A Royal Engagement: The Storm WithinThe Reluctant Queen Page 4

  Difficult? The man was turning out to be her worst nightmare.

  A sharp rap on the door and she jumped, instantly alert, but it was only Bruno, bearing a tray.

  ‘Something to eat,’ he grunted, placing the tray on a side table.

  Grace blinked and caught a whiff of something warm and savoury. Frittata, she realised as she approached, feeling suddenly hungry and remembering she hadn’t eaten for hours. And, if she was not mistaken, a pot of tea. She lifted the lid and took a sniff. English breakfast. Maybe he really was psychic. ‘How did you know I’d prefer tea to coffee?’

  He shrugged. ‘You’re inglese, no?’

  ‘Australian,’ she corrected. And he shrugged again, as if it were the same thing, and disappeared.

  Lucky guess, she figured, and poured herself a cup, enthusiasm once again building inside her. A quick meal and she could get to work. Strange, though, given how excited she’d been at getting this opportunity, that something could distract her to such an extent that at times she almost forgot the book completely.

  Well, not something—someone. And maybe he was difficult and dangerous and tortured and gave her heated glances that made her squirm—still, it wasn’t like her at all.

  He paced his office, walking past windows rattling with the wind and splattered with raindrops from the first of the coming squalls. Clouds obliterated what was left of the sun until day turned almost to night.

  He paced the room uncaring. He saw nothing but the expression on her face when she’d turned that cursed page. It had been bad enough when she’d thought they were close. She’d looked so alive with hope and anticipation. He hadn’t thought it could get any worse, that she could look any more alive than she had in that moment.

  And then she’d turned that cover page and her eyes had widened, her face had lit up and her whole body had damned near ignited.

  He’d damned near combusted watching her. He’d been rock-hard with need and so hot it was a wonder he hadn’t turned to a column of ash right there and then. And all he’d been able to wonder since then was if that was the way she looked when she was looking at some piece of ancient parchment, how good might she look when she came apart in his arms?

  He wanted to find out.

  He burned to find out.

  What was wrong with him? She was a scientist, with scraped-back hair and a passion for ancient relics, and he was lusting after her? Damn! What on earth had possessed him to let her stay?

  Alessandro threw himself into his chair and then spun straight out of it, reaching for his phone. God, he didn’t need this!

  Bruno answered on the second ring.

  ‘Fetch the woman from the village,’ he growled.

  There was hesitation at the end of the phone and he could almost hear Bruno’s mind working out that it was not quite a month since her last visit. But instead he said, ‘The boat will not come with the storm brewing.’

  ‘Offer them double,’ he ordered, and hung up.

  Five minutes later Bruno called back. ‘The captain says it’s too rough. He will bring her tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want her tomorrow!’ This time he slammed the phone down, turning his gaze out through the windows to where the waves were wearing white caps from which the wind whipped spray metres into the air. And then rain lashed the windows until they were running like a river and the sea beyond blurred to grey.

  Curse the damned weather! How dared it confound him when he needed a woman?

  But there was already a woman on the island.

  He wheeled away, trying hard to lose that thought. He could see her even now, poring over her precious pages as if they were the Holy Grail. In that moment he’d seen inside her. He’d seen beyond the scientist who made out she had no desires. He’d seen the woman beneath—a woman born for passion.

  And she was waiting for you to kiss her.

  He strode down the passageway, raking hands through his hair, not knowing where he was going, refusing to give credence to the sly voice in his head that refused to shut up.

  She baited you.

  She didn’t know what she was asking.

  She wants you.

  No. No. And no! She did not want him. She was a fool. She had no idea.

  But you want her…

  He found himself outside her room, the sliver of light under the door telling him she was still working, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  Would she welcome his visit?

  Would she welcome being spread over that wide desk, scattering her precious papers, while he buried himself in her depths? Would her eyes light up for him the way they had in the cave? Would her entire body shimmer with desire and explode with light?

  Blood pounded in his ears. His fingers were on the doorknob.

  Or would she close her eyes and turn away?

  He could not bear it if she turned away…

  Blackness, thick and viscous, oozed up from the depths. His fingers screwed into a ball as he forced it down.

  Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she was different. She didn’t shy away from him. She didn’t recoil in horror. She treated him as if he was almost normal—as if his scars didn’t exist.

  But you’re not normal, the dark voices said. You can never be normal again.

  The blackness welled up like a rolling wave. What had he been thinking? Why was he doing this to himself?

  He should have made her leave when he’d had the chance!

  He pushed away from the door, forced his feet to walk, but he’d gone no more than a few paces when he heard the door open behind him.

  ‘Count Volta?’

  He dragged in air, turned and nodded stiffly. ‘Dr Hunter.’

  She had a hand on her chest, as if she’d been frightened of who or what she might find in the passageway. ‘I was just about to go to bed. I thought I heard a noise. Did you want something?’

  God, yes.

  ‘No. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’ He didn’t want to think about Dr Hunter and bed. And then, because he should be interested, ‘How does your investigation progress?’

  Her eyes lit up that way they did until he would swear they almost shimmered with excitement. ‘The pages are wonderful. Do you want to have a look before I put them away?’

  On that same desk, when all he wanted was to spread her limbs and plunge into her slick depths and feel her incandescent exhilaration explode around him?

  ‘No!’ he said, so forcefully that she took a small step backwards and he had to suck in air to regain his composure. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he added more gently. ‘It’s getting late. Goodnight, Dr Hunter. Sleep well.’

  He wouldn’t sleep, he knew, as he descended the wide stairs leading to the ground floor. Not now, not after seeing her again. Instead he would read in the library and listen to the storm continue to build outside. He would take comfort in the savagery of the elements and the pounding violence of the sea. He would be at one with its endless torment.

  And perhaps in the morning he might have Bruno fetch the woman from the village after all. God knew, books weren’t going to cut it tonight. He would need something.

  In the gloom of light he passed the doorway to the ballroom, a flash of lightning illuminating the empty space. Empty but for the grand piano sitting bereft in the far corner of the room.

  He paused and gazed at the imprint the lightning had left behind and felt a pang for something long gone. Across the marble tiles, under the rumble of thunder, he approached the instrument like a one-time friend whose friendship had been soured by time. Cautiously. Mistrustfully.

  Once he’d known her intimately. Known her highs and her lows and how to wring every piece of emotion from her. She’d been a thing of beauty when the world had been all about beauty.

  Before life had soured and turned ugly.

  Yet still she sat there, black and sleek, totally shameless. And even now she beckoned, luring him like the memories of a mistress he hadn’t quite finished with before they’d parted com
pany.

  And what surprised him more than anything was that he was tempted. He lifted the lid, ran his fingers along the keys, hit a solitary note that rang out in the empty ballroom and felt something twist inside him.

  He could have put the lid down then. He could have walked away. But the way his fingers rested on the keys, familiar yet foreign, wouldn’t let him go. Outside the waves crashed; the thunder boomed until the windows rattled. Inside his fingers reacquainted themselves with the cool ivory. He let them find their own way. He let them remember. Let them give voice to his damaged heart.

  She woke with a start, her breath coming fast, her heart thumping, not knowing what had woken her, just grateful to escape from her dreams. She reached over to snap on her bedside light but the switch just clicked uselessly from side to side. Great. The storm must have taken out the power again.

  The wind howled past the windows, searching for a way in. The sea boomed below, the waves pounding at the very foundations of the island.

  What had woken her? Maybe it had been nothing. Certainly nothing she could do anything about now. She settled back down, willing her breathing to calm, not sure if she wanted to head straight back into the heated confusion of her dreams. She ran her hands thought her hair. No way did she want to go back there.

  Often when she was working on a piece she would dream of her work, her mind busy even in sleep, imagining the artists and scribes who had produced whatever artefact she was studying. Often her mind would work at solving the puzzles of who and what and why, even when those answers had been lost in time.

  But not tonight. Tonight her dreams had been full of one man. A scarred count. Menacing and intense. Unwelcoming to the point of rudeness and beyond, and yet at the same time strangely magnetic. Strangely compelling.

  He’d been watching her in her dream, she remembered with a shudder. Not just looking at her—she knew the difference—but watching her, his black-as-night eyes wild and filled with dark desires and untold heat. And even now she could remember the feel of that penetrating gaze caress her skin like the sizzling touch of a lover’s hand. Even now her skin goose-bumped and her breasts firmed and her nipples strained to peaks.

  She shook her head, trying to clear the pictures from her mind; she punched her pillow as if that was the culprit, putting them there when she knew it probably had more to do with the storm. The lightning and thunder were messing with her brainwaves, she told herself. All that electrical energy was messing with the connections in her mind. It was madness to consider any other option. Madness.

  She didn’t even like the man!

  She was just snuggling back down into the pillow-soft comfort of her bed, determined to think about the pages and the translations she would commence, when she heard it—what sounded like a solitary note ringing out into the night. But the sound was whisked away by the howling wind before she could get make sense of it.

  She’d almost forgotten about it when there came another, hanging mournful and lonely in the cold night air. She blinked in the inky darkness, her ears straining for sounds that had no place in the storm.

  And then, in a brief lull in the wind, she heard what sounded like a chord this time, an achingly beautiful series of notes that seemed to echo the pain of the raging storm. Curious, she stretched out one hand, reaching for her watch, groping for the button to illuminate the display and groaning when she saw what time it was. Three-forty-five.

  She had to be imagining things. Lightning flashed outside, turning her room to bright daylight for a moment before it plunged back into darkness. A boom of thunder followed, shaking the floor and windows and sending a burst of rain pelting against the windows.

  She pulled back her arm and buried herself deeper under the thick eiderdown. She had to be dreaming. That or she really was going mad.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MORNING brought surprisingly clear skies with little trace of the storm that had threatened to rend the night apart. Grace blinked as she drew open the curtains and gazed out over the view. Every surface sparkled with its recent wash, the sapphire sea calm now but for a breeze playfully tickling at its surface. Not a cloud in the sky as far as she could see. She looked up and promptly revised her weather report. Not a cloud in the sky—except for the wispy white one hovering over the castle. She smiled, feeling brighter despite the night-time’s interruptions. Like the tunnels underneath the castle, it would almost be disappointing if the cloud weren’t there.

  She wasn’t left to wonder about the arrangements for breakfast. True to the Count’s prediction, Grace had no sooner bathed and dressed than Bruno appeared with a breakfast tray. She didn’t mind if she was being snubbed by being made to take her meals alone; the arrangement suited her. Less chance of running into anyone, she figured. At least less chance of running into the Count. She wasn’t sure she was ready for another encounter so soon after last night’s discomfiting dreams.

  And even though she had some questions about the pages, like how he thought they might have come to be in the caves below the castle and who might have left them there, they could wait until he came looking for her. He was sure to come and check how long she thought she would be here.

  She was back in her makeshift office across the hall before eight. She’d photographed each of the pages yesterday, taking her time to get detailed photographs of every page and then more detailed shots of the cut edges where they’d been sliced from the book.

  The rest of the day she’d spent making meticulous notes on the condition of each of the pages. For something reputed to be upwards of six hundred years old, they were remarkably well preserved, a fact that at first had her doubting they could possibly be authentic and wondering if they were nothing more than a clever forgery. After all, nobody really knew what had been in the missing pages, only that the book and its prayers had been famous for their healing words.

  And yet the more she’d examined the pages, the more she’d been convinced they were the genuine article. It couldn’t be confirmed until samples were matched with what little remained of the Salus Totus, but she almost didn’t need that confirmation right now to be sure. And the longer she examined the pages, the more certain she was that this had the potential to be the very biggest discovery of the twenty-first century.

  And she was at the heart of it.

  Her heart raced with the potential. People worked thankless long decades in this industry, re-examining texts already long known, searching for an angle, a point of difference with which to elevate their careers out of obscurity. Seldom did people have an opportunity like this, the chance to examine a new discovery practically thrust upon them.

  It was really happening.

  And now, because the pages were in such amazingly good condition and she didn’t have to spend time stabilising what was left, she could get to work on the translation. Some time this morning the power had been restored and gratefully she snapped on the lamps she’d arranged around the desk.

  She’d recognised just an odd word or two as she’d performed yesterday’s tasks and it had been tempting to stop and decipher more. Now she had the luxury of time to study them more closely. So it was with a heart bursting with possibilities that she retrieved the package from the box in which she’d stored it and gently placed the first page in front of her.

  It was hours later before she happened to glance at her watch. Excited about her work so far, she knew she had to move, so she stood and did a few stretches before heading to her room across the hall and the jug of water she had left there.

  She poured herself a glass and took a long drink, gazing out of the window, musing over the pages, before her eyes caught on a movement below the castle. A boat was nearing the dock—it looked like the same boat that had brought her over yesterday, although she’d got the impression from the way the men spoke that the provisions runs happened no more than once or twice a week. She glanced down and saw Bruno standing ready to meet it. Curious, she waited for it to dock, wondering what they were bringing t
his time.

  Make that who, she amended, as a raven-haired woman was handed by a smiling skipper to the shore. A striking woman too, in a peasant top and skirt that showed off a tiny waist and generous curves. With a laugh and a wave to the skipper, she pulled a scarf around her shoulders and climbed into the Jeep alongside Bruno. Grace lost sight of them as they started up the cliff track.

  Who was she? Grace had got the impression visitors weren’t exactly welcome here. She shrugged and drained the rest of the glass. Maybe someone who worked at the castle. And with any luck a cook, given how hungry she suddenly felt.

  Barely ten minutes later she was back at work when Bruno appeared, a very welcome tray in his hands. Whatever was on it, it smelled wonderful. She smiled and thanked him as he put it down on a table set a safe distance away from the desk and her work, even though she knew her words wouldn’t make a dent in his grizzled visage.

  ‘You’re busy today,’ she said. He merely grunted in response, peering at her from under tangled brows that looked like something that had been washed up in a storm. ‘I saw you down at the dock. Who’s the woman? Does she work here?’

  He threw her a dark look. ‘The woman is not your concern.’

  ‘No, of course not. I just thought it might be nice to say hello—’

  ‘Forget the woman!’ he said, marching back to the door. ‘She is not here for your benefit.’

  The door closed behind him with a bang. Okay, maybe his message was none too subtle, but he was right. She should just get on with the job. At least then she could finish up here and leave. God knew, the prospect was tempting.

  She was waiting for him. He let himself into the darkened room, the ache in his loins more insistent than ever after a night spent torturing himself thinking about that damned Dr Hunter. He refused to let himself think of her as anything else. He needed to think of her as a cold-blooded scientist and not as a woman.