The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress by Penny Jordan Read Free Book Online

took a quick gulp of her coffee and then got up from her chair, putting the cup down as she was drawn to the sketches and plans laid out on Raphael’s desk. Since they were of the pleasure garden, there was no reason why she should not look at them, she assured herself. She had, after all, seen the plans before, at home in England.
    These, though, were not modern drawings, but sketches and watercolours of parts of the original garden, Charley quickly recognised, immediately becoming so absorbed in them that everything else was forgotten as she was mentally swept back to another century, enviously imagining what it musthave been like to be involved in such a wonderful project. The plans and sketches alone were minor works of art in their own right, and Charley’s fingertips trembled as she touched the papers on which those long-ago craftsmen had etched their sketches and detailed measurements of fountains, statues, colonnades and grottos.
    A perspective overview showed the full layout of the garden. The formal sweep of a curved, colonnaded entrance opened in the centre, to draw the eye down a wide avenue planted with what looked like pleached limes. Either side of it the garden was intersected by narrower walkways, opening out into sheltered bowers decorated with seats and statuary, beyond which lay a stone fountain, in the middle of which was a huge piece of statuary. A paved terrace shaded by vines marked the boundary, where the land fell away with a view over an ornamental lake, complete with a grotto.
    There were sketches for small, elegant pavilions, ‘secret’ water gardens designed to spring into life when the unsuspecting walked close to them. Charley ached with longing to have seen the garden following its completion. Raphael was right to say that trying to recreate such beauty using cheap manmade materials was an insult to the original artists.
    She was so wrapped up in the world those long-ago craftsmen and artists had created that she didn’t hear the soft click of the door opening, and was oblivious to Raphael’s return and the fact that he was standing watching her as she stood looking down at the papers on his desk, her expression one of absorbed intensity.
    Charley lifted her gaze from the desk, her eyes shadowed with all that she was feeling, lost in her own world—only to come abruptly out of that world when she saw Raphael.
    How long had he been there? The way he was looking at her made her feel acutely vulnerable. She stepped back from the desk, so intent on escaping from his gaze that she forgot about the small table behind her on which the maid had placed the tray of coffee.
    As she bumped into the table she dislodged the heavy thermos jug. Before she had time to react Raphael had reacted for her, reaching her side, pulling her away from the table just as hot coffee spouted from the jug and onto her jean-clad thigh.
    She must have cried out, although she wasn’t aware of having done so, because immediately Raphael looked down to where the hot liquid had soaked through her jeans, his sharp and almost accusatory, ‘You have been burned,’ causing Charley to shake her head.
    ‘No. I’m all right,’ she insisted.
    Her face was burning with a mixture of emotions. Her leg was stinging painfully beneath the wet fabric of her jeans, but it was her own embarrassment at having been so clumsy rather than any pain that was making her feel so self-conscious. There was a small puddle of coffee on the snow-white starched linen tray cloth with its discreet monogram, and coffee on the floor as well, but thankfully it had missed the rug that covered part of the marble-tiled floor. Her parents would have shaken their heads if they had witnessed her mishap, pointing out to her that shewas dreadfully clumsy. How she had longed to be deft and delicate in her movements, and not like the baby elephant her mother had always teasingly told her she was.
    ‘It’s my own fault,’ she told Raphael. ‘I shouldn’t be