lovely guy and I plan on being very happy.’ She took her mother by the shoulders and propelled her out of the door. It was only when the door had closed again that her forced smile faded. Happiness, she reminded herself, was not a right; in her case it was more a hope.
* * *
Sabrina didn’t search out the major domo; she knew he’d find her. She relayed her mother’s concerns, being careful not to tread on Walter’s toes. He responded with his habitual air of statuesque calm to her queries. It was at his suggestion she had a few words with the staff, mainly to thank them for their efforts in hosting the royal party at such short notice.
Then, with Walter, she checked out the table setting in the formal dining room. It was a room they rarely used as a family, but tonight the table groaned with silver and crystal, and happily the candlelight hid a multitude of sins—including the massive crack in the ceiling, which the engineer’s report had ominously referred to as significant.
There was, it seemed, only one decision for her to make.
‘Her Grace had not decided if we should serve the aperitifs in here, or the small salon?’
It was a courtesy, she knew, because Sabrina had already seen the scene set in the salon as she’d walked past, but she happily maintained the illusion that it was her decision and responded to the courtesy enquiry gravely. ‘I think, the small salon.’
The major-domo tipped his head in stately approval of her response. ‘I will see to it. If there is nothing else...?’
‘Nothing, thank you, Walter.’ About to follow him from the room herself, Sabrina paused and turned back. She walked across to the row of French doors that lined one wall and she began to open them up. The last one stubbornly refused to budge, causing her to curse softly. She aimed an irritated kick at it with one narrow, elegantly shod foot, before she paused to get her breath.
The same cool draught of mountain air that Sebastian felt on his face as he reached the open doorway made the full skirt of Sabrina’s dress billow around her slender legs. He watched as, eyes closed, long lashes fanning darkly against her smooth cheeks, eyes squeezed closed, she let out a long sibilant sigh through parted pink lips as she turned her face into the breeze, making no attempt to tame the fabric as it lifted and fluttered some more.
The tilt of her chin and the elegant placement of her arms made him think of a ballet dancer. An idea that was reinforced as her head fell back revealing the long, lovely line of her neck and throat and the angles of her collarbones. Though high to the throat, at the back the bodice of the dress she wore was cut into a deep vee that exposed a half-moon-shaped mole on the crest of one delicate shoulder blade.
Sebastian felt the heat rise through him and forgot to breathe, forgot how to breathe as the graceful image burned deep into his brain. Hunger tightened its grip, a primal pleasure/pain presence low in his belly and all points south. There were so many warning bells ringing in his head that he was deaf to everything but the heavy thud of his heart, the ache in his body and the whisper of sound as the fabric brushed against her legs.
Then she opened her eyes and gave a tiny sigh. The sound snapped the sensual spell that had held him transfixed, leaving behind something that he refused to recognise as tenderness. That sigh had sounded so damn wistful.
She remained oblivious to his presence as he crossed the room. She had both hands braced against the door frame and was pushing against the stubborn door, when he placed a hand above her head on the door jamb.
The door gave with a shudder.
‘Thank you.’ Sabrina turned, the corners of her soft mouth lifted in a smile of gratitude, which melded into one of dismay as she saw that it was him.
Sabrina stepped back so quickly that she almost lost her balance. The impact of his physical proximity acted like a live current, her quivering stomach vanished into a bottomless black hole and it took every ounce of her willpower to stop herself backing through the open door, which would have been impossible anyway because her limbs were paralyzed with shock. They call it lust, Brina.
Ignoring the mocking voice in her head, she lifted her softly rounded chin to a warily aggressive angle and directed a cool look up at the tall figure of the Zorzi black sheep. Sebastian just stood there in his formal black tie and tux, looking as if he had just stepped off a glossy Hollywood set.
‘You’re too early!’ Panic made her voice sharp.
‘I could hardly wait to sample the well-known hospitality of East Vela,’ he countered sardonically as his heavy-lidded stare travelled from the top of her glossy head to her heels and back. Sabrina fingered the pearls at her throat, trying desperately to ignore how his assessing and overtly sensual gaze made her whole body tingle.
The nervous action drew his stare to her throat, where a blue-veined pulse pushed against the pale skin.
‘You startled me. I thought you were Walter.’
So the smile was for Walter. ‘You look...good.’
No smile came with the compliment, which was delivered in an expressionless voice.
‘So, should I?’
‘What?’
‘Go away and come back.’
Sabrina flushed and moved her head slightly to look past his shoulder willing someone, anyone, to appear.
They didn’t.
‘If you were expecting Luis he’s waiting on an important call.’
She firmed her shoulders and reminded herself that being pleasant to people she didn’t like was part of her future job. She could not allow personal feelings to enter into it. ‘No, of course not. You just took me by surprise and this is a bit...awkward.’
‘Why?’
She tightened her lips and glared at him. ‘I have no pleasant memories of our last encounter.’
‘I can think of one,’ he teased, looking at her mouth.
The longer their glances held, the thicker the atmosphere in the air became. Sabrina was the first to look away, fixing her eyes on a point over his shoulder as she fiddled with the pearls. ‘I had assumed you were drunk but I can see now that you’re always...’ Her words faded as the vivid memory resurfaced. His breath the other day had not actually tasted of booze, just mint and... No, she was not going to go there!
‘Irresistible?’
Before she could react to the suggestion the antique string of pearls she was playing with snapped.
Sabrina immediately fell to her knees, trying to grab the pearls, which were bouncing across the polished wooden floor in all directions. ‘Oh, no! No, no, no.’
‘Relax, they’re not the crown jewels...’ He stopped, his teasing look vanishing from his face as she lifted her head and he saw that she was close to tears.
‘Just go away!’ she hissed. ‘I don’t give a damn about the crown jewels. They were my grandmother’s pearls.’
With a frown he dropped down, squatting on his heels beside her. He saw the little tremors that shook her shoulders and felt something twist hard in his chest. He did his best to ignore it, telling himself it was either indigestion or the threat of tears that had caused it. He’d never liked seeing women crying.
‘She left them to me. She always wore them and now they’re ruined! Everything is ruined...’ Dignity forgotten, on all fours now, she stretched to retrieve a pearl that had slipped under a chair, but as her finger touched it it bounced away. ‘I can’t do this! It’s so, so... No, I just can’t!’
‘What we need is a system. An inch-by-inch search. What do they call it—a fingertip search?’
The image that drifted into her head involved his fingertips moving very slowly, but the surface they were exploring, the secret crevices they were discovering, had nothing to do with the wooden floor! What was happening to