The Italian's Bride Read online

  And the way Giovanni looked at her made her feel even worse. His mouth might be turned down disapprovingly, but his sly eyes seemed to be mentally undressing her.

  Lucenzo spoke at last, with a dip of his sleek head towards the footman—or whatever he called himself—who had been hovering throughout the meal, serving them from the endless dishes sent through from the kitchens, before turning to his parent, ‘You are over-tiring yourself, Father. Ugo will take you back to your room.’

  Portia stumbled clumsily to her feet, nervous tension creating a tight band of pain across her forehead. Her mouth dry, she murmured to no one in particular, ‘I’ll say goodnight, too. Thank you, it was a lovely meal.’

  Though she had barely swallowed a bite—course after course of mangled food having been whisked away from in front of her only to be replaced by something else to be mindlessly pushed around her plate.

  And so she wallowed—she knew she was wallowing and her eyes blurred with shame and humiliation—in the wake of the only friend she had in this country, whom the footman, Ugo, was swiftly and efficiently wheeling away.

  Until the grip of firm fingers on her arms halted her and Lucenzo said, ‘Wait. You will see Father again in the morning. He’s had enough excitement for one evening. I’ll come for you and his grandson tomorrow at ten.’

  Knowing he was right—of course he was right—Portia wilted as his hands dropped back to his sides. She had so wanted to say a proper goodnight to Signor Eduardo, to round the dreadful evening off with just one kindly word. But that was simply selfish. The poor old gentleman deserved his rest, and already her arrival had forced him to introduce her to his sister, his nephew and his daughter-in-law, and endure the gruesome atmosphere at dinner.

  Her head bowed with misery, she turned to retrace her steps and blundered into an ornate side table which held a silver epergne full of fragrant blossoms. Automatically she apologised. Though why she should say sorry to a table and a bunch of flowers she had no idea. She giggled hysterically to herself at the very moment her eyes filled with emotional tears.

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  Lucenzo tersely scanned her face. She was swaying on her feet, as if she could barely stand, and looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or whether to cry and so had compromised by doing both at once.

  And she sounded far from sober as she wailed back at him, ‘No, I am not drunk!’

  ‘You ate next to nothing. I watched. And the wine was flowing.’

  If she stayed here long enough he would get round to accusing her of every crime in the book! A stab of sheer rage hit Portia somewhere in the region of her ribcage. She pulled in a very deep breath and shot him an angry glance.

  ‘If you were watching that closely you’d have known I only drank one mouthful. I don’t like the taste. I prefer cider. Sweet cider,’ she added with an attempt at haughtiness that brought a gleam to his eyes and a twitch to his long, sensual mouth. Her small chin lifted stubbornly. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. And I want to check on Sam.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you to your rooms.’

  ‘There’s no need.’ Portia rubbed her eyes wearily. The spurt of anger had fired her up but the effects had worn off all too quickly, leaving her feeling even more drained than she had before.

  But after the frightfulness of dinner with the family she didn’t have enough energy left to argue when Lucenzo cupped her elbow with one firm hand, and could only raise the palest ghost of a smile as he steered her down the hushed, softly lit corridor and commented drily, ‘There’s every need. You forgot your ball of string.’

  The warmth of his hand was comforting, she reluctantly admitted, his mere physical presence a kind of solace. And she was too weary and dispirited to try to find excuses for such a lame and spineless admission.

  The weak temptation to lean against him seemed to pervade every pore of her body, but she gritted her teeth and resisted it. She was a responsible, adult woman, wasn’t she? She didn’t need to lean on anyone! And she had her child to think of.

  At the thought of Sam her pace quickened. What if he had missed her, had been crying his little heart out while she’d been wallowing in her own selfish misery? Her heart was beating like a drum, guilt making her feel almost physically sick as Lucenzo at last opened the door to the suite of rooms she’d been given.

  Silence. A brief moment of deep relief, then the blood-freezing thought that her darling baby might have smothered himself in his sleep. She roughly jerked her arm from Lucenzo’s grasp just as Assunta emerged from the sitting room Portia hadn’t even poked her nose in yet.

  ‘I thought I heard you.’ The Italian woman beamed. ‘The little one has been fed and changed and sleeps peacefully again. I will come in the morning, about eight—unless you need anything more this evening?’

  ‘I—Oh, no, of course not.’ Portia floundered. Assunta was carrying a tray of empty dishes. The poor woman had had to eat up here, alone, she thought remorsefully. She really shouldn’t have left her babysitting for so long. ‘I’m really sorry I’ve been so long,’ she apologised contritely.

  She should have been strong-minded enough to tell Signor Eduardo that, no offence intended, but she wouldn’t share dinner with the family this evening. Her place was with her baby. Hadn’t her mother often complained that her puppy-dog eagerness to please others was one of the worst of her myriad failings?

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ Assunta chided comfortably. ‘Helping you with the little one is my job from now on. Besides, nothing could give me greater pleasure.’

  The remark was meant to be reassuring; Portia knew that. But it didn’t, somehow, hit the spot. Assunta was a nice lady, but she was very determined, too. Was she part of some hidden agenda? A plot to separate her from her baby eventually?

  The knot that had been growing deep inside her stomach suddenly tightened and, leaving Lucenzo saying something to his former nanny, Portia sped into the nursery. By the dim night-light she devoured Sam’s tiny face, the way his little arms were flung above his head, until the knot untied itself and she was breathing more normally.

  She would do better in future, she vowed silently. She wouldn’t let herself be pushed around. It had been a mistake to come here, but the damage wasn’t permanent.

  In a few days’ time she would gently but firmly tell Sam’s grandfather that she could only stay here for a week or two. Explain that she had every intention of bringing his grandson back for visits, and that when he himself was fully fit again he could come and stay with them in England whenever he wanted, for as long as he wanted. Though quite how she would square that with her parents, or find the money for flights to and from Tuscany, she had no idea.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Lucenzo’s soft voice behind her made her leap out of her skin. She had believed him to be long gone. Her hand flew to her throat to still the frantic pulse-beat and he commented drily, ‘As you see, he hasn’t been spirited away while your back was turned or been force-fed with steak and kidney pudding. Assunta will always take great care of him.’

  ‘I’m sure she will. When I need her to, that is.’ Her reply was stiff and she couldn’t respond to his brand of dry humour. She didn’t like the sound of that ‘always’ bit at all. Casting one last loving look at her peacefully sleeping son, she turned and left the room, waiting until Lucenzo joined her before quietly pulling the nursery door to, leaving it a little ajar the better to hear Sam when he woke in the night.

  Alone with him now in the warm, dimly lit silence of her bedroom, Portia felt her heart begin to race. The height of him, the breadth of him suddenly seemed to overwhelm her. She could feel the tension, sharp and insistent, and shivered with reaction. He was watching her, his eyes a darkly veiled hypnotic glitter reaching deep inside her soul, making her feel a wild yearning for something only dimly guessed at. She knew she had to make him go before she said or did something that would make the humiliation of this evening worse—something she would regret for perhaps the rest of her life.

&nbs
p; Dragging her eyes from his, she stared at her feet, at the practical but ugly sandals she’d bought in a closing-down sale. There was danger in the way she felt so drawn to him, like a moth to a flame, a kind of madness because she knew exactly what he thought of her. Her voice came out thickly, almost on a whisper. ‘Please go.’

  ‘Of course. When you’ve eaten.’

  ‘I’ve already—’

  ‘No, you haven’t. I was watching you, remember?’

  Portia lifted uncomprehending eyes and met the blankness of his. She shuddered as he moved, placed a hand on the small of her back and propelled her over the soft carpet towards the open door to the sitting room. There, strategically placed table lamps cast a warm and welcoming glow over exquisitely upholstered armchairs, a pretty writing desk and low tables, one bearing a bowl of flowers which perfumed the air, another with a tray.

  ‘I asked Assunta to send Paolina up with a light supper,’ he explained. ‘If you don’t eat you won’t sleep, and you look exhausted.’

  He lifted a silver cover to reveal a steaming omelette. There was a bowl of green salad too, she noted, another of diced fresh fruit, a glass of creamy milk.

  ‘Thank you. That was thoughtful.’ It was an effort to get the words out, but her heart warmed a little. She really hadn’t expected much in the way of kindness from him. Knowing what he thought of her, it was completely unexpected and, oddly, made her want to cry.

  She wasn’t hungry, though. The mere thought of eating made her stomach churn, and she wondered frantically how she could dispose of the food without being found out, because she didn’t want to hurt the feelings of whoever had gone to the trouble of preparing the tray for her.

  Twisting her hands together she said, ‘Goodnight,’ in what she hoped was a tone of polite but firm dismissal.

  But Lucenzo gave her a small humourless smile and stated, ‘I’ll go when you’ve eaten. Every scrap.’

  He meant every word of it; she could see that, she thought morosely. With a sigh of sheer fatalism she perched on the extreme edge of an armchair, tugged the tray towards her over the shiny surface of the low table, gave him a thin smile and grumbled, ‘You’re just like my mother!’

  As Lucenzo took the chair that was angled towards hers he murmured drily, ‘You liken me, Lucenzo Verdi, to a middle-aged lady?’ and for Portia the atmosphere lightened, just a little.

  He hadn’t taken offence, despite his words. There was a gleam of humour in his fine eyes, and a barely controlled twitch played around his beautiful mouth. She felt the weight of his constant displeasure lift from her weary shoulders, and that led her to pick up a fork and dig it into the omelette she hadn’t wanted.

  It was light and fluffy and stuffed with buttery mushrooms—and quite, quite delicious. She explained earnestly through a mouthful, ‘I didn’t mean you look like a sixty-year-old retired schoolmistress—you just have the same attitude. Domineering, cold, always telling me what to do.’

  ‘I am not always cold,’ he replied softly, and Portia shot him a startled look. Relaxed back in the chair, his long legs outstretched, he was watching her from beneath lowered lids, and something in those veiled eyes sent a fizzy shiver down her spine.

  Smartly averting her eyes, she reapplied herself to the last of the omelette. But her throat felt tight and it was difficult to swallow, and her body jerked involuntarily as he asked, ‘Did you always do as you were told?’

  He saw her rigid shoulders relax as she responded to the lightness of his tone, and the compassion he’d felt over the last couple of hours became more securely grounded. Dinner had been a desperate ordeal for her, in spite of his father’s attempts to put her at her ease, and against all of his instincts he’d pitied her deeply when she’d clumsily blundered away from the table in Ugo’s wheelchair-pushing wake.

  When he’d prevented her from following she’d seemed so disorientated, utterly exhausted, and all he’d done, he reminded himself sourly, was to accuse her of being drunk!

  Despite what he knew of her lack of morals, you couldn’t help feeling sorry for another human being who was floundering way out of their depth. ‘So,’ he prompted gently, ‘did you always follow orders?’

  He watched a sad little smile wipe some of the weariness from her face as she laid down her fork and turned to him.

  ‘I did try, really hard, but I couldn’t live up to their expectations,’ she explained mournfully as the thick sweep of her lashes lowered over her clear grey gaze. ‘You see, they were both school teachers, academics and set in their ways. They married quite late and I came as something of a surprise, but once I arrived on the scene they sort of hatched all these ambitious plans for me. Barrister, surgeon, mathematician—there were loads of options, or so they were always telling me. They expected me to be clever. But I wasn’t. I was just a great big disappointment.’

  And they made good and sure she knew it, he thought on a stir of resentment. Poor kid. Was that why she often looked so unsure of herself?

  ‘And what about you? What did you want?’ he asked gruffly, and she lifted her eyes and smiled at him. A real smile this time, lighting up the whole of her face, making her look almost beautiful. Her teeth were even, pearly white, her full lips glistening, and he wondered if she would taste of butter if he kissed her.

  Fool! He caught the thought and kicked it out of play, shifting uncomfortably, and heard her say on a lilt of rueful amusement, ‘They wanted me to have some high-powered career or other, and all I ever wanted was my own home, children—the whole domestic bit.’

  A gear shifted in Lucenzo’s brain. He leant forward, his hands on his knees, his black eyes intense. Because she had wanted a child had she lied to Vito, told him she was protected? Had she been desperate to conceive a baby—by any man? Had he misjudged her in that?

  Had the financial support of a seriously wealthy family ever entered the equation? Judging by her obvious uneasiness at the ostentatious display of wealth at dinner tonight, the way she’d seemed afraid to touch the Venetian glass, the heavy silver, the delicate china, perhaps not.

  ‘Was that why you slept with Vittorio? Because you wanted a child?’

  Portia’s mouth fell open and she looked at him blankly, for all the world as if he’d spoken in Swahili, before she blurted hotly, ‘No! Of course not! I made love,’ she stressed vehemently, ‘because poor Vito wanted to so badly.’

  Out of duty, really, she recognised as soon as she’d finished speaking, and the shock of hindsight made her soft mouth tremble. Vito had been begging and begging her, telling her he wanted her so much he couldn’t concentrate on the work that was so vital to their future. In the end she’d given in, on the face of it to celebrate their unofficial engagement, relegating her possibly strait-laced intention of waiting until their wedding night to the back burner. A wedding night that would never have come, she now knew, of course.

  Feeling faintly ridiculous, and not a little resentful at the way Lucenzo was prying into her private life, she bit down on her lower lip and glared at him through the long sweep of her lashes. And then she stopped breathing. His eyes were impossibly magnetic in his lean, handsome face; she couldn’t have looked away to save her life. All sorts of strange sensations were chasing each other up and down her spine, pooling in a starburst of excitement deep inside her.

  One black brow rose just slightly, his mouth curved softly, and his voice was a wicked murmur as he asked, ‘Are you always so generous, Portia? If I said I wanted you would you sleep with me?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHY couldn’t she get it out of her mind? Portia asked herself distractedly, her mind in a wild tangle. She was trying her hardest to concentrate on the look of deep pleasure on Eduardo’s lined face as he held the burbling Sam on his knee, but she couldn’t stop thinking of the question Lucenzo had asked in that low, awesomely sexy voice of his: ‘If I said I wanted you would you sleep with me?’

  She’d gone to pieces inside, everything fizzing and melting, breathless and qui
vering, her mouth dry, pulses skittering all over the place as she’d imagined what it would be like to make love with him. And she’d tried to hide it, tried so desperately that she’d been rigid with the effort as she’d got to her feet and flung, ‘Get out!’ right in his devastatingly attractive face.

  It hadn’t been a pass; of course it hadn’t. Lucenzo wouldn’t make a pass at the likes of her; she just knew he wouldn’t. He’d simply been rubbing in the utterly humiliating fact that he thought she was anybody’s. But even knowing that hadn’t stopped her wretched body going into bedroom mode!

  It was simply awful! She didn’t understand herself. She’d truly believed she was in love with Vito, but going to bed with him hadn’t sparked any kind of conflagration inside her. The only pleasure she’d had, had come from knowing she’d made him happy.

  She rubbed her damp palms down the sides of her jeans and shuffled her bottom on the seat of her chair. Everything would be a darn sight easier if Lucenzo weren’t here, leaning against one of the tall window frames and watching proceedings from those dangerously enigmatic lowered eyes of his.

  As they’d been last evening, the louvres were almost closed, filtering out the daylight, but thankfully the grim-faced, super-starched nurse had gone on her coffee break, leaving Lucenzo in charge to see that she and Sam didn’t bore or overtire his father.

  Not that the old gentleman seemed to be either, she noted, watching his face light up as his newly introduced little grandson blew gurgling bubbles at him. If only Lucenzo would make himself scarce then she wouldn’t feel like an insect on a pin. Or feel the unwelcome tingle of awareness that now was par for the course whenever he was around. Or have face-ache from wearing a forced and often faltering smile which had to be very firmly twitched back into place every time it slipped.

  ‘He has the look of his father,’ Eduardo Verdi pronounced with evident satisfaction, just as a chirping sound broke into the quietness.

  Lucenzo fished a slender mobile phone from the back pocket of his dark grey trousers, made a few light responses, then thrust it back where it had come from.