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‘The Hotel Danieli is the finest in the city...’ she began, trying to make the stranger less strange. Perhaps if they talked, she could build some rapport. ‘It used to be a private palazzo.’ Gianna shivered again, this time from the breeze off the canal. She regretted not having had the Englishman stop for her cloak. Then again, if she had her cloak, she wouldn’t have an excuse for what she did next.
‘Are you cold?’ He shifted in his seat, but before he could shrug out of his coat and play the gentleman, she inched close until there was no space between them on the seat and pressed against him.
‘Just a little, I left my cloak behind. Would you mind if I...?’ She put her hand in the pocket of his evening coat, letting her words trail off in a delicate fade. She tossed him a smile. ‘Thank you, that’s better, much better.’
It was also much more ‘friendly’. The outside pocket of his evening coat proved to be a very intimate location indeed when one was seated. Her hand rested mere inches from a very private part of him that seemed compelled to stir at the proximity of her fingers. In a sense that was good. She wanted him attracted to her. But it was also a reminder of what might be surrendered in order to secure the larger goal.
They rode in silence after that, the Englishman not inclined towards conversation. The night spoke around them in the passing songs of the gondoliers and the laughter of revellers on the canals until the gondola bumped against the pier. The gondolier called out, ‘Hotel Danieli, signor.’
The Englishman extracted her hand from his pocket rather reluctantly, and stepped out of the barque. He passed some coins to the boatman, his words catching her entirely by surprise. ‘Take the lady wherever she’d like.’
Here! She wanted to be taken here, Gianna fought the urge to cry out. Surely he didn’t mean to leave her? Is this what he’d been thinking in the gondola? How to get rid of her? In all of her imaginings it had never occurred to her that he might find the arrangement as distasteful as she did. He was a man, after all, and men were all alike, her mama had taught her. Men were governed by sex.
She’d tried to make herself agreeable. She’d made conversation, to which he hadn’t responded. She’d put her hand in his pocket, to which he had responded. Sweet heaven, she’d almost touched his cock! He was not getting away this easy, not when she’d decided she had plans for him. Gianna bolted into action with a sharp cry. ‘Aspetta! Stop!’ She climbed clumsily to her feet, her hasty efforts hampered by her heavy skirts. She stumbled and got back up, the gondola rocking. She should have stilled and waited for the boat to settle but her mind was fixated on the Englishman. Her plans were not going to be wrecked by two men in one night. He couldn’t set her free. She had plans—admittedly, they were hastily concocted ones built in the silence of the boat ride, but plans none the less, to replace the ones the count had destroyed.
The Englishman stepped forward, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. ‘Signorina, I think you misunderstand. I am giving you your freedom. This is where you and I part ways.’ He said it as if ending their association was a good thing. They were not parting ways, not until she decided it.
Gianna faced him, hands on hips, trying to look dignified in a dangerously rocking boat. She pushed back a strand of hair and tilted her chin in defiance, struggling to maintain her balance. ‘No, signor, you misunderstand. This is the part where I—’
Stay.
The word never left her mouth. The gondolier gave a warning yelp and leapt for the pier. Gianna surged forward to the dock, hoping to escape the inevitable, but she was too slow. The boat tipped. She hit the water.
‘Gianna!’ The Englishman’s voice was the last sound she heard before she went under.
Two sensations hit her simultaneously: the water was dark. No lantern light reached the depths—
someone could fall in and simply disappear without being seen even if their fall had been noted. Second was that it was cold, so very cold. Gianna tried to push to the surface, arms and legs working to propel her upwards, but she had little momentum with nothing for her legs to push off from and an enormous amount of drag from her skirts. She needed more strength than she possessed.
She had no intentions of simply giving up. It would suit the count too well if she died. Everything she had would be his. He wouldn’t have to wait out the next four weeks. It would certainly suit the Englishman who had been so eager to send her away. No one would care except Giovanni. Giovanni was counting on her. But her air was failing, her strength was failing. What would happen to Giovanni?
There was a splash in the water beside her, a hand about her waist, another arm pushing upwards with her now. She lent her own meagre efforts, hurrying them upwards out of the murk. Haste was important now. Spots danced behind the lids of her eyes. If she lost consciousness, her dead weight would drag them both down. The surface at last! Her head broke the water and she dragged in a great breath, the Englishman beside her, his voice filling the night with directions.
‘We’re over here! I’ve got her. Get her up! Someone bring a blanket.’ It took two of them; the Englishman inelegantly pushing her up from behind, his hands on her bum, and the gondolier tugging her by the armpits to the pier. Task accomplished, the Englishman braced his hands on the dock and levered himself up with enviable, easy strength. He took the offered blanket and threw it about her shoulders. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
Gianna was shivering, unable to do anything but let him guide her into the opulent lobby of Hotel Danieli, his arm around her, holding her close to his side. She caught sight of herself in one of the long Venetian mirrors and groaned. She looked exactly like what she was—a soaking wet woman who’d just fallen into the canal. The Englishman, however, managed to look like a prince, all dripping six feet of him. Even wet and dressed in ruined clothing and barefoot. ‘You took time to remove your boots,’ she accused testily. She’d been panicking underwater, facing certain death, and he’d taken time to pull off his boots.
The Englishman laughed, a warm, light chuckle. She had the sensation again that everything was a lark, even death. ‘I assumed you didn’t want us to both drown? Your dress weighed enough without contending with my boots.’ He put his mouth close to her ear the way he had in the ballroom. ‘There’s a reason, Gianna, people swim naked.’
Her cold body went hot at the words, the sound of her name on his lips, the tickle of his breath at her ear. It was a most inappropriate comment made at a most inappropriate time in a most inappropriate place. Not surprising considering how the evening had gone. It fit perfectly with everything else that had occurred: she’d been wagered and lost in a card game by the one man her mother had trusted to look out for her, her plans for freedom from the count were now entirely undermined and her fate was in the hands of a stranger. What else could go wrong? What else was there to go wrong?
Chapter Four
The room was sumptuous. Perhaps it was safe to assume that the worst had happened. Perhaps her luck was starting to change. His rooms were of the finest quality: furniture upholstered in silk, long curtains with luxurious folds draped the windows like a woman’s ball gown where the rooms looked out over the canal. From here, there was a view of the chamber beyond with its enormous bed strewn with pillows. Even at a distance, that room exuded decadence, a not-so-subtle reminder that what had started this night might still very well finish it. Sex was a powerful weapon when used correctly. Gianna hoped she knew enough to wield it. She shivered and drew the blanket tighter around her.
‘Let’s get you into a bath. Come with me.’ He led her into the bedroom and through a door into the most incredible room she’d ever seen, a room entirely given over to the function of bathing. There was a porcelain tub rooted to the floor. He bent over the handles and turned them, water flowed. Steam rose.
‘Oh.’ She gasped. She’d heard of such features before, but they were non-existent at the count’s house. This was positively divine. The Englishman moved about, laying out plush white towels and a thick bar of milled soap, so intricately carved she almost didn’t want to use it and destroy its perfection.
His hands were at the back of her gown before she realised it. ‘Let’s get you out of this. What a mess.’
There was no sense protesting. She couldn’t possibly take it off by herself. Gianna let his fingers work the long row of tiny pearl buttons at her back. His touch was swift, professional and yet beneath that layer of competence, there was a sensually compelling undertone that suggested his hands would feel good on her skin. Surely that boded well for the next level of her plan?
‘It took my maid twenty minutes to do up the buttons. You’ve done this before.’ Gianna tried for levity, anything to keep her mind off the fact that she was alone in a hotel room with a man she didn’t know and she was there for the express purpose of being bedded by him. Never mind he’d tried to let her go. She’d refused. He would think that refusal was an acceptance of another sort...
He laughed, finishing the last of the buttons low on her spine. ‘Let’s just say you aren’t the first woman I’ve undressed, wet or otherwise.’
She supposed she’d deserved that with her leading question. The gown fell open. She could feel his gaze on her back, a sensation that was provocatively possessive and not without its own thrill. ‘Stand still,’ he murmured at her ear. ‘I’ll have to use my knife.’
His knife? That galvanised her into action. Gianna spun away from him, clutching her dress to her, her eyes rapidly scanning the room for a possible weapon, all sense of flirting, of wanting to lure him with sugar evaporating in the wake of self-preservation. ‘There is no need for knives, I assure you.’ She tried her best calming tones, the tones she used to reason with the count when he was irrational—which was nearly always. Surely she could handle one Englishman.
Gianna snatched up a ewer, brandishing it in self-defence as she edged towards the door. A knife flashed in his hand from some secret place on his person and she knew she was right to have gone on the defensive. Good lord, he’d been armed all along! What sort of man carried a weapon to a party? She’d traded drowning in the canal for being stabbed by a madman in hotel room, who was laughing.
The Englishman held out his arms in a gesture of peace, apparently having found great humour in the situation. ‘Put down the ewer, Gianna. The knife is for the laces. They’re in knots. I’m afraid there’s no saving them. Now, turn around and let me at them. Your bath is ready and you’re shaking.’
Hot embarrassment crept up her cheeks. She’d completely overreacted. But what else was she to think? It was easier to turn around than to let him see her blush. She’d let herself look foolish. ‘You find this funny?’ she scolded. She felt the slice of a sure blade through the sodden laces of her corset, felt the tight garment slide away, felt her body breathe, set free.
His hands closed over the caps of her shoulders, warm and firm against her chilled skin. ‘I think it’s funny that you believe I would go to all the trouble of dragging you out of the canal just to stab you a half hour later in my room.’ His fingers flexed gently against her skin, his mouth close to her ear. ‘What holds no humour for me is why a beautiful woman would have reason to think a man would do that.’
His body was just inches from hers. She could feel the heat of him through his wet clothes, feel the strength of him—it was there in the low rumble of his words, in the remembrance of the arm that had brought her to the water’s surface. This was a very different man than the count. She’d known it at the palazzo, but had not fully understood what it meant until now.
Where the count thrived on cruelty and force, this man did not. However, that mere discrepancy did not make him a saint. She had to be careful not to ascribe heroic attributes to him just because he’d dragged her out of the canal and hadn’t ravished her yet. He was still a gambler and he was a still a rogue—a rogue who was growing more appealing by the moment.
A shiver of a different sort swept through Gianna. She knew danger when she encountered it and it was standing right behind her. It wasn’t the knife in his hand that made him dangerous, it was his manners, his temptations.
He stepped back, releasing her. ‘Take your bath.’
Gianna turned to face him. He’d saved her tonight. He’d looked after her. How long had it been since anyone had done that? He was a complete stranger, someone who didn’t have to do any of those things and yet he had. She didn’t even know his name. She stretched a hand out. ‘You have my thanks, ah...?’ She waited for him to fill in the space left by her words.
A small smile twitched on his lips as he took her hand. ‘Are you asking me my name? It’s Nolan Gray.’
‘I’m trying to thank you, Mr Gray.’ She couldn’t resist a smile of her own, something warm unfurling in her stomach. She imagined he rather regularly had that effect on women. Once more she counselled caution. She didn’t want to like him. She just needed him to get through the next four weeks.
* * *
He just had to get through the night. He had a naked woman in his tub and no idea what to do with her, a most novel situation to be sure. Usually he knew exactly what to do with a naked woman in the tub, out of the tub, on the bed, off the bed, against the wall, out on the balcony with the moon overhead. He had to stop, this was starting to sound like an erotic prepositional exercise or bad poetry. Too bad his tutors had not aspired to such creative lengths—he might have done better in school.
Nolan stripped out of his clothes at last, glad to be rid of the damp and stench of the canal. He towelled dry his hair and slipped into his banyan, feeling warmer, cleaner already, but that raised another point of concern. What was she going to wear? Her gown was beyond use, wet and ruined. It was past midnight. There were no shops open and he didn’t know any shopkeepers to rouse. But he did know a friend... Brennan. Nolan grinned and hurried next door.
Brennan answered, half-dressed and less than half-sober. ‘Do you still have that nightgown, Bren? The one you just ordered.’
‘The one I ordered for my special lady,’ Brennan drawled his correction.
‘I need it, Bren.’ Nolan leaned against the doorjamb, his voice low. If Brennan was home this time of night he wasn’t alone and he didn’t want his business broadcast to all and sundry. ‘I have a situation.’
‘I have a situation, too, as it were.’ Brennan directed his eyes downward meaningfully where his robe gaped.
‘Please, she fell in the canal and has nothing to sleep in.’
Brennan raised a brow. ‘And that’s a problem how? I thought you screwed naked.’
‘Normally I do.’ Nolan stopped. What was he doing? He did not have to justify that to Brennan. Nolan rolled his eyes. One of the consequences of living in his friends’ pockets was that they knew everything about him, personal habits and all. He had no privacy left even when he had separate rooms. Nolan pushed a hand through his hair, striving for clarity. ‘It’s complicated, Bren. I won her in a card game, she fell out of the gondola, she’s in the tub right now.’ Striving and failing. Nolan blew out a breath. He could see the explanation didn’t help. He was flubbing this up miserably in his haste to get back to the room.
Brennan waved him off with a hand. ‘Enough, you’re making my head hurt. You can have the damn nightgown if you’ll just stop with all these details.’ Brennan retreated into the dark of his room and came back, a silky white item in one hand. ‘Just to be clear, I won’t want it back when you’re done.’
‘Thanks, I owe you one.’
Brennan laughed. ‘One nightgown, to be precise. I will want it replaced. Now, go to bed.’
Bed was an interesting proposition indeed given there was only the one in his suite and he’d not planned on sharing it with the lovely, mercurial Gianna. He’d also not planned on having her in his room, let alone his bed. Nolan stepped into the steamy bathing room, calling out his approach from the dressing screen that shielded the tub from any intruders. ‘Are you decent? I found you something to wear.’
He heard the water slosh, her voice momentarily flustered. ‘Toss it over the screen, I’ll be out in a minute.’
‘There’s no need to rush,’ Nolan called back, trying to sound cheerful. No need at all. He was still trying to figure out what to do with her, but before he could do that, he had to figure out what to make of her.
He draped the silky material over the screen. The evening hadn’t gone quite as anticipated. He was supposed to have won money, not a woman. But he’d had a plan for that, too. That woman was supposed to have embraced her freedom and left him at the pier. It was a nice, expedient option that should have satisfied them both. In the main room, Nolan poured himself a drink and went out on the balcony to think and to wait. He’d had one plan, but apparently, she’d had another, and that was cause for wonder.
Nolan leaned on the railing, his gaze going out across the dark waters as he sipped at the brandy, letting his thoughts come fast and logical: Was Gianna Minotti a fraud? Was she for real? Was she a little of both, part fact, part fiction? Perhaps of more immediate concern, what did she want badly enough to turn down her freedom and accompany an unknown man to a hotel room, an act that had obviously inspired at least a little fear in her?
There was a delicate cough behind him. He turned, preparing himself for the sight of Gianna Minotti in whatever passed for Brennan’s taste in nightwear. There would be no reason to overreact. This wasn’t his first woman in a nightgown or his first woman anything—he was way beyond firsts when it came to what happened in a bedroom.
His preparation was not enough. Thankfully, years of rote response came to his aid. ‘Will it suffice?’ The words came out of his mouth with little effort from him because the rest of him seemed tongue-tied. The pale-blue dress with its heavy adornments had not done her justice. It had, in fact, distracted the viewer with its opulence from the full onslaught of her beauty. But there was no distraction now.
Nolan’s eyes were riveted on her face, helped there by the simple classic lines of the gown, the thin unobtrusive straps at her shoulders that demanded no attention and the dark cloud of her hair hanging loose and damp at her shoulders, framing her face and those striking hazel eyes. Her face itself was ultimately feminine, at once managing to be compassionate without being soft or delicate, intelligent without being hard. A smart man, a man who wanted to understand her, would study that face for hours and recognise its layers, the complexities of her expressions. Only when that was mastered would he move on to study the rest of her body, shown to perfection in the simplicity of the white gown. Tonight he could not be that man.
Nolan felt his body, typically well trained to reserve its judgement until his mind was made up, stir with arousal. The gown flowed over her curves at the behest of her body, not of fashions. Where the blue gown had forced her to conform, this silk conformed to the wearer, flowing over the swell of her breast, the nip and flare of waist and hip. No wonder Brennan had been reluctant to part with it. The gown had been made by a magician.
‘It suffices, I’d say.’ She took a few steps forward to the cluster of furniture around the fireplace, the silk emphasising the sway of her hips, her mouth quirked in a wry smile that said she’d noted his interest. Damn. He hated being the transparent one. Usually, those roles were reversed. Usually... How many times had he thought of such contrasts tonight? The ‘usual’ held no power here. Nothing that had happened tonight had gone according to plan or prediction.
‘I see the tea has come.’ She sat on the curved sofa and prepared to pour, presiding over the porcelain like a naughty angel in her white gown, her hazel eyes looking preternaturally green against the paleness of her surroundings. ‘Perhaps you’d prefer something stronger?’ She gestured to the decanter on the sideboard, noting the half-empty glass in his hand. ‘I think I’d prefer a little of both after all the excitement tonight.’
Nolan brought the decanter over and sat down, one leg crossed over the other, and let her serve him. If women served tea in nightgowns like this more often, men might actually enjoy the event. He admired the way in which she had manoeuvred things. It was neatly done indeed, masterful even. Of course, he recognised her strategy. It was a trick he used often. To take charge of a situation, one merely had to find a task to perform and then incorporate others into the scheme by asking them questions. Suddenly, you were giving orders and people were looking to you for direction.
She refilled his glass and passed it to him before splashing a healthy amount into her teacup, slightly self-conscious for the first time now that there was no task to perform; no wager to watch, no canal to be hauled out of, no bath to take, no tea to serve. Their action-packed evening had come to a screeching halt and now it was just them and the original reason they were together to start with.
‘So, here we are.’’ Nolan drawled with lazy nonchalance, settling back deep in his chair. Despite his misgivings over her authenticity, he was starting to enjoy this. The next move was hers. What would his bold lady do next?
Chapter Five
Here they were. In their nightclothes. Together. Gianna took a slow sip of the hot tea. There was a reason polite society didn’t encourage conversation in dishabille and this was it. Without the trappings of one’s wardrobe, one was entirely exposed in more than the obvious ways, although just the obvious exposure alone was enough to leave her feeling flustered and hot at a time when she need to be completely in control.
‘Here we are.’ She smiled, trying to give away none of her nerves. ‘I must thank you again for all you’ve done for me tonight.’ No, that was all wrong, it was too bland. She had to say something more than that if she meant to hold his attention. ‘The gown is lovely. I’m amazed you were able to find anything on such short notice.’ No, that was wrong, too. A man like him must have access to all types of female venues and females. She wondered where the gown had come from, which woman had sacrificed it for her, in return for what? What had the intriguing Nolan Gray promised in exchange?
‘I’m only sorry it didn’t come with a robe.’ Nolan Gray said easily, casually, from his chair, as if he talked with barely clad women over tea all the time. And he might. He’d made it clear in the bathing room undressing women was not a rare occurrence in his life.
‘Liar.’ Gianna caressed the word, a knowing half-smile on her lips. Women were easy for him. This was a man who would want to be flirted with, a man who would want a sensual challenge, something that differed from the norm of his usual experience. She let her eyes hold his over the rim of her tea cup. They were mesmerising eyes, not hard at all to look at with their quicksilver flecks, but hard to look away from. A woman could get lost in them and the decadent promises they held. ‘You’re not sorry at all.’ They were bold words from a bold woman, the sort of woman this man would find appealing.
Nolan Gray wasn’t the sort of man who had to win a woman in a card game. An expanse of well-muscled chest showed in the open vee of his robe, reminding her of the powerful body that had propelled her out of the water, reminding her, too, that she played with a certain intimate fire here. She’d initiated an assertive flirtation and he was very willing to respond in kind.