“I’d love to,” I interjected, cutting off his spiraling nervousness. Moving just inches from him, I looked straight into his bright sea-colored eyes and laid my hand on his. “I would be honored.”
Achille exhaled a deep, relieved sigh. We stayed that way for what felt like an eternity, simply sharing the same air, embracing our newfound peace. Then he stepped back and disappeared into a closet. When he came back out, he was carrying a pair of tall leather dressage boots. As with the tack, they had been polished to perfection.
“I didn’t know what size you were or if you had boots already . . .” He trailed off as we both looked at the boots on my feet.
His shoulders sagged, so I blurted, “I’m a European 37.”
Achille handed me the boots, and I tipped them upside down. The size imprint had worn off the sole.
“You can try them if you want?”
I walked to the chair, took a seat and placed the boots beside me. I tried to pull my boots off, but couldn’t get them past my heels. I was out of breath at the effort. I heard a burst of quiet laughter and lifted my eyes to see Achille watching me with unconcealed amusement on his face. His arms were crossed in front of his chest again.
In a rare display of humor, he said, “Do you normally have a servant to take them off for you?”
My mouth dropped at his quip. That only seemed to make him laugh more. My chest seized at the sight of him loosening up, and shivers trickled over my skin at his low-pitched chuckle.
“For your information, Signor Marchesi, I usually have a boot jack. I don’t suppose you have one of those lying around, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. But I have these.” Achille held his hands in the air and dropped down to his knees before me. I stared at him, unblinking. Achille raised a knee and tapped his thigh. “Give me a foot.”
I prayed he didn’t feel the slight trembling of my leg as I placed it on his thigh. The muscle was so hard and defined I could feel the ridges through the leather of my boot. Achille’s hands wrapped around the toe and heel of my boot. He pulled gently. The boot slipped off, and surprising me, he cupped my foot and ran his hands over the arch. No sooner had he touched me than he placed my foot on the floor. He drew up my other foot and repeated the process. I practically melted into the seat of the chair.
He had only touched my feet, and over my socks at that, yet his hands on me were almost my undoing. Everything he did, he did with such incredible intensity it was addictive. He didn’t speak much, but his actions displayed the kind of man he was.
Honest and pure.
Achille didn’t seem to have noticed my internal musings. He held up one of his mother’s boots and slipped it onto my foot. The leather was butter-soft as it slid over my calf. It was tight, but Achille pushed harder until it sat perfectly around my foot. I smiled as I looked down at my calf. As with the saddle, the royal Savona crest was embossed into the leather at the top of the boot.
Achille caught my smile and awarded me one in return. When both boots were on, Achille got to his feet as I rolled my toes, testing for feel.
“My feet have fallen asleep. They do that when I wear my riding boots—too tight a fit,” I said when I pressed my sole to the hard ground of the tack room. “I’m not sure I can get up!”
One of Achille’s hands was suddenly in front of my face, palm up. “I’ll help you,” he offered. I slipped my hand into his. Achille gently pulled me to stand, but the minute I was upright, the numbness increased tenfold, causing me to lose my footing.
I yelped as I stumbled. A hard wall of flesh broke my fall, two strong arms wrapping around my back to keep me steady. My palms reached out, trying to find purchase on something, only to land on Achille’s firm chest.
I knew I should have removed them immediately. The minute I felt the warm skin under my own, I should have backed away or insisted I sit back down.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I allowed the pads of my fingers to drink in the heat from Achille’s chest. I gave them permission to move, a painstakingly slow caress over his pectorals and down to the top of his defined abdominal muscles.
The more they explored the hard ridges, the tighter Achille’s arms became on my back.
He breathed.
I breathed.
The heat between us soared.
Yet neither of us moved away.
There was no urgency to separate, only an unspoken eagerness to stay close.
Magnets.
My head moved closer to his chest, my lips barely brushing over his burning skin. His fresh, earthy scent invaded my senses, taking me hostage. Achille’s hands on my back drew me closer, his hold an inescapable vise. He exhaled, the warm air sailing down the back of my neck and over the length of my spine. My head tipped up, as if starved of seeing Achille’s eyes. The tip of my nose edged along the bottom of his neck and up to the rough stubble of his jaw.
I felt his pounding heart pressing so closely against my own. They sang the same symphony, exactly, precisely, mirror images of the same beat.
Achille’s hands drew up, his fingers wrapping loosely into the strands of my hair. My lips traveled past his chin, to the corner of his mouth. I didn’t dare look up. I was not sure my heart could take the reaction that sea of blue would inspire.
The taste of coffee and mint kissed my cupid’s bow as I skirted the edges of my lips over his, the promise of our joining mouths hanging on a precipice.
I closed my eyes, needing to feel his lips against my own more than I needed to breathe, when suddenly a voice called out loudly from outside, “Achille?”
The deep call of his name was all it took for Achille to pull away. His arms released me from their protection, and he staggered back. His eyes were wide, like a deer caught in headlights. His chest rose and fell, betraying his panic.
“Achille?” the man’s voice sounded again, only closer to us this time. Achille raced from the tack room, leaving me alone.
I heard Achille greet the man and lead him away, and I slumped back down to the seat and placed my hands on my head. “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered aloud, closing my eyes, but swiftly opening them again when all I saw in the darkness was Achille’s lips a mere hairsbreadth from my own, his hands pressing me close against his torso and the taste of his skin on my tongue.
I didn’t know how long I sat on the seat, warring with my conscience. But I needed to move. I needed to do something to occupy my mind. I took the new tack Achille had given me over to Rosa in the paddock, and in no time at all, had her saddled up. I schooled her for an hour, squeezing the last rays of daylight from the sun. And I rode her hard. When I removed my hat, my hair was damp from exertion; my legs and arms ached from taming Rosa’s strength.
I set Rosa in her stable and, after feeding both horses and giving them fresh buckets of water, decided to find the man I had nearly kissed.
The melodic sound of “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came drifting from the barn. I stopped at the door, peering inside. Achille was by the basket press, working hard, yet with the same thoroughness and gentleness I had seen from him in the days since we met.
As if he was beginning to be as aware of me as I was him, he lifted his head. A scarlet blush blossomed on his cheeks when he saw me hovering by the entrance. He turned his head from me, recommencing his work without a word. But it was only seconds later when he stood back from the wooden press, arms by his side and shoulders down.
It shattered my heart.
“Achille,” I said quietly, edging into the room.
Achille walked to a small box that must have been delivered by the man who interrupted us in the tack room. He took the top sheet of paper from the open box and ran his eyes over the page.
Taking a pen from his pocket, he clumsily drew a tick at the bottom of the paper and placed it back down. He held the pen tightly in his fist rather than with his fingers; I could see it shaking. It was obvious by the way he averted his eyes from me that he did not wan
t to talk of what had happened between us.
“The tack was beautiful,” I said, trying to get him to at least acknowledge my presence. “Thank you for letting me use it.”
Achille briefly glanced my way, then nodded. He moved back to the press. Out of natural curiosity, I looked down to see what had been delivered. I recognized the familiar grayscale drawing of Bella Collina and the cursive script of the well-known title.
“The labels for this year’s vintage?” My own question was answered when I saw this year’s date written on the bottom of the sample label.
“Yes,” Achille said, without turning around.
I picked up the sheet and scanned the text. Achille had ticked the box that approved the sample. His tick was a messy scrawl, barely legible. I remembered his shaking hand and instantly felt guilty. I had completely thrown him off guard. So much so that he couldn’t even write.
I looked at the text again. Two. I counted two misspellings on the label. An l was missing from “Bella” and the r from “Merlot”.
“Achille?” I said. “Have you signed off on the labels?”
He stopped what he was doing and came closer. He wore a wary, almost fearful look on his face. I studied him as his blue gaze ran over the label. His dark eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed.
I pointed to the mistakes. “There are two letters missing, here and here.”
Achille blinked and blinked again, then handed me the pen from his back pocket. “Could you circle them, please?” His hand was still trembling. Obviously I had completely shaken him.
It had even affected his work. Work that was his entire life, details that I knew he would never have overlooked had he not been distracted.
I took the pen from his hand. “Did you not see them?” I asked, trying to make conversation. “It was a silly mistake for the printers to make. They should have been more careful.”
Achille didn’t reply. I circled the mistakes, writing a note along the bottom of the sample to explain to the printers what was wrong. I lifted my head to see Achille standing by the countertop, gripping the edge tightly.
His back appeared to be trembling, and his head was downcast.
“Achille?” I inquired tentatively, only to rear back when Achille spun to face me wearing an expression so severe it turned my blood cold.
“I need you to go,” he said, no inflection of emotion in his flat voice.
“What?” I whispered, feeling the color drain from my face.
Achille glanced out of the barn doors to the darkened sky. “I need you to leave. I need you to go and never come back.”
Slices of pain rippled through my chest. I wondered if I was physically feeling the effects of a heart breaking, of the fissures cracking through the flesh. “Why? What did I do . . . ?”
“You are marrying the prince. I am a winemaker in the middle of the harvest for this estate’s most important vintage. I . . . you distract me. You . . . should not be here. I can’t think . . .”
“Achille—” I tried to protest, but he raised a hand to cut me off.
“Just . . . please, go.” This time his voice brooked no argument. Once again, I had no idea what I had done to hurt him, to cause him to be this upset. And I hated myself for caring. I should be heeding Achille’s words, thinking of Zeno. Instead, all I wanted to do was reach out and press my lips to his, just to see how it would feel.
“Please,” he whispered—no, begged me. Tears filled my eyes as I watched him curl in on himself, as if some devastating internal pain was causing him to retreat from the world.
I didn’t want to see him hurt. So when he looked into my eyes, and all I saw in their blue depths was unconcealed sadness, I did as he asked. I left the barn without a second glance. I didn’t look back as I ran home, Abrielle Bandini’s prized dressage boots still on my feet.
Even when I came through my balcony doors and arrived at my rooms, I didn’t turn to look at Achille’s house in the distance. I sat on the end of my bed and let myself slowly absorb the truth.
Over the past week, I had found myself increasingly drawn to the shy winemaker of the Bella Collina merlot. I rubbed at my chest, noticing for the first time that when I was not in his addictive presence, a dull ache would flare in my heart and would not calm down until I was back by his side.
I prayed this new development would fade as quickly as it appeared. Because Achille never wanted me to return. Not to ride Rosa, not to help him harvest the wine or laugh with him amongst the vines.
And that had to be okay with me.
Because I was the Duchessa di Parma, soon to marry the prince.
I just had to remind my heart of the fact.
Simple.
Chapter Eight
Caresa
“I would like to thank you all for coming here today.” I met each of the society ladies’ eyes as I held my glass of champagne in the air. “I know I met many of you when I was a child, and I look forward to remaking your acquaintance now that I am full grown and not in diapers.” My joke was met with polite laughter. Raising my glass higher, I said, “To Italy!”
The ladies repeated my toast, and then the bell rang out in the opulent dining room signaling the beginning of our luncheon. Our antipasti were placed before us. As I lifted my fork to eat my affettati misti, I could feel the heavy stares of the aristocratic ladies on me.
“So, Duchessa,” one of the ladies asked. I looked up to find Baronessa Russo regarding me closely. She was in her mid-twenties, with long blond hair and bright blue eyes. Her light features showed her heritage—she was from a town near the Austrian border. “Is the prince at home?”
My stomach flipped as the table grew quiet. I forced a smile. “No, he has been busy at the vineyards in Turin. This month sees him occupied with the harvests of Savona wines; he will return for the grape-crushing festival.”
Baronessa Russo tilted her head. I thought I saw a hint of triumph in her eyes. “That’s strange,” she said. “I was recently in Florence and met the prince for a private dinner at the palazzo . . .” She pulled her features into a dramatically thoughtful expression. “. . . Oh, perhaps two days ago?”
I understood the underlying message—she had been with him for more than just dinner.
I did not let my smile slip. Instead, I nodded. “He goes back and forth to where he is needed most. Florence is his home. It’s his business base.”
“Yet you stay here?” Contessa Bianchi asked curiously. I remembered her face from the photographs Maria had made me memorize before the luncheon.
“I prefer it,” I said smoothly. “I love the Umbrian countryside. It is peaceful.” I chuckled. “Peace is welcome. I know my life will only become more hectic toward our wedding.”
Of course it was a lie. Every lady here knew it was a lie, but good women of society were adept at falsifying truths and ignoring the glaring subtext of anything said aloud.
“A wedding date, yet no engagement ring,” Baronessa Russo observed, holding out her champagne glass for a member of the staff to refill.
“I’m sure it’s coming,” the woman beside me said. “The prince is a busy man with a hugely successful enterprise. I’m sure when he returns he will spoil the duchessa rotten.” Some of the tension released from my shoulders when all but the baronessa nodded in agreement. Most of them wore their obvious envy of my marriage to the prince clearly on their faces.
I felt like telling them there was nothing to envy.
As the servers began to clear the table of the first course, I leaned closer to the woman who had defended me. I studied her face, searching my mind for her name—Contessa Florentino. “Thank you, Contessa,” I whispered so no one else could hear.
The pretty petite brunette with large green eyes waved her hand in dismissal. “Not a problem.” She leaned closer still, turning her head away from the rest of the table. “I’m afraid this luncheon is more like a den of snakes for you, Duchessa. I don’t know how much you know of the prince, but many of
these women know him very well. Thankfully, I’m not one of them.” The contessa never broke my gaze. She was direct and ballsy. I liked that in an acquaintance. Often in Italian society, or even among those in Manhattan, people rarely spoke the truth to one’s face. They preferred to do it behind your back, because apparently it is more ladylike.
Societal politics was a peculiar game to play.
I took a sip of my champagne. “I am well aware of Zeno’s reputation, Contessa. But thank you for being so forthcoming. It is more than welcome.”
She smiled. “Call me Pia.”
“Then call me Caresa.”
I clinked my glass against hers. “I’m guessing the baronessa is one of Zeno’s conquests?”
Pia nodded. “I live in Florence, Caresa. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but she is just one of many.”
“I thought as much. She has been weighing me up since she arrived.”
“At least you’re not crying into your pasta over the news that your fiancé is a cad. Then again, one would have to be naïve to believe that these elaborate marriages we enter into are for love, no?”
“I knew I’d like you,” I said to Pia and laughed when she threw back her head.
The other ladies were watching us, deeply intrigued. “Pia was just telling a funny story about my fiancé,” I said. The women seemed satisfied by my vague explanation.
“We all have stories, Duchessa,” Baronessa Russo said under her breath. The awkward tension from the women in her vicinity was palpable.
“I suspect you do,” I quipped back, letting her know I had heard. Her embarrassed, flushed cheeks were but a small victory.
“How are you enjoying life in the country?” Pia asked, loud enough for the whole table to hear.
“It is beautiful. The estate is no doubt the most magical place I have ever seen.”
“What do you do here for fun?” Contessa Bianchi asked.
My mind traveled to Achille. Unable to refrain from speaking the truth, I said, “Ride. Mainly dressage. I like to walk. Jog. I spend a great deal of my time doing that. And of course, I watch the harvest.”