The Impatient Groom. SARA WOOD

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СКАЧАТЬ A few hundred. And there are many minor nobles. We still keep our titles, even after Napoleon abolished them. Sophia, I would not lie about this. What would be my motive? Think about it Surely you don’t imagine that D’Antiga would have been so anxious about his daughter’s marriage if he were a butcher or a gondolier, or perhaps an ice-cream seller?’

      ‘I—I don’t know!’ she mumbled, unable to take in what he was saying. It made horrible sense suddenly. ‘I s-suppose,’ she said slowly, leaping to a conclusion that made sense to her and stumbling over her words, ‘he was desperate. He’d lost his money and needed his daughter to marry someone rich to preserve—’

      ‘He’s wealthy. Always has been.’

      With her idea shot down in flames, she shook her head slightly to clear the confusion there. ‘Then why did he insist on this loveless marriage?’

      ‘You have to be careful of fortune hunters,’ Rozzano said abruptly. ‘If wealth marries wealth, the partners are equal.’

      Sophia let her horror show. ‘No wonder Mother ran away if that’s the way you aristocrats think!’ she said indignantly, putting the notebook firmly away. ‘Love is the only reason for marriage! Anything else would make a mockery of marriage vows taken before God! I’m proud that she valued love more than money—’

      ‘She could have had both.’ The prince smiled a little wryly at her raised eyebrows and spoke slowly and with emphasis as if aware that her fuddled brain was working at a snail’s pace. ‘Your mother was an heiress with a fortune of her own.’

      Silence. Stunned by his claim, she stared at him, frowning. That couldn’t be right. They’d been horribly poor. They’d shivered in the draughty vicarage and worn extra jumpers and socks against the cold. If there had been money, it had long since gone.

      She tried to speak, to tell them this, but the words wouldn’t come.

      Rozzano had moved closer and was now standing over her. She had to look up to see his face, her eyes skittering nervously over his superb body.

      Was he deliberately dominating her? she wondered. She contemplated jumping up and doing a bit of striding around herself, but she knew that right at this moment her legs would buckle. A weak, rubbery goo seemed to have replaced her bones.

      He pushed back his jacket and thrust his hands into his pockets, drawing her unwilling attention to his narrow waist and slim hips. She lowered her eyes. He was speaking and his purring voice curled into her with remorseless insistence, distracting her even from the staggering claim he’d made about her mother.

      He is unbelievably magnetic, she thought, terrified that he’d realise—rightly—that her shallow breathing wasn’t entirely due to his revelations. Desperately she struggled to stop herself reacting so stupidly to Rozzano’s highoctane sex appeal and to attend to what he was saying.

      ‘But you’ll find that your grandfather,’ he was telling her smoothly, ‘is a kind and generous man. He would be very happy to see you take your place in Venetian society.’

      She gave a short laugh, seeing herself parading in a tiara and ermine-trimmed robes, or whatever count’s granddaughters wore. Probably fluorescent Versace and a baseball cap nowadays, she thought mefully, trying to make herself see the funny side.

      Rozzano frowned faintly at her scathing expression. ‘You’re amused?’

      ‘No. Yes. I’m sorry. But it’s so crazy! I apologise if my reaction has offended you. It’s just that I think you should check your facts. Far from being an heiress, my mother was impoverished.’

      ‘How do you know?’

      She gave him a pitying glance. ‘Because of the way we lived. I know she adored us. She would have shared her money with us, then left it to Father. But he and I lived from hand to mouth! He never had a bean. Look at me! Look at these clothes! They hardly shout “Heiress!”, do they? They come from the local nearly new shop!’

      She cast a realistic glance at herself. It wasn’t surprising that he’d been riveted by her appearance. Having compared her to the photo of Violetta D‘Antiga, he would have begun to wonder how Violetta could have given birth to such a poorly dressed shambles of a woman!

      ‘All I know is that she didn’t touch her trust fund. It’s still intact in a Venetian bank,’ Rozzano said relentlessly.

      ‘But... why would she do that, deliberately make herself poor?’ Sophia demanded in disbelief.

      ‘Pride and fear,’ answered Frank. ‘Violetta’s father was—is—one of the trustees. She would have had to ask him to release the money. From what your father said, I gather she felt her happiness would have been compromised by wealth—something she didn’t want to risk. I had the whole story from your father; it’s in this letter.’ He held it out to her.

      ‘I can’t believe that!’ she cried vehemently, desperate to deny it all, afraid of the doubts crowding her mind, afraid there might be some truth in this preposterous story.

      Suddenly she felt very scared, as if the ground had been swept from under her to leave a gaping hole beneath. And she was falling into it, like it or not.

      Words spun around her mind. Italian. Venice. A count. An heiress. Obviously she’d fallen asleep by the window in Frank’s waiting room and this was a dream, prompted by thinking of the prince. She drove her top teeth into her lower lip.

      And knew she was awake.

      Shaking, she clapped a hand to her forehead. It burned, yet her cheek felt clammy. A fever. Hallucinations, then.

      ‘Please... ’ she whispered, feeling hot and unbearably dizzy. ‘I—I can’t breathe...’

      Strong arms enfolded her, one slipping around her back, one tucking beneath her knees. He’d done this before, she thought muzzily, and pouted, irrationally resenting all the women he’d carried to bed. Her head swam as she was raised in the air as if she weighed nothing.

      Nauseous, with the room seeming to whirl about her, she allowed herself to be borne a short distance to an old sofa by the window, where Rozzano gently laid her.

      Her eyes closed as she fought the swirling mist filling her head. She mustn’t pass out. She had to focus her mind, deal with this mad suggestion... And yet Frank had been so certain. It couldn’t be true...could it?

      A moan whispered through her pale lips. The evidence was overwhelming. Why else had the prince come to England? The facts were staring her in the face. Frank was convinced. So was the prince. That meant... She groaned, then shuddered when Rozzano whispered something to her and his fingers lightly smoothed her furrowed brow.

      ‘Water, please!’ he called urgently.

      Warm silk touched her chin. A jacket lining, she thought hazily, as its weight settled across her body. It smelled of him, a fragrance that was faint and elusive but wonderfully enticing, like the natural perfumes her mother had used. And she wanted to reach up her arms and pull him down to her till his cheek rested against hers and she could inhale those delicious scents.

      Instead she kept her eyes tightly shut, giving herself thinking space. And time to settle her wild and shocking urges. Something awful had happened to her. The news had weakened her, torn her apart and left her defences open to the first devastatingly handsome СКАЧАТЬ