was not the word he would have used to describe Beth Granger, Cesario brooded. He could not understand why her fragile figure and elfin features were having such a profound effect on him, but the stirring of sexual desire in his groin was as insistent as it was unexpected.
Irritated with himself, he strode towards the door. ‘My name is Cesario,’ he reminded her. ‘Buonanotte, Beth. I hope you and Sophie both sleep well.’
AFTER checking on Sophie, Beth went straight to bed. She resolutely pushed all thoughts of Cesario to the back of her mind and fell asleep almost instantly.
A strange rumbling noise dragged her from a disturbing dream where she had been running down a long corridor lined with evil-looking stone gargoyles which turned into living creatures. She sat up, her heart racing, and switched on her bedside lamp.
Her watch showed that it was 2:00 a.m. The castle was silent, and she wondered if the noise had been part of her dream. But then it came again, as loud and violent as thunder. The storm must have moved closer. But she had never known thunder to growl continuously for so long. Going back to sleep was impossible when the noise was so loud.
Another booming crash seemed to make the walls of the castle shake. She leapt out of bed and hurried through to the nursery. Sophie was still sleeping peacefully and Beth was loath to disturb her. It seemed safer to leave the baby in the sturdy wooden cot while she went to investigate what was happening.
The corridor outside the nursery was illuminated by wall lamps which cast long shadows and flickered over several portraits housed in ornate frames. The haughty-looking men and women must be Cesario’s ancestors, she guessed. Their black eyes seemed to follow her, and she could not repress a little shiver as she walked towards the head of the stairs.
There were no signs of life. Cesario and his staff must all be in bed. A terrible noise, louder than anything that had gone before, resounded through the castle. Panic-stricken, she screamed, and at that moment a door on the other side of the landing flew open.
‘What’s happened?’ a gravelly voice demanded.
Cesario stood in the doorway, his big broad-shouldered frame silhouetted in the light that streamed from the room behind him. He must have been in bed and on hearing the noise had dragged on his trousers. But his chest was bare, and in spite of her terror Beth felt a little tremor of something that was definitely not fear run down her spine.
He was devastatingly sexy, with a toned, muscular physique that made her feel weak at the knees. Darkly tanned skin gleamed like burnished copper in the lamplight. His black tousled hair brushed his shoulders and his chest was covered with a mass of wiry hairs that arrowed down over his abdomen.
‘Are you hurt?’
Suddenly conscious that she was staring at him, Beth hastily dropped her gaze.
‘No. I…I was scared. That noise—what is it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He walked towards her, frowning when another thunderous crash rent the air.
‘At first I thought it was the storm, but it sounds as though the mountain is falling down,’ Beth said shakily. ‘Should we leave the castle?’
‘Definitely not. The Castello del Falco has stood for seven hundred years and we’re safer here than anywhere.’ Cesario looked grim. ‘You may be right about the mountain, though. The heavy rain that has been falling for the past few days could have triggered a landslide.’
Beth gasped. ‘But if part of the mountain is falling surely the castle will fall too?’ Her heart was racing so fast that she found it hard to breathe, but her mind was focused on one thing. ‘I left Sophie in the nursery. I must go and get her.’
She spun round, intent on racing back to the nursery, but a wave of dizziness like the one she had experienced when she had climbed the stairs earlier swept over her. The walls of the corridor seemed to be closing in on her, and she cried out as she fell forwards into black nothingness.
Growling an oath, Cesario lunged towards Beth and caught her as she crumpled. No wonder she had fainted, he thought as he lifted her in his arms and strode into his bedroom. She weighed next to nothing. He glanced down at her and his mouth tightened as he studied her hollow cheeks and the prominent line of her collarbone. What was it with women and dieting? He had never found extreme thinness attractive, which made his reaction to Beth all the more surprising.
She was not his type—so why had a flood of heat surged through him the instant he had swept her into his arms? And why did the brush of her silky brown hair against his bare chest evoke a throb of fierce, primitive lust in his groin? It did not help that her cotton nightgown was so thin he could see the outline of her body through it. The strap had slipped off her shoulder, exposing the upper slope of one small, pale breast, and the darker skin of her nipple was clearly visible through the material.
Her eyelashes fluttered against her white cheeks and then slowly lifted. Huge green eyes focused on him and Cesario felt uncomfortable that he had been looking at her without her knowledge. He felt like a voyeur, and quickly lowered her onto the bed and swung away.
‘Sophie!’ Struggling against the blackness that was threatening to suck her back down, and the horrible sensation that she was going to be sick, Beth hung on to the one thing that mattered. Feeling disorientated, she let her eyes scan an unfamiliar room—a vast room, with dark wood-panelled walls and an enormous fireplace. The four-poster bed she was lying on was ornately carved and draped with swathes of rich burgundy silk.
She remembered the strange, terrifying noises and Cesario’s warning of a possible landslide. If anything happened to Sophie.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and gasped when a firm hand gripped her shoulder.
‘Let me go. I want to go back to the nursery.’
‘I’ve just been to check on Sophie and she’s still fast asleep. Here—drink this.’
A glass was thrust into Beth’s hand. With Cesario looming over her she had little option but to take a sip of the amber liquid and she choked as fiery heat burned the back of her throat.
‘What is it?’ she croaked when she could speak.
‘Brandy. You fainted,’ Cesario told her tersely. ‘Drink it. It might put some colour back in your face.’
He was so forceful that she did not have the nerve to argue. She took another tiny sip, wrinkling nose in disgust. ‘I never drink spirits.’
‘Or eat food, from the look of you. I can only assume you are the type of woman who is obsessed with her looks and determined to diet until you resemble a skeleton.’
His derisive comment did what the brandy had failed to do and caused angry colour to flare in her cheeks. ‘I told you—I’m naturally thin. I do eat.’ But admittedly not very well, Beth acknowledged silently, thinking of the days when looking after Sophie took up so much of her time that all she could be bothered to cook for herself was toast.
‘Then why did you pass out?’
She sighed, wishing Cesario would let the matter drop. ‘I’m probably still a bit anaemic. I saw a doctor a couple of months ago because I kept feeling dizzy, and a blood test confirmed that my red blood cell count was low. He suggested that I take iron tablets and a vitamin supplement.’
‘And did you take them?’
‘I took the ones the doctor gave me, but I couldn’t afford to buy any more.’ She flushed when he gave her an impatient look. ‘Why are you so interested in the state of my health?’
How could he explain that Beth’s fragile appearance aroused his protective instincts? Cesario did not understand why she triggered such deeply primitive urges inside him. Lust, yes, but also an inexplicable desire to take care of