A Royal Wedding(6)

God knew, another twenty years or so of staring into her desiccated papers and she’d probably be as dried up and crusty as the Professor. Maybe he had nothing to worry about.

And she was right about one thing: he did want the find off his hands as quickly as possible. If the Professor proved unable to do it personally because of her ailing mother someone else would have to be found, all of it spelling delay after delay.

He ground his teeth together. The longer he waited, the more likely news of the discovery would filter out. The last thing he wanted was the media sniffing around again, turning the place into some kind of fish tank.

‘Then make your assessment as brief as possible and make us all happy by leaving.’ He turned back to gaze out of the window again, knowing she would do exactly that. People always ran from him. And then he frowned, remembering the way her big blue eyes had stared at him.

Yes, she’d been shocked. But where was the revulsion? Where was the pity? Instead she’d examined him as one might regard some kind of science project.

And the snarling beast inside him didn’t like that notion any better.

‘I’d like to see the book now.’

He turned back, surprised she hadn’t changed her mind and taken the opportunity to flee while his back was turned. She was surprisingly feisty, this one, holding her ground when many men twice her age and size would have gone running for the hills. Did she want the opportunity of examining and documenting this discovery so much that she had somehow summoned the will to fight for it? Or was she always this feisty?

Her eyes held his, bright and blue and cold as ice. Once women had looked at him with lust and desire. But that was long ago. There was no lust in Ms Hunter’s eyes, no desire— or at least not for him. But there was something else he read in them. The yearning to become famous? Probably. This discovery, if it proved authentic, would probably make a young conservator’s career.

‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,’ he said.

She blinked—a fan of black lashes against her peaches and cream complexion. And it occurred to him that it was almost a shame to condemn such translucent skin to the Professor’s wrinkled fate. ‘Pardon?’

A rap on the door and the reappearance of Bruno curtailed any response. ‘The boat wishes to leave,’ he grunted. ‘Are you finished with the girl?’

And with the question came Alessandro’s first smile of the day. In one way he was—though not the way his valet was clearly expecting. He’d agreed she could stay, and this meeting was now over. He’d planned to have Bruno take her to the book. He’d need to have little more to do with her. But was he finished with her?

Maybe not.

What would it take to make her run? What would it take to shake up those frosty blue eyes and strip off that sterile scientific cladding she wrapped herself so tightly in and see what really lay beneath? Besides, if he admitted the truth, he could do with a little entertainment. The woman might provide some mild amusement. She was only here for a few days. What possible harm could it do?

‘No, I’m not finished with our charming guest, Bruno.’ And this time he directed his words at her. ‘In fact, I do believe I’ve scarcely begun. Come, Dr Hunter, and I’ll show you to your precious documents.’

She left her luggage and briefcase where he directed, following him through a tangle of passageways, down wooden stairs that shifted and creaked under their footfall, and then down again—stone steps this time, that were worn into hollows by the feet of generations gone before—until she was sure they must be well below ground level, and the walls were lined with rock. And finally he stopped before a door that seemed carved from the stone itself.

He tugged on an iron ring set into the stone. ‘Are you scared of the dark, Dr Hunter?’ he asked over his shoulder, and she got the distinct impression he would love it if she were.

‘No. That’s never been a particular phobia of mine.’

‘How fortunate,’ he said, sounding as if he thought it was anything but. Then the door shifted open and she got a hint of what was to come—a low, dark passageway that sloped down through the rock. When he turned to her the crooked smile she’d seen in his office was back. ‘Every castle should have at least one secret tunnel, don’t you think?’

‘I would have to say it’s practically de rigueur, Count Volta.’

His smile slipped a little, she noted with satisfaction, almost as if she hadn’t answered the way he’d expected. Tough. The fact was she was here, and with any luck she was on her way to the missing pages of the Salus Totus. Although what they were doing all the way down here.