Behind the Castello Doors (11 page)

‘Its leg is cut,’ she noted worriedly, seeing blood on the dog.

‘A flesh wound.’ Cesario gave the animal a cursory inspection. ‘Set it down and I expect it will find its way back to its owner.’

He frowned when Beth turned her almond-shaped eyes on him and gave him a look that seemed to imply he was as callous as a mass-murderer.

‘I’m not going to abandon the poor creature—although I suspect its owner might have done,’ she said regretfully. ‘It looks half starved.’

‘
It
is a he.’ Cesario studied the dog’s matted coat. ‘And he’s certainly not the most attractive dog I’ve ever seen.’

‘Just because he isn’t beautiful is no reason not to give him a home,’ Beth said fiercely, thinking of all the times she had been disappointed not to have been chosen by foster parents when she had lived in the children’s home. ‘Please can we take him back to the castle? I’m sure Filomena will allow him to stay in the kitchens—at least until his leg is healed. I’ll pay for his food.’

Cesario muttered a curse beneath his breath and strode over to his horse. For all her elfin fragility Beth was incredibly determined—and deeply compassionate, he brooded as he watched her tenderly stroke the ugly dog.

‘We need to get out of the rain before we drown,’ he growled. Not giving her the chance to argue, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her and the dog up onto the saddle. She was soaked to the skin and shivering. ‘Take these for a second,’ he ordered, dropping the reins into
her hand while he shrugged out of his coat and draped it around her shoulders.

The leather coat still retained the heat from Cesario’s body, and the lingering male scent of him teased Beth’s senses. ‘I’m already wet. It doesn’t make sense for you to get soaked too,’ she mumbled, but received an impatient look.

‘In the space of forty-eight hours you’ve turned my life upside down and landed me with a baby and a flea-bitten mutt. The last thing I need now is for you to catch pneumonia,’ Cesario told her grimly before he hooked his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up onto the horse’s back behind her.

When they reached the castle ten minutes later, Cesario rode round to the stables, dismounted and lifted Beth down, gritting his teeth when her slender body briefly brushed against him. He bitterly resented his overwhelming awareness of her. Clearly he’d gone too long without sex, he thought sardonically. In Rome there were a number of women he could call—casual mistresses who understood he was not in the market for commitment and who would be happy to satisfy his libido knowing that he would be a generous lover in return.

Taking the dog, he strode into an empty horse box and set it down in the straw. The cut on its leg was not too deep, and while he cleaned the wound Beth knelt beside him and stroked the animal’s head to keep it calm.

‘Do you think he’ll be okay? Poor creature. He must have been so frightened in the trap,’ she said softly.

Her innate gentleness touched something deep inside Cesario. He stared at her pale fingers as she fondled the dog’s ears and imagined her touching
him
, caressing his naked flesh and encircling his manhood with those delicate
white hands. Her hair smelled of rain and the faint scent of lemons. His eyes were drawn lower, and through her wet blouse he could see the outline of her dusky pink nipples.

He swallowed and said roughly, ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. I’ll tell the groom to give him plenty of food.’

‘Thank you.’ Her shy smile caused a cramping sensation in Cesario’s gut. But then her expression became anxious. ‘I must get back to Sophie. I’ve been out for ages and she’s bound to be awake by now.’

‘She was crying before I came to look for you. But after I fed her she settled and seemed happy enough when I left her with Filomena,’ Cesario told her.

‘
You
fed her?’ Beth chewed on her lip. ‘Was she all right? I mean, she’s only used to me, and.’

‘She didn’t choke when I gave her a bottle of formula, if that’s what you mean,’ Cesario said dryly. ‘I’m quite capable of caring for a baby. I used to regularly feed my son.’

‘You must miss your little boy.’

He stiffened at Beth’s gentle comment. ‘I think of him every day,’ he admitted roughly.

To his relief she did not offer the unhelpful platitude that time was a great healer, as so many people did when they learned that he had lost a child. Instead, she tentatively reached out and placed her hand over his as they knelt on the stable floor next to the stray dog, and her silence soothed his ragged soul far more than meaningless words of sympathy.

‘I miss Mel terribly,’ she said at last. ‘I feel so sad that she’s not here to watch Sophie grow up.’ She sighed. ‘I still miss my mum, too, even though she’s been dead for twelve years.’

‘You said she was ill for a long time?’

Beth nodded. ‘She was diagnosed with MS when I was about five, and as her condition degenerated she wasn’t able to walk and was confined to a wheelchair. She never complained, though, she just tried to get on with life. But it can’t have been easy. My father had to give up work to look after her, so we didn’t have much money. Mum used to get upset that I had to miss out on things like birthday parties and school trips.’

Cesario glanced at her curiously. ‘You told me you became friends with Melanie Stewart when you lived in a children’s home. Is your father dead too?’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘He … went away. He had an affair with another woman and left Mum and me to move in with his girlfriend.’

‘Dio!’
Cesario did not know how to respond. As a boy he had been devastated when his mother had left the castle to be with her lover, but his feeling of abandonment was nothing compared to how Beth had surely felt at her father’s callous behaviour.

‘Who took care of your mother after he left?’

‘I did, for a while. I didn’t mind,’ Beth assured him. ‘I wanted to stay with Mum. But when her MS got worse she had to go into a specialist nursing home and she died soon after. Social Services asked my dad if I could live with him, but he had decided to emigrate to Australia with his new partner and didn’t want me.’ She gave a casual shrug, hoping to disguise the hurt she had felt at her father’s rejection. ‘That’s when I went into care.’

She lifted her head and met Cesario’s gaze. ‘I don’t have a great opinion of fathers. I thought you wouldn’t want Sophie—just as my father didn’t want me—and I only came to Sardinia because I promised Mel I would search
for you. I don’t want your money,’ she continued fiercely. ‘Even if the test proves that you are Sophie’s father I don’t expect anything from you. All I want is to be a mother to her.’

Beth pictured Sophie’s sweet little face and she felt an ache of longing to hold the baby in her arms. She had only been away from Sophie for an hour, and already she missed her. What must it be like for Cesario to live every day missing his little boy? she thought. No wonder he seemed so grim. She understood only too well that grief felt like a lead weight inside. Most nights she still shed tears for Mel. But she sensed that Cesario kept his emotions locked deep in his heart, and his way of dealing with his pain was to ignore it.

The dog was lying quietly and appeared to be comfortable. After tucking more straw around it, Beth stood up and hurried over to the stable door. ‘I must get back. I’ve been away from Sophie for far too long.’

Cesario also got to his feet. ‘Dinner will be at eight again tonight. Teodoro will come to the nursery to escort you to the dining room.’

A shudder ran through Beth as she recalled the bitter confrontation that had taken place between them the previous evening. She was ashamed to remember how excited she had felt when she’d changed into her only nice dress in preparation for having dinner with Cesario. But he had shattered her silly romantic fantasy when he had accused her of being a thief while she had worked at Devington Hall.

She paused in the doorway and turned back to him. ‘I would prefer to eat in the nursery tonight. If Filomena is too busy to serve my dinner upstairs I’ll pop down to the kitchen and make a sandwich.’

Cool grey eyes trapped her gaze. ‘Be ready for eight o’clock, Beth,’ he murmured, in a pleasant voice that held an underlying hint of steel. ‘Or I’ll come and fetch you.’

His arrogance was infuriating. She felt an uncharacteristic spurt of temper and opened her mouth to argue, but the warning gleam in his eyes made her reconsider and she chose to walk away in dignified silence.

Her faithful grey skirt was beyond repair, Beth discovered later, after she had bathed and fed Sophie and settled her in her cot. She was trying to decide what to wear to dinner. Her green dress was out of the question—after the way Cesario had humiliated her last night she doubted she would ever wear it again. Her only other choice was her black skirt, which was even older than the grey one and several inches too long. Fortunately her relatively new navy blouse had been laundered and returned to her wardrobe by Carlotta. It couldn’t be helped that she looked as though she was attending a funeral. She did not want Cesario to think she had dressed to impress him, she reminded herself, as she pulled her hair back from her face and secured it in a tight knot on top of her head.

Teodoro was waiting for her when she stepped out of the nursery, and as she followed him down the stairs she was conscious of her heart thumping erratically beneath her ribs. Just as on the previous evening, Cesario was already in the dining room, looking dangerously sexy in tailored black trousers and a white silk shirt open at the throat to reveal a vee of olive-gold skin and a smattering of black hairs that Beth knew from the night of the landslide covered his chest and arrowed down over his abdomen.

She felt a rush of nervousness when Teodoro left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone
with the enigmatic master of the Castello del Falco. She wished he would speak, or give one of his rare smiles, but he subjected her to a silent, intent scrutiny, his eyes lingering on the pulse thudding at the base of her throat.

‘Did you think you could hide your beauty from me by dressing like a nun?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Or were you hoping that your drab attire would quash my desire for you? If so, you were mistaken.’ He reached out a hand, and before Beth realised his intention he released the clip that secured her chignon so that her hair tumbled in a stream of brown silk down her back.

‘How dare you?’
Her shocked response died on her lips as he slid his hand beneath her hair and cupped her nape, exerting gentle force to draw her inexorably closer to him. His eyes glittered like tensile steel, but she recognised the savage hunger in their depths and trembled as the memory of how he had kissed her in the rain flooded her mind.

All the time she had been bathing and playing with Sophie after she had returned to the castle she had determinedly not allowed herself to think about the wild passion that had exploded between her and Cesario. But now, as she stared at his hard-boned face, she was consumed by a primitive urgency for him to crush her against his chest and claim her mouth with fierce possession.

As his head slowly lowered she held her breath. She trembled with longing to feel his lips slide over hers, for his tongue to probe between them, demanding access to the moist interior of her mouth. Mindlessly, she swayed towards him, but to her shame and dismay he stiffened and jerked his head back, as if he was determined to fight the sexual alchemy that smouldered between them.

‘Let’s eat,’ he said curtly, and he stepped away from her and held out a chair for her to sit down at the table.
‘Filomena has left food on the hot-plate so that we can serve ourselves. What would you like to drink?’

‘Lemonade, please.’ Somehow Beth managed to make her voice sound normal and act as if she was unaffected by Cesario, even though inside she was shaking with reaction to him. She could not risk drinking wine tonight, when it was imperative she keep a clear head, she thought desperately.

She ate the starter of fish soup without fully appreciating its delicate flavour. To follow, Cesario served her a plate of round-shaped pasta, similar to ravioli, which Beth discovered was filled with potato and mint and was accompanied by a tomato and basil sauce.

‘The dish is called
sa fregula
and is a traditional Sardinian recipe,’ he explained, when she tasted the pasta and commented on its delicious flavour. He took a sip of his red wine and glanced across the table at her. ‘Teodoro told me you were asking him about the history of the castle?’

Relieved that their conversation seemed to be avoiding her personal life, Beth nodded. ‘It’s such a fascinating place. How old did you say it is?’

‘The original building dates back to the thirteenth century. Over time it was extended, and in more recent years modern additions such as electricity and a better plumbing system were installed. I imagine my ancestors did not bathe very often when water had to be drawn from the well and carried to the bedchambers on the upper floors of the castle,’ he said, amusement glinting in his eyes.

He went on to tell her more about the history of the Castello del Falco, and Beth gradually relaxed, intrigued by his stories and seduced by his deep, accented voice that caressed her senses like velvet against her skin.

‘It’s amazing to think of people living here hundreds of years ago,’ she murmured, surprised to realise that while she had been listening to him she had eaten the whole plate of food he had served her.

‘The Nuragic civilisation is known to have lived on Sardinia much longer ago than mere hundreds of years,’ he said, handing her a cup of coffee. ‘The landscape is dotted with more than seven thousand ancient stone structures called Nuraghi. Archaeologists believe they were built round about the fifteenth century BC and they are thought to have been homesteads of communities who lived in the Bronze Age.’

Beth’s eyes widened. ‘And the buildings are still standing today? I’d love to see them.’

‘Many have become ruins over time, of course, but the basic structures remain. There is a settlement called Serra Orrios close to Oliena, at Dorgali, and also an ancient tomb called the Giant’s Grave of Thomes which, as the name suggests, is believed to have been a burial chamber.’ His smile held genuine warmth at her enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps there will be time while you are staying here for you to visit Dorgali.’