St John house was as rugged as the magnificent sweep of coastline which lay to the front of it, and as Kate jangled the old-fashioned doorbell, she could hear the thunder of the sea as it crashed and foamed against the craggy grey rocks.
Such an elemental place, she thought, wishing that her job was not almost at an end, as the door was opened by the housekeeper.
‘Hello, Mrs Herley,’ smiled Kate. ‘Lady St John is expecting me, I believe?’
The woman gave a brief smile as she pulled the door open to usher Kate inside. ‘I think that your appointment may have slipped her mind,’ she confided. ‘Lady St John is a little… er… distracted today.’
Kate knew better than to ask why. It hadn’t taken her long in the job to discover that domestic employees never gave away information about their employer—and particularly not one as naturally autocratic as the rather formidable Elisabeth St John, who was nearly eighty, and yet Kate had never met a woman of such advanced years who could exude such beauty and such grace. Who could still wear clothes with the style of the fashion model she had once briefly been. If I look like that at her age, she had thought at their very first meeting, then I would be a very happy bunny indeed!
Mrs Herley shut the door again. ‘If you would like to wait in the Blue Drawing Room, Miss Connors, then I will tell Lady St John that you are here.’
‘Thanks,’ murmured Kate rather wryly.
Her early appeal to Mrs Herley that she ‘call me Kate’ had fallen on polite but deaf ears—and she had remained Miss Connors ever since! Some people’s worlds were built on different structures from her own. But such formality suited this beautiful old house, she decided dreamily, making her way to the enormous room which she was almost through with decorating.
Kate let out a sigh as she looked around. She would be sad to let it go—but then, that happened with nearly all her jobs. They were her babies, in a way, and the final parting always proved more of a wrench than she expected, even after nearly nine years in the business.
The floor-to-ceiling windows were filled with the image of sea and sky—a breathtaking view and one with which the room had needed to compete so that it didn’t fade into complete insignificance.
Kate had chosen the colours carefully, and now the walls were bright with an unusual shade of blue. A deep and stunning and startling blue, and one which made the most of the Gothic mouldings which adorned the cornices.
And if she said so herself—it did look pretty good!
‘Kate?’
She turned around to find Lady St John walking into the room, in a cashmere cardigan and matching ankle-skimming skirt.
‘Hello, Lady St John! Almost my last visit to you, sadly! And I… I…’ Kate’s words faltered and then died completely, stuck in her throat like an insult one had thought better of saying.
For Lady St John was not alone, and insult was the very last word you would associate with the man who had quietly entered the room behind her. For who could possibly criticise pure perfection on two such long, muscular legs? This must be the owner of the car, she realised, and her heart began to race. Had she thought that only dull little men drove cars like that? Because she had been totally and foolishly wrong.
Lady St John performed a seamless introduction, waving her hand in the direction of the man who stood like a dark, silent statue behind her. ‘Kate—this is my godson.’
‘Your godson?’ echoed Kate, in breathless bemusement.
Lady St John smiled. ‘Mmm! I met his mother on my youthful travels to Europe and she became one of my closest friends. I’d like you to meet Giovanni Calverri.’ She turned to the man at her side. ‘Giovanni, this is Kate Connors, who has just been turning her rather spectacular talents to this room.’
As he glanced around the room, Kate couldn’t take her eyes off him. His name implied Latin blood, as did the jet-dark hair, though the eyes were—rather disconcertingly—a bright, dazzling blue. But the term Latin implied warmth and passion, and wasn’t there something awfully cold and aloof about this tall, striking man who was eyeing her with a face that was closed and shuttered?
She matched his look with one of her own. Men in suits that looked as if they had only just left the designer’s showroom the previous day were simply not her type.
‘Hello,’ she said coolly.
Giovanni froze. He had never seen a woman quite so tall or so slim, nor with hair of such a bright, beaten fire—and her very unexpectedness beat a deep, inevitable path into his consciousness. He felt the muscles of his thighs clench, as if his body was instinctively telling him that he wanted to… wanted to… His mouth hardened as he acknowledged the rampant flurry of his thoughts.
He forced himself to make his introduction as bland as possible, although the moist gleam of her mouth filled him with an overwhelming urge to crush its soft pinkness beneath his.
‘Giovanni?’ prompted his godmother, looking at the forbidding set of his shoulders in mild perplexity.
He pulled himself together. ‘I am delighted to meet you,’ he said, in the most beautiful accent Kate had ever heard—rich and dark and overlaid with the slightest and sexiest transatlantic drawl.
Say that again like you meant it, thought Kate indignantly. But she didn’t stop staring, because, even though he was not her type, he was still remarkable, and men who looked like this one were few and far between. Even in the rarefied circles in which she mixed.
Olive skin, an aquiline nose and a hard, sensual mouth. Combine those attributes with a body which was tall and lithe and didn’t possess even the tiniest bit of excess flesh, and you had a man who was most women’s fantasy come true in living, breathing form.
‘Delighted to meet you, too,’ she murmured, tempted to echo his own lack of enthusiasm, but good manners brought her up short and she gave him a polite smile. ‘You’re Italian, are you?’
‘Italian?’ His mouth twisted with a derision which made it look very sexy indeed, and Kate felt her heart race again. What on earth had she said to make him glare at her so?
‘Diu Mio!’ he uttered softly, a warning glitter lighting up the depths of his blue eyes, as if she had inflicted some silent blow on him. ‘I am a Sicilian, not an Italian!’
He made the claim as if he owned the world itself! ‘You mean there’s a difference?’ she questioned lightly and batted her eyelashes playfully at him.
‘Oh, dear,’ murmured Lady St John.
Giovanni felt his muscles tense once more as he met the flirtatious challenge which had suddenly made her eyes look very green indeed. Eyes which were almost on a level with his own. It was a new and unsettling sensation not to be looking down on a woman—from a purely physical point of view. Disturbingly, he found himself wondering how their bodies would feel if they were touching head to toe, horizontal. Naked. He swallowed the thought down and sublimated his desire, preferring instead to dwell on her ignorance.
‘You mean you don’t know the difference between Sicily and Italy?’ he demanded.
‘I wouldn’t have to ask if I knew, would I?’ she returned, though his rudeness was doing nothing to dampen down the heat in her blood.
Giovanni bit back his irritation, for why should this pale and unknown Englishwoman know anything about the deep, secret place which was his home? The place in love with its own silence, which shaped the impenetrable character of all Sicilians.
‘The difference is almost incalculable,’ he told her coldly. ‘And would take far more time to explain than I have at my disposal.’
‘I see,’ said Kate faintly, thinking how well he spoke English—whilst at the same time acknowledging that she could not ever remember anyone being quite so rude to her!
‘Giovanni!’