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
