A Royal Wedding(30)

His hands trailed down her back, tracing the curve of her behind and warming her, firing up desires she’d thought well quenched during the night but which were clearly all too ready to be reignited. What would cool, calm Dr Hunter do? she wondered as he pulled her closer until she could feel the press of his erection against her belly. The wanton in her knew the decision she would make. It made sense to continue her study here, where the documents had been found, and she could do her work during the day and enjoy the pleasures of the night.

It made perfect sense.

Just a few days, she told herself as his mouth dropped to hers, coaxing her lips open with a kiss that promised paradise. She knew it didn’t. She knew she was kidding herself. But after all, she rationalised, she had to work somewhere.


Three more days she stayed, working on her report during the days, making love with the Count late into the nights. Three more days that took her closer and closer to the time she knew she would have to leave.

Neither of them spoke of her departure, and she wondered if he’d even noticed—whereas she was counting down the hours, her inevitable departure like a dark cloud growing ever more heavy over her. A dark cloud to replace those that had graced her first two nights here. For now the weather steadily improved, the storms almost forgotten as they made love on crisp moonlit sheets.

But she would have to leave. Her report was almost complete. She was already spinning out the topics, taking more time to check and double-check every word, every reference, avoiding the page on the fatal affliction as much as she dared. Its message was still unsettling.

There was no real reason she should stay.

Except that she could not bring herself to leave.

For with every passing day she knew it would almost kill her to leave—just to walk away and never see Alessandro again, never to feel his strong arms around her, never again to feel the thrust of his hard length. And so she put aside concerns about how long she was taking and how much she wasn’t doing and revelled in what he could give her. That was the now. And she had no intention of leaving before she had to.

They were in the bath, breathless and replete, when the phone call came—an urgent call for Dr Hunter from Professor Rousseau, otherwise Bruno would never have bothered them, he assured the Count.

She wrapped herself in a thick robe to take the call, still shuddering from her latest climax and guilty with it, as if the Professor might know, just by talking with her, what she’d so recently been doing.

‘Professor,’ she said. ‘How is your mother?’

‘No better, sadly, but no worse. But, tell me, what have you found?’

Grace summarised her findings, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.

‘Excellent,’ the Professor said. ‘Because I have yet another favour to ask you …’

She listened to her colleague’s request, one part of her alive to the opportunity she had just been offered, another part so heavy she thought her heart might fall clean out of her chest. But in the end, despite the warring inside her, she knew she had no choice. This was what she had wanted, what she had worked and hoped for.

‘Of course, Professor. Of course I will do it.’

‘What did she want?’ Alessandro asked when he joined her from the bathroom.

‘Her mother is still gravely ill. But she has a speaking engagement in London tomorrow evening and there is no way she will make it. She wants me to take her lecture, to use the chance to announce the discovery of the lost pages.’

‘And you said yes?’

‘Of course I said yes. What else was I supposed to say?’ And immediately she felt contrite, because she hadn’t wavered, and she’d made it sound as if she couldn’t wait to get away. But it hadn’t been like that.

‘Alessandro,’ she reasoned, when he turned away to his dressing room, ‘I was always going to leave soon. We both know that.’

‘Yes,’ he said, glancing back over his shoulder. ‘And it’s the opportunity you wanted when you took this job. You will be famous the world over, Dr Hunter. People will fill auditoriums and hang onto your every word and credit you for bringing to light an unknown chapter in the development of human society. That’s what you wanted all along, isn’t it?’

Yes, but why did he have to make it sound as if there was something wrong with that? And why the sudden ‘Dr Hunter’? How long had it been since he’d called her that?

‘You know what this means to me,’ she argued. ‘It’s my career.’