The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

opposite the front door then branching off to form a round gallery landing. The design was repeated on each of the three floors, so that it was possible to look up from the ground floor and see the stained glass dome of the cupola several floors above them.

       ‘When the sun is overhead, the light from the stained glass makes the most magical patterns. When we were children my brother invented a game whereby we had to chase the moving pattern of a certain colour all the way up and down the stairs. He was older than me, and he always won. He should have inherited the villa, of course, but he was killed during the Second World War. He was only nineteen.’

       Lily was listening to the Duchess, but at the same time she was tense with inner anxiety as she waited for Marco to explain to her that there had been a mistake and they were not a couple. Only he said nothing, and now the duchess was exclaiming, ‘Ah, here is my housekeeper, Berenice. She will show you to your room. I hope you don’t mind, but I have taken the liberty of organising a small reception here tonight. Just some old friends I know will enjoy meeting you, Lily. They all have connections with the area and its villas, so don’t be shy about asking them any questions you may have. We’ll meet again in the main salon.’

       Their room.

       Lily gave Marco an imploring look but still he said nothing, and continued to say nothing until they were alone in the villa’s best guest suite. Lily asked him anxiously why he had not corrected the Duchess’s misapprehension about their relationship.

       ‘If you had not come to my room last night we would not be in this situation.’

       Marco’s uncompromising statement couldn’t be denied, but Lily still shook her head as she paced the elegant suite. Marco stood in front of one of the room’s long sash windows, his head turned so that he was half looking out across the lake and half looking back into the room.

       ‘I know why the Duchess thinks that we are a couple, but you could have told her the truth. You could have explained to her…’

       ‘I could have explained what? That you came to my room seeking to use me—either to protect you from your ex or to make him jealous? Is that really what you would have wanted me to say to her?’

       Without giving her the chance to answer, Marco gave a dismissive shake of his head, telling her grimly, ‘Anyway, she likes you. She wouldn’t believe me.’

       He didn’t have to say that he neither understand nor shared the Duchess’s feelings. The tone of his voice said it for him.

       She mustn’t allow herself to feel hurt yet again, Lily warned herself. But it was too late. The pain was already flooding through her.

       ‘She’s a romantic,’ Marco continued. ‘She would simply think that I was trying to hide our relationship from her.’

       ‘We haven’t got a relationship,’ Lily told him. Tears were threatening to clog her throat.

       ‘The Duchess believes that we have. And not just a sexual relationship. She’s managed to convince herself that we’ve fallen in love with one another.’ The derision in Marco’s voice made Lily’s face burn. ‘If she knew you rather better, of course, she’d know that was impossible.’

       Lily swallowed on the misery his caustic comment brought her.

       ‘No. We can’t say anything to her,’ Marco told her. ‘For her own sake. Were we to insist to her now that there isn’t a relationship it would result in either her not believing us or in her embarrassment for misjudging the situation if she does believe us. Neither of those situations is acceptable to me. It will make things easier all round if we simply accept the situation as it is. After all, we’re only here for two nights.’

       ‘Two nights!’ She couldn’t share a room and a bed with him for two nights, feeling the way she did about him. ‘What if sharing a room with you isn’t acceptable to me?’ she demanded.

       Marco turned round fully to look at her.

       ‘Do you really expect me to believe that after last night?’ he challenged her. ‘After all, you didn’t have any objection then—in fact it was what you wanted.’

       Lily’s heart missed a beat. Was Marco hinting that he knew there had been a time last night when what she had wanted from him had been much more personal and intimate than merely the protection of his presence? She hoped not. It was humiliating enough that she knew how she felt about him, without the added humiliation of having to deal with the fact that he knew as well.

       ‘That was different,’ she defended herself, adding emotionally in her growing panic, ‘I don’t want to share a room with you.’

       ‘Do you think I want to share one with you?’ Marco asked her grimly. ‘You are the one who is primarily responsible for the situation we now find ourselves in, not me. I suppose I should have expected this kind of selfishness from you. After all, a woman who tries to use one man to make another jealous has to be innately selfish.’

       She could tell him the truth. She could make him feel thoroughly ashamed of himself for the way he was misjudging her, Lily knew. But it was clear he only wanted to believe the worst of her, and she was not about to tell him her darkest, most painful secret only to have him coldly dismiss her as an accomplished liar.

       How could she have allowed herself to become entangled—trapped—in this situation? She knew where her vulnerabilities lay. She knew where she was weak. If she’d thought more carefully and clinically about the way he had made her feel that first time she had seen him at the studio, she could have… She could have what? Walked away from the work she had been paid to come here and do when she’d recognised him at the reception? When she prided herself on her professionalism? Hardly.

       ‘I will not have the Duchess embarrassed or upset by you causing a dramatic fuss about something that, after all, means very little in this day and age,’ Marco warned her. ‘And who knows? If your ex gets to hear about it perhaps it will have the desired effect and bring him back—although as a man I’d have to caution you against encouraging a man to be jealous. It makes for a relationship based on distrust, and no man who values himself can or should compromise where trust is concerned. That can be very dangerous.’

       ‘You sound as though you’re speaking from experience.’ The words were out before Lily had time to think about what she was saying.

       Their effect on Marco was immediate. What was it about her that led to him revealing things about himself to her—private, fiercely guarded things he would never normally dream of revealing to anyone. His face hardening, his voice chilling, he told her, ‘I’ve certainly got enough experience to know not to trust you.’

       Lily flinched, stung by his icy words. She hadn’t lied to him, but he had made it plain that he had no intention of believing her. Had he in the past been hurt by someone—a woman he’d trusted who had lied to him—and now he refused to trust any woman? He must have cared a great deal for her, whoever she was. A very great deal. The man he was now wouldn’t let any woman close enough to do that to him. A horrible feeling of desolation sucked the strength from her. It was stupid, foolish, self-destructive of her to care because Marco had once loved someone so much.

       Marco frowned. Why was Lily looking so stricken? She’d been perfectly happy to share a room—and a bed—with him when it had suited her. Now she was looking as though the very thought of doing so was destroying her, and she was obviously rejecting it—and him—in favour of another man. Any sympathy Marco might have been tempted to feel for her vanished.

       ‘Do you understand?’ he demanded.

       Blindly Lily looked at him. He might not have any compassion for her, but obviously the Duchess’s feelings were important to him, so there must be some humanity within him somewhere—even if he seemed intent on concealing it from her.

       ‘Yes, I understand,’ she confirmed emotionlessly.

       She understood that he loathed and despised her. She understood that there had been a woman in his life who had destroyed his ability to trust. But