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‘I didn’t think you’d believe me,’ Lily told him wryly.
‘I probably wasn’t ready to listen even if you had. I’m sorry I misjudged you. ‘
‘Something like that,’ Lily agreed. It was impossible for her to tell him now that she had wanted to keep a distance between them because she had feared the effect he had on her. After all, now she not only knew that he did not reciprocate the desire she felt for him, she also knew he was still mourning the girl he had expected to marry.
She started to walk towards the door, conscious of her duty to the Duchess and her work, but came to an abrupt halt when Marco caught up with her and asked, ‘And Anton? Tell me about him?’
Lily’s breath escaped in a soft hiss of anxiety. ‘There’s nothing to tell.’
She was lying, Marco knew, but instead of feeling the sense of condemnation against her he would normally have felt instead he felt an unfamiliar stirring of—of what? Curiosity? Or was it something more personal than that? Something that was in fact concern for her?
Whilst he battled with his own thoughts Lily continued walking back to the reception. She looked so vulnerable and so determined to be strong. No one should have to find strength on their own, without someone who cared about them to help them. He knew the desolate wilderness that place was. He couldn’t let Lily struggle in it. He strode after her, catching up with her to put his hand under her elbow so that they re-entered the reception together.
Lily didn’t know whether to feel relieved or embarrassed when she realised that the Duchess had put their disappearance down to a desire to be alone with one another. Of course it was true that the presence of Marco’s arm around her was hardly likely to convince the Duchess that she had got things wrong, but somehow Lily found it foolishly impossible to move away from his pseudo-lover-like hold.
The rest of the evening passed in something of a tired blur for Lily after the emotional trauma of the day. Of course she managed to stop dwelling on her own feelings when the Duchess showed her and Marco over the long gallery housing the villa’s art collection, her professionalism cutting in whilst she made notes and took photographs.
‘No wonder you’re so professional—you must have been handling these things practically from your cradle,’ Marco commented at one point, picking up her camera.
‘Practically,’ Lily agreed. ‘Not that I ever had much of an interest in fashion. It was always art that fascinated me.’
‘Not modern art, though?’
‘The past feels more comfortable, more established. I feel safer there,’ Lily told him, only realising when she saw the way he was looking at her just what she might have betrayed.
‘Safer?’
‘With art of the past there’s no need for me to trust my own judgement,’ she defended herself.
‘Safety and your desire for it seems to be a recurring theme in your life.’
Lily could feel her heart hammering heavily into her ribs.
‘The price of having parents who quarrelled a lot and being over-sensitive to that quarrelling, I expect.’
She was glad that the Duchess was there, to keep the conversation from getting too personal, glad too of the other guests who’d been invited to join them for dinner, so that conversation around the dinner table was kept general.
Inevitably, though, the evening came to an end, and she smiled a goodnight at the Duchess before walking up the stairs and then along the corridor with Marco to the guest suite.
‘You can use the bathroom first if you wish,’ she said, as soon as they were inside the sitting room. ‘I’ve got some notes I want to type up, so I’ll be working for a while.’
Marco nodded his head.
He wasn’t anywhere near as immune to her as he should be—as he wanted to be, as he must be. Just because she had shown sympathy toward him over Olivia that did not mean … It didn’t mean what? That she wanted him? He could make her want him. They both had a shared history of pain, and a shared need to have that pain assuaged. He could assuage it. He could hold her and take her and show her that there was far more pleasure to be found in his arms than in the arms of a man she feared as well as desired.
