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He said quite calmly, knowing that he once again held the reins of command, “I am many things, cara. It is only you who must needs focus on my more undistinguished traits of character.”
“I order you to cease calling me cara.”
“Order away, little witch. Your conversation is very wearying, Cassandra.”
He turned on his back away from her, snuffed out the candle, and pulled the covers to his chest. He fell asleep thinking that it would simply have to be his lot, for the time being at least, to enjoy the rose by night and the thorns by day.
Chapter 14
Il Conte Caesare Bellini stood at a marbled white fireplace, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his pale yellow waistcoat, his expression questioning.
“My servant told me you wished to see me, Giovanna. I am delighted, for I believed you otherwise engaged this afternoon.”
La Contessa Giovanna Giusti smiled slightly, revealing small white teeth, and waved her slender hand impatiently.
“You know, my dearest Caesare, that I would much rather be with you than that doddering old man, Montalto. He told me in that self-important way of his that the Earl of Clare has returned and he must needs attend him at the villa.”
She strolled gracefully to him and laid a shapely white hand on his sleeve. “Would you care for a glass of wine, Caesare?”
“If I cannot have your lips, Giovanna,” he said. She gave a tinkling laugh and wrapped her arms about his neck.
“You, caro, can have whatever you wish.” She nuzzled his neck, and lifted her mouth to his. He drew her quickly into his arms and possessed her soft lips until she pushed him away, gasping for breath.
She waved an admonishing finger at him. “You have been without me for but a day, Caesare, and already you behave like a man long marooned on an island.” She paused a moment and gazed up at him through thick black lashes. “The servants are to be gone all afternoon. Only I am left, a poor, lonely widow.”
Caesare felt her small hand lightly touch his swollen member, and shuddered. He looked at her slightly parted lips, and imagined them caressing his body. It surprised him that after nearly five months as his lover, she still held such fascination for him.
“It would be my pleasure to serve a lonely widow,” he said as his fingers closed over the clasps on the back of her blue velvet gown.
Once in Giovanna’s bedchamber, he found himself staring at her as she gracefully removed her clothing. He wondered, a slight frown puckering his forehead, if his half-brother had been as dazzled by Giovanna’s white body, if he had also delighted in the touch of her mouth and hands upon him.
He lay on his back, naked, on her smallish bed, watching her brush out her thick raven hair.
“So Montalto told you that the earl had returned.”
She turned her face away. After a moment, she said lightly, “Yes. It would seem, too, that your esteemed half-brother did not return from England alone.”
Caesare propped himself on his elbows. He wished he could see her face. “I had hoped, Giovanna, that you would not care if my brother returned to Genoa with an entire harem.”
Giovanna lowered her hairbrush and turned slowly to face him, a beguiling, teasing expression on her face. “Of course I do not care, caro. I merely find it amusing that his lordship must go to such lengths to find himself a woman. It is a woman that he has brought back with him?”
“Your sources of information are, as usual, quite accurate. She is just only a woman, though.” At Giovanna’s raised eyebrows, he added, “She is hardly more than a girl, eighteen years old at most.”
“You have met her then.” Her voice was light with indifference, but her brown eyes were watchful.
“Yes.” He shook his head. Cassandra had not acted like any man’s mistress that he had ever before met, and his brother had never before brought one of his women to his precious villa. “I found her odd,” he said finally.
“In what way?” she asked softly, sitting on the bed beside him.
Caesare shrugged his shoulders and reached for her. “I do not wish to talk anymore.”
His climax came quickly, explosively. He looked at her through glazed eyes, watching her gracefully wipe her mouth.
Giovanna offered him wine, quickly drinking her own to remove the taste of him.
Caesare laughed softly. “You know, I told my brother about Montalto pursuing you. God, you would topple the old man into his grave were you to give him such pleasure.”
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