The Sicilian Duke's Demand
Madeleine Ker
The Sicilian Duke’s Demand
Madeleine Ker
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
COMING NEXT MONTH
CHAPTER ONE
ISOBEL was trying to remember that line of poetry. Something about a glassy, cool, translucent wave. So appropriate for this beautiful, hot Sicilian day. Cobalt sky, flat sea, ripples of lacy foam around her pale skin.
From the indigo horizon, a cone rose up against the sky: Etna, just tipped with snow now that it was summer, and with the customary feather of white smoke drifting from the peak. A well-behaved volcano, doing its best not to frighten away the tourists. But she was not a tourist; she was here to work.
Yesterday’s storm had stirred up the sand on the bottom, making the water opaque, but it had settled overnight, and today the turquoise water was wonderfully translucent again. She could go back to the team and tell them to get ready to dive again this morning, with excellent visibility and calm seas.
She was floating past the rocks, right over what they had dubbed ‘Vector Alpha’, the line they believed corresponded to the keel of the wrecked ancient Greek galley, when the movement caught her eye.
Despite the blazing sun on her back, her heart seemed to freeze for a moment.
There it was. Or rather, there he was. About twelve feet below her. A powerfully built male body. Golden-skinned, with thick black hair floating around his muscular shoulders. Naked but for black Neoprene shorts that hugged his sleek thighs from waist to knee. He was wearing only a mask, like her: no scuba tanks. A free-diver.
He was drifting right along Vector Alpha, propelled by easy sweeps of his long legs, intent on the seabed below him. Hunting. Her stopped heart exploded into life, fuelled by anger. This intruder knew exactly where he was going. Like a shark cruising after the scent of fresh blood in the water!
She floated motionless, watching the predator tour the line of the wreck, oblivious to her presence above him. This was exactly why she and the others had travelled from New York to Sicily—to protect this archaeological treasure from marauders like this one. To defend the past from such plunderers as this.
Isobel waited for him to run out of air. She needed surprise on her side. He looked formidably powerful, muscles rippling from that taut waist to the wide sweep of his shoulders. Nor did her sharp eyes miss the hefty-looking knife strapped to one sinewy thigh.
Damn. What if this visitor turned out to be a real bad boy? And the others were still breakfasting on shore. She had come down to the site early, alone, to assess the chances for the day’s diving. She could race back to them, come back with the cavalry, but by then the pirate would be long gone—carrying with him whatever booty he had been able to steal.
Besides, Isobel Roche was not known to be afraid of anything. Character flaws she might have aplenty—she had been accused of arrogance, stubbornness and pride, and had even recently been called an imperious, sarcastic iceberg by her ex-boyfriend, who ought to know—but she had never been accused of cowardice.
She caught sight of a tattoo on the powerful right shoulder. An octopus, done in black, tentacles writhing against the tanned skin. Oh, yes. A real bad boy. Damn, again!
And he just wasn’t running out of air, either. Those big lungs were full of oxygen. He had almost reached the end of the wreck, swimming with lazy ease, the long hair spinning black swirls around his shoulders.
It was time to act.
Isobel drew a deep—and rather shaky—breath. Then, kicking hard, she dived down through the clear water towards the dark figure. He still seemed to be oblivious to her as she snaked through the water towards him like an avenging angel.
At the last moment, he seemed to glimpse her from the corner of his eye, and twisted away from her like a big fish. As he did so she saw the glint of gold in his clenched fist. Damn a third time. He had found something important and had seized it! Without thinking, she grasped at the swirling clouds of his long hair, black as ink in the clear water. Her fingers closed tight around the thick tresses. Pulling as hard as she could, she kicked for the surface, dragging him after her.
It did not occur to her until she burst through the surface that he could have drawn that big knife and stuck it into her liver. By then she was whooping for breath and trying to hold onto what had turned out to be a very big man indeed. A large hand closed on her arm and broke her grip of his hair. She braced herself for his counter-attack. But when she looked into his face, he was laughing at her; laughing with dazzling white teeth through a curling black beard, his bright eyes bluer than the sky above.
‘Give it to me!’ she demanded fiercely in Italian.
‘Give you what?’ he replied, still laughing.
‘What you found down there!’
‘I found nothing down there.’
‘Liar!’ They were floating face to face, his muscular shoulders and throat breaking the water. She grabbed for his hair again but this time succeeded only in getting a handful of that curly black beard. ‘Give it to me!’
‘That hurts!’ he protested, still laughing.
She clenched her fingers so that her knuckles dug into his warm skin. ‘Then give it to me!’
‘All right,’ he capitulated. ‘Let’s swim to the rocks and I will give it to you.’
‘Don’t try any funny stuff,’ she warned grimly, releasing him. But she was thinking of the knife strapped to his thigh as she spoke so bravely.
They hauled themselves onto the rocks. The sandstone shelf was slippery so they hunkered down, facing each other as if they were about to wrestle. Her captive was certainly a splendid specimen of the adult male. Built like a demigod, with that long black hair and beard, he was like an ancient hero sprung to life.
As if echoing her thought, he grinned and said in fluent, but accented, English, ‘Odysseus captured by a siren. That puts a new twist in the myth.’
‘You speak English?’
His voice was deep and husky. ‘And I walk upright, too. But sirens didn’t wear lime-green bikinis in Odysseus’s time, I believe.’ His appreciative eyes were roaming over her body, exactly the way he must have assessed the wreck. Her bikini was indeed lime-green, and none too big. She had not been expecting company so early in the morning. The skin of her breasts had tightened with the adrenaline coursing through her system and her nipples were making rigid exclamation points against the wet Lycra. She shook her long auburn hair forward, hoping it would provide some sort of curtain of modesty.
‘Give it to me,’ she panted, holding out her hand—which, she could not help but notice, was about half the size of his.
His deep blue eyes were mocking. ‘They say, ‘‘Finders, keepers’’.’
‘The police don’t say that,’ she snapped. ‘You have ten seconds to give it to me!’
Eyes dancing, he slowly opened his brown fingers. Isobel gasped. Gleaming in the broad palm of his hand was a heavy gold coin. It was ancient beyond a doubt. She could see—appropriately—the bearded head of a god gleaming on the heavy yellow disc.
She snatched at it but he was far too quick. His fingers closed around it and his smile mocked her. She grabbed his fist in both of her hands and tried to prise his fingers open.
‘You have no right to this,’ she panted.
‘Why not? I found it.’
‘This is an archaeological site. Stealing from an excavation is a very serious offence.’
He shook his head like a wet lion, spraying her with water from his hair and beard. ‘How serious?’
Her efforts to pry his fingers off the coin were in vain. Furious, she was about to bite those stubborn knuckles until it occurred to her she might catch something unsavoury from this villain.
‘Very serious. Besides which, it’s robbing the world of an incalculable piece of history.’
‘Incalculable?’ he echoed. ‘So it’s valuable?’
She glared into those taunting blue eyes. ‘You might get the price of a bottle of wine for it. Is that worth destroying an important part of the historical record for ever?’
‘A bottle of wine,’ he mused. ‘Against the, what was it again, the ‘‘historical record’’? Hmm. I have never been too impressed by clichés, bella signorina. I think I’ll take the bottle of wine.’
‘Damn you,’ she said angrily, frantic to see the coin again. She wasn’t the expert on numismatics on the team, but it was clearly the finest coin that had yet appeared on the site. ‘Give it to me!’
‘No.’
‘You thief!’ This time she threw caution to the winds. She pulled his unyielding fist to her mouth and sank her sharp white teeth into his knuckles.
Maddeningly, he just kept laughing at her. ‘Are you going to eat me alive? To preserve the historical record?’
She thought she could taste blood on her tongue. She spat. His pectoral plates were hard and strong, with dark nipples that were as rigid as hers, and crisp black hair making a triangle at the base of his thick throat. His arms were heavy with muscle. She was never going to get the coin away from him by force. He was much too strong. ‘I’ll buy it from you,’ she said desperately.
One dark eyebrow quirked in amusement. ‘I don’t think you could fit even the price of a bottle of wine in your lime-green bikini, siren lady. What do you intend to pay with?’
‘Give me the coin and I’ll bring back cash,’ she temporised.
‘The only thing you’ll bring back is a squad of carabinieri.’ He grinned. ‘Handcuffs don’t suit me. Think of something else.’
‘You’ll have to trust me,’ she said, glaring at her tormentor with furious jade-coloured eyes.
‘Sicilians say, never trust a woman with red hair and green eyes,’ he replied, as though imparting some important life lesson.
Having her hair called red was adding insult to injury. ‘Don’t you understand, you savage?’ she snapped. ‘That coin doesn’t belong to you or to me! It’s part of the national heritage. The world’s heritage. You’re not just stealing a lump of gold—you’re stealing a piece of our knowledge, our understanding of our past!’
‘Brava,’ he purred. ‘Is the lecture over?’ He was unimpressed by her passionate words, a primitive brute—a beautiful primitive brute—who was enjoying the situation to the full.
‘All right,’ she spat at him, her temper snapping, ‘take it, if that’s what you want. But at least let me see the markings on the coin—so I can make a note in the site log.’
‘I can tell you what’s on the coin,’ he replied. ‘Some old goat with a beard on one side, and a fork on the other.’
‘A fork?’
He made a jabbing motion with one arm, his biceps swelling as he did so. Her eye was caught by the octopus tattoo again, swirling tentacles etched against the tanned skin. ‘A spike with three points, like we use for spearing fish.’
‘A trident?’
‘Exactly, a trident.’
Poseidon, god of the sea, with his insignia. A gold Poseidon from Syracuse. Isobel bit her lip with even, pearly teeth. Not just a precious and beautiful coin, but important evidence. Vital evidence. ‘Listen to me,’ she said, trying to control her anger and dislike of this big ruffian who sat there mocking her every word. She spoke reasonably and slowly, as though to a child. ‘I’m going to try and explain this to you.’
‘Thank you, lady,’ he said gravely.
‘There’s a wreck down there. A very old wreck. An ancient Greek ship, called a galley. From a place called Corinth. We think it went down in a storm somewhere around three hundred BC. That’s over two thousand three hundred years ago,’ she added helpfully. He nodded, blue eyes filled with amusement. She pressed on. ‘That coin may be the key to the whole excavation. For one thing, it will give us a date. The coin can be dated to within a few years. And we’ll know that the wreck couldn’t have taken place before that date. You see?’
‘I see.’
‘For another thing, it shows us that the ship had already been to Sicily—and was on its way back. These galleys traded between Greece and the islands,’ she explained, her eyes searching his face for some sign of comprehension. ‘The presence of a gold coin from Syracuse on board means we can say that they had already visited Sicily and sold their cargo. So now we know that the cargo down there is Sicilian, not Greek—it was going back to Corinth to be sold there. You understand?’
‘I understand.’
‘But I can’t prove any of this unless I have that coin. It’s not enough for me to say I just saw a Syracusan coin in the wreck. I need to have it to prove—’
‘I’ll sell it to you for a kiss.’
Isobel’s sermon froze in her throat. ‘What?’
‘If this is so important to you, that’s a very small price to pay.’ His perfect white teeth flashed in a grin. ‘Sicilians also say that no woman can kiss like a woman with red hair and green eyes.’
‘My hair is not red!’
‘Do you want the coin or not?’
‘I—’
He reached out and brushed the heavy, wet ropes of hair away from her cheek. The same hand, surprisingly gentle for all its strength, then slid round to cup the back of her neck and drew her face forward to his.
To her eternal shame, she did not start struggling until after his warm, velvety mouth closed on hers.
And by then she was wrapped in the irresistible power of those muscular arms, which held her close and drew her tight against his naked chest. And the warm hand that held the back of her neck made it impossible for her to turn her mouth away while he kissed her…
And kissed her…
The first kiss was soft and assessing, as though he were getting the taste of her, smelling her skin, gauging the smoothness of her lips. She had the fleeting thought that expertise like this must have been gleaned at the expense of a hundred women in a hundred taverns along this rocky Sicilian coast.
He smelled warm, masculine, of the sea. His body was all male, living muscles swelling against her slim body as he enfolded her further into his embrace, the second kiss deepening as his lips caressed hers, pressing against her mouth.
In fact…
In fact, she was to recall later, by some weird chemistry of the female mind, it was not until she started to kiss him in return that she also started to struggle.
And that was what she was doing now, kissing him passionately and yet fighting him all the way. Her nails digging into those powerful shoulders, her knees trying to thrust at his groin, even as her mouth opened to his like a flower in the sun, and her eyes closed in ecstasy.
His hard, flat belly pressed to hers, the crisp curls caressing her skin.
Isobel’s heart was pounding wildly, her breath rushing hotly, mingling with his. The inside of her chest felt as though it were filled with some molten metal; her legs were boneless; her mind was whirling with emotions. Fury that he should do this to her. Resentment that her hormones should respond so vehemently to such an indignity. Relief that this brigand had just proved Michael Wilensky wrong. Imperious and sarcastic she might be, but an iceberg who had never responded to a man she was not.
Not any more.
And he kept kissing her, until his erotic mastery was so intense that, although he had not touched her breasts or anywhere else, she felt that swelling, rapturous pressure in her womb that only came when…
She shuddered violently in his arms, her emotions peaking almost unbearably inside her, holding her on a pinnacle of suspense for a long eternity until her body sagged in his arms like a released rag doll.
‘Mmm,’ he purred, releasing her at last, ‘the legend was right.’
In a hot blur, she saw that he was smiling at her, holding out one hand. Her fingers trembled as she took the coin from him. It was warm and heavy. She clutched it weakly.
Did he have any idea what he had just done to her?
Any idea?
‘You—’
She ran out of words after that first pronoun. ‘Sorry I took more than one kiss,’ he said in that husky, accented voice. ‘But it wasn’t breach of contract. There is actually a whole amphora of coins down there.’
‘Amphora…?’ she said weakly.
‘I don’t know what you would call it. Some kind of ancient pot. Full of coins.’ He gave her that dazzling smile. ‘Plenty more where that came from, siren lady.’
‘But—where?’
‘You’ll find them where I left a marker.’ He rose to his feet, a magnificent, bearded creature from some ancient myth, smiling down at her with knowing eyes. The black Neoprene clung to his thighs, revealing the swelling, male muscles of his body. ‘I will see you again.’
‘Oh, no, you won’t,’ she said, dragging her dignity back together again. ‘Unless it’s in a criminal courtroom!’
‘Nobody has committed any crime,’ he said softly. ‘Arrivederci.’
And now she could tell why he was so anxious to leave: the purring of an outboard motor could be heard threading its way between the rocks towards them. It was the others in the dive boat, coming to see why she was taking so long.
‘Don’t come back!’ was her parting shot.
He slipped into the water like a dolphin, leaving her with a final memory of a broad back and tight buttocks. Then he was gone.
Isobel sat clutching her coin, hot and cold flushes chasing one another across her skin as she waited for the other archaeologists to arrive.
The coin told her she was triumphant. So why on earth did she feel as though she had just been conquered?
CHAPTER TWO
FOR her pains, she had to endure a morning of merciless ribbing about her ‘encounter with Poseidon’.
None of the others had actually seen her mystery man, not even Antonio Zaccaria, their Sicilian liaison with the Beni Culturali, who normally saw everything. The boat, piled with diving gear, had rounded the little cape just after her Poseidon had vanished beneath the waves.
By their grins she could tell that they suspected she had had some kind of daydream, inspired by finding the beautiful gold coin—she did not tell them about the kiss—until David Franks and Theo Makarios strapped on scuba gear and went down, and found the floating marker attached to the pot of coins.
They were still talking about it late in the afternoon as they crowded around the workbench that they had set up in the vaults of the Palazzo Mandalà.
‘It’s a fantastic collection!’ Theo exclaimed, bright brown eyes alight with pleasure. He was carefully rinsing the coins with his ‘magic formula’ liquid cleaner. He was the coin expert among them, his lean fingers expertly sorting through the mass of metal discs, many of which had been welded together by corrosion. ‘Mostly bronze, and so corroded by the sea water that it’ll take weeks to separate and identify them. But there’s plenty of silver here, and that’s in wonderful condition. Stuff from Syracuse, a couple of super ones from Agrigentum, things from all over, really. But this gold Poseidon is just magnificent. A real treasure. Can’t believe you rescued it! I wonder how we came to miss this amazing treasure trove?’
‘The storm, yesterday,’ Antonio Zaccaria said. ‘It must have uncovered the pot. That’s how Poseidon found it this morning.’
They looked at each other. A storm had uncovered the wreck in the first place, shifting the sand so that the debris had been spotted by a fisherman, who had reported his find to the Duke of Mandalà, the major landowner on this stretch of the coast—who in turn had reported it to the Berger Foundation. Which was why they were here.
But another storm could just as easily bury the wreck again, perhaps for centuries. Thieves like Poseidon weren’t the only danger to a fragile site like this one.
‘The trouble is,’ Isobel said slowly, putting the thoughts of all of them into words, ‘that it’s not really a wreck at all. We’ve found no traces of the timbers—the boat itself must have rotted away a thousand years ago. All that’s left is the cargo, strewn along the sand, with nothing to protect it.’
Antonio nodded. ‘And the site’s so shallow that rough weather pulls it around, throws the material in different directions, covers it with sand…’
‘We need to work fast,’ Isobel said decisively. As the team leader, it was up to her to take decisions. ‘Between the weather, the tides and visitors like Poseidon, that material may not be down there much longer. We’ll have to work double shifts until we’re sure there’s nothing else left down there.’
The others nodded. Isobel glanced at what they had recovered so far. Not a bad haul for a few days’ work: a row of wine and olive oil amphorae, heavily encrusted with barnacles, but intact and, according to David, the pottery expert, of extremely rare shapes and sizes; the bronze fluke of an anchor and some other bronze fittings, yet to be identified; and now this hoard of coins.
All the finds lay soaking in neutralizing solution in plastic boxes, ranged rather incongruously along the carved marble bench that ran the length of the workroom they had set up. The Palazzo Mandalà was a magnificent, seventeenth-century palace that bore little resemblance to the rough quarters Isobel and the others were more accustomed to working in. Even the laundries and kitchens of the palazzo, which led off the vaults, were echoing marble halls, studded with carved angels and saints—no doubt to edify the souls of generations of skivvies.
The palace was the family home of Ruggiero, Duke of Mandalà, now in his eighty-first year, a noted benefactor of many causes, including the Berger Foundation, which employed Isobel, Theo and David. It was that lucky connection that had secured them the invitation to come and investigate the sunken Greek galley that had turned up practically on the duke’s doorstep, thanks to a Mediterranean storm.
And the old duke had extended his personal hospitality to the archaeologists, so that they were billeted in stunning chambers hung with Tintorettos and Caravaggios, instead of the leaky tents they were more used to.
The workroom, set aside especially for them, was a good place, spacious and secure, with an immense door like the portal of a cathedral, which could be locked with a key that weighed about three pounds.
‘The carabinieri have promised to keep an eye on the site,’ Antonio Zaccaria said as they made their way up the flamboyant marble staircase to the first floor, where they were roomed. ‘And the Coastguard say they’ll send a patrol past there every couple of hours.’
‘Think that’ll help?’ Isobel asked.
Antonio shrugged. ‘This is Sicily,’ he replied.
‘This is Sicily?’ she repeated. Of the three of them who had come from New York, she was the only one who had never been to Sicily before and, good archaeologist as she was, she sometimes felt out of her depth. ‘What does that mean, ‘‘This is Sicily’’? The cops have to keep that jerk away!’
‘I’m sure they will,’ Antonio soothed. ‘You were very brave to confront Poseidon like that, but not very wise. Especially since you say he had a knife. You were lucky he just backed off.’
‘He won’t come back,’ she said confidently. The story she had told the others had been highly edited. If it got out that she had allowed herself to be kissed by the marauder, her reputation as the Ice Princess of Archaeology would melt in a second!
‘We’ll see. We’ll ask the old man for help on this—I’ve just been informed that he’s joining us for dinner.’
‘The duke?’ Isobel asked, raising her arched eyebrows.
Antonio nodded. ‘He apparently arrived while we were at the wreck. He’s resting in his room.’
‘I’m looking forward to meeting him,’ Isobel said. She had only seen the noble-looking, white-bearded Duke of Mandalà in photographs, but his contribution to the arts had been legendary. The author of many scholarly books, he had also bestowed his vast wealth among several carefully selected museums and trusts, including the Berger Foundation. He had been away from the palazzo since before their arrival. ‘It’ll be a great honour for me.’
Antonio, a lean, dark-eyed man with a saturnine face, favoured her with a smile. ‘For all of us. We’re eating in the principal dining-room, by the way. I’m going to shower. See you at supper.’
Isobel made her way to her own room. It was a ravishing bedchamber that always made her sigh with delight as she entered it. There was no question that it was a woman’s room, and she had often wondered which languid duchess it had been arranged for. The pale-rose-coloured walls were hung with exquisite paintings, the eighteenth-century gilt-wood furniture was upholstered in violet satin, and the bed, an operatic production in itself, was a four-post affair in amaranth and mahogany, dressed in mountains of ivory voile. It had its own marble-balustraded balcony, which looked out over a grove of orange trees, so the rich, spicy scent of blossoms drifted up to her bed all night long.
Some more recent Duke of Mandalà had added an en suite bathroom, a gleaming symphony of white marble and gold taps, and it was here she now headed to wash off the salt of the day’s dive.
She stood under the warm rush of water, closing her eyes as she sluiced her long auburn hair. Alone with her own thoughts for the first time since that morning, Isobel allowed herself to remember what had happened to her. Not the edited version.
The real story.
How on earth had she allowed such a thing to happen to her? To be embraced by a total stranger on a rock, to be kissed on the mouth by him…It was humiliating in the extreme.
He was a very big, strong brute, she told herself. She had had no way of fighting back. She should just count herself lucky it hadn’t gone further. As with a thug like that, it might well have done.
But as she soaped the womanly curves of her body a more honest voice whispered that it hadn’t been that simple. Something very important had happened on that rock today.
He had been the most magnificent man she had ever seen, and she had wanted that embrace, had kissed him back, even as she’d fought with him. And what had happened to her then, in the matter of a few seconds, was something that had very seldom happened with Michael Wilensky.
Almost never, in fact.
Her rich, sophisticated New York City lover had not been able to do to her, with all his polish, what Poseidon had done to her with a single kiss.
And that had momentous implications. Doors were opening in her mind, each one leading into stranger and stranger rooms.
Maybe the reason she was so ‘cold and unresponsive’ had more to do with Michael Wilensky than with any problem in herself.
Maybe, for all her own polish and sophistication, it had taken a rough Sicilian brigand to unlock her sexuality.
Maybe she was, after all, the sort of woman she had always despised, the sort of woman who responded to the most brutish kind of man, the kind of man who would steal from an archaeological site, who would look at a strange woman, like what he saw, and take what he liked.
And maybe it had taken her until twenty-seven to learn all these things about herself.
She felt dizzy as she cupped her own neat breasts under the spray, remembering the rapture of that moment, the feeling deep inside her that had exploded into delight, just from one kiss.
‘Don’t be such a damned idiot.’
The cold voice was her own. The doors to those strange and exotic chambers in her mind slammed shut, one by one. She released her breasts and turned the cold tap on full. The stinging, icy needles brought her to her senses swiftly.
This wouldn’t do at all.
Oh, no.
It hadn’t happened. Not to her. That was some other woman out on that rock today. A siren lady who had nothing to do with her. Not Isobel Roche, the youngest PhD in the Berger Foundation, the Ice Princess of Archaeology.
Which reminded her that it was coming up for lunch-time in New York, and she was due to report back to her boss, Barbara Bristow, today. She gathered her notes of progress to report, information to impart and questions to ask, and, wrapped in a towel, made the call from her bedside phone.
Professor Barbara Bristow, a rather formidable woman in her seventies, had been one of the people chiefly responsible for Isobel’s prestigious appointment at the Berger. She was the foundation’s current Director. Her lifelong friendship with Isobel’s father, an authority on Roman architecture, had certainly helped, but Isobel also knew that Professor Bristow expected great things of her, and had already entrusted her with several important acquisitions and other missions for the foundation.
The first thing she had to report was the security problem.
‘I’m absolutely fine, Professor,’ she said, in answer to the immediate question. ‘He was scared off when the dive boat arrived. I don’t think he’ll be back—he seemed more of an opportunist, grabbing what he could find, rather than a systematic robber. There were dozens of coins in that pot and he only had one in his hand.’
‘The best one,’ Professor Bristow pointed out sharply. ‘He evidently knew what he was doing, Isobel. And these people can be very dangerous. Don’t tangle with him again. That’s an order!’
‘I understand.’
‘I don’t want to have to go to your father and explain how you’ve had your throat cut by a tomb robber. What did Antonio Zaccaria say?’
‘He’s spoken to the carabinieri and the Coastguard, and they’ve promised to keep an eye on the site. I’m also going to speak to the duke about it—apparently he’s arrived back in the palazzo and we’re going to have a formal supper with him.’
‘Excellent! Please give him my best wishes. It’s some years since we met. He is a wonderful source of information, Isobel. You can learn a lot from the old gentleman.’
‘I’ll be sure to pass on your good wishes, Professor. And I’ll email photos of the coins some time tomorrow.’
‘All right. Keep me posted. And buon appetito!’
Under the languorous eyes of the half-naked ladies in the rococo frames, Isobel dressed carefully for dinner. She wanted to look her best for the Duke of Mandalà. The old man’s health had been frail for years, but he was a major philanthropist, and an important figure to the Berger Foundation through his donations.
She looked at herself in the oval mirror. She had not come to Sicily equipped with a trunk of formal clothing, and this sleeveless amethyst silk top and black skirt were going to have to stand in place of a ruff and pearls. At least, she thought, tilting her head, the top showed off her creamy skin. She had piled her red-gold hair on the top of her head, emphasizing her long neck—Isobel was not a woman who felt obliged to disguise her height in order to pander to fragile male egos—and she was pleased that her bra flattered her breasts under the clingy top. She had never understood women who bought expensive clothes and cheap underwear.
The amethyst silk was shot through with crimson as the light caught it, bringing out the colour of her hair and eyes. She did not favour a lot of make-up—just some baby-pink gloss for her perfect, leaf-shaped mouth, and a touch of blusher on her high cheek-bones so she didn’t look too pale. The shimmering sound of the dinner-gong was rippling through the palazzo. She fastened black pearl drop earrings in her ears, kicked on black sandals and there she was—ready to rock and roll.
Up until now, they had eaten in the ‘small’ dining-room, which was actually a very grand room. None of them had been in the ‘big’ dining-room yet, and Isobel was interested to see just how big it was.
As she joined the others, staring around her, she could not help gasping. The big dining-room was not all that much bigger in sheer size; it was the scale of the furnishings that made it, in every sense, big.
Two enormous candelabra stood at the ends of the table, their dozens of flickering rose candles providing the only lighting. On each of the side walls, a huge Canaletto oil painting showed views of Venice. At the ends of the room were equally imposing studies of naked nymphs frolicking with ditto shepherds and gods that had to be by Rubens. Nobody else could paint women’s bottoms with such voluptuous delight.
There were just the four of them present—the old man had not as yet joined them—and Theo Makarios nudged her, looking upward as he fiddled with his tie. She followed his gaze. The baroque vaulted ceiling was painted with frescoes—naked angels and cherubim, this time, frolicking among clouds. Celestial bosoms and thighs winked naughtily from beneath feathery white wings.
‘I feel positively overdressed,’ she murmured.
The three men were all wearing jackets and ties, and looking very uncomfortable with it. Theo’s choice had been a red-spotted bow-tie, which he had badly mangled. Swiftly, she pulled it loose and tied it properly for him.
‘Thanks,’ he whispered.
David Franks picked up a fork and showed it to her. ‘Think it’s solid?’
It was gold, and looked to be eighteenth-century, like all the cutlery spread out on the snowy tablecloth. ‘No doubt about it,’ she replied. ‘The contents of this room are worth approximately thirty million dollars. Why would they compromise on cheap, gold-plated cutlery?’
Antonio Zaccaria smiled. Isobel stared around the room at the magnificent furniture, the marble statuary, the elaborate dining chairs. The wealth of the Dukes of Mandalà was legendary. So much beauty, so much great art, assembled to please one family. As someone who herself had been raised with money, she knew how the wealthy lived. But this—this was different.
The double doors at the other end of the room opened and the old butler, whom they had learned to call Turi, stepped in.
‘The Duke of Mandalà,’ he announced, in a cracked voice.
They all straightened up from whatever treasure they had been examining and faced the door expectantly.
The man who strolled in, however, was not the patrician figure with a white beard and horn-rimmed glasses, familiar to all of them from photographs.
Not even close.
This was a very tall, very well-built man who looked like a demigod in evening dress, and who could not have been more than thirty-five. His jet-black hair was immaculately cut and his face—surely the most beautiful male face Isobel had ever set eyes on—was clean-shaven and wore a tiger’s smile.
‘Please accept my apologies for my late arrival,’ he greeted them in a deep, husky voice, speaking perfect but accented English. ‘A bad habit of mine. I trust you have not been too incommoded by my absence. Signor Zaccaria, how do you do? And surely this is Theoharis Makarios, the famed numismatist?’
Theo mumbled a modest reply, flushing as the big man wrung his hand.
‘Which means that you must be David Franks, of Harvard University?’ their host continued, shaking David’s hand briskly. ‘I enjoyed your recent article on the Etruscan bronzes very much. I have some bronzes myself, which you may be interested to see.’ Finally, he turned to Isobel, who was watching the performance frozen and open-mouthed. Dancing blue eyes met hers with a jolt that shook her right down to her feet. ‘And thus, by a process of elimination, you must be Dr Isobel Roche,’ he informed her with a wicked grin. He bowed over her hand, brushing it with warm lips that were all too familiar to her.
Familiar because she no longer had any doubt—if there had ever been any in her heart—that this demigod in evening dress, clean-shaven and barbered as he was, could only be one man.
The man who had given her a golden coin in exchange for a searing kiss that very morning.
Her Poseidon.
CHAPTER THREE
AS THEY all took their seats—Isobel finding herself seated at Poseidon’s right hand—David stammered out, ‘Won’t the duke be joining us, after all?’
‘But, my dear fellow, I am the duke,’ Poseidon replied, with courteous surprise. ‘Ah—you were expecting my grandfather?’
‘Your grandfather?’ Isobel echoed hollowly.
He turned to her. His face was solemn, but those amazing eyes were full of laughter. ‘I do apologize yet again. A perfectly natural mistake. My beloved grandfather, Ruggiero, the twelfth Duke of Mandalà, died six months ago. I am Alessandro Massimiliano, the thirteenth duke. But my friends call me Alessandro.’
‘So it was you who asked us here?’ Theo said.
‘Oh, yes. As I have told you, my revered grandfather died just before Christmas. A fisherman spotted the wreck only a few weeks ago, and it was plainly a matter of urgency to excavate it as soon as possible, before the sea reclaims it.’ The butler had been filling all their glasses with champagne, and now he raised his glass in a toast. ‘Let us drink to my late grandfather. And may I add what an honour it is for me to host such a gathering of archaeological talent!’
They all raised their glasses and drank. But as the icy bubbles sank down her throat, Isobel’s mind was racing. Alessandro Mandalà.
Good God. Of course. Now that the beard and the long hair were gone, how familiar that film-star face was! Alessandro Mandalà, international art dealer, playboy, rogue, jet-setter, boyfriend of pop-stars and supermodels, the latest wild branch on the Mandalà family tree!
She dared not look at him, in case her eyes betrayed the thoughts that were racing through her mind.
Pity for the decent old philanthropist whose place had been taken by this rogue filled her. What an heir for a great man!
Hadn’t there been that huge scandal just last year? A marble torso he had sold to the Getty Museum for millions, which had turned out to be a fake?
And that other business, a flagrant liaison between him and a vampy rock singer at least ten years older than he was? High-octane media fuel, with lots of public fighting and kissing, splashed all over the tabloids?
And something just recently, a rumbling from the British Museum about some sculptures he had supplied them with, now suspected of having been stolen?
She caught David Franks’s eye, and knew he was thinking about exactly the same stories.
‘But tell me, Dr Roche,’ Alessandro Mandalà purred, laying a warm hand on the bare skin of her arm, making her jump and sending goose-flesh shivering up her spine, ‘how is the excavation going? Have you recovered any artefacts from the wreck?’
She forced herself to look into that beautiful face. He had shaved immaculately—she caught a hint of some costly cologne from his skin—and if he had been stunning as a bearded pirate that morning, he was ten times more so as the suave aristocrat. His eyebrows were thick and black, his nose straight, with flaring nostrils. His mouth was pure sin, passionate and mocking and totally erotic. ‘We’ve been able to recover quite a lot of pottery,’ she said. Her mouth was still dry with shock and she licked her lips. His warm blue eyes watched the quick movement of her pink tongue appreciatively. ‘And today—today we found a hoard of ancient coins in a jar.’
‘But how fascinating.’ His fingers were caressing her arm intimately. ‘Any gold coins among them?’ he asked innocently, cocking his head.
She almost choked on her champagne. She pulled her arm away from those caressing fingers. ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. A rather nice gold Poseidon of Syracuse.’
‘Ah, one of my favourite coins,’ he replied, looking smug. ‘One could buy something really special with one of those—in ancient times.’
Isobel felt the colour rise into her pale cheeks. ‘It’s a valuable coin,’ she said tersely.
‘Perhaps you will give me a guided tour of the artefacts after supper?’
‘If you like.’ Her teeth clicked shut on the words. The hypocrite!
‘We had an intruder on the wreck this morning,’ Antonio Zaccaria said, oblivious to Isobel’s discomfiture. ‘He nearly made off with the gold coin, but Dr Roche confronted him and chased him off.’
Alessandro raised shocked eyebrows. ‘But how unpleasant. Some local mafioso, no doubt. Give me a description of the villain and we’ll see if we can track him down.’
‘I didn’t get a good look at him,’ she muttered. ‘He had long hair and a beard.’
‘Well, you showed great fortitude, Dr Roche. How exactly did you manage to—er—frighten this fellow away?’
By now her face was flaming, and she could sense the others looking at her curiously. He was teasing her deliberately, playing with her like a big cat. His expression was all concern, but those eyes held the hot blue memory of what had happened between them only hours earlier. ‘He heard the boat coming and left of his own accord,’ she replied thickly.
‘He didn’t hurt you in any way?’
‘No,’ she snapped, ‘but it was certainly one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life!’
He nodded gravely. ‘The perils of archaeology are great. One has to make many sacrifices—in order to preserve the historical record.’
She felt like throwing the champagne in his face. Luckily, Theo Makarios addressed their host.
‘You’re a dealer in antiquities, aren’t you, Duke?’
‘Oh, please call me Alessandro. I think we should be on first-name terms, don’t you? And, yes, I am an art dealer, for my sins.’
‘Something of a change in the family business,’ David put in meaningfully. He was a thin, earnest man, and always spoke very directly. ‘Your grandfather was a great conservator of the past. He dedicated his life to preserving treasures for future generations. Whereas you buy and sell them to the highest bidder.’
‘Are you making some point, my dear David?’ Alessandro purred, his eyelids lowering.
‘Yes. That your grandfather might not have approved of your career choices.’
‘But my grandfather and I loved one another dearly, I assure you,’ Alessandro replied easily. ‘There was no disapproval. In fact, my work grew out of his in a very real sense.’
‘Isn’t your work the opposite of his?’ Theo said cautiously. A Greek-American from New Jersey, he had the same integrity as David, but was more softly spoken. Isobel gave a silent cheer. Go get him, Theo, she thought. ‘Trafficking in antiquities doesn’t sound like something the late duke would have approved of. With the greatest respect.’
Alessandro laughed. ‘Trafficking? My friends, I think you have the wrong idea about my work. I deal only with top-level museums. I make a point never to sell to private collectors. I do not approve of treasures going into Swiss bank vaults, never to reappear. It is my heartfelt belief that beautiful things should be seen by everyone. Hence, my clients are bodies such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Getty. Anyone who can afford the price of a ticket can see the things I sell.’
The servants were unobtrusively serving the first course, an antipasto of frutti di mare, crisp calamari, prawns and shrimps drizzled with lemon juice.
‘Speaking of the Getty,’ Isobel said, in a voice like crystal, ‘what is the status of the torso you sold them last year, Duke? Wasn’t there some question of its authenticity?’
‘A very sad story,’ he said huskily. But she could see he was quite unfazed by the question. ‘A great museum, a wonderful piece, some foolish outsiders raising irrational doubts—the investigations continue, of course, but I am sure I will be vindicated in time. My beloved grandfather raised me to have an unerring eye for what is genuine.’ He was looking deep into her eyes as he spoke. ‘And what is truly precious.’
She gulped, feeling her heart flutter. He was a rogue, but he knew how to flirt. ‘So you maintain the torso is genuine?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And the sculptures at the British Museum?’ Theo put in softly. ‘Some people are now saying they are stolen.’
‘Not stolen,’ the thirteenth Duke of Mandalà said firmly, attacking his antipasto with a gold fork. ‘Looted, my dear Theo.’
‘Looted?’
‘They come from a Third World country currently in the grip of a prolonged war. This country is also the possessor of great archaeological riches. The sculptures were looted by soldiers from one of the big museums. Luckily, they found their way into my hands.’
They had all stopped eating the delicious antipasto, eyes wide. David put his fork down with a clatter that made Isobel wince—gold cutlery meeting Sèvres crockery rather too sharply for safety. ‘Most dealers won’t even touch that kind of thing!’ he said angrily.
‘Of course not,’ Alessandro retorted. ‘That’s the trouble with this business. Too much hypocrisy, too much greed.’
Isobel almost gaped at the effrontery of this magnificent brute, purring about hypocrisy and greed as he devoured calamari off a golden fork! ‘Well, I’m glad you are free of those hindrances, Duke,’ she said scathingly.
‘Do I detect irony in that silvery voice?’ He smiled. ‘Someone has to pick up the pieces, my dear.’
‘That someone being you?’ David sneered.
‘If the world is lucky, it’s me.’ He nodded imperceptibly to the staff to clear the plates. ‘I make sure that when these items reach the so-called open market, as they invariably do, that they find their way to great institutions. The British Museum were fully aware of the provenance of those sculptures. They’re offering them sanctuary while the war rages in their homeland.’
‘And when the war ends, I suppose they’ll just give them back?’ Isobel said.
‘That’s not my business,’ he said dismissively. ‘I am just happy to have rescued them from the hands of avaricious private collectors. Or from being pulverised by a smart missile that wasn’t so smart.’
‘And, of course, you make a handsome profit in the process!’
‘Isn’t your own work paid, Isobel?’ he asked softly. ‘Sometimes my job calls for me to become a kind of search-and-rescue agency for orphaned treasures. You’re quite right to say that many other dealers won’t touch this stuff. That’s not because of their high ethics, dear heart. It’s because they’re too afraid of tarnishing their haloes.’
‘I don’t see a halo over your head,’ she retorted.
‘Quite right,’ he said seraphically. ‘My reputation is hopelessly blemished. I really don’t give a damn. In fact, in my business, it is a distinct advantage to be thought of as a scoundrel. It’s the perfect entrée for certain kinds of dealer.’ He grinned at her wickedly. She had never seen such perfect teeth. ‘And I don’t always make a profit. Sometimes my virtue is its own reward.’
The arrival of the main course, a magnificent roast, forestalled her reply. Alessandro carved the joint expertly, his razor-sharp carving knife sliding through the juicy meat.
‘You see,’ he went on, ‘if I don’t make sure those treasures end up in the world’s top institutions, they disappear for ever. The British Museum pieces, for example, are exquisite carvings in marble, a notoriously fragile material. The military gentlemen who were selling them had the bright idea to break them up and sell the fragments piecemeal. A head here, an arm there. You understand? They hoped to double their investment that way.’ He laughed heartily at their expressions. ‘I was in a position to dissuade them from this path and make sure the pieces reached the museum intact. Wouldn’t you say that history owes me a debt?’
‘Is that a true story?’ David asked. There was a grudging smile on his thin face and Isobel realized with a flash of real annoyance that even David was falling prey to this man’s monumental charm.
‘Absolutely,’ Alessandro said silkily as succulent slices of meat made their way onto Sèvres plates. ‘And I have stories better than that, believe me.’
And he proceeded, as Isobel sat in a seething silence, to tell two more. Tall tales, in which he himself emerged as the reluctant hero from hair-raising deals with looters or international smugglers. And the other three sat there with wide eyes, drinking all this rubbish in!
Could her colleagues be such idiots? Wasn’t anyone going to challenge these ridiculous tales of his? At last she couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Don’t morals come into any of this?’ she demanded icily. ‘Don’t you care who you deal with?’
He turned to her, deep blue eyes meeting hers. ‘Not in the slightest,’ he said with a velvety smile. ‘I believe that the end justifies the means, every time. A single good deed is worth all the good intentions in the world. You’re shaking that glorious head. You disagree?’
‘One hundred per cent,’ she snapped. ‘Without morals, you’re just a thief.’
‘I have been called many worse things,’ he said, without turning a jet-black hair. ‘But you live in the realms of theory, my dear Isobel. Let me give you a real-life case. A man calls you to say that he has been with guerrilla tribesmen in a remote area of a war-torn country. While hiding in a cave, the guerrillas have turned up a cache of scrolls, thousands of years old. Manuscripts of great historical value. These gentlemen are anxious to sell the scrolls. He names a figure. You happen to know a world-class museum willing to pay that price. What do you do?’
‘Walk away,’ she shot back at him without hesitation. ‘Of course.’
‘And save your soul?’
‘And save my soul.’
His nostrils flared. ‘Really? But supposing you know that if you walk away, these manuscripts will immediately be offered to an unscrupulous merchant.’ His mouth turned down in disgust. ‘A man who will chop up the scrolls so that he can sell the pages one by one to buyers all over the world—thus destroying the sense of the scrolls so that nobody will ever be able to piece together their true significance. So that a piece of history is mangled for ever.’ His lids lowered lazily. ‘Have you really saved your soul? Or have you lost it?’
‘But as long as there are men like you around,’ David Franks put in, ‘art treasures will continue to be looted.’
‘Now that is just nonsense,’ Alessandro said with a smile. ‘Looting is part of the human condition. I know perfectly well that if someone puts a bullet through my brain—and not too long ago, some gentlemen were most eager to do exactly that—it would make not one iota of difference to the looting of artworks. But it might make a difference to how many of those looted artworks wind up in responsible hands.’
‘How long are you going to be staying here?’ Isobel asked abruptly.
He seemed amused. ‘This is where I live. I’m home.’
‘So you’re not planning to go off on some search-and-rescue mission in the near future?’
‘Not unless duty calls. I’m looking forward to observing your work on the wreck.’
Isobel’s jaw tightened ominously. What a terrible prospect!
‘This meat is delicious,’ Antonio said diplomatically. As the local representative of the Beni Culturali, the authorities in charge of cultural assets, he was probably uncomfortable at having such a notable patron of the arts challenged in this way.
‘Do you all know Sicily well?’ Alessandro asked.
‘Theo and I have been many times on various digs,’ David replied. ‘It’s Isobel’s first visit.’
‘Indeed!’ His dark brows rose. ‘I hope you’ve had a chance to visit our incomparable treasures? Agrigentum, Syracuse, the exquisite temples at Selinunte and Segesta?’
‘I’m familiar with those sites on a theoretical level,’ she replied sullenly. ‘I hope to be able to make some visits before I go back to New York. But right now, there’s a lot of work to do.’
‘My dear Isobel,’ he said compellingly, ‘nobody can understand a site like Segesta ‘‘on a theoretical level’’. You have to go there to understand. It will be my privilege to escort you as soon as there is a break in your busy schedule.’
Her mouth opened to tell him to shove it, but she caught David’s warning eye and managed, for once, to control her tongue. But nothing on earth, she told herself firmly, would persuade her to go on any guided tour with Alessandro Mandalà!
The conversation slipped into less controversial channels and it became a happy, animated meal. Except, that was, for Isobel, who could hardly eat a mouthful of the delicious food for the ball of anger in her stomach. She’d already had a taste of the Duke of Mandalà’s morality that morning.
He could have told her who he was out there at the wreck. Instead, he had preferred to make a fool of her, terrify her, then force his odious attentions on her. Some joke. And now here he was, charming the birds out of the trees, favouring them all with his opinions on morality!
The meal drew to a close with exquisite Sicilian cassata ice cream and liqueurs. Their host suggested brandy and cigars on the terrace, to which the men readily assented.
Isobel rose abruptly. ‘I don’t care for the smell of cigar smoke in my hair,’ she said. ‘And I’ve had a long day. I hope you’ll all excuse me if I go to bed early.’
‘But this is devastating,’ Alessandro said, laying his hand on his heart. ‘The golden moon sets and the night is left bereft.’
‘Like I said, it’s been a tough one,’ she replied frostily.
‘Can I beg one favour before you go?’ he asked, rising to tower over her. ‘Show me the artefacts you have recovered from the wreck.’
‘I—’
‘The gentleman need not bother themselves,’ he purred. ‘Go to the terrace, my friends. Turi will serve you with cigars and cognac and I will join you in a moment. But I must see these treasures before the stars go out and the night grows utterly dark.’
Her jaw was clenched so tight that she was probably doing her teeth irreparable damage. But there was no way she could refuse such a direct request from their host in front of the others.
And as they descended the carved marble staircase together he had the effrontery to link his arm through hers, as though they were the oldest of friends!
‘Let me go,’ she snapped, trying to jerk her arm out of his grip. ‘How dare you touch me?’
‘These stairs are treacherous,’ he murmured, unmoved. ‘The third duchess tripped and fell down them in seventeen eighty-three, breaking her lovely neck. There is a statue of her in the billiard-room, and they say it sheds real tears on the anniversary of her death.’
‘Very funny,’ she snapped. ‘I know it was you this morning!’
‘And I know it was you,’ he replied easily.
‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were,’ she demanded fiercely, ‘instead of making such a fool of me?’
‘You dragged me out of the water by my beard,’ he reminded her. ‘There wasn’t much opportunity for introductions.’
‘Yes, and what happened to the beard and the long hair?’ she demanded.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘You’ve told plenty tonight,’ she said grimly. ‘Long and tall.’
He chuckled. ‘When you saw me this morning, I had just returned from a—well, let’s call it a field trip.’
‘A what?’ she snorted.
‘A sojourn in a country where all the men wear long hair and beards. It was necessary to blend in.’
‘So you could steal some priceless artwork?’
‘I told you—the scrolls shed vital light on the development of a major world religion.’
She glanced at him quickly. ‘So that’s supposed to be a true story?’
‘Quite true, oh, moon of my delight.’
‘Don’t call me pet names!’ she shot back at him. ‘And was this where they wanted to shoot you?’
‘I had a gun to my head for three days,’ he replied easily, ‘while they argued over whether to execute me or not.’
Despite herself, her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘Not all the guerrillas wanted to sell the scrolls, you see. There was a faction who were determined to burn them—because they were written by people with a religion different from their own.’
‘You risked your life for money?’
‘Not at all, dear heart. I risked my life to save the historical record.’
She swung on him, her eyes igniting into green fire, her mouth turning into a passionate pink curve. ‘Oh, please! I’m not impressed by you. And I’m not impressed by your stories, either. They’re all lies. You’re not half the man your grandfather was! You’re surrounded by huge wealth, but you still feel the need to go out and steal. You don’t deserve all this!’
‘Perhaps I don’t,’ he said calmly. ‘But you’re being a prig, siren lady.’
‘I am not a prig!’
‘You are a prig, and a naïve one at that. You think that what you see all around you is wealth. It’s not. A Rubens on the wall doesn’t generate a penny. In fact, it costs a fortune just to keep it hanging there. What do you think it costs to keep up a place like this?’
Isobel was silent.
‘My grandfather could afford to bury himself in scholarship,’ he went on, ‘because he was convinced that he was a rich man. He died with that conviction intact, I’m glad to say. But I had to start working at seventeen, Isobel. So that we didn’t lose everything. It took me ten years of hard work to pay off his debts. And another ten years to build up the family fortune again.’ He smiled at her, a subtle and complex smile. They had reached the basement now, and he switched on the arc lamps, flooding the marble expanses with light. ‘Now, please show me your haul.’
‘There’s nothing to impress a man of your tastes,’ she said shortly. ‘These amphorae you see here. A bit of an anchor. And, of course, the coins.’
‘Yes, the coins.’ He peered into the plastic tub. ‘What are they soaking in?’
‘It’s Theo’s secret formula. I don’t know what he puts in it.’
He picked up the plastic tongs and fished in the tub. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he said, withdrawing the gold Poseidon coin. He rinsed it under the tap and dried it carefully. It glinted in the light. ‘The old goat and his fork.’
Isobel knew that her face was flaming red again. Pale skin and auburn hair showed every change of temperature—and right now she was very hot indeed. ‘What were you doing down at the wreck, anyway?’ she demanded resentfully. ‘Stealing from an archaeological site on your own doorstep?’
‘Hardly.’ He studied the coin. ‘It’s a magnificent thing, isn’t it?’
‘There are more important coins,’ she said tersely.
‘Not to me,’ he replied. ‘To me, this will always be the most important coin in the world—because today it bought me the most beautiful experience of my life.’
‘Don’t you ever give up?’ she said, her voice unsteady. ‘You can see I don’t like you. Why do you persist in this flirtation?’
‘But you liked being kissed by me,’ he said softly, his eyes meeting hers directly. ‘Wasn’t it a landmark in your life, too?’
‘I told you—it was very unpleasant!’
‘Do you know what you felt like in my arms?’ he asked. ‘You felt more wonderful than I can tell you. Vibrant, alive, dynamic.’
‘You’re lucky I didn’t scratch your eyes out,’ she panted, her heart pounding now.
‘And your mouth was like a flame,’ he went on, ‘sweet and burning. I felt you catch fire in my arms.’
‘Stop!’ she said, her voice cracking with the strain.
‘That’s the way it’s supposed to be, Isobel,’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to feel wonderful at a moment like that. You can’t live in an emotional ice-box for ever.’
‘You know nothing about me!’ she flared at him. ‘How dare you presume to judge me?’
‘If you had your way, nobody would do anything,’ he replied, his eyes glittering like sapphires as he approached her. ‘We’d all sit around talking ethics while the roof fell in.’
‘If you had your way—’
‘If I had my way, you’d be mine,’ he said softly, reaching out to her.
‘Don’t touch me—’
Isobel gave a little cry as he took her in his arms. It should have been some withering protest that would have stopped him in his tracks, but instead it was more like a whimper; a whimper that was smothered against his mouth as he kissed her.
Her legs felt so weak that she had to cling to him to stay upright. What on earth was this? Could anger turn into lust? Was it her very dislike of the man that fuelled her body’s insane response to him?
He thought she was a prig and she thought he was a scoundrel. So why was it that they were now locked in one another’s arms, kissing like a pair of famished lovers who had been separated by the widest ocean? Isobel had no idea. She only knew that the fiery, engulfing kisses their mouths were hungrily demanding from one another seemed to make them both hungrier, rather than sated.
She had never dreamed that she could feel like this with any man, that passion could ignite in her like a carelessly tossed match landing in gasoline. It wasn’t love, it wasn’t even lust, it was passion, a raw, elemental force, explosive and dangerous.
She had a sudden mental image, bright as the hallucination a fever might bring: his body naked against hers, his skin golden-brown and scrawled with black, curly hair, hers pale and tipped with rose; the sheen of their sweat, the smell of their arousal, the feel of his body within hers, all were as real and sharp in her mind as existence itself.
She wanted him to do to her what he had done this morning, but this time not with a kiss; she wanted him to make love to her, here and now. It was a swelling ache that filled her nipples and pushed them out into hard points, that flooded her loins with hot and wet desire.
And then she was afraid, afraid of what was happening to her, afraid of this body of hers that was beyond her control for the first time in her life.
Panicking, she fought away from him. ‘I told you—not to—touch me!’ she panted. ‘Damn you, do you just take everything you want?’
‘There are very few things in life I truly want,’ he said, and she could hear that his breathing was ragged, too. His eyes were hot blue slits. ‘But I want you, Isobel. I want you so badly that I would commit any folly, any madness, to possess you.’
‘Don’t come near me,’ she said, backing away from him. ‘We’re not on the same side, Alessandro. Maybe you think we are, but we aren’t. Don’t kid yourself. Just stay on your side of the fence and I’ll stay on mine, until this thing is over. And then we don’t have to see each other ever again.’
She turned and ran, as swiftly as her strappy sandals would allow her, out of the echoing marble vault.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘DID you believe that story about the scrolls?’ David asked, rinsing out his mask as the boat rocked at anchor.
‘Alessandro Mandalà, philanthropist?’ Theo grinned. ‘I guess with that guy, anything is possible. I never got such a shock in my life as when he walked in the room. Why didn’t anyone tell us the old duke was dead?’
‘He’s probably keeping it quiet deliberately,’ Isobel said with a bitter twist to her mouth, ‘so nobody notices there’s a cuckoo in the nest.’
‘You’ve really got it in for the guy, haven’t you?’
‘He’s the enemy,’ she said shortly. ‘He’s the opposition. He stands for everything we have to fight against.’
David laughed. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that, Isobel. A lot of what he said last night made sense. Somebody has to rescue this illegal stuff that’s floating around. At least he loves the things he sells and tries to protect them. We all know what the alternative is like.’
‘Hyaenas have a natural place in the world order,’ she retorted. ‘Doesn’t mean I have to curl up with them.’
‘Well, he’s the most interesting man I’ve met in a long time,’ David said. ‘After you went to bed last night, he was telling us about some of his recent projects—’
‘Yet more Indiana Jones stories?’ she said coolly.
‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Isobel, Alessandro knows about ancient art. And he’s not short on courage, either.’
‘Or on barefaced cheek!’
‘I agree with David,’ Antonio Zaccaria said in his quiet voice. ‘Mandalà is unconventional, but he is doing sensational things for world archaeology. And sometimes at great personal risk.’
Isobel just shook her red-gold head. This was Sicily, as Antonio had said yesterday, and they saw things differently here. ‘One day, one of his shady deals will go wrong and somebody will put a bullet through that arrogant head of his.’
‘Isobel, I know you’re the team leader,’ David said. ‘You have the PhD and all. But Theo and I both think your antagonism towards Alessandro isn’t helpful. And I know Antonio agrees. We’re here because Alessandro invited us here, he smoothed the way with Antonio’s department, and he also happens to be our host. Those are three very good reasons to get along with the man.’
She bit her lip. She could hardly tell them about her first meeting with Alessandro—nor about what had happened last night. ‘He just rubs me up the wrong way.’
‘Be professional,’ Theo said gently. ‘Please, Isobel. For the sake of the whole project. Just be nice to the guy.’
‘And try and be detached about him,’ David added. ‘Give him the benefit of the doubt, at least?’
Theo nodded. ‘You were pretty off with him last night. Say something nice to him today, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said, with a grimace of defeat. ‘I promise I’ll be as nice as pie. Even though it chokes me.’
‘Great! Here come the trays.’
The winch on the dive boat had been carefully hauling up the ‘basket’, actually a steel mesh platform, which they had loaded with the morning’s finds. It broke surface now, bearing several secured boxes, each containing an artefact. Excitedly, they swung the things aboard.
‘I’ve never known a site like this one,’ David exclaimed in glee. ‘Stuff keeps turning up all the time. It just keeps getting better and better.’ Carefully, he held up an amphora for them to see. ‘Look at this! This particular design is so rare and beautiful. I’m putting this one in the B Category, for sure.’
Part of their arrangement with the Beni Culturali was that they got to take certain selected artefacts back to New York, for eventual display in the Berger Foundation Museum on Park Avenue. These items went on the B Category list for discussion.
‘More bronze,’ Theo reported, showing them a box of corroded green shapes. ‘I think these must have been some part of the galley, maybe some kind of cleats for fastening ropes. I’ll know better when I’ve cleaned them up.’
The rumble of a boat intruded on their animated discussions. Isobel turned. A sleek white launch was cruising towards them. She recognized the expensive toy at once: it had been moored in the palazzo’s boathouse next to their dive boat. And she knew whom she was going to see at the wheel, too.
‘Good morning,’ Alessandro called as he pulled alongside them, courteously slowing right down so as not to rock their boat. He was bare-chested, wearing only Bermuda shorts, his splendid torso gleaming in the sun. She saw the black octopus etched against one muscled shoulder. A suitable insignia for a man who grabbed everything he wanted. He leaned on the rail, smiling down at them. ‘Any luck?’
‘Look!’ David held up the amphora for Alessandro to see.
‘Wonderful,’ Alessandro replied. ‘You don’t see too many with that beautiful shape. And good morning to you, Isobel. Any more visits from brigands?’
‘Mercifully,’ she replied in a clipped voice, ‘no.’
‘I’m very relieved to hear that,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Is the morning’s work over?’
‘We just need to get these things back to the palazzo and into the solution,’ David replied. ‘Then we can catalogue them.’
‘I’m on my way round the coast to Selinunte,’ Alessandro said. ‘You get a wonderful view of the temple from the sea. I have room for one passenger. I would be honoured to show you your first glimpse of the temple of Selinunte, Dr Roche.’
Isobel opened her mouth to spit out a rejection when she felt David nudge her heavily. ‘Remember what you promised,’ he murmured urgently.
Theo jerked his woolly head at the boat, too, emphasizing, Go.
‘That would be very nice,’ she heard herself say in a scratchy voice. She was rewarded by the beams from her three colleagues.
‘Come aboard,’ Alessandro commanded. He leaned over the polished brass railing, holding out his hand. Gritting her teeth, Isobel picked up her hat, sunglasses and tote bag, and let Alessandro Mandalà grasp her wrist. She put her foot on the chromed ladder. With terrifying strength, he hoisted her up onto the gleaming mahogany deck of his launch.
‘For the greater good,’ she muttered.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Alessandro asked.
‘Nothing,’ she replied.
Alessandro waved farewell to the dive boat and eased the launch away, slowly increasing the engine speed once they were a safe distance away. The rumble of the motor deepened. And the launch, sharp and white as a tiger’s tooth, cut through the blue Mediterranean, bearing her away.
The coast along which they sped was wild and rocky, dotted with clumps of prickly pear and tall cypresses. The sea was a deep ultramarine and it was so hot that to feel the wind in her hair was delicious.
Alessandro’s launch was a sleek millionaire’s toy, upholstered in white leather, with two monstrous engines at the stern, no doubt capable of hurling the craft along like a missile. Down the companionway, she could see a luxuriously appointed lower deck. No doubt the cabin was hung with Old Masters!
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