Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

Max elevated a fine ebony brow. ‘Are nuns noisy?’

Tia cast down her eyes but not before he had seen the brightening leap of amusement in them. ‘That would be telling...’

Max was entranced and he forced himself to study the room instead, unsurprised to see that it was as bare as a cell with an iron bedstead set below a large wooden crucifix and the absolute minimum of furniture, while cracked linoleum snapped beneath the soles of his hand-stitched leather shoes.

‘The bathroom is opposite. Do you want to eat first?’ she prompted, staring up at him, wondering how often he had to shave because black stubble already covered his strong jaw line. Her curiosity about him was intense. In fact dragging her attention from him was proving to be an incredible challenge.

‘Yes...feed me,’ Max teased, black lashes semi-screening his dark golden eyes as he gazed down at her, marvelling at the glow of her skin even below the stark unflattering light shed by the bare bulb above them. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘I’ll take you down to the refectory.’

‘And tell me about the dog,’ Max suggested. ‘I understand there is a dog.’

‘Who told you about Teddy?’ Tia gasped in horror. ‘Oh, my goodness, Mother Sancha knows, doesn’t she?’

‘I would say that very little gets past that woman and of course she mentioned the dog. If you want to bring him back to England with you I will have to make arrangements to allow him to travel,’ Max pointed out levelly.

Her heart-shaped face lit up with instantaneous joy. ‘I can bring Teddy with me?’ she cried in wonder. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course you can bring him, but he will probably have to spend some time in quarantine kennels before you can take him home with you again,’ Max warned, mesmerised by the sheer brimming emotion that had flooded her formally still little face and glittered in her beautiful eyes. ‘I’ll have to check out the rules and regulations and organise it.?

?

‘I can’t believe I can just bring him like that,’ Tia confided in amazement. ‘Won’t it cost a lot of money?’

‘Your grandfather is a wealthy man and he wants you to be happy in England.’

‘Oh, thank you, thank you...thank you!’ Tia wrapped her arms round Max with enthusiasm and gave him a fierce hug of gratitude without even thinking about what she was doing.

For a split second, Max froze because he wasn’t accustomed to being hugged, in fact could not recall ever being hugged by anybody, and that acknowledgement in the face of her enthusiasm made him feel uncomfortable and think about the kind of stuff he had always thought it best to repress. He very slowly lifted his arms and placed his hands rather stiffly on her slight shoulders. ‘Don’t thank me, thank Andrew when you see him. I’m only acting for him.’

Buoyant with happiness, Tia took Max down to the refectory, chattering away in answer to his questions, her earlier unease forgotten. ‘Do you like dogs?’ she asked.

‘I’ve never had one but I believe your grandfather kept dogs when he was a younger man.’ And an astute little voice was warning Max not to hand all the bouquets to Andrew when he was supposed to be trying to impress Tia.

Unhappily Max had not a clue how to impress a woman because he had never had to try before and a pair of sparkly diamond earrings was highly unlikely to cut the mustard with Tia. But had he but known it, he had done the one thing calculated to open the gates to Tia’s heart and trust.

That Max was willing to arrange for a very ordinary little mongrel to travel to another country simply to please her overwhelmed Tia’s every expectation of him and filled her with appreciation and gratitude. He had to be a kind, sensitive man, she decided happily.

Max and Tia were not left alone at the table in the refectory for long. Visitors to the convent rather than the school or orphanage were rare and various nuns arrived to make his acquaintance. Max withstood the onslaught with admirable cool and the inherent courtesy engrained in him by his education. English was in short supply but Max contrived to speak in French, German and Spanish to facilitate the dialogue and Tia was even more impressed. Sister Mariana managed to extract the fact that Max was single and even the explanation that he had not yet married because he had still to meet ‘the right woman’.

Once the pleasantries were at an end and Max had regretfully declined an invitation to watch a DVD of the Pope’s most recent message in the common room, Tia was spellbound by him, convinced she would never meet a more self-assured and refined, sophisticated male in her lifetime. Not that she had much experience of such men, she was willing to admit. Max smiled at her, dark eyes mesmerising below the thick veil of his lashes, and butterflies danced in her stomach while her heart beat so fast that she felt weirdly dizzy.

Sister Mariana accompanied them back upstairs and showed Max the small seating area on the landing. ‘You must have so much to discuss,’ she said cheerfully before she headed for her own room.

‘Does she think I’m about to jump you or something if you come into my room?’ Max asked, shocking Tia.

Paling at the crack, she looked up at him wide-eyed. ‘No, she meant to be kind,’ she replied stiltedly. ‘She knows I would not go into your bedroom.’

As a deep rose flush flowered to chase Tia’s pallor, Max recognised his mistake but could not even explain to his own satisfaction why he was so on edge. ‘I apologise. I thought the rules were restricting us, which would be a little ridiculous when you are leaving this place tomorrow.’

‘It’s not “this place”,’ Tia murmured a shade drily. ‘It’s been my home.’

‘I do understand that but this...all this.’ Max shifted a brown hand expressively. ‘I’m a complete fish out of water here.’

Tia absorbed the fluid elegance of that physical gesture and marvelled that even his movements could be so graceful. Recognising his discomfiture, she forced a smile. ‘Yes. I can understand that. I can only hope I won’t feel the same way in my grandfather’s home.’

Max gazed down at her, recognising that the laughing, relaxed Tia had gone into retreat as soon as he’d spoken earlier. ‘Not while I’m around,’ he swore instinctively, feeling ridiculously protective for no reason that he could comprehend.