Page 9 of Captive in His Castle
Cheeks burning, although she didn’t know what they were burning for, it took a moment for Callie to realise Bernard was waiting patiently for her.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“But of course. You are a guest of the Castello, not a prisoner.”
“And how does that work if I’m not allowed to leave?”
“Our instructions are only that we must not facilitate you leaving, not that we must use means to prevent you from doing so.”
“Oh.”
Well that put a slightly different complexion of things. She’d had half an idea that Dante’s idea of treating her as a house guest would be to lock her in the castle dungeon. Did itevenhavea dungeon? Probably best not to ask. She didn’t want to give him ideas.
There was something wildly unpredictable about the wildly handsome Dante Coscarelli. Something wild about him full stop, a wildness the impeccably groomed exterior barely disguised, and as she glanced at his retreating figure disappearing into the distance, a shiver that could almost be classed as excitement snaked up her spine.
Disgusted with herself for feeling anything other than loathing for that man, she set off alongside the butler, allowing only one thought to occupy her mind – escape. Knowing she wouldn’t be locked away would make it a piece of cake.
“How big is the estate?” she asked as they followed a footpath that snaked around the glorious lawned garden. She didn’t want to admire it. She didn’t want to admire anything associated with the kidnapping bastard who’d forced her here.
“In total? Close to four thousand hectares.”
“Is that a lot?”
“About forty square kilometres.”
Even Callie’s non-maths-inclined brain knew that was a lot. Oh well. It didn’t matter. She would gladly walk any distance to escape this place and get herself to Accardiano before it was too late.
“Is the entire estate guarded?”
“All the entry points are.”
She thought of the smaller tracks dividing the quadrant of crops she’d seen coming off the encircling driveway. The end of those tracks had to be the entry points. Which had to mean there were lots of unguarded areas. Lots and lots of unguarded areas. If she could make her way to the main entry of the actual driveway, she’d be reasonably close to the road she’d spotted. She could slip through the cypress trees onto that road, throw herself in front of the first passing car andvoila. Help would be just a shortishdrive away.
“But the entire perimeter is impenetrable,” Bernard warned, clearly guessing the direction of her thoughts. “There has been only one intrusion since Signor Coscarelli bought the estate.”
If history had taught Callie anything, it was that nothing was impenetrable. And she wasn’t going to try gettingintothe grounds.
Almost at the door Bernard was leading her to, a clear plan had revealed itself. The second Dante flew back to Accardiano in the morning, she would go for a walk. She would walk for as long as it took to escape this prison, find help, and find her way to Niccolo. And then she would make Dante Coscarelli rue the day he’d decided it was perfectly okay to indulge in a spot of kidnap to help out an old friend.
Chapter Three
Dante sensed the change in Callie’s mood the moment she joined him in the reception room. The ball of angst and fury had calmed, and when she met his stare after a long glass of freshly made lemonade, knowingness rang out of the large eyes.
He gave a smile of equal knowing. “You have planned your escape?”
She tapped the end of her long, thin nose.
“You believe me now that no harm will come to you?”
“I wouldn’t believe you if you told me the grass was green.”
“Then you will have to take it on trust that you will see Sunday above ground and not buried amongst the grapevines.”
“Wherever I am on Sunday, it won’t be here.”
“I would beg to differ, but I can see it would be a waste of my breath.” If Callie thought she could simply walk out of the estate, then she would learn the error of her ways the hard way. “Ready to be shown to your room?”
