Love Play by Rosemary Rogers (17 page)

'We shall be landing in a few minutes. And then we will have to take a
helicopter. I hope you are not the nervous type.'

He would have to intrude, forcing her back to unpleasant reality. Sara
shot him what she hoped was a quelling look. 'I'm not nervous at all. But all
this flying is tiring, you know! I do hope we won't be too much longer.'

'Once we are in the helicopter — about thirty minutes,perhaps. Has Carlo
described our home to you? It is not very accessible, and the roads are rather
primitive. We do have other amenities, however.'

'And indoor plumbing, I hope!'
 
Sara retorted flippantly;deriving a fleeting satisfaction from the
tightening of the muscles in his face.

'We are not exactly backward, even in Sardinia. I am sure you will be
comfortable. If you like to swim, we have two pools. There are also four tennis
courts, if you would like to improve your game while you are waiting for Carlo.
You play quite a good game of tennis, I have noticed.'

How dared he sound so condescending? She played 'quite a good game of
tennis' indeed!

Sara smiled with obvious sweetness that was meant to get under his skin.
'Tennis — oh good! It's the greatest exercise in the world, don't you think? I
hope you'll give me a game some time.' And then, playing her role to the hilt,
she sighed deeply. 'How I wish Carlo would hurry! It was really mean of you to
send him so far away.' Now was the time to pout, if she knew how. Fearlessly,
Sara returned a black-browed scowl with a widening of her artificial smile.
'But I suppose you were testing us both. The strength of our feelings for each
other. But you mustn't worry, really. Carlo and I love each other - and I have
always longed to have a big brother!'

Perhaps she had gone too far. Thank goodness for the seat belt that
prevented him from assailing her physically.Watching him with interested
fascination, Sara observed the tiny white lines that formed beside his mouth -
the tensing of his jaw. His eyes, black as tar and just as opaque, swept over
her; a long, measuring look that was accompanied by the contemptuous curl of
his lips.

'You are looking for a brother?' She didn't know if there was a tinge of
sarcasm underlying the question or not.

'I have two brothers, by Mama's first husband. But they are
archaeologists - or something equally dull - they're twins, you know. And I've
never really known them or been around them, so this is a whole new experience.
Carlo never did tell me how . . .protective and considerate you are. It was so
thoughtful of you to have one of Uncle Theo's maids pack all my stuff for me .
. .'

Judging from his expression, she had gone far enough. Sara subsided with
a last insincere smile in his direction; turning her head to pretend
concentration on the view as the jet circled and then swooped down for a
landing.

Chapter 15

'How did people come and go from here before they had helicopters?'

'Very slowly!' There was a certain grim humour in his voice. 'There is a
road, of course, but a very bad one. Not good for the kind of low-slung
automobiles they make these days.'

'But . . .'

'In these days there are also the terrorists. Murders and kidnapping.'
He shrugged. 'There are also bandits in the mountains - angry, hungry men. A
helicopter is the safest way to get here. Why take unnecessary chances, after
all?'

'Why indeed,' Sara murmured. In order to avoid his eyes she looked over
the low stone balustrade that ran the length of the terrace where they were
being served drinks. ..

The palazzo (it was at least a palace!) had been built very high and the
view was breathtaking, including, as it did, the ocean very far below. It had
also been built very securely — perhaps, in past centuries, to ward off Moorish
raiders and mercenary armies who roamed about looking for plunder and women. At
any rate, the ancestral home of the Duca de Cavalieri was surrounded by high
walls that in turn were topped by electrified barbed wire. A medieval fortress,
in fact; but with all the comforts and luxuries of the twentieth century here
behind the forbidding stone walls. There were tennis courts — even a miniature
golf course. The housekeeper had shown Sara to a suite that overlooked a formal
garden; perfume from the flowers that grew there rising in the warm air as she
had stood there, leaning over a low stone wall. There was even a magnificent
indoor swimming pool with azure tiling — cunningly concealed underwater
lighting making it seem like an enchanted grotto. Two marble staircases led
down to the enormous ballroom that had the blue pool as its centre.

Her tour had been very short, merely skimming the surface. Through it
all Sara had tried to maintain a wide-eyed, ingenuous image. It might be wisest
to keep her claws sheathed — at least, until she understood why he had brought
her here. It,was hard, though . . .

Sara brought her eyes back deliberately to that dark, implacable face —
the caustic twist to his mouth already becoming familiar to her as his eyes, in
turn, flickered over her measuringly. She was being overly imaginative, of
course, but she could almost feel them burn into her flesh through the thin cotton
of the dress she'd changed into. The way in which he looked at her made her
feel very much alone - very vulnerable, although she would have submitted to
torture rather than let him discover any weakness in her facade.

Sipping her lemon-flavoured mineral water, Sara made herself smile.

'It's really beautiful here... how kind of you to bring me! And now that
I've seen what a fortress you have here I feel so safe! When do you think Carlo
will come?'

'Who knows?' His shoulders lifted in a far too casual way. 'In recent
times my little brother has become quite unpredictable. Although I'm sure that
when he learns his fiancee is here waiting for him impatiently, I'm sure he
will be just as impatient to come home.'

Perhaps she needed to show a little bit of backbone! Dropping her eyes
so that she wouldn't have to meet his, Sara pretended to pout.

'But in the meantime - where is the nearest town to here? What's the
action like? I really do love to dance, and of course I love people. Carlo
won't grudge me a little entertainment, I'm sure.'

The twist to his hard mouth seemed more pronounced for an instant,
before he masked his expression. 'Entertainment? Ah, yes. I suppose you are
used to television, for instance, and we do not have it here. And as for
dancing ... I am sorry, but there are no discotheques in the nearest village,
which happens, I'm afraid, to be a hundred miles away. We are quite isolated
here, and the only way - the only safe way to go anywhere from here is by
helicopter. But is anything not to your satisfaction?'

'Well . . . but what is there to do here?'

'If you wish amusement or entertainment I am sure you will find it here.
There are two swimming pools - and the tennis courts, of course. I would be
glad to give you a game - and perhaps a little more competition than your idol
Garon Hunt. He was being very polite the other night, but I should warn you
that I am not soft enough to sacrifice victory for gallantry!'

His mocking words were meant to be barbs that would embed themselves
under the skin. But oh This time he had mistaken his victim!

'Gallantry? Well, of course I don't expect gallantry - and especially
from you. Thanks for the offer of a tennis game, though - and don't expect me
to be polite either. I happen to enjoy winning myself.'

Sara met his eyes defiantly, not realising in her anger at him that the
setting sun had brought out fiery lights in her dark-mahogany-coloured hair and
seemed reflected in her green eyes, reminding him of a young, spitting mountain
cat. It both annoyed and intrigued him to find that this young woman he had
been prepared to despise from the beginning had managed to make herself a
challenge to him. Damn her! The investigations he'd had carried out into her
past had presented a three-dimensional portrait of a typical 'liberated' young
female with hardly any morals to speak of - and no false modesty either. She
had taken her clothes off for the inquisitive cameras as easily as she had for
a dozen or more men. What did she think to prove by playing hard to get with
him? Was that how she had entrapped his susceptible young stepbrother?

His dark brows had drawn together as he studied her with a brooding
scowl that made Sara shudder in¬voluntarily. Hanging unspoken in the air
between them was the real reason for his having brought her here. What did he
mean to do with her? How long could they both continue to cling to the pretence
that he had brought her here to wait for his brother? 'Brought her' indeed!
Sara corrected herself indignantly. 'Abducted her' was more like it! Only, she
must never let him discover that she was afraid, or the dark, dangerous
animal-she could sense beneath the light veneer of civilised politeness might
make a sport of her destruction.

'Can you possibly be cold? Or were you perhaps thinking of — victory and
defeat?'

Never let him see her weakness! Sara shrugged with pretended
indifference, letting her eyes wander to the vine-hung balustrade of rough
stone that plunged steeply down to the wrinkled-leoking ocean below.

'Oh, but I never think of defeat!' Deliberately, she turned aside the
pointed provocativeness of his questioning with an air of studied naivete.
'Actually, what I was trying to imagine was this . . . this castle as it must
have been hundreds of years ago. It's built like a fortress, isn't it? Whom did
your ancestors have to fight off?'

Now he leaned back in his chair, watching her through slightly narrowed
dark eyes as if to gauge the effect his words might have upon her.

'My ancestors built this place to fight off the Moorish pirates who marauded
the coasts, carrying off the most beautiful of our young women as slaves -
sometimes as their wives. In fact, legend has it that the man who founded our
line was part Moor himself, like Shakespeare's Othello. In any case, he built
this impregnable fortress to protect himself, his family and the peasants who
farmed his lands from other mercenaries like himself. Hasn't Carlo told you
anything of our family history?'

'No . . . but it's easy to imagine. Except for the tennis courts and the
swimming pools and of course the electricity, it would be all too easy to
imagine that we're still trapped in the past and not in the twentieth century
at all!'

' And you will find, I'm afraid, that in a lot of ways this is still
so.' He had discarded his dark jacket and his tie, and his ivory silk shirt was
open at the throat. Against the black, crisply curling hair of his chest a
heavy gold medallion caught Sara's unwilling glance - a raised, intricately
carved design of a crouching wolf with emerald chips for eyes — mouth open in a
snarl. How well it suited him!

Now, as if he had somehow been able to sense the sudden agitation of her
thoughts, Marco touched the medal lightly, his eyes never leaving hers. 'This
interests you? It's very old - the story has it that it belonged to that
Moorish pirate ancestor I was telling about just now, who was a wolf of the sea
and carried off as his captive bride a fifteen-year-old maiden who persuaded
him to come back to live here in these savagely beautiful surroundings that
matched the temperaments of them both! The eyes remind me of

yours . . .'

He was playing with her, of course, and she mustn't let him. Sara
reached for her glass with a light laugh that dispelled all shades of the past.

'And I, of course, owe my eyes to my mother! I would like her here when
Carlo and I are married - shall we be married here, by the way? I would really
prefer Los Angeles, where most of my friends are; unless it's some kind of a
family tradition that all Marcantoni brides are married here. It is rather
remote, isn't it?'

She had changed into a pale-green cotton dress that was lined with
flesh-coloured chiffon - the scooped neckline demure enough to reveal just the
slight curve of her breasts. His black, enigmatic eyes had been studying her in
much the same fashion as his ancestor might have studied the maiden he meant to
ravish, but now her flippantly worded speech made his mouth tighten before he
said cuttingly: 'I should think these are matters you should discuss with my
brother, and not with me. And perhaps . . , after you have spent a few weeks
here in this . . . remote place in the mountains of Sardinia, you might change
your mind. We live very simply here.'

Pretending not to notice that he meant to quell her, Sara said brightly,
'But you do travel quite a lot, don't you? With a private helicopter it can't
be too isolated here! And I've heard there's always a lot going on on the Costa
Smeralda. Do you have a yacht, by the way?'

'I have usually no time to waste on pleasure cruising. I do not believe
in leaving my affairs to be run by lawyers and accountants, and there is always
much to be seen to. When Carlo is ready, then he too will be kept busy. I hope
you won't find yourself too bored!'

Sara shrugged, still keeping her smile, even if it had turned a trifle
brittle around the edges. Tm sure I won't let myself be — I've no intention of
playing the conventional wife, you know! I intend to travel everywhere with my
husband, and interest myself in everything he's interested in.'

Hopefully, he wouldn't throw her over the stone walls to be smashed to
pieces against the jagged rocks below - all traces of her being sucked away by
the hungry waves. He could, and no one would ever know.

Black eyes, as jaggedly cutting as the rocks Sara could picture all too
clearly, seemed to slice right through her hastily erected defences before he
hooded them.

'Is that so?' the Duca di Cavalieri drawled. 'One would hope, of course,
that your intended husband knows of your ... um ... ambitions. Italian men, and
especially those of us from the south have not learned to be as tame and easily
manipulated as your average American male!'