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

Lizzie’s Christmas present to her.
    ‘There’s really no need…’ she began, but Raphael stopped her.
    ‘On the contrary—there is every need,’ he told her.
    She had removed her jeans, and now it wasn’t justthe slender length of her legs that was distracting him from his self-imposed task, Raphael acknowledged. He had seen women wearing far more provocative and revealing underwear than the lacy briefs that Charley was wearing, but right now the fact that he was acutely aware of what lay beneath the barrier concealing her body from him was having a very unwanted effect on him physically. Angry with himself for allowing his body to overcome his self-control, Raphael worked quickly to open the medical kit and remove the necessary dressing, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the burned flesh of Charley’s thigh, which had now begun to tremble slightly.
    ‘The pain is getting worse?’ he demanded.
    Charley nodded her head. It was, after all, true that the pain was bad, but it was also true that it wasn’t the pain that was causing her body to tremble. Nor was it the reason that the trembling increased when Raphael placed the dressing on her bare flesh. Her reaction to his touch horrified her. She was behaving like an adolescent with a crush.
    ‘There—that should protect the burn until the doctor gets here to look at it properly.’
    Charley nodded her head, managing a reluctant, ‘Thank you.’
    She felt shivery and sick, her nerves jangling—and not, she suspected, purely because of her burned thigh. This time it was a relief when Raphael left her.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I T WAS another lovely sunny morning, her second here in Italy, in Raphael’s palazzo, in what was in effect his bedroom, since he owned the palazzo. Goosebumps rose on her skin as though it had been touched, caressed. Helplessly Charley closed her eyes. It must be the painkillers the doctor had given her yesterday, after he had looked at her burn, re-dressed it and pronounced that she must spend the rest of the day in bed, not her wayward thoughts of Raphael.
    She knew better this morning than to go and stand on the balcony in her sleepwear.
    Instead of worrying about who owned the bed she slept in, what she should be doing was worrying about how she was going to manage without her jeans—the one and only garment she had with her to clothe the lower half of her body. She could hardly appear in public in the loose pyjama shorts she was currently wearing, although Raphael had said that he would speak to Anna on her behalf.
    She owed Raphael a debt of gratitude for dealingwith the situation so properly and promptly. The doctor had told her that the burn could have turned very nasty indeed if it had been left unattended, as she would have chosen to do left to her own devices. Luckily it was not so severe that she would need skin grafts, but he had warned her that she might end up with an area of flesh that would forever be vulnerable to heat and sunlight.
    Charley looked at her untouched breakfast tray. She was too on edge to eat. She pushed her hand into her hair to lift it off her face. She had lost a great deal since coming to Italy: her hairband, her jeans, her pride and even some of her self-respect. And hadn’t she forgotten something? her conscience prodded. Charley defended her omission. Wasn’t the list she had just given herself long enough? Did she really have to add to it that she was also in danger of losing the protection she had put in place around and within herself to stop her from feeling the pain of not being good enough, not being woman enough to merit male attention?
    She looked round the room, desperate to find something she could focus on that would enable her to avoid dealing with what was happening to her. The room must have been remodelled at some stage, because its Baroque decor belonged to a later age than the palazzo itself. The softly painted grey-blue wooden panelling was decorated with gilded swags and cupids, and