The Sicilian Duke's Demand

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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