Chapter Six
Mid-morning the next day, Zia and Orazio with Fiero in tow set out for the border between Upper and Lower Mandovia, which was currently marked only by a sign.
She had to pose at a mountain viewpoint a few yards from the border for an official photograph and then they drove for miles to the country house her mother had often visited at weekends.
Apparently, a small part of it was a museum now dedicated to her mother’s memory.
‘We’re staying the night there and moving on to the capital, Acossia, for the celebration event tomorrow. The party’s being staged in the palace your father built, which is now a trendy hotel.’
‘I doubt if I’ll remember anything,’ Zia confided. ‘Young children don’t really look at their surroundings much—’
‘Something here might feel familiar,’ Orazio remarked, covering her hand where it had fisted tautly on her knee with his. ‘I should mention that the country house is also the location of a shrine to commemorate your mother. She’s buried in the house chapel.’
Tensing, Zia nodded in silence, having no further comment to make on that topic.
All she knew was that her mother had tried to escape over the border and a border guard from Lower Mandovia had shot her dead when she supposedly refused to identify herself.
Zia didn’t blame anyone, alive or dead. She reckoned tensions must’ve been very high at the border when Upper Mandovia was in the grip of a civil war and her unfortunate mother must’ve been desperate and frightened that, as the dictator’s widow, she would not be accepted as a refugee.
The house sat drowsing at the end of a long driveway, a sleepy Italianate building with an elegant facade, but still very much a rural property with its worn terracotta roof tiles and simple gardens planted with clumps of mature trees and shrubs.
Something stirred in the back of her mind but she quickly suppressed it, unsure that she even wanted to recall anything more from back then.
The custodian showed them round the little museum first. There wasn’t much to see, faded photos, not one of which contained her late father.
A bible and a few other small mementos that had reputedly belonged to her mother featured, and several very dated-looking costumes belonging to her were part of the exhibits.
A beautiful black ball gown sat in a glass case and suddenly memory bit sharply into Zia and she remembered touching the dress with the glistening jewels and saying, ‘You look pretty, Mummy.’ Her throat closed over and her eyes stung and swam with sudden tears.
Raz guided her outside to see the shrine and her tears began drying up because that fantasy stone figure in her Greek goddess-like gown with glamorously flying long hair bore no resemblance whatsoever to the late Princess Vittoria, who had been a very conventional, prim young woman, and Zia almost let herself down with an inappropriate laugh.
She dug a tissue from her bag and dabbed at her wet eyes and cheeks even as a photographer stepped forward to capture what she had assumed was a private moment.
As Orazio moved to forestall that invasion, she stayed him with her hand on his sleeve and said, ‘It’s all right. This is a historic occasion and I don’t mind because I lost her too. I’m not ashamed to grieve for my mother and what might’ve been.’
To ensure their comfort, Raz had brought staff with them, comprising a driver, a chef and a maid to manage her clothes.
She was shown upstairs to her bedroom while he was handling official business.
Aware she would be in the country house for only one night, her maid had packed lightly and her wardrobe of fancy outfits had been sent ahead of her to the capital.
She had the evening off and she was determined to make the most of it, shedding her formal dress and pulling on jeans and a light top to go off and explore before dinner.
She found her old bedroom on the floor above, a little girl’s room all painted in pink with frilly bedding and drapes.
It felt vaguely familiar but as she wandered, peering into rooms that were a snapshot in time and clearly no longer used, the one place that sparked actual memories was the house chapel.
Her skin turned clammy as she relived being told to sit still and stay quiet during the Mass.
Her mother had been very devout. She lit a candle in her memory and read the wording on the brass plaque that adorned her late parent’s ornate tomb.
Her eyes swam again and she dashed the tears away irritably.
There was no point thinking about how very different her life would’ve been had the late Princess survived and managed to join them in London.
‘I wondered where you’d be hanging out,’ Orazio remarked, sinking down on the worn pew beside her. ‘Sorry, am I interrupting you? Were you praying?’
‘No, just remembering stuff, but I’ve done enough of that for one day,’ she said chokily.
‘I’m an idiot. It didn’t occur to me until we were here that all of this coming-home stuff would be very emotional for you, piccola mia.’ He slid an arm round her shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze before releasing her again.
For a split second she drank in the scent of him that close and gooseflesh peppered her bare arms, a sliding arrow of heat pushing up from between her legs.
He smelled wonderful to her, still like a forest on an icy night, woodsy with a dash of something spicy or smoky.
She turned her head and stretched up to kiss him without an ounce of hesitation.
It just felt so right in that moment that she could not have resisted that urge.
Orazio jerked in surprise and then took over, both arms banding round her to crush her up against him.
He nipped at her full lower lip, sent his tongue delving into the moist interior of her mouth and took her lips with hungry urgency for the barest of moments before drawing back from her again.
‘Once again, this is not the place,’ he quipped, scorching green eyes welded to her hectically flushed face.
‘And I thought you preferred me to keep my distance.’
‘Life’s too short for that,’ Zia framed shakily. ‘I want to take advantage of every joyful moment…so, tonight, there are no rules for us. It’s quiet here. If we wait until it’s late, we can sneak around…’
Holding his lean, chiselled features still in receipt of that startling invitation was a challenging feat of no mean order for Raz.
His love of the absurd, however, saved him from giving her a little shake of reproof and telling her that he didn’t sneak anywhere, never had, never would.
‘You changed your mind,’ he said instead. ‘Lady’s prerogative.’
‘Only for tonight,’ she whispered back. ‘We have to be careful and discreet.’
‘You don’t know a lot about passion, do you?’ he murmured huskily.
‘Wait and see,’ she teased, her head jerking round as she heard a movement in the doorway. One of his security team checking on him. She stood up. ‘I’m going for a walk round the grounds.’
‘The gardens aren’t extensive any more. Most of the estate has since been turned over to agriculture,’ Raz volunteered.
‘Oh…’
‘But we can still go for a walk before dinner.’
It wasn’t exactly a relaxing stroll with watchful men stirring below the trees and security trailing them.
In truth their bodyguards might as well have been prison wardens, she reflected ruefully.
Only behind a closed and locked door were she and Orazio free to do as they liked.
Her blood fizzed through her veins as she tasted the truth that, for once, she had been bold and she had invited him to her bed.
She was proud that she had had the courage, had risen above all that social conditioning that sought to deny her sex of power and agency.
Orazio was still inwardly laughing over that conversation in the church.
One night only. She was insane if she thought she could put a lid on such an explosive attraction and shut it away again, but then there was a naivety about Zia even though she had denied that she was an innocent.
If she wanted to seize every joyful moment, he would be right by her side assisting in that goal.
He found her courage priceless, her utter lack of sophistication charming and her candour, a pearl beyond price.
Zia showered and donned a loose, casual summer dress because she was feeling very self-conscious and she didn’t want to look vampy, as if she had planned to issue that invitation…
even though she had pretty much planned it before she went to sleep the night before.
Reckoning that the understaffed country house was the best location for their encounter had been only the first step, cornering him the second, speaking plainly and unambiguously about the terms the third and final step.
Her first encounter with a man had been uniformly disappointing but she was much closer to Raz and she wanted him much more than she had ever wanted anyone, important points that she had ignored when she was an impatient teenager, in a hurry to lose her innocence.
She wasn’t worried that Raz would hurt or shock her and she had faith that his sexual experience would ensure that their intimacy was, at the very least, unthreatening.
Fiero fielded Orazio’s phone calls during the meal and ate one-handed. As the coffee was being served, he stood up and announced that he had an old friend to visit in the neighbourhood and that he would be late back.
‘Did you tell him?’ Zia asked, suspicious of that timely outing.
‘Of course not.’ Orazio slanted her a reproving look and she reddened. ‘Although we can trust him if he were to guess because he respects boundaries.’
‘I suppose you’ve known each other so long, that’s understandable.’ Zia leant across the table and whispered in the merest breath of sound, ‘How do we organise this?’