The Italian Count's Defiant Bride

‘But I love everything here. I’ve looked forward to the holiday for so long, I was afraid I might be disappointed.’ She smiled up at him. ‘But your city is even more wonderful than I’d imagined.’

‘It is beautiful,’ he agreed as they left the piazza behind to make for Santa Croce. ‘But it is not my city. I am here for a few days on business. I do not live here. My home is in Montedaluca.’

As they passed the floodlit fa?ade of the great Santa Croce church, it suddenly struck Alicia that in the town that had his name in it he might well have a wife and family. Something she should have checked on long before now.

Francesco came to a halt soon afterwards outside the ancient palazzo which housed the restaurant. ‘Something worries you,’ he said in the slow, careful English which had surprised her from the first. She would have expected an Italian to talk quickly, with a lot of hand waving. But there was an inner stillness to Francesco da Luca she found deeply fascinating. ‘What troubles you, Alicia?’

She braced herself. ‘Are you married?’

‘Ah, I see! What would you do if I say yes?’ he asked, amused, sending her heart plummeting down to the new shoes.

‘Go straight back to the hotel,’ she said promptly. And cry into her pillow.

‘Without your birthday dinner?’ He smiled. ‘Then it is a good thing, cara, that I am not married.’ He threw out a hand. ‘No wife, no fidanzata.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A fiancеe, MissAlicia.’ He looked suddenly stern. ‘If I had possessed either I would not have requested your company tonight.’

Her chin lifted defiantly. ‘I had to ask.’

‘Naturalmente.’ He smiled and took her hand. ‘Now, let us eat.’

An elegant woman at the reception desk led them through the crowded restaurant to a small group of tables for two on a raised dais at the back of the room. Alicia gazed at her surroundings in delight as Francesco held her chair for her. Faded haughty faces of mediaeval knights looked down on them from frescoed walls, their rearing horses and lean hunting-dogs given the illusion of movement by the flickering candles on the tables. Alicia was suddenly grateful for her mother’s faultless taste. Her simple little sheath-dress, for all its simplicity—or because of it—felt exactly right here. As Francesco held her chair for her Alicia’s eyes widened. On her plate lay a single, creamy rose. She gazed up at him in delight as she thanked him, thinking how aristocratic he looked, so very obviously at home in surroundings like this.

‘I chose it with care,’ he informed her, his eyes gleaming in the candlelight. ‘See? The petals are the colour and velvet texture of your skin.’

Thankful that due to this same texture her skin rarely showed blushes, she smiled at him luminously. ‘Thank you for making my birthday so special for me.’

‘It is my great pleasure,’ Francesco assured her as a waiter filled their glasses. ‘Allora, even if you do not care for it you must have one sip of champagne to celebrate this special day. Happy birthday, Alicia.’

She smiled as he raised his glass in a toast and touched it with her own, and to please him drank a little. And found that this champagne was pure nectar. ‘It’s delicious,’ she told him, surprised.

He smiled indulgently. ‘I am glad it pleases you. Now, tell me what you like to eat.’

Alicia took one look at the daunting menu and appealed to Francesco. ‘Will you help me choose?’

His eyes gleamed bright in the candlelight as they smiled into hers. ‘I will do anything you wish, cara.’

Afterwards Alicia had very little recollection of the delicious antipasti she was served, or the meltingly tender lamb with artichokes that followed. She was so enchanted with Francesco and Florence that the food was of secondary importance as they talked together in a little candlelit oasis of privacy on their dais above the other diners in the crowded restaurant.

‘So where did you go to school, Alicia?’ he asked.

‘In a convent,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘When the nuns heard we were coming to Florence, they told us we must visit Santa Croce—but they meant the church, not a restaurant like this.’

‘You are a Catholic?’

‘Yes. Are you?’

He nodded. ‘But not as devout as my mother would wish.’

‘I’m not as devout as Bron, either.’

‘Bron?’

‘My mother, Bronwen Cross. As I mentioned before, I’ve never met my biological father,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Is your father still alive?’

His eyes shadowed. ‘No. My parents married late. He died when I was young.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She touched his hand in sympathy. ‘Brothers, sisters?’

‘None.’

‘So your mother just has you.’

‘Davvero,’ he said heavily, then smiled and changed the subject. ‘I would offer you more champagne, but perhaps it is better you keep to one glass.’

‘Much better,’ she agreed, and with a sigh glanced at her watch. ‘The entire evening has been so lovely, Francesco, but now I must get back to Meg.’

As they left the restaurant Alicia stumbled a little in her new heels, and Francesco took her hand to steady her, then kept it in his to walk back to the hotel. For Alicia the warm, hard clasp of Francesco’s hand in hers was the crowning touch of the entire evening. As they neared the hotel he drew her to a halt in the shadows in the quiet street.

‘Tomorrow I have business matters to attend to during the day, but in the evening will you dine with me again, Alicia? Your friend also, if she is well enough.’ He smiled into her startled eyes. ‘Say yes.’

‘I need to ask Meg first,’ she hedged, secretly ecstatic.

‘Do you have a telefonino—a mobile phone?’

She nodded. ‘Megan’s brother gave me a new one for my birthday.’

‘Give it to me, then. I will enter my number into it, and yours into mine. Allora,’ Francesco said with satisfaction when he’d finished, ‘we can communicate.’ He paused and moved closer. ‘Though there are other ways to communicate, Alicia—the most delightful way is a kiss to wish you happy birthday.’ He drew her very gently into his arms in the shadows. ‘Passers by will not think it remarkable to see people kissing.’

Alicia stood very still in his embrace, her heart hammering. She had been hoping, longing, for Francesco da Luca to kiss her. She had dreamed about it often enough in the past when his photograph was the last thing she saw before going to sleep every night.

Francesco bent his head, his lips gentle at first. But at the first touch of them against hers she responded so helplessly she felt his athlete’s body tense against her. His arms tightened as her lips parted, his tongue found hers in a caress that took her breath away, and the kiss quickly grew so urgent Alicia’s head reeled when his arms finally fell away.

He stood back, breathing hard as he stared down at her blankly. ‘Mi dispiace,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I did not expect…’

‘Neither did I,’ she said with feeling, and took in a deep breath. ‘I’ve never been kissed like that before.’

He smiled in open male triumph and kissed her again. ‘You enchant me, Alicia Cross. I will call for you tomorrow evening.’

‘I haven’t agreed to that,’ she protested.

‘Then agree now, tesoro.’ His eyes locked with hers. ‘Say “yes, Francesco, I will be very pleased to dine again with you”.’

Instead of saying yes to dinner—and to anything else he wanted—Alicia hung on to every scrap of willpower she possessed. ‘Ring me tomorrow and I’ll let you know if Meg agrees.’

Francesco tucked an errant curl behind her ear. ‘Va bene, Miss Alicia Cross.’ He took her hand and escorted her into the lobby of the hotel. ‘A domani,’ he said formally, and waited until the lift doors closed behind her.