On that thought, her stroll slowed to a complete crawl. She glanced back in the direction she had come and froze, suddenly horrified by the discovery that she couldn't pick him out from all the other guests milling about on the edge of the dance floor. Already he was lost.
'Blackmail leaves me cold,' a familiar and undeniably welcome drawl husked in her ear from behind, making her jump a split second before a huge surge of relief washed over her, leaving her weak. 'But that look of pure panic soothes my ego!'
Whirling round, she laughed a little uneasily. 'I wasn't—'
'It is rather frightening to feel like this, isn't it, cam?'
'I don't know what you mean—'
'Oh, yes, you do...stay frank, I prefer it.'
'How do you feel about one-night stands?' she asked daringly.
He stilled. A silence thick as fog sprang up.
'I don't do them,' he said drily. 'I was rather hoping you didn't either.'
'How do you feel about virgins?'
'Deeply unexcited.'
'OK, you don't ask me any questions, I won't tell you any lies...how's that for a ground rule?'
'You'll soon get bored with those limitations,' he stated with supreme confidence.
But she knew she would not. Honest answers would ex¬pose the reality she longed to escape. The young woman who had disappointed from birth by being a girl, who had been denied the opportunity even to continue her education, and who had finally crowned her inadequacies by being jilted at the altar, subjecting her family, to whom appear¬ances were everything, to severe embarrassment and herself to bitter recriminations. She had no desire to pose as an object of pity.
Within minutes he led her down that grand staircase. Realising only then that she had won and that they were leaving the ball together, she stretched up on her toes to kiss him in the crowded hall, generous in victory. Hearing what sounded like a startled buzz of comment erupt around them, she drew back, stunned by her own audacity. She blushed, but he just laughed.
'You're so natural with me,' he breathed appreciatively. 'As if you've known me all your life...'
A magnificent beribboned gondola was moored outside, awaiting their command. A gondola with a cabin swathed in richly embroidered fabric and soft velvet cushions within. And what followed was magical. Luca didn't just point out the sights, he entertained her with stories that entranced her.
The Palazzo Mocenigo, where Lord Byron had stayed and where one of his many distraught mistresses threw herself from a balcony. The debtor's prison cell from which Casanova contrived a daring escape. The Rialto where Shakespeare's Shy lock walked.
His beautiful voice slowly turned husky with hoarseness,and captured in that haze of romantic imagery she smiled dreamily, sensing his deep love and pride in the city of his birth, reaching up to him to kiss him and meet those dark deep-set eyes with a bubbling assurance she had never ex¬perienced in male company before. At one point they glided to a halt in a quiet side canal to be served champagne and strawberries by a sleepy-eyed but smiling waiter.
'You're a fake, cara mia,' Luca breathed mockingly then. 'You say you don't want romance, but you revel in every slushy embellishment I can provide.'
'I'm not a fake. Why can't we have one perfect night? No strings, no ties, no regrets?'
'I'll make you a bet—a sure-fire certainty,' Luca mur¬mured with silken assurance. 'Whatever happens tonight, I'll meet you tomorrow at three on the Ponte della Guerra. You will be there.'
Tomorrow doesn't exist for us,' she returned dismissively, not even grasping at that point that he might under¬stand her better than she understood herself, that almost the minute she was away from him she would want to be back with him, no matter what the risk. 'Take me home,' she told him then, impatient of the deeply inhibiting need to keep her hands off him in public.
'Where are you staying?'
'Your home...'
'We'll have breakfast together—'
'I'm not hungry.'
He had stared steadily down at her. 'You know nothing about me.'
'I know I want to be with you...I know you want to be with me...what more do I need to know?'
A spasm of stark pain infiltrated Darcy as she recalled that foolish question. It shot her right back to the present, where fearful uncertainty and frustration ruled. At that moment she could not bear to relive the final hours she had spent with Luca in Venice. And she was tormented by the awareness that her own behaviour that night had been far more reckless, provocative and capricious than she had ever been prepared to admit in the years since.
The door opened without warning. Taken by surprise, Darcy scrambled awkwardly off the bed. Thrusting the door closed again, Luca surveyed her, sensual mouth curling as he scanned the shabby shrunken jeans. 'I always used to believe that a woman without vanity would be an incredible find. Then fate served me with you,' he imparted grimly. 'Now I know better.'