‘What I cannot understand,’ Raphael continued as she battled to force herself to concentrate on what he was saying and not what his touch was doing to her, ‘is why a woman—any woman—should want to conceal the beauty of the perfect form that nature has bestowed upon her with such ugly, concealing clothes.’
Distracted from her humiliation by the unexpectedness of his words, Charley struggled to assimilate them. Raphael was praising her body? Describing it as perfect? The body she had always felt so inferior? Her heart thudded against her ribs, making her dizzy with emotion. But wasn’t it more likely that he had simply meant that the female form in general was beautiful and perfect, rather than meaning her body in particular?
Shakily, Charley tried to pull herself away from him and turn round at the same time, but somehow all she managed to do was turn so that now she was face to face as well as body to body with Raphael, whilst his hands still held her hips. Automatically she looked up at him, her ability to breathe stifled by the way his probing gaze fastened on her mouth and stayed there. Immediately, as though commanded to do so, her lips parted, her breath coming quickly and urgently, lifting her chest in small unsteady movements. What would she do if he kissed her? She could feel his hands tightening against her body. What would it feel like to have them caressing her? Her whole body jolted as though it had received an electric shock so strong was its reaction to her own thoughts. She wanted to lean into him and offer herself to him. She wanted to curl her hand behind his head and bring his mouth down to her own. She wanted to feel his touch against her bare skin… She wanted…
Abruptly Raphael released her, and stepped back from her, leaving Charley to tell herself that she was glad that he had brought an end to her reckless and unwanted imaginings.
‘Very well, then,’ she told him, struggling for normality. ‘I’ll wear the jeans, but that’s all. I don’t need the jacket.’
Raphael had stepped into the shadow of the window and she couldn’t see his expression properly.
/> ‘It is over two hundred years since the garden fell into disrepair,’ he told her coolly. ‘Many parts of it are thick with overgrown plants. You will need the jacket to protect you from thorns. Now, I shall expect you to be downstairs and ready to accompany me to the garden in one hour’s time. Is that understood?’
Reluctantly Charley nodded her head.
As he walked down the corridor from Charlotte’s bedroom there was only one image in Raphael’s head, and one thought on his mind. The trouble was that the image and the thought were at war with one another. The image was that of Charlotte standing looking at him with defiant pride, her breasts rising and falling with the force of her emotions, her long legs going on for ever, making him ache to have them wrapped around his own body as the two of them lay together on the bed, her naked flesh warm and soft to his touch, her hands on his body, her mouth opening to his as he gave in to the aching need of his desire for her—a desire that in his imagination she shared and matched. He had never wanted a woman so much nor so illogically. Logically there was nothing about her that should have appealed to him—not physically, nor mentally, nor in any other way. His taste ran to soignée, elegant and mature women in their thirties, like him—women of the world, not fiercely passionate young women who dressed in ill-fitting clothes and upset and undermined a project of great personal importance to him. His mind told him that he should not want her, but his body told him equally powerfully that it did. In this instance, with something as important to him as the renovation of the garden at stake, it was what his mind was telling him that mattered, and it was on what his mind was telling him that he intended to focus.
Charley walked slowly over to the mirror and studied her reflection. Tentatively she touched her waist, and then, driven by an impulse she couldn’t control, she pulled off her clothes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had looked at her own naked body. How would she, when she normally avoided looking at it? It must be the sunlight that was giving her skin that soft glow, that sheen that said it wanted to be touched and admired. She lifted her own hand to her body, touching it as and where Raphael had done, trying to see it with his eyes, and then tensing. What was she doing? Wasn’t the situation difficult enough for her already, without her adding even more potential discomfort to it?
She looked at the bedroom door, reminding herself that she didn’t have much time to get downstairs if she was to keep to the schedule Raphael had given her.
Ten minutes later Charley looked down at the jeans she was wearing. They were a perfect fit—a far better fit and a far better cut than the ones she had been wearing, their slim shape emphasising the length of her legs and clinging to her hips.
She was also wearing the new tee shirt and the leather jacket, its fabric soft against her fingertips. When she’d looked at herself in the bedroom’s full-length mirror she’d been caught off guard by the difference the new clothes made to her appearance. Even the hair clouding round her face looked different. Her reflection was more feminine somehow—but of course that was impossible. She was seeing what she wanted to see because of the way she felt about Raphael. Because, foolishly and dangerously, she wanted him.
Angry with herself, she used the dark brown ribbon that had been wrapped round the tissue-folded clothes to tie back her hair. She couldn’t stay up here any longer. If she did Raphael might come and look for her—or was that what she secretly wanted? No! Grabbing her shoulder bag, she headed for the door.
Almost the second she stepped off the final marble stair and into the hallway the door to Raphael’s office opened and he came out, acknowledging her presence with the briefest nod before heading for the open double doors through which the sunlight was streaming.
What had she been expecting? Charley asked herself as she lengthened her own stride to follow him. That he would make a comment about the way she looked? A flattering comment? She was far too sensible for that kind of silliness, and the slightly leaden feeling inside her chest cavity was not disappointment, but merely the effect of eating a cold croissant, Charley told herself firmly.
Raphael had already reached the Ferrari, and was holding open the passenger door for her, closing it firmly once she was in the passenger seat without having looked directly at her or even spoken to her.
She felt the car depress slightly as Raphael got in and started up the engine. The warmth of the sun had released the scent of the leather interior, along with a more subtle scent which her senses recognised as belonging to Raphael.
It didn’t take them long to reach the outskirts of the town. The ruins of a medieval castle and its curtain wall, the ancient stone painted soft rose by the sun as they approached it across a flat agricultural plain filled with crops and livestock, were etched against the skyline. A single tower, ruined and roofless, pointed up towards the clouds.
‘What happened to the castle?’ Charley couldn’t resist asking Raphael.
‘It and the town were attacked and put under siege by a more powerful force than my ancestor had at his command. Fortunately he had friends who came to his aid and drove the attackers back, saving the town and the lives of my ancestors, but not the castle. It was as a result of that attack that the then duke decided to build a new home for himself, away from the town.’
Charley nodded her head as they drove into the town through an arched gateway in the medieval wall.
Ancient buildings leaned into one another as though for support on either side of the narrow cobbled street, and splashes of sunshine where it was intersected by another street turned the paving soft gold. High above their heads Charley could see lines of washing, and here and there a heavy wooden door was open to reveal a glimpse of a private courtyard basking in the sunlight.
She could smell fresh-baked bread, olive oil and herbs coming from the baskets of a group of elderly women dressed in black with faces seamed like walnuts, standing talking outside what was obviously a bakers, and then they were out of the narrow street and in the town square—the Piazza Grande.
In the centre of the square was an ornate fountain, and opposite the town hall there was what was obviously a market area, although there were no stalls on it today, so that she had a clear view of the pedestal topped by a life-size statue of an eagle.
‘The eagle is part of our family emblem,’ Raphael told her, following the direction of her glance. ‘There is a legend that our land here in Tuscany was originally given to a Roman legionnaire who fought for Caesar and saved his life. This ancestor then adopted the Imperial Eagle from his legion’s standard into his personal arms.’
Charley tried not to look as entranced as she felt. Imagine having that kind of lore as part of your personal family history. Had the mother Raphael had lost taken him on her lap and told him stories about his family’s past? An ache of sadness filled her as she thought of her own childhood. It had been such a terrible time for them all when their parents had died—especially when they had learned that the lovely vicarage in which they had been brought up was heavily mortgaged, and that their parents had no savings nor any life insurance which might have eased their orphaned daughters’ financial position.
The traffic had cleared and they were now travelling down another narrow street, and then through another archway in the town’s wall. Charley gripped the sides of her seat as Raphael changed gear and the sports car surged forward.
The hard look he gave her derided her timidity as he told her, ‘I don’t know what kind of men you normally share a car with, but I can assure you that I am not the kind of driver who over-estimates his skill or takes foolish risks.’
‘I’m not used to such a powerful car.’ Or such a powerful man? Charley looked away from Raphael’s face, only to realise that her gaze was slipping helplessly over the tanned flesh to his wrist as he manoeuvred the gear lever. Her foolish imagination was painting vivid images inside her head of Raphael’s hand on her body. A surge of self-conscious heat burned through her. Why was he able to have such an effect on her? It had never happened before with any other man, and she didn’t want it happening now. She could all too easily picture the mixture of arrogant disdain and mockery with which he would look at her if he knew what she was feeling. Her, a clumsy, unfeminine woman, untutored in the arts of feminine seduction, ill equipped to please a man of his undoubted experience? He would no doubt reject her desire for him with haughty contempt.