The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress

She had been so preoccupied with her own thoughts that it took her several seconds to realise that the car was slowing down and they had reached the entrance to the garden.

Charley looked at the dilapidated double colonnade that marked the entrance. Most of its columns were either missing or damaged, and over the top of it there was a tangle of overgrown wild vines on which the leaves were just beginning to open in the spring sunshine.

Silently Charley got out of the Ferrari when Raphael opened the door for her. Now, having seen the original drawings, she could well understand why Raphael wanted to see the garden restored to its original glory.

‘This way,’ Raphael instructed, producing the key to unlock the bolts that secured the heavy wood doors.

CHAPTER FIVE

CHARLEY had seen the garden before, of course, but then Raphael hadn’t been with her, she acknowledged nearly two hours later. She stood almost knee-deep in a tangle of undergrowth and weeds in the middle of what, according to the original plans, had once been a beautiful parterre garden, with neatly clipped borders and central features of cherubs playing musical instruments mounted on classically inspired plinths.

Standing here, in the middle of this ruined paradise, Charley was filled with sadness for the loss o

f so much beauty, and a yearning to do everything she could to restore it to what it should have been.

‘There was a fountain here, according to the original designs, connected to the ornamental lake by a system of formal waterways and canals. If I remember correctly, your renovations called for the lake to be filled in.’

Raphael’s comment brought her back to reality.

‘It’s filled with rubbish and leaking. It would cost nearly as much again as the town council had allowed for the entire renovation just to restore the lake and to put in the safeguards that modern laws demand,’ she pointed out.

‘It is my wish that everything will now be restored to match the original design—and that includes the lake.’

Raphael heard Charley sigh, and saw her look across the tangled mass of overgrowth and damaged masonry in the direction of the lake, now hidden from view.

‘You do not agree with me, I take it?’ Raphael demanded.

Charley turned towards him in astonishment.

‘On the contrary—I can’t think of anything that would be more rewarding than to see this place become once again what it was. It’s a project anyone would give their eye teeth to be involved in…bringing to life something so wonderful.’ Emotional tears momentarily blurred Charley’s vision, as her feelings got the better of her. ‘The people of the town are fortunate to have you to do something so generous, and I…I feel that I am fortunate too, to be a part of such a project,’ she admitted.

Now it was Raphael’s turn to look away from her. Her honesty surprised him. He hadn’t been expecting it, and nor had he been expecting her open emotional reaction to the garden. Perhaps, after all, he did have the right person to manage the project—a person who had just shown him that she was capable of being touched to the deepest part of herself by what had once been and what was now lost. Such a person would give everything she had to give to a project that engaged her emotions. And to the man who engaged them as well?

Charlotte Wareham’s sexual passions were hers to give to whomsoever she chose and no concern of his, Raphael reminded himself. It was as a project manager that he was interested in her, and not as a bedmate.

‘If you’re serious about the lake—’ Charley began, breaking into the silence.

‘I am.’

‘My guess is that the restoration work will require the advice of proper experts who have experience in that kind of work. There is a team booked to come in and start clearing all the mess away, but I don’t think they will be the right people to deal with the lake. It might be best to get in touch with… Well, in England I’d probably try English Heritage or the National Trust. Any organisation with artistic appreciation, that believes in the importance of preserving the heritage we’ve been left by artists of the past, couldn’t help but want to be part of a project like this one. It would have been a dream come true for me when I was studying Fine Art.’

She was intelligent, and proactive, but above all her passion for the project was so strong that it shone from her eyes and could be heard in her voice. Why on earth would a woman who felt as she so obviously did give up her Fine Arts degree to study accountancy, and then take a job that involved her in projects calling for the appalling replicas he had seen her with? Raphael wondered, his probing mind curious against his better judgement. There was something here that didn’t add up. His curiosity aroused, Raphael decided to put his suspicions to the test.

‘Feeling as you so obviously do, it must have been hard for you to give up your Fine Arts course?’ he began, deliberately making his question sound casual.

Still wrapped in the emotions the garden had evoked, and in the understanding and harmony they had shared, Charley forgot to be on her guard, and responded without thinking.

‘Yes, it was.’

She was shocked back to reality when Raphael asked, ‘Then why did you?’

His question made her suddenly aware of the foolish relaxation of her guard, and she was doubly a fool for having let him see just how much the garden had affected her.

‘You don’t answer? Why not, I wonder? Is it perhaps because there is something you wish to hide? Perhaps it was not so much that you decided to change to another course, but that you were requested to do so by your tutors.’

Stung by Raphael’s subtle allegation that she had had to drop her course because she had not been good enough, Charley told him fiercely, ‘No. It was nothing like that.’

‘Then what was it like? You are in effect now working under my command. I have a right to ask this question and to receive a truthful answer,’ Raphael pressed.