Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride Read online

  But it had been years. How long could a man mourn?

  Gino led her through the trees to where there was a long, low building, with cars parked in one section and horses housed in another.

  Switching on the light, he led her into the stables where three animals looked at them curiously.

  ‘That big brute at the end is Rinaldo’s,’ Gino said, pointing to a fierce-looking horse. ‘This one is mine, and this third one is a kind of spare. I think you’d like him.’

  He was a chesnut with mild eyes, and Alex did like him.

  ‘We’ll go out tomorrow,’ Gino said, ‘in the late afternoon, when we’re back from the funeral, and it’s cooler.’

  As they left the stable he slipped an arm around her waist and drew her close, managing to drop a light kiss on her mouth.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ she said, escaping and running back to the house.

  Laughing, he followed her, managing to catch up just by the porch lamp.

  ‘You’re a hard-hearted woman,’ he complained. ‘Or shall I go down on one knee again?’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said tenderly. ‘And let me go. It’s time I was in bed.’

  His answer was too tighten his arms and steal another kiss, but he did it with such delicacy that she couldn’t be annoyed. He was like a playful puppy who only needed some affection to make him quiet again.

  ‘Alex,’ he murmured after a while, ‘Couldn’t we-?’

  ‘No, we couldn’t,’ she said firmly. ‘Now, that’s enough. I’m an engaged woman.’

  ‘But if you weren’t, you and I-’

  ‘I said that’s enough,’ she said, trying not to laugh.

  ‘Just one more kiss.’

  He managed to sneak one before she got away and ran indoors. Gino took a deep breath of joy, throwing back his head so that when he opened his eyes he was looking directly at the moon. ‘Hm!’

  The wry grunt from overhead made him turn and see his brother standing at an open window.

  ‘I suppose you saw everything?’ he asked.

  ‘Enough!’ Rinaldo growled.

  ‘She loves me. She loves me.’

  ‘Go to bed,’ Rinaldo said, shutting his window firmly.

  Enrico’s funeral was scheduled for the next day at two o’clock in the great Duomo. His Florence relatives had insisted on that location as the only one suitable for a man of his prominence.

  During the morning Rinaldo said to Alex, ‘I imagine you’ll wish to bring your luggage into town so that you can check back into the hotel.’

  ‘Now, why would I want to do that?’

  ‘I gathered you were only too anxious to depart.’

  ‘That was before Gino asked me so nicely to stay. I found his invitation irresistible.’

  Her ironic tone left no doubt that this was a challenge. It provoked Rinaldo to say softly, ‘Do not play games with me.’

  ‘I’m not playing games. I’m accepting an invitation that you yourself were the first to issue. You do remember that, don’t you?’

  He glowered without replying, and she sensed that this kind of duelling talk set him at a disadvantage. If he could have simply thrown her into the car he would have done so. As it was, they were now fighting on her terms.

  ‘You know, you might actually regret bringing me here,’ she mused, giving him a teasing smile.

  ‘I regret it already,’ he growled.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Gino asked, appearing suddenly.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Alex assured him. ‘Rinaldo was just hoping that I’d had a good night, and would want to make a really long stay.’

  ‘And you know that’s what I want, too,’ Gino said, slipping an arm about her waist. ‘Promise that you’re going to stay.’

  ‘For as long as you want me,’ she assured him.

  Rinaldo walked away without another word.

  The three of them travelled to Florence. As they entered the Duomo heads turned towards them. She saw Montelli and the chagrined look that crossed his face at the sight of them together.

  This was what Rinaldo had meant about keeping the others away. Alex smiled. Now she’d recovered from her annoyance she was almost grateful to him-almost, but not quite-for doing her a service.

  At the reception afterwards her lawyer, Isidoro, approached her.

  ‘I’ve promised a dozen people that you’ll talk to them,’ he said.

  ‘Of course-later. Much later.’

  ‘But look-’

  ‘I told you, and you can tell them, the Farnese brothers have to have their chance first.’

  He dropped his voice.

  ‘I saw them arrive with you, one each side like warders. Are they keeping you prisoner?’

  Alex shook her head, her eyes gleaming with mischief.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘it’s the other way around. I’ve got my own agenda.’

  ‘Do the Farneses know what it is?’

  ‘They think they do. Get rid of the vultures for me Isidoro. Tell them I’ll get round to them if and when it suits me.’

  She would have escaped right then, but her cousins descended on her with eager protestations of affection. When Alex rejoined the brothers a few minutes later she was smiling.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Rinaldo wanted to know.

  ‘They all invited me to dinner. I said yes, as long as I could bring the two of you.’ She chuckled. ‘That put them right off.’

  A shout of laughter was surprised from Rinaldo.

  ‘We’ll go one better and invite them all ourselves,’ he suggested.

  ‘I couldn’t advise them to accept,’ Alex said. ‘I don’t know what you might put in the soup. Or then again-maybe I do.’

  Rinaldo grinned at her. It had a touch of the conspirator.

  CHAPTER SIX

  G OING down to an early breakfast next morning Rinaldo found his brother standing at the landing window gazing out at something that was enjoying his full attention.

  ‘Any excuse not to start work,’ he said.

  ‘Well that is quite some excuse,’ Gino said, not taking his eyes from the figure running through the trees.

  At first Rinaldo saw only a flash of scarlet. Then it resolved itself into a slim, perfectly honed female body, clad in tight-fitting scarlet shorts that smoothed their way over her hips almost down to her knees, gleaming with every movement she made.

  Above a bare midriff she wore a matching scarlet sports bra that left no doubts as to the beauty of her figure.

  This was Alex’s daily workout, and she was running with great intensity, her eyes fixed just ahead, breathing steadily and powerfully.

  The brothers watched as she headed for the barn and went inside. After exchanging puzzled frowns they went downstairs and out in the direction of the barn.

  They soon saw what had made her choose this place. Part of the barn was only one storey high, and the ceiling was crossed from side to side with wooden beams. To one of these Alex had attached hanging rings and was swinging along from one to the other hand over hand. A bale of hay just below showed how she had managed to launch herself up there.

  Inch by inch she swung along the rings. At the end she turned and started the journey back, heading for the bale where she could land easily.

  But then Gino was there, kicking the bale aside, reaching up to receive her.

  ‘Come on,’ he cried.

  Alex took a deep breath and launched herself forward, landing in a pair of powerful hands.

  But they were Rinaldo’s.

  Somehow he had taken Gino’s place and was now holding her with his hands about her bare midriff, looking up at her with a face full of grim irony.

  ‘Oi!’ Gino protested. ‘No need to shove me out of the way like that.’

  ‘There was every need,’ Rinaldo said. ‘We haven’t got time for you two to fool around. This is a busy, working farm.’

  ‘But you had no right-’

  ‘Could you two have your private argument some other
time?’ Alex demanded, incensed. ‘I’d like to get down.’

  Rinaldo lowered her to the floor. After her exertions she was breathing hard and heat seemed to be pounding through her body.

  ‘Thank you,’ she gasped.

  ‘Do you intend to indulge in these antics very often?’ he asked politely.

  ‘I exercise every day. It keeps me fit.’

  ‘Working on the farm has the same effect,’ he observed drily. ‘You might find it interesting. In the meantime, if you intend to go on doing this, may I suggest you dress more modestly? I don’t want my workers distracted.’

  He walked away without looking back, so he didn’t see Alex lunge after him, only restrained by Gino.

  ‘Save it,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll kill him!’ she muttered. ‘I’ll kill him!’

  ‘Nah! Fantasise about it like the rest of us do.’

  ‘What does he mean modestly?’

  ‘Well, you are quite an eyeful, and an armful.’

  He wrapped his arms about her waist, making no effort to release her.

  ‘Well, you’d better let me go,’ she said grumpily. ‘It wouldn’t do for me to distract you.’

  ‘You distract me all the time,’ he said wistfully.

  ‘Gino!’ came a yell from outside.

  ‘Let’s kill him together,’ Gino muttered, releasing her, resignedly.

  Before having breakfast Alex took a cool shower. She felt hot all through, deep down, intensely hot in a way that no water could soothe. The feeling had been there since Rinaldo’s hands had encircled her waist, holding her against him.

  Perhaps it was lucky, she thought, that Gino had not caught her. He would certainly have turned that intimate moment into a kiss.

  But Rinaldo had been completely unmoved.

  She rubbed soap over the place, feeling again the pressure of his fingers, and the warmth going through her in endless waves. She turned the water onto cold, and let it lave her again and again, hoping for the feeling to go.

  She waited a long time before going downstairs, and when she did she found that the brothers had gone.

  Despite the occasional battles Alex found her introduction to Belluna genuinely fascinating. Rinaldo had given her a view from a distance, but now she rode with Gino, getting a closer view of fields full of corn and olives, vineyards stretching away on steep slopes.

  ‘We grow the Sangiovese grapes that make Chianti,’ he said. ‘True Chianti, made and bottled in this region. We have our imitators all over the world, but they’re not the same.’

  His voice contained a hint of Tuscan arrogance, that made Alex smile, realising that there was more to him than an easygoing charmer.

  But for pure arrogance, the kind that made her want to dance with rage, she thought there was no beating Rinaldo. He made no comment about their long absences together. The whole matter seemed beneath his notice. Nor did he show much interest when they discussed their adventures in the evening.

  He would listen, grunting, to the day’s events, then take himself off to his study at the first opportunity.

  ‘He makes me want to bang my head against the wall,’ Alex raged one evening when he’d gone.

  ‘Bang his,’ Gino suggested. ‘More fun.’

  ‘Ah, but would I make any impression on it?’

  ‘Not a hope. People have been trying for years.’

  ‘How does anyone put up with him?’ Alex asked bitterly. There was something about the way Rinaldo overlooked her that made her seethe.

  ‘It takes long practise,’ Gino said, yawning. ‘It’s been a tiring day.’

  ‘Yes, I’m going straight to bed.’

  She had grown even more fond of the bedroom, whose décor and furniture were so far behind the times. She had soon gotten into the Italian habit of stripping off the duvet and all the sheets each morning and hanging them out of the window to air. Teresa protested that a guest should not be working, but Alex enjoyed the job.

  She particularly relished the moment when she’d lost her grip, and the duvet fell from the window, landing on Rinaldo who happened to be underneath. His yell and the infuriated look he cast up at her were among her happiest memories. In fact, much the pleasure of her stay lay in the knowledge that she was infuriating him.

  ‘Teresa is upset with you,’ he observed one morning at breakfast.

  ‘Yes, I know. She thinks it’s shocking that I do my own room and help her in the kitchen.’

  ‘Then why hurt her feelings?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to put any more burdens onto her aching bones. Have either of you any idea how old Teresa is?’

  ‘Older than I can count, I know that,’ Gino said.

  ‘Do you really think she can manage this great house with no help?’

  ‘I’ve offered to get someone else in,’ Rinaldo informed her. ‘She won’t have it.’

  Alex made a sound of exasperation intended to cover all men.

  ‘And you left matters there because it was convenient,’ she snorted. ‘Great!’

  ‘May I remind you that my father was alive until recently?’ Rinaldo said coldly. ‘It was his decision.’

  ‘Then it was the wrong decision and you should have overruled him. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have done that. Teresa is an old woman and it’s too much for her. She won’t admit it because she’s proud, and she’s afraid you’ll send her away.’

  ‘What nonsense! Of course I wouldn’t!’

  ‘Don’t tell me, tell her. Say she’s got to have someone else in to do the heavy work, whether she likes it or not. Be firm. Are you a man or a mouse?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said, eyeing her grimly.

  ‘Oh, stop that! You know I’m right.’

  ‘Heaven preserve me from women who say, “You know I’m right”.’

  ‘Yes, because you know they are.’

  ‘Can’t you two talk without fighting?’ Gino asked plaintively.

  Alex shrugged. ‘It’s as good a way of communicating as any other,’ she said, her eyes on Rinaldo. ‘At least it’s honest. People are never so sincere as when they’re abusing each other.’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ Gino said.

  But Rinaldo understood perfectly. She could see that. He was giving her the same look of ironic complicity that she’d seen after Enrico’s funeral. It said that they saw the world through the same eyes, and to hell with the others.

  ‘I’m merely astonished at your extravagance,’ he said. ‘The more wages I have to pay the longer you have to wait for your money.’

  Alex rolled her eyes to heaven.

  ‘Give me patience!’ she implored some unseen deity. ‘This house is full of empty rooms. The new maid will live in one of them, which will be part of her wages that will cost you nothing. You see? All problems solved.’

  ‘When I consider how anxious I was to bring you here,’ Rinaldo observed, ‘I can only wonder at my own foolishness.’

  ‘For pity’s sake stop arguing,’ she told him. ‘Just do it. Soften it by telling Teresa she can choose the person herself. She’s probably got a relative who’d be ideal. Go on. Do it.’

  ‘You’re taking a risk,’ Gino muttered, his eyes on his brother as if he was a lion about to spring. ‘He doesn’t like being ordered about. Never fear. I’ll protect you.’

  ‘I can protect myself against Rinaldo perfectly, thank you,’ Alex said, although she too was watching him carefully. ‘After all, what can he do to me?’

  ‘Throw you out,’ Rinaldo growled.

  ‘Not you,’ she jeered. ‘You might think you want to, but then you wouldn’t have me under your eye. Think of the sleep you’d lose, wondering what I was doing, who I was seeing. No, I’m safe enough.’

  ‘Alex,’ Gino begged, ‘please be careful.’

  ‘Who wants to be careful? That’s boring.’ She was enjoying herself.

  ‘I understood,’ Rinaldo said frostily, ‘that we were to have first refusal.’

  ‘C
ertainly. That’s what I’ll tell Montelli and all the others, but who’s to say I can’t tell them over a candlelit supper?’

  ‘Hey,’ Gino said at once, ‘if there are any candlelit suppers to be bought, I’ll buy them.’

  ‘With champagne?’

  ‘With anything you want, amor mio.’

  Rinaldo rose sharply and went into the kitchen. A little later they heard the sound of argument and weeping, interspersed with Rinaldo’s voice, speaking more gently than Alex had ever heard before.

  The next day he drove Teresa to the village where she had been born, about fifty miles away. When they returned in the evening they were accompanied by two hefty young women whom Teresa introduced as her great-nieces, Celia and Franca.

  When she had shepherded them into the house Rinaldo detained Alex with a touch on her arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I never thought of it but-you were right.’

  Alex smiled. ‘She’ll be happier with their company, too.’

  ‘I never thought of that either. She and Poppa used to chat in the evenings sometimes, when he wasn’t out with Enrico. Since he died she sits in the kitchen alone. Why did you see it and not me?’

  ‘I’m a stranger. Our eyes always see the most clearly.’

  ‘You are no stranger,’ he said abruptly, and walked away.

  Within a couple of days Celia and Franca had brought the heavy work under their expert control, leaving only the cooking to Teresa. This she guarded jealously.

  Whether Rinaldo had told her or whether she had guessed the truth Alex couldn’t say. But it was clear that she now regarded Alex as a friend. She would take special care in serving her food, and her eyes would meet hers in a silent question. Was this how she liked it? Yes? Bene!

  On those occasions Alex would look up to find Rinaldo regarding her, and remember the odd note in his voice when he said, ‘You are no stranger.’

  She rented another car and, with the knowledge that she now had independence of movement, she no longer felt any need to leave the farm.

  Evenings that had once been spent going to parties and first nights were now spent contentedly combing grass seeds out of Brutus’s long fur. He came to expect it and would present himself, rolling over on his back to make it easy.