The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

could be so much hidden sensuality in even the most straightforward of comments for a person whose senses and body yearned for that sensuality.

       ‘I’m almost ready,’ Lily managed to tell him. Almost ready to go downstairs, but completely and utterly and eagerly ready to stay right here and be made love to by him.

       Stop it at once, she warned herself. She was behaving as though… As though she had forgotten everything she had ever learned—as though she had no concern whatsoever for her own future emotional security and peace of mind.

       Standing up, she swept her hair back off her face, securing it with a neat band before twisting it into a sleek knot from which she pulled a few soft loose tendrils, all without needing to look in the mirror. She only realised that Marco had been watching her when she turned to see him looking at her.

       ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded anxiously.

       Her father had always been very critical of her mother’s appearance. As a little girl Lily had often watched her mother getting ready to go to parties, and she could remember how her father’s comments had often resulted in a row that ended up with her mother refusing to go out. Criticising the woman they purported to love was a trick used by some men to control that woman’s self-confidence and make her all the more dependent on him, and she despised herself for allowing herself to be affected by Marco’s amusement now. It was too late, though, to retract her question

       ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Marco answered her curtly. As though the admission was being dragged from him, he continued, ‘I was just thinking how easy you made that look.’ He paused, and then, as though the words were being spoken of their own volition rather than his, added, ‘And how very beautiful you look.’

       Marco looked almost as shocked by the fact that he had paid her a compliment as she was herself. Lily swallowed hard, her own voice husky as she responded.

       ‘Thank you.’ His admission deserved an admission of her own from her. ‘My father would never have said that to my mother. I don’t think I ever heard him tell her she was beautiful, even though she was—’ She broke off, shaking her head.

       ‘Your father?’ Marco questioned, causing Lily to retreat back into her normal reticence about her background. She had said too much. She shook her head.

       ‘My mind was wandering, I’m afraid. Silly of me. And now we’ve only got ten minutes. I’ll leave the bedroom to you, so that you can get dressed. I can finish getting ready in the sitting room.’

       She was gone before Marco could stop her to pursue the matter further, and she had been right. They did only have ten minutes left.

       He joined Lily in the sitting room with three minutes to spare, looking so formidably handsome and male in a dark suit worn with a dark blue shirt with a fine white line and a toning tie that Lilly felt herself flooded with conflicting emotions. He filled her with a desire she had never expected to feel, but at the same time he also filled her with anxiety and dread because of that desire.

       Lily looked like a pagan princess, Marco thought, and a shocking of the surge of possessive wanting filled him, seized him, at the sight of her in her plain black outfit adorned with that almost barbarically splendid jewellery.

       There would be women here this evening who would be wearing family heirloom jewellery worth a fortune, but it would be impossible for them to outshine the dramatic simplicity of Lily’s appearance. Any man would be proud to stand at her side. And any man would ache for the evening to be over so that he could have her all to himself. Was that how he felt? Possessive and bitterly jealous because she preferred someone else?

       Lily’s, ‘We’re going to be late,’ had him nodding his head and then going to open the door for her.

      They reached the main salon—a large double-aspect room, decorated very much in the French Empire style in shades of rich gold and French blue, with two enormous chandeliers throwing out brilliant prisms of light—only seconds ahead of the Duchess’s guests. There was no more time than to accept a glass of chilled champagne from one of the several formally attired waiters starting to circulate around the room.

       Introduced by the Duchess to a dozen or more of her guests within as many minutes Lily was soon struggling to keep a mental note of their names. However, she wished that all she had to bear was that awkward confusion when the Duchess called Marco over to join them and then began introducing them virtually as a couple.

       Since he obviously already knew some of the guests Lily expected Marco to do something to correct this error, but he did nothing about it at all, instead staying at her side whilst the Duchess beamed with obvious pride in having ‘outed’ their relationship. He was obviously very fond of the Duchess, and determined not to embarrass her by revealing the truth in public, Lily recognised. Whilst she could understand that, it certainly didn’t make her position any less difficult to bear. Having Marco behave as though they were indeed a couple, having him standing so close to her, adopting a protective manner towards her that she knew was fictitious, brought her to a sharply keen knife-edge of painful awareness of just how much the inner vulnerable core of her longed to have the right to this kind of closeness with him.

       Of course he was sophisticated and urbane enough to carry off their supposed relationship with cool self-confidence. He was that kind of man—totally at home in his surroundings and totally in control of himself. And of her? She had known him for less than a handful of days but in that time he had changed not just her beliefs about what she wanted out of life, but her perception of herself as well.

       When she was confronted by the feelings aching through her now she came face to face with a part of herself she had thought locked away for ever. Somehow, though, despite it being pushed away, ignored by her and denied, Marco had the power to bring it to life within her. There was no point, though, in indulging in hopeless, self-destructive daydreams and fantasies. Lily knew that loving Marco was dangerous for her and could only bring her misery and pain.

       ‘You need a fresh glass of champagne. That one’s gone flat, by the looks of it.’

       Marco was holding out a fresh glass to her and smiling as he did so. A faked smile, of course—how could it not be?—but her heart couldn’t help yearning and wondering what it would be like to have Marco really smile at her like that, with a smile that was full of tenderness and more than a hint of sensual promise of the pleasure that would be theirs once they were on their own. A lover’s smile, in other words.

       Her hand trembled as she reached for the glass he was holding out to her. To disguise her vulnerability she took a quick sip of it, almost choking on the bubbly liquid in shock when she felt a hand on her arm and heard a familiar female voice exclaim, ‘Lily—little Lily! Darling girl, you look so like your dear mother. I’d have recognised you anywhere. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you. I had to ask Carolina to bring me over.’

       Somehow Lily managed to smile back at the elegant mature woman now standing with the Duchess, smiling at her.

       ‘I could hardly believe it myself.’ The Duchess laughed. ‘There I was, telling one of my closest friends about Marco’s lovely new girlfriend and the exhibition she is organising, and when I pointed you out what should Melanie say but that she recognised you? She knew you as a little girl but lost touch with you.’

       Lily was acutely conscious of Marco standing next to her, listening to everything that was being said. If there was anything that could cause her even more emotional distress and dread than recognising how vulnerable she was to Marco then it was this. Someone from her past with its memories that she had fought so hard to leave behind her.

       Marco could see how shocked Lily was. Shocked in a way that suggested she had been dealt some kind of almost physical blow. She was trying hard not to show it, but he had heard her indrawn agonised breath and seen the colour leaving her face. Why? Because the Duchess’s friend had known her as a little girl? Why?

       She was trapped, Lily thought helplessly. She couldn’t simply turn and run away, no matter how tempted she was to do just that. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Marco hadn’t been with her. She