Carpathian 00 - The Scarletti Curse

addressing the don directly. "I understand you have called off the search for young Cristano." It was said as a challenge, yet she couldn't quite bring herself to meet the don's steady black gaze.
    "Is that true?" Nicoletta asked, swinging around to face her husband. In the morning light he was incredibly powerful looking, no hint of tenderness on his chiseled features. He looked aloof, remote; he looked the man who had left his bride on their wedding night for some secretive, clandestine errand he refused to discuss.
    "Yes, cara mia," he said with a hint of exasperated amusement in his drawling tone. Always ready to think the worst of me. The words were very clear in her mind, and a faint blush stole into her cheeks.
    She would have preferred to believe she was dreaming still when he returned to their bedchamber, but they had tangled together far too intimately for her to mistake that she was awake, gazing up, at his gleaming black eyes.
    Her glance jumped to meet his at this casual display of his speaking in her mind in the midst of so many others. He bent to brush her temple with his mouth. "I received word that your Cristano is alive and safe, hiding in the villaggio a day's ride from yours. I needed my soldiers and thought it an indignity to the young man's ego to force him to return home." He bowed toward Maria Pia. "Signorina Sigmora, I trust you slept well." His white teeth flashed the smile of a wolf, before he turned and took his leave of them.
    Maria Pia crossed herself, alarmed by the don's look. "I think he threatened me," she whispered softly to Nicoletta, acutely conscious of the guards nearby. "And why does he still have those men following you?
    I thought they were only to keep you from running away before the wedding. He is your husband now."
    The subject was a sore one, so Nicoletta chose not to answer. "Where is Sophie?" she asked instead. "I expected to see her here." She couldn't look at Maria Pia, couldn't meet her steady gaze, terrified that her mentor would know all the wanton things she had been doing. For one awful moment tears burned in her eyes, threatening to give her away.
    "The little imp is no doubt up to no good. I fear she needs taking in hand." Maria Pia's voice was scolding but already held genuine affection. "I should track her down and insist she learn manners. I think that, like another little girl I once knew, she runs free, with no one to see to her education or refinement."
    "My thoughts exactly," Nicoletta agreed. She smiled at Bernado and accepted the bread fresh from the oven, trying to act as natural as possible, her gaze avoiding contact with his. The bread was warm and delicious. She ignored the fact that one of her guards had eaten a chunk of it before a share was given to her. She was uneasy, her body slightly but deliciously sore, her mind nervously skittering away from and back to the things she had done in the privacy of the bedchamber with the don. There was no sense in asking Maria Pia about the things that properly went on between a husband and wife; doubtless she would make Nicoletta go to confession and light a dozen candles.
    Long after her morning meal, Nicoletta could still feel the shadows in her mind, a growing uneasiness that chipped away at her natural happiness. She went through the motions of meeting some of the workers in the palazzo, managed to laugh and jest with them even though Gostanz obviously didn't approve of such intimacies with his staff. She tried not to think about the gossip and speculation. That the don's new bride was an innocent and didn't know how to please such a man. That that was why he had left her their very first night together. Or worse, that they all knew she had wanted to do the forbidden, sinful things she had Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    done. By late afternoon the shadows within her began to lengthen and grow so much that she sought refuge in the alcove with the shrine to the Madonna.
    The small alcove was dimly lit, and Nicoletta waved the guards away to give herself some much-needed privacy. Kneeling, she lit several candles, praying silently to the Madonna and her own madre for guidance with her new husband. His personality so overwhelmed hers. He could make her want him so easily, removing her inhibitions and all sane thoughts until she could only feel, think only of him, of pleasing him. He made her feel things she had never dreamed of, never imagined, made her want