Chapter Seven
Caresa
It was two days before I could get back to Achille. Maria had returned from Assisi early, and we had nothing but meetings to occupy each day. I had now chosen the silverware, the color scheme and the menu for the wedding.
The hours had dragged. Each minute that I spent in the great room, tasting the exquisite food and running my hands over plush velvets and silks, my mind had been back with Achille in his vineyard. I wondered how far he had got with the harvest.
I wondered how many times he had ridden out around his land. I wondered if he had missed me being there.
The very thought should not have ever crossed my mind, yet it was the single most occupying question I had.
“We’re done for the day,” Maria said. “The luncheon is tomorrow at noon. Some of the women from the biggest families are coming from Florence. There should be about twenty-five in total.” Maria stood. “Your outfit is in your closet.”
“Thank you,” I said and got to my feet. I walked Maria to the door. “Any word on when Zeno will be back? I’ve had no word from him since my arrival.”
Maria tried to hide the sympathy in her eyes. No, not sympathy, pity. Her hand gently landed on my arm. “He will be back for the Bella Collina grape-crushing festival, which is also the day the International Wine Awards will notify the winners. Then, that night, it will be his coronation dinner. The most important families from around the country will attend.” Maria released my arm. “We then have the masked ball to prepare for at the beginning of December, and the Christmas festivities later that month.” She gave me a tight smile. “Then your wedding. My advice would be to get your sleep now, Duchessa, while you still can.”
Maria left, and I shut the grand doors behind her. I pressed my back against the wood and closed my eyes. The grandfather clock began to chime three o’clock. My eyes opened and drifted to the oil painting of Achille’s land. Before I had even had time to contemplate my decision, I was darting up the stairs to my rooms, where I swiftly changed into my jodhpurs, boots and long-sleeved riding shirt I had brought with me from New York. Clutching my riding hat and crop in my hands, I decided to exit through my balcony’s double doors. The staff here never questioned anything I did, but for some reason I found myself wanting to keep my whereabouts from prying eyes.
The sky was overcast, and the sun was partially hidden by the clouds. I picked up my pace as I passed through a shortcut I had found. My walk was brisk, and in only half the time it usually took, I arrived at Achille’s home. I had been away only two days, yet when my eyes beheld the gray stone cottage and the majestic garden, the same sense of wonderment seized me.
When I arrived at the barn, there was no opera music playing, no Verdi blasting like a siren to signal where Achille worked. I searched the vines, yet I could not see him anywhere. Eventually I saw Rosa alone in the paddock; he must have been out for a ride.
I decided to take the opportunity to school Rosa. I turned for the tack room, and then I heard the sound of galloping hooves beyond the trees. As I ducked through the branches, my feet instinctively carrying me forward, I didn’t realize there was a smile on my face until my cheeks ached in a cool snap of the wind. The trees were on a slightly raised hill, and the elevation awarded me a perfect view of Achille racing Nico toward home.
Like every other day, Achille was shirtless, his uniform of faded work jeans cladding his legs. But what held me captive was the happy expression on his face as the wind whipped through his black hair. Every well-toned muscle was flexing as he controlled the reins. So much so that the sensation of butterflies swooping in my stomach stole my breath and parted my lips. The grip on my riding hat’s chinstrap became impossibly tight, and I felt heat rise to my cheeks.
Achille drew Nico back to a canter, then to a slow sitting trot. As he turned right toward the closed gate to the residential part of his property, his eyes collided with mine, and he jolted in his saddle.
He must have thought I had decided not to return.
I waited beside the path on the inside of the gate for him. He came toward me and dismounted, dropping only inches from where I stood. I shifted on my legs when they actually weakened at his close proximity. His scent assaulted me, all fresh air and an earthy musk.
“You came back?” he said, his voice cracking. His handsome face was drawn into a serious expression. My heart stuttered.
He was beautiful. Achille was absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful.
I must have been staring at him too closely or for too long, because his eyebrows rose and he began rocking awkwardly on his feet. I pushed my hair back from my face in an attempt to break the sudden tension. Yet my hand shook as it ran through my shoulder-length strands.
I didn’t know if he meant to do it. By the lost expression on his face afterwards I assumed he did not. When I dropped my hand, Achille reached out with his and caught a strand of my hair between his finger and thumb. His full lips parted and a slow breath escaped. “Your hair is down,” he said with such reverence that I was in no doubt that he liked it better than my jogging bun.
I stood motionless, fighting my body’s natural pull to his—like magnets, I thought. This close, my body was drawn, striving to get closer. I . . . I had no idea what to do with this startling truth.
Achille must have realized what he was doing. He dropped my hair like it was a naked flame. He took a step back, his tanned face flushed. He turned and led Nico toward the paddock. I held back for a few seconds to steel my frayed nerves. I stared at the grass beneath my feet. But when I looked up and saw Achille’s tense, naked back highlighted so perfectly in the afternoon sunlight, my heart raced anew.
You can’t do this, Caresa, I told myself—no, commanded myself. At that very moment, Achille glanced over his shoulder. As his gaze locked on mine, my instruction to myself fled with the last of my good sense.
His nostrils flared and his biceps tensed, I allowed myself a moment to admire him—guilt-free and uncensored. I could see he was doing exactly the same with me.
It took an impatient whinny from Rosa to release us from the spell.
Deciding to act like the grown-up woman I was, I pulled myself together and went to the paddock. I leaned against the fence as Achille went to release Nico. Before he did, he asked, “Did you come to ride Rosa?”
“I did,” I replied. “But if it’s too late, I understand. I have been kept away the last couple of days with meetings. This was the first chance I got to escape.”
It was slight, but I saw Achille’s expression soften. I realized I must have answered his unspoken question: why had I not returned sooner?
“It’s not too late,” he said softly, steering Nico away from the paddock’s gate and toward his stable instead. He led the gelding inside, then carried his tack toward the tack room. I followed to retrieve Rosa’s.
I moved toward the saddle and bridle I had used on Rosa a couple of days before. Then, to the left, I saw a set I hadn’t seen before. The light was dim in the dark room, so I moved closer. My hand flew to my mouth. On a wooden plinth were an exquisite dressage saddle and bridle. They were old, but their condition was immaculate.
I kneeled down to examine them further and spotted the Savona royal crest embossed onto the saddle’s skirt. I sensed him close by. I didn’t have to look around to know he was there.
“Achille, these are stunning.”
I heard him take a deep breath. Then I felt his body heat as he came closer. It took him several long seconds to say, “They were my mother’s.”
My heart melted at the gentle edge to his deep rasp. When he said the word “mother’s” it was more pronounced than the rest, as if he was unused to saying that word aloud. I supposed he was. He had never known her.
Not even a little bit.
“This was her championship tack?”
“Yes. My father kept it all these years. He took care of it every week for as long as I can remember—soaping, waxing and oiling the leather. I have not touched it since his death . . . but then . . . when you . . . the other day . . .” He stumbled over his words, and I looked up. His arms were crossed over his chest, his tense posture exuding discomfort.
“It’s beautiful.” As I looked back at the tack, his previous words finally sank into my brain. I have not touched it since his death . . . but then . . . when you . . . the other day . . .
A sudden pulse of emotion swept over me like a cresting wave. My fingers trembled as they ran over the cantle of the saddle. He had not touched it in several months . . . until now.
Until me.
“I . . . I thought that if you liked dressage, you might want to use this.” He shrugged one shoulder awkwardly. “Or not. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to, I—”
“I’d love to,” I interjected, cutting off his spiraling nervousness. Moving just inches from him, I looked straight into his bright sea-colored eyes and laid my hand on his. “I would be honored.”
Achille exhaled a deep, relieved sigh. We stayed that way for what felt like an eternity, simply sharing the same air, embracing our newfound peace. Then he stepped back and disappeared into a closet. When he came back out, he was carrying a pair of tall leather dressage boots. As with the tack, they had been polished to perfection.
“I didn’t know what size you were or if you had boots already . . .” He trailed off as we both looked at the boots on my feet.
His shoulders sagged, so I blurted, “I’m a European 37.”
Achille handed me the boots, and I tipped them upside down. The size imprint had worn off the sole.
“You can try them if you want?”
I walked to the chair, took a seat and placed the boots beside me. I tried to pull my boots off, but couldn’t get them past my heels. I was out of breath at the effort. I heard a burst of quiet laughter and lifted my eyes to see Achille watching me with unconcealed amusement on his face. His arms were crossed in front of his chest again.
In a rare display of humor, he said, “Do you normally have a servant to take them off for you?”
My mouth dropped at his quip. That only seemed to make him laugh more. My chest seized at the sight of him loosening up, and shivers trickled over my skin at his low-pitched chuckle.
“For your information, Signor Marchesi, I usually have a boot jack. I don’t suppose you have one of those lying around, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. But I have these.” Achille held his hands in the air and dropped down to his knees before me. I stared at him, unblinking. Achille raised a knee and tapped his thigh. “Give me a foot.”
I prayed he didn’t feel the slight trembling of my leg as I placed it on his thigh. The muscle was so hard and defined I could feel the ridges through the leather of my boot. Achille’s hands wrapped around the toe and heel of my boot. He pulled gently. The boot slipped off, and surprising me, he cupped my foot and ran his hands over the arch. No sooner had he touched me than he placed my foot on the floor. He drew up my other foot and repeated the process. I practically melted into the seat of the chair.
He had only touched my feet, and over my socks at that, yet his hands on me were almost my undoing. Everything he did, he did with such incredible intensity it was addictive. He didn’t speak much, but his actions displayed the kind of man he was.
Honest and pure.
Achille didn’t seem to have noticed my internal musings. He held up one of his mother’s boots and slipped it onto my foot. The leather was butter-soft as it slid over my calf. It was tight, but Achille pushed harder until it sat perfectly around my foot. I smiled as I looked down at my calf. As with the saddle, the royal Savona crest was embossed into the leather at the top of the boot.
Achille caught my smile and awarded me one in return. When both boots were on, Achille got to his feet as I rolled my toes, testing for feel.
“My feet have fallen asleep. They do that when I wear my riding boots—too tight a fit,” I said when I pressed my sole to the hard ground of the tack room. “I’m not sure I can get up!”
One of Achille’s hands was suddenly in front of my face, palm up. “I’ll help you,” he offered. I slipped my hand into his. Achille gently pulled me to stand, but the minute I was upright, the numbness increased tenfold, causing me to lose my footing.
I yelped as I stumbled. A hard wall of flesh broke my fall, two strong arms wrapping around my back to keep me steady. My palms reached out, trying to find purchase on something, only to land on Achille’s firm chest.
I knew I should have removed them immediately. The minute I felt the warm skin under my own, I should have backed away or insisted I sit back down.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I allowed the pads of my fingers to drink in the heat from Achille’s chest. I gave them permission to move, a painstakingly slow caress over his pectorals and down to the top of his defined abdominal muscles.
The more they explored the hard ridges, the tighter Achille’s arms became on my back.
He breathed.
I breathed.
The heat between us soared.
Yet neither of us moved away.
There was no urgency to separate, only an unspoken eagerness to stay close.
Magnets.
My head moved closer to his chest, my lips barely brushing over his burning skin. His fresh, earthy scent invaded my senses, taking me hostage. Achille’s hands on my back drew me closer, his hold an inescapable vise. He exhaled, the warm air sailing down the back of my neck and over the length of my spine. My head tipped up, as if starved of seeing Achille’s eyes. The tip of my nose edged along the bottom of his neck and up to the rough stubble of his jaw.
I felt his pounding heart pressing so closely against my own. They sang the same symphony, exactly, precisely, mirror images of the same beat.
Achille’s hands drew up, his fingers wrapping loosely into the strands of my hair. My lips traveled past his chin, to the corner of his mouth. I didn’t dare look up. I was not sure my heart could take the reaction that sea of blue would inspire.
The taste of coffee and mint kissed my cupid’s bow as I skirted the edges of my lips over his, the promise of our joining mouths hanging on a precipice.
I closed my eyes, needing to feel his lips against my own more than I needed to breathe, when suddenly a voice called out loudly from outside, “Achille?”
The deep call of his name was all it took for Achille to pull away. His arms released me from their protection, and he staggered back. His eyes were wide, like a deer caught in headlights. His chest rose and fell, betraying his panic.
“Achille?” the man’s voice sounded again, only closer to us this time. Achille raced from the tack room, leaving me alone.
I heard Achille greet the man and lead him away, and I slumped back down to the seat and placed my hands on my head. “What the hell are you doing?” I whispered aloud, closing my eyes, but swiftly opening them again when all I saw in the darkness was Achille’s lips a mere hairsbreadth from my own, his hands pressing me close against his torso and the taste of his skin on my tongue.
I didn’t know how long I sat on the seat, warring with my conscience. But I needed to move. I needed to do something to occupy my mind. I took the new tack Achille had given me over to Rosa in the paddock, and in no time at all, had her saddled up. I schooled her for an hour, squeezing the last rays of daylight from the sun. And I rode her hard. When I removed my hat, my hair was damp from exertion; my legs and arms ached from taming Rosa’s strength.
I set Rosa in her stable and, after feeding both horses and giving them fresh buckets of water, decided to find the man I had nearly kissed.
The melodic sound of “Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came drifting from the barn. I stopped at the door, peering inside. Achille was by the basket press, working hard, yet with the same thoroughness and gentleness I had seen from him in the days since we met.
As if he was beginning to be as aware of me as I was him, he lifted his head. A scarlet blush blossomed on his cheeks when he saw me hovering by the entrance. He turned his head from me, recommencing his work without a word. But it was only seconds later when he stood back from the wooden press, arms by his side and shoulders down.
It shattered my heart.
“Achille,” I said quietly, edging into the room.
Achille walked to a small box that must have been delivered by the man who interrupted us in the tack room. He took the top sheet of paper from the open box and ran his eyes over the page.
Taking a pen from his pocket, he clumsily drew a tick at the bottom of the paper and placed it back down. He held the pen tightly in his fist rather than with his fingers; I could see it shaking. It was obvious by the way he averted his eyes from me that he did not want to talk of what had happened between us.
“The tack was beautiful,” I said, trying to get him to at least acknowledge my presence. “Thank you for letting me use it.”
Achille briefly glanced my way, then nodded. He moved back to the press. Out of natural curiosity, I looked down to see what had been delivered. I recognized the familiar grayscale drawing of Bella Collina and the cursive script of the well-known title.
“The labels for this year’s vintage?” My own question was answered when I saw this year’s date written on the bottom of the sample label.
“Yes,” Achille said, without turning around.
I picked up the sheet and scanned the text. Achille had ticked the box that approved the sample. His tick was a messy scrawl, barely legible. I remembered his shaking hand and instantly felt guilty. I had completely thrown him off guard. So much so that he couldn’t even write.
I looked at the text again. Two. I counted two misspellings on the label. An l was missing from “Bella” and the r from “Merlot”.
“Achille?” I said. “Have you signed off on the labels?”
He stopped what he was doing and came closer. He wore a wary, almost fearful look on his face. I studied him as his blue gaze ran over the label. His dark eyebrows were furrowed and his lips were pursed.
I pointed to the mistakes. “There are two letters missing, here and here.”
Achille blinked and blinked again, then handed me the pen from his back pocket. “Could you circle them, please?” His hand was still trembling. Obviously I had completely shaken him.
It had even affected his work. Work that was his entire life, details that I knew he would never have overlooked had he not been distracted.
I took the pen from his hand. “Did you not see them?” I asked, trying to make conversation. “It was a silly mistake for the printers to make. They should have been more careful.”
Achille didn’t reply. I circled the mistakes, writing a note along the bottom of the sample to explain to the printers what was wrong. I lifted my head to see Achille standing by the countertop, gripping the edge tightly.
His back appeared to be trembling, and his head was downcast.
“Achille?” I inquired tentatively, only to rear back when Achille spun to face me wearing an expression so severe it turned my blood cold.
“I need you to go,” he said, no inflection of emotion in his flat voice.
“What?” I whispered, feeling the color drain from my face.
Achille glanced out of the barn doors to the darkened sky. “I need you to leave. I need you to go and never come back.”
Slices of pain rippled through my chest. I wondered if I was physically feeling the effects of a heart breaking, of the fissures cracking through the flesh. “Why? What did I do . . . ?”
“You are marrying the prince. I am a winemaker in the middle of the harvest for this estate’s most important vintage. I . . . you distract me. You . . . should not be here. I can’t think . . .”
“Achille—” I tried to protest, but he raised a hand to cut me off.
“Just . . . please, go.” This time his voice brooked no argument. Once again, I had no idea what I had done to hurt him, to cause him to be this upset. And I hated myself for caring. I should be heeding Achille’s words, thinking of Zeno. Instead, all I wanted to do was reach out and press my lips to his, just to see how it would feel.
“Please,” he whispered—no, begged me. Tears filled my eyes as I watched him curl in on himself, as if some devastating internal pain was causing him to retreat from the world.
I didn’t want to see him hurt. So when he looked into my eyes, and all I saw in their blue depths was unconcealed sadness, I did as he asked. I left the barn without a second glance. I didn’t look back as I ran home, Abrielle Bandini’s prized dressage boots still on my feet.
Even when I came through my balcony doors and arrived at my rooms, I didn’t turn to look at Achille’s house in the distance. I sat on the end of my bed and let myself slowly absorb the truth.
Over the past week, I had found myself increasingly drawn to the shy winemaker of the Bella Collina merlot. I rubbed at my chest, noticing for the first time that when I was not in his addictive presence, a dull ache would flare in my heart and would not calm down until I was back by his side.
I prayed this new development would fade as quickly as it appeared. Because Achille never wanted me to return. Not to ride Rosa, not to help him harvest the wine or laugh with him amongst the vines.
And that had to be okay with me.
Because I was the Duchessa di Parma, soon to marry the prince.
I just had to remind my heart of the fact.
Simple.