Caroline’s eyes widened. “Permission? Permission? I hate to burst your royal bubble, Excellency, but I’m free to come and go as I please.”
“You forget yourself,” he said in a low, threatening voice. “You are in my home, cara. I make the rules here, no one else. You will leave when I say you may, not a moment sooner!”
“Nico?” Anna Sabatini stepped between them, a fixed smile on her face. “Nico, Monsieur Beauchamp has arrived.” She looked from her grandson’s angry glower to Caroline’s pale face. “Whatever is the matter with you two?”
Nicolo blew out his breath. “Nothing, carissima,” he said. He smiled, took his grandmother’s hand, and pressed his lips to it. “Caroline and I were simply arguing over an appropriate bedtime for you.”
Anna laughed, “I have solved the problem, then. I shall go up when we finish coffee. Now, go, Nico, greet your guest.” She linked her arm through Caroline’s. “I will take care of Caroline.”
But it was Bob Calder who assumed that role. He brought her a drink, offered her a cigarette. He was charming and witty, but, although Caroline was polite, she offered no encouragement. In fact, it was hard for her to keep up her end of the conversation. She couldn’t stop thinking about Nicolo, about how he’d treated her, not just last night but moments before. What kind of man was he, anyway?
It was obvious what kind of man Sofia Valenti thought he was. The girl’s every smile, every glance, was filled with adoration that grew more and more obvious as the evening went on and as her consumption of champagne increased. She hung on his every word at dinner, and after coffee, when la Principessa excused herself and retired and the little group adjourned to the living room for liqueurs and brandy, Sofia dropped to a cushion at his feet and gazed worshipfully into his face.
“Just look at that child make calf eyes at the Prince,” Calder said with a soft chuckle.
Nicolo was the only one who seemed unaware of the girl’s fawning attention, which was too bad, Caroline thought grimly. A child like that was probably just what he needed. Young. Innocent. Malleable. Just the type of blank page made to suit a man like him.
Caroline put down her coffee. “Excuse me,” she said to Calder, and she made her way from the living room to the elegant powder room down the hall.
Once inside, she sank onto the quilted bench opposite the marble vanity and stared at her reflection. This was ridiculous. What was there to be upset about? She’d worried that seeing Nicolo tonight would make her feel uncomfort-able, but it hadn’t, except for that first unpleasant encounter. And by this time tomorrow—
There was a soft rap at the door.
“Yes?” Caroline said.
Sofia Valenti stepped into the room.
“I hope I am not imposing, signorina.”
“Not at all. I was just leaving.”
The girl’s tongue snaked along her full lips. “I wonder—have you a moment?”
Caroline looked at her. “Of course. What is it?”
Sofia swallowed hard. “This is so—how do you say?—it is not easy for me to say, signorina.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Sofia hesitated. Caroline could almost see her building up her courage, and then her words came out in a rush.
“I want you to know I am not jealous of your presence in the palazzo,” she said.
Caroline’s brows lifted. “Why should you be?”
“I—I mean, I know you are beautiful. A woman of the world, and much older…”
Caroline laughed. “Such compliments, Sofia. I’m not sure I’m up to them.”
The girl sank down beside her. “But you are not His Excellency’s sort at all,” she said seriously. “I understand that.”
Caroline’s smile fled. “There’s no reason I should be,” she said coldly. “I’m here to provide companionship for Princess Sabatini, not for him.”
Sofia put her hand on Caroline’s arm. “I am making a mess of this,” she said quickly. “What I meant to say is, I do not feel any animosity to you, signorina.”
“Well good for you! Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“I suppose you are aware that the Prince is very old-fashioned.”
“If you mean the Prince thinks we’d be better off if the clock were set back a couple of hundred years,” Caroline said, “the answer is yes.”
“My father, as well, believes in the old ways.” Sofia’s eyes met Caroline’s. “As, per esempio, in arranged marriages.”
“Well, I still don’t…” Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “Marriage? Yours—and Prince Sabatini’s?”
“Oh, please, you must not say a word to anyone!” The girl gave a worried glance over her shoulder, as if she might find the dinner guests all crowded inside the room with them. “The arrangements are not yet concluded, you see, and—Why do you look at me that way, signorina? Such betrothals are not so uncommon, even today, in our world.”
Nicolo and this child were to marry! And he’d known it, all the time he’d been trying to bed her.
“Have I upset you?” the girl said in a worried tone.
Caroline took a deep breath. “No,” she said calmly, “not at all. I just don’t understand why you’ve taken me into your confidence.”
“I thought—I hoped—you might be able to help me. A woman like you—you must know ways to get a man to…” she flushed “…to want someone.”
“Me?” Caroline didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or to cry. “You want me to help you seduce Nicolo?”
Sofia’s face flamed. “He—he treats me like a child. He is very kind, even gallant, but he never—when he looks at me…” She swallowed. “If you could, perhaps, make some suggestions, you see, so that I might move things along…?”
Caroline felt a stir of anger deep within her breast, not at this artless, naive girl but at Nicolo, Nicolo with his phony morality, his counterfeit Old World manners—his way of finding a woman’s heart and using it to suit his own needs, whether she was eighteen or twenty-four or seventy…
“I should not have asked,” the girl said unhappily. “Forgive me—”
Caroline stood up. “When we go back inside,” she said tightly, “keep your eye on me and Mr. Calder.” She forced herself to smile. “I’m sure you’ll be able to pick up some ideas.”
She pulled open the bathroom door and hurried through the atrium, her heels tapping swiftly against the mosaic floor. Someone had put on the stereo and music drifted from the living room. Outside the doorway, she paused, took a deep breath, and made the sort of entrance she’d sworn she’d never make again, her stride long and sensual, her head back so that her hair moved against her bare shoulders, her mouth curved into a soft, sexy smile.
Nicolo was standing on the far side of the room, talking with Bob Calder.
“Bob,” she said brightly, in a tone she knew would draw the attention of everyone. She held out her arms as both men turned and looked at her. She saw Nicolo’s eyes narrow to slits, and then Calder was moving past him, hands outstretched to clasp hers.
“There you are, Bob. I was afraid, for a moment, that I’d lost you.”
Calder grinned as their fingers interlaced. “You’re not likely to do that, Caro.”
“Good.” Her smile grew brilliant. “I’d hate to lose you so soon after I’ve found you.”
A delighted flush rose on Calder’s cheeks. He put his arm around her waist and smiled at her and she thought, with a sharp twinge of guilt, that he was much too nice a man to use this way.
But just then she looked up and saw Nicolo watching them, his face as black as a storm cloud, and her chin lifted. That’s right, Prince, she thought coldly. Look. That’s the only thing you’ll ever do. You’ll look—but you won’t touch, ever again.
She smiled and leaned closer to Calder, so that the bright fall of her golden hair brushed his jaw.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said.
He did, for what seemed like the next million hours. And Caroline, who
had never developed the art of flirting, behaved as if it came as naturally to her as breathing. She batted her lashes, laughed at Calder’s jokes, found reasons to touch him.
She saw Nicolo watching them out of the corner of her eye.
That’s right, she thought, while she smiled at yet another of Calder’s stories. Suffer, you bastard… Watch me and wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t sent you away last night, if I’d done what I longed to do, if I’d let you make love to me…
She made a little sound of distress, and Calder stopped in the midst of his story.
“Caro? Is something the matter?”
“No,” she said quickly, “no, not at all. I was just thinking—I was thinking it’s a waste, all that pretty music playing in the background and no one dancing.”
Calder didn’t hesitate. He took her hand and led her into the atrium, where she turned and went into his arms. He held her close, both his arms around her waist, and she tucked her head under his chin. They swayed in time to the music, and then Calder cleared his throat.
“Caro? I was thinking. When the party ends, how’d you like to go someplace for a drink? I’m staying at the Hilton, and—”
“What an excellent suggestion, Signor Calder.” Nicolo’s voice was cold as the thrust of a knife; it drove them apart and they stood staring at him. “But I am afraid Caroline has other obligations when the party ends.” His lips turned up in a terrible parody of a smile. “Isn’t that right, cara?”
He reached out and looped his arm around her waist, his fingers splayed just beneath her breast. It was a lazy, almost careless gesture; only Caroline knew that the pressure of his hand was remorseless and proprietorial. She had little choice but to let him draw her close against him, until she was pressed tightly into the hard curve of his body.