The Italian's Bride Page 5

  Did he have to look so sternly forbidding? Portia thought as her stomach flew up to her throat and zoomed back down again. Coupled with all that raw sexuality it was almost too much to take! It was like looking at a mouthwatering cream cake and knowing that the tempting confection hid a lethal poison!

  Dropping the comb back into the cluttered depths of her bag, she gulped in air and strove for a bright, friendly tone. ‘I’m ready.’ But it came out all wrong, husky and breathy, and made her feel completely silly.

  ‘You intend to meet my father looking like that?’ His beautiful mouth essayed something that to Portia markedly resembled a sneer—although, to be fair, it could be impatience, she decided charitably. She smartly changed her mind when he added, ‘You mean to grace the dinner table looking like a pauper so that Father will feel sorry for you and double your dress allowance?’

  Grace the dinner table? Oh, help! And what dress allowance? She hadn’t asked for any such thing! How dared he suggest she expected one?

  Angry colour began to flood her face. ‘Do you know something?’ she ground out through tightly clenched teeth. ‘I hate you. I really do!’ And she absolutely meant it. She who had never before hated a single living soul loathed Lucenzo Verdi with a passion that amazed her into momentary silence.

  But, seeing the way his upper lip curled, dark brows shifting slightly upwards, she blustered on indignantly, ‘You gave me—no, you ordered me to be ready in ten minutes! I haven’t unpacked yet, so how can I possibly have had time to change?’

  ‘Paolina has unpacked for you,’ he delivered coolly, unfazed by her blistering outburst, and strode over to an enormous hanging cupboard which boasted heavy oak doors carved with impossibly stout cherubs, swags of vines, peacocks and fantastic flowers.

  Portia swallowed jerkily, her hand going up to her throat. She’d been too flustered to notice that the muddle she’d created on the floor had been tidied away and that her suitcase was missing. Her meagre belongings were now lost in the cavernous depths he exposed, and as his fingers sorted through the very few occupied hangers she had an awful sinking feeling inside her, knowing what must be coming next.

  That truly awful dress.

  She’d made it herself, when seized by a misguided and short-lived enthusiasm for home dressmaking, and was convinced there’d been something wrong with the pattern or the instructions—or both. There had to have been for the end result to look so dreadful.

  Her normal wardrobe consisted of jeans and tops, with just a couple of flowery skirts for when the weather turned summery. Her mother had said, ‘Charity shop trousers might be all right for slopping around at home but they won’t cut the mustard at an Italian millionaire’s villa! This is the only dress you own; you’ll have to take it.’

  Portia wished she’d burned it months ago as Lucenzo advanced. Hanging over his arm, it didn’t look too bad. The fabric was crisp and fresh, a nice saxe-blue dotted with oyster-coloured swirls, but when it was on…

  How he would wish he hadn’t forced her to wear it, she decided wickedly, a sudden mutinous gleam in her eyes as she reached for it, her fingers tangling in the folds of material as she turned, heading for the bathroom.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Lucenzo breathed, catching her by the shoulders and dragging her round to face him. ‘It takes normal women hours to change so it will probably take you days, out of sheer perversity! Dinner will be served in half an hour and Father wants a private meeting with you beforehand. Already we are keeping him waiting.’

  His spectacular eyes were narrowed with impatience and Portia could only stare at him, unwillingly mesmerised by the way the evening sunlight streamed through the many tall windows and glistened on his soft midnight hair, moulding the aesthetic perfection of his intimidatingly masculine features.

  She could see the way a lock of his expertly barbered hair tumbled rebelliously over his wide forehead, the tiny frown line between his slashing brows, the thick sweep of dark lashes, the strong line of his patrician nose and the infinitely fascinating and shatteringly sensual curve of his lower lip.

  It was such a shame that what went on inside his head and in his heart—if he had one—didn’t match the perfect exterior, she thought mournfully. She unconsciously laved her suddenly parched lips, then gave a feeble yelp of outrage as he took the hem of her T-shirt and dragged it over her head.

  ‘How dare you?’ Portia wailed as soon as she could retrieve the breath that had seemed to be securely locked in her lungs during the timeless moments when his veiled eyes had travelled over all her exposed flesh.

  She was cringingly aware of the shortcomings of her plain white cotton bra. It was too small. She’d put on quite a bit of weight in that department during her pregnancy and she knew she positively billowed…

  She made a desperate lunge for the despised and despicable garment still draped over his arm, sniping out, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing.’

  As her head disappeared into the folds she wondered why she should harbour the utterly wanton wish that his hands had followed the quite blatant track of his eyes.

  Maybe she’d been born wicked as well as stupid!

  Lucenzo sucked a breath through his teeth, backing off a pace and turning quickly away as her flushed face and tousled hair emerged. Her arms flailed as she found the sleeves of this dress that had been hanging between a shabby raincoat and a couple of limp-looking skirts.

  ‘I am trying to hurry proceedings along,’ he answered, forcing a lazy tone to disguise his sudden feeling of breathlessness. That had been his true intention, but it had been a mistake.

  Basta!

  She had a truly beautiful body, lush, ripe and tempting, when in his experience women tended to starve themselves into resembling stick insects in the name of fashion. Looking at the bountiful curves that almost seemed to be pleading to be freed of the unnatural constraint of confining white cotton was not enough. He wanted to touch.

  He bunched his hands into fists at his side, his nails digging punishingly into the palms. If he could be aroused by a mercenary little tramp then he’d obviously been without a woman for far too long!

  He bore the sounds of rustling fabric and little breathy grunts as long as he could before he bit out impatiently, ‘Come. We are already late.’ And he turned to meet a pair of anguished eyes peering through a curtain of tousled silky blonde hair.

  She was hopping about on one foot, trying to fasten the buckle of a flat-soled sandal, her full mouth turned down at the corners as if she might burst into tears at any moment, and an incomprehensible wave of compassion surged through him.

  In that strange, bunchy dress she looked like a waif. An appealing waif, he amended grudgingly, her throat so vulnerably slender as it rose from the oddly puckered collar, her feet so tiny in those practical, ugly plastic sandals. His lids felt strangely heavy, and his lashes lowered as he watched her plant both feet on the floor and tug at the belted waistline, as if trying to make the clumsily sewn hem hang more evenly.

  ‘Satisfied?’

  She’d hurled the question at him, and that was a confrontational tone if ever he’d heard one. Because he suddenly and inexplicably felt he knew just how awkward she must be feeling, he said with low-voiced gruff humour, ‘You’ll do. At least you’re not inflicting the green frogs on my father.’

  Her immediate answering smile made him blink. It was radiant. She had a cute little dimple at one corner of her mouth and those water-clear grey eyes sparkled with silver lights as she confirmed, ‘They’re something else, aren’t they? Betty, my friend, gave them to me, so I had to wear them. It would have been unkind not to. But I would keep tripping over them—they are so huge!’

  Lucenzo flattened his mouth as something dangerously akin to empathy flared inside him, then turned and strode to the door, holding it open. Was she really so ingenuous, or was it an act? The latter, most probably.

  No woman who deliberately got pregnant by a wealthy married man and wielded the coming child lik
e a weapon could possibly be guileless, he reminded himself. But, seeing the reluctant droop of her slight shoulders as she followed him through the door, he put his distrust of her on hold for the run-up to her first meeting with his father.

  ‘I didn’t intend this,’ he admitted honestly. ‘I thought it best that you kept to your room and met my father in the morning. But he had other ideas and at the moment I’m humouring him when possible.’

  Of course he was! Portia instantly forgave him for dragging her away from the safe cocoon of the nursery and Assunta’s friendly, outgoing company. She straightened her shoulders. It was high time she stopped thinking of her own fears and miseries. ‘Is he very ill?’ she asked with soft sympathy.

  Lucenzo turned, glancing down at her upturned face. She was right to care, he thought cynically. Eduardo Verdi was the only ally she had in this household.

  ‘When he heard of Vittorio’s death he suffered a stroke,’ he offered, his mouth compressed. He ignored the shocked inward tug of her breath. ‘Which was why he was unable to travel to England to attend the funeral. However, it was very slight and he will make a full recovery. In the meantime,’ he warned grimly, ‘my father is not to be upset or worried.’

  As if she would do any such thing, Portia thought miserably, wishing with all her heart that Lucenzo didn’t feel duty-bound to think the worst of her in every way there was.

  Her eyes on the rich red carpet beneath her feet, she followed Lucenzo down a wide, door-lined corridor, trying to prepare herself mentally for the meeting ahead. But her mind kept flittering all over the place. She wondered if Assunta knew that if little Sam woke he’d go right back to sleep again if she turned him over, tucked him in and stroked his forehead for a few minutes, wondered how long dinner would last and whether the other, unknown, members of the family would treat her like an outcast.

  They had passed the head of the main staircase what seemed like ages ago, and in a brave attempt to break the forbidding silence and lighten the atmosphere she said chirpily, ‘If I’m let out of my room on my own I’m going to need a ball of string to find my way back again!’

  Which was probably one of her more inappropriate remarks—the sort of thing she tended to blurt out without thinking, she decided sinkingly as Lucenzo clipped, ‘I’m sure you’ll quickly get used to it.’ And that was on a par with the comment he’d made earlier about rushing to get her feet under the table, she decided, feeling well and truly quashed.

  ‘For the moment my father is using a suite of rooms on the ground floor,’ he explained chillingly.

  They approached the head of another sweeping staircase and descended into a vast and echoey marble-paved hallway, then through an arched doorway and into a sombre room where a white-haired elderly man sat facing the door, his hands gripping the arms of his wheelchair as if he were in a state of acute anxiety.

  Portia’s heart melted immediately. The poor old gentleman was just as nervous about this meeting as she had been right up to this very moment!

  Sparing only the briefest glance for the woman in what she took to be a nurse’s uniform stationed behind the wheelchair, and hardly noticing Lucenzo’s dry words of introduction, Portia sped over the dark, sumptuous carpet and took Eduardo’s shakily outstretched hand in both of hers.

  ‘I’m so happy to meet you, and I’m so sorry you haven’t been well,’ she said warmly, inwardly anguishing over the gaunt lines of his still handsome face, the brightness of what could be tears in the dark eyes that were so like Lucenzo’s. The fingers that clasped her own seemed so very frail, Portia thought anxiously, swallowing around the emotional lump in her throat.

  But there was nothing frail about Eduardo Verdi’s voice as he said, albeit slowly, ‘Welcome to Villa Fontebella, Portia. You have all you need? And my grandson? Is he settled?’

  The bright, dark eyes narrowed as he attempted to penetrate the gloom of the room, as if he expected—hoped—to see the baby pop up from behind one or other of the shadowy pieces of furniture. Had he asked to see his grandson and Lucenzo had ruled it out of order? And why were the louvres almost closed over the many windows that marched down the length of the room? Wouldn’t it be kinder to allow the old gentleman to see the sky, watch the shadows lengthen over the gardens?

  ‘Sam’s fast asleep,’ she explained gently. ‘It’s been a long day for him. But I’ll bring him to visit you in the morning, I promise. You’ll love him; I know you will.’ How could anyone not love the little darling? ‘He’s only two months old, but he’s really alert and smiles at simply everyone! Meanwhile…’

  She’d spied a tapestry-covered footstool and hooked it towards her with one sandalled foot, settling down on it, hitching it closer to the wheelchair and delving in her handbag for her photographs. She’d taken simply loads with her instamatic and she pressed them into the waiting hands.

  ‘Light!’ Eduardo ordered imperiously, and Lucenzo stepped forward to position a standard lamp and switch it on.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘We don’t have much time, Father, if you insist on joining the family for dinner. Perhaps you could look at them later, or in the morning.’

  To Portia’s secret delight Eduardo ignored him, and from the corner of her eye she watched the younger man retreat, his impressive features grim. A tiny shiver trickled down her spine. There was no doubt about who would have been giving the orders around here had his father not been ill and in need of humouring!

  Turning, she gave her full attention to Eduardo, giving a running commentary as he eagerly sifted through the photographs depicting every stage of development in his grandson’s short life. When he came to one of her favourites he commented, smiling, ‘So many flowers! You must be a popular young lady!’

  One of the hard-pressed nurses had obligingly taken it for her, and there she was, sitting in her hospital bed with a grin wide enough to crack her face, proudly holding the day-old Sam in her arms, surrounded by enough flowers to stock a florist’s shop.

  ‘People were so kind,’ she murmured, smoothing a strand of silky blond hair behind one ear, settling in for a nice long chat. For the first time she was happy to be here, if only because looking at the pictures of his grandson gave the old gentleman so much pleasure.

  ‘Do you see those roses?’ They could hardly be missed; great bunches of them festooned the foot of the bed. ‘Ethel Phipps, one of our neighbours, picked them for me. She must have denuded her garden. Wasn’t that sweet of her? She paid the paper boy to bring them because she hardly ever gets out, poor old soul, on account of her arthritis.’

  Her small face clouded momentarily. ‘I hope she’s all right. I do her weekly shop for her,’ she explained earnestly. ‘But I made Mum promise to look in on her while I’m away.’

  ‘And your mother keeps her promises?’

  ‘Always,’ Portia acknowledged rapidly. ‘She’s a very moral person.’ Then she turned bright pink, because Lucenzo was listening to every word and she knew he thought that, unlike her mother, she didn’t have a moral worth mentioning.

  But Eduardo soothed her ruffled feathers, handing back the photographs with a smile that was truly heartening, telling her, ‘Ottimo! Then you won’t have to worry about your old lady while you are with us. That is good.’ He lifted his head, still smiling. ‘Come, Lucenzo. We go to dine.’

  Lucenzo, lounging elegantly against the doorframe, a look of resignation on his darkly handsome face, moved forwards just as the nurse vented a flow of rapid and indignant-sounding Italian.

  Portia gave her a startled glance. She’d forgotten the woman’s presence—she’d been so wrapped up in showing Sam’s photographs to his grandfather. She shuddered. The nurse looked alarming, as if she ate bricks for breakfast.

  ‘My nurse is objecting,’ Eduardo translated wryly. ‘She is trying to insist that I eat here, alone, from a tray. As usual.’ He dismissed the grim-faced woman with a formal nod of his silver head. ‘I am ready, Lucenzo. Portia is about to meet the family—your aunt and your cousin,
not forgetting Vito’s widow—and we start as we mean to go on.’

  Which sounded pretty disheartening to say the very least. Portia quailed. But she managed a weak smile and fell in beside Lucenzo as he carefully pushed the wheelchair through the double doors and down seemingly endless corridors. The prospect of meeting the rest of Vito’s no doubt disapproving family and, horror of horrors, his poor grieving widow didn’t exactly make her feel ecstatic.

  But she’d weather it somehow. Her middle name wasn’t Chickenheart, was it?

  But it wasn’t Braveheart, either!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ACRES of gleaming mahogany, great swathes of silver and crystal—every piece glittering beneath the spectacular overhead chandelier, a different wine with each course and enough confusing cutlery to equip an army.

  Throughout the seemingly interminable meal Portia had done her best to make herself smaller, wishing she were invisible. She had only managed to actually speak when directly, and always kindly, addressed by Signor Eduardo, merely dredging up a sickly, panicky smile when on the receiving end of an occasional barbed comment coming from Tia Donatella or her youthful son Giovanni.

  The recently widowed Lorna hadn’t spoken to her at all, not one word, and Portia really couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t speak to her either, if she were in the other woman’s shoes!

  Now, pushing her spoon through some gooey sweet concoction, she despondently wished she’d never agreed to come here. Kind though Signor Eduardo was, it was an impossible situation—and, as if to highlight her position as a rank outsider and quite definitely de trop, both the other women were wearing the elegant, unrelieved black of mourning, while she stuck out like a sore thumb in her bunchy, cobbled together blue and cream thing.