Unknown (3 page)

Deborah
had no idea where the car was taking her.

'Who is this Signor Manzu?' she asked the chauffeur.

'You will soon see,
signorina.
He had to be at a meeting or he would have met you himself. My orders were to meet you and then to pick him up. Ah, there he is now!'

He pointed out a man standing on the edge of the pavement, a man well over six feet in height and with powerful shoulders that seemed the more so because of the slimness of his hips and the length of his legs. His clothes fitted him as though they had been specially made for him and, as the car drew in beside where he was standing, she thought it likely they had been, for the material was as superb as their cut. But it was his expression that dominated her attention. He looked both arrogant and angry and, in some way she couldn't define, she was more than a little afraid of him.

He got in beside her in a single, lithe movement. His eyes travelled over her without curiosity.

'You came, I see, Miss Beaumont,' he remarked.

'Under protest!'

His eyebrows shot upwards. 'Most people do not come to stay at the Manzu home under protest—'

'I suppose,' she cut him off, 'you are a friend of my father's?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'No, Miss Beaumont, I am not. I have never had the pleasure of meeting your father. In fact you are the first member of his family to cross my path. But not the last, I hope,' he added, with such studied politeness she could have mistaken it for insolence.

'Then why kidnap me?' she demanded.

'Kidnap?' To her indignation he was amused. 'I suppose you could call it that,' he admitted. 'I imagine your father would pay a handsome reward for you?'

'For me? I doubt it. If you wanted to make your fortune, you should have captured my stepmother, Agnes,' she told him.

'But your stepmother wasn't fool enough to come to Rome on her own,' he retorted smoothly. 'You'd better give up and come quietly, Miss Beaumont.'

'Never! I'll never forgive my father for this!'

Her captor leaned back in his seat, surveying her through half-closed eyes. 'Let's hope he forgives you. You must be worth more to him than you think or you wouldn't be in your present predicament. I hope you have other clothes with you, incidentally, as those are not suitable for the place where you'll be staying.'

'I have only these!' Deborah took a pride in being able to tell him so. 'What are you going to do about that?'

He favoured her with a slanting smile. 'I'll think of something. I expect your father will think that, at least, cheap at the price!'

Something in his voice made Deborah blink. Had she imagined that touch of menace? Could he really be intending to hold her to ransom?

'What are you going to do with me?' she asked, trying to control her voice.

'For the moment I'm going to take you home with me—and,
signorina
, while you are there as my guest, you will behave yourself and play the part of the charming young lady I have told my family you are. Is it understood?'

'You've made a mistake! I'm staying with my friends ' He shook his head at her and she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. 'My father won't pay a penny for
me
!' she added in panic.

'We shall see. He should have warned you not to come to Italy just now, when kidnapping is an everyday occurrence and his firm has just been the subject of very bad publicity. But perhaps he doesn't see much of you?'

'I live with my mother,' she confided. 'He did tell me not to come,' she added, unable to bring herself not to defend her father even in circumstances such as these. 'I didn't believe him!'

'But you believe him now?'

'I haven't much choice, have I?' she said.

His look was not unkind. 'It won't be as bad as you think,' he soothed her. 'When you are ready to see reason and give me your promise not to return to those friends of yours, I'll see to it that you miss nothing in the way of seeing Rome while you're here. If, in the meantime, you find it inconvenient being my guest, you will have only yourself to blame. I shall be as harsh a guard as you force me to be—no more, no less.'

Deborah made an abortive attempt to gain the doorhandle and let herself out of the car. His response was immediate. He scooped her up tight against him with an iron arm, immobilising her once and for all.

'You may not think much of your father's money,' he rebuked her, 'but you have all the ill-disciplined attributes of a brat born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Rest easy, sweetheart! You're coming with me whether you like it or not!'

'And who decided that?' she demanded. 'My father, or you?'

'Does it make any difference? You are in my care now, and that means doing as you're told.' His fingers nipped her flesh and she was aware of him as she had never been of another human being. The heat of her cheeks took her breath away and she shut her eyes the better to ignore him. Why should she obey him? And who was he anyway?

'Please let me go,' she said, her voice tinged with ice.

He did so, giving her a last, warning tap on her arm. She sat as far away from him as she could, wedging the arm-rest into the small of her back, while she tried to collect her scattered wits.

'How long do you plan to hold me?' she asked.

His lips twitched. 'I'm not holding you, but I don't mind doing so if you want me to.'

Deborah concentrated with difficulty on the point she was trying to make. 'What happens if my father won't pay you for my safe return?'

He gave her an amused look. 'There's no danger of that! Relax,
signorina
, and enjoy the experience of staying in one of the most famous palaces in Rome. Surely that is not asking too much of you?'

'I prefer to be with my friends!' she retorted. 'With Michael '

His amusement turned to a thinly veiled contempt. 'Have you known him long?' he inquired.

'A couple of years. He's a very clever artist.'

The man dismissed Michael with a casual shrug. 'What are your particular interests, Miss Beaumont?'

'I sculpt. I do some portraits and a lot of ultramodern stuff. You wouldn't understand them. Sometimes I don't understand them myself. I draw a bit too, but I prefer the tactile quality of sculpting. I like to feel the shape beneath my fingers.' She glanced down at her shirt and jeans. 'These are my working clothes,' she explained, 'but I did have some others with me. I didn't want to look different from the others.' She came to an abrupt stop, more annoyed with herself than ever. It wasn't any business of this man's what she wore, or if her present garments did bear the marks of weeks of toil. If she had had one tenth of the poise she had thought she had had a few hours before, she wouldn't have cared what she was wearing, and she certainly wouldn't have cared what her captor thought of her appearance.

His eyebrows rose. 'I didn't know you're an artist,' he said.

'That's putting it a bit strong,' she murmured. 'I still think of myself as an art student, but I hope to get over it soon. It takes a while to break out of the chrysalis of needing someone else's approval '

'And you got that from Michael?'

'I suppose so,' she admitted. 'He doesn't like my work much, which makes it all the better that he can't dismiss it as unimportant. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to art, you see. He's very receptive and not at all prejudiced. He can appreciate most of the greats in a way I don't begin to, and it doesn't matter to him whether it's a work by Michelangelo himself or from a complete unknown. That's worth having.'

The man took her hand in his, exploring her palm with the soft side of his thumb. 'Is that all you need from him?' he asked.

Nettled, Deborah tried to take her hand away from him. 'Of course not!'

'Oh well, you won't be seeing him for a while,' the man said smoothly. 'I'll have to see to it that you don't miss him too much.' He leaned forward a little and smiled directly at her. 'Does your interest in art extend to fashion?'

'Sometimes,' she agreed cautiously.

'Good, then you won't mind seeing what the Corso can produce in the way of a new wardrobe for you.'

Deborah had heard of the Corso as being Rome's equivalent of Bond Street. 'I doubt I can afford to do my shopping there. Couldn't we go somewhere else?'

'Kidnapped persons don't normally expect to pay for such trifles, surely?' he teased her gently. 'It's all part of the plot to have you dress like a lady instead of like— an art student, shall we say? Roman elegance is famous for transforming girls into raving beauties. That should appeal to you at least!'

'I can't accept clothes from someone I don't know,' she said firmly. 'It wouldn't be proper. Why, I don't even accept clothes from my father!'

'Pity, because in a way these clothes will be coming from your father. He'll be footing the bill in the end.'

'You hope,' Deborah put in. 'He'd be a fool to give in to your crazy demands! Why, who knows whom you'll be kidnapping next if you're allowed to get away with it?'

'Your moral indignation is duly noted,' he answered, looking amused. 'But kidnapping is becoming so common in Italy as to be soon quite respectable. It's an easy way of raising money and there is very little risk attached.'

Anyone who looked less in need of money would be hard to find, Deborah reflected. The car was large and obviously expensive, and the man's clothes looked bespoke, and English besides. She didn't believe that he had kidnapped her for money! She wasn't sure he had kidnapped her at all.

'How did your chauffeur know who I was?' she wondered aloud.

'I showed him your photograph and described you a little. I have a good memory for faces, even when only seen in pictures, especially when their owners are female, blonde, and very beautiful!'

She tried to think of where he could have seen a picture of herself, but only succeeded in feeling more muddled than before. Her mother kept her photograph beside her bed and, she supposed, her father had one of her too, but Agnes would have seen to it that it was never publicly displayed. Besides, what could this man possibly have to do with her father?

'I don't even know your name?' she said carefully.

'You may call me Domenico. Domenico Manzu. Are you any wiser?'

'No, but you didn't intend me to be. Is Manzu really your family name?'

'Of course. Why should I lie to you?'

'I don't know. Supposing when I get free of you I report you to the police? If I were to tell them your name it wouldn't take them long to pick you up, would it?'

He laughed. 'When I set you free,
signorina
, the last place you will go is to the police! You will be as well trained as a homing pigeon and will want to come straight back to me!'

Now he was being deliberately rude, she thought. 'Never! Do you suppose I
like
being kidnapped?'

Her indignation had no visible effect on him. 'It will be something for you to look back on when you are an old lady. Think what a romantic adventure it will seem to you then.' He flicked a look over her face and figure which set her heart pounding within her.

'I haven't a romantic disposition,' she said. 'If I had, I'd have treated you to a fine display of hysterics by now!'

'I have coped with hysterics before,' he said dryly. 'If you feel you may succumb, remember I am just as likely to slap you as to kiss you.'

'Either fate would be as bad as the other!' she claimed.

'You think so?' His face remained as hard as ever and his expression as contemptuous. It was not surprising Deborah was afraid of him.

They travelled in silence for a while. Deborah pushed her hands into the pockets of her jacket, because now that the first excitement of being kidnapped was over, she felt cold inside and she didn't want
him
to know she was shaking like a jelly. A piece of paper met her fingers and she drew it out, thinking it would calm her to read something that had nothing to do with her present predicament. She was surprised to find it was addressed to Michael. She turned the envelope over and was astonished to see the crest of her father's firm clearly embossed on the back. Her mouth went dry. She turned it over and over in her hands, trying to justify her desire to open it up and find out what her father could have had to say to Michael of all people! How on earth had he come to know about him? Yet there was his address and his name, down to his middle initial, neatly typed on the outside.

Her fingers crumpled the envelope as they pulled it apart. Inside was a cheque made out by her father in Michael's favour, and it was for
five hundred pounds!

'Good heavens!' She hadn't meant to say the words out loud, but she must have done, for Signor Manzu took the cheque from her listless fingers and transferred it to his own pocket.

'Why the surprise? Didn't you realise that there was always a danger that money was the main cause of that young man's interest in you? Your father has good reason to be concerned for you, don't you think?'

Deborah wished she knew. 'He never has been before. Besides, he never would have given Michael such a sum for me! It's quite a lot of money.'

A muscle pulled at the corner of Signor Manzu's mouth. 'Not very much, but it will help pay for some of your new clothes. You underrate your father,
cara.
He'll pay much more than that for your safety—you'll see!'

She sighed. 'He won't like it. He has Agnes and all his other children to consider '

'That doesn't make you less his daughter,' he said with a gentleness she had not found in him before. The car slowed to a stop. 'This is no rime for sadness! You must smile and look happy, for we are arriving at my home and people will wonder if you continue to look so miserable!'

It was difficult not to be impressed by the fine building before her, despite the peeling paint and the rickety attachments to the shutters. There was a very fine stone staircase that curved upwards on either side to an elaborately carved front door.