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'Of course I am. You've made loads of friends since you've been here and they'll all want to say goodbye. Poor Attilio is heartbroken,' Grace added, still in the same conversational tone of voice, as she glanced casually at Romano. 'Claire's told him she's too busy for romance, but I think the poor lamb thought while she remained in Italy there might be a chance for him. I think they'd make a lovely couple actually, don't you, Romano? And he blames himself now for taking his month's holiday these last four weeks, but it was all arranged before Christmas; he was touring France with some friends.'
'Was he?' Claire had never heard Romano use such a cold and uninterested tone with Grace before, but her friend didn't appear to notice.
'All that time lost—he's quite distraught.' Grace laughed lightly. 'Still, he's got two weeks left to get her to change her mind,' she added, with another glance at Romano's glowering face.
What on earth was she talking about? Claire thought bemusedly as she stared at Grace. Her friend knew she wasn't interested in Attilio in the slightest, and it wasn't like Grace to discuss anything of this nature so frivolously—especially as she knew the tutor's infatuation with her made her both uncomfortable and embarrassed.
'Anyway, I must go and speak to Cecilia about dinner. Are you staying, Romano?' Grace asked over her shoulder as she made for the door. 'You know you are welcome.'
'No, I am sorry, I have a previous engagement,' he said flatly. 'I just came to see—to see how you all were.'
A previous engagement? Claire thought painfully. She didn't need to be the Brain of Britain to work out the gender of his dinner companion, not with him in full evening dress and looking dark and dangerous.
'Have a drink anyway—and fix Claire one, would you? I'll be back in a moment,' Grace said sunnily as she shut the drawing room door, leaving them alone.
'You would like a drink?' he asked her coldly, his eyes narrowed as they moved over the brilliant sheen of her hair and creamy skin to the soft, dusky red of her mouth, where they lingered for an infinitesimal moment.
'No, not really—would you?' she asked nervously.
'No, I do not want a drink, Claire.' She hadn't seen him in this mood before and she couldn't quite determine it; the dark eyes were glittering with some emotion that was undefinable. 'So, you are breaking poor Attilio's heart and returning to England.' It was a statement, not a question. 'I did not expect you to leave Grace with the infants so soon.'
It was said coolly and without the slightest expression but was unmistakably a criticism, and immediately her hackles rose. 'Didn't you?' She managed a disdainful smile that was the best bit of acting she was ever likely to produce. 'You don't think Grace is an able mother?'
'Of course she is,' he said at once, his tone one of shocked outrage.
'Well, then…'
'But I thought you had come as a friend, a companion,' he said silkily. 'Someone to talk to and share with. This is a very emotional time for a woman—'
'I don't need you to tell me that,' she bit out tightly, enraged beyond measure that he dared to preach to her about emotional times. Him! Of all people! After what he'd put her through. 'But Grace had her low time before the babies were born—some women do—and she's fine now. And I've…I've got things to see to in England.'
'What things?' The words were rapier-sharp but she was determined not to be intimidated. He saw her as some sort of pathetic spinster who had nothing better to do than dance attendance on one of his friends, did he? Grace was Donato's wife, and as such, in his opinion, one of the privileged few who were entitled to any consideration? Well, she'd got news for him…
'Things of a personal nature,' she said dismissively.
'That is no answer,' he grated out harshly.
'Well, it's the only one you're getting.' He didn't want her, not for anything beyond a brief fling at least, and she wasn't even sure about that any more.
She had replayed the incident in the garden over and over in her mind, and however she tried to skirt round it, to make it different, the fact that he had been trying to reassure her about her femininity because he had felt sorry for her was uppermost. And perversely she both loved and hated him for it—loved him for the understanding and tenderness it revealed, which she had sensed before was a hidden part of his nature, and hated him because the last thing, the very, very last thing in the whole world that she wanted him to feel for her was pity.
'I see.' He eyed her grimly.
He looked very arrogant and very handsome as he stood frowning at her, the tall, broad-shouldered body that was so unequivocally male shown to perfection in its clothing of somewhat traditional evening garb, emphasising so well the hidden strength and power of the hard frame.
Of all the men in all the world she'd had to go and fall for this one, she thought painfully, with more than a touch of self-despair. Her mother had always said she didn't do things by halves, and she had been proved right once again.
'Will you come to the party?' she asked carefully, after a few tense moments in a screaming silence he didn't seem inclined to break.
'Do you want me to?'
'Of course,' she said flatly. 'Donato and Grace would be upset if you refused.'
'Donato and Grace. Yes, I s
ee.' He stared down at her with narrowed dark eyes. 'In that case I shall be there.'
'Good.' For Donato and Grace. Oh, she hated him…
