is wrong? You don’t want this?’

  ‘Yes—oh, yes.’ She hesitated, then said in a rush, ‘But I’m scared.’

  ‘That I’ll hurt you?’ His surprise was evident. ‘I promise I will not.’

  ‘Not that. Scared of disappointing you. Of not giving you what you expect.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said softly, his eyes tender. ‘And if I tell you that I am also nervous because for the first time I am making love to the girl I love and her happiness means everything to me —what then?’

  Her mouth curved into a smile. ‘Then maybe I should stop fussing—and be happy.’

  ‘I think so,’ he said, and eased his way slowly and gently into her body, filling her. And she took him, deeply and completely, all inhibitions flown, as if all her life she had been waiting for this moment. And for him.

  She raised her legs, locking them round him, responding to every potent, fluid thrust, feeling with astonishment the sharp irresistible build of sensation from the innermost depths of her womanhood. Until all control slipped away, leaving her lost—consumed in a spiral of mindless agonising rapture.

  Heard Andrea call out to her, his voice hoarse and almost desperate, as he shuddered into his own scalding release.

  Afterwards, when the world had stopped reeling, they lay quietly together, their sweat-dampened bodies still joined, Andrea’s head pillowed on her breasts.

  And heard him whisper, ‘You are mine and I am yours’ against her skin.

  Later, between slow, sweet kisses, they talked.

  So,’ he said. ‘We get married at once. As soon as arrangements can be made.’

  Maddie put her lips to the pulse in his throat. ‘Are you sweeping me off my feet, signore?’

  ‘I think I must, signorina.’ There was faint ruefulness in his tone. ‘I did not use protection when we loved, as I should have done.’

  ‘Don’t you want children?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, dropping a kiss on her tangled hair. ‘But maybe not quite so soon.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Only time will tell.’ She paused. ‘Whatever is your mother going to say?’

  His grin was lazy. ‘If she arrives at this minute—a great deal.’

  ‘But she told me about the prophesy—that a fair-haired foreigner would cause the end of the House of the Wolf.’

  ‘But that has already happened, my sweet one. Now it is the House of Summer that awaits my summer bride.’

  ‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘So, it is. I—I’d forgotten that. But I still don’t think your mother’s going to be very happy about the situation. I knew she disappr
oved of me being with you at Portofino.’

  ‘She was concerned,’ he said. ‘Because she knew I had fallen irrevocably in love with a girl who belonged to another man, and that if I could not have her as my wife, I would never marry, and there would be no heir to carry on the Valieri name. That grieved her for my stepfather’s sake.’

  He kissed her again. ‘But what she will tell you when we all meet tomorrow, is that she intends to sing in public again—and the first time will be at our wedding.’

  ‘Oh.’ Maddie choked a little. ‘Oh—that would be so wonderful.’

  ‘And I have no doubt,’ he added in a resigned tone, ‘that she will wish to take you shopping.’

  For a moment, she saw herself reflected again in a swirl of wild silk. Found she was visualising the aisle of a church, and seeing Andrea turning from the altar to watch her walk towards him, the passion in his gaze mingled with reverence. The man she loved, waiting with love.

  ‘But not for a dress,’ she said dreamily. ‘Because I already have the perfect one. All it needs is one last stitch.’

  And she raised her smiling mouth for his kiss.

  * * * * *

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  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘SHEIKH King Emir has agreed that he will speak with you.’

  Amy looked up as Fatima, one of the servants, entered the nursery where Amy was feeding the young Princesses their dinner. ‘Thank you for letting me know. What time—?’

  ‘He is ready for you now,’ Fatima interrupted, impatience evident in her voice at Amy’s lack of haste, for Amy continued to feed the twins.

  ‘They’re just having their dinner...’ Amy started, but didn’t bother to continue—after all, what would the King know about his daughters’ routines? Emir barely saw the twins and, quite simply, it was breaking Amy’s heart.

  What would he know about how clingy they had become lately and how fussy they were with their food? It was one of the reasons Amy had requested a meeting with him—tomorrow they were to be handed over to the Bedouins. First they would be immersed in the desert oasis and then they would be handed over to strangers for the night. It was a tradition that dated back centuries, Fatima had told her, and it was a tradition that could not be challenged.

  Well, Amy would see about that!

  The little girls had lost their mother when they were just two weeks old, and since his wife’s death Emir had hardly seen them. It was Amy they relied on. Amy who was with them day in and day out. Amy they trusted. She would not simply hand them over to strangers without a fight on their behalf.

  ‘I will look after the twins and give them dinner,’ Fatima said. ‘You need to make yourself presentable for your audience with the King.’ She ran disapproving eyes over Amy’s pale blue robe, which was the uniform of the Royal Nanny. It had been fresh on that morning, but now it wore the telltale signs that she had been finger-painting with Clemira and Nakia this afternoon. Surely Emir should not care about the neatness of her robe? He should expect that if the nanny was doing her job properly she would be less than immaculate in appearance. But, again, what would Emir know about the goings-on in the nursery? He hadn’t been in to visit his daughters for weeks.

  Amy changed into a fresh robe and retied her shoulder-length blonde hair into a neat ponytail. Then she covered her hair with a length of darker blue silk, arranging the cloth around her neck and leaving the end to trail over her shoulder. She wore no make-up but, as routinely as most women might check their lipstick, Amy checked to see that the scar low on her neck was covered by the silk. She hated how, in any conversation, eyes were often drawn to it, and more than that she hated the inevitable questions that followed.

  The accident and its aftermath were something she would far rather forget than discuss.

  ‘They are too fussy with their food,’ Fatima said as Amy walked back into the nursery.

  Amy suppressed a smile as Clemira pulled a face and then grabbed at the spoon Fatima was offering and threw it to the floor.

  ‘They just need to be cajoled,’ Amy explained. ‘They haven’t eaten this before.’

  ‘They need to know how to behave!’ Fatima said. ‘There will be eyes on them when they are out in public, and tomorrow they leave to go to the desert—there they must eat only fruit, and the desert people will not be impressed by two spoiled princesses spitting out their food.’ She looked Amy up and down. ‘Remember to bow your head when you enter, and to keep it bowed until the King speaks. And you are to thank him for any suggestions that he makes.’

  Thank him!

  Amy bit down on a smart retort. It would be wasted on Fatima and, after all, she might do better to save her responses for Emir. As she turned to go, Clemira, only now realising that she was being left with Fatima, called out to Amy.

  ‘Ummi!’ her little voice wailed. ‘Ummi!’

  She called again and Fatima stared in horror as Clemira used the Arabic word for mother.

  ‘Is this what she calls you?’

  ‘She doesn’t mean it,’ Amy said quickly, but Fatima was standing now, the twins’ dinner forgotten, fury evident on her face.

  ‘What have you been teaching her?’ Fatima accused.

  ‘I have not been teaching her to say it,’ Amy said in panic. ‘I’ve been trying to stop her.’

  She had been. Over and over she had repeated her name these past few days, but the twins had discovered a new version. Clemira must have picked it up from the stories she had heard Amy tell, and from the small gatherings they attended with other children who naturally called out to their mothers. No matter how often she was corrected, Clemira persisted with her new word.

  ‘It’s a similar sound,’ Amy explained. But just as she thought she had perhaps rectified the situation, Nakia, as always, copied her sister.

  ‘Ummi,’ Nakia joined in with the tearful protest.

  ‘Amy!’ Amy corrected, but she could feel the disgust emanating from Fatima.

  ‘If the King ever hears of this there will be trouble!’ Fatima warned. ‘Serious trouble.’

  ‘I know!’ Amy bit back on tears as she left the nursery. She tried to block out the cries that followed her down the long corridor as she made her way deep into the palace.

  This meeting with the King was necessary, Amy told herself, as nerves started to catch up with her. Something had to be said.

  Still, even if she had requested this audience, she was not relishing the prospect. Sheikh King Emir of Alzan was not exactly open to conversation—at least not since the death of Hannah. The walls were lined with paintings of previous rulers, all dark and imposing men, but since the death of Emir’s wife, none was more imposing than Emir—and in a moment she must face him.

  Must face him, Amy told herself as she saw the guards standing outside his door. As difficult as this conversation might be, there were things that needed to be said and she wanted to say them before she headed into the desert with the King and his daughters—for this was a discussion that must take place well away from tender ears.

  Amy halted at the heavy, intricately carved doors and waited until finally the guards nodded and the doors were opened. She saw a
n office that reminded her of a courtroom. Emir sat at a large desk, dressed in black robes and wearing a kafeya. He took centre stage and the aides and elders sat around him. Somehow she must find the courage to state her case.

  ‘Head down!’ she was brusquely reminded by a guard.

  Amy did as she was told and stepped in. She was not allowed to look at the King yet, but could feel his dark eyes drift over her as a rapid introduction was made in Arabic by his senior aide, Patel. Amy stood with her head bowed, as instructed, until finally Emir spoke.

  ‘You have been requesting to see me for some days now, yet I am told the twins are not unwell.’

  His voice was deep and rich with accent. Amy had not heard him speak in English for so very long—his visits to the nursery were always brief, and when there he spoke just a few words in Arabic to his daughters before leaving. Standing there, hearing him speak again, Amy realised with a nervous jolt how much she had missed hearing his voice.

  She remembered those precious days after the twins had been born and how approachable he’d been then. Emir had been a harried king, if there was such a thing, and like any new father to twins—especially with a sick wife. He had been grateful for any suggestion she’d made to help with the tiny babies—so much so that Amy had often forgotten that he was King and they had been on first-name terms. It was hard to imagine that he had ever been so approachable now, but she held on to that image as she lifted her head and faced him, determined to reach the father he was rather than the King.

  ‘Clemira and Nakia are fine,’ Amy started. ‘Well, physically they are fine...’ She watched as his haughty face moved to a frown. ‘I wanted to speak to you about their progress, and also about the tradition that they—’

  ‘Tomorrow we fly out to the desert,’ Emir interrupted. ‘We will be there for twenty-four hours. I am sure there will be ample time then to discuss their progress.’

  ‘But I want to speak about this well away from the twins. It might upset them to hear what I have to say.’