‘But you do care about your brothers and sisters, and especially Lucilla,’ Sophie said intuitively. ‘You say you’re not interested in the Chatsfield, but Lucilla cares about it, and for her sake you should consider attending the shareholders’ meeting.’
‘It seems to me that the best way I can help my sister is to refuse to go along with what Christos wants. I have no problem with being a thorn in his side,’ Nicolo said harshly.
He trapped Sophie’s gaze and she felt swamped by the force of his powerful personality. ‘You’ve lost the argument, Miss Ashdown, and tomorrow morning you can trot back to your boss and tell him that my answer hasn’t changed. I will not be at the meeting.’
He moved abruptly away from the table and Sophie released her pent-up breath on a shaky sigh as she was freed from Nicolo’s magnetic spell. She was shocked by her reaction to him. While he had been leaning across the table her eyes had zeroed in on his mouth and she had found herself fantasizing about him slanting his lips over hers. Her instincts warned her he would not be a gentle lover. There was something faintly barbaric about the stern line of his mouth and she sensed his kiss would be fiercely passionate and mercilessly demanding.
No way was she interested in Nicolo, Sophie assured herself as she watched him stride out of the room. The men she dated were liberal, open-minded and completely comfortable with equality between the sexes—definitely not the kind of men who would haul a woman over their shoulder and carry her off in the manner of a primitive heathen.
She collected up the dinner plates and carried them out to the kitchen. As she loaded the dishwasher her thoughts returned to Nicolo, and she gave a rueful sigh. She doubted he had even heard of the term New Man. She was annoyed by her inexplicable fascination with him. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a man. She was no longer in love with Richard, but she could never forget the reason why he had ended their relationship and the hurt had not completely faded. Her inability to give Richard the family he wanted had made her feel deficient, and the sense of abandonment she had felt when he had broken off their relationship had brought back memories of how she had felt abandoned by her father.
Her attraction to Nicolo was simply sexual chemistry, Sophie reminded herself. She had no intention of giving in to the disturbing feelings he evoked in her. Dangerously sexy highway-men were fine in historical romance novels but they had no place in real life.
* * *
Sophie did not know what had woken her. For a moment she felt disorientated. The intense darkness in her room was thick and muffling, as only the darkness of the countryside was without the gleam through the curtains of car headlamps or street lights that polluted the night sky in towns and cities. The luminous dial on her watch showed that it was 3:00 a.m. From far away she heard a low rumble of thunder. Maybe that was what had disturbed her?
She settled back down on the pillows, but now that she was awake she was conscious of strange noises in an unfamiliar house. The tick of the grandfather clock on the landing seemed overly loud, and she prayed that the scrabbling sound from the wardrobe wasn’t a mouse. Her heart missed a beat as she became aware of another noise.
Someone was in her room!
She could hear heavy, panting breaths coming closer to the bed.
Tense with fear, she put out a hand and groped for the lamp on the bedside table. Her fingers came into contact with something hairy and she stifled a scream as she felt hot breath on her face.
Frantically she managed to locate the lamp switch and turned it on.
‘Oh, heavens! Dorcha!’ she gasped when she saw the dog. Relief flooded through her as the huge hound nuzzled her arm. ‘You terrified me. I thought …’
She had thought all sorts of stupid things. Only children were worried about ghosts and things that went bump in the night, Sophie acknowledged ruefully. ‘Go back to your basket,’ she instructed the wolfhound. ‘I’m going to try and get to sleep.’
But as she reached to turn off the lamp she heard loud shouts, followed by a dreadful groaning that chilled her blood.
It sounded as though someone, or something, was in terrible pain. The groaning came again and Sophie knew she had not imagined it. Apart from Dorcha, only she and Nicolo were in the house. Silence fell, and she held her breath. But then it came again, this time a cry of such raw agony that she could not bear it. Jumping out of bed, she did not waste time pulling on her dressing gown as she hurried out of her bedroom and along the landing.
She did not know where Nicolo’s room was, but the groans were coming from the far end of the corridor. Sophie hesitated outside the bedroom door as another desperate cry came from within, and it occurred to her that maybe a burglar had broken into the house and was attacking Nicolo.
Swallowing, she picked up a heavy pewter vase from the bureau and, gripping it tightly, she turned the door handle.
The moon was on this side of the house and it cast faint grey light through the chink in the curtains. Sophie could make out a shadowy figure lying on the bed, but there was no one else in the room. Nicolo gave a low cry that sounded as though it had been torn from his soul. What hellish place was his mind trapped in? she wondered as she stepped farther into the room.
‘Nicolo …’ she said softly.
‘Get out!’ He shouted harshly. ‘For God’s sake, go!’
‘All right, I’m going. I’m sorry.’ Sophie shot out of the door, hot-faced with embarrassment. Clearly she had been wrong and he hadn’t been asleep and dreaming. Heaven knew why he had been making those blood-curdling groans, but she wasn’t going to go back in and ask him.
She scuttled back along the landing, but his shouts followed her.
‘Get out! If we don’t get out, we’ll die.’
Nicolo was asleep, and having a nightmare, Sophie realised. She was reluctant to return to his room but his harrowing cries made her turn back.
This time she entered his room and walked across to the bed. As she drew closer she saw that he was lying on his back, one arm thrown across his face. In the moon shadow she could make out his long dark hair on the pillow.
‘Nicolo, wake up.’
He groaned again.
Desperate to rouse him, Sophie touched his shoulder. ‘Nicolo …’
She let out a startled cry when he suddenly gripped her wrist and gave a forceful tug. Caught off balance, she fell on top of him.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nicolo—it’s me, Sophie.’
‘Sophie?’ His deep voice was slurred.
‘Sophie Ashdown—remember me? You’ve been dreaming….’
There was silence for a few moments. ‘I grew out of wet dreams a long time ago,’ he drawled finally. ‘This is no dream. You feel very real to me, Sophie.’
To Sophie’s shock he tightened his hold on her wrist and moved his other hand to the small of her back, pressing her down so that she was acutely conscious of his muscular body beneath her. Only the sheet and her nightdress separated them. Sophie could feel the hard sinews of his thighs. She caught her breath as she felt something else hard jab into her stomach. Nicolo was no longer caught up in a nightmare; he was awake, alert—and aroused.
She hurriedly reminded herself that it was a common phenomenon for males to wake up with an erection and it did not mean that Nicolo was responding to her in a sexual way. The same could not be said for her body, however.
‘For goodness’ sake, let me up,’ she said sharply, frantically trying to