His cool confirmation that he was who she believed he was shook Darcy up even more. In the back of her mind she had still somehow expected and foolishly hoped that Luca would turn with a raised brow to tell her that he hadn't a clue what she was talking about.
'You don't understand,' she began, in an unsteady attempt to defend herself, so confused was she still. 'I could hardly see you that night, not in any detail...your face was a blur and out of focus—you looked different...'
'I guess one bird for the plucking looks much like another,' Luca responded with a sardonic bite that sizzled down her spine like a hurricane warning and made her turn even paler.
A bird for the plucking? She didn't understand that crack any more than she could understand anything else. As they left the churchyard her attention fell on the big silver limousine waiting by the kerb. Pressed into a vehicle which was the very last word in expensive luxury, she was even more bewildered. Benito swung into the front seat. The tinted glass barrier between the front and the back of the limo was partially open, denying them privacy.
Darcy snatched in a shuddering breath. Her brain ached, all at once throwing up a dozen even more confusing inconsistencies. In a daze, she struggled hopelessly to superimpose the image of the Luca she had thought she was getting to know over her memory of the male who had romanced her in Venice, the sleek, seductive rat who had torn her inside out with the pain of loss...#p#分页标题#e#
Involuntarily she focused on Luca again. There was a strikingly relaxed quality to the indolent sprawl of his strong, supple body. In the state Darcy was in, that supreme poise and cool was uniquely intimidating.
Within minutes the limo drew up outside the Folly. Darcy scrambled out in haste, her heartbeat banging in her eardrums. With damp, nerveless hands she unlocked and thrust open the heavy front door to walk into the echoing medieval hall with its aged flagstoned floor.
She spun round, then, to face Luca, where he had stilled by the giant smoke-blackened stone fireplace. Her oval face was stiff with strain as she attempted to match his aura of complete self-command.
'I can't believe that coincidence has anything to do with this...' Darcy admitted jaggedly.
'Very wise.' Luca surveyed her with a grim satisfaction that was chilling.
'How could you possibly have found out who I was...or where I lived?'
'With persistence, no problem is insuperable. It took time, but I had you traced.'
'You had me traced...dear heaven, why?' Darcy could not hide her incredulity. 'Why the heck would you even want to do such a thing?'
'Don't play dumb,' Luca advised with derision.
Darcy shook her head dizzily as she braced her hands on the back of a tapestry-covered chair to steady herself. 'You came to that interview in disguise...you have to be certi-fiably nuts to have gone to such outrageous lengths—'
'No...merely guilty of the inexpressibly vain assumption that I might be in some danger of being recognised.'
Darcy winced at that jibe and closed her eyes, but then she had to open them again, possessed as she was by a sick compulsion to keep on watching Luca. But his lean, hard features betrayed nothing. 'Why did you do this? What's in it for you? You can't be unemployed or b-broke.'
'No... What was that vulgar term you used about your fortunate friend, Maxie? I'm "loaded",' Luca conceded with a scornful twist of his lips. 'But you will not profit from that reality, I assure you.'
'I don't understand...' Her hand flew up to her pounding temples. 'I'm getting the most awful headache.'
'Retribution hurts,' Luca slotted in softly. 'And by the time I am finished with you, a headache will be the very least of your problems.'
'What's that supposed to mean? For heaven's sake...are you threatening me?' Darcy gasped, releasing her hold on the chair to take an angry step forward.
'No, I believe I am revelling in the extraordinary sense of power I'm experiencing. I've never felt like that around a woman before,' Luca mused thoughtfully. 'But then, where you are concerned, I have no pity.'
'You're trying to scare me...'
'How easily do you scare?' Luca enquired with appalling self-possession.
'You don't behave like the man I met in Venice!' Darcy condemned shakily.
'You're not the woman I met then either. But she'll emerge eventually... I have this wonderful conviction that over the next six months whatever I want, I will receive.' Brilliant dark eyes gleamed with cruel amusement below level black brows. 'My every wish will be your command. Nothing will be too much trouble. I will just snap my fingers and you will jump...'
Darcy tried and failed to swallow. The living nightmare of her own confusion was growing. While one small part of her stood back and believed that he was talking outrageous nonsense, all the rest of her was horribly impressed by the lethal edge of cool, collected threat in that rich, dark drawl and the deadly chill in his level gaze. 'What are you trying to say?'