is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and

bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant

success with readers worldwide. Since her first

book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a

chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare

treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may

have missed. In every case, seduction and passion

with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

The Vengeful Husband

Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

A SLENDER fragile beauty in a silvery green gown. Translucent skin, a mane of vibrant Titian hair and spellbinding eyes as green as peridots behind her flirtatious little mask. A hoarse, sexy little voice, sharp enough to strip paint and then sweet enough to make honey taste bitter...

‘No names...no pack drill,’ she had said.

‘I don’t want to know,’ she had said, when he had tried to identify himself. ‘After tonight, I’ll never see you again. What would be the point?’

No woman had ever said that to Gianluca Raffacani before. No woman had ever looked on him as a one-night stand. The shock of such treatment had been profound. But her eagerness in his bed had seemed to disprove the dismissive words on her lips...until he’d wakened in the early hours and found his mystery lover gone and the Adorata ring gone with her. And then Luca had simply not been able to credit that some unscrupulous little tart had contrived to rip him off with such insulting ease.

His memory of that disastrous night in Venice almost three years earlier still biting like salt in an open wound, Luca surveyed the closed file labelled ‘Darcy Fielding’ on his library desk, his chiselled features chillingly cast. With the cool of a self-discipline renowned in the world of international finance, he resisted the temptation to rip open the file like an impatient boy. He had waited a long time for this moment. He could wait a little longer. ‘It is her this time...you’re sure?’ he prompted softly.

Even swollen with pride as Benito was at finally succeeding in his search, even convinced by the facts that he had to have the right woman, Benito still found himself stiffening with uncertainty. Although the woman he had identified matched every slender clue he had started out with, by no stretch of his imagination could he see his famously fastidious and highly sophisticated employer choosing to spend a wild night of passion with the female in that photograph...

‘I will only be sure when you have recognised her, sir,’ Benito admitted tautly.

‘You’re backtracking, Benito.’ With a rueful sigh that signified no great hope of satisfaction, Luca Raffacani reached out a deceptively indolent brown hand and flipped open the file to study the picture of the woman on the title page.

As Luca tensed and a frown grew on his strong dark face, setting his pure bone structure to the cold consistency of granite, Benito paled, suddenly convinced that he had made a complete ass of himself. That bedraggled female image sported worn jeans, wellington boots, a battered rain-hat and a muddy jacket with a long rip in one sleeve. More bag lady than gorgeous seductress. ‘I’ve been too hasty—’

‘She’s cut off her hair...’ his employer interrupted in a low-pitched growl.

After a convulsive swallow, Benito breathed tautly, ‘Are you saying that...it is the same woman?’

‘Was she got up like this for a fancy dress party?’

‘Signorina Fielding was feeding hens when that was taken,’ Benito supplied apologetically. ‘It was the best the photographer could manage. She doesn’t go out much.’

‘Hens...?’ Bemusement pleating his aristocratic ebony brows, Luca continued to scan the photo with hard, dark deepset eyes. ‘Yet it is her. Without a doubt, it is her...the devious little thief who turned me over like a professional!’

Darcy Fielding had stolen a medieval ring, a museum piece, an irreplaceable heirloom. The Raffacani family had been princes since the Middle Ages. To mark the occasion of the birth of his son, the very first principe had given his wife, Adorata, the magnificent ruby ring. Yet in spite of that rich family heritage, and the considerable value of the jewel, the police had not been informed of the theft. Initially stunned by such an omission, Benito had since become less surprised...

According to popular report within the Raffacani empire, some very strange things had happened the night of the annual masked ball at the Palazzo d’Oro. The host had vanished, for one thing. And if it was actually true that Gianluca Raffacani had vanished in order to romance the thief with something as deeply uncool for a native Venetian as a moonlit gondola tour of the city, Benito could perfectly understand why the police had been excluded from the distinctly embarrassing repercussions of that evening. No male would wish to confess to such a cardinal error of judgement.

In spite of the substantial reward which had been dangled like bait in the relevant quarters, the ring had not been seen since. Most probably it had been disposed of in England—secretly acquired by some rich collector content not to question its provenance. Benito had been extremely disappointed when the investigator failed to turn up the slightest evidence of Darcy Fielding having a previous criminal record.

‘Tell me about her...’ his employer invited without warning, shutting the file with a decisive snap and thrusting it aside.

Surprised by the instruction, Benito breathed in deep. ‘Darcy Fielding lives in a huge old house which has been in her family for many generations. Her financial situation is dire. The house is heavily mortgaged and she is currently behind with the repayments—’

‘Who holds the mortgage?’ Luca incised softly.

Benito informed him that the mortgage had been taken out a decade earlier with an insurance firm.

‘Buy it,’ Luca told him equally quietly. ‘Continue...’

‘Locally, the lady is well-respected. However, when the investigator went further afield, he found her late godmother’s housekeeper more than willing to dish the dirt.’

Luca’s brilliant eyes narrowed, his sensual mouth twisting with distaste. In an abrupt movement, he reopened the file at the photograph again. He surveyed it with renewed fascination. What he could see of her hair suggested a brutal shearing rather than the attentions of a salon. She looked a mess, a total mess, but the glow of that perfect skin and the bewitching clarity of those eyes were unmistakable.

Emerging from his uncharacteristic loss of attention, Luca discovered that he had also lost the thread of Benito’s report...

‘And if the lady pulls it off, she stands to inherit something in the region of one million pounds sterling,’ Benito concluded impressively.

Luca studied his most trusted aide. ‘Pull what off?’

‘The late Signora Leeward had three god-daughters... possibly the god-daughters from hell.’ Benito labelled them with rueful amusement. ‘When it came to the disposing of her worldly goods, what was there to choose between the three? One living with a married man, one an unmarried mother and the other going the same way—and not a wedding ring or even the prospect of one between the lot of them!’

‘You’ve lost me,’ Luca admitted with controlled impatience.

‘Darcy Fielding’s rich godmother left everything to her three godchildren on condition that each of them find a husband within the year.’

‘And Darcy is one of those women you described.’ Luca finally grasped it, bronzed features freezing into charged stillness. ‘Which?’

‘She’s the unmarried mother,’ Benito volunteered.

Luca froze. ‘When was the child born?’

‘Seven months after her trip to Venice. The kid’s just over two.’

Luca stared into space, rigidly schooling his dark face to impassivity, but it was a challenge to suppress his sheer outrage at the news. Cristo... she had even been pregnant with another man’s child when she slept with him! Well, that was just one more nail in her coffin. Luca swore in disgust. Whatever was most important to her, he would take from her in punishment. He would teach her what it was like to be deceived and cheated and humiliated. As she, most unforgettably, had taught him...

‘As to the identity of the kid’s father...’ Benito continued wryly. ‘The jury’s still out on that one. Apparently the locals believe that the child was fathered by the fiancé, who ditched the lady at the altar. He figures as a rat of the lowest order in their eyes. But the godmother’s housekeeper had a very different version of events. She contends that the fiancé was abroad at the time the kid was conceived, and that he took to his heels because he realised that the baby on the way couldn’t possibly be his!’

Luca absorbed that further information in even stonier silence.

‘I shouldn’t think the lady will remain a single parent for long,’ Benito advanced with conviction. ‘Not with a million pounds up for grabs. And on page six of the file you will see what I believe she is doing to acquire that money...’

Luca leafed through the file. ‘What is this?’ he demanded, studying the tiny print of the enclosed newspaper advertisement and its accompanying box number.

‘I suspect that Darcy Fielding is discreetly advertising for a husband to fulfil the terms of that will.’

‘Advertising?’ Luca echoed in raw disbelief.

Country woman seeks quiet, well-behaved and domesticated single male without close ties, 25-50, for short-term live-in employment. Absolute confidentiality guaranteed. No time-wasters, please.

‘That’s not an advertisement for a husband...it’s an ad for an emasculated household pet!’ Luca launched with incredulous bite.

‘I’m going to have to advertise again,’ Darcy divulged grimly to Karen as she mucked out the stall of the single elderly occupant in the vast and otherwise horse-free stable yard. She wielded the shovel like an aggressive weapon. Back to square one. She could hardly believe it—and that wretched advertisement had cost an arm and a leg!

Standing by and willing to help, but knowing better than to offer, Karen looked in surprise at her friend. ‘But what happened to your shortlist of two possibilities? The gardener and the home handyman?’

Darcy slung the attractive thirty-year-old brunette a weary grimace. ‘Yesterday I phoned one and then the other in an attempt to set up an interview—’

‘In which you planned to finally spill the confidential beans that matrimony was the real employment on offer.’ Karen sighed. ‘Boy, would I like to have been a fly on the wall when you broke that news!’

‘Yes, well...as it turns out, I shan’t need to embarrass myself just yet. One had already found a job elsewhere and the other has moved on without leaving a forwarding address. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time agonising over my choice.’

‘What choice? You only got five replies. Two were obscene and one was weird! The ad was too vague in one way and far too specific in the other. What on earth possessed you to put in “well-behaved and domesticated”? I mean, talk about picky, why don’t you? Still, I can’t really say I’m sorry that you’ve drawn a blank,’ Karen admitted, with the bluntness that made the two women such firm friends.

‘Karen...’ Darcy groaned.

‘Look, the thought of you being alone in this house with some stranger gives me the shivers!’ the brunette confided anxiously. ‘In any case, since you didn’t want to risk admitting in the ad that you were actually looking for a temporary husband, what are the chances that either of those men would have been agreeable to the arrangement you were about to offer?’

Darcy straightened in frustration. ‘If I’d offered enough money, I bet one of them would have agreed. I need my inheritance, Karen. I don’t care what I have to do to get it. I don’t care if I have to marry the Hunchback of Notre Dame to meet the conditions of Nancy’s will!’ Darcy admitted with driven honesty. ‘This house has been in my family for four hundred years—’

‘But it’s crumbling round your ears and eating you up alive, Darcy. Your father had no right to lay such a burden on you. If he hadn’t let Fielding’s Folly get in such a state while he was responsible for it, you wouldn’t be facing the half of what you’re facing right now!’

Darcy tilted her chin, green eyes alight with stubborn determination. ‘Karen...as long as I have breath in my body and two hands to work with, the Folly will survive so that I can pass it on to Zia.’

Pausing to catch her breath from her arduous labour, Darcy glanced at her two-year-old daughter. Seated in a grassy sunlit corner, Zia was grooming one of her dolls with immense care. Her watching mother’s gaze was awash with wondering pride and pleasure.

Zia had been blessed at birth, Darcy conceded gratefully. Mercifully, she hadn’t inherited her mother’s carroty hair, myopic eyesight or her nose. Zia had lustrous black curls and dainty, even features. There was nothing undersized or over-thin about her either. She was a strikingly pretty and feminine little girl. In short, she was already showing all the promise of becoming everything her mother had once so painfully and pointlessly longed to be...

Zia wouldn’t be a wallflower at parties, too blunt-spoken to be flirtatious or appealing, too physically plain to attract attention any other way. Nor would Zia ever be so full of self-pity that she threw herself into the bed of a complete stranger just to prove that she could attract a man. Pierced to the heart by that painful memory, Darcy paled and guiltily looked away from her child, wondering how the heck she would eventually explain that shameful reality in terms that wouldn’t hurt and alienate her daughter.

Some day Zia would ask her father’s name, quite reasonably, perfectly understandably. And what did Darcy have to tell her? Oh, I never got his name because I told him I didn’t want it. Even worse, I could well walk past him on the street without recognising him, because I wasn’t wearing my contacts and I’m a little vague as to his actual features. But he had dark eyes, even darker hair, and a wonderful, wonderful voice...

Beneath Karen’s frowning gaze, Darcy had turned a beet-root colour and had begun studiously studying her booted feet. ‘What’s up?’

‘Indigestion,’ Darcy muttered flatly, and it wasn’t a lie. Memories of that nature made her feel queasy and crushed her self-respect flat. She had been a push-over for the first sweet-talking playboy she had ever met.

‘So it’s back to the drawing board as far as the search for a temporary hubby goes, I gather...’ Releasing her breath in a rueful hiss, Karen studied the younger woman and reluctantly dug an envelope from the pocket of her jeans and extended it. ‘Here, take it. A late applicant, I assume. It came this morning. The postmark’s a London one.’

To protect Darcy’s anonymity, Karen had agreed to put her own name behind the advertisement’s box number. All the replies had been sent to the gate lodge which Karen had recently bought from the estate. Darcy was well aware that she was running a risk in advertising to find a husband, but no other prospect had offered. If she was found out, she could be accused of trying to circumvent the conditions of her godmother’s will and excluded from inheriting. But what else was she supposed to do? Darcy asked herself in guilty desperation.

It was her duty and her responsibility alone to secure Fielding’s Folly for future generations. She could not fail the trust her father had imposed on her at the last. She had faithfully promised that no matter what the cost she would hold on to the Folly. How could she allow four hundred years of family history to slip through her careless fingers?

And, even more importantly, only when she contrived to marry would she be in a position to re-employ the estate staff forced to seek work elsewhere after her father’s death. In the months since, few had found new jobs. The knowledge that such loyal and committed people were still suffering from her father’s financial incompetence weighed even more heavily on her conscience.

Tearing the envelope open, Darcy eagerly scanned the brief letter and her bowed shoulders lifted even as she read. ‘He’s not of British birth...and he has experience as a financial advisor—’

‘Probably once worked as a bank clerk,’ Karen slotted in, cynically unimpressed by the claim. A childless divorcee, Karen was comfortably off but had little faith in the reliability of the male sex.

‘He’s offering references upfront, which is more than anyone else did.’ Darcy’s state of desperation was betrayed by the optimistic look already blossoming in her expressive eyes. ‘And he’s only thirty-one.’

‘What nationality?’

In the act of frowning down at the totally illegible signature, Darcy raised her head again. ‘He doesn’t say. He just states that he is healthy and single and that a temporary position with accommodation included would suit him right now—’

‘So he’s unemployed and broke.’

‘If he wasn’t unemployed and willing to move in, he wouldn’t be applying, Karen,’ Darcy pointed out gently. ‘It’s a reasonable letter. Since he didn’t know what the job was, he’s sensibly confined himself to giving basic information only.’

As she paced the confines of Karen’s tiny front room in the gate lodge five days later, Darcy pushed her thick-lensed spectacles up the bridge of her nose, smoothed her hands down over her pleated skirt and twitched at the roll collar of her cotton sweater as if it was choking her.

He would be here in five minutes. And she hadn’t even managed to speak to the guy yet! Since he hadn’t given her a phone number to contact him, she had had to write back to his London address and, nervous of giving out her own phone number at this stage, she had simply set up an interview and asked him to let her know if the date didn’t suit. He had sent a brief note of confirmation, from which she had finally divined that his christian name appeared to be a surprisingly English-sounding Lucas, but as for his surname, she would defy a handwriting expert to read that swirling scrawl!

Hearing the roar of a motorbike out on the road, Darcy suppressed her impatience. Lucas was late. Maybe he wasn’t going to show. But a minute later the door burst open. Karen poked her head in, her face filled with excitement. ‘A monster motorbike just drew up...and this absolutely edible hunk of male perfection took off his helmet! It has to be Lucas...and Darcy, he is gorgeous—’

‘He’s come on a motorbike?’ Darcy interrupted with a look of astonishment.

‘You are so stuffy sometimes,’ Karen censured. ‘And I bet you a fiver you can’t work up the nerve to ask this particular bloke if he’d be prepared to marry you for a fee!’

Darcy was already painfully aware that she had no choice whatsoever on that count. She had to ask. She was praying that Lucas, whoever he was and whatever he was like, would agree. She didn’t have the time to readvertise. Her back was up against the wall. Yesterday she had received a letter from the company that held the mortgage on Fielding’s Folly. They were threatening to repossess the house and, since she already had a big overdraft, the bank would not help without a guarantee that she would in the near future have the funds to settle her obligations.

Darcy winced as the doorbell shrilled. Karen bolted to answer it. Bolted—yes, that was the only possible word for her friend’s indecent eagerness to reach the front door. Face wooden and set, Darcy positioned herself by the fireplace. So he was attractive. Attractive men had huge egos. She grimaced. All she wanted was someone ordinary and unobtrusive, but what she wanted she wouldn’t necessarily get.

‘Signorina Darcy?’ she heard an accented drawl question in a tone of what sounded like polite surprise.

‘No...she’s, er, through here...er, waiting for you,’ Karen stammered with a dismayingly girlish giggle, and the lounge door was thrust wide.

Blinking rapidly, Darcy was already glued to the spot, a deep frown-line bisecting her brow. That beautiful voice had struck such an eerie chord of familiarity she was transfixed, heart beating so fast she was convinced it might burst. And then mercifully she understood the source of that strange familiarity and shivered, thoroughly spooked. Dear heaven, he was Italian! It was that lyrical accent she had recognised, not the voice.

A very tall, dark male, sporting sunglasses and sheathed in motorbike leathers, strode into the small room. Involuntarily Darcy simply gaped at him, her every expectation shattered. Black leather accentuated impossibly wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, lean powerful thighs. Indeed the fidelity of fit left little of that overpoweringly masculine physique to the imagination. And the sunglasses lent his dark features an intimidating lack of expression. And yet... and yet as Darcy surveyed him with startled eyes she realised that he shared more than an accent with Zia’s father. He had also been very tall and well-built.

So what? an irritated voice screeched through her blitzed brain. So you’re meeting another tall, dark Italian...big deal! The silver-tongued sophisticate who had got her pregnant wouldn’t have been caught dead in such clothing. And if she hadn’t had such a guilt complex about her wanton behaviour in Venice, she wouldn’t be feeling this incredibly foolish sense of threatening familiarity, she told herself in complete exasperation.

‘Please excuse me for continuing to wear my sunglasses. I have been suffering from eye strain...the light, it hurts my eyes,’ he informed her in a deep, dark drawl that was both well-modulated and unexpectedly quiet.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ Darcy invited, with an uncharacteristically weak motion of one hand as she forced herself almost clumsily down into a seat

But then Darcy was in shock. She had hoped he would be either sensible and serious or weak and biddable. Instead she had been presented with a rampantly macho male who roared up on a motorbike and wore trousers so tight she marvelled that he could stand in them, never mind sit down. With what she believed was termed designer stubble on his aggressive jawline, he looked about as domesticated and well-behaved as a sabre-toothed tiger.

‘If you will forgive me for saying so...you look at me rather strangely,’ be remarked, further disconcerting her as he lowered himself down with indolent grace onto the small sofa opposite her. ‘Do I remind you of someone, signorina?’

Darcy stiffened even more with nervous tension, and she was already sitting rigid-backed in the seat. ‘Not at all,’ she asserted with deflating conviction. ‘Now, since I’m afraid I couldn’t read your signature...what is your full name?’

‘Let us leave it at Luca for now. The wording of your ad suggested that the employment on offer could be of a somewhat unusual nature,’ he drawled softly. ‘I would like some details before we go any further.’

Darcy bristled like a cat stroked the wrong way. She was supposed to be interviewing him, not the other way round!

‘After all, you have not given me your real name either,’ he pointed out in offensively smooth continuance.

Darcy’s eyes opened to their fullest extent. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Before I came down here, I checked you out. Your surname is Fielding, not Darcy, and you do not live here in this cottage; you live in the huge mansion at the top of the driveway,’ he enumerated with unabashed cool. ‘You have gone to some trouble to conceal your own identity. Naturally that is a source of concern to me.’

Stunned by that little speech, Darcy sprang upright and stared down at him in shaken disbelief, her angry bewilderment unconcealed. ‘You checked me out?’

He lifted a casual brown hand and slowly removed the sunglasses. ‘The light is dim enough in here...’

He studied her with a curiously expectant quality of intensity.

And without warning Darcy found herself staring down into lustrous dark eyes fringed by glossy, spiky black lashes. He had the sort of eyes that packed a powerful punch. Gorgeous, she thought in helpless reaction, brilliant and dark as night, impenetrably deep and unreadable. With the sunglasses on he had looked as if he might be pretty good-looking, without them he zoomed up the scale to stunningly handsome, in spite of the fact that he badly needed a shave. And she now quite understood that hint of expectancy he betrayed. This was a guy accustomed to basking in female double takes, appreciative stares and inviting smiles.

But Darcy tensed and took an instantaneous step back, her retreat only halted by the armchair she had vacated. Yet the tiny twisting sensation of sudden excitement she had experienced still curled up deep in the pit of her taut stomach, and then pierced her like a knife with sudden shame. Her colour heightening, Darcy plotted her path out of the way of the armchair behind her, controlled solely by a need to put as much distance as possible between them.

Throughout that unchoreographed backing away process of hers, she was tracked by narrowed unflinchingly steady dark eyes. ‘Signorina Fielding—’

‘Look, you had no right to check me out...’ Darcy folded her arms in a defensive movement. ‘I guaranteed your privacy. Couldn’t you have respected mine?’

‘Not without some idea of what I might be getting into. It’s standard business practice to make enquiries in advance of an interview.’

Darcy tore her frustrated gaze from his. Antipathy darted through her in a blinding wave. With difficulty, she held onto her ready temper. Possibly the reminder had been a timely one. It was, after all, a business proposition she intended to make. And this Luca might think he was clever, but she already knew he had to be as thick as two short planks, didn’t she? Only a complete idiot would turn up for an interview with a woman unshaven and dressed like a Hell’s Angel. A financial advisor? In his dreams! Conservative apparel went with such employment.

Bolstered by the belief that he could be no Einstein, and rebuking herself for having been intimidated by something as superficial and unimportant as his physical appearance, Darcy sat down again and linked her small hands tightly together on her lap. ‘Right, let’s get down to business, then...’

The waiting silence lay thick and heavy like a blanket. Settling back into the sofa in a relaxed sprawl of long, seemingly endless limbs, Luca surveyed her with unutterable tranquillity.

Her teeth gritted. Wondering just how long that laid-back attitude would last, Darcy lifted her chin to a challenging angle. ‘There was a good reason behind the offbeat ad I placed. But before I explain what that reason is, I should mention certain facts in advance. Should you agree to take the position on offer, you would be well paid even though there is no work involved—’

‘No work involved?’

Darcy was soothed at receiving the exact response she had anticipated in that interruption. ‘No work whatsoever,’ she confirmed. ‘While you were living in my home, your time would be your own, and at the end of your employment—assuming that you fulfil the terms to my satisfaction—I would also give you a generous bonus.’

‘So what’s the catch?’ Luca prompted very softly. ‘In return you ask me to do something illegal?’

A mortified flush stained Darcy’s perfect skin. ‘Of course not,’ she rebutted tautly. “The “catch”, if you choose to call it that, is that you would have to agree to marry me for six months!’

‘To...marry you?’ Luca stressed the word with a frown of wondering incredulity as he sat forward on the sofa. ‘The employment you offer is...marriage?’

‘Yes. It’s really quite simple. I need a man to go through a wedding ceremony with me and behave like a husband for a minimum of six months,’ Darcy extended, with the frozen aspect of a woman forcing herself to refer to an indecent act.

‘Why?’

‘Why? That’s my business. I don’t think you require that information to make a decision,’ Darcy responded uncomfortably.

Lush black lashes semi-screened his dark eyes. ‘I don’t understand... Could you explain it again, signorina,’ he urged, in a rather dazed undertone.

You certainly couldn’t call him mentally agile, Darcy thought ruefully. Having got over the worst, however, she felt stronger, and all embarrassment had left her. He was still sitting there, and why shouldn’t he be? If he was as single as he had said he was, he stood to earn a great deal for doing nothing. She repeated what she had already said and, convinced that the financial aspect would be the greatest persuader of all, she mentioned the monthly salary she was prepared to offer and then the sizeable bonus she would advance in return for his continuing discretion about their arrangement after they had parted.

He nodded, and then nodded again more slowly, still focusing with a slight frown on the worn carpet at his feet. Maybe the light was annoying his eyes, Darcy decided, struggling to hold onto her irritation at his torpid reactions. Maybe he was just gobsmacked by the concept of being paid to be bone idle. Or maybe he was so shattered by what she had suggested that he hadn’t yet worked out how to respond.

‘I would, of course, require references,’ Darcy continued.

‘I could not supply references as a husband...’

Darcy drew in a deep breath of restraint. ‘I’m referring to character references,’ she said drily.

‘If you wanted a husband, why didn’t you place an ad in the personal column?’

‘I would have received replies from men interested in a genuine and lasting marriage.’ Darcy sighed. ‘It was wiser just to advertise my requirements as a form of employment—’

‘Quiet... domesticated... well-behaved.’

‘I don’t want someone who’s going to get under my feet or expect me to wait on him hand and foot. Would you say you were self-sufficient?’

‘Si...’

‘Well, then, what do you think?’ Darcy demanded impulsively.

‘I don’t yet know what I think. I wasn’t expecting this kind of proposal,’ he returned gently. ‘No woman has ever asked me to marry her before.’

‘I’m not talking about a proper marriage. Obviously we’d separate after the six months was up and get a divorce. By the way, you would also have to sign a pre-nuptial contract,’ Darcy added, because she needed to safeguard the estate from any claim an estranged husband might legitimately attempt to make. ‘That isn’t negotiable.’

Luca rose gracefully upright. ‘I believe I would need a greater cash inducement to give up my freedom—’

‘That’s not a problem,’ Darcy broke in, her tone one of eager reassurance on that point. If he was prepared to consider her proposition, she was keen to accommodate him. ‘I’m prepared to negotiate. If you agree, I’ ll double the original bonus I offered.’

Disconcertingly, he didn’t react to that impulsive offer. Darcy flushed then, feeling more than a little foolish.

Veiled dark eyes surveyed her. ‘I’ll think it over. I’ll be in touch.’

‘The references?’

‘I will present them if I decide to accept the...the position.’ As Luca framed the last two words a flash of shimmering gold illuminated his dark eyes. Amusement at the sheer desperation she had revealed in her desire to reach agreement with him? Darcy squirmed at the suspicion.

‘I need an answer very soon. I have no time to waste.’

‘I’ll give you an answer tomorrow...’ He strode to the door and then he hesitated, throwing her a questioning look over one broad masculine shoulder. ‘It surprises me that you could not persuade a friend to agree to so temporary an arrangement.’

Darcy stiffened and coloured. ‘In these particular circumstances, I prefer a stranger.’

‘A stranger... I can understand that,’ Luca completed in a honey-soft and smooth drawl.

CHAPTER TWO

‘SO WHAT sort of impression did Lucas make on you?’ Karen demanded, minutes later.

‘It’s not Lucas, it’s Luca... My impression?’ Darcy studied her friend with a frowning air of abstraction. ‘That’s the odd thing. I didn’t really get a proper impression—at least not one I could hang onto for longer than five seconds,’ she found herself admitting in belated recognition of the fact. ‘One minute I thought he was all brawn and no brain, and then the next he would come out with something razor-sharp. And towards the end he was as informative as a brick wall.’

‘He didn’t accuse you of dragging him down here on false pretences? He didn’t laugh like a drain? Or even ask if you were pulling his leg?’ It was Karen’s turn to look confused.

Darcy shook her head reflectively. ‘He was very low-key in his reactions, businesslike in spite of the way he was dressed. That made it easier for me. I didn’t get half as embarrassed as I thought I would.’

‘Only you could conduct such a weird and loaded interview with a male that gorgeous and not respond on any more personal a level.’

‘That kind of man leaves me cold.’ But Darcy’s cheeks warmed as she recalled that humiliating moment when she had reacted all too personally to the sheer male magnetism of those dark good looks.

Karen’s keen gaze gleamed. ‘He didn’t leave you stone-cold... did he?’

Cursing her betrayingly fair skin, Darcy strove to continue meeting her friend’s eyes levelly. ‘Karen—’

‘Forget it... I can tell a mile off when you’re about to lie through your teeth!’

Darcy winced. ‘OK...I noticed that Luca was reasonably fanciable—’

‘Reasonably fanciable?’ her friend carolled with extravagant incredulity.

‘All right.’ Darcy sighed in rueful surrender. ‘He was spectacular...are you satisfied now?’

‘Yes. Your indifference to men seriously worries me. Now at least I know that you’re still in the land of the living.’

Darcy pulled a wry face. ‘With my level of looks and appeal, indifference is by far the safest bet, believe me.’

Karen compressed her lips and thought with real loathing of all the people responsible for ensuring Darcy had such a low opinion of her own attractions. Her cold and critical father, her vain and sarcastic stepmother, not to mention the rejections her unlucky friend had suffered from the opposite sex during her awkward and vulnerable teen years. Being jilted at the altar and left to raise her child alone had completed the damage.

And these days Darcy dressed like a scarecrow and made little effort to socialise. Slowly and surely she was turning into a recluse, although the hours she slaved over that wretched house meant that she didn’t know what free time was, Karen conceded grimly. Anyone else confronted with such an immense and thankless challenge would’ve given up and at least sold the furniture by now, but not Darcy. Darcy would starve sooner than see any more of the Folly’s treasures go to auction.

‘I get really annoyed with you when you talk like that,’ Karen said truthfully. ‘If you would only buy some decent clothes and take a little more interest in—’

‘Why bother when I’m quite happy as I am?’ Visibly agitated by the turn the conversation had taken, Darcy glanced hurriedly at her watch and added with a relief she couldn’t hide, ‘It’s time I picked up Zia from the play-group.’

As Darcy left the gate lodge, however, that final dialogue travelled with her. Demeaning memories had been roused to fill her thoughts and unsettle her stomach. All over again she saw her one-time fiancé, Richard, gawping at her chief bridesmaid like a moonsick calf and finally admitting at the eleventh hour that he couldn’t go through with the wedding because he had fallen in love with Maxie. And the ultimate insult had to be that her former friend, Maxie, who was so beautiful she could stop traffic, hadn’t even wanted Richard!

That devastatingly public rejection had been followed by the Venetian episode, Darcy recalled wretchedly. That, too, had ended in severe humiliation. She had got to play Cinderella for a night. And then she had got to stand on the Ponte della Guerra and be stood up like a dumb teenager the following day. She had waited for ages too, and had hit complete rock-bottom when she finally appreciated that Prince Charming was not going to turn up.

Of course another woman, a more experienced and less credulous woman, would have known that that so casually voiced yet so romantic suggestion had been the equivalent of a guy saying he would phone you when he hadn’t the slightest intention of doing so, only she hadn’t recognised the reality. No, Darcy reflected with a stark shudder of remembrance, she had been much happier since she had given up on all that ghastly embarrassing and confusing man-woman stuff.

And if Luca, whoever he was, decided to go ahead and accept her proposition, she would soon be able to tune him and his macho motorbike leathers out entirely...

Perspiration beading her brow, Darcy wielded the heavy power-saw with the driven energy of necessity. The ancient kitchen range had an insatiable appetite for wood. Breathing heavily, she stopped to take a break. Even after switching off the saw, her ears still rang with the shattering roar of the petrol-driven motor. With a weary sigh, she bent and began laboriously stacking the logs into the waiting wheelbarrow.

‘Darcy...?’

At the sound of that purring, accented drawl, Darcy almost leapt out of her skin, and she jerked round with a muttered exclamation. Luca stood several feet away. Her startled green eyes clung to his tall, outrageously masculine physique. Wide shoulders, sleek hips, long, long legs. And he had shaved.

One look at the to-die-for features now revealed in all their glory struck Darcy dumb. She wasn’t even capable of controlling that reaction. In full daylight, he was so staggeringly handsome. High, chiselled cheekbones, sharp as blades, were dissected by an arrogant but classic nose and embellished by a wide, perfect mouth. Even his skin had that wonderful golden glowing vibrancy of warmer climes...

‘Is there something wrong?’ An equally shapely ebony brow had now quirked enquiringly.

‘You startled me...’ Heated colour drenching her skin as she realised that she had been staring, Darcy dragged her attention from him with considerable difficulty. As her dazed eyes dropped down, she blinked in disbelief at the sight of her cocker spaniels seated silently at his feet like the well trained dogs they unfortunately weren’t. Strangers usually provoked Humpf and Bert into a positive frenzy of uncontrolled barking. Instead, her lovable but noisy animals were welded to the spot and throwing Luca upward pleading doggy glances as if he had cast some weird sort of hypnotic spell over them.

‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Darcy said abruptly.

‘I did try the front entrance first...’ His deep-pitched sexy drawl petered out as he studied the sizeable stack of wood. ‘Surely you haven’t cut all that on your own?’

Threading an even more self-conscious hand through the damp and wildly curling tendrils of hair clinging to her forehead, she nodded, aware of the incredulity in those piercing dark eyes.

‘Are there no men around here?’

‘No, I’m the next best thing...but then that’s nothing new,’ Darcy muttered half under her breath, writhing at her own undeniable awkwardness around men and hating him for surprising her when she wasn’t psyched up to deal with him.

Forgivably thrown by that odd response, Luca frowned.

Darcy leapt straight back into speech. ‘I assumed you would phone—’

‘Nobody ever answers your phone.’

‘I’m outdoors a lot of the time.’ Stripping off her heavy gloves, Darcy flexed small and painfully stiff fingers and averted her scrutiny from him, her unease in his presence pronounced. What on earth was the matter with her? She was behaving like a silly teenager with a crush. ‘You’d better come inside.’

Hurriedly grabbing up an armful of logs, Darcy led the way. The long, cobbled passageway that provided a far from convenient rear entrance to her home was dark and gloomy and flanked by a multitude of closed doors. Innumerable rooms which had once enjoyed specific functions as part of the kitchen quarters now lay unused. But not for much longer, she reminded herself. When she achieved her dream of opening up the house to the public all those rooms full of their ancient labour intensive equipment would fascinate children.

And she was going to achieve her dream, she told herself feverishly. Surely Luca wouldn’t take the trouble to make a second personal appearance if he intended to say no?

She trod into the vast echoing kitchen and knelt down by the big range at the far end. Opening the door, she thrust a sizeable log into the fuel bed. ‘Did you come all the way from London again?’

‘No, I stayed in Penzance last night.’

Darcy was so rigid with nervous tension, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him as she breathed tautly, ‘So what’s your answer?’

‘Yes. My answer is yes,’ he murmured with.quiet emphasis.

Her strained eyes prickled with sudden tears and she blinked rapidly before slamming shut the door on the range. The relief was so immense she felt quite dizzy for a few seconds. Feeling as if a huge weight had dropped from her shoulders, Darcy scrambled upright and turned, a grateful smile on her now softened face. ‘That’s great...that’s really great. Would you like some coffee?’

Lounging back against the edge of the giant scrubbed pine table, Luca stared back at her, not a muscle moving in his strong dark face. It was a rather daunting reaction and she swallowed hard, unaware that that shy and spontaneous air of sudden friendliness had disconcerted him.

‘OK...why not?’ he agreed, without any expression at all.

Darcy put on the kettle and stole an uneasy glance at him in the taut silence. She didn’t know where the tension was coming from, and then she wondered if his brooding silence was a kind of male ego thing. ‘I suppose this isn’t quite the sort of work you were hoping to get,’ she conceded awkwardly. ‘But I promise you that you won’t regret it. How long have you been unemployed?’

‘Unemployed?’ he echoed, strong features stiffening.

‘Sorry, I just assumed—’

‘I have never been employed in the UK.’

‘Oh...’ Darcy nodded slowly. ‘So how long have you been over here?’

‘Long enough...’

Darcy scrutinised that slightly downbent dark glossy head, taking in the faint darkening of colour over his sculpted cheekbones. He was embarrassed at his lack of success in the job market, she gathered, and she wished she had been a little less blunt in her questioning. But then tact had never been her strong point. And when she had interviewed him she had been so wrapped up in her own problems that it hadn’t occurred to her that Luca must have been desperate to find a job to come so far out of London in answer to one small ad. Furthermore, now that she took a closer look at those leathers of his, she couldn’t help but notice that they were pretty worn.

Sudden sympathy swept Darcy. She knew all about being broke and trying to keep up appearances. She had looked down on him for wearing motorbike gear to an interview, but maybe the poor guy didn’t have much else to wear. If he hadn’t worked since he had arrived in the UK, he certainly couldn’t have financed much of a wardrobe. Smart suits cost money.

‘I’ll give you half your first month’s salary in advance,’ Darcy heard herself say. ‘As a sort of retainer...’

This time he looked frankly startled.

‘You probably think that’s very trusting of me, but I tend to take people as I find them. In any case, I don’t have a lot of choice but to trust you. If you were to get the chance of another job and decide to back out on me, I’d be in trouble,’ she said honestly. ‘How do you like your coffee?’

‘Black...two sugars.’

Darcy put a pile of biscuits on a rather chipped plate. Setting the two beakers of coffee down on the table, she sat down and reached for the jotter and pencil lying there. ‘I’d better get some details from you, hadn’t I? What is your surname?’

There was a pause, a distinct pause as he sank lithely down opposite her.

‘Raffacani...’ he breathed.

‘You’ll need to spell that for me.’

He obliged.

Darcy bent industriously over the jotter. ‘And Luca—is that your first and only other name? You see, I have to get this right for the vicar.’

‘Gianluca...Gianluca Fabrizio.’

‘I think you’d better spell all of it.’ She took down his birthdate. Raffacani, she was thinking. Why did she have the curious sense that she had come across that name somewhere before? She shook her head. For all she knew Raffacani was as common a name in Italy as Smith was in England.

‘Right,’ she said then. ‘I’ll contact my solicitor, Mr Stevens. He’s based in Penzance, so you can sign the prenuptial contract as soon as you like. Those references you offered...?’

From the inside of his jacket he withdrew a somewhat creased envelope. Struggling to keep up a businesslike attitude when she really just wanted to sing and dance round the kitchen with relief, Darcy withdrew the documents. There were two, one with a very impressive letterhead, but both were written in Italian. ‘I’ll hang onto these and study them,’ she told him, thinking of the old set of foreign language dictionaries in the library. ‘But I’m sure they’ll be fire.’

‘How soon do you envisage the marriage ceremony taking place?’ Luca Raffacani enquired.

‘Hopefully in about three weeks. It’ll be a very quiet wedding,’ Darcy explained rather stiffly, fixing her attention to the scarred surface of the table, her face turning pale and set. ‘But as my father died this year that won’t surprise anyone. It wouldn’t be quite the thing to have a big splash.’

‘You’re not inviting many guests?’

‘Actually...’ Darcy breathed in deep, plunged into dismal recall of the huge misfired wedding which her father had insisted on staging three years earlier. ‘Well, actually, I wasn’t planning on inviting anybody,’ she admitted tightly as she rose restively to her feet again. ‘I’ll show you where you’ll be staying when you move in, shall I?’

At an infinitely more graceful and leisurely pace, Luca slid upright and straightened. Darcy watched in helpless fascination. His every movement had such... such style, an unhurried cool that caught the eye. He was so self-possessed, so contained. He was also very reserved. He gave nothing away. Well, would she have preferred a garrulous extrovert who asked a lot of awkward questions? Irritated by her own growing curiosity, Darcy left him to follow her out of the kitchen and tried to concentrate on more important things.

‘What did you mean when you said you were the next best thing to a man around here?’ Luca enquired on the way up the grand oak staircase.

‘My father wanted a son, not a daughter—at least...not the kind of daughter I turned out to be.’ As she spoke, Darcy was comparing herself to her stepsister. Morton Fielding had been utterly charmed by his second wife’s beautiful daughter, Nina. Darcy had looked on in amazement as Nina twisted her cold and censorious parent round her little finger with ease.

‘Your mother?’

‘She died when I was six. I hardly remember her,’ Darcy confided ruefully. ‘My father remarried a few years later. He was desperate to have a male heir but I’m afraid it didn’t happen.’

She cast open the door of a big dark oak-panelled bedroom, dominated by a giant Elizabethan four-poster. ‘This will be your room. The bathroom’s through that door. I’m afraid we’ll have to share it. There isn’t another one on this side of the house.’

As he glanced round the sparsely furnished and decidedly dusty room, which might have figured in a Tudor time warp, Darcy found herself studying him again. That stunningly male profile, the hard, sleek lines of his muscular length. A tiny frisson of sexual heat tightened her stomach muscles. He strolled with the grace of a leopard over to the high casement window to look out. Sunlight gleamed over his luxuriant black hair. Unexpectedly he turned, dark eyes with the dramatic impact of gold resting on her in cool enquiry.

Caught watching him again, Darcy blushed as hotly as an embarrassed schoolgirl. She was appalled by her own outrageous physical awareness of him, could not comprehend what madness was dredging such responses from her. Whirling round, she walked swiftly back into the corridor.

As he drew level with her she snatched in a deep, sustaining breath and started towards the stairs again. ‘I’m afraid there are very few modern comforts in the Folly, and locally, well, there’s even fewer social outlets...’ She hesitated uneasily before continuing, ‘What I’m really trying to say is that if you feel the need to take off for the odd day in search of amusement, I’ll understand—’

‘Amusement?’ Luca prompted grimly, as if such a concept had never come his way before.

Darcy nodded, staring stonily ahead. ‘I’m one of these people who always says exactly what’s on their mind. I live very quietly but I can’t reasonably expect you to do the same thing for an entire six months. I’m sure you’ll maybe want to go up to London occasionally and—’

‘Amuse myself?’ Luca slotted in very drily.

In spite of her discomfiture, Darcy uttered a strained little laugh. ‘You can hardly bring a girlfriend here—’

‘I do not have a woman in my life,’ he interrupted, with a strong suggestion of gritted teeth.

‘Possibly not at present,’ Darcy allowed, wondering what on earth was the matter with him. He was reacting as if she had grossly insulted him in some way. ‘But I’m being realistic. You’re bound to get bored down here. City slickers do...’

Brilliant eyes black as jet stabbed into her. A line of dark colour now lay over his taut cheekbones. ‘There will not be a woman nor any need for such behaviour on my part, I assure you,’ he imparted icily.

They were descending the stairs when a tiny figure clad in bright red leggings and a yellow T-shirt appeared in the Great Hall below. ‘Mummy!’ Zia carrolled with exuberance.

As her daughter flashed over to eagerly show off a much creased painting, Luca fell still. Interpreting his silence as astonishment, Darcy flung him an apologetic glance as she lifted her daughter up into her arms. ‘My daughter, Zia...I hadn’t got around to mentioning her yet,’ she conceded rather defensively.

Luca slid up a broad shoulder in an infinitesimal shrug of innate elegance. The advent of a stray cat might have inspired as much interest. Not a male who had any time for children, Darcy gathered, resolving to ensure that her playful and chatty toddler was kept well out of his path.

‘Is there anything else you wish to discuss?’ Luca prompted with faint impatience.

Darcy stiffened. Minutes later, she had written and passed him the cheque she had promised. He folded the item and tucked it into his inside pocket with complete cool. ‘I’ll drop you a note as soon as I get the date of the ceremony organised. I won’t need to see you again before that,’ she told him.

Luca printed a phone number on the front of the jotter she had left lying. ‘If you need to contact me for any other reason, leave a message on that line.’

A fortnight later, Darcy unbolted the huge front door of the Folly and dragged it open, only to freeze in dismay.

‘About time too,’ Margo Fielding complained sharply as she swept past, reeking of expensive perfume and irritation, closely followed by her daughter, Nina.

Aghast at the unforewarned descent of her stepmother and her stepsister, Darcy watched with a sinking heart as the tall, beautiful blonde duo stalked ahead of her into the drawing room.

She hadn’t laid eyes on either woman since they had moved out after her father’s funeral, eager to leave the privations of country life behind them and return to city life. The discovery that Darcy could not be forced to sell the Folly and share the proceeds with them had led to a strained parting of the ways. Although Morton Fielding had generously provided for his widow, and Margo was a wealthy woman in her own right, her stepmother had been far from satisfied.

Margo cast her an outraged look. ‘Don’t you think you should’ve told me that you were getting married?’ she demanded as she took up a painfully familiar bullying stance at the fireplace. ‘Can you imagine how I felt when a friend called me to ask who you were marrying and I had to confess my ignorance? How dare you embarrass me like that?’

Darcy was very tense, her tummy muscles knotting up while she wondered how on earth the older woman had discovered her plans. The vicar’s wife could be a bit of a gossip, she conceded, and Margo still had friends locally. No doubt that was how word had travelled farther afield at such speed. ‘I’m sorry...I would’ve informed you after the wedding—’

Nina’s scornful blue eyes raked over the younger woman. ‘But of course, when it’s safely over. You’re terrified that your bridegroom will bolt last minute, like Richard did!’

At that unpleasant and needless reminder, which was painfully apt, the embarrassed colour drained from Darcy’s taut cheekbones. ‘I—’

‘Just when I thought you must finally be coming to your senses and accepting the need to sell this white elephant of a house, you suddenly decide to get married,’ Margo condemned with stark resentment. ‘Is he even presentable?’

‘With all this heavy secrecy, it’s my bet that the groom is totally unpresentable...one of the estate workers?’ Nina suggested, with a disdainful little shudder of snobbish distaste.

‘You’re not pregnant again, are you?’ Margo treated Darcy to a withering and accusing appraisal. ‘That’s what people are going to think. And I refuse to have my acquaintances view me as some sort of wicked stepmother! So you’ll have to pay for a proper wedding reception and I’ll act as your hostess.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t got the money for that,’ Darcy admitted tightly.

‘What about him?’ Nina pressed instantaneously.

Darcy flushed and looked away.

‘Penniless, I suppose.’ Reaching that conclusion, Margo exchanged a covert look of relief and satisfaction with her daughter. ‘I do hope he’s aware that when you go bust here, we’re entitled to a slice of whatever is left.’

‘I’m not planning to go bust,’ Darcy breathed, her taut fingers clenching in on themselves.

‘I’m just dying to meet this character.’ Nina giggled. ‘Who is he?’

‘His name’s Luca—’

‘What kind of a name is that?’ her stepmother demanded.

‘He’s Italian,’ Darcy confided grudgingly.

‘An immigrant?’ Nina squealed, as if that was the funniest thing she had ever heard. ‘I do hope he’s not marrying you just to get a British passport!’

‘I’ll throw a small engagement party for you this weekend in Truro,’ Margo announced grandly with a glacial smile. ‘I will not have people say that I didn’t at least try to do my duty by my late husband’s child.’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ Darcy mumbled, after a staggered pause at the fact that Margo was prepared to make so much effort on her behalf. ‘But—’

‘No buts, Darcy. Everyone knows how eccentric you are, but I will not allow you to embarrass me in front of my friends. I will expect you and your fiancé at eight on Friday, both of you suitably dressed. And if he’s as hopeless as you are in polite company, tell him to keep his mouth shut and just smile:’

Her expectations voiced, Margo was already sweeping out to the hall. Darcy unfroze and sped after her. ‘But Luca...Luca’s got other arrangements for that night!’ she lied in a frantic rush.

‘Saturday, then,’ Margo decreed instead.

Darcy’s tremulous lips sealed again. How could she refuse to produce her supposed fiancé without giving the impression that there was something most peculiar about their relationship? She should never have practised such secrecy, never have surrendered to her own shrinking reluctance to make any form of public appearance with a man in tow. In her position, she couldn’t afford to arouse suspicion that there was anything strange about her forthcoming marriage.

‘I’m so glad you’ve finally found yourself a man.’ Nina dealt her a pitying look of superiority. ‘What does he do for a living?’

Darcy hesitated. She just couldn’t bring herself to admit that Luca was unemployed. ‘He...he works in a bank.’

‘A clerk...how sweet. Love blossomed over the counter, did it?’

Utterly drained, and annoyed that she had allowed her stepmother to reduce her yet again to a state of dumbstruck inadequacy, Darcy stood as the two women climbed into their sleek, expensive BMW and drove off without further ado.

‘Luca, haven’t you got any of my other messages? I realise that this is terribly short notice, but I do really need you to show up with me at this party in Truro...er...our engagement party,’ Darcy stated apologetically to the answering machine which greeted her for the frustrating fourth time at the London number he had left with her. ‘This is an emergency. Saturday night at eight. Could you get in touch, please?’

‘The toad’s done a bunk on you with that cheque!’ Karen groaned in despair. ‘I don’t know why you agreed to this party anyway. Margo and Nina have to be up to something. They’ve never done you a favour in their lives. And if Luca fails to show up, those two witches will have a terrific laugh at your expense!’

‘There’s still twenty-four hours to go. I’m sure I’ll hear from him soon,’ Darcy muttered fiercely, refusing to give up hope as she hugged Zia, grateful for the comforting warmth of her sturdy little body next to her own.

‘Darcy...you have written to him as well. He is obviously not at home and if he is home, he’s ignoring you—’

‘I don’t think he’s like that, Karen,’ Darcy objected, suddenly feeling more than a little irritated with her friend for running Luca down and forecasting the worst. From what she had contrived to roughly translate of her future husband’s references, one of which was persuasively written by a high court judge, she was dealing with a male of considerable integrity and sterling character.

Late that night the frustratingly silent phone finally rang and Darcy raced like a maniac to answer it. ‘Yes?’ she gasped with breathless hope into the receiver.

‘Luca... I got your messages this evening—all of them.’

‘Oh, thank heaven...thank heaven!’ Just hearing the intensely welcome sound of that deep, dark accented drawl, Darcy went weak at the knees. ‘I was starting to think I was going to have to ring my stepmother and say you’d come down with some sudden illness! She would’ve been absolutely furious. We’ve never been close, and I certainly didn’t want this wretched party, but it is pretty decent of her to offer, isn’t it?’

‘I’m afraid we have one slight problem to overcome,’ Luca slotted softly into that flood of relieved explanation. ‘I’m calling from Italy.’

‘Italy...?’ Darcy blinked rapidly, thoroughly thrown by the announcement. ‘It-Italy?’ she stammered in horror.

‘But naturally I will do my utmost to get back in time for the party,’ Luca assured her in a tone of cool assurance.

Darcy sighed heavily then, unsurprised by his coolness. What right did she have to muck up his arrangements? This whole mess wasn’t his fault, it was hers. After all, she had told him she wouldn’t need to see him again before the wedding. Obviously he had used the money she had given him to travel home and see his family. ‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she said tiredly, the stress of several sleepless nights edging her voice. ‘Look, can you make it?’

‘With the best will in the world, not to the party before nine in the evening...unless you want to meet me there?’ he suggested.

Aghast at the idea of arriving alone, Darcy uttered an instant negative.

‘Then offer my apologies to your stepmother. I’ll come and pick you up.’

Darcy told herself that she was incredibly lucky that Luca was willing to come back from Italy to attend the party at such short notice. ‘I really appreciate this...look, you can stay here on Saturday night,’ she offered gratefully. ‘I’ll make up the bed for you.’

‘That’s extraordinarily kind of you, Darcy,’ Luca drawled smoothly.

CHAPTER THREE

ZIA was spending the night with Karen in the gatehouse. Returning to the Folly to nervously await Luca’s arrival, Darcy caught an unsought glimpse of her reflection in the giant mirror in the echoing hall...

And suddenly she was wishing she had spent money she could ill afford on a new outfit. The brown dress hung loose round her hips and flapped to an indeterminate length below her knees. The ruffled neckline, once chosen to conceal the embarrassing smallness of her breasts, looked fussy and old-fashioned. She was much more comfortable in trousers—never had had much luck in choosing clothes that flattered her slight and diminutive frame...

And in the back of her wardrobe the green designer evening dress which had been Maxie’s wedding present three years earlier still hung, complete with shoes and delicate little beaded bag. Maxie, no longer a friend and always rather too reserved and too confident of her feminine attraction for Darcy to feel quite comfortable in her radius. As for the dress, Darcy hadn’t looked near it once since her return from Venice. She needed no reminder of that night of explosive passion in a stranger’s arms. Yet somehow she still hadn’t been able to bring herself to dispose of that exquisite gown which had lent her the miraculous illusion of beauty for a few brief hours.

The Victorian bell-pull shrieked complaint in the piercing silence, springing Darcy out of a past that still felt all too recent and all too wounding. In haste, she yanked open - the heavy door. There she stopped dead at the sight of Luca, her witch-green eyes widening to their fullest extent in unconcealed surprise.

He was wearing a supremely elegant black dinner jacket when she hadn’t dared even to ask if he possessed such an article. And there he stood, proud black head high, strong dark face assured, one lean brown hand negligently thrust into the pocket of narrow black trousers to tighten them over his lean hips and long powerful thighs, his beautifully tailored jacket parted to reveal a pristine white pleated dress shirt. He looked so incredibly sophisticated and gorgeous he stole the breath from Darcy’s convulsing throat.

‘Gosh, you hired evening dress,’ she mumbled, relocating her vocal cords with difficulty.

Luca ran brilliant dark eyes over her, a distinct frownline drawing together his ebony brows. ‘Possibly I’m slightly over-dressed for the occasion?’

‘No... no... not at all.’ Never more self-conscious than when her personal appearance was under scrutiny, Darcy flushed to the roots of her hair. Her attention abruptly fell on the glossy scarlet Porsche sitting parked beside the ancient Land Rover which was her only means of transport. ‘Where on earth did you get that car?’ she gasped helplessly.

‘It’s on loan.’

Slowly, Darcy shook her curly auburn head. It would be madness to turn up in an expensive car and give a false impression of Luca’s standing in the world. Margo would ask five hundred questions and soon penetrate the truth. Then Luca, who could only have borrowed the car for her benefit—and she couldn’t help but be touched by that realisation—would end up feeling cut off. ‘I would really love to roar up in the Porsche, but it would be wiser to use the Land Rover,’ she told him in some disappointment.

‘Dio mio...you are joking, of course.’ Luca surveyed the rusting and battered four-wheel drive with outright incredulity. ‘It’s a wreck’

Darcy opened the door of the Land Rover. ‘I do know what I’m talking about, Luca,’ she warned. ‘If we show up in the Porsche, my stepmother will get entirely the wrong idea and decide that you’re loaded. If we’re anything less than honest, we’ll both be left sitting with egg on our faces. We want to blend in, not create comment, and that car must be worth about thirty thousand—’

‘Seventy.’

‘Seventy thousand pounds?’ Darcy broke in, her disbelief writ large in her shaken face.

‘And some change,’ Luca completed drily.

‘Wish I had a friend willing to trust me with a car like that! We’ll park the Land Rover out on the road and run away from it fast,’ Darcy promised, worriedly examining her watch and then climbing into the driver’s seat to forestall further argument. ‘I’d let you drive, but this old girl has a number of idiocyncrasies which might irritate you.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Luca swung into the tatty passenger seat with pronounced reluctance, his classic profile hard as a granite cliff in winter.

As she stole a second glance at that hawkish masculine profile, Darcy found herself thinking that he had a kind of Heathcliffish rough edge when he was angry.

And he was definitely angry, and she didn’t mind in the slightest. It made him seem far more human. Posh cars and men and their egos, she reflected with sudden good cheer. Even she understood that basic connection. ‘Believe me, you’re about to cause enough of a stir tonight. You’re very good-looking...’

‘Am I really?’ Luca prompted rather flatly.

‘Oh, come on, no false modesty. I bet you’ve been breaking hearts from the edge of the cradle!’ Darcy riposted with a rueful sound of amusement.

‘You’re very frank.’

‘In that garb you look like you just strolled in off a movie set,’ Darcy reeled off, trying to work herself up to giving the little speech she had planned. ‘Do you think you could contrive to act like you’re keen on me tonight? No...no, don’t say anything,’ she urged with a distinctly embarrassed laugh. ‘It’s just that nobody can smell a rat faster than Margo or Nina, and you are not at all what they are primed to expect.’

‘What are they expecting?’

‘Some ordinary boring guy who works in a bank.’

‘Where do you get the idea that bankers are boring?’

‘My bank manager could bore for Britain. Every time I walk into his office, he acts like I’m there to steal from him. That man is just such a pessimist,’ Darcy rattled on, grateful to have got over the hint about him acting keen without further discussion. It was so unbelievably embarrassing to have to ask a man to put on such a pretence. ‘When he tells me the size of my overdraft, he even reads out the pence owing to make me squirm—’

‘You have an overdraft?’

‘It’s not as bad as it sounds. The day we get married, I will have some really good news for my bank manager...at least I hope he thinks it’s good news, and loosens the purse-strings a little.’ She shot him an apprehensive glance, wishing she hadn’t allowed nervous tension to tempt her into such dangerous candour. ‘Don’t worry, if the worst comes to the worst, I could always sell something to keep the bank quiet. I made a commitment to you and I won’t let you down.’

‘I’m impressed. Tell me, have you thought of a cover story for this evening?’ Luca enquired with some satire.

‘Cover story?’

‘Where and how we met, et cetera, et cetera.’

‘Of course,’ she said in some surprise. ‘We’ll say we met in London. I haven’t been there in over a year, but they’re not likely to know that. I want to give the impression that we’ve plunged into one of those sudden whirlwind romances and then, when we split up, nobody will be the slightest bit surprised.’

‘I see you’re wearing a ring.’

‘It’s on loan, like your Porsche. We can’t act engaged without a ring.’ Darcy had borrowed the diamond dress ring from Karen for the evening, and her finger had been crooked ever since it went on because it was a size too big and she was totally terrified of losing it.

‘Don’t you think you ought to fill me in on a few background details on your family? My younger sister is the only close relative I have,’ he revealed. ‘She’s a student.’

‘Oh...right. My stepmother, Margo, was first married to a wealthy businessman with one foot in the grave. They had a daughter, Nina, who’s a model,’ she shared. ‘Margo married my father for social position; he married her in the hope of having a son. Dad was always very tight with money, but Margo and Nina could squeeze juice out of a dehydrated lemon. He was extremely generous to them. That’s one of the reasons the estate is in such a mess... I inherited the mess and a load of death duties.’

‘Very succinct,’ Luca responded with a slight catch in his voice.

‘Margo and Nina are frantic snobs. They spend the summer in Truro and the rest of the year in their London apartment. Margo doesn’t like me but she loves throwing parties, and she is very, very conscious of what other people think.’

‘Are you?’

‘Good heavens, no, as an unmarried mother, I can hardly afford to be!’

‘I think I should at least know the name of the father of your child,’ Luca remarked.

The silence in the car became electric. Darcy accelerated down the road, small hands clenching the steering wheel tightly. ‘On that point, I’m afraid I’ve never gratified anyone’s curiosity,’ she said stiffly, and after that uncompromising snub the silence lasted all the way to Truro.

Some distance from her stepmother’s large detached home, which was set within its own landscaped grounds on the outskirts of town, Darcy nudged her vehicle into a space. And only with difficulty. They walked up the sweeping drive and Darcy’s heart sank as she took in the number of cars already parked. ‘I think there’s going to be a lot more people here than I was led to expect. If anyone asks too many probing questions, pretend your English is lousy,’ she advised nervously.

‘I believe I will cope.’ Luca curved a confident hand over her tense spine. Her flesh tingled below the thin fabric of her dress and she shivered. He bent his glossy dark head down almost to her level, quite a feat with the difference in their heights. The faint scent of some citrus-based lotion flared Darcy’s sensitive nostrils. Her breath tripping in her throat, she collided with deep, dark flashing eyes and her stomach turned a shaken somersault in reaction.

‘Per meraviglia...’ Luca breathed with deflating cool and impatience. ‘Will you at least smile as if you’re happy? And stop hunching your shoulders like that. Walk tall!’

Plunged back to harsh reality with a jolt, her colour considerably heightened, Darcy might have made a pithy retort had not Margo’s housekeeper swept open the door for their entrance.

And entrance it certainly was. Margo and Nina were in the hall, chatting in a group. Their eyes flew to Darcy, and then straight past her to the tall, spectacularly noticeable male by her side. Her stepmother and her stepsister stilled in astonishment and simply stared. Suddenly Darcy was wickedly amused. Luca was undeniably presentable. How unexpectedly sweet it was to surprise the two women whose constant criticisms and cutting comments had made her teenage years such a misery.

Retaining that light hold on her, Luca carried her forward.

‘Darcy...Luca,’ Margo said rather stiltedly.

After waiting in vain for Darcy to make an introduction, Luca advanced a hand and murmured calmly, ‘Luca Raffacani, Mrs Fielding...I’m delighted to meet you at last.’

‘Margo, please,’ her stepmother gushed.

Nina hovered in a revealing little slip dress, her beautiful face etched with a rigid smile while her pale blue eyes ran over Luca as if he was a large piece of her own lost property. ‘I’m surprised...you don’t look remotely like Richard,’ she remarked. ‘I was so sure you’d be horsy and hearty. Darcy always did go for the outdoor type.’

‘Richard?’ Luca queried.

‘Oh, dear, I do hope I haven’t been indiscreet,’ Nina murmured with a little moue of fake dismay. ‘Sorry, but I naturally assumed you would know that Darcy was engaged once before—’

‘Left at the altar too. A ghastly business altogether. That’s why it’s so wonderful to see you happy now, Darcy!’ Margo continued.

Darcy cringed as if her dress had fallen off in public, unable to look anywhere near Luca to see how he was reacting to this humiliating information. Her stepmother took advantage of her disconcertion to rest a welcoming hand on Luca’s sleeve and neatly impose herself between them.

‘Oh, do let us see the ring,’ Nina trilled.

Darcy extended her hand. An insincere chorus of compliments followed.

They moved into a large reception room which was filled to the gills with chattering, elegantly dressed people. Margo turned to address Luca in a confidential aside. ‘I’m really hoping that marriage will give Darcy something more to think about than that pile of bricks and mortar she’s so obsessively attached to. What do you think of Fielding’s Folly, Luca?’

‘It’s Darcy’s home and of obvious historic interest—’

‘But such a dreadful ceaseless drain on one’s financial resources, and a simply huge responsibility. You’ll soon find that out,’ Margo warned him feelingly. ‘Worry drove my poor husband to an early death. It’s always the same with these old families. Land-rich, cash-poor. Morton was almost as stubborn as Darcy, but I don’t think he ever dreamt that she would go to such nonsensical lengths to try and hang on to the estate—’

‘I don’t think we need to discuss this right now,’ Darcy broke in tautly.

‘It has to be said, darling, and your fiancé is part of the family now,’ her stepmother pointed out loftily. ‘After all, I’m only thinking of your future, and Luca does have a right to know what he’s getting into. No doubt you’ve given him a very rosy picture, and really that’s not very fair—’

‘Not at all. I have an excellent understanding of how matters stand on the estate,’ Luca inserted with smiling calm as he eased away from the older woman and extended a hand to Darcy, closing long fingers over hers to tug her close again, as if he couldn’t quite bear to be physically separated from her.

‘That’s right. You work in the financial field,’ Nina commented with a look of amusement. ‘I can hardly believe you’re only a bank clerk...’

‘Neither can I. Darcy...what have you been telling this family of yours?’ Luca scolded with a husky laugh of amusement. ‘Pressure of work persuaded me to take what you might call a sabbatical here in the UK. Meeting Darcy, a woman so very much after my own heart, was a quite unexpected bonus.’

‘How on earth did you meet?’

‘I’m not sure I should tell you...’ Luca responded in a teasing undertone.

‘Feel free,’ Darcy encouraged, already staggered by the ease with which he was entertaining and dealing with Margo and Nina. Yet he had been so very, very quiet with her. But then why was she surprised at that? Her soft mouth tightened. Here he was with two lovely, admiring women hanging on his very word; quite naturally he was opening up and no longer either bored and impatient.

‘OK. It happened in London. She reversed into my car and then got out and shouted at me. I really appreciate a woman with that much nerve!’ Luca divulged playfully, and Darcy’s bright head flew up in shock. ‘You do everything behind the wheel at such frantic speed, don’t you, cara mia? I wanted to strangle her, and then I wanted to kiss her...’

‘Which did you do?’ Darcy heard herself prompt, unnerved by his sheer inventiveness.

‘I believe some things should remain private...’ To accompany that low-pitched and sensually suggestive murmur, Luca ran a long brown forefinger along her delicate jawbone in a glancing caress. Darcy gazed up at him, all hot pink and overpowered, every muscle in her slender length tensing. Her tender flesh stung in the wake of that easy touch, leaving her maddeningly, insanely aware of his powerful masculinity.

‘To think I used to believe my little stepsister was painfully shy,’ Nina breathed, fascinated against her will by this show of intimacy.

‘Hardly, when she’s already the mother of a noisy toddler,’ Margo put in cuttingly. ‘Do you like children, Luca?’

‘I adore them,’ he drawled, with positive fervour.

‘How wonderful,’ Margo said rather weakly, having shot her last bitchy bolt and found him impregnable. ‘Let me introduce you to our guests, Luca. Don’t be so possessive, Darcy. Do let go of the poor man for a second.’

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