she told her son.
“We will.”
She turned toward the east wing, hesitated. Her glance flicked from her son to Sabrina and back again. “Have you warned her about the paparazzi?”
“Not yet.”
“They could be … difficult.”
“We’ll don our armor before we come downstairs.”
“Bene.”
Sabrina contained her curiosity until Marco escorted her into his suite of rooms in the east wing. She caught a glimpse of their bags set side by side on a padded bench in a cavernous bedroom before demanding an explanation.
“What was that about?”
“You’re not the only one who has fed the beasts,” he commented with a dry reference to the articles his mother had pulled off the Internet about her. “They attacked like sharks after Gianetta’s death. One tabloid even hinted I had somehow sabotaged the sailboat.”
“Dear God! Why would you do that?”
“The usual reasons. Jealousy, anger, to rid myself of an inconvenient wife so I could marry my mistress.”
Shrugging, he opened the doors of a parquetry chest to display a well-stocked bar.
“It didn’t seem to matter that I had no mistress. What would you like to drink?”
“It’s going to be a long night. I’d better stick with something nonalcoholic for now.”
Marco chinked ice into two glasses and twisted off the lid on a bottle of Chinotto. The dark liquid fizzed like a carbonated drink and had a unique taste that combined bitter and sweet at the same time.
“We always allow a few members of press to take photographs at the ball. Be warned, they’ll have an avid interest in you.”
“Because I resemble Gianetta?”
His dark eyes held hers. “Because you will be the first woman I’ve invited to the ball since Gianetta.”
Ohh-kaay.
Sabrina took another sip of the fizzing soft drink and willed her heart to stop hammering against her ribs. The waltz Marco had described so beautifully earlier suddenly seemed to have picked up in tempo. She couldn’t shake the feeling she’d just been swept into a sultry tango.
The tempo kicked up yet again a little over an hour later.
Gowned, gloved, her hair anchored high on her head with the topaz-studded comb, she swept out of the bedroom in a glitter of gold. Two paces into the sitting room she caught sight of Marco and stopped dead.
Her jaw sagged. Her breath got stuck somewhere in the middle of her throat. The best she could manage was a breathless whisper.
“Wow.”
“My sentiments exactly,” he answered in a low growl. “You look magnificent, Sabrina mia.”
His eyes devoured her as he crossed the room. Hers drank in the snowy white tie and pleated shirt, the black tails, the jeweled insignia of some royal order pinned to the red sash that slashed across his chest.
Tonight, Sabrina realized as her heart drummed out a wild beat, her handsome doc was every inch a duke.
Ten
Marco wasn’t the only one rigged out in royal splendor for the night’s festivities.
His mother was stunning in a gown of white satin and a diamond tiara studded with emeralds the size of pigeon eggs. More emeralds cascaded from her ears and throat.
His sister and brother-in-law somehow managed to look both dignified and unconventional, AnnaMaria in a shimmering cobalt gown that highlighted the blue streak in her hair, Etienne in a black cutaway and a jaunty white silk scarf looped over one shoulder in place of a tie.
With everyone dressed so formally, Sabrina expected dinner to be a stiff affair. Instead, the guests were lively and the meal a gastronomical delight that included the expected lentils and savory stuffed sausage.
“For richness of life in the coming year,” the retired admiral seated next to Sabrina informed her as he speared a piece of sausage.
She’d already discovered he was Marco’s great uncle on his mother’s side and a real character. He wore his navy uniform, with thick gold ropes at both shoulders and a chest covered with medals. Bushy white whiskers sprouted from his cheeks and an eye patch covered one eye. His other eye kept trying to get a good look down the front of Sabrina’s gown.
Like when he shooed away the hovering waiter and insisted on refilling her wine glass himself.
“Allow me, Signorina.”
She rewarded his determined efforts by hunching her shoulders to display a teeeeeny bit more cleavage.
“Ahh,” the admiral murmured, his whiskers twitching. “Bellisima.”
She glanced up in time to catch Marco observing the byplay. Grinning, he lifted his goblet in a silent toast. She responded with a wink.
The mischievous wink hit Marco with almost the same impact as the sight of Sabrina in glowing candlelight. His fingers tightened on the stem of his goblet as he drank in the sight of her.
Until this moment, he’d wanted her with a hunger that seemed to multiply with each passing hour. Seeing her now, her face framed by those loose, careless tendrils, her eyes alight with laughter, turned hunger into something deeper, something richer. Something that made his heart constrict.
Marco hadn’t missed the startled glances Sabrina had drawn when the dinner crowd had first assembled. Most of them had known Gianetta, some well enough to have experienced her wild, almost frenetic highs on occasions like this. But Sabrina’s ready smile and genuineness had soon charmed them out of their initial uncertainty.
Nor did she falter during the long, lively banquet. Despite Uncle Pietro’s ogling and the fact that most of the conversation was in Italian, she held her own easily with young and old. Not surprising given her privileged background, Marco supposed. As Dominic Russo’s only child, she’d no doubt attended many functions like this. Yet Marco felt himself falling a little more in love each time she responded to a question with her less than idiomatic Italian or flashed him a laughing glance.
When her guests had finished their brandy-flamed lemon gateau and after-dinner coffee, the duchess nodded to her son. Marco rose with her.
“We have a half hour before the guests will begin to arrive for the ball,” Donna Maria announced. “Please use the time to refresh yourselves or enjoy drinks in the main salon while we do our duty downstairs.”
Marco used the loud scrape of chairs and general exodus to explain the drill to Sabrina.
“Mother traditionally grants interviews to society editors and entertainment TV reporters before the ball.
