Catherine Spencer – The Brabanti Baby (страница 8)

Fine talk, and it bolstered her throughout the time it took her to shower and dress. But when, at last, she stood on the threshold of the breakfast room and found him already seated at the table with his nose buried in the morning paper, her composure seeped away like water in a leaky bathtub.

Stop dithering and get it over with! the down-to-earth self she prided herself on being, scolded. He’s just a man, no different from the hundreds of others you’ve seen. Keep your wild imagination in check, and think of him as just another patient!

From behind his newspaper, Gabriel spoke. “Avanti, prego, signorina! It’s quite safe for you to come in. I don’t bite.”

Feeling as big a fool as she no doubt looked—though how he could see her through several pages of newsprint, defied explanation—she tottered toward the table. “I’ve brought the baby,” she said, for want of a more scintillating reply. “I expect you’re ready for her morning visit.”

He folded the paper and, setting it aside, rose to his feet. “Assolutamente!” he said, taking the infant seat from her and propping it up on the chair next to his so that Nicola faced him. His thick black lashes swept down, as if to hide the sudden tenderness in his eyes as he regarded his daughter. Then, looking up, he bathed Eve in a smile that could only be described as blatantly invitational. “Mostly, though, I wish to apologize to you.”

“Me? Why?” It was as well he came around to draw out a chair for her, because her legs were suddenly weak as water and it was all she could do to remain upright. No man had the right to be so distractingly gorgeous.

“Because you are my guest and I’ve been a most neglectful host. It’s time I made up for that.”

“You’re under no such obligation,” she replied hastily. “I’m here only as Nicola’s…nanny.”

“A servant? I think not!” He rested his hands on her shoulders and gave them a little squeeze before returning to his own seat. “My daughter continues to keep you up at night, I’m told.”

“A little, yes. She’s still very young, and I’m not sure she tolerates her formula as well as she should.”

“Probably because she should be receiving mother’s milk.” His eyes drifted from Eve’s face to the bodice of her sundress and remained there. “Is it not common in America for women to breast-feed their infants?”

“Yes,” she replied, defying her nipples to acknowledge his scrutiny. “In fact, it’s recommended, and the preferred choice of most mothers.”

“But not Marcia.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I really don’t know. Perhaps you should ask her.”

“I’d gladly do so, if she’d return my calls. I’ve tried several times to contact her since you got here.”

“Why?” she said, not about to admit she’d done the same, with singular lack of success. “To verify that I am who I say I am?”

“No, my dear signorina,” he said mildly. “To let her know that you and Nicola arrived safely, and keep her informed of our daughter’s doings. It strikes me as something any normal mother would want to know. But although I’ve left messages with her assistant at the agency, I’ve yet to hear directly from Marcia herself.”

“Probably because she’s away. I already told you, as soon as she’d seen us off at Kennedy airport, she joined her husband on tour.”

“So you did. But that hardly renders her incommunicado with the rest of the world—unless he’s touring the polar ice cap.”

“There’s also the time difference to take into account. New York’s six hours behind Malta.”

“I have enough business interests worldwide to be well aware of international time changes, Eve,” he reminded her, offering his finger to Nicola, who immediately grasped it in her tiny fist and favored him with a solemn, large-eyed stare.

“Look at that, will you?” he said. “Even though I’m her father, I’m a complete stranger to her. Yet she clings to me with absolute confidence, certain she is safe with me and wraps me around her little heart without even trying. I cannot imagine being indifferent to where, and how, she is.”

Ignoring the clutch of emotion inspired by the sight of Nicola’s translucent dimpled knuckles curved so trustingly around his long, tanned finger, Eve said, “If you’re suggesting Marcia doesn’t care—!”

Beryl chose that moment to come into the room with a bowl of peaches, and a basket of warm sweet rolls to go with the curls of butter and preserves already on the table. A young girl accompanied her, bringing in a fresh pot of coffee.

Glad of the interruption, Eve helped herself to the fruit and hoped he’d drop the subject of Marcia’s apparent lack of concern for her baby. Because how could she defend something she herself found hard to understand?

The moment they were alone again, though, Gabriel picked right up where he’d left off. “If I am suggesting she doesn’t care,” he said, gently disentangling himself from his daughter’s grip, and pouring himself more coffee, “I’ll be glad to have you prove me wrong. You told me, your first night here, that you’re accustomed to being around children, in which case I respect your opinion. Are you a teacher? Is that how you gained your experience?”

“No. I work as a nurse in an inner city health clinic, and I can tell you that the babies I see would consider themselves fortunate beyond their wildest dreams if they had the kind of home Marcia provides for Nicola.”

“Are you saying your patients live in poverty?”

“That, of course—and in some cases, it’s extreme. But it’s not just the grinding misery of being poor that shows in their eyes, it’s the violence and neglect that so often go with it. Many of them have learned before they’re two years old that they have no future.”

His gaze rested on her face with a compassion in its blue depths that, if she’d allowed it, would seriously have undermined her determination to resist him. “You must find that very distressing.”

“It breaks my heart, every day.”

“And the fact that Marcia appears to treat my daughter like a toy to be cast aside when something more interesting comes along, doesn’t?”

“It’s not like that, at all!” she insisted heatedly. “You only have to look at Nicola to see that she’s well cared for.”

He fixed her in such a reproachful stare that she squirmed. “Signorina Eve, a vintage car might be well-cared for, or a garden, or a public park! But a baby deserves better than that, surely? A baby should be treasured, doted upon, adored.”

“What makes you think Nicola isn’t?”

“On the surface, nothing, although I admit I’d expected her to look a little more robust for her age, and be a good deal more contented than she often is.” He flicked a glance at Nicola who, for once, was quite happy gazing at the slow-circling blades of the ceiling fan, then turned his attention again to Eve. “But I see that I’m making you very uncomfortable with my speculations and opinions. Forgive me. I have no right trying to drag you into the middle of what is, after all, a fight between my ex-wife and me.” He pushed the basket of sweet rolls closer. “Try these and some of Beryl’s excellent home-made preserves. I swear, if she suspects I’ve spoiled your appetite, she’ll make my life a misery.”

The way you made Marcia’s? Eve wondered. Because the luxury evident throughout the villa, the sublime Mediterranean setting, the stunning good looks and simmering sensuality of the man seated opposite her—not to mention the charm he could turn on at will—exactly suited Marcia’s exotic tastes. Which could only mean that there had to have been something seriously amiss in the marriage, not only for Marcia to walk away from it in the first place, but for her to so adamantly refuse ever to come back or to face Gabriel again.

“I rather doubt anyone could make you miserable without your consent,” she said, breaking open a roll and buttering it. “You strike me as being quite…invincible.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to talk me out of taking you sightseeing later on?”

“Would it do me any good to try?”

“Not in the least,” he said, laughter brimming in his voice. “It’s exactly as you suspect: I’m used to having things my way.”

And therein, perhaps, lay the answer to why the marriage had gone wrong, because Marcia was obstinate as a mule. “Neither you nor my cousin seems to understand the concept of compromise,” she observed. “And I don’t mind telling you, just how your hard-nosed attitude will ultimately affect Nicola frightens me.”

His fingers brushed against hers and grew still. “Don’t be afraid, Eve,” he said gently. “We’re on the same side in this. We both want what’s best for my daughter.”

She found herself reacting oddly to his touch, with part of her yearning toward his warmth and strength, and another part shrinking from the subtle danger of him. He could say what he liked, but it was what he didn’t say that troubled her the most. He wasn’t nearly as guileless as he’d like her to believe, and for reasons based on nothing but instinct, she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t keep him at arm’s length, she’d end up becoming his victim.

“If that’s true,” she replied, “then you’ll agree it would be best if I stayed home with her today. She’s had a very rough week of it since she arrived here, and I’d feel better if I were around to keep an eye on her.”