The Sin of Cynara Read Online Free PDF Page B

divert him from his pursuance of that doubt in his Italian mind that she had ever been one of his brother's women. 'It's my one vanity, or so I like to believe. If I let down my braids will you be convinced of my — veracity?'
      'Any man convinced of a woman's veracity is either a dolt or a saint, and I am neither. I have also learned that a woman does no man a favour without exacting something in return. What do you want of me, English Miss?
      She almost gasped aloud, for her heart seemed to
      leap right into her throat at the way he spoke those last two words, his voice sinking down into a sort of darkness.
      'I -I want a better life for Teri than I can give him — that's all, signore baróne.' There was a throb in her voice ... almost a sob.
      'That is all?' Smoke curled about his features, losing itself in the thrusting bones and hollows and fearful scars. 'Surely not all - from his mother who gave him life?'
      'All right!' She sat there very straight in the high Italian chair and she looked directly into those searching eyes. T want to stay with Teri if you say he can live here at Falconetti. But I don't want your charity - I've never taken that from anyone and I've always worked for my bed and board.'
      'And what would you like to work at in my house?'
      'I - I can help around the palazzo, which is obviously a large establishment. I'm unafraid of hard work, signore.'
      'I have housemaids and a cook, and they would be highly indignant if I took on English help in my very Italian household.'
      'I see.' Carol's hands were trembling in her lap, for it had cost her a lot of pride to appeal to this man in this way. 'You will accept Teri, but not me?'
      'Have I said so?'
      'Not in so many words, but it's there in your face -what you feel.'
      'Really, madam? I can hardly feel anything with one side of my face, for the nerves are dead. Perhaps you assume that my heart is dead to go with my face?'
      'N-nothing of the sort, signore. It just seems obvious to me that I wouldn't fit into your household, and I can almost read your mind as you look at me and see the - the woman Vincenzo lived with in England.'
      'Never presume to know my mind.' He spoke curtly and ground out the remains of his cigar in the bronze ashtray. 'It just wouldn't suit me to have my nephew's mother working as a servant in my house.'
      'I wouldn't mind—'
      'I would, and so it is out of the question.'
      'I see.' Hope began to die coldly inside her at the implacability of the baróne's face and voice. 'Hasn't a palazzo as large as this one a library of many books? It was my work, caring for books, before - oh, before I worked for my aunts in their tea-room. I love working among books—'
      'Truly an old-fashioned girl, eh?'
      'Yes -I suppose so.'
      'With hair to the base of your spine, or so you claim.'
      'Beyond my spine, and I can prove it.'
      'Very well !' Something came into his eyes that made her think vividly of Vincenzo; a devil light that cast out responsible thinking and took in its place a moment of sheer recklessness. 'If you can really prove to me that you can sit on your hair, then the job in my library is yours. But if you've been bragging—'
      'I never brag, signore.' Carol stood up and thrusting from her that first prudish impulse to make a dash from this man who might be far more dangerous than Vincenzo had ever been, she lifted her hands and began the ritual of letting down her light golden hair ; a ritual seen only by one other male, and he a small boy of five.
      Now in front of a man almost a stranger she released the gleaming serpent of hair until it rolled slowly down her back, uncoiled and alive with motes of gold, dropping down the slimness of her body until it reached past her hips and then her slenderly curved bottom.
      She stood there in a stream of sunlight through the high Italian windows and felt curiously naked as the eyes of Rudolph Falcone ran down her body and her unbound