with a formidably upright bearing. ‘I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to see your villa and your art collection. There is a wonderful sketch in the archives at Castle Howard of one of your ancestors, drawn—’
‘By Leonardo. Yes, I have heard of it. Although sadly I have never seen it.’
Lily smiled at her. ‘I was given permission to photograph it so that I could show it to you.’
She was impressive, Marco acknowledged reluctantly. Not just in her knowledge of her subject but also in her manner—but how much of her was learned and how much the real woman? Not very much, he decided.
‘It will be interesting to compare it with the painting of my husband’s ancestor by Leonardo,’ the Duchess told Lily with a smile.
Normally Lily enjoyed this kind of occasion—the opportunity to talk with people who shared her interests and her love of Italian art—but today for some reason, after less than a couple of hours of mingling with the other guests, she developed the beginnings of a very painful pounding stress headache that made her feel slightly sick.
For some reason? She was supposed to be an intelligent woman. The reason for her tension was standing less than two yards away from her, and right now she could feel his gaze burning into her back. So the man running the project here in Italy was hostile to her and contemptuous of her—so what? She more than most people was adept at cocooning herself in her own private emotional and mental space and not allowing others to penetrate that space. Adept at it? She was an expert in it, Lily acknowledged wryly. In fact if there was a degree to be had in it she would have graduated first class with honours.
‘It will soon be time for us to leave.’
The sound of Marco’s voice from directly behind her had Lily almost choking on the sip of wine she had just taken. Not because she hadn’t heard him move—she had. She was acutely aware of every single move he made. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the warmth of his breath on the nape of her neck, where it was revealed by the soft knot of her drawn back hair. Was it just because he had caught her off-guard that she had felt the shower of tiny darts that had now brought her skin out in goosebumps? Goosebumps of delicious sensual pleasure?
Lily knew that it wasn’t. She wasn’t even going to begin question how it was that a person who had turned her back on the delights of sexual pleasure should immediately be able to recognise and understand that the degree of sensuality she had just experienced spoke of a vulnerability to the man who had caused it that went far beyond the norm of casual sexual attraction. Some questions were better not asked—especially by someone like her—when they involved someone like Marco.
When a man standing in a group to her right moved, accidentally nudging her arm and causing some of her wine to spill from her glass onto her bare skin, Lily was relieved—grateful, in fact, for the small incident. It distracted her attention and Marco’s far too perceptive and sharp gaze from her earlier involuntary shudder of delight.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the man apologised, telling a passing waiter, ‘We need a dry cloth, please.’
‘There’s no need…’ Lily began to say, but the words became locked in her throat as out of nowhere, or so it seemed, Marco himself produced a white cloth, which he placed on her damp arm. He ignored her panicky, ‘I can do it myself,’ just as he ignored her attempt to move away from him. Somehow he had taken possession of both her nearly empty glass, which he had placed on the tray of a hovering waiter, and her damp arm, his hand and his fingers lean and tanned against the white starched fabric of the cloth. He had good hands, Lily acknowledged. Strong artist’s hands. Hands with a powerful male grip that could crush a woman’s resistance to their hold should he feel it necessary.
A new quiver forked through her. Not on her flesh this time, but deep within it—a swift, tightening, convulsive sensation that gripped and then relaxed, leaving a far too intimate pulse beating in its place.
Lily was perfectly familiar with the outward signs of sexual arousal. After all she had seen models mimicking them in one form or another for as long as she could remember. Bitterly she recalled how when her father had finished working she would be pushed into the small boxroom off his studio whilst he ‘played’. Her father had been of that order of photographers in a certain era who had believed that having sex with models was one of the perks of the job. No, she was no stranger to the signs and sounds of physical arousal, both real and faked, male and female, but when it came to being familiar with her own sexual arousal… That was haunted, poisoned territory that had long ago become an empty wasteland and she didn’t go there. She didn’t want to go there.
Marco was releasing her.
‘It’s time for us to go,’ he told her. ‘The traffic to the airport will be heavy at this time of the day.’
‘The airport? We’re flying to Lake Como?’
She’d assumed that they’d be driving there.
‘By helicopter. It’s much the easier way to get there,’ Marco informed her, clapping his hands for silence so that he could announce their departure.
‘I was already looking forward to introducing you to Villa Ambrosia,’ the Duchess told Lily, coming over to say goodbye to her and holding both Lily’s hands in her own as she did so, in a gesture of genuine liking and approval. ‘But now that I have met you I am looking forward to it even more. She is a delightful girl, Marco,’ she added, turning to him. ‘Look after her well, won’t you?’
Of course Lily didn’t dare look at Marco once the Duchess had left them and they were on their own. The Duchess’s comment about his looking after her wouldn’t have gone down at all well, she suspected.
The museum official who had taken her case and insisted on wheeling it for her escorted them to their waiting car. It would be very easy to get used to such a pampered way of life, Lily thought, remembering ruefully how often she had ended up with an aching back from a bulging bag holding her laptop, her camera, and assorted other necessary paraphernalia for her work.
The traffic was heavy, but the insulated interior of the luxurious saloon car protected them from the fume-clogged air outside. A glass screen separated them from the driver, and the combination of that and the soft leather of their seats made Lily feel that they were isolated together in a space that was far too intimate.
Not that there was any intimacy between the two of them. Marco had produced his cell phone the minute the chauffeur had closed the door of the car, his brief, ‘Please excuse me,’ immediately distancing him from her. Because he wanted to be distanced from her? Of course he did. He despised her. Lily knew that was true, but she also knew that—like her—he had felt the startling electric connection that had burned into life between them the first time he had touched her. A connection that neither of them wanted.
Now Marco was putting his phone down and turning towards her.
‘Just before we left the reception the Duchess asked me if there was any chance that we might be able to spend a couple of nights at her villa as her guests. You obviously made a very big impression on her.’
The stiff hostility in his voice told Lily how little he liked telling her that.
‘I’ve just been checking through our schedule. It would be possible for us to extend the tour to include a short stay with her if you wish to do so.’
So he hadn’t been distancing himself from her. He had actually been working on her
