Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance) (8 page)

     Then, she took the items he’d requested down from the pantry shelves. The spaghetti at Casa dei Fiori was hand-made by Tonia. Hardly a week went by when golden strands of pasta weren’t looped over wooden chairs in the garden to dry. The
sugo
, too, was home-made, a fragrant sauce of garden-fresh, blood-red tomatoes mixed with home-grown herbs such as basil and oregano. Nothing bettered a simple meal of spaghetti with
sugo
tossed through it, nothing except
carbonara,
made with the mushrooms that grew wild in the woods and were dried in the pantry, added to bacon, golden eggs and thick cream scented with nutmeg.

     Alessandro was amazed at how familiar she was with the kitchen, a room he rarely entered in the thirty years he had lived in the villa. It was, he realized with surprise, a pleasant space with its own lovely view through the vegetable garden to the hills beyond. His second cousin seemed to have no trouble finding the ingredients for his meal and was kindly adding other things beside, putting them carefully into a wicker basket: bread, cheese, a bottle of local wine, another of golden olive-oil.

     But he wouldn’t be won over by her generosity, if one could call it that. The things she was giving him were not, in his opinion, hers to give. By rights, they’d always belonged to him and only the ramblings of an old man’s mind had caused Alessandro de Rocco to have to go cap-in-hand, begging at the door of his own home for a simple meal. Damn and blast his second cousin! Not only had she evicted him, she had cost him the
Palio
as well, deliberately sabotaging his moment of triumph, pretending she was saving a child.

     “Are you sure you won’t change your mind and eat with me, Al?” Annabella asked, handing him the laden basket.

     “I am sure.
Buona sera, signorina.
Good evening, Miss Smith,” he said frostily before turning on his heel and heading for the door.

   
 
                              CHAPTER SIX

Annabella slammed the door on his retreating form. Damn him! How dare he treat her with such disdain! It wasn’t her fault their great-grandfather had left her Casa dei Fiori! She suspected, too, that he blamed her for spoiling his chance of winning the
Palio!
As if she’d be so stupid to rush in front of a galloping horse, just out of spite! Well, she fumed, she’d show him a thing or two! He thought that by being off-hand and rude to her, he’d send her scurrying home to her parents. Well, he had another think coming. She’d prove to him that the old man knew exactly what he was doing when he willed his property to her. She could run the place far better than a spoilt young aristocrat! She wasn’t afraid of a little hard work, nor was she afraid to show compassion to Tonia, whose sister was ill.

      She made up her mind that if she couldn
’t win the love of her second cousin, she would have his respect. She blushed now to think of her silly, quickly-abandoned scheme to look like Claudia Silvestro. Annabella Smith would be proud of her curves and her wayward red curls. And she’d prove to Allesandro de Rocco that even a woman who did not have a sylph-like figure could be worthy of a man’s deep admiration.

     Annabella took the stairs two at a time and went into the vast bathroom on the first floor where she turned on the taps and poured salts into the big old claw-footed bath. This was a beautiful room with black-and-white tiles on the floor and, on the walls a peeling, faded fresco depicting galleons on a calm ocean filled with benign and picturesque sea-monsters. A high, open window gave the bather a glimpse of the sky, which was now filling with stars.

     She stripped off the filthy clothes and boots in which she’d been working and was about to step into the perfumed water when she had an idea. It would be perfect to sip a glass of chilled, local white wine from the vineyards growing all around while she luxuriated in the suds. Sure there was nobody in the house except the two dogs, she walked naked down the staircase to the entrance hall, then turned to the right where the kitchen and, underneath that, the wine cellar, were. She enjoyed the feeling of the tendrils of her long hair brushing against the small of her bare back as she moved and the soft warmth of the summer air wafting close to her unclothed skin.

     A single light burned in the kitchen, where she planned to cook her evening meal as soon as she was clean. She didn
’t really want
carbonara
if her second cousin wouldn’t eat it with her, but she refused to let his absence prevent her from enjoying it. A wooden trapdoor in the stone floor, easily pulled up with a round brass handle, led to the wines. Really thirsty and keen to celebrate her new-found resolve, Annabella lifted the trapdoor and flicked on the light switch inside. She selected a local v
in santo
and climbed up with it, placing the bottle on the kitchen table while she found the corkscrew.

     In seconds, she had the wine open and was sipping her first glass, savouring its cool, blond fruitiness. She sat on the kitchen table, unaware of her nakedness, bewitched by the moonlight garden she glimpsed through the window. Italy had certainly caught her in her spell. But Annabella wouldn
’t confess, even to herself, that while she sipped she was remembering, again, how wonderful her cousin had looked on the bare back of the black stallion the day of the
Palio
. All she was willing to admit was that
vin santo
was the perfect drink after a long, hot day spreading manure in the orchard, the distilled essence of Tuscan sunshine, birdsong, and the cheerfulness of the villagers.

     She smiled as she recalled walking down to Fortezza Rosa with Tonia that morning. Earlier, she
’d come across the housekeeper crying silently to herself as she hung a load of washing on the line and, putting her arms around her, Annabella had asked her what was the matter.

     “It’s my sister, Bella,” Tonia wept. “She
’s not well. And she lives all alone in a house with many stairs. I’m afraid for her.”

     “Then you must go to her, Tonia. I have some money I can give you if you need to take a taxi or a train.”

     “She lives down in the village. Only a short walk away. Are you sure you wouldn’t mind if I popped down to see her for a while?”

     “Not for a while, Tonia. Stay until she
’s better. I can look after Casa dei Fiori.”

     Tonia’s face shone with joy. “You are so kind, Bella. Thank you a million times. May God bless you,
cara
.”

     “Can I walk with you? I can help carry your things.”

     “Of course you may. I’d be glad of your company. Shall we eat breakfast and then go?”

     “
Si
. That’s what we’ll do.”

     The walk down the hillside was spectacular. There was a little rocky path that wound between cypress and ilex, offering beautiful views of the scenery with every twist and turn. Beside a rocky grotto the two women stopped to cross themselves with holy water which lay in a little pool under a small statue of the Madonna. Fresh flowers were strewn around the statue and, in the darkness deep inside the cave, thousands of candles glowed.

     “People visit her every day,” Tonia explained. “And they light candles for their loved ones.”

     “May I light one?” Annabella asked. “I
’d like to thank my great-grandfather for bringing me here.”

     Soon they were on their way again, entering the cobbled main street of the tiny medieval village whose small but tall three and four storey houses were so old they leaned together over the narrow lanes. Each house was a different colour of peeling, faded paint – palest blue, green, pink and yellow – and from every window-box tumbled bright geraniums. Cats sunned themselves on walls and steps and, in the tiny market square, farmers were already setting up the stalls from which they would sell their wares. Tonia led Annabella to a quaint yellow house overlooking the square and opened the unlocked door.

     “Wait here while I go and see how Tomasina is,” Tonia whispered, showing the younger woman into a small sitting room in which a big porcelain doll dressed in a wedding gown occupied pride of place on the red sofa.

     Seeing Annabella looking at the doll, Tonia told her quietly that her sister’s beloved fiancé had been killed in a motorcycle accident on the eve of their wedding and that she
’d never really recovered from the tragedy.

     Annabella waited while Tonia climbed the steep stairs. She emerged several minutes later, looking relieved. “She
’s not as bad as I feared, thank God. A little cough coupled with her usual complaint – a bad migraine. She suffers from headaches two or three times a year. I’m certain the cough can be relieved and then her head will be better too.  I told her you were here and she sends you her love.”

      “Thank you. Now, Tonia, I’m going to walk back to Casa dei Fiori and leave you here for as long as you want to stay. Have some fun with your sister when she is better. Don’t rush back,
si?”

    
Tonia smiled and took both Annabella’s hands in hers. She nodded. “
Arriverderci,
Goodbye, Bella. Don’t work too hard. Your great-grandpapa didn’t expect you to restore the villa and the estate to their former glory in just a few days, you know.”

     They embraced and Annabella walked out into the morning sunshine. By now, the stalls were laden with mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs, strawberries, zucchini flowers, pastas of all colours and shapes, and fresh eggs, cheeses and cured meats. She wandered from stall to stall, unaware of the stir she was causing with her flame-red hair, milk-white skin and young, ripe body.

     At last, one of the young men who had been weighing salami, plucked up the courage to ask her if she were the heiress up at the villa. He remembered seeing her with the old man, years ago, and she had grown very beautiful since then.

     “
Si,
” she answered, flashing him a radiant smile. She wasn’t surprised people knew that Alessandro hadn’t been made the heir – that sort of news travelled rapidly in small communities. It was certainly the kind of thing she and her friends would natter over on a Friday evening at the pub.

     “You need men to work the fields,
no?”
he asked, optimistically. He had plenty of brothers who could help their father in the family butcher shop.

     “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “
Domani.
Tomorrow. If you like, you can meet me there in the morning and I’ll give you plenty of work. I am Annabella,” she added, holding her hand out to him.

     He took it readily and, smiling broadly, said, “And I am Carlo. I will be there
alle otto.
At eight o’clock.”           

       Heartened by his enthusiasm, Annabella grinned back and hiked back to the estate, where she spent the whole day shovelling manure. The back-breaking work certainly took her mind off her cousin – to a certain extent.

      Still sitting on the kitchen table, Annabella sighed contentedly and took another sip of her wine before leaving the kitchen and walking up the stairs to her bath.

The little hussy!, Alessandro fumed. He’d cooked his pasta and taken it outside, to watch the stars come out as he ate. There was a low stone wall from which he could see the valley below, the Silvestro villa as well as Casa dei Fiori. Totally inexperienced in cooking, he boiled his spaghetti for too long and it had lost its wheaty flavour and texture. It was barely edible, and his former hunger all but evaporated as he ate, looking longingly up at his former home. When he’d almost finished, he glimpsed a human shape through the square, uncurtained windows of the stairwell and was suddenly anxious. Annabella was in the house alone, apart from the sleepy old dogs, and had said she was going to have a bath. Was there an intruder he should frighten off?

     Leaving his bowl on the wall, he crept up to the house. A light was on in the bathroom, as he expected, but there was another in the kitchen. Perhaps the intruder was looking for a sharp knife. Stealthily, Alessandro crept around the house, not making a sound and keeping well down, below the window sills. He would kill, with his bare hands, anyone who dared touch his little cousin!

     At last, he reached the kitchen window and looked into the room. What he saw made his gasp in shock, delight and frustration. This was no intruder, but the heiress herself, sitting on the wooden table, absolutely naked, sipping
vin santo
, an inviting smile on her lips. For a minute, he couldn’t tear himself away. She was even more beautiful than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. There wasn’t a blemish on her perfect, creamy skin. Her breasts, hips, buttocks were wonderful, soft and round and her hair, loose and spiraling down her back, hung around her like a veil. In her huge, green eyes he read deep contentment. Again, he was struck by her strong resemblance to a woman he knew but couldn’t remember. Like that mystery woman of whom Annabella reminded him, his cousin wore a look of complete serenity. Her face spoke of the kind of happiness a woman could only experience if she were in love, he was sure. And her lips told wordlessly of unspeakable joys.