‘Mainly we hid from the nanny and our lessons. But I came away with an excellent mental map of the castle.’
‘Where were your mum and dad?’
‘Politicking. Their favourite pastime. Here we are.’
He grabbed the hem of his sweater and pulled it over his head. Dropped it on a chair outside some double doors. The chill of the air on this side of the castle was an immediate shock after the warmth of his clothing.
‘What are you doing?’ Lucy asked.
She was staring at him with a mixture of surprise that he should be undressing in the cold, and something else. With her eyes a little wider, and her mouth in an unspokenoh, it looked a lot like...fascination.
He preferred her looking at him like this, with a kind of wonder on her face. Not the way she’d been earlier, when her eyes had been wide with trepidation. Stefano hadn’t wanted Lucy to witness his ugliness, what he’d become in his pursuit of redemption. It was important that she think well of him, and he didn’t stop to analyse why.
‘Trust me when I say you won’t need your coat here.’
Lucy narrowed her eyes, but she shrugged her coat off, dropped it on the chair over his sweater. Her long-sleeved knit top hugged her figure, gave him a tantalising glimpse of her slender waist, the perfect swell of her breasts. She was his guest—in his care. He shouldn’t be lusting over her. But she was all beauty and sunshine and he craved the light.
She wrapped her arms round her waist. Bounced up and down on her toes. ‘Okay, I’m officially freezing.’
‘You won’t be for long.’
He pushed the double doors open into an entrance hall. A rich, earthy smell permeated the space. The temperature here was warmer, the air more humid.
Lucy relaxed a little, her arms looser by her side as she seemed to unknot. ‘Wherearewe?’
Stefano smiled. ‘One of the castle’s greatest treasures.’
He walked towards some glass doors which were fogged, with rivulets of moisture running down the inside, and opened them. Heat and humidity blasted them like a palpable hit from the expansive tropical conservatory. Full of palms and ferns, it was a wonder of his mountain home. Even though he’d been here numerous times, it never failed to amaze him.
‘This is incredible,’ Lucy said, her voice full of breathless wonder. ‘I can’t believe the castle has somewhere likethis.’
Condensation covered the glass, so it was difficult to see outside. On the days when you could it was a kind of magic, standing in the tropics whilst the world outside lay gripped in the depths of winter.
‘One of my ancestors was a renowned horticulturalist who designed and built a famed Italian-style garden at the palace. But his first love was the tropics. He sought to create the same here. In many ways, this conservatory was considered his folly.’
It’s what had prompted his brother to study horticulture. As children they’d spent so much time here, paddling in the tropical pond, hiding in the ferns. On returning from the capital, it had always been the first place in the castle Stefano visited after speaking with the staff. Whenever he walked in here, breathed the warm air, it was as if all the stress he carried was untangled.
Perspiration pricked at the back of Stefano’s neck. It wouldn’t be long before it was too hot in here for either of them, wearing all their winter clothing.
As if reading his mind, Lucy peeled off her long-sleeved top, leaving herself in a clinging strappy undershirt, with a shadow of perspiration at her lower back.
Palms fanned out overhead, the whole place lush and fertile. The only sound in the space was the crunch of Lucy’s boots on the gravel path and the plink of water dripping into the pond.
‘It’s almost like the rainforest I went bushwalking in as a child...’
She turned to him and held her arms out wide, looking up at a tree fern like a huge green umbrella above them. A few droplets of condensation from its fronds dripped on her face.
She smiled, wiped them away. ‘Who looks after all this?’
‘It’s my brother’s project now. Some gardeners help, but I sent them home with the rest of the staff. Most of the water is controlled by computer, but Gino tells me what else is needed. He asks for photographs of the plants that worry him. Sometimes I’ll hand-water, if what’s provided by the sprinkler system isn’t enough.’
‘I can’t believe you don’t spend all your time here. It’s almost like you’re punishing yourself, living this ascetic life in a few cold rooms.’
How close she was to the truth. ‘I’d hardly call living in a castle “ascetic”. You said it was extravagant.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re being obtuse and know exactly what I mean.’
What would she think of him if she discovered the full extent of how far he’d fallen? He didn’t know why that thought filled him with dread.