The Brides of Bella Rosa: Beauty and the Reclusive Prince

And he was convinced that Laura had been here then. She’d heard him. Later, he would often talk to her for hours, and she responded with a breeze, or a leaf that might sail over his head. He could hear her laughter in the river as the water bubbled over the rocks. She’d felt so close, he could almost touch her.

As the years went by the talking began to fade away, but he still came. And now, he didn’t talk anymore. He didn’t feel her here as he had before. Maybe she’d lost interest. Maybe she’d forgotten him. Or maybe his emotions just weren’t strong enough to break through the barriers any longer. He didn’t know what it was that had silenced their conversation. He only knew it felt stilted and awkward to try to talk to her now. But he came anyway. She deserved that much, at the very least.

Tonight he was here in part out of a guilty conscience. His head had been full of the Casali girl for days and he couldn’t seem to shake the thoughts away. He needed to fill his soul with his wife’s image again.

He looked into the swirling water of the river, very near where that water had taken her from him.

“Laura,” he said aloud, passion behind every word. “I miss you so.”

He listened hard. He tried to let himself join the flow of the evening breeze. He tried to feel whatever was in the atmosphere and draw it in. But it was all a failure. She wasn’t there. Heartsick, he turned his horse and headed back home.

Isabella had tried to figure out somehow to handle the declining basil supply problem in other ways, but the harder she tried, the more the answer seemed to elude her. As far as she knew, the prince’s estate was the only site where the herb could be found. If she wasn’t allowed to enter his gates, how was she going to get the supply she needed?

She spent hours poring over the Internet, trying to find where else the herb might grow, and, when that didn’t yield fruit, trying to find a substitution. She tried a few candidates in a couple of dishes. People noticed.

“There’s something different about this Fruta di Mare,” an old friend of the family asked right away, frowning as though she’d found a bug in her meal. “Have you changed your recipe?”

“What are you doing that’s different?” another asked, face twisted with displeasure.

And then she overheard a pair of regular customers whispering to each other. The phrases she caught included, “This place used to be so good, it’s really gone downhill lately,” and she knew she was in big trouble.

There was no choice. She had to go back.

But how?

She was still agonizing over that a day later when a surprise visitor came through the doors of the café. The late afternoon sun made a radiating halo around him and for just a moment she was sure it was the prince himself. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She’d never felt such a lurch to her system before. The room tilted and for a beat or two she was sure she would pass out. But in those same seconds she realized it wasn’t the prince at all, but his cousin, Marcello, and the pounding began to fade.

It took a minute for her to catch her breath. Even as she greeted him warmly she was clutching her heart and wondering what on earth was the matter with her. She really couldn’t imagine. The prince was just a man. Nothing special. Particularly. She’d known men before and even liked a few of them. Not many, but a few. She quickly steadied herself and managed to smile at Marcello.

“Welcome. I’m so glad you decided to come try us. Please sit right here and let me bring you some wine.”

She pulled out a chair at the table best situated with a view of the square in one direction and the distant mountains in the other.

“Order whatever you like,” she said cheerfully. “It will be our pleasure to—”

“Whoa, slow down,” he said with a laugh, raising both hands as though to defend himself from the onslaught. “I didn’t come for free food. I’m on my way home to Milan, but I wanted to come by to see how my patient is doing.”

“Patient?” And then she realized he meant her. “Oh, I’m fine. As you can see, I still have a black eye, but I’ve been told I look better this way, so it’s not a problem.”

He made a face at her lame joke, but went on. “And your stitches?”

“Oh.”

“I’d like to take a look and see how they are healing.”

She glanced around the restaurant. It wasn’t packed by any means but half the tables were filled with people she’d known all her life. Every one of them was watching with rapt attention.

“Too public?” he asked as he followed her train of thought. She threw another quick look at the audience, then turned with a toss of her head.

“Let them talk,” she said blithely. “TV is mostly reruns this week. They need some fresh entertainment.”

He laughed and followed her to the storeroom where he looked her over and quickly pronounced her healing nicely. They chatted in the kitchen for a few minutes. She enjoyed being with him, but wasn’t sure how to deal with that. He was so good-looking, but it was as if there was a special ingredient missing—just like the Rosa sauce without the Monta Rosa Basil. The prince had an element of fire in him that she found lacking in his cousin. There was no doubt about it—something about the Rossi prince appealed to her like no other man she’d ever seen.

“I want to ask you a question about your cousin,” she told him at one point, a little hesitant. She knew it was going to be a touchy subject.

“Shoot,” he said casually, cradling the glass of golden wine she’d poured for him.

“It’s about his scars. I understand he was badly injured in a car accident. Is that true?”

Marcello nodded.

She frowned. “Why doesn’t anyone seem to know anything about it here in the village?”

He shrugged. “People like the Rossi family have ways of keeping things quiet,” he said. “And there were certain elements about that accident they didn’t want the world to know about.”

She drew her breath in. “Like what?” she asked.

He smiled. “Sorry, Isabella. That is not something I’m at liberty to talk about.”

She leaned back, disappointed but intrigued. What could it possibly be?

But she had a more important question. How could she get his cousin to let her back on the royal property?

“If I could just talk to him,” she said, searching Marcello’s eyes for ideas. “If I could just explain how important this is.”

He shrugged, draining the last drop of golden liquid from his glass. “Go on over and confront the lion in his lair,” he suggested with a casual gesture appealing to the fates.

She scrunched up her face, a picture of doubt. “I don’t think I’d better do that. I don’t think that would really work. Besides, how would I get in?”

He shrugged again and straightened from his place at the counter. “Your call.”

She sighed and gave him a significant look. “If only I had the number for his mobile.”

“Ah.” He bit back a grin, his eyes sparkling with laughter. “You’re not the first to hint around for that number.”

She leaned closer, trying to look persuasive but not sure how to do that with a man like this. “I’m sure you know what it is.”

He nodded, looking her over with barely leashed pity. “I do. And I’m sworn to secrecy, just as you’d expect.”

“Oh.” She straightened and frowned, her heart sinking.

“I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”

She nodded, feeling tragic and hopeless. “I was afraid of that.”

He looked as tragic as she felt. “I’m sorry. It would be a betrayal of trust for me to tell you what it is.”

She nodded again, leaning against the tall counter with her chin in her hand. “I understand,” she said sadly.