'I'll give you an hour to rediscover your energies and ponder the reality that a marriage that is not consummated is worthless in the eyes of the law.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Aren't you aware that sex is an integral part of the mar¬riage contract? And the lack of it grounds for annulment?'
Darcy's jaw dropped.
'You see, I'm not a complete bastard,' Luca contended, smooth as glass. 'A complete bastard would have left you to sleep in ignorance and gone for non-consummation at the end of the six months.'
Leaving her to reflect on that revelation of astounding generosity, Luca strolled back out of the room.
That is one happy man, Darcy thought helplessly. An utterly ruthless male with the persistence of a juggernaut, punch-drunk on the belief that he had her exactly where he wanted her. He was destined to discover that he had a pro¬longed battle ahead of him. Although she was currently at a very low ebb, Darcy was by nature a fighter.
A thief. He thought she was a thief. He genuinely be¬lieved that she had stolen that wretched ring with the stupid name. And, truth to tell, if it had been stolen the same night, he had some grounds for that suspicion. Indeed, when that theft was combined with her flight at dawn, her status as a gatecrasher and her flat refusal to tell him who she was throughout the evening, she had to concede that his con-viction that she was the guilty party was based on some pretty solid-looking facts.
However, those facts were simply misleading facts. Obviously she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Luca wasn't the type of male likely to question his own judgement. In fact, unless she was very much mis¬taken, Luca prided himself on his powers of logic and reasoning. That being so, for almost three years he had staunchly believed that she was the culprit. By now, the real thief and the ring had to be long gone. Luca's mistake, not hers.
In the meantime, only by finding some proof that the ring her father had sold had been a different ring entirely could she hope to defend herself. Had her father kept any record of that sale? And what the heck was the use of wondering that when she was stuck in Venice and unable to conduct any sort of search? Why, oh, why had she al-lowed Luca to steamroller her into flying straight to Italy?
And the answer came back loud and clear. If she had refused, Luca would have gone without her. Challenged at the very outset of their marriage, Luca would have carried through on that threat.
An hour later, Luca sauntered back into the marital bed¬room and stopped dead only halfway towards the canopied bed.
Contented canine snores alerted him to the presence of at least one four-legged intruder. And there was no room for a bridegroom in the bed, vast as it was. Darcy lay dead centre, one arm curved protectively round her slumbering daughter, the other draped across two enormous shaggy backs.
Zou Zou was snoring like a train. Aristide opened his eyes, and in his efforts to conceal himself did a comic im¬pression of a very large dog trying to shrink himself to the size of a chihuahua.
Pushing his head bashfully between his paws, perfectly aware that he was not allowed on the bed, he surveyed Luca pleadingly, unaware that the child on the other side of the bed was his most powerful source of protection.
Luca drew in a slow, steadying breath and backed to¬wards the door very quietly. He had learnt considerable respect for the consequences of not letting sleeping toddlers lie...
Darcy was nudged awake at half past six in the morning by the dogs.
After a brisk wash in her usual cold water in the en suite bathroom, she trudged downstairs in her checked pyjamas and old wool dressing gown, startling the dapper little man¬servant breakfasting in the sleek, ultra-modern kitchen on the ground floor. Beneath the older man's aghast gaze, she fed and watered the dogs and refused to allow him to in¬terrupt his meal. She then insisted on charring two crois¬sants and brewing some not very successful coffee for her¬self. She wrinkled her nose as she ate and drank. Cooking had never been her metier, but her digestion was robust.
Finding Zia still soundly asleep when she returned to the bedroom, she succumbed to the notion of returning to bed to give her daughter a cuddle, but while in the act of wait¬ing for the toddler to awaken naturally she contrived to drift off to sleep again.
The second time she woke up, she stretched luxuriantly. Then, as she recalled rising earlier, she was seized by in¬stant guilt and wondered with all the horror of someone who never, ever had a lie-in what time it was.
'It's a quarter past nine, cara mia,' a deep, dark drawl responded to the anxious question she had unwittingly said out loud.
That reply so alarmingly close to hand acted like a cattle prod on Darcy. Eyes flying wide in dismay, she flipped over to her side to confront her uninvited companion. 'Good heavens...a q-quarter past nine?' she stuttered. 'Where's Zia?'