The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress

Thanking the maid for the coffee she had just brought, Charley picked up the cup the girl had filled for her, wrapping both her hands around it for comfort—like a child holding a comfort rag or toy, Charley thought, deriding herself for her own vulnerability.

As a child it had always seemed that she had been the one to get the blame for the accidentally naughty things the three of them had sometimes done—even when Lizzie had insisted that the fault was hers. There had been many times when she had gone to bed at night crying into her pillow in silent misery, feeling misunderstood, feeling she was less worthy of parental love than her two sisters. Now the way Raphael was treating her had evoked some of that long-ago misery and sense of injustice, adding to her existing despair.

She took a quick gulp of her coffee and then got up from her chair, putting the cup down as she was drawn to the sketches and plans laid out on Raphael’s desk. Since they were of the pleasure garden, there was no reason why she should not look at them, she assured herself. She had, after all, seen the plans before, at home in England.

These, though, were not modern drawings, but sketches and watercolours of parts of the original garden, Charley quickly recognised, immediately becoming so absorbed in them that everything else was forgotten as she was mentally swept back to another century, enviously imagining what it must have been like to be involved in such a wonderful project. The plans and sketches alone were minor works of art in their own right, and Charley’s fingertips trembled as she touched the papers on which those long-ago craftsmen had etched their sketches and detailed measurements of fountains, statues, colonnades and grottos.

A perspective overview showed the full layout of the garden. The formal sweep of a curved, colonnaded entrance opened in the centre, to draw the eye down a wide avenue planted with what looked like pleached limes. Either side of it the garden was intersected by narrower walkways, opening out into sheltered bowers decorated with seats and statuary, beyond which lay a stone fountain, in the middle of which was a huge piece of statuary. A paved terrace shaded by vines marked the boundary, where the land fell away with a view over an ornamental lake, complete with a grotto.

There were sketches for small, elegant pavilions, ‘secret’ water gardens designed to spring into life when the unsuspecting walked close to them. Charley ached with longing to have seen the garden following its completion. Raphael was right to say that trying to recreate such beauty using cheap manmade materials was an insult to the original artists.

She was so wrapped up in the world those long-ago craftsmen and artists had created that she didn’t hear the soft click of the door opening, and was oblivious to Raphael’s return and the fact that he was standing watching her as she stood looking down at the papers on his desk, her expression one of absorbed intensity.

Charley lifted her gaze from the desk, her eyes shadowed with all that she was feeling, lost in her own world—only to come abruptly out of that world when she saw Raphael.

How long had he been there? The way he was looking at her made her feel acutely vulnerable. She stepped back from the desk, so intent on escaping from his gaze that she forgot about the small table behind her on which the maid had placed the tray of coffee.

As she bumped into the table she dislodged the heavy thermos jug. Before she had time to react Raphael had reacted for her, reaching her side, pulling her away from the table just as hot coffee spouted from the jug and onto her jean-clad thigh.

She must have cried out, although she wasn’t aware of having done so, because immediately Raphael looked down to where the hot liquid had soaked through her jeans, his sharp and almost accusatory, ‘You have been burned,’ causing Charley to shake her head.

‘No. I’m all right,’ she insisted.

Her face was burning with a mixture of emotions. Her leg was stinging painfully beneath the wet fabric of her jeans, but it was her own embarrassment at having been so clumsy rather than any pain that was making her feel so self-conscious. There was a small puddle of coffee on the snow-white starched linen tray cloth with its discreet monogram, and coffee on the floor as well, but thankfully it had missed the rug that covered part of the marble-tiled floor. Her parents would have shaken their heads if they had witnessed her mishap, pointing out to her that she was dreadfully clumsy. How she had longed to be deft and delicate in her movements, and not like the baby elephant her mother had always teasingly told her she was.

‘It’s my own fault,’ she told Raphael. ‘I shouldn’t be so clumsy.’

Clumsy? Raphael frowned. She was tall, yes, but her hands and her feet were elegantly narrow, her body far too slender for her ever to be ‘clumsy’. In fact if anything Raphael had noticed how controlled and economical her movements were, almost as though she was afraid to express herself.

‘You’ll want to get changed. I’ll wait for you down here.’

‘There’s no need for me to change,’ Charley told him. ‘My jeans will dry.’

He was looking at her in a way that said very explicitly what he thought of a woman who cared so little for her appearance that she was content to continue wearing jeans that were stained with and smelled of coffee.

Gritting her teeth, Charley lowered her pride to admit, ‘I haven’t got anything to change into, since you insisted that I was to stay here instead of going home and then returning.’

Now that the immediate shock was receding Charley was beginning to realise that the scalding coffee had hurt her more than she had first thought. Her leg was throbbing and burning, the pain growing more intense with every passing second, but she was stubbornly determined not to let Raphael see that.

‘Go up to your room,’ Raphael commanded. ‘I’ll speak to Anna about provi

ding you with something to wear for now.’

It was easier to give in than to argue—especially with the pain growing more intense by the second, Charley admitted as she stood up. And then, to her shock, she felt her burned leg give way beneath her, causing her to stumble into Raphael’s desk.

Raphael was on his feet immediately, opening a drawer in his desk, coming towards her as she clung to the edge of the desktop for support.

‘No!’ Charley protested, and protested a second time as she saw the scissors in his hand. But it was no use. He was cutting through the wet denim as ruthlessly as he would have cut down an enemy. The cool air on her burned flesh caused Charley to shudder. She felt slightly sick and light-headed when she looked at her leg and saw how the flesh had reddened and blistered.

Raphael’s mouth tightened as he looked at the burned flesh. ‘This needs proper medical treatment,’ he announced grimly.

‘No. I’m all right,’ Charley insisted. ‘I’ll go upstairs and bathe it with some cool water.’ She let go of the desk and took a couple of steps, the blood draining from her face as her body responded with a surge of pain.

Raphael had seen enough. Of all the stubborn, stupid women… Before Charley could stop him he was lifting her into his arms, his action forcing her to hold on to him tightly by putting her arms around his neck. He couldn’t possibly be intending to carry her all the way to her room—but it seemed that he was, and Charley could only guess at the power in the muscles cloaked by his fine linen shirt as he did so, as effortlessly as though she weighed little more than a child.

Once they were inside her room, Raphael placed her on the bed and then, after instructing her not to move, he left.

Strange how the pain had subsided whilst she was in Raphael’s arms. But it had returned now, and if anything was even worse. It was ridiculous for her to feel as though she had been abandoned, and even more ridiculous—dangerously so—for her to wish that Raphael had stayed with her. Charley looked down at her lower body which, unlike her damaged leg, was still encased in her jeans. She wasn’t helpless, she reminded herself. She sat up and started to ease her jeans off, wincing as the fabric brushed against her burned flesh.