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She sighed exasperatedly. “It’s not a society event. Well, not simply a society event. It raises hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s a dinner and an auction, attended by the crème de la crème of European celebrities and dignitaries. Even people from Rome,” she drawled pointedly. “And it’s beautiful. A truly lovely evening.”
“You said you raise funds for a good cause. What is it?” He asked seriously, his eyes unreadable as he studied her face.
“Cancer research.” Her words were steady but the loss she’d endured never failed to make her ache deep inside.
“And what is your interest in cancer research?” He asked with an almost undetectable sneer. “Or is it just the most fashionable cause to parade under the banner of?”
Her mouth dropped open. Clearly she’d underestimated just what kind of bastard she’d be dealing with. If he hadn’t hoodwinked her with his astounding good looks, she would have seen it sooner. He was horrible!
“I’m a doctor,” she said quietly. “Or rather, I was. Oncology was my area of study.”
Antonio was rarely surprised, and yet now, he felt oddly disconcerted. He had not expected her response. “I see,” he said with a small nod.
“Do you?” She narrowed her eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it.”
“Why did you stop studying medicine?” He asked, honing in on her use of the past tense.
“I got married,” she said simply, forgetting for a minute that this man seemed to want to see only the worst in her.
Sure enough, his lips curled in a sarcastic grimace. “And you thought becoming Lady Sanderson was more desirable than getting your hands dirty with a real job?”
Elizabeth took in a deep breath, trying and failing to quell her temper. “What the heck happened in your life to make you such a cynical bastard?”
Again, she had surprised him, and he fought the urge to recoil at her words. “I am simply observing what I see,” he responded throatily.
“Yeah? You know what I see?” She dragged her eyes up the length of his body, and it occurred to her to wonder why the heck he wasn’t wearing a shirt on a freezing cold November day. But she pushed the irrelevant query from her mind. “I see a man who is small-minded, judgemental and ignorant. Someone who is determined to see the worst in everyone. How can you turn my work into something trivial and selfish? And to reduce my marriage to a… a… social advancement!” She spun her diamond ring around her finger, praying for the sense of closeness to Alastair that it usually afforded.
“You have just admitted as much yourself. You were a doctor, or on your way to becoming one, and you quit to marry a man with a title. Or am I wrong?”
He wasn’t. But what he didn’t understand was that she’d met Alastair when he was already terminal. She’d loved him instantly, and her medical degree hadn’t seemed to matter as much as spending every moment she could with him. There would be time, she had reasoned then, afterwards, to return to her vocation. Only Rose had happened instead, and the hours required to establish a medical career had felt untenable, even with the help of her parents in law. None of these facts were things she was at all tempted to share with this man. He deserved no such enlightenment.
“The Ball is Christmas Eve. I have everything organised. Caterers, accommodation in the town, or transportation back to London, insurance, advertising. Obviously, we don’t pay a hire fee for the use of Bashir, but I have a little room in the budget if you require a fee for the use of your venue.” She reached into the lining of her coat and fished out a business card. “Let me know by the end of the week what you decide.”
Antonio tossed the card onto the kitchen bench. “I can tell you right now, Lady Sanderson, the answer is absolutely no.”
*
It wasn’t Agnes’s fault. She was simply mopping the tiled floor outside his office. He appreciated the glean of the floor. This is what she was paid to do. But the sound of the water slopping against the floor was frustrating. It was incessant. With a muffled curse, he unfolded his six and a half foot height and strode to the door of his office.
“Agnes?”
“Sir?”
He felt a strange stab of guilt. The housekeeper he’d inherited with the purchase of Ravens Manor had to have been in her sixties. She had told him, in those first few days, as he was deciding which staff to keep and which to let go, that it was the only job she’d ever had. And though he didn’t possess a remotely sentimental bone in his body, he had felt pity for her. Besides, she was good at what she did.
He compressed his lips. “You don’t have to do that now, do you?”
“Am I disturbing you, Signore Casacelli?”
“Yes.” He shaped his lips into a smile to soften his curt response. It wasn’t Agnes that had him feeling restless and bad-tempered. Nor was it the embarrassment with his mother. And it wasn’t even his oldest brother Marcos’s irritating ability to call when it was least convenient, that had got Antonio riled. After all, as far as Marcos and Niko were concerned, Antonio had simply dropped off the face of the earth. He’d seen no reason to enlighten them to more of his spectacular personal drama than was necessary.
No. This was something else entirely. A short, slender, shockingly beautiful woman, with eyes the colour of the azure ocean had been haunting him for three days, since she’d stormed out of his home in high dudgeon.
“Agnes,” he ran a hand through his hair, wondering absentmindedly when he had last cut it. “Lady Sanderson, who was here the other day. What do you know of her?”
Agnes brought a whole new scope to the phrase ‘a stiff upper lip’. She was so quintessentially British, completely unemotional, yet he knew his request had surprised her.
“Not much, sir. Just the basic facts, of course. She’s of a high profile family, and so one can’t help but hear bits of information from time to time. I’ve never cared much for local gossip, of course.”
