This morning, she watched Antonio approaching through the garden, while she sat over a cup of strong Italian espresso. He had woken before her and left her to sleep a little longer. Wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, off-white muslin shirt and loose pants of the same material, and tall leather boots, as the fields were muddy that day from rain—he looked the perfect gentleman farmer. At the same time he might have stepped off a page of GQ. Hot. Tropical. Set against a wall of fiery red hibiscus, he reminded her of a painting by Gauguin in his Polynesian period.
“Ciao,” she said, holding a hand out to him.
“Buongiorno.” He lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them lightly. “Where is your crew today?”
“On their way back to the factory. I let your foreman know. Hope that’s all right.”
“It’s fine. I had to get out to the fields early. Last night’s winds blew away some of the netting beneath the trees. We lost some prime fruit, but at least with the nets back in place again we’ve minimized the damage.”
“I should be off to the factory myself,” she admitted with a sigh. “But it’s just so lovely out here in the garden, lingering over a cup.”
She traced one finger around the lip of the hand-painted demitasse cup, decorated with a proud little rooster, the city symbol of nearby Grottaglie, where it had been made. She would miss this place, these people. Sadness sat heavily on her chest for a moment, an unwelcome distraction from an exciting day.
But before she could stand up to leave, a shriek rose from the little villa on the far side of the garden. Genevra tore between rose bushes, her hands waving frantically above her head, her face contorted in agony.
“Tonio, Tonio—ho perso, Michael!”
Antonio ran to his mother. “You can’t have just lost him. Did he wander from the house?” he asked her in Italian.
Maria only caught every third word or so, but it was enough to worry her. It seemed Genevra had awakened that morning and since she didn’t hear the child stirring in his room, assumed he was still asleep. When she went in to get him out of his bed, he hadn’t been there.
Antonio smiled indulgently. So his little son was an adventurer. He remembered sneaking out of his own bed at a very young age to investigate forbidden nooks and rooms in the masseria. “We’ll find him,” he assured her.
“I’ll look in the house,” Maria offered, “and ask the maids if they’ve seen him. He’s used to coming to my room. Maybe he saw his nonna napping and set out to try and find me.”
Genevra cast her a poisonous look. “You have been trying to take him from me all along. Now look what has happened.”
Antonio glared at his mother. “This is no time for petty jealousy. Maria has done nothing but help his family. Now let’s find the child.” He rushed off toward the gate, intending first to alert his men stationed there. They would send up an alarm to the groundskeepers and other employees, who would keep an eye out for the little boy.
Maria watched Antonio go then turned to Genevra to offer a comforting word. But the woman merely turned and stalked away.
Maria searched all the places that might appeal to a little boy. But found no trace of him.
After two hours had passed, Antonio sent men into the nearby fields to search, even though it seemed impossible for Michael to have slipped past the gate guards. Genevra looked stricken, her hands shaking as she left the wrought-iron bench in the garden where she’d waited for word. She moved unsteadily toward her villa.
Maria sighed. Somehow she had to make peace with the woman. She might not like Genevra very much but, in a way, she did understand her. The child’s grandmother probably didn’t want to be blamed for his having gone missing. And so she had picked on Maria as a convenient scapegoat.
Maria found her sitting on the stone stoop leading up to her front door. The woman’s cheeks were cuttlebone white. Her hands, clenched in her lap, showed blue at the knuckles.
Maria silently sat down beside her, put an arm around her shoulders. “They’ll find him. Let me take you inside and make you a cup of tea.”
Genevra slowly turned her head to observe her. Deep lines had been etched across her forehead, around her mouth by the Italian sun. Her eyes were the color of the earth of Carovigno, her hair streaked with white.
Tradition plays an important role here, Maria thought. Grandparents are venerated. Maybe, in a way, she had unintentionally disturbed a delicate familial balance.
Taking Genevra’s hand, she coaxed her off the stoop and led her into the house. Maria helped her sit on a hard wooden chair before the kitchen table. Finding a teakettle on the stove, she filled it with water and lit a burner. Cups and saucers, loose tea leaves and honey were in the cupboard. She arranged all on the table while Antonio’s mother sat in grim silence.
“Are you cold?” Maria asked, noting how she had wrapped her arms around herself.
Genevra seemed not to have heard her question. “What will happen to mio bambino—out there alone?”
Maria touched her shoulder. “They’ll find him.” She wished she could believe, without a moment’s doubt, that was true. For now, all she could do was hope.
She went in search of Genevra’s shawl, the black wool knitted one she often wore on chill mornings. But it wasn’t in her bedroom. Neither had Maria seen it lying about in the living room. From the hallway, she spotted something draped over the back of the rocking chair in Michael’s room.
She was about to snatch the knitted square off the chair when she saw the piece of paper pinned to it. Stepping closer, she read words scrawled in black ink.
Her heart faltered. She gasped. “Dear God, no!”
Thirteen
The polizia had come and gone. They had searched all the masseria and the surrounding fields, although Antonio’s men had already combed them for hours, looking for the little boy.
Fingerprints had been taken from Michael’s room. Photographs of Michael had been handed over. The ransom note was to be analyzed by an expert flying down from Rome.
No one made any promises. Kidnappings in Italy, customarily, did not end well. Victims often were never seen again. Not alive.
Everyone knew it, but no one said it.
“I can’t do this!” Antonio growled as he paced his office that afternoon. “There must be something we can—” His voice cracked.
Maria touched his arm, her heart aching for the man, for his son. “The police will let us know as soon as they hear anything. You’ll leave the money, as requested, in the piazza in Brindisi, in two days. That’s all you can do.”
“Money!” He swore in Italian. “This is Marco’s doing. I can taste it. If I ever get my hands on the idiot I’ll kill him.”
“Antonio,” she said soothingly, “we have no proof it’s him. The captain said it could be anyone. You admitted to him that you have enemies.”
“Competition—not enemies! There’s a difference.” He shook his head savagely.
The police had brought up the possibility of someone holding a grudge against Il Principe or his family, but the only person he could think of was Marco. He’d continued to have the Serilo brothers followed. His men had sworn the young men were at home all the previous night, but when the police went to speak with them, Frederico’s wife couldn’t tell them where her husband and brother-in-law were.
The police had also suggested a possible connection with terrorists. And at those words, Antonio had seen a mixture of horror and denial flash across Maria’s face. Emotions he shared with her. But it wouldn’t be the first time that the child of the wealthy Italian was kidnapped for ransom, hoping to raise money for weapons.
“I don’t know what to think…or do.” Antonio stopped in front of the casement windows overlooking the garden and stared, jaw locked, fists clenched in helpless protest at his sides. “Terrorists…it just doesn’t feel right,” he growled. “The ransom note asked for enough money to make a poor man feel lucky. Not enough to fund an army.”
He whipped around,
pulled her into his arms and held her, needing an anchor, something or someone to cling to when his world seemed to be slipping away from him. “Stay here.” His lips moved against the fine strands of hair on top of her head. “I’m going to look for that bastard and my son.”
“But where will you search that the police haven’t?” she protested.
“Anywhere Marco might think to go. Anywhere he might feel safe.”
After he left, Maria closed her eyes and concentrated on breathing. Inside, she was dying. Poor little Michael. He must be so very frightened. She prayed the kidnappers, whoever they were, hadn’t hurt him.
Two of the youngest housemaids stepped into the room, their eyes red from weeping. “Is there anything we can do, signorina?” one asked.
“No. Just see to your mistress. The doctor says the sedatives may wear off soon. When they do, she should take another pill. Try to keep her calm.” Genevra’s physician had voiced concern over her heart. The shock of her grandson’s kidnapping had shaken the woman badly. Her blood pressure had skyrocketed.
For another three hours, Maria sat and waited helplessly. The sun had reached its golden zenith hours before and was now sinking relentlessly toward the western horizon. In a few more hours, it would be dark. Effective searching would become impossible.
Her chest hurt as if her heart had been torn from it. Her head had been aching for hours. She might feel better if she lay down, but didn’t have the strength or will to go to her room.
If Antonio was right and Marco was behind the kidnapping of the child, perhaps the final outcome still had a chance of being a happy one. She was unconvinced, from the little she’d seen of him at the market, that he was capable of killing.
If only she knew how to help, even in the smallest way…
It was nearly midnight when Antonio returned to the villa. Maria had been watching for him from the garden, lit by torches. His face was drained of all color. Caverns of gray smudged the flesh beneath his eyes. He looked as if the last ounce of strength had been sucked from his body.
“Mio cara,” he gasped, falling into her arms.
She held him in silence, asking no questions, simply offering comfort. At last she whispered, “Come, you must rest.”
He pulled away from her and stared fiercely across the fields. His shoulders shuddered, but the rest he kept in. The conqueror, defeated.
“I can’t. There must be somewhere I haven’t looked.”
“I’m sure that anywhere you haven’t searched, the police have. You won’t do Michael any good driving yourself this way.” She stroked the line of his chin. How very fragile he looked now. She loved him all the more for his vulnerability. “Come to bed. Just for an hour or two. With a little rest you’ll be able to think more clearly.”
He didn’t respond to her, but let her pull him toward the stairs that led to his bedroom. Once inside, she closed the door behind them. Maria turned on only the lamp closest to the bed. It cast pale shadows across the room. In the near dark, Antonio looked even more gaunt.
He sat, woodenly, on the bed. She knelt down, untied his shoes and removed first them then his socks
Standing up before him she unbuttoned his shirt. Tenderly, she eased the soft muslin fabric off his shoulders and down his arms. Beneath his clothing, muscles shaped a strong body, but Antonio looked anything but strong now. He was a broken man. A man without enough will to function on the simplest level.
She unbuckled his pants, loosened the waistband, then gently pressed her palm to his bare chest, easing him back onto the bed, his head onto the pillow. When she brought the sheet up over him, he reached out and seized her wrist.
“Lie with me, cara. Hold me, please,” he whispered hoarsely, urgently.
Maria toed off her shoes, stepped from her dress, then slipped beneath the sheet in her underwear. Stretching out alongside his taut body, she rested her head on his shoulder, smoothed a hand soothingly across his bare chest.
She wished with all her heart that she had the power to make everything right again. The magic to bring his son safely back to him. She could guess his thoughts, the punishing doubts assaulting him. He blamed himself for not keeping a closer watch on the child. Perhaps he had been neglectful as a parent in some respects, but it hadn’t been intentional. He loved Michael.
After what seemed a long time, his breathing slowed, deepened. She thought he might have fallen asleep, but when she tried to change her position, his arms tightened around her like the powerful wires that staked out his olive trees. “Please. Don’t leave yet,” he whispered.
His words were as precious as jewels. She was important to him, even during these terrible times.
She could think of only one way to take his mind off of Michael, to ease him toward rest. Slowly, she began moving her hand in soothing spirals across his chest, caressing the ridges and mounds, stroking away the awful tension. She could feel muscles start to unknot. Sensed when the tendons in his throat lengthened, allowing his head to roll to one side against the pillow. She looked up to see his lips part on a silent sigh.
“Now doesn’t seem the time,” he murmured regretfully.
“Now is the perfect time,” she said. “We need each other.”
“I’m not sure how much you need me, Maria,” he choked out the words. “But I’ve never needed you more.”
She slipped off her bra and panties, pushing them out from beneath the sheet and onto the floor. Antonio lay unmoving, watching her solemnly. She rolled over on top of him, let her body melt into his. Her breasts pressed into the curls of fur across his chest. Her hips angled against the firm plane of his stomach. She felt him harden, lengthen against her thighs. Corded flesh against her silk. Her body responded instantly, although he hadn’t touched her.
“Rest,” she whispered. “Let me.”
He looked up at her, his eyes brimming with emotion. He rested his hands on her hips as she sat up, swung a leg over his hips, centered herself over him. Settling over him, she allowed her body’s weight to drive her down as he lifted his hips to move deeper within her.
Antonio let out a shuddering, primal moan. “Woman…ah! Mi piace.”
With each feminine thrust, she felt a little of the paralyzing tension and exhaustion leave him. Then he was crying out her name, again and again, his body shuddering fiercely. And he raked his wide fingers through her hair, pulled her down onto his chest and held her there, his mouth on hers, their bodies locked in timeless union.
And when it was over he slept.
Maria turned over in bed and let her arm fall away to the other side of the mattress. The side Antonio had occupied. She felt only bedding.
Perhaps there had been news of Michael?
She launched herself from the bed. Dressed quickly, descended to the kitchen where Sophia was feeding both the household and grounds staff, as well as four armed police officers. With disappointment she noted that Antonio wasn’t in the group. The uniformed men stood up from the long trencher table when she entered.
“What has happened?” she asked the man who had seemed in charge the day before.
He shook his head sadly. “We still have men going door to door through Carovigno and the neighboring towns.” He spoke slowly in Italian, so that she was able to understand. “Others combing the countryside. Our fear, signorina, is that the kidnappers may have moved the child out of the immediate area. Safer for them. All it would take is for one of them to remain behind and pick up the ransom.”
Maria shivered at the thought of Michael being spirited farther away from his home by strangers.
She turned to Angela. “Where is La Signora?”
“I took her breakfast tray, but she doesn’t eat, Miss Maria.” The young woman frowned. “Il dottore, he says she is better off sleeping. He came and gave her an injection when she wouldn’t take her pills.”
Maria nodded. The doctor was a wise man. In many ways she’d have preferred to sleep through the next day or two. At least, so long as there was no
thing she could do.
But if she could help…
“Does anyone know where Antonio is?” she asked, looking around the table. The four officers had taken their seats again and were hurriedly finishing their breakfast.
“Il Principe, he was in the garden an hour ago,” one of the groundsmen offered.
“I saw him leave by the back gate twenty minutes ago,” the young houseboy volunteered.
Maria politely turned down the cook’s offer of a warm breakfast. She had no appetite at all. Walking outside, she looked around the yard and garden, but Antonio wasn’t there. His sleek, black car was sitting in the courtyard, though, key in its ignition.
By late afternoon, he still hadn’t returned, and there was no word of where he might be. No news of Michael either. She was nearly out of her mind with worry. The police told her all that could be done now was to wait and see if Michael was returned when the ransom was paid the next day, as arranged. They didn’t look happy with the situation.
She’d never felt more frightened in her life.
On impulse Maria flung herself into the driver’s seat of the Ferrari, turned the key and drove to the gate. “I’ll be back before dark,” she told the guard, and he let her out with a solemn salute.
As Maria drove, she thought about the places Antonio had taken her since her arrival in Italy. Where, among them, might a kidnapper successfully hide a young child if not in a house nearby?
There were fishing villages all up and down the coast. If this was Marco’s doing, it was possible that he had taken Michael away by boat. Was even now hiding him offshore, but she knew his resources were limited. How could he afford a boat unless he stole it?
Then there was the beach she’d visited that one day, near Specchiola. She couldn’t recall how far it was, but it had taken only ten minutes to drive there, and it had been straight down the coastal road, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find. Hadn’t Antonio said he’d played on the cliffs, in the caves there as a boy? He had guessed at that time that other children had also, still did. Marco had come to this beach too, with his brother, to pick up women. Antonio’s men had followed them there. It was worth checking out, she decided as she drove the Ferrari along the twisting shore road. A ribbon of chalk-white sand edged aquamarine surf. So, where would Marco take Michael? Where would he feel safe? Where no one would be likely to search for him until he had cash in hand.
Mail-Order Prince In Her Bed (Silhouette Desire) Page 15
