The Impatient Groom. SARA WOOD

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      CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS a brilliant solution, he thought. A strange, breathless excitement stole over him. He didn’t love her-never could love any woman. But she would make the perfect wife.

      Her hands had moved to his upper thigh. They trembled as she tested the movement of his femur. It was obvious from her hesitant touch that she knew little of men. A surge of excitement almost betrayed him as he imagined teaching her the pleasures of the flesh.

      His breathing rasped harshly. He could hardly wait. Sophia even had money of her own! Too many titleseekers and materialistic women had propositioned him. But Sophia...she was different. She had values he admired. She had an eagerness to work and concern for others. She had nursed her ailing father and, more important, she adored children.

      Children. He bucked as a shaft of pain sliced through him when the nightmare memory forced its way to the surface. Her hand rested gently on his chest and thinking of her sweet face helped him to drive the dark hell away again.

      ‘He may have cracked a rib,’ she said anxiously. ‘Did you see how his chest contracted then?’

      Racked with guilt, he suffered the gentle exploration of her hands. The pain was deeper than she knew. Deep enough to shut off his heart for ever. Like his father, he had married into the D‘Antiga family. He’d been twentyeight, and had fallen head over heels for the recently divorced Nicoletta who, unknown to him, had a highly colourful sexual past.

      A dainty, extravagant thirty-two, she had worked her wiles on him and stolen his heart. They’d only been married for two years when she’d died, pregnant with his child.

      Desperately he pushed back the rest of the horror. He couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t make it known. If he did, the Barsini name would be vilified.

      But Sophia could ease his nightmares. He needed her tenderness. Hope began to surge through him, and for the first time in years he believed he could find some kind of happiness.

      And she? He tried to see his intentions from her point of view. She had shown an appealingly bewildered interest in him. The sex would be fantastic. Her passions ran deep, with an intensity that matched his own. He’d read that in her eyes, in every gesture of her highly charged body.

      He could make her happy. He would make her happy. And he could help her to cope, too. It would be hard for her, he argued, to dive head first into Venetian society without a guide. And who better than him to be her mentor?

      ‘He’s still not responding! I think we should call the doctor,’ she said anxiously.

      ‘Gone to Durbridge,’ came the reply. ‘Vet’s not far, though. Or the baby nurse’ll be along in a minute.’

      Rozzano held back a grin. He’d better ‘recover’ before he experienced some interesting medical practices! Then all he had to do was to win her over—and quickly, before the wolf pack moved in, intent on her money and title. Opening his eyes slowly, he saw the relief on her pale, wide-eyed face.

      ‘You’re all right!’

      He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her. And felt a fraud for his deception. ‘Shaken,’ he said uncomfortably, even though it was the truth.

      There was a murmur from the crowd and he was immediately bathed in smiles and friendly words of warning to be careful, to take it easy, to sit up slowly when he felt ready, no rush, don’t you fret...

      He felt bad and couldn’t meet their eyes. Many hands helped him to sit and then stand. Someone brushed dust from his back. Someone else offered to fetch him a brandy from the nearby pub. The local midwife—presumably the baby nurse-anxiously offered her services and he declined with gravity yet with a twinkle in his eyes which set everyone laughing.