?? he said firmly, ‘it is boring to talk of such things. Tell me about you, Millie.’
‘Me?’ She blinked in astonishment.
‘Is that such a surprising thing to want to know about?’
She didn’t want to say yes. To tell him that when you had an especially beautiful older sister very few people were interested in her. But he began to ask her about her childhood, and seemed genuinely to want to hear about it, and Millie began to relax, to open up. That strange and rather fraught encounter of earlier melted away as she began to tell him about the strictures of her life at the all-girls boarding school she had attended and about the jokes they had played on the nuns. And when his dark eyes narrowed and he began to laugh Millie felt as though she had achieved something rather special.
Until she realised that the whole table had grown silent, and that everyone was looking at them—her mother in surprise and Lulu with undisguised irritation.
‘What would you like to do this afternoon, Gianferro?’ questioned her mother.
He saw Lulu raise her eyebrows at him.
‘I will tell you what I would like to do,’ he said softly. ‘I should like to go and look at your horses.’
Lulu grimaced. ‘The horses?’
‘But, yes,’ he murmured. ‘I have many fine mounts in Mardivino, and I should like to see if you have anything here to equal them.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find that we do!’ laughed one of the men.
From the centre of the table Lulu waved a perfectly manicured hand, first towards the window and then against her shell-pink couture gown. ‘But it’s raining!’
‘I like the rain,’ he said softly.
Lulu tapped her fingernail against the polished wood. ‘Well, if you want to get soaking wet, that’s fine by me—but don’t expect me to join you!’
There was an infinitesimal silence. He could read in her eyes that she now fully expected him to capitulate, to say that he had changed his mind and would see the horses another time, but he would never do that. Never. Never would he bend his will to a woman!
‘As you wish,’ he said crisply.
His displeasure was almost tangible, and Millie saw her mother’s stricken face as her lunch party threatened to deteriorate. She licked her lips nervously. ‘I could show the Prince the horses, if you like?’
Her mother gave her a grateful smile, which only added to Millie’s growing sense of discomfort. And guilt. ‘Oh, darling—would you?’
Gianferro smiled. ‘How very kind of you, Millie. Thank you.’
The easy atmosphere had evaporated and now the tension was back. Her heart beating hard against her ribs, Millie pushed her chair back, hating him for the way he was behaving and hating herself just as much, without quite knowing why.
‘Come on, then,’ she said ungraciously, and was rewarded with a slight narrowing of his eyes.
‘But you’ll need to change!’ objected her mother.
‘Oh, I’m okay—a little bit of rain never hurt anyone,’ said Millie firmly.
Lulu gave an edgy laugh. ‘Millie won’t care if she gets soaked to the skin—she’s such a tomboy!’
It was the kind of taunt which had haunted her down the years, but Millie didn’t feel a bit like a tomboy as Gianferro followed her and the room fell silent. Inexplicably—and uncomfortably—she had never felt more of a woman in her life.
At the east entrance, she opened the door. Beyond the rain was an almost solid sheet of grey.
She turned to him. ‘You can’t honestly want to go out in that?’
‘Yes. I do.’
She grabbed a waterproof from the hook and half threw it at him before pulling on one herself. ‘Come on, then.’
Perversely, he liked the ungracious gesture, and the angry look she sparked at him as he pulled on the battered old coat, with its smell of horses and leather. He stepped outside and felt the rain in his hair and on his cheeks. It was coming down so fast that when he opened his mouth it rushed in—knocking all the breath out of him.