'I can't!' Darcy protested, her evasive eyes whipping back in his general direction. 'I have to go to the bank—'
'Why? Are you planning to rob it?' Luca enquired sar¬donically. 'If I was your bank manager, nothing short of an armed assault would persuade me to advance you any further credit!'
Darcy compressed her lips in a mutinous line.
'No bank,' said Luca. 'We have a take-off slot to make at the airport.'
'I can't miss this appointment—'
Luca caught her by the elbow as she attempted to stalk past him.
'You're bleeding...what have you done to your¬self?' he demanded.
Darcy flicked an irritable glance down at the angry scratch oozing blood on the back of her hand. 'It's nothing. Henrietta's always attacking me.'
'Henrietta?'
'Queen of the coop—the hen with attitude. I ought to wring her manic neck, but she'd come back and haunt me.
In a strange way, I'm sort of fond of her,' Darcy admitted grudgingly. 'She's got personality.'
Luca's intent dark eyes now held a slightly dazed aspect. He was no Einstein on the subject of hens, she registered.
Darcy took advantage of his abstraction to pull free. 'I'll be back before you know it...I promise!' she slung over her shoulder as she sped off.
It took her ten minutes to change into the tweed skirt and tailored blouse she always wore to the bank. Studiously ignoring the helicopter sitting on the front lawn, and the pilot pacing up and down beside it, she jumped into the Land Rover and rattled off down the drive.
Two hours later, having been to the bank, and then arranged for a local farmer to pick up and stable Nero, Darcy walked into Karen's kitchen to ask her to look after the dogs, feed the hens from a safe distance and keep an eye on the Folly.
Zia bounced up into her mother's arms. Darcy studied her daughter's clear dark eyes, smooth golden skin and eb¬ony curls. A sinking sensation curdled her stomach. From her classic little nose to her feathery but dead level brows, Zia looked so like her father.
Darcy buried her face in her daughter's springy hair and breathed in the fresh, clean scent of her child while she fought to master emotions and fears that were dangerously near to the surface. In fact, all she wanted to do at that instant was collapse into floods of overwrought tears, and the knowledge appalled her.
'Benito's been down twice to see if you're here...talk about fussing!' Karen told her above the toddler's animated chatter. 'What's all this about you going to Italy?'
'Don't ask,' Darcy advised flatly. 'I've just been to the bank. My bank manager says he's not a betting man.'
'I could've told you that without seeing him. He's so miserable, he wouldn't bet on the sun rising tomorrow!'
'He said that in six months' time, when I actually inherit, it'll be different, but that it would be wrong to allow me to borrow more now on the strength of what are only expectations.' That Luca had made the same forecast right off the top of his superior head infuriated Darcy.
'I'm really sorry...' Karen's eyes, however, remained bright with curiosity. 'But if you've got five minutes could you possibly tell me where the swanky limo and the heli¬copter have come from?'
"They belong to Luca.'
'So he was a dark horse. How very strange! People usu¬ally pretend to be more than they are rather than less than they are. Was Nina right, after all? Has he married you to gain a British passport?’
Karen pressed with a frown. 'Why all the heavy secrecy? He's not one of these high-flying international criminals, is he?'
If Luca had been a criminal, the police might just have been able to take him away, Darcy thought helplessly. But then that wouldn't have suited her either. No matter how obnoxious he was, she needed to hang onto her husband for the next six months. What shook her even more at that moment was the sudden shattering awareness that in spite of the manner in which Luca was behaving, the threat of him disappearing altogether made her feel positively sick and shaky.
'Darcy...?' Karen prompted.
She averted her attention from her friend. "There was a confidentiality clause in our pre-nuptial contract. I'd like to tell you everything,' she lied, because there was no way she wanted to tell a living soul about how stupid she had been, 'but I can't... Will you look after the Folly while I'm away?'
'Of course I will. I'll move in. Don't look so glum, Darcy...six months won't be that long in going by.'
But the Folly might well be repossessed long before that six months was up. Karen's purchase of the gate lodge had bought some time, by paying off the most pressing debts against the estate, but Darcy was still a couple of months behind with the mortgage repayments.
She drove back up to the house and clambered out. Luca emerged from the entrance, strong, dark face rigid, dark eyes diamond-hard with exasperation.
'Have you any idea what time it is?' he launched at her.