The Count of Castelfino by Christina Hollis Page B

anything now, she could put up no resistance. Trembling, she waited for his next move. Forcing herself to sit back in her chair, she looked down at her hands. They were twisting nervously in her lap.
    ‘While I’ve got the opportunity, Gianni, I’d like to ask if you could possibly—that is, if you don’t mind—if there’s some way…if perhaps you could be a bit quieter when you return from your nights out?’ She finished in a rush, crimson with embarrassment. Cringing at the way she had told Gianni everything about her night-time vigils, she waited for him to laugh.
    All she heard was the sound of him sitting back in his chair. There was an agonisingly long pause. And then he said distantly, ‘I’ve been thinking about that since the moment you mentioned it. You’re the first person to say I’ve woken them up. Nobody else has ever complained.’
    Meg tried to make a joke of it. ‘Perhaps they’re afraid of you!’
    ‘And you aren’t?’ He sounded curious, rather than cross.Meg risked glancing up. He looked calm enough, and his beautiful eyes were dark with questions.
    ‘I-I’ll have to think about that,’ Meg said eventually. It was true. Gianni Bellini could be terrifying. He could also be warm and funny, but Meg wasn’t sure how deep or genuine any of his emotions were.
    ‘Don’t take too long making up your mind, will you?’
    She heard the laughter in his voice and couldn’t resist looking up again. Gianni smiled at her over his clasped hands.
    ‘So I’ve been costing you your beauty sleep, have I? If it’s any consolation, it’s impossible to tell. Nobody would ever know. Have you thought that, while you’re watching me, you could be in bed, getting more rest?’
    ‘There’s no point at that time in the morning. I don’t bother. I might as well get up, do some paperwork and then go out to work.’
    ‘I know,’ he said, quite unrepentant. ‘By the time I’m stripped and ready for bed, you’re out and about, heading for the gardens.’
    She frowned at him quizzically. ‘How do you know that?’
    All he did was smile as he waited for Meg to work out what he meant. It didn’t take long. The footpath from her cottage to the old kitchen gardens passed straight along one side of the villa. His suite must overlook her route. Meg had a sudden, delicious vision of him standing stark naked on the balcony of his bedroom, watching her. At any time over the past days she might have glanced up and caught sight of him in all his glory. But she hadn’t. Her shift from puzzlement to disappointment must have been obvious. Gianni responded with a slow, teasing smile that filled her mind with all sorts of possibilities.
    ‘Don’t worry. Now I am Count, I shall be partying less and entertaining here at the villa a lot more. You won’t be troubled by me during the night too often in the future,’ he said with sly humour, as though he knew she always would be. ‘I’ll be too busy working—and your job is another reason I’ve asked you here. Something you said on the day you arrived stuck in my mind. I got my staff to check you out, Miss Megan Imsey. Did you ever tell my father you were so grand and so well qualified you turned down a job with the English royal family?’
    ‘No! I’d never say a thing like that, even if it was true!’ Meg flapped her hands in embarrassment. ‘I didn’t turn them down—I couldn’t take the job. There’s a difference. My father had his heart attack the day after I was offered the position. I’d already accepted, but couldn’t take it up. My parents needed me, and all the help I could give them. I knew there would always be another job beyond the palace gardens, but my mum and dad are the only family I’ve got. People are more important than careers.’
    He ignored her. ‘I’ve decided you’re wasted here, Megan.’
    The breath caught in her throat. What could he mean?
    ‘That title, Curator of Exotic Plants, confines you in those glass prisons behind