The Purest of Diamonds(49)
‘My grandmother appreciates her own space,’ Raffa explained as he turned off the main road onto an impressive tree-lined drive.
‘And who could blame your grandmother for wanting to get away from you?’ Leila said dryly. ‘Or for wanting to live here?’ she breathed, taking in the magnificent surroundings.
The picturesque drive boasted a shady avenue of lush green trees that led the way to a quaint sprawling manor house built of stone. With a cheery red front door and dozens of mullioned windows twinkling a welcome, the picture-postcard setting was made complete by a chorus line of colourful songbirds perched on the gabled roof. The manor house was one of the prettiest buildings Leila had ever seen, and was set off to perfection by the banks of flower beds in front of it, and the spray of cooling fountains in the yard.
‘It’s like a fairy dell,’ she said, glancing around.
‘My grandmother works hard on the gardens, but so far no sighting of fairies.’ Pushing his sunglasses back on his head, Raffa opened the car door for her with a slanting smile.
‘Just before we go in...’ Leila turned to face Raffa beneath a porch extravagantly swagged with peach-coloured wisteria. ‘What exactly have you told your grandmother about us?’
‘That I’m bringing a very good friend to meet her. That is what we agreed, isn’t it?’
She confirmed this tensely with a nod. She wouldn’t have believed it possible for any woman to have a platonic friendship with Raffa Leon, so it appeared she had achieved the impossible.
Wearing jeans and a tight-fitting top that clung to his sculpted muscles with loving attention to detail, rugged, too handsome for his own good, Raffa exuded raw, animal sex, and it was impossible to stand this close to him without imagining being intimate with him. It didn’t help that she had some rather compelling memories to draw on.
‘You look fine,’ he said as she fiddled with her dress.
She’d chosen it carefully, thinking Raffa’s grandmother had enough to contend with today without a fashion crisis hitting her between the eyes. It was a pretty dress with a floral pattern, a respectable neckline and a knee-length skirt.
‘My grandmother speaks fluent English, though no Scandinavian languages,’ Raffa explained, ‘but as you’re both fluent in English...’
‘We’ll be fine.’
Raffa was such a distraction she was careful not to look at him and it was a relief to hear footsteps inside the house coming closer. There was one brief moment when her concentration lapsed as Raffa eased onto one hip and her pulse jagged, but she quickly turned her thoughts to meeting his grandmother and everything settled down again.
The housekeeper’s welcome was warm. Her apple cheeks were split by a wide smile as she embraced Raffa, proving he was clearly a popular visitor. The rest of the staff seemed excited by his arrival as they walked through the exquisitely furnished house, and Leila was conscious of attracting quite a bit of interest too.
‘The dowager duchess is in the garden,’ the housekeeper explained as she led them through a light-filled orangery.
The dowager duchess. Leila’s heart began to pound. The title alone made Raffa’s grandmother sound quite formidable.
* * *
Far from being a grande dame, as Leila had feared, the dowager duchess turned out to be a dainty, bird-like woman, with silver hair twisted into a casual bun on top of her head with a moth-eaten straw hat crammed on top of it. Wiry and upright, she was dressed in wide-legged linen trousers and a serviceable, long-sleeved blouse. A multi-pocketed gardening apron in a nondescript dun colour, out of which protruded an assortment of stakes, recent snippings and secateurs, completed her outfit. She was very much in charge of a squad of gardeners, whom she was directing as briskly as a sergeant major around her park-sized garden.