The Shadowed Heart. Nina Beaumont

swallowed the wine and she felt something flicker to life within her. She had never felt it before, but she knew instinctively that this was the heat a woman felt for a man.

      As the horror washed over her, she spun her head away from him. How could she feel this for him? What kind of monster was she? No wonder her sight had deserted her.

      Luca saw the spark and, eager to see it again, he lifted a hand to her face to turn it back toward him. Just as he was about to touch her, the door opened to admit a procession of servants carrying buckets of water and bed linens.

      Luca stepped back from her and gestured his manservant over. “Rico will take you to your room now.”

      She turned to look at him then, but her gaze was as cold as yesterday’s ashes. He wondered if he had imagined that one flare of heat.

      “Rico, this is Chiara. She’s my—”

      She looked at the manservant, her chin lifted in defiance of the hated word.

      “My guest.”

      Her eyes widened in surprise. She looked back at Luca, but he had turned away. Silently she followed the servant.

      Luca stood in front of the mirror in its ornate gilt frame that stretched from the mantel of the fireplace almost to the ceiling, watching her progress until the door had closed behind her. As he turned away, he caught sight of his reflection. Dio, she had managed to carve him up nicely, he thought. He touched the scratches on his face, then the sticky, scarlet stain on the shredded silver lace at his throat. He laughed with something like admiration. He need feel no guilt, he assured himself. She would be a worthy adversary.

      “I left the women with her,” Rico said. “May I tend to your wounds now?”

      Luca nodded and began to shrug out of his coat.

      

      A fire burned brightly in the fireplace that was edged with pale yellow marble, but a chilly edge still remained in the room. Chiara pulled a coverlet of sapphire-colored silk off the bed and, hugging it around her, walked over to the window.

      Below her the canal wound like a wide black ribbon. Moonlight and the flickering torches that were fastened to the walls of some of the houses made reflections of gold and silver on its surface. She tried the bar that closed the window. To her surprise it opened easily and she pulled the casements open and leaned out.

      Somewhere there was the echo of music and voices and faint laughter. She looked down to where the water was lapping gently against stone and wood. The water came flush up to the foundations so that the house seemed to be growing out of the canal. A narrow wooden dock surrounded by striped mooring posts was built out over the water. Tied to one of the posts, a lone gondola, coffin like under its cover of dark canvas, rocked gently.

      “It’s a long way down. If you’re contemplating jumping, I wouldn’t advise it.”

      Chiara started at the sound of his voice. Slowly she straightened and turned to face him.

      They stared at each other in silence as his manservant placed a tray on the table and unloaded platters of food and dishes before scurrying out of the room.

      Without taking his eyes off her, Luca reached behind him and turned the key in the lock. Then he tucked it into the pocket of his robe of dark blue silk.

      Understanding the message well, Chiara stiffened as she waited for him to come toward her, but he remained where he was and merely looked at her.

      “Well?” she finally demanded, unnerved by his stillness, his silence. “Am I clean enough for you now?” When he gave her no answer, she tilted up her chin. “I would not have thought that a thing like that mattered for a man like you.”

      He still did not speak, but he began to walk toward her then. When he stopped in front of her, he looked at her for a long moment before he spoke.

      “And how is a man like me?”

      His face was calm, his eyes seeming to carry only a faint interest in whatever she had to say, but she could feel the edgy anger within him.

      She shrugged. “As I have seen him this evening.”

      “Seen with your sight?”

      Her eyes narrowed a little as she wondered if he somehow knew that what her sight told her was in discord with what she saw with her eyes.

      “My sight? No.” She shook her head. “I need only my eyes to know what manner of man would mark a woman’s skin like this.” She pulled back the sleeves of her nightgown and held out her hands.

      The bruises that marred the skin at her wrists had Luca’s stomach turning over in disgust with himself. Perhaps he was not a murderer like Matteo, but the same mad, wicked blood flowed in his veins. Slowly he reached up and cradled her hands in his.

      “I’m sorry,” he said softly as he raised his gaze. Then, his eyes on hers, he lifted her hand and pressed his lips against the marks he had made.

      A treacherous pleasure drifted through her. She jerked her hands, but to her annoyance found herself too weak to pull them out of his grasp.

      “Stop it.” Her breath hitched. “What are you doing?”

      “Soothing a hurt. Apologizing. Making amends. Doing penance.” He shifted his head and stroked his lips over her other wrist. “Take your pick.”

      “Stop touching me.”

      He smiled. “That wasn’t one of the choices.” His eyes still on hers, he touched his tongue to her skin.

      “Don’t.”

      “Don’t what? Touch you? Kiss you? Taste you?”

      His warm breath flowed over her skin like a caress. Her body was betraying her, she thought. How could she feel pleasure and excitement from this man’s touch when it was horror and revulsion that he roused within her?

      “Don’t do anything,” she said. “Let me go.”

      “I’m touching you, but I’m not holding you.” He pressed his mouth against the pulse point of her wrist and was rewarded by the pounding of her blood against his lips. “All you have to do is step away.”

      She wasn’t held captive, Chiara realized. She was captivated. Captivated by his touch, by the warmth in his eyes that promised every earthly delight. She felt the pleasure race through her in tandem with the loathing as if they were two halves of the same whole. Panic licked at her as flames lick at parchment.

      He must be truly evil, she thought. He must have sold his soul to the devil to be given this power to enchant, to seduce, although she knew him to be capable of the vilest abomination.

      She closed her eyes, gathered all her strength and lifted her hands from his.

      Luca watched her, felt her tremble as she might under a heavy weight. And he smiled, although his own desire was so sharp that it slashed at him as fiercely as her dagger had slashed at him an hour before. It would not be easy, he thought. But it would be worth it.

      He took a step back from her and then another.

      “Come,” he said softly. “Rico has brought us some food.”

      Chiara felt the warmth from his body recede and she opened her eyes, hating herself for her own weakness.

      “Come,” he repeated. “You must be hungry.” He smiled. “I know I am.”

      The merest hint of sensual suggestion tinged his smile. Forcing herself to look away from him, she crossed the room toward the table.

      Luca picked up the silk coverlet that had slipped from her shoulders and followed her.

      Chapter Five

      

      

      As the delicious scents rose toward Chiara, she twisted her hands