Authors: Unknown
'Two of them are girls,' she said foolishly.
'Ah, but you have no need to hide from them! Only from one man—one determined to be the only man in your life, and you will not hide from him for long!'
'Michael?' Her eyes darkened dramatically at the thought. She didn't want it to be Michael. Michael Doyle, who was he? She was beginning to think she had never known him at all, not in the way she had caught a glimpse of knowing Domenico, if only he were not otherwise engaged.
'No, not Michael. Michael is the crutch you refuse to throw away because you won't admit that if you were to lean on him he would let you down. Where was he yesterday when you needed him?'
She had a vivid picture of Michael standing beside the airport bus with her suitcase in his hand, his mouth open with dismay, and making no effort to help her When she had needed it.
'He's smaller than you are!' She cast an uneasy glance at Gianetta, but the Italian girl seemed quite unsurprised by anything her brother might say to his involuntary guest. 'I didn't want to be taken away from my friends!' Deborah added loudly. 'Your brother practically kidnapped me!'
Gianetta laughed, comfortable in her belief that Deborah was joking. 'How romantic! I wish Cesare would kidnap me! I am tired of waiting for us to be married. There are so many relations to be considered and ancient traditions to be adhered to! I ask you, who wants to be married by a bishop in church, when they could be married in a register office tomorrow!'
Domenico put his hands on Deborah's shoulders and impelled her down on to her chair. 'I have ordered an English breakfast for you to make you feel at home,
piccina.
Have you any more complaints while I'm in the mood to set things right for you?'
She had a sudden urge to tell him to be rid of Alessandra, but of course that was impossible! She shook her head in silence. 'I have everything I want, thank you,' she muttered.
He released her reluctantly. 'I wish I had!' he riposted as he straightened up.
She wondered what he could possibly want that he didn't already have. And that reminded her of the ransom he hoped to get from her father for herself. He didn't seem to be short of money to her. Indeed, she couldn't think of anyone else she knew who had his breakfast served off silver platters and who drank his coffee out of a cup that even she knew was worth pounds rather than pence. Was it Copenhagen china? She opened her mouth to ask him, but thought better of it as a hot plate of the same design was put in front of her and a manservant offered her a dish of eggs and bacon, kidneys, and small pieces of fried bread. She took a conservative portion and thanked him, only to have the dish presented to her again.
'It's all for you,' Domenico told her.
'But I can't possibly!' she protested.
Domenico frowned. 'I have read that the English always eat such things for breakfast. At house-parties there are a choice of such dishes for the guests! Is it not cooked to your liking?'
Deborah's lips quivered. Quite suddenly the world seemed a much better place and she herself no longer like a fish out of water, gasping for breath.
'It looks delicious! Much better than anything I've ever been offered in England!' She picked up her knife and fork, lowering her eyes to her plate.
Domenico nodded to the servant, well satisfied. 'I want you to feel at home here,
cara.
After breakfast, I shall show you the palace. We are very proud of our family home and we have many things which will interest you '
Gianetta screwed up her nose. 'If you want to live in a museum! Me, I shall be glad to live in an ordinary house without the responsibility of so many works of art!' An idea struck her, and her eyes danced as she grinned naughtily at her brother. 'If Deborah is a sculptor, you should commission something by her. She could do a splendid bust of the head of the family!'
Deborah nearly dropped her knife and fork on the floor. Domenico's eyes flickered over her face in quick amusement.
'I shall be honoured,' he said.
'You don't have to be good-mannered about it ' Deborah began indignantly.
'Why not? You were good-mannered about the breakfast I provided for you. I fancy the books I have read about England are a bit old-fashioned and that you no longer eat heavy breakfasts as your ancestors did?'
'Well, no,' she admitted. 'But you don't understand! I've only just stopped being an art student. I don't think I could do you justice. Michael was not very encouraging over the last portrait bust I did.'
'I am unlikely to allow Michael to sway my opinion over any piece I choose to add to my collection,' Domenico told her.
Did he know how her fingers longed to fashion the clay into a replica of his features? Or would he want the bust to be of marble? She had never had enough money to use the very best materials for anything she had done. One or two pieces she had been allowed to cast in bronze and, until now, that had been the pinnacle of her ambition. But to do a head of Domenico in marble! Marble from the same quarry that Michelangelo had used! She would be bound to ruin it—but supposing, just supposing, that she didn't? Excitement stirred within her. Would he really allow her to do such a thing?
'You wouldn't have to pay me for it,' she said. 'Just for the materials. I could borrow some tools from ' She broke off, putting a nervous hand up to her mouth. 'Perhaps you'd rather I didn't?'
'You will have everything you need,' he promised. 'I suppose you want to choose the block of marble yourself?'
'May I?'
Gianetta looked from one to the other of them with astonishment. 'But, Deborah, are you sure you want to do this? Domenico's collection is famous! He has examples of all the most famous Italian masters. In such company ' She shrugged expressive shoulders.
Deborah's face fell. 'You're right,' she said. 'I'm no Leonardo da Vinci.'
'We don't live in the same age as Leonardo da Vinci,' Domenico put in. 'It would be surprising if you saw the world as he did.'
'Especially you!' Deborah's eyes opened wide. 'I mean '
Domenico lifted a brow. 'That he was a man, and you are a woman?'
She was sure she hadn't meant anything of the kind! She had always held the theory that the sex of the person wielding the brush or the chisel mattered not a jot in the creation of-a work of art. Why should it?
'The spirit of the age is different!' she claimed loftily.
'And Leonardo has not shared my kisses?'
'That has nothing to do with it! An artist's inspiration is above such considerations.' She was aware of sounding pompous and wished she had left well alone. 'It might have something to do with the way I see you,' she admitted reluctantly, 'but I was talking about a difference in style.'
Gianetta jumped up and down in her seat. 'Domenico! Did you really kiss her? It's too bad of you! When I think how angry you were with Cesare '
Domenico turned and looked fully at her. 'Where is Cesare?' he asked with dangerous calm.
'You know he has been away! But he's coming later this morning to take me out to lunch.' She gave her brother a subdued look. '
Mi scusi,
Domenico.' She went on in rapid Italian until his implacable expression got the better of even her irrepressible spirits. 'But you were angry!' she accused him. 'And I wasn't alone and a guest in your house!' She peered at him through her lashes, a twinkle coming back to her eyes. 'You owe Deborah an apology more than I owe one to you!'
Domenico's eyes were inscrutable as he looked at Deborah. 'Do I owe you an apology?' he asked her.
She had no idea how to answer him. 'It doesn't matter,' she said finally. 'I didn't think anything of it.'
He had a way of looking down his nose that she found extremely disconcerting. 'No?' he said politely. He noted with satisfaction the quiver of emotion that passed over her face. 'Go and get your hat, Deborah, while I speak to Gianetta alone for a moment. It's only fair that you should see as much of Rome as possible during your stay with us.'
Was that an apology? She searched his expression, hoping for some sign that he was not going to be as distant and difficult as she feared all morning.
'You said you would show me the palace first,' she reminded him.
'So I will when I have made it clear to my sister your exact position in my household,' he retorted. 'I will not have your presence here gossiped about, or remarked on in any way. She has embarrassed you, no,
piccola
? And that I will not have either!'
If she had, Deborah thought bitterly, it hadn't been half as bad as the demolition job he had done on her! Never, in her whole life, had anyone been able to shatter her with a single look, or destroy her calm with the merest touch.
'Gianetta didn't embarrass me,' she forced herself to say. 'You're making it all too important!'
'Am I?' He gave her a bland look that hid she knew not what. 'Does it matter so little to you what people think about you?'
'No,' she answered. 'But what should they think?'
He looked amused. 'If you won't concern yourself with your own reputation, you had best consider mine! Gianetta will tell you that there will be many tongues only too eager to wag about my offering someone such as yourself my hospitality. True, my mother is here to chaperon you, but it will soon be remarked that you have no one of your own to protect you. There won't be a soul left in Rome who won't believe I have kissed you at the very least, as I would any female, here, alone in my house!'
'Is it your reputation to be so indiscriminating?'
He threw back his head and laughed. 'Bravo! But I will not have you belittle yourself, Deborah
mia.
A man would be very hard to please if he did not want to kiss you!'
Fascinated by the warm brown columns of his throat and the way his lips curled when he laughed, Deborah pulled herself together with an effort. 'I don't care what they believe!' she declared. But she did, and she knew that he knew it too. It was the way she had been brought up. It might be tiresome, old-fashioned, even quaint, in these days of live and let live, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that it did a girl any good to get herself talked about, though from all she had heard about Roman society, its members should have been the very last to cast stones at the
dolce vita.
'You see how important it is how Gianetta explains your presence among us?' he pressed her.
'Yes.' Why should she worry? It was not as though she had chosen to be his guest. That had been his own idea!
'Good. Then may I suggest again you go and fetch your hat?'
She would have liked to have heard what he said to his sister, but his Italian was far too fast for her to keep up with. She turned in the doorway and looked at him over her shoulder.
'You could let me go,' she said.
He changed languages with that remarkable ease of the born linguist. 'I could,' he agreed. 'But how would I explain your absence to your father when he arrives to spend a few days in Rome with the daughter he sees so rarely? He would be deeply upset to find you gone!'
'My father?' She wrinkled her brow in confusion. 'My
father
is coming here?'
'As soon as he can get away from his business commitments. I spoke to him last night on the telephone and we agreed that it would be best for him to come here alone—without Agnes or any of his other children!'
'And he agreed?' Deborah could scarcely believe her ears.
'Of course.'
'I can't understand it!' she exclaimed. 'I never thought he would He scarcely
knows
me!'
'Or you him,' Domenico pointed out. 'A few days together will be good for both of you. You see what a good turn I have done you?'
'Oh no! That's too much! You'll be expecting me to
thank
you next for—for taking me away from my friends, and making me the object of gossip, and— and '
'And buying you clothes, and introducing you to my friends, and of course, for kissing you in the courtyard last night!'
She wondered that he could be so brazen as to refer to it again! 'My father is paying for my clothes, and I have yet to meet any of your friends '
His eyebrows rose at her mounting indignation. 'And the kisses?' he taunted her.
'You may have kissed me, but I most certainly didn't kiss you!' she came back. 'So what have I got to be grateful for in that?'
Panic spun through her veins again at the look in his eyes. She uttered a gasp of sheer fright that he might take it into his head to kiss her again then and there so that she might find out.
'If you didn't kiss me, what did you do?' he asked, holding her back from flight by the teasing impertinence of the question. 'Little fraud,' he added. 'Go and get your hat!'
She went. She was still shaking when she reached her room. She sank down on the bed, fighting to regain her cool. If she hadn't kissed him, what had she done? She repeated the question to herself several times and each time the answer looked worse to her. It might have been better to have invited his kisses when they hadn't mattered to her than to want them so badly now when he was unlikely to embrace her again. She wouldn't be climbing out of her bedroom window again, and she most certainly wouldn't be seeking other opportunities to be alone with him, so there simply wouldn't be any occasion for him to kiss her
She caught herself up, dismayed at where her thoughts were leading her. This was the man who had kidnapped her, humiliated her by forcing her to see Michael Doyle in a new and unwelcome light, and who, without doubt, was the most madly attractive man she had ever seen in her whole life!
And he had kissed her. He had kissed
her I
He had held her tight and he had kissed her as no other man had begun to do, and she had liked it. There was no hiding that from herself. Domenico Manzu had kissed her and she would never, never be the same again!