An Enticing Proposal

The scowl deepened.

‘Tell me what?’

Drat the girl? What was Paige supposed to do? Blurt out to the man that his wife was not only pregnant but suffering a complication which required a strict medical and personal regimen of care?

Marco watched the slim, pale-skinned woman pace up and down beside the kitchen table, leaving a trail of shoe prints on the floor she’d evidently just washed, and wondered what he’d said to cause so much agitation. Not that having Lucia as a house guest wasn’t enough to drive anyone to distraction. Spoilt, that’s what she was.

But this woman had seemed so sensible—so ‘together’ as he’d heard it described in English. And she’d taken Lucia in and cared for her, been kind enough to feel concern for her relatives—something which still wasn’t worrying Lucia over-much.

‘If you prefer to walk and talk, I would be glad to be outside for a while. I was cooped up in the plane, then the car journey and a hotel.’

She glanced up at him, as if surprised to hear his voice. Had she forgotten he was there—that he was waiting for an answer? Now she looked at her watch and frowned as if calculating something. How much time she could waste perhaps? How long she could procrastinate?

‘Actually, I have to be outside fairly soon anyway. I have some house calls to make, and as they’re close I usually walk.’ She smiled at him, and he caught an echo of it in her eyes and knew he’d misjudged the frown. That was a real smile, not the plastic version most women he knew could flash at will—trained by years of practice at society functions where a camera could catch any unwary facial grimace and reveal it in the daily papers.

He found himself hoping she’d smile some more during the short time they would have together.

‘I will walk with you,’ he announced, and saw her frown again, sigh, then shrug her shoulders as if she wasn’t happy about his presence but would accept it.

‘Most women would be happy to walk with me,’ he growled, riled by the reaction, but she appeared not to have heard his piqued comment. She slipped past him to the door, turning to say, ‘I’d better check on Lucia before we go.’ Then she disappeared into the passageway.

It was because he was tired that her patent lack of interest in him niggled. Although he’d had his share of attractive women as friends and lovers, he certainly didn’t expect every woman he met to fall at his feet. He glared at the empty doorway, then realised the futility of such an act and chuckled, turning his attention instead to the room where he waited.

It was attractive in a homely way—a big practical kitchen with tiled floors and stained timber cupboards and benches. A long wooden table was scarred by use, and the two comfortable armchairs pulled up close to the fuel stove hinted that this room was the real heart of the dwelling. It seemed to hold the faint echoes of happy family gatherings and the accumulated aroma of good hearty meals. Almost an Italian kitchen in its ambience, he decided, sniffing the air and touching the leaves of the herbs which flourished in pots along the windowsill.

Did this flat at the back of the health service come with Miss Morgan’s job? Did she live here alone—when she wasn’t bringing home stray runaways like Lucia?

He felt the now-familiar clutch of fear Lucia’s disappearance had caused, then said a silent prayer of thanks that she had fallen into such safe and apparently sensible hands.

‘OK, let’s go!’

The soft, slightly husky voice summoned him from the doorway. She’d pulled a padded jacket over her cream sweater and trousers and the dark green colour deepened the colour in her eyes, making them more green than gold. He’d read on the flight that green and gold were the colours of Australia, but she still didn’t match his mental image of an Australian any more than the streets she led him down, lined with trees bright with autumn leaves, fitted his notions of the land they called the sunburnt country.

He took from her the small bag she was carrying and matched her pace, walking silently, unwilling to prompt her again, thinking his own thoughts.

Paige said, ‘She’s pregnant.’

He stopped dead, forcing her to turn back to him as he stumbled into a mess of incoherent, half-formed questions.

‘She’s what? Madonna mia! How—? When—?’

Paige stared at him, unable to believe the man’s shock and disbelief.

‘How the hell do you think she got pregnant?’ she stormed. ‘And as for when, I presume it was shortly after you were married. One thing I did get out of her was the wedding date. How any man could be so insensitive as to speak of taking a mistress before he’d been married less than three months is beyond me.’

Now he looked plain bewildered.

‘Who spoke of taking a mistress?’ he asked, rubbing at his temples as if to massage his brain into working order.

‘You did—or you intimated as much!’ Paige retorted, then she looked at him again and wondered, having second thoughts. ‘Or Lucia understood that’s what you said,’ she amended.

Her explanation didn’t seem to help his confusion.

‘What, in the name of all that’s holy, have my mistresses to do with Lucia?’

It was Paige’s turn for bewilderment—only that was too weak a word. ‘Flabbergasted’ fitted better. She stared at him, carefully controlling a lower jaw which seemed inclined to drop to an open-mouthed gape of disbelief. She wanted to shake him—pummel him—felt her fingers tingle with an itch to belt some sense into him, but it was none of her business how he ran his life.

‘I’ve got patients to see,’ she muttered, turning away from him and striding down the road. He caught up in two paces, so she let him have a short blast of the anger churning inside her. ‘And if you don’t understand how a young sensitive woman like Lucia would view your behaviour—would suffer enormous anguish over it—then I’m certainly not wasting my breath telling you.’

They walked in silence for a few minutes, then he said, ‘OK, so she’s pregnant. Let’s forget the other nonsense and proceed from there. I know I reacted badly to that news. Anyone would.’

Another mind-boggling concept—and one she had to refute.

‘Not in Australia!’ Again she stopped and faced him, wondering how a man who looked so good could be so shallow and fickle and downright stupid. ‘Over here, prospective fathers are usually delighted to receive the news that their wives are pregnant. Most even put on a show of concern for them.’

His frown drew his eyebrows together in a slightly satanic manner.

‘Prospective fathers? What does the reaction of prospective fathers have to do with me?’

Paige shook her head. First a fairytale prince, now fantasy land! Did this man know nothing about the process of reproduction? Or was he assuming the child wasn’t his?

‘Lucia is eighteen weeks pregnant,’ she said carefully, wondering if, in spite of his beautifully correct use of English, he didn’t understand it as well as she’d assumed. ‘Given the date of your wedding, I would say she became pregnant in the early days of your honeymoon.’

It was his turn to do the flabbergasted act.

‘My wedding? My honeymoon? You think Lucia is my wife? That it was me she ran away from?’

Only he wasn’t flabbergasted at all. He was laughing, his head thrown back and the deep rumbles of sound echoing up into the trees.

‘Well, if you’re not her husband, who are you?’ Paige asked the question crossly, cutting across his mirth, shaken by this turn of events and by the effect of his glee on her already stretched nerves.

‘I am Marco,’ he said, with a funny little bow. ‘Lucia’s loving and long-suffering brother. And knowing that, Miss Morgan, shall we start again?’

He held out his hand in a formal gesture and, reluctantly, she took it.

‘It’s Paige, not Miss Morgan,’ she said, wondering where her voice had gone, leaving the words to falter out in a breathless undertone.

‘Now we are friends,’ he announced with complete assurance. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. ‘Already I’ve delayed you so first we visit your patients, then we talk about Lucia, her marriage, her husband, her pregnancy and her flight. For the moment, it is enough to have seen her and know she is safe.’

Paige tried to think of some objection, considered removing her hand from the warm place where it lay—asserting her independence—but her mind had fled back to the fantasy land and it was only with a strenuous effort of will that she managed to dredge up one weak objection to his plan.

‘You can walk with me but you can’t visit my patients.’

He cocked his head to one side as he looked down at her.

‘They would not like a visit from a prince?’

His lips teased into a smile, and she shook her head, although she knew the three women she was about to see would all revel in a visit from a prince, no matter how ancient or meaningless his title was. All three were housebound and anything out of the usual could provide them with something to think and talk about for weeks to come.

‘These are medical visits,’ she said primly, not wanting to say no outright, but aware of the ethical considerations of taking strangers into her patients’ homes.

‘So a doctor could accompany you?’ he asked. ‘Even a visiting doctor?’

Her hand was feeling increasingly comfortable, and the close proximity of his body was creating havoc with her senses, so she didn’t place any importance on his questions, assuming he was making conversation. She struggled to keep her end of it going so he wouldn’t guess at her thoughts and feelings.

‘Of course, if the patients agreed to see him.’

‘Well, that is arranged,’ he said, satisfaction purring in the deep tones of his voice. ‘You will say I wish to see Australian medicine while in your country and ask if they will allow me in.’

She pulled her hand away and tucked it out of temptation’s reach in the pocket of her jacket.

‘I can’t pretend you’re a doctor just to get you inside a few Australian homes, however interested you may be. And why should you be interested anyway? The health service clients are poor people, not only poor financially but some are lacking the skills necessary to survive without help. This is not typical Australia you’d be seeing, and I don’t know that it’s right to put them…on display, I suppose, for you or anyone else.’

He didn’t reply immediately, but frowned off into the distance as if trying to work out his answer. Or perhaps thinking in Italian and translating into English. She looked at the strong profile, the dark hair brushed back but with one lock escaping control to fall across his temple.

She was glad he wasn’t married to Lucia!

Stupid thought!

‘We have poor people in Italy as well,’ he said, cutting into her self-castigation. ‘And those who are inadequately equipped in living skills as well. I would not judge your country on what I see, but, with that said, shouldn’t a country be judged on how it treats these very people? How it provides support so they can live fulfilling and worthwhile lives?’

She had to smile, having used the same argument so often herself.

‘I agree,’ she conceded, ‘but it still doesn’t make you a doctor.’

She walked on, because smiling at him—and having him smile back—had turned out to be a very bad idea.

‘But I am a doctor,’ he announced, catching up with her in three long strides and falling into step again.

Marco a doctor?

She glanced at him, at the erect carriage, the aristocratic head, and said, ‘Rubbish! You’re a prince. Mr Benelli said so, and even a girl from the back blocks of New South Wales can recognise royalty when she sees it!’

She spoke lightly, jokingly, although she half meant every word.

‘The “prince” is a an old title handed down through my family—inescapable if one is the eldest son—but it isn’t a job description, Paige Morgan, any more than “Miss” describes the work you do.’

‘You are a doctor?’

Disbelief ran riot through the question, but again he bowed just slightly in reply.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘Now, should we continue this delightful chat here on the street or walk on to visit your patients?’

She walked on, remembering Lucia’s words… ‘Marco always gets his way.’

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