LITMIR.BIZ

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who needed to liquidate some of their assets, then creating enough excitement and intrigue about those paintings and sculptures so they not only found a welcoming new home, but he was paid a fortune for rehoming them. At least one of these things was always at the back of his mind at all times and usually more to the forefront than the recesses, yet in that carriage, on that short road between one house and another, it had only been him and her.

      It had been a truly unforgettable kiss. One which, if he were honest with himself, had caught him off guard and left him decidedly off kilter. Enough to leave the area quickly in case he was tempted to do it again. Such an unexpected and unforeseen reaction was far too complicated to indulge further and Pietro avoided complications like the plague.

      ‘What are you doing here!’

      ‘I live here.’

      ‘You do?’ Her voice came out in a delightfully outraged squeak as she simultaneously realised her shawl wasn’t entirely covering her modesty and wrestled with it ineffectually.

      He nodded, his mouth curving into a smile for the first time that day. ‘Which begs the obvious question, cara…what are you doing here?’

      ‘I am here with my late husband’s cousin…with Lady Alexandra…we’ve come to stay with Carlotta…’

      ‘Ah…’ Instinct told him this was no accident. It had the stamp of his sister all over it. She despaired of his quarter-century of bachelorhood, declaring it unnatural—especially as he had been widowed so young. ‘And she put you in this room?’ Conveniently located right next to his in the family wing. Much too coincidental to be coincidence.

      ‘Do you know Carlotta? Silly question…of course you know Carlotta if you live in her house…’

      ‘Actually, this is my house.’

      ‘It is?’ She didn’t look very happy about this news, her dark eyebrows drawing together to create a charming wrinkle between them. ‘Lady Alexandra led me to believe this is her friend’s house. Carlotta’s house.’

      ‘Carlotta moved in here after her husband died three years ago. To bother me. Something she does very well. My little sister has always liked to meddle.’ And matchmake. Although she was usually more subtle about it.

      ‘Your sister?’

      ‘They never told you?’

      ‘No…neither she nor my dear cousin thought to tell me that my host was her brother… Or that we had met.’ Her eyes flicked to his lips again before she caught herself and forced them to hold his gaze. He bothered her. The knowledge warmed him until he reminded himself he should probably be more wary than warmed. Mrs Fairclough was a widow. He was a widower. Carlotta and Alexandra had conspired to put her in the room next door to him, thrust directly in the path of temptation, when there were another twenty serviceable bedchambers in the palazzo well away from his.

      ‘Clearly they both like to meddle, as I suspect you have been brought here on purpose, Mrs Fairclough.’ It didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on. Alexandra must have reported back straight after Christmas, eager to tell his sister he had shown an interest in a woman and Carlotta being Carlotta, she had assumed it meant more than it did and had thought to encourage it. ‘To matchmake, perhaps?’ Unless the woman before him was in league with them. She wouldn’t be the first to assume he was in need of a wife and, as he had instigated their kiss, she might well assume she could be the one to tempt him to abandon his bachelor ways…

      ‘Well, if they did, I can assure you it has nothing to do with me! I would have put them straight and told them I wasn’t the least bit interested in such nonsense.’

      A vehement and convincing denial which needed testing. In his experience, nobody manipulated better than a woman, especially a woman with a mission. ‘Yet here you are… Right next door to my bedchamber…’ His eyes appreciatively travelled the length of her, settling on the bare toes poking beneath the hem of her dress and back up again to the blush which now stained her delicate collarbone, swanlike neck and the alabaster cheeks his fingers suddenly ached to touch—despite all his rampant suspicions. ‘Looking decidedly interesting.’

      ‘I was about to get into the bath.’ In her embarrassment, her teeth worried her plump bottom lip, drawing his eyes there as she clutched at her shawl like a shield. ‘Your servants brought me the wrong trunk by mistake. Mine must be with Lady Alexandra.’ As if noticing her bare toes for the first time, she twisted her feet awkwardly to hide them under the copious material of her skirt. ‘I was fetching my soap.’

      ‘I can fetch it for you—and perhaps help to scrub your back?’

      His outrageous flirting had the most wonderful effect. Her green eyes sparkled like emeralds and she threw back her shoulders like an offended queen. Something which did wonders for her full bosom beneath the thin shawl. ‘No, thank you.’

      ‘If you change your mind…’

      ‘I won’t!’ She spun on her bare heel and marched back to her bedchamber, slamming the door loudly, and he found himself frowning as he heard her turn the key decisively in the lock.

      A woman determined to seduce a man would have flirted back, not shut him out. She would have parried and simpered and used all her feminine wiles to lure him into her trap. Mrs Fairclough had been offended and angry. Much too keen to get out of his way. Exactly like a woman who was as surprised and horrified to see him as he was her.

      Pietro winced at his own crassness.

      What was the matter with him to be so unforgivably rude? He was prone to cynicism and who could blame him? But thanks to the restlessness which continually ate away at him, he was in danger of becoming too cynical and jaded. And perhaps too vain and arrogant in his appeal, if he was assuming she had purposely been patrolling the hallway in a state of partial undress simply to meet him and seduce him—when there was no possible way she could have known he would come back when he had. In fact, he had told his sister he would not be home that night as he had a longstanding meeting with an old friend in Napoli he could not possibly cancel.

      The old friend had really been one of his stalwarts, the American widow Mrs Ida Wayfair, whose house was but a stone’s throw from here. But like the paintings he bought and sold, he kept his affairs ruthlessly discreet. In public he was widely known as a charmer—but was careful nobody knew which of the women’s beds he actually visited.

      Ida had an insatiable physical appetite, a liberal attitude in the bedroom and the same strict views on any sort of serious, emotional and permanent attachment as he had. She was also very discreet—something he liked her a great deal for. Except the thought of slipping between Ida’s well-used sheets again hadn’t been enough to tempt him from feeling sorry for himself this evening, and he had cancelled. Then taken his frustration at his own dissatisfaction and bad mood out on Carlotta’s unexpected guest because the sight of her had unnerved him.

      Again.

      She hadn’t deserved that.

      He would apologise to her later for being crass and for offending her delicate sensibilities with his outrageous and indelicate flirting. He never usually behaved so clumsily—especially if he found the lady as attractive as he did in this case. Usually, Pietro prided himself on being a charming flirt, who enjoyed the subtle art of seducing as much as the ultimate seduction itself.

      He wasn’t entirely sure what had just come over him, but knew he had to make amends. She was a guest in his house and of his sister’s. He shouldn’t be shamelessly flirting with her for exactly those two reasons. Firstly, it was a point of principal to never dally with any friends of the family, because it was much too close to home for comfort. And secondly, he never ever dallied at home because it was much too personal. He might use the house as a way to seduce them, but he would never seduce them in it. The only person who had ever slept in his bed here in the palazzo was him and that was the way he intended to keep things.

      He could leave a strange bed at exactly the time of his choosing, which was always before the

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