PENNY JORDAN - Marco's Convenient Wife

The nursemaid Angelina’s mother had hired to look after the baby was not in his opinion a suitable person to have charge of such a young child. Bored and slovenly, she had no proper training for such a job, and so far as he could see no real love for the baby, but she was, apart from himself, the only person who was truly familiar to her and for that reason, until he found a suitable replacement nanny, he had felt unable to terminate her employment and send her back to Rome where he knew she would feel much more at home than in the Tuscan countryside.

It had been left to his housekeeper to telephone him and advise him of baby Angelina’s sickness. The palazzo was over an hour’s fast drive away, and Marco had no time now to waste on a mere car accident in which mercifully no one had been hurt.

On Alice’s CV had been the fact that she had some nursing experience, having done voluntary work in a local hospital, both as teenager and later too, when her employment commitments had allowed. Had it not been for his own too stubborn wariness where Englishwomen were concerned, Marco knew that Alice’s obvious dedication to others would have inclined him towards selecting her as Angelina’s nanny even over more highly qualified applicants.

However, now a new complication had entered the equation. The one thing that Marco had not been prepared for when he had mentally reviewed and tabulated the pros and cons of hiring Alice was that he himself might find her desirable! His reaction to her had caught him off guard. He had believed that he was armoured against any woman who was made in the same mould as the free-living, free-loving girl students he had encountered in England. So what was he saying? he asked himself sardonically, whilst he worried about Angelina.

That he could not control his own libido? No way!

Quickly Marco came to a decision. He would normally have been averse to having his hand forced by events, but now he wasn’t concerned about that. He did not want to examine his decision more analytically—because of his concern for Angelina, he told himself. After all, his physical reaction to Alice was something he could control; baby Angelina’s sickness was not.

‘What time did you say your flight left?’ he demanded.

White-faced with contempt and disbelief, Alice stared at him. What kind of man…what kind of father was he to give something as minor as a small car accident precedence over the health of his baby daughter? In his shoes the last thing she would have done would be to stand here, worrying about a mere car! Instead she would have been making her way as fast as she could to her baby’s side.

So much for the myth that Italian men were wonderful fathers, who adored and protected their children!

Instinctively she felt a surge of desire to protect the baby and to castigate her father for his lack of concern; to show him just how contemptuous she felt of him in every way; as a trained professional, as an innocent victim of a crime she had not committed, and most of all as a woman.

A woman who had foolishly allowed herself to react to him in a way she was determined not to repeat!

Ignoring her throbbing headache, she accused him wildly, ‘That poor baby! How can you be more concerned about your wretched car than her health?’ Emotional tears filled her eyes, which she proudly refused to hide. She was not ashamed to show that she had normal human feelings, no matter how contemptuously that fact made him regard her. ‘I thought that Italian men were supposed to love children,’ she threw at him scornfully, unable to stop herself. ‘But in your case it seems that your love of your car means more to you than the health of the baby.’

Something flickered in his eyes, an expression Alice could not quite catch, almost as though in some way her outburst had pleased him, but then as she focused more closely on him his expression changed, his hooded gaze seeming to deliberately conceal his reaction.

Turning his back on her, he flicked on his mobile and started issuing instructions into it.

When he had finished he turned back to her, and told her coolly, ‘You are coming with me to the palazzo. Your…friend will be escorted to the airport and put on her flight home…’

Alice stared at him, hardly able to credit that she had heard him correctly. He was making her stay here, in Italy, at his home. Why? Shock, panic, fear, and a sharp, breath-snatching feeling she didn’t want to name, but that she was forced to acknowledge came pretty close to a form of dangerous excitement, swirled the blood to her head. Was the heat of the Italian sun somehow affecting her brain?

It must be surely; there was no other acceptable explanation for that sharp, shocking, piercingly wanton feeling burning hotly through her body.

This man possessed none of the virtues she could ever want in a man; none of them, she insisted firmly to herself.

‘You can’t make me stay in Italy.’ she began warningly.

She had already made up her mind that she was glad that she had not had the opportunity to be interviewed by him because there was totally no way she could ever countenance working for him.

His arrogance both infuriated and antagonised her, arousing emotions within her that she was totally unfamiliar with, making her feel, giddy, dizzy, dangerously close to losing her head. It was making her feel very much like a child exposed to danger, immediately wanting to run from it back to safety. She didn’t like him. Not one little bit, but what she had just learned about his attitude towards his baby had aroused within her not just a furious sense of disgust and distaste for him as a man, but also an intense surge of pity for the small baby who was so dependent on him.

All she had been told about her prospective employment had been that she would have virtually sole charge of a six-month-old baby girl whose mother had recently died, and who needed a constant and loving female presence in her life.

That alone had been enough to make her yearn to provide her potential charge with all the protection and love she could give her. Those feelings were still there, intensified if anything by the cold-hearted manner of the little Angelina’s father.

‘You can’t force us to do anything,’ she responded forcefully.

‘No?’ Marco overrode her grimly. ‘You have two choices, Alice Walsingham. Either you come with me now, or both you and your friend face the legal consequences of your crime. And to be honest I should have thought, having read your CV and the reports from your agency, that the decision would have been an easy and an automatic one for you. What was it they said about you? That you possessed an extremely strong nurturing instinct and a genuine love and concern for children? It seems to me that somewhere along the line you must have deceived them.’

Before she could speak in her own defence, Alice heard Louise give a faint sob of terror.

‘Please, Alice,’ the younger girl was beseeching her. ‘Please, please do what he wants. I can’t bear the thought of going to prison.’

As she listened to her Alice knew that in reality there was no choice for her at all. Not really.

There was no point in her making the mistake of hoping that the man in front of her was simply bluffing. She could see that he wasn’t…

A large four-wheel-drive vehicle suddenly pulled up behind the red sports car. Its driver jumped out and came hurrying towards them.

Listening to the swift exchange of Italian between him and her persecutor, Alice realised that the new arrival worked for the conte and that the conte was instructing him to take care of the sports car, and escort Louise to the airport, whilst he, the conte, drove himself and Alice to his estate.

‘Your luggage will be brought to the palazzo from the hotel,’ he informed Alice, without bothering to ask her what her decision was. But then of course why should he? It must be as obvious to him as it was to her from Louise’s white shocked face that there was no way she could subject the younger girl to the ordeal of police questioning and potentially a spell in prison, even if for her pride’s sake she was prepared to inflict such traumas on herself.

There was barely time to do anything more than exchange a swift hug with Louise, who was now sobbing woefully, full of contrition and guilt as she hugged Alice back with genuine appreciation and whispered, ‘I’m so sorry. I never meant—’

‘Shush, it’s all right,’ Alice whispered back to her, trying to reassure her, but still warning her gently, ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea to say anything about this to Connie.’

The last thing she wanted was for her sister to worry about her, especially since Connie had hinted to her that she and Steven were planning to try for a baby.

There was just time for them to exchange a final hug and then Alice was being firmly drawn away by her new employer. To an outsider she suspected that the hand he had placed around her upper arm looked as though he were merely guiding her. But she knew better. She could feel the sharp bite of those steely fingers against her flesh, she could tell too, from the closeness with which he held her to his side, that he was not in any way guiding her, but guarding her…as in imprisoning…She was his prisoner. He had total control over her, and she knew that he would not hesitate to exercise that control should he feel the need to do so.

Her whole body ached with shock. She felt slightly sick from the hot beat of the strong Florentine sunshine on her exposed head, and from what had happened. But there was no way she was going to show any sign of weakness in front of this man!

Had it not been for Louise and the plight of the baby she would certainly never have allowed him to dominate her like this. He was everything she hated in a man. Everything she despised and loathed.

Too arrogant, too sure of himself, too wrapped up in his own self-importance and too damn sexy by far. Oh, yes he was certainly that all right, she acknowledged, unable to resist the impulse to give him a quick sidelong look. And then wishing she had not given in to such temptation as he caught her betraying glance, faultlessly returning it with a smooth, knowing response that made her face flame and her heart thud in denial of what she was feeling.

But even by turning away from him she wasn’t able to escape; all she found was their reflections in the shop window. It seemed there was no way she could escape from him—nor from the shockingly intimate feelings he was making her experience.

Fiercely she tried to concentrate on realities, rather than feelings. He was much taller than her, imposingly so, his whole bearing proud and autocratic, his expression hardening the chiselled perfection of his features.

She in contrast looked small and pale, overwhelmed by him. He could have been a rapacious Roman centurion and she his captive. A long, dangerous shiver of an emotion she wasn’t prepared to name shocked through her.

ALICE woke immediately at the first soft whimper of baby Angelina’s cry despite the fact that it was almost three o’clock in the morning and she had had barely two hours’ sleep.

They had arrived at the palazzo the previous afternoon, just as the full lazy heat of the June sunshine had been bathing the creamy walls of the huge Palladian building in hot golden light. Set as it was against a magnificent backdrop of the surrounding Tuscan countryside, the effect on Alice’s finely tuned senses had almost overpowered her, affecting her as headily as too much indulgence in strong wine.

It was almost too perfect, had been her verdict as they had driven up the Lombardy-pine-guarded private road that led to the palazzo, and then in through the delicate high wrought-iron gates past imposingly formal gardens and finally into an enclosed courtyard at the rear of the palazzo which had immediately seemed to enclose her, shutting her off from the outside world and reality.