The Italian Duke's Virgin Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

off the joy of witnessing such artistry. Only of course the great masters had never taken on female pupils—not even tomboy female pupils.
    Once she had dreamed of working amongst great works of art in one of London’s famous museums, as an art historian, but that dream had come to an end with her parents’ death.
    Dragging her gaze from the frescoes, she shook her head like someone coming out of a deep dream and said slowly to Raphael, ‘Giovanni Battista Zelotti, themost famous of all fresco painters of his era. He would never tell anyone the recipe he used for his famous blue paint, and the secret died with him.’
    Raphael nodded his head. ‘My ancestor commissioned him after he had seen the fresco he painted for the Medicis in Florence.’
    He looked at his watch, his movement catching Charley’s attention. His wrists were muscular, and the dark hairs on his arm underlined his maleness, making her stomach muscles tighten into a slow ache that permeated the whole of her lower body. What would it be like to be touched, held by such a man? To know the polished, controlled expertise of his stroke against her skin…? And he would be an expert at knowing what gave a woman the most pleasure…The slow ache flared into something more intense, causing Charley to catch her breath as she tried to hold her own against her body’s attack on her defences. It must be Italy that was making her feel like this—Italy, and the knowledge that she was so close to the cities she had longed to visit and their wonderful art treasures, not Raphael himself. That could not be—must not be.

CHAPTER THREE
    W ARMTH, sunshine, a scent on the air coming in through the open balcony windows that was both unfamiliar and enticing, and a large bed with the most wonderful sheets she had ever slept in. And despite everything she had slept, Charley admitted as she luxuriated guiltily in the delicious comfort of the bed and her surroundings, having been woken only minutes earlier by a discreet knock on her bedroom door, followed by the entrance of a smiling young maid with Charley’s breakfast.
    When Raphael’s housekeeper had brought her up here last night she had felt slightly daunted, but to her relief Anna, as she had told Charley she must call her, had quickly put her at her ease, organising a light meal for her, and telling her that breakfast would be sent up to her room for her because ‘Il Duce—’ as she had referred to Raphael ‘—takes his breakfast very early when he is here, so that he can go out and speak to the men whilst they are working with the vines.’
    Charley was, of course, relieved that she didn’t haveto have breakfast with Raphael, and it wasn’t because she was curious about him in any way at all that as she left the bed she was drawn to the balcony windows and the view of the vines she had already seen beyond the gardens that lay immediately below them. Slipping the band she used to tie her hair back off her face over her wrist, Charley padded barefoot to the balcony in her strappy sleep top with matching shorts—a Christmas present from the twins. The outfit was loose on her, due to the weight she had lost over these last anxious weeks.
    It was wonderful to feel the warmth of the sun on her bare skin. Charley turned her face up towards it, and then tensed as she heard Raphael’s voice and then saw him appear round the corner of the building, accompanied by another man with whom he was deep in conversation. Both men were dressed casually, in short-sleeved shirts and chinos, but it was to Raphael that her attention was drawn as the two men shook hands and the older man began to walk away, leaving Raphael standing alone. The blue linen of his shirt emphasised the tanned flesh of his bare forearms. A beam of sunlight touched the strong column of his throat. Charley had to curl her fingers in an attempt to quell the longing itching in them—not a desire to pick up a piece of charcoal and sketch his lean, erotically