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Benedetto.
Her heart seem to cartwheel in her chest, and she couldn’t help the wide, foolish smile that took over her face at the thought of him. He had taken her virginity—or more accurately, she’d given it to him. First while she played, offering him everything she was, everything she had, everything she hoped and dreamed.
The physical manifestation of the music she’d played for him had been appropriately epic.
She could still feel his hands, all over her flesh. She could feel the tug and rip of her gown as he’d torn it from her, then buried himself inside her for the first time. She still shuddered as images of the darkly marvelous things he’d taught her washed through her, over and over.
And she couldn’t wait to do all of it again.
Maybe, just maybe, she could be the wife who stuck.
She was turning that over in her head, thinking about stories that lost more truth in each telling, as she dressed herself in the sprawling dressing room that was filled with clothes that she knew, somehow, would fit her perfectly. Even if they bore no resemblance to the meager selection she’d brought herself. And she remembered, against her will, what Petronella had said. That two or three lost wives could be a tragedy, but add another three on top of that and there had to be intention behind it.
That, or Benedetto Franceschi, the least hapless man she had ever met, was just...profoundly unlucky.
A notion that made her laugh a little as she found her way out of the dressing room, following her nose. Coffee, if she wasn’t mistaken. And she could feel excitement and anticipation bubbling inside of her, as if she was fizzy from the inside out, because she couldn’t wait to see him again. His dark, forbidding face that she knew so much better now. That she’d kissed, touched. That she’d felt on every inch of her skin.
Between her legs, she felt the deep pulse of that hunger she would have said should surely have been sated by everything they’d done the night before.
But it seemed her husband left her bottomless.
Her husband,she repeated to herself. Giddily, she could admit.
She pushed the door open to one of the pretty little salons, expecting to see Benedetto there, waiting for her in all his formidable state. But instead, the dour housekeeper waited there with a blank expression on her dolorous face.
Or analmostblank expression. Because if Angelina wasn’t mistaken, there was a glitter in Signora Malandra’s too-dark eyes. It looked a little too much like triumph.
Angelina didn’t like the trickle of uneasiness that slipped down her back.
“Good morning,” Angelina said, sounding as frosty as her own mother. She pulled the long, flowing sweater she’d found more tightly around her, because it might be the height of summer out there, but old castles were cold. All that stone and bloody history, no doubt.
“I trust you slept well,” the older woman said, lifting an accusing eyebrow in a manner Angelina was all too familiar with. “If...deeply.”
This woman could not possibly be attempting to shame her master’s brand-new wife because she’d slept half the morning away. After herwedding night. Surely not.
“Have you seen my husband?” Angelina asked instead of any number of other things she might have said. Because if Margrete had taught her anything, it was that a chilly composure was always the right answer. It made others wonder. And that was far better than showing them how she actually felt.
Signora Malandra indicated the small table near a set of French doors that stood closed, no doubt to control the sea air. And then waited there, gazing back at her, until Angelina realized the woman had no intention of answering her until she obeyed.
Luckily, Angelina had spent her entire life under the thumb of overly controlling women. What was one surly housekeeper next to her mother and sisters? So she only smiled, attempted to look meek and biddable, and went to take her seat. As ordered.
Her act of rebellion was to crack open one of the doors, and then she smiled as the breeze swept inside, fresh and bright.
“Coffee?” the older woman asked. It sounded like an accusation.
Angelina channeled her mother and smiled wider, if more icily. “Thank you for asking. The truth is, I don’t care for much in the way of breakfast. I like my coffee strong and very dark, and sometimes with a bit of cream. But only sometimes. I don’t like anything to interfere with my walk.”
“And where will we be walking?” the housekeeper asked as she poured Angelina a cup of coffee. “Perhaps we have forgotten that this is an island. The castle covers the whole of it, save a few rocks.”
It took everything Angelina had not to respond to that. Not to point out thatwewere not invited.
The other woman sniffed as if she’d spoken aloud. “Though I suppose if you are feeling enterprising, you could walk the causeway. It’s quite a pretty walk, though I’m not sure I would attempt it until I became more conversant with the tides.”
“What a wonderful idea,” Angelina said with a sweetness she did not feel. And when she took a sip of the coffee, it was suitably bitter. Which matched her mood.
“I was born and raised in this castle,” Signora Malandra said, and again, Angelina could see something she didn’t quite like in the older woman’s gaze. “It sounds like foolishness, to warn every person who visits here about the inevitability of the tide when the ocean is all around us. But I warn you, mistress.” And there was an inflection on that word that made Angelina’s stomach tighten. “This is not a sea to turn your back on.”
Angelina felt chilled straight through, and it had nothing to do with the breeze coming in from the water. She was glad she’d thought to wrap the sweater around her when all she wore beneath was a light, summerweight dress that she’d chosen because the color—a bright pop of yellow—made her happy.
