He smiled tenderly. ‘I saw the bruises, cara. All over your body.’
She blushed furiously, stooping to pick the rag up off the floor, but it was covered in dust and she put it down again. The saddle was already soaped to death.
‘And that dinner party—I know quite well that all of those dishes were yours. Carlotta doesn’t cook like that, and yet you left an old woman her pride, and for that alone, I would give you this wedding for your sister.’
The tears spilled down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away with the backs of her hands. Not a good idea, she realised instantly, when they were covered in soapy filth, but he was there in front of her, a tissue in his hand, wiping the tears away and the smears of dirt with them.
‘Silly girl, there’s no need to cry,’ he tutted softly, and she pushed his hand away.
‘Well, of course I’m crying, you idiot!’ she sniffed, swallowing the tears. ‘You’re being ridiculously generous. But I can’t possibly accept.’
‘Why not? We need you—and that is real and genuine. I knew you’d refuse the wedding if I just offered it, but we really need help with the harvest, and it’s the only way Carlotta will allow us to help her. If we do nothing, she’ll work herself to death, but she’ll be devastated if we bring in a total stranger to help out.’
‘I was a total stranger,’ she reminded him.
He gave that tender smile again, the one that had unravelled her before. ‘Yes—but now you’re a friend, and I’m asking you, as a friend, to help her.’
She swallowed. ‘And in return you’ll give Jen this amazing wedding?’
‘Si.’
‘And what about us?’
Something troubled flickered in his eyes for a second until the shutters came down. ‘What about us?’
‘We agreed it was just for one night.’
‘Yes, we did. No strings. A little time out from reality.’
‘And it stays that way?’
He inclined his head. ‘Si. It stays that way. It has to.’
Did it? She felt—what? Regret? Relief? A curious mixture of both, probably, although if she was honest she might have been hoping …
‘Can I think about it?’
‘Not for long. I have to return first thing tomorrow morning. I would like to take you with me.’
She nodded. ‘Right. Um. I need to finish this—what are you doing?’
He’d taken off his jacket, slung it over the back of the chair and was rolling up his sleeves. ‘Helping,’ he said, and taking a clean rag from the pile, he buffed the saddle to a lovely, soft sheen. ‘There. What else?’
It took them half an hour to clean the rest of Bruno’s tack, and then she led him back to the house and showed him where he could wash his hands in the scullery sink.
‘Don’t mention any of this to Jen, not until I’ve made up my mind,’ she warned softly, and he nodded.
Her sister was in the kitchen, and she pointed her in the direction of the kettle and ran upstairs to shower. Ten minutes later, she was back down in the kitchen with her hair in soggy rats’ tails and her face pink and shiny from the steam, but at least she was clean.
He glanced up at her and got to his feet with a smile. ‘Better now?’
‘Cleaner,’ she said wryly. ‘Is Jen looking after you?’
Jen was, she could see that. The teapot was on the table, and the packet of biscuits they’d been saving for visitors was largely demolished.
‘She’s been telling me all about you,’ he said, making her panic, but Jen just grinned and helped herself to another biscuit.
‘I’ve invited him to stay the night,’ she said airily, dunking it in her tea while Lydia tried not to panic yet again.
‘I haven’t said yes,’ he told her, his eyes laughing as he registered her reaction. ‘There’s a pub in the village with a sign saying they do rooms. I thought I might stay there.’
‘You can’t stay there. The pub’s awful!’ she said without thinking, and then could have kicked herself, because realistically there was nowhere else for miles.
She heard the door open, and the dogs came running in, tails wagging, straight up to him to check him out, and her mother was hard on their heels.
‘Darling? Oh!’
She stopped in the doorway, searched his face as he straightened up from patting the dogs, and started to smile. ‘Hello. I’m Maggie Fletcher, Lydia’s mother, and I’m guessing from the number plate on your car you must be her Italian knight in shining armour.’
He laughed and held out his hand. ‘Massimo Valtieri—but I’m not sure I’m any kind of a knight.’
‘Well, you rescued my daughter, so I’m very grateful to you.’
‘She hurt herself leaving my plane,’ he pointed out, ‘so really you should be throwing me out, not thanking me!’
‘Well, I’ll thank you anyway, for trying to get her there in time to win the competition. I always said it was a crazy idea.’
‘Me, too.’ He smiled, and Lydia ground her teeth. The last thing she needed was him cosying up to her mother, but it got worse.
‘I promised her some produce from the estate, and I thought, as I had a few days when I could get away, I’d deliver it in person. I’ll bring it in, if I may?’
‘Of course! How very kind of you.’
It wasn’t kind. It was an excuse to bribe her into going back there to feed the troops by dangling a carrot in front of her that he knew perfectly well she’d be unable to resist. Two carrots, really, because as well as Jen’s wedding, which was giving her the world’s biggest guilt trip, there was the problem of the aging and devoted Carlotta, who’d become her friend.
‘I’ll help you,’ she said hastily, following him out to the car so she could get him alone for a moment.
He was one step ahead of her, though, she realised, because as he popped the boot open, he turned to her, his face serious. ‘Before you say anything, I’m not going to mention it to your family. This is entirely your decision, and if you decline, I won’t say any more about it.’
Well, damn. He wasn’t even going to try to talk her into it! Which, she thought with a surge of disappointment, could only mean that he really wasn’t interested in picking up their relationship, and was going to leave it as it stood, as he’d said, with just that one night between them.
Not that she wanted him to do anything else. She really didn’t want to get involved with another man, not
