Carrying His Scandalous Heir Read online

  The blood was beating in her veins, hot and hectic. Cesare was speaking again, and she heard his words, heard the sensual languor in them that only heated her blood the more.

  ‘You must let me know, Carla, when it is safe for us to resume physical closeness. I know that in the early months it is not advised, but—’

  She pushed back her chair, scraping it on the stone. ‘I...I need to lie down!’ Her voice was high-pitched, and even as she said the words she felt her colour mount.

  He was on his feet too, his emotions back under control, back on their leash. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You must rest.’

  He glanced at his watch. Then back at Carla. Carla, the woman for whom, for all the complications and confusion and complexity, he felt one emotion that was very, very simple.

  Desire.

  He had desired her the moment he’d set eyes on her. He desired her still. That was undeniable—that was the emotion he knew he was safe with.

  But not at this moment. Indulging it at this early stage of her pregnancy was out of the question, he knew, and for that one reason he must take himself off—let alone for all the other reasons assailing him.

  ‘If you will permit, I will take my leave of you. I’m afraid I must return to the castello. I will be away, I fear, for several days. There is a great deal to be sorted out.’

  Was there grimness in his voice? Carla looked at his shuttered expression. She was sure there was—and knew the reason. What else could it be for him but grim to perform the unwelcome task of telling his fiancée she’d been usurped by the extreme inconvenience of his former mistress becoming unexpectedly pregnant, requiring a swift marriage to satisfy the exacting terms of his sense of self-respect and familial honour?

  She felt bleakness go through her. A sense of unreality. Yet this was real—all too real. That jagged blade drew across her heart again, sending a shot of agony through her. To have her heart’s desire—marriage to Cesare—and yet for it to be like this was a travesty. An agony.

  How can I do this? How? Cesare is forcing himself to marry me—just as I tried to force Vito to marry me. Is that all I’m good for? Forcing men to marry me?

  A bead of hysteria bubbled in her throat. She swayed. Instantly Cesare was there, his hand strong under her elbow, steadying her. She felt his hand like a brand upon her.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  There was concern in his voice, and his eyes flickered to her abdomen, where only the slightest curve of her figure indicated her pregnancy. It was hardly visible yet—it had taken Vito’s bear hug to reveal it to him, as he felt the swell below her waistline.

  Vito, whom she had sought to use as a sticking plaster over her broken heart. Broken by the man her pregnancy was now forcing her to marry. Unbearable—just unbearable!

  She turned her head to him, her eyes wild. ‘Cesare, I can’t make you marry me like this! I can’t face another unwilling bridegroom! I forced Vito to the altar, using the threat of my mother selling his uncle’s shares to Falcone, because I felt so...’ She swallowed, finding a word that she could use to Cesare. ‘So humiliated.’

  She stepped away, taking a huge and painful breath, making herself look at him, her expression troubled, stricken.

  ‘So humiliated, Cesare.’ She watched his face close up, but went on all the same. ‘I tried so hard while we were together—to be the woman you wanted me to be. I never pushed our relationship, never made demands on you.’ She paused, remembering the dreadful, hideous moment when he had told her he was leaving. ‘And I know you told me you’d never given me reason to expect anything more than what we had. But all the same, when you left me—’

  She broke off, her throat thickening. Nearly—so nearly—she had blurted out what she must never, never tell him! What would be the ultimate humiliation for her. The ultimate burden on him.

  He must never know I fell in love with him! Never!

  He stepped towards her, then halted. There was something in his face again—that same look she had not understood before. Did not understand now.

  ‘I was brutal to you that morning,’ he said. There was reproof in his voice. Harshness. But not for her. ‘Unforgivably so. But it was because—’

  He frowned, and she saw him making his next words come, making himself hold her gaze.

  ‘It was because I did not want to part with you,’ he said. He shifted restlessly, altering his stance. ‘I didn’t want to end our relationship. But my hand had been forced. Francesca needed a decision—’

  She saw his hand lift, as if he would reach for her, then drop again. She felt emotion welling in her, but did not know what, or how, or why.

  ‘I had to give you up—and I was not pleased to have to do so. I knew I had to make the ending—swift. I never meant...’ His eyes rested on hers. ‘I never meant for you to feel what you said you felt.’ His voice dropped. ‘I never meant for you to feel humiliated by my rejection.’

  He shook his head slowly, as if clearing it of things he had never thought about. His eyes fixed on hers again.

  ‘I always respected you, Carla. Always. I still do. And if...’ He took a heavy breath and she watched the breadth of his powerful chest widen with it. ‘If I have seemed...distant, then think only that this has been a shock to me. Less than twenty-four hours ago...’ his voice changed ‘...I saw my life, my future, quite differently from now.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice low. ‘So sorry for what has happened.’

  ‘Don’t be! It is not of your making. I take full responsibility! My behaviour that night—when I learnt you had not married Viscari—was unforgivable! No wonder you fled from me!’ He paused for a moment, his face working. ‘But if you had not fled before I woke, then perhaps—’

  He stopped, as if silencing himself. His expression changed again. ‘This is not the time for further talk,’ he said.

  He was finishing their discussion, she could see.

  ‘We will have leisure for that ahead of us. For now—well, America is waking up, and I cannot in all conscience delay contacting Francesca.’ He glanced at his watch, all businesslike now. ‘So I will take my leave of you—for now. I will phone you this evening.’

  She nodded wordlessly, and started to walk back indoors. Cesare fell into place beside her. Side by side—yet separate.

  Her eyes went to the pair of elegant silk-upholstered sofas by the fireplace.

  That’s where he first started to make love to me. The night that he carried me upstairs, began our affair. Made me his.

  But he was never hers. Never. Not even now, when he was forcing himself to marry her for the sake of the child she carried. The as yet unreal being who would become, as the months yielded to each other, so very, very real. Binding them to each other with an indissoluble bond, even if she were to divorce him and he was to marry—belatedly—his aristocratic Francesca.

  This child will bind us to each other for ever. With him wishing it were not so and me...me haunted by what can never be. I can never be the woman he loves.

  Into her head came the images on that triptych—the paintings that had catalysed their affair so many months ago. The Count flanked by the two women in his life. The peasant girl, gowned in red silk, who could never aspire to be his wife. And his pale, haunted wife, dutifully married, bonded for life, whether or not she had ever wanted to be.

  I’ve become them both. The mistress he kept for his bed and the wife he married for duty, for a legitimate heir. Neither woman was happy. How could they be?

  The bitterness was in her throat. Her heart.

  They reached the cool, marbled hallway.

  ‘Shall I see you up to your room?’

  Cesare’s voice penetrated her dark, bleak thoughts.

  She shook her head. ‘No—it’s fine. I remember the way.’

  She hadn
’t meant to sound sarcastic, and hoped she hadn’t. Cesare did not seem to notice anyway. He only nodded.

  He took her hands, holding them lightly but in a clasp she could not easily pull away from. His eyes looked into hers.

  ‘Carla—I’m... I’m sorry. Sorry for so much. But however...however difficult things are to start with, you have my word that I will do my best—my very best—to be a good husband to you.’

  His gaze held hers, but she found it hard...impossible...to bear it.

  ‘I have said that we can make this work, and we can.’ He took a breath. ‘We can have a very civilised marriage. If we do divorce, at some later date—well, that is not for now. It is for then. And it may not come to that.’

  For a moment it was as if he might say something more. She saw a tic in his cheek—indicating, she knew, that he was holding himself in strict self-control.

  She drew back her hands. ‘Cesare—go. There isn’t anything more to say.’ Her gaze slid away, not wanting to meet his. Heaviness weighed her down.

  Be careful what you long for.

  The warning sounded in her head. Once she had longed to become Cesare’s wife—but not like this. Oh, not like this!

  ‘Very well—I will take my leave, then.’

  He did not make any gesture of farewell. Once, long ago, he would have dropped a swift, possessing kiss upon her lips, as if it were the seal of possession for their next time together. Now she was carrying his child, and that was seal of possession enough.

  Except that I am a possession he does not want...

  ‘Goodbye, Cesare.’

  She did not say any more. What could she say? She’d said everything that could be said. Now they were simply bound to the motions they would need to go through.

  She stepped back, waiting for him to leave. But suddenly, impulsively, he took her shoulders, dropped onto her forehead a brief flash of his lips. She felt his hands pressing on her shoulders, the shock of his mouth on her skin.

  ‘We can make this work, Carla.’

  There was intensity in his voice, in his eyes, pouring into hers. Then he was releasing her, striding away, throwing open the doors and moving out into the sunshine beyond to climb into his car and drive away.

  Carla stood, listening to the engine fade into the distance. She walked forward to close the doors. Then slowly, very slowly, went upstairs.

  How could they make it work? How?

  Impossible...

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WITH SURE, SWIFT STEPS, Cesare headed down the winding pathway through the ornamental gardens below the elegant south-facing frontage of the castello, down into the deep valley where the narrow river rushed noisily over the boulders and rocks in its bed.

  His stride was purposeful. He knew he should be contacting Francesca, but he could not face it—not yet. Instead he was doing what he had so often done as a boy, when he’d been seeking distance from the father he’d never been able to get on with.

  By the river’s edge he settled himself against an outcrop of rock in the late-afternoon sun, overlooking the tumbling water, fresh and cold and clean. Here, so often in his boyhood, he had found refuge from his father’s admonitions and reproofs in watching the wading birds darting, in lying back on sun-warmed stone, hearing the wind soughing in the forest trees. Feeling the deep, eternal bond he had with this domain—the land that was in his blood, in his bones.

  How many other Mondave sons had done likewise over the centuries? Waiting to step into their father’s shoes, to take over the birthright to which they had been born?

  And now, already, another son might be preparing to be born.

  Out of nowhere the realisation hit him. Stilling every muscle in his body.

  She carries my child! Perhaps my son—my heir!

  The arc of the sky seemed to wheel about him and he took a shuddering breath. She was not the woman he had thought he would marry. In a single night, with a single act of tumultuous consummation, he had changed his own destiny. He felt emotion convulse in him. Carla—Carla would be his wife. Not Francesca. Carla carried his child. Carla would become his contessa.

  He could feel the blood beating in his veins. Memory flashed through him—memory after memory. All the nights, all the days he’d spent with her. The sensual intensity of her body in his arms. The casual companionship of their times together.

  I did not wish to part with her when I did.

  He had told her that truthfully. Admitted it to her—to himself.

  Yet into his head came her bitter words to him. ‘You’d be marrying your mistress.’

  His expression stilled, becoming masklike. Distant.

  Is this what I want?

  But what did it matter? His own desires were irrelevant. They always had been.

  He had changed his own destiny. And now he had no choice but to marry Carla and set aside the woman whom he had always cast in the role of contessa. In his inner vision, the portraits in the triptych imposed themselves. The two women—the mistress and the wife—flanking his ancestor. The ancestor who had never had to change his own destiny.

  He had them both—the mistress and the wife.

  His eyes, as he gazed back towards at the castello, were suddenly grave. His destiny was to continue the ancient lineage of this house.

  Always I’ve had to follow the path set out for me—first my duties to my inheritance, then my duty to marry Francesca, and now I am set by my honour to marry Carla, who carries my child. Choice has never been a possibility.

  Slowly, his expression still grave, he got to his feet, made his way back to the castello, let himself into the drawing room. Walking through it, he moved out beyond into the state apartments, up the great staircase to the galleria above. Knowing just where he was going—and why.

  The triptych at the far end was waiting for him. He walked up to it, looked into the face of his ancestor. Proud, Carla had called him, and he had taken her to task for it. She had not liked him, his ancestor, had seen only self-satisfaction, an overweening consciousness of his own sense of superiority as a man above others, taking whatever he wanted from life and paying no price for it.

  Cesare’s eyes went to the pale blonde woman to his ancestor’s right. The woman he had married. Chosen to marry. Fingering her rosary, she had her prayer book on her lap, a poignant air and an expression of otherworldliness. As if she longed to be elsewhere. As if the sorrows of her life were too great to bear.

  His eyes slid away to the other portrait—the other woman, his mistress. Chosen to be his mistress. The rich satin gown, the heavy jewels draped over her, the roses in her lap, a symbol of passion, and the ripe swell of her belly. The expression in her eyes showed her consciousness of her illicit relationship with his ancestor.

  His ancestor had been free to choose them both. To pay no price for either.

  Again Cesare’s eyes slid away, back to the portrait of his ancestor. Saw the long-fingered hand, so like his own, closed over the pommel of his sword. His eyes went upwards to the face that Luciezo had preserved for all posterity. For him, his descendant, to look upon and contemplate.

  For the first time, as he stood there, so sombrely regarding his ancestor’s face, he saw something in those dark, brooding eyes—a shadow around the sculpted mouth...a tightness. A tension. As if his gilded, privileged life had not been entirely to his pleasure. Not entirely what he’d wanted...

  Across the centuries that divided them Cesare’s eyes held those of his ancestor. As if he would divine his innermost thoughts. Drill across the centuries to see inside the man whose blood ran in his veins.

  A tightness shaped itself around his own mouth—a tension.

  Abruptly, he turned away. Walking with rapid strides, he moved back down the lofty length of the galleria, descending the stairs with clattering heels. He wal
ked into the library with its vast array of shelves, its acres of tomes inset.

  His archivist was there, working on some research project or other requested by some university’s history department. He started as Cesare walked in, and got to his feet.

  ‘Tell me, are there any personal diaries or journals from Count Alessandro—the one Luciezo painted for the triptych?’ Cesare asked without preamble.

  His archivist blinked. ‘I would need to check...’ he answered uncertainly.

  ‘Do so, if you please. And anything that you find, have sent to my office. Thank you.’

  Cesare took his leave briskly, wondering to himself what impulse had made him make such a request—wondering what he had glimpsed in his ancestor’s impassive face.

  He pulled his mind away. He had no time to brood further. He must phone Francesca. That could not be postponed any longer.

  His brows drew together. Was this really something that could be said over the phone? Telling her that he could no longer marry her? His frown deepened. He owed her more than that, surely—more than a cursory phone call.

  I have to tell her to her face—I owe her that courtesy, that consideration, at least.

  He would be changing her expected destiny, just as his was now changed.

  He gave a heavy sigh, sitting himself down at the desk in his office, calling up airline websites, seeing when he could fly out.

  He would have to tell Carla what he was doing. She would understand. He would be away a handful of days—no more than that, allowing for time differences across the Atlantic. Then he would return and announce his engagement to Carla.

  * * *

  Carla lay in bed, listening to the dawn chorus. She had scarcely slept. She had spent the remainder of the previous day, after Cesare had left, lying on her bed, sleepless, and then restlessly going down to the pool, immersing herself in the cooling water.

  As she’d worked her way up and down in a slow breaststroke she’d felt a kind of numbness steal over her. It had lasted through the evening, through dinner—served with Lorenzo’s usual skilful unobtrusiveness—and even through the phone call that Cesare had dutifully made.