‘I’ll go and get help,’ she choked. She hated to leave the injured animal, but it would die if it was not set free soon.
* * *
‘You say Beth went out an hour ago?’ Cesario questioned Filomena, raising his voice above the loud cries of the baby, whom the cook was endeavouring to comfort.
‘She said she was going for a walk in the gardens, but when I sent one of the staff to look for her there was no sign of her.’ Filomena shook her head as she tried to feed Sophie from a bottle, but the baby spat out the teat and screamed louder. ‘I cannot imagine what has happened. Signorina Beth is devoted to the bambina and would not leave her for long.’
Cesario’s eyes were drawn to the inconsolable infant in the cook’s arms, and he felt a tug of pity when he saw tears on Sophie’s flushed cheeks. ‘Let me hold her,’ he said, stepping forward to take the baby from Filomena.
Sophie was so small and vulnerable, and so utterly distressed, that he instinctively cuddled her against his chest and spoke to her softly. ‘Hush, piccola. Don’t cry. Are you hungry, hmm?’
At the sound of his voice Sophie’s screams gradually lessened, and she stared up at Cesario with huge, trusting brown eyes.
‘You were always able to comfort your son,’ Filomena murmured as she handed him the bottle of formula.
A shaft of pain sliced through Cesario as he was assailed by memories of Nicolo. For a moment he wanted to hand Sophie back and run from the nursery which held so many reminders of his little boy. But when he offered Sophie the teat of the bottle she took it, and made a contented sound as she began to suck.
There was no doubt she was a sweet little thing. He still found it unbelievable that she might be his child, but if a DNA test proved that she was it would be no hardship to love her, Cesario brooded. Thoughts of the test turned his mind back to Sophie’s guardian, and he frowned when he glanced to the window and saw that it was raining once more.
Once Sophie had finished her feed he handed her back to Filomena and turned to speak to the maid, Carlotta. ‘Tell the groom to saddle my horse,’ he instructed tersely. ‘I’d better go and search for Signorina Granger.’
* * *
Beth raced back across the field, desperate to find help to rescue the injured dog. As she ran, the rain started again, feeling like sharp needles on her skin and quickly soaking through her skirt and blouse. Seeking what shelter she could from the elements, she kept close to a row of thick bushes. She became aware of a pounding noise, and at first thought it was the sound of her blood pumping in her ears as she ran. But the pounding grew louder. There was a split-second’s silence, and then she screamed when a huge shape, a figure—she did not know what—soared over the bushes and missed her by mere inches.
Utterly terrified, she stumbled and fell. The grass was wet beneath her cheek and she could smell the damp earth. She heard a male voice swear savagely, and then strong hands gripped her arms and she was lifted and set roughly on her feet.
‘Santa Madre! What in hell’s name are you doing?’ Cesario glared at her furiously, his jaw rigid and his unruly hair falling into his eyes. ‘Where have you been? You told Filomena you were going to walk in the gardens, but no one could find you in the castle grounds. Answer me, damn it,’ he growled when Beth made no sound, simply stared at him mutely, trembling with a mixture of fright, shock and an involuntary reaction to her proximity to Cesario’s big, muscular body.
Behind him she could see his great black horse calmly cropping the grass. The pounding she’d heard must have been the horse’s hooves as it had galloped across the field on the other side of the bushes. If Cesario and his horse had landed on her she could have been killed, she thought weakly. A wave of dizziness swept over her and her lashes fluttered against her cheeks.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she heard him mutter. ‘You’re not going to faint on me again, mia belleza.’
Cesario could not explain the irrational fear that had swept through him when he had learned that Beth had disappeared from the castle. There was no reason to suppose she had come to any harm, he had told himself as he had mounted his horse and ridden out of the courtyard to search for her. But he’d been plagued by the image of how she had looked the previous evening: pale and shaking with emotion as she had faced him across the dining table, fiercely refuting the accusation that she had stolen from her previous employers. The memory of her trying to blink back her tears had tugged on his insides, and he had felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that he had upset her.
Now, as he stared down at her white face, relief surged through him. But when his eyes roamed over her slender body and saw the firm thrust of her breasts clearly out-lined beneath her wet blouse another, far more primitive emotion thundered through his veins.
Beth sensed a subtle change in Cesario. His voice was no longer harsh with anger but rough, and laced with a seductive huskiness that sent a tremor through her. She opened her eyes and was trapped by his granite-grey gaze. She felt his warm breath on her skin and her senses quivered as she inhaled the scent of him: an intoxicating mixture of his wet leather coat, the evocatively spicy cologne he wore, and something else that was intensely male and uniquely him.
Her brain registered all those things in the timeless seconds that trembled between them. And then his head swooped and he covered her mouth with his own.
Starbursts of pleasure instantly exploded inside her, and without conscious thought she parted her lips beneath his. Perhaps she should have been shocked, but in truth she had imagined his kiss from the moment her eyes had locked with his in the ballroom of his castle. She felt as though she had been waiting for him all her life, that she had been born for this moment with this man, and there was no thought in her head to resist him when he plundered her lips with a hunger that touched her soul.
He was not gentle, but she hadn’t expected him to be, and his fierce desire, the bold thrust of his tongue into her mouth, evoked a desperate longing for him to pull her down onto the wet earth and claim her body with every pagan demand she sensed throbbed in his blood.
The few chaste kisses she had shared when she’d been on occasional dates with other men had not prepared her for Cesario’s sensual onslaught. His lips grazed hers again and again, drawing a response that she was powerless to deny.
The teeming rain pounded them, running down their faces and slicking Beth’s shirt to her body. The feel of the sodden material clinging to her breasts was deliciously erotic, and she could not repress a soft moan when he ran his hands down her front and traced her taut nipples jutting through the wet cotton. Sensation arrowed through her and, driven by an instinctive need to be even closer to him, she lifted her arms and curved them around his neck.
He muttered something in Italian and crushed her to him, so that her breasts were pressed against his chest. She was conscious of his hard sinews and muscles imprinted on her softer flesh, and the solid ridge of his arousal jabbed her belly, causing molten heat to pool between her thighs.
The dark stubble shading his jaw felt abrasive against her cheek but she did not care. Nothing mattered except that he should never, ever stop kissing her. Some pagan force deep inside her told her that she belonged here in his arms. That she belonged to him. She curled her fingers into his hair and then, like a blind person wanting to imprint his image on her brain, stroked his face, exploring every angle and plane and tracing the sharp edges of his cheekbones.
Her fingertips fluttered over the raised ridge of his scar. At her touch he stiffened and tore his mouth from hers, his actions so abrupt that she was unprepared and swayed dizzily for a moment. Deprived of the warmth and strength of his body she felt bereft, and wondered with a flash of despair how she could bear the aching loneliness of her life.
He dropped his arms to his sides, allowing her to step back from him. As the reality of what had happened sank in she lifted her hand to her mouth and felt its swollen softness, staring at Cesario with stunned eyes.
‘Why did you do that?’ she whispered.
He