A Worthy Gentleman. Anne Herries

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      ‘I am sorry that you are leaving, Signorina,’ the man said, giving the lovely girl at his side a soulful look. He was tall, dark haired and his smile was very attractive. ‘Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to stay here in Italy?’

      Sarah Hunter smiled. It was so warm and peaceful here in this beautiful garden that she was tempted to stay. Conte Vittorio Vincenzo di Ceasares had been a constant friend to them since they had first taken this villa in the hills of Tuscany. He had asked her to marry him twice and she had refused in such a way that she had kept him her friend. Her gentle dignity and her smile had enchanted him, bringing him back to her again and again like a moth to the flame.

      ‘We must return, sir,’ she said. ‘Mama wishes to see her grandson. She misses her friends in England, even though we have made so many new ones here. It will be hard to part with them, of course, but Mama longs to be home by the summer.’

      ‘I shall miss you,’ he said, his dark eyes intense as they dwelled on her lovely face. There was something unforgettable about her, something that made him want to cherish her and keep her safe. ‘But perhaps you will return to us one day?’

      ‘Perhaps.’

      Sarah stopped to pick a rose, holding it to her nose to inhale its fragrance. The sunshine of Italy had healed her spirit. She was no longer the sad, nervous girl she had been when they arrived. She was a woman, much admired and sought after. Vittorio had not been the only gentleman to offer her marriage during her stay in Italy.

      Sarah believed that her fear of marriage had gone. The nightmares caused by her abduction from the gardens of her home over three years ago were a distant memory. Yet she had never felt any inclination to marry any of the wealthy, titled and, in Vittorio’s case, handsome men who had proposed to her. Perhaps if one particular English gentleman had travelled to Italy as she had hoped he might…if John had asked her to marry him or written to her…but she knew that he had taken a wife six months after she’d left England.

      It was more than two years now since they had come to Italy. Sarah had forgotten most of the things that had hurt her—but she could not forget John Elworthy. She had believed that he loved her, but he had married so soon after they parted. If his feelings for her had been real, he would not have done that, and it was foolish to think of him. She had tried to put the memory of his smile from her mind, and sometimes she thought that she had succeeded.

      She smiled and handed her rose to the handsome man hovering attentively at her side. ‘Perhaps we shall meet again one day,’ she said. ‘Keep that in memory of me, Vittorio.’

      He took the rose, placing it inside his coat, next to his heart. ‘I shall never forget you,’ he told her with a wistful look. ‘But I think that you will soon forget me when you are home.’

      Chapter One

      ‘Oh, Sarah, it is so good to see you again,’ Arabella said to her sister-in-law. They hugged each other in mutual delight. ‘We were so pleased when your mama’s letter came telling us that you were returning to England. As you know, Charles intended that we should come out and visit you this year but…I am afraid something changed our plans.’ She laid a gentle hand on her stomach. She was hardly showing yet, though into the fourth month of her second pregnancy. Her son Harry was now a year old, a sturdy СКАЧАТЬ