His Reluctant Bride. Sara Craven

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СКАЧАТЬ who had come, silent and completely unsuspected, to stand behind her.

      She recoiled with a little cry, and immediately his hands gripped her arms to steady her.

      ‘Forgive me,’ he said quietly. ‘I did not mean to startle you.’

      She freed herself, her heart thudding. ‘I—I didn’t expect to see you.’

      His brows lifted. ‘You thought I would celebrate our fidanzamento by staying out all night,’ he asked ironically.

      Polly lifted her chin. ‘Even if you did,’ she said, ‘it would be no concern of mine. Do whatever you want.’

      ‘You are giving me permission to stray, cara mia?’ Sandro drawled. ‘How enlightened of you, but totally unnecessary. Because I shall, indeed, do as I please.’ He paused. ‘I thought you would be in bed.’

      ‘I’m just going,’ she said hastily.

      She wanted to escape. With his arrival, the night was suddenly too warm and the balcony too enclosed as if the balustrade and surrounding walls had shrunk inwards.

      And Sandro was too close to her, almost but not quite touching. She felt a bead of sweat trickle between her breasts, and dug her nails into the palms of her hands.

      ‘Then before you do, perhaps you will allow me to steal another look at my son.’

      ‘Of course,’ Polly said, edging past him into the living room. ‘And he’s my son too,’ she added over her shoulder.

      ‘I have not forgotten,’ he said. ‘What were you doing out there, Paola? Gazing at the moon?’

      ‘Just—thinking.’ She paused, looking down at the floor. ‘Will—will the contessa be returning for the wedding?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘She will remain at the palazzo to make sure everything is ready for our arrival.’

      ‘And afterwards?’

      He paused. ‘She will stay, at least until you are ready to take over the running of the household.’

      ‘Or even longer?’ She still did not look at him.

      ‘Perhaps.’ He sighed. ‘Paola, my father promised her a home. Out of respect for his memory, I cannot honourably deprive her of it, unless she wishes to go, no matter what has happened.’ He paused. ‘I hope you can accept that.’

      ‘It seems I shall have to.’ And more easily than she will ever accept me …

      She turned and walked into her dimly lit bedroom. Sandro followed, and stood by the cot, an expression of such tenderness on his face that her heart turned over.

      She thought, Once he looked at me like that, and winced at the wave of desolation that swept over her. Ridiculous reaction, she told herself fiercely. Unforgivable, too.

      She went back to the door and waited, her arms hugged defensively round her body.

      Sandro looked at her meditatively on his way past to the living room.

      ‘Yes?’ She felt suddenly nervous, and her voice was more challenging than she intended. ‘You have something to say?’

      ‘Our son,’ he said quietly. ‘How curious to think we should have made a child between us, when, now, you cannot even bear to stand next to me.’ His voice changed suddenly—became low, almost urgent. ‘How can this have happened, Paola mia? Why are you so scared to be alone with me? So frightened that I may touch you?’

      ‘I’m not scared,’ Polly began, but he cut across her.

      ‘Do not lie to me.’ There was a hard intensity in his tone. ‘You were a virgin when you came to me, yet, even then, you never held back. From that first moment, you were so warm—so willing in my arms that I thought my heart would burst with the joy of you.’

      Oh, God, she thought wildly. Oh, dear God …

      She could feel the slow burn of heat rising within her at his words, at the memories they engendered, and had to fight to keep her voice deliberately cool and clear.

      ‘But that,’ she said, ‘was when I was in love with you. It—makes—quite a difference.’

      Her words seemed to drop like stones into the sudden well of silence between them. The air seemed full of a terrible stillness that reached out into a bleak eternity.

      Polly felt her body quiver with tension. She had provided the lightning flash, and now she was waiting for the anger of the storm to break.

      But when he spoke, his voice was calm. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You are right. It—changes everything. I am obliged to you for the reminder. Grazie and goodnight.’

      She was aware of him moving, turning away. Then, a moment later, she heard his own door open and close, and knew she was alone. And safe again.

      Her held breath escaped her on a long, trembling sigh.

      She’d had a lucky escape and she knew it. Now all she had to deal with was the deep ache of traitorous longing that throbbed inside her.

      But she could cope, she told herself, shivering. She had things to do. Clothes to buy. Italian lessons to learn. Long days with Charlie to enjoy for the first time since he was a baby.

      So much to keep her busy and banish all those long-forbidden thoughts, and desires. And, for her own sake, she should make a start at once. Telephone Teresa in the morning. Make a list of all the books she’d not had time to read. She could even have parcels of them, she thought, sent to her in Italy. She might even book for a theatre matinée, now that she had a nanny. Go to the cinema. Something. Anything.

      While, at the same time, she underwent the painful process of turning herself into some stranger—the Marchesa Valessi. The wife that no one wanted—least of all Sandro himself.

CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘SO,’ TERESA said, ‘in two days you will be married. It is exciting, no?’

      ‘Wonderful,’ Polly agreed in a hollow voice.

      She didn’t feel like a bride, she thought, staring at herself in the mirror, although the hugely expensive cream linen dress which Teresa had persuaded her to buy, and which would take her on to the airport and her new life after the ceremony, was beautifully cut and clung to her slenderness as if it adored her, managing to be stunning and practical at the same time. While her high-heeled strappy shoes were to die for.

      It wasn’t just the usual trappings of tulle and chiffon that were missing, she thought. It was radiance she lacked.

      And at any moment, Teresa would be ordering her to relax, because otherwise the tension in her body would spoil the perfect line of her dress. But the other girl would never understand in a million years that this was not merely bridal nerves, but sheer, blind panic.

      Since their confrontation on her first СКАЧАТЬ