Читать книгу Uncovering the Silveri Secret - Melanie Milburne, Melanie Milburne - Страница 7

AS SOON as Bella stepped inside the foyer, she felt a pang of emptiness that was like a hollow ache inside her chest. There was no hint of pipe tobacco. No sound of a walking stick tapping against the floorboards. No sound of classical music playing softly in the background.

There wasn’t even the sound of Mrs Baker singing tonelessly in the kitchen. No homely sounds of pots and pans clattering. No delicious smells of home baking, just the sharp tang of fresh paint lingering in the air and a silence that was measured by the methodical ticking of the grandfather clock: Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

She wandered through the lower floor of the manor, noting the newly painted kitchen and conservatory. The formal sitting room, overlooking the garden, the lake and the rolling fields beyond, had also had a bit of a makeover. Edoardo had spent much of the past five years restoring the manor to its former glory. He did most of the work himself. It wasn’t that he was short of money; he could easily have afforded to outsource to contractors but he seemed to enjoy doing hands-on work.

Bella had only been seven years old when he had come to live at Haverton Manor. It had been the year after her mother had left. Her father had taken Edoardo on as a project, presumably to distract himself from his own misery at being deserted by his young wife and left to care for a small child on his own.

Edoardo had been kicked out of every foster home in the county. At sixteen he had clocked up enough minor offences to put him in juvenile detention until he turned eighteen. Bella remembered a surly adolescent with a bad attitude. He had seemed to wear a perpetual scowl. He solved conflicts with his fists. He swore like a trooper. He didn’t have manners. He didn’t have friends, only enemies.

But somehow her father had seen behind the bad-boy façade to the young man with the potential to go places and achieve great things. And under Godfrey Haverton’s steady and patient tutelage, Edoardo had managed to finish school and earn a place at university, where he studied commerce and business.

Edoardo had used the leg-up to good purpose. Godfrey had given him a small loan, and from that he had purchased his first property and subdivided it. He reinvested the profits in more property, which he subsequently restored and resold. His business had grown from those humble beginnings to what was now a highly successful property-investment portfolio that was constantly expanding. He also managed her father’s estate, which was held in trust for Bella until she reached the age of twenty-five. With just one year to go until she could access her substantial inheritance, Edoardo was a thorn in her side she tried to avoid as much as possible.

Each month he dutifully transferred her allowance into her bank account. She had mostly kept within her budget, but now and again an extra expense would come in and she would have to suffer the indignity of contacting him to ask him to provide her with more funds. It infuriated her that her father had set things up in such a way, that he had chosen Edoardo as her trustee rather than appoint someone else—someone more impartial. Her father had trusted Edoardo more than he trusted her, and that hurt. It made the ill feelings she had always harboured against Edoardo all the more intense. To add insult to injury, her father had given him her ancestral home. She loved Haverton Manor. It was where she had spent the happiest days of her life before her mother had left. Now it was Edoardo’s and there was not a thing she could do about it.

Bella hated him with a passion that seemed to become more and more fervent as each year passed. It simmered and boiled inside her. She could not imagine it ever abating.

He was her enemy and she couldn’t wait until he was no longer in control of her life.

Bella moved through the upper floors, taking in the view from each window, reacquainting herself with the memories of the grand old house where she had spent her early childhood before she’d gone away to boarding school. Her nursery was on the top floor, along with a nanny’s flat and a toy room that was as big as some children’s bedrooms. The nursery hadn’t been renovated as yet. She was surprised to find some of her childhood things were still there. She hadn’t been back to pack them up since her father’s funeral. She wondered why Edoardo hadn’t packed them up and posted them off to her.

Going into that room was like stepping back in time to a period when her life had been a lot less complicated. She picked up her old teddy bear with his faded blue waistcoat. She held him to her face and breathed in the smell of childhood innocence. She had been so happy before her mother had left. Her life had seemed so perfect. But then, she had been very young and not tuned in to the undercurrents of her parents’ marriage.

Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, Bella could see her mother was a flighty and moody woman who was soon bored by country life. Claudia craved attention and excitement. Marrying a very rich man who was twenty-five years older than her had probably been enormously exciting at first, but in time she’d come to resent how her social-butterfly wings had been clipped.

And yet, while Bella could understand the frustration and loneliness her mother had felt in her sterile marriage, she still could not understand why Claudia had left her behind. Hadn’t she loved her at all? Had her new boyfriend been more important than the child she had given birth to?

The hurt Bella felt still niggled at her. She had papered it over with various coping mechanisms but now and again it would resurface. She could still remember the devastation she had felt when her mother had driven away with her new lover. She had stood there on the front steps, not sure what was happening. Why was Mummy leaving without saying goodbye? Where was she going? When would she be back? Would she ever be back?

Bella sighed and looked out of the window. Her eye caught a movement in the garden below, and she put the teddy bear back on the shelf and moved across to the window.

Edoardo was walking down to the lake; Fergus was following faithfully a few paces behind. Every now and again he would stop and wait for the elderly dog to catch up. He would stoop down and give Fergus’s ears or frail shoulders a little rub before moving forward again.

His care and concern for the dog didn’t fit with Bella’s impression of him as an aloof lone-agent who shied away from attachment. He had never shown any affection for anyone or anything before. He hadn’t appeared to grieve the loss of her father, but then, she hadn’t been around to notice all that much. He had been marble-faced at the funeral. He had barely uttered a word to her, or to anyone. At the reading of the will he had seemed unsurprised by the way her father had left things, which seemed to suggest he had a part in their planning.

She had flayed him with her sharp tongue that day. The air had rung with her vitriol. She had ranted and fumed and screamed at him. She had even come close to slapping him. But he had not moved a muscle on his face. He had looked down at her with that slightly condescending look of his and listened to her blistering tirade as if she’d been a spoilt, wilful child having a tantrum.

Bella moved away from the window with a frustrated sigh. She didn’t know how to handle Edoardo. She had never known. In the past she had tried to dismiss him as one of the servants, someone she had to tolerate but not like, or even interact with unless absolutely necessary. But she had always found his presence disturbing. He did things to her just by looking at her. He made her feel things she had no right to feel. Was he doing it deliberately? Was he winding her up just to show he had the upper hand until she turned twenty-five?

He had always viewed her as the spoilt princess, the shallow socialite who spent money like it was going out of fashion. When she was younger she had tried her best to understand him. She had sensed the world he had come from was wildly different from hers from the occasional snippet of gossip from the locals, but when she had asked him about his childhood, he would cut her off with a curt command to mind her own business. What annoyed her more was that he must have spoken to her father about her probing him, as Godfrey had expressly forbidden her ever to speak to Edoardo about his childhood. He’d insisted that Edoardo deserved a chance to put his delinquent past behind him. It had driven another wedge between Bella and her father, making her feel more and more isolated and shut out.

Over the years her empathy towards Edoardo had turned to dislike and then to hatred. During her adolescence she had brazenly taunted him with saucy come-hither looks in an effort to get some sort of rise out of him. His aloofness had made her angry. She’d been used to boys noticing her, dancing around her, telling her how beautiful she was.

He had done none of that.

It was as if he didn’t see her as anything but an annoying child. But then, that night in the library when she’d been sixteen, she had overstepped the mark. With a bit of Dutch courage on board—compliments of some cherry brandy she had found—she had been determined to get him to notice her. She had perched on his desk with her skirt ruched up and with the first four buttons of her top undone, showing more than a glimpse of the cleavage that had begun to blossom a couple of summers before.

He had come in and stopped short when he’d seen her draped like a burlesque dancer on his desk. He had barked at her in his usual growly way to get out of his hair. But, instead of scampering off like a dismissed child, she had slithered off the desk, come over to him and tiptoed her fingertips over his chest. Even then he had resisted her. He had stood as still as stone, but she had felt empowered by the way his eyes had darkened and the way he had drawn in a sharp breath as her loose hair brushed against his arm. She’d pressed closer, breathing in the scent of him, allowing him to breathe in hers.

She could still remember the exact moment he’d snapped. He’d seemed to teeter on the edge of control for long, pulsing seconds. But then he had finally grabbed her roughly—she had thought in order to push her away—and slammed his mouth down on hers. It was a kiss of hunger and frustration, of anger and lust, of forbidden longings. It had shaken her to the very core of her being. And, when he’d finally wrenched his mouth off hers and thrust her from him, she could tell it had done exactly the same to him …

Bella pushed back from her thoughts of the past. It was her future she had to think about now.

A future that could not happen without Edoardo’s co-operation.

Edoardo was in the kitchen a few hours later preparing a meal. He knew the exact moment Bella entered the room even though his back was turned away from the door. It wasn’t the sound of her footfall or even the fact that Fergus opened one eye and lifted one faded steel-grey ear. It was the way the back of his neck tingled, as if she had trailed her slim, elegant white fingers through his hair. His body had always felt her presence like a sophisticated radar tracking a target. He had spent years of his life suppressing his reaction to her. He had hardly even noticed her until she had reached adolescence. But then, as if a switch had been turned on in his body, he had noticed everything: her long, glossy brown hair and those big, Bambi toffee-brown eyes with their dark fringe of impossibly long lashes.

He had noticed the graceful way she moved, like a ballerina across a dance floor or a swan gliding across the surface of a lake. He had noticed her porcelain skin, the way it was milky-white compared to his deep olive-brown. He had noticed her smell, that gorgeous mix of honeysuckle and orange blossom with a hint of vanilla. At just five-foot-five she was petite up against his six-foot-three frame. He towered over her. One of his hands could swallow both of hers whole. His body would crush hers if he took possession of her.

He ached to take possession of her. His body had been humming with it ever since he had grabbed her wrist outside. His fingers could still feel where they had come in contact with her skin. Her skin had felt like satin. He wondered if the rest of her body would be as silky-smooth.

How long before he caved in to the temptation? He had always been wary around her, distant to the point of rude. It wasn’t just because of his sense of obligation to her father: he had a feeling she would do more than move him physically. He didn’t want her to use him like she used the other men in her life. The men she dated were just playthings she picked up and put down again when her interest waned. He would allow no one—not even Bella Haverton—to use him for sport or entertainment.

‘Dinner will be ready in half an hour,’ he said.

‘Would you like some help?’ she asked.

Edoardo flicked the tea towel over his shoulder as he turned to face her. She looked young, fresh and innocent, yet worldly and defiant at the same time. It was a potent mix she had always played to her advantage. She was like a chameleon: a woman-child, a sexy siren and a doe-eyed innocent all wrapped in a knockout package.

Her clothes draped her model-slim figure like an evening glove on a slender arm. She could make a bin liner look like a million-dollar designer outfit. Her make-up was subtle and yet brought out the toffee-brown of her eyes and the lush thickness of her lashes. The lip-gloss she was wearing made her bee-stung lips all the more tempting and alluring.

She was playing her ice-maiden game now but Edoardo could see straight through it. She couldn’t hide the way her body reacted to him. She was aware of him in the same way he was aware of her. There was a sexual energy in the air between them—a current, a force, that crackled every time their eyes met.

‘You can pour a glass of wine for us both,’ he said. ‘There’s a red open over there, or there’s white, if you prefer, in the fridge.’

She poured a glass of red for them both and handed him one. He felt the zap of her fingers as they briefly met his around the stem of the glass. He saw the flare of reaction in her brown eyes. ‘Salut,’ he said, holding her gaze as the blood thundered in his loins.

She gave her glossy lips a quick darting sweep with the tip of her tongue. ‘Salut,’ she said and lifted the glass to her mouth. It always amazed him how sensual she was, seemingly without even trying. How could taking a sip of wine suddenly be so sexy? He couldn’t stop staring at her mouth, how it glistened from the wine. How her lips were so plump and full, just ripe for kissing.

‘So how did you meet this boyfriend of yours?’ Edoardo asked as he dragged his gaze away from her mouth.

‘He was serving meals to the homeless when I walked past from the tube station,’ she said. ‘I thought it was amazing that he was standing out there in the cold and wet, handing out food parcels and blankets. We got talking and then we exchanged numbers. The rest, as they say, is history.’

‘How serious are you about him?’

‘I’m very serious,’ she said, setting her chin at a defiant height. ‘I want to get married in June.’

He took a measured sip of his wine and then placed the glass back down on the counter. Bella married? Not on his watch. ‘You realise you can’t marry anyone without my permission?’ he said.

She blinked. ‘What?’

‘It’s clearly stated in your father’s will,’ he said. ‘I have to approve your choice of husband if you choose to marry before the age of twenty-five.’

Her eyes widened and then narrowed. ‘You’re lying,’ she said. ‘It does not say that. You’re in control of my money, not my love life.’

‘Go check it out with the lawyer,’ he said, turning back to his chicken dish on the stove.

Edoardo could feel her anger building in the silence. It made the air heavy, loaded with anticipation, like that tense period after lightning flashed, just before the thunder bellowed.

‘You put my father up to this, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘You cooked up this little scheme to get absolute and total control of me.’

Edoardo put the wooden spoon down on the spoon holder and turned back round, folding his arms across his chest and crossing one ankle over the other. ‘So why do you want to marry this Julian guy?’ he asked.

She put up her chin. ‘I’m in love with him.’

He laughed and unfolded his arms. ‘Now, that’s funny.’

She sent him a gimlet glare. ‘I suppose it is to someone who doesn’t have an emotional bone in his body,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t recognise love if it came up and bit you on the face.’

Edoardo looked at her mouth again, at those lips he had fantasised about for years, remembering how soft and yielding they had been beneath the pressure of his. He had fantasised about them moving over his body, kissing and sucking on him until he exploded. A red-hot dart of lust shot him in the loins. He could just imagine her taking him to heaven with that sexy little mouth of hers. It would certainly make a change from her spitting at him like an angry little cat. ‘Ah, yes, but I recognise lust when I see it,’ he said. ‘And you are positively simmering with it.’

She hissed in a little breath, her eyes flashing in fury. ‘How dare you?’

‘Oh, I dare,’ he said, trailing a light fingertip down the length of her arm.

She pulled back from him as if he had scorched her. ‘Don’t touch me.’

‘I like touching you,’ he said in a low, growly tone. ‘It does things to me. Wicked things. Sinful things.’

Her slim throat moved up and down agitatedly. ‘Stop this,’ she said. ‘Stop this right now.’

‘Stop what?’ he asked. ‘Stop looking at you? Stop imagining how it would feel to thrust inside you right to the hilt? To have you bucking and screaming underneath my—’

She raised her hand so quickly he almost didn’t block it in time. He captured it within a hair’s breadth of his cheek, his fingers clamping around her wrist with bruising force. ‘I can do rough if you want, princess,’ he said. ‘I can do it any way you want it.’

‘I do not want you,’ she said, spitting the words out like bullets.

He felt her thighs bump against his. He felt the softness of her breasts where they brushed against his chest. He felt the drum beat of her pulse against his fingers. He felt his need race through his blood with an almighty primal roar.

It would be so easy to slam his mouth down on hers like he had done before. To taste her, to tempt her with the pleasure he could feel building like a dam inside him. She would go off like a firecracker. He knew they would be dynamite together. She needed someone strong enough to control her wild impulses and reckless behaviour. The men she dated danced around her like moths around a bright light.

He would have her. He knew it in his bones. He would have his fill of her, purging her from his system once and for all.

And she would enjoy every pulse-racing second of it.

Edoardo slowly released her wrist. ‘Got that nasty little temper of yours under control?’ he asked.

She gave him a fulminating look as she rubbed at her wrist. ‘I pity the women you take to bed,’ she said. ‘They probably leave it bruised from head to foot.’

‘They leave it panting for more,’ he said with a smouldering smile.

She made a scornful sound. ‘Why? Because you don’t know how to properly satisfy a woman?’

His eyes mated with hers. ‘Why don’t you try me and see?’

She gave him a withering look. ‘I’m about to become engaged, remember?’

‘So you say,’ he said. ‘Has he asked you, or are you just clearing it with me in case he does?’

She gave him a reaction that reminded him of a bantam hen ruffling its feathers. ‘The man doesn’t always have to do the proposing,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong with a woman asking a man?’

‘That could work every four years, but this year isn’t a leap year, so you’ve either got to buck the trend or wait.’ Edoardo picked up her left hand. ‘So where’s the ring?’

She snatched her hand away. ‘I’m having one designed specially.’

‘Who’s paying for it?’

She frowned at him. ‘What sort of question is that?’

‘So you’re paying,’ he said with a mocking look.

‘I don’t have to discuss this with you,’ she said. ‘It’s none of your damn business.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s where you’re wrong, Bella,’ he said. ‘It is my business to see that you don’t get ripped off by some gold-digging sleazebag. That’s why your father appointed me as your financial guardian. He didn’t want you to be taken advantage of until you were old enough to understand how the world works.’

‘I’m twenty-four years old!’ she said. ‘Of course I know how the world works. My father was old-fashioned. He was two generations older than my friends’ fathers. You had no right to agree to this stupid scheme. You should’ve talked him out of it. I should’ve been given control when I turned twenty-one.’

‘You were too young at twenty-one,’ he said. ‘I think you’re still too young even now. You don’t know what you want.’

Her hands were in tight little fists by her sides. ‘I know I don’t want you messing up my life,’ she said. ‘I love Julian. I want to be his wife. I want a family with him. You can’t stop me marrying him. I’ll fight you every step of the way.’

‘Fight me,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to it. But you won’t win this, Bella. I will not allow your father’s life’s work to be frittered away by your impulsive choice of a partner. I’ll put a hold on your allowance. I’ll freeze your assets. You won’t have a penny to buy a cup of coffee, much less pay for a wedding.’

‘You can’t do this!’

‘How long have you known this man?’

Her cheeks blushed like a rose. ‘Long enough to know he’s my soulmate.’

He nailed her with his gaze. ‘How long?’

‘Three months,’ she mumbled.

‘What the—?’

‘Don’t say it.’ She cut him off before he could let out his forceful expletive. ‘It was love at first sight.’

‘That’s a load of crap,’ he said. ‘You haven’t even slept with this guy. How do you know if you’re compatible?’

‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ she said. ‘You don’t even have a soul.’

Edoardo was inclined to agree with her. His childhood had bludgeoned his heart until he had hidden it away for ever. He had taught himself not to feel anything but the most basic of feelings. He hadn’t loved anyone since he was five years old. He wasn’t sure he could love any more. It was a language he had forgotten, along with most of his native tongue. He had taught himself not to need people. Needing people left you vulnerable, and the one thing he would never allow himself to be again was vulnerable.

‘Let’s leave me out of this,’ he said. ‘What I’m concerned about is you. You’re doing exactly what your father was afraid you would do—you’re letting your heart rule your head. It should be the other way around.’

‘You can’t choose who you fall in love with,’ she said. ‘It just … happens.’

‘You’re not in love with him,’ he said. ‘You’re in love with the idea of marriage and family, of security and respectability.’

She flounced to the other side of the kitchen, taking her wine with her. ‘I’m not going to talk about this any more,’ she said. ‘I’m marrying Julian, and you can’t stop me.’

‘Will he wait a whole year for you?’ Edoardo asked.

She lowered her glass and sent him a furious scowl. ‘You heartless, controlling bastard.’

‘Sticks and stones,’ he said, picking up his own wine and raising it in a toast.

She slammed her glass down so hard the stem broke and wine swirled in a red arc like a splash of blood. She yelped and jumped backwards, clutching her right hand.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked, stepping towards her.

‘I’m fine.’ She bit down on her lip.

He took her hand and unpeeled her fingers to find a little gash in the pad of her thumb. ‘You silly little fool,’ he said. ‘You could’ve severed a tendon.’

‘It’s nothing.’ She tried to pull her hand away but he didn’t let go. She glared up at him. ‘Do you mind?’

‘You need a plaster on that,’ he said. ‘There’s a first-aid kit in the downstairs bathroom. Come with me.’

She looked as if she was going to defy him but then she gave a frustrated sigh and allowed him to lead her to the bathroom next to the conservatory. ‘I can sort it out myself,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m not a little child.’

‘So stop acting like one.’

She flashed him a furious scowl. ‘Why don’t you stop acting like an overbearing ogre?’

‘Sit on the bath stool,’ Edoardo instructed as he pulled out the drawer where the first-aid kit was stored.

She sat and held out her hand with a recalcitrant look on her face. ‘It’s just a scratch.’

‘It’s just shy of needing a stitch,’ he said as he checked the wound for traces of glass.

‘Ouch!’

‘Sorry,’ he said.

She glowered at him. ‘I bet you’re not.’

‘You know me so well.’

She gave him a lengthy look. ‘Does anyone know you, Edoardo?’ she asked.

He shifted his gaze to her thumb as he carefully placed a plaster over the wound. She had switched from spitting cat to gentle dove within a heartbeat. He had seen her work her lethal charm on others. He had seen grown men fall over like ninepins when she gave them that misty, doe-eyed look. She knew the feminine power she had and exploited it whenever she could.

But he was not going to let her manipulate him.

‘What makes you ask that?’ he asked casually.

‘You don’t seem to have a lot of friends,’ she said.

‘You don’t seem to need people like other people do.’

‘I have what I need in terms of companionship,’ he said.

‘Who is your best friend?’

He released her hand and moved to the basin to wash his hands. ‘You should take care of that thumb,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to get it infected.’

‘Edoardo?’

He dried his hands on the nearest towel and then shoved it back on the rail. ‘I’d better go clean up that glass before Fergus steps on it,’ he said.

She bit her lip again. ‘I’m sorry …’

He gave her a brief glance before he shouldered open the door. ‘We all have our limits, Bella.’