Carrying His Scandalous Heir. Julia James

other two portraits are on display across the gallery.’

      There was a discernible tinge of annoyance in his voice at the curator’s decision as he indicated across the width of the gallery, towards an alcove in which Carla could make out two portraits.

      ‘Shall we?’

      The cool voice held assumption, and Carla found herself being guided forward. He halted, lifting his hand to the portraits they were now in front of.

      ‘What do you make of them?’

      Carla’s trained eyes went to the portraits, immediately seeing the skill and artistry in them, seeing in them all the hallmarks of a master. Her eyes narrowed very slightly. But not Luciezo.

      ‘Caradino?’ she ventured.

      She felt rather than saw the glance the Count threw at her. Surprise—and approval.

      ‘Caradino,’ he confirmed. He paused. ‘Many attribute his few surviving works to Luciezo.’

      She gave a slight shake of her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There is a discernible difference.’

      Her eyes ran over the portraits, taking in the brushwork, the lighting, the shadows. Her gaze went from appraising the technicalities of the portraits to the subjects themselves. And then, for the first time, her eyes widened as her gaze rested on their faces.

      So unalike. So very, very unalike.

      One so fair and pale. A married woman, clearly, as illustrated by the tokens in the painting—her pearl earring, the sprig of myrtle in her lap, the dish of quinces on the little table at her side—and yet there was about her, Carla could see, an air almost of virginity...as if with different garments and accoutrements she might have modelled for a painting of the Virgin Mary.

      A crucifix was in her hands, glinting between her long, pale fingers. Carla looked at the woman’s eyes.

      Sadness. As if, like the Virgin Mary, she had in her gaze a foretelling of the great sorrows that were to come.

      She pulled her gaze away. Let it rest on the other woman’s face.

      Another young woman. In this portrait the subject’s hair was a lush chestnut-brown, lavishly unbound and snaking down over one bare shoulder. Her gown was a sumptuous red, not a celestial blue, and cut low across her generous bosom to reveal an expansive amount of soft, creamy skin. She held red roses in her hands, rubies gleamed at her throat and on her fingers, and her hands rested on her abdomen—its slight swell discreet, but undeniable.

      Carla drew her eyes away from the telltale curve of the young woman’s figure, moved them back up to scrutinise her face. Beautiful, in a sensuous way, framed by her rich tresses, her cheeks flushed, lips full and with a sensual cast to them. Carla’s eyes went to the woman’s eyes and held them for a long moment—held the unseeing gaze that looked out over the centuries between the two of them.

      ‘Who are they?’

      Her own voice cut short her perusal, and she drew her gaze away to look back at il Conte, standing at her side.

      ‘Can you not tell?’ he asked. He glanced back to the portrait of his ancestor, across the room, then back to Carla. ‘His wife—and his mistress. He had them painted at the same time, by the same hand. Caradino stayed at my castello and painted them both—one after the other.’

      Carla’s face stilled. ‘How nice for them,’ she said drily. ‘It seems your ancestor kept his mistress...handy.’

      But the Count did not rise to her sardonic comment. ‘It was quite normal in those times. Nothing exceptional. Both women knew and understood the situation.’

      Carla’s lips pressed together. ‘Knowing and understanding are not the same thing as tolerating and agreeing,’ she riposted.

      The dark, hooded eyes were veiled. ‘Women had no power in those times. And after all,’ he went on, ‘my ancestor’s mistress was very lavishly looked after.’

      ‘She’s carrying his child,’ Carla retorted.

      She could feel an emotion rising up in her—one she did not want to feel, but it was coming all the same.

      ‘An excellent way to secure the Count’s protection,’ agreed Cesare. ‘I believe they had several children, over the years. He was very faithful to her, you know. Surprisingly so for the times.’

      Automatically Carla’s eyes went not to the mistress of the former Count but to his wife. No sign of fertility there—and in the eyes only that haunting sadness.

      Thoughts ran through her head, unstoppable.

      How did she feel? How did she cope? Knowing her husband was having children, openly, with his mistress? Yet presumably she, too, must have had an heir, at least, or the line would have died out—which it obviously hasn’t?

      ‘But enough of my ancestors—have you seen the other paintings displayed here yet?’

      The voice of the man at her side drew her back to the present. She turned towards him. Saw him with fresh eyes, it seemed. Her gaze went past him to the portrait of Count Alessandro, who had been so unconcerned as to have his wife and mistress painted simultaneously.

      A shaft of female indignation went through her, as she brought her gaze back to the current Count.

      ‘Not all of them yet, no,’ she said. She made her voice purposeful. ‘And I really must. I have fifteen hundred words to write up about the exhibition.’

      She named the arts magazine she wrote for, as if she was aware that by stressing her professional interest she would diminish her personal one.

      ‘And I must do my duty by all the paintings here!’

      She spoke lightly but deliberately. She smiled. An equally deliberate smile. One that completely ignored the question he had asked her only a few minutes ago, making no reference to it.

      ‘Thank you so much, Signor il Conte, for showing me these fascinating portraits, and for giving me such insight into them. It’s always enhancing to learn the origins and the circumstances of a portrait’s creation—it brings it so to life! And especially since the artist Caradino is so seldom exhibited.’

      She smiled again—the same social smile—signalling closure. For closure, surely, was essential. Anything else would be...

      Her mind veered away, not wanting to think of the path she had not taken. The yielding she had not made.

      Instead she gave the slightest nod of her head in parting and walked away. Her high heels clicked on the parquet flooring and as she walked she was intensely conscious of his following gaze, of how her shapely figure was outlined by the vivid tailored dress she was wearing. Intensely conscious of the urge overwhelming her to get away. Just...away.

      As she walked, she sipped at her champagne again. She felt the need of it. Her colour was heightened, she knew—knew it from the hectic beating of her heart.

      He desires me—the Conte di Mantegna has looked at me and found me pleasing to him...

      Into her head sprang an image, immediate and vivid, conjured out of her ready imagination. That woman in the portrait—the brunette—working, perhaps, in her father’s shop, or sweeping floors, or even toiling out in the fields in sixteenth-century Italy... Il Conte passing by, seeing her, liking her beauty, taking a fancy to her. Finding her pleasing to him. Lifting her with one beckoning of his lordly, aristocratic hand out of her hard, poverty-stricken life to dress her in a silk gown and place roses in her hands and jewels around her throat, and take her to his bed...

      She felt the pull of it—the allure. Had to force herself to remember all that would have gone with it. The price that woman would have paid.

      To know that her place in his life was only ever to be his inamorata—never to aspire to be his wife.

      And as for the Count—oh, he would have had everything he wanted. His pale,