Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
Well, she had told Alessio, Rosy reminded herself drowsily as she collapsed into a bed that felt deflatingly empty all of a sudden. It was not as though she actually wanted him in the bed with her—oh, dear, no—but it was the way he had withdrawn that intimacy with that bred-in-the-bone pride of his that had outraged her. He had had no right. Either he was her husband, or he was not. She wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t tolerate half-measures or his habit of moving forward two steps and then stepping back again, leaving her alone and uncertain in unknown territory feeling like an idiot, a fool, who should never have allowed such liberties.
The door creaked open, pausing her on the brink of sleep, and she froze, light from the landing highlighting Alessio, clad only in a pair of boxers. Her eyes widened at the large expanse of lean bronzed muscularity on view.
‘I am one hundred per cent committed to this marriage,’ Alessio gritted.
‘Er…right.’ Rosy fumbled for something to say because he had taken her by surprise. ‘It just seemed rather insulting the way you took yourself off and then oddly coincidental when Graziana phoned and told you that her marriage hadn’t been consummated either…not, er, that I’m up for that tonight,’ she muttered awkwardly. ‘I’m far too tired and cross with you.’
Alessio dealt her a lazily amused grin and vaulted onto the other side of the bed. ‘It’s actually not the norm for us to share the same bedroom, interconnecting rooms, yes, but not the same bed, and I assumed that you would prefer —’
‘Yes, well, stop assuming stuff, just ask,’ Rosy said with a sniff, still reeling from that heartbreaking smile of his.
‘And I didn’t want to risk getting you pregnant before you’d decided that you were staying.’
Rosy stiffened. ‘You couldn’t get me pregnant. I’ve been on the pill since university.’
‘But accidents still happen and, if I can avoid it, I will not have any child of mine growing up with divided parents.’
Rosy sighed. ‘You’re just a little paranoid because of your background. Nobody knows if they’ve got for ever together. One of us could drop dead next year.’
‘ Madonna mia… I seriously hope not,’ Alessio incised with amusement.
‘Or, eventually, one of us could decide they can’t stand the other…who knows? Nobody knows. That’s the point. There are no guarantees,’ she countered.
‘Go to sleep, piccola volpe . It will all look much less intimidating in the morning.’
* * *
Rosy wakened at the crack of dawn and for the first time felt rested and more like herself. The royal wedding and all the changes and the surprises dealt by Alessio had taken more out of her than she had realised. She crept out of bed, careful not to wake Alessio. Black hair dark against the pale pillow, ridiculously long lashes lying against his cheekbones, he looked younger, less guarded, relaxed. But still utterly gorgeous with that classic bone structure and perfect physique.
Freshening up, she put on shorts and a top and left the room, only to find lights still burning everywhere, and she frowned as she went round switching them off. Alessio wasn’t used to being without staff and she supposed that that was why the ordinary tasks of life could irritate him when he saw her doing them. But Rosy, cheerfully clearing the dining room and returning the kitchen to its former spick and span status, was in her element. She liked jobs completed, preferred order in her surroundings and could only relax once that order was restored.
She brought in the basket of pastries and other perishables from the porch and packed it away before deciding to enjoy an early morning walk in the sunshine. The sky was a blissful blue without a cloud in sight but the tree canopy kept the temperature cool. She reached the stream, which was still quite flooded from the storm, and that was when she heard a cry. An animal cry? She wasn’t sure and she frowned, scanning the banks, and then the island of flotsam that the storm had sent down the mountain. A tangle of broken branches nudged the bank and there was something made of cloth in it, something…moving.
It was the work of a moment to kick off her shoes on the bank and she was about to step into the water when a voice hailed her from the opposite bank.
‘Don’t go into the water! It’s slippery and dangerous, Your Highness.’
Startled, she glanced up and saw one of the palace protection team and then the little cry came again. ‘There’s something in that sack… I think,’ she said, flinching only for a second as the cold water froze her bare toes.
There was a splash and she glanced up in dismay as the security guard jumped down into the water fully clothed to stop her in her headlong flight to take care of the matter. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry…now you’ve got your shoes wet,’ she groaned, guilty that she had been stubborn and had not foreseen that he would see it as his job to go into the water for her.
He waded across the stream towards her, holding the dripping sack. As he shook it open on the bank, a snuffly little black and white spotty snout emerged.
‘My goodness, it’s a puppy…’ Sticking her feet back into her shoes, Rosy knelt down on the bank and carefully lifted the little animal that had crept out of the sack, shivering and dripping.
‘The rest of the litter weren’t so lucky,’ her companion told her with regret. ‘I’ll see that they’re buried.’
Realising that the pups had been tossed in the stream to drown, Rosy flinched, but it was a fact of life that such things still happened to unwanted puppies. She held the quivering puppy against her.
‘This river runs for miles. We’ll never trace where they came from.’
‘I’ll take her back to the house, warm her up,’ Rosy said with determination. ‘And I’m sorry you’ve got all wet just doing your job and looking after me.’
‘I’m off duty now anyway, Your Highness. I’m heading back straight to bed.’
She thanked him again and hurried back to the cabin to grab a towel and strive to warm up the little animal. She was in the midst of that exercise when Alessio joined her.
‘Who’s this?’ he asked, kneeling down beside her.
‘I’m going to call her Clover and we’re keeping her.’ She took a deep breath and rushed into explaining about the stream and the sack, tears stinging her eyes as she mentioned those who had not survived.
‘Why Clover?’
‘Lucky four-leafed clover,’ she said chokily.
‘I’ll call a vet to take a look at her. She’s not a newborn, so it was particularly cruel to try and get rid of them like that,’ he breathed, vaulting back upright as she cuddled the puppy to use his phone. ‘But unfortunately, people either don’t want or can’t afford to pay the vet fees.’
Clover snuffled over to the water in a saucer on the floor and promptly fell in it while Rosy hovered over her.
‘Did you have any pets when you were growing up?’
‘No, my mother wouldn’t have any animals in the palace and my grandmother was allergic to pet fur, so it’s been many years since there’s been a royal pet.’
‘We couldn’t have one because my father didn’t like them and then Vittoria and Patrick were always working, so it would’ve been difficult.’
Alessio was on the phone talking and Rosy coaxed the pup to drink the water, wondering what on earth would be safe to feed it. Deciding to wait for the vet’s advice, because Alessio appeared to be having a great chat with the person, she busied herself instead making breakfast. The coffee from the machine was a delight and she bit into a fresh pastry with pleasure. As soon as Alessio completed the call, he had to answer another and she nudged a coffee mug into his hand and he smiled, taking a seat at the table and stretching out his long denim-clad legs. Then his smile vanished and he frowned darkly.
‘Once the vet has passed the puppy for travel, we’ll be leaving. There are drones flying over the cove and a boat out in the bay so we won’t get any peace. It was too much to hope that everyone involved in the work yesterday would keep quiet about our location,’ Alessio commented. ‘On the other hand, the necessary work can be continued as soon as we leave and we can return for a weekend when all this fuss has died down.’
‘I’ll be sad to leave,’ Rosy confided. ‘I just hope we can bring Clover with us.’
‘If we can’t, the vet will look after her until we return,’ Alessio pointed out.
‘You’ll have to replace the shoes the security guy was wearing when he jumped into the stream,’ she warned him. ‘I was planning to do it myself and he only went in to stop me from doing it. I’ll be more careful in future.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. You’ve got a headstrong streak.’
‘And you have an extravagant streak,’ Rosy was quick to say. ‘You left all the lights on when you went to bed!’
His clear green eyes danced with appreciation at the reproof. ‘Duly noted, piccola moglie .’
‘I do sound like a nag, don’t I?’ she said in embarrassment.
‘No, you don’t. You sound like someone who regularly forgets who I am and what that means in this country. It’s good for me to have an equal shooting me down. It’s a breath of fresh air in my world.’
The vet arrived, a tall, shapely woman in her thirties, utterly charmed by Alessio and fascinated by the sight of Rosy making her coffee. Clover was thoroughly examined and identified as a crossbreed with the long floppy ears and rough speckled coat of a Spinone and, probably, some other hunting breed. However, she wasn’t healthy enough for travel and would have to remain under veterinary supervision. The vet had brought puppy food and a pet carrier box with her and Clover ate like a champion before subsiding into a doze on Rosy’s lap.
‘She’s landed on her feet here,’ the vet joked as she gathered her belongings to leave and Alessio followed her with Clover secured in the carrier box.
Sad that she had had to part with her new pet almost as soon as she had found her, Rosy went upstairs to start packing, dragging out cases and sighing as she piled stuff on the bed.
‘Dress up for the airport,’ Alessio warned her. ‘There’ll be cameras there to record our first public appearance since the wedding.’
* * *
The crush at the airport and the amount of security, including police, that shepherded them from their car indoors unnerved Rosy. Her spine was rigid while Alessio maintained a light hand at her back to keep her moving. Cameras flashed and the air was thick with shouted questions. She had never in her life felt quite so much on public show and ensuring that nothing other than a polite smile crossed her face was a distinct challenge. Boarding the opulent private jet was a relief and when it shot into the sky, the relief was even stronger.
‘Is it always like that?’ she asked, lying back in her reclining seat with a pile of new magazines beside her and a long, cold drink clasped in her weak hand.
‘Yes, that’s our norm,’ Alessio confirmed. ‘Eventually you just switch off and think nothing of it.’
Rosy was leafing through the magazines only to immediately pause when she saw Graziana’s beautiful face obscuring half the front page. Without hesitation, she went straight to that article, given, she noted, when Graziana was in New York. Reading it made her heart sink and her teeth grind. It was sugary sweet right down to the number of times the Princess of Eboltz had to pause to dry her tears and sip her water. Overwhelmed by the pressure of the royal wedding and insecure about the bridegroom’s commitment to her, Graziana explained, she had simply panicked and run away with a ‘good friend’ on her protection team, who had ‘insisted’ on marrying her before they took that ‘unwise’ step. She made herself sound like a little girl without agency of her own and only discreetly mentioned her hope of being granted an annulment of her marriage.
Drawing in a deep breath, Rosy tossed the magazine into Alessio’s lap. ‘I’ve already read it,’ he admitted, setting the magazine on the seat next him. ‘Our PR team is very efficient.’
‘She threw you under the bus!’ Rosy proclaimed. ‘She’s hinting that you and I had something going on before she ran off!’
Alessio shrugged a broad shoulder with a maddening air of nonchalance. ‘That was to be expected.’
‘Expected?’ Rosy erupted angrily.
‘She’s only inferring what others have been too delicate to comment on,’ Alessio reasoned with outrageous cool. ‘The suggestion that we were carrying on some illicit affair during my engagement to her—’
Rosy was so vexed by that news that she jerked upright in her recliner and pressed it down, her blue eyes shaded violet with resentment. ‘How dare she?’ she seethed furiously. ‘How dare anyone think that about us?’
Alessio rested glittering green eyes on her, his surprise at her attitude unhidden. ‘But surely you realised that people would think that.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Rosy admitted grittily.
‘It makes more sense that prior to the wedding you and I had, at the very least, an attraction to each other and at worst were involved in an affair.’
‘But it trashes my reputation!’ Rosy interrupted angrily. ‘I wouldn’t have got involved with a man on the brink of marrying another woman.’
‘What does it matter what other people think, Rosy?’ Alessio parried with rich cynicism. ‘The great majority were simply happy that when Graziana fled, you and I were able to step in and still deliver the wedding and that elusive promise of happy ever after.’
Rosy pursed her lips and said nothing because she was unwilling to say anything more. She had no control over Graziana, any more than he had, and no way of silencing gossiping tongues. So, her reputation had been destroyed, but what was a reputation as such in this day and age, she reasoned with herself, striving to cool down.
‘Let it go,’ Alessio urged with assurance. ‘Graziana will do and say whatever she feels she has to in an effort to redeem her public image and since, mercifully, I am not the guy who had to marry her, I intend to ignore her. Her father has cut her off from her trust fund and she is desperate to reclaim his approval by any means within her power. I would imagine that as soon as that annulment is granted, Graziana will marry some important power broker to please her father.’
Thinking about all that, Rosy relaxed back into her seat and set the magazines aside, lest they contain any further interviews with the Princess of Eboltz, guaranteed to boil her blood through her veins. It was past time she wised up, a little voice warned her at the back of her mind. Possibly, she was getting too big for her boots. She was the wife Alessio had bought with cold, hard cash. What axe did she have to grind with such a background to their royal marriage? The fact that that money had gone to her family, rather than her personally, was not relevant. She needed to remember that she was a humble art restorer and not a genuine wife. She couldn’t do anything about the reality that some would believe that she had been sleeping with Alessio while he was engaged.
Life was tough that way, giving with one hand, taking with the other. Would she even want to turn the clock fully back? Return to her old life? Never ever have been a woman whom Alessio Maretti kissed? A little zing scorched through her pelvis as she looked at her husband, the Prince, rejoiced in that perfect profile of his, the fall of his tousled black hair as he worked at his laptop and chatted in Spanish on the phone. No, she fancied the socks off him, she admitted to herself. No, she didn’t wish to go back to her single past.
But was it only that sexual chemistry that drew her to Alessio? She didn’t want to fall in love with him. There was no love in a marriage of convenience. This was supposed to be a practical partnership in which both parties benefited from an exchange of mutual needs. Liking, respect and consideration were the foundation of that kind of bond and she believed that they had already achieved that happy balance, so she needed to be less temperamental and more accepting of their differences.
Certainly, she was seeing, if not quite accepting, their differences that afternoon when the SUV that had picked them up in Spain wafted them through a wonderful, tall black wrought-iron gateway and on to a thickly wooded estate. El Palacio, it was called, the former home of Alessio’s mother, and it had come to him by inheritance.
‘Once, I planned to sell it. My mother had no fondness for it and neglected it and by the time it came to me, it required extensive restoration. I only use it when I’m here on diplomatic visits or in need of a relaxing break, but, as I soon discovered, it has a remarkable charm all of its own,’ he advanced as the ancient rambling building came into view above them and the car continued up the steep lane. ‘It started out as a convent and changed into being a medieval home, but it was most altered in the eighteenth century when the daughter here married a very rich Portuguese duke. It’s a Spanish house but it carries an unmistakeable Portuguese flavour. It’s open to the public for most of the year.’
Rosy tried to relax her shoulders as the car came to a halt in a paved courtyard. ‘That’s good.’
In the fierce heat of the sun, she accompanied him up the steps under the shaded portico and on into a simply vast hall, with lines of marble columns marching ahead of them to frame a twin stone staircase at the rear. Before them stood a uniformed rank of household staff awaiting their arrival.
‘The duke was apparently inspired by a Roman villa that had recently been unearthed in the grounds,’ Alessio quipped as they moved forward into the blessed cool.
Introductions followed but Rosy missed most names after Jorge, the household steward, made himself known. ‘The number of staff tells me that we will be waited on hand and foot while we’re here,’ she murmured half under her breath as they mounted the stairs in Jorge’s stately wake. The inside walls of the staircase were lined with blue and white tiled medieval scenes.
‘This house runs like a top-flight hotel,’ Alessio agreed with amusement. ‘It’s the least you deserve after that experience at the cabin.’
‘No, that ended up being fun. I wouldn’t change that for the world.’
‘And you rescued Clover.’
‘No, strictly speaking, Giuseppe rescued her.’
‘But he wouldn’t have noticed the sack had it not been for you,’ Alessio corrected as they reached the landing, which was also an upper gallery exposed to the elements on one side. ‘To keep the house cool,’ he added.
Rosy surged over to the gallery wall to look across at the other wing of the house and then down. ‘Is that a medieval cloister?’ she asked in wonderment.
‘Yes, the cloisters and the chapel from the convent were preserved, although the duke’s piety ensured that the chapel was appropriately embellished.’ He walked her on down the gallery where Jorge awaited them, clearly keen to throw open the very large and heavily carved double doors at the foot.
‘We will sleep in splendour tonight,’ Alessio murmured teasingly.
And she discovered that he had not been joking. A giant carved four-poster bed sat on a dais in a chained-off alcove. ‘Gosh, we’re going to have our own state bed,’ Rosy remarked. ‘I hope the mattress has been renewed since the duke’s days here.’
Two maids were already busily occupied unpacking their luggage in a big dressing room furnished with wall-to-wall closets.
‘Have we got a bathroom?’ Rosy whispered anxiously to Alessio.
He laughed, humour dancing in his glorious green eyes. ‘Yes, we have a plethora, installed before architectural heritage prevented such alterations. Some bedrooms were sacrificed, giving us all the modern necessities, but, as there were so many bedrooms, they aren’t missed. Jorge will serve us tea in the cloisters and then we will explore to our hearts’ content.’
‘Let me change into something more comfortable first,’ she urged, nipping into the dressing room to grab shorts and a top and a pair of casual sandals.
‘Will you share the bathroom?’ Alessio enquired.
Rosy coloured. ‘Of course,’ she conceded, wondering when the concept of being truly married would sink in so that she was not self-conscious about such unimportant things.
Furthermore, Alessio’s was a helpful presence when he unzipped her out of the formal, neat-fitting dress she wore but he was undressing himself as well and that was distracting even in a huge bathroom with both of them stationed at opposite sides.
‘You look incredible,’ Alessio husked as she stepped free of the dress, clad only in wispy peach-coloured undies, her slim, curvy body stilling beneath his intense scrutiny.
Rosie was convinced that she was reddening like a traffic light from top to toe as he studied her. Her breasts swelled in the cups of her lacy bra and she instinctively pulled her stomach in as a hot liquid feeling pooled at the very centre of her body. Etched in her mind’s eye, even as she turned circumspectly away, was a shirtless Alessio, his bronzed torso and tattoos and rippling muscles leading down into long, strong legs. In haste, she dressed, wanting him, not wanting him, still afraid of feeling too much for him while all the time wondering if Alessio had ever been in love.
‘I’m serious. You look amazing,’ Alessio husked, long fingers touching her shoulder to turn her round again, potent green eyes laser-beam sharp focused on her and smouldering hot in temperature. ‘That shower is big enough for both of us.’
Rosy tensed and reached for her shorts instead, for she wasn’t quite up to the stage where she might consider stepping stark naked into a shower with Alessio and she didn’t know if she would ever be. That level of intimacy stretched way beyond even her imagination. Flushed and taut, she zipped her shorts and pulled on her top, saying merely, ‘Jorge has refreshments waiting for us.’
‘This is still our honeymoon,’ Alessio chided softly, and his hand slid down to enclose hers, turning her back to him again.
‘Alessio…’ she began anxiously.
His other hand framed her cheekbone and his erotic mouth claimed hers, teasing and parting and delving with only the tip of his tongue until a shudder ran through her, igniting a burst of heat deep down inside her, ensuring that her legs wobbled. He ran his lips down the slope of her neck, pausing to nip and tease and she shivered again. She fell back from him in a sensual daze of tense anticipation as his dark head lifted. He gave her a slow-burning smile and reminded her that Jorge was waiting for them downstairs.
Suspecting that had been one-upmanship on display by a more skilled player than she was herself, she walked slowly down to the charming sunlit cloister where Jorge awaited with a prettily decorated table and a choice of tea or coffee and a selection of sweet treats. She rested back in her comfortable seat and waited for Alessio to reappear.
She was nervous of having sex for the first time; she knew that that was the real problem. She didn’t want to be a disappointment. She didn’t want to come over all shy and unsure and embarrass herself. She didn’t want to think or behave as though the act of sex would actually be important to him. After all, she assumed it wouldn’t be to a guy who had once figured in the media as an irrepressible Casanova. Consummating their marriage might well be the only way she prevented Graziana from sneaking back in as a marriage candidate again. How was she to know otherwise when Alessio already seemed to have forgiven his ex and hadn’t uttered a single critical word about that interview she had given?
Sipping her favourite Earl Grey tea, she pulled out her phone and called her sister. She hadn’t spoken to Vittoria since the wedding, had only contrived to send her a couple of texts. Her sister burst straight into excitable speech, complaining bitterly about Graziana’s interview and the implied slur laid on Rosy’s behaviour. Firming her slight shoulders, Rosy brushed off the sting of her sister’s feelings on that topic and brought Vittoria up to date on the cabin, the Spanish house and Clover. But, of course, what her sister really wanted to know was how Alessio was treating her.
‘I’ve got no complaints whatsoever,’ Rosy framed stiltedly because Alessio was currently striding down the gallery to join her. ‘It’s been really good…look, I have to go for now.
‘Vittoria,’ she explained. ‘She’s got herself in a bit of a temper over Graziana’s interview.’
‘Yes, I’ve dealt with that,’ Alessio startled her by claiming. ‘There will be a statement made by the palace that I first met you on the day you were knocked off your bike and that it was only after Graziana’s departure that we first got to know each other. I was remiss in not immediately understanding your feelings on the matter. In any case, why should we support Graziana in her attempt to excuse herself by smearing us with a lie?’
Rosy was entirely thrown by that succinct declaration on her behalf. She was finally receiving the support she had unconsciously expected from him and had been disappointed not to receive. Bereft of breath, Rosy stared back at him. His change of heart came as a huge relief. ‘That’s what I thought. Thank you for that. I was annoyed by it,’ she muttered unsteadily, unprepared to admit as yet that she had been more hurt than angered.
‘You don’t need to thank me for what I should’ve seen instantly. You’re my wife and you should always be able to rely on me to defend and protect you. I’ve grown more cynical over the years and I won’t always see matters in quite the same light as you do,’ Alessio warned her tautly. ‘But neither of us deserve the rumours that Graziana is happy to use against us. I, after all, was the fool who has not been with a woman since the week of our engagement last year.’
Rosy was so disconcerted by that unexpected revelation that she said doubtingly, ‘Even though you and she weren’t … Are you serious?’
‘I believed it would be disrespectful for me to seek solace with anyone else. No matter how discreet I would’ve tried to be, there was too big a chance of any fling ending up splashed across the tabloids,’ he breathed tautly. ‘When I realised she’d been involved in an affair throughout, you can imagine how I felt.’
‘Proud that you had more loyalty and respect for her than she had for you?’ Rosy queried. ‘There really is no excuse for what she did or how she’s behaving now, trying to pose as the innocent party.’
An almost luminescent glow had lit Alessio’s jewelled eyes as he looked at her and listened to her. ‘You’re on my side,’ he said in apparent wonderment.
‘Of course, I am…’ Rosy frowned. ‘You’re my husband and you’ve defended me, so naturally I see the situation from your point of view. Sit down. Do you want tea or coffee?’
‘Not right now.’ Alessio threw back his dark head and suddenly laughed with wicked amusement before his hand closed over hers to almost lift her out of her seat to stand before him. ‘Right now, piccola volpe , I want my wife…and I want her more in this moment than I have ever wanted a woman before!’