“We’ve got three weeks to make arrangements before our wedding day.” Title Page CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“We’ve got three weeks to make arrangements before our wedding day.”

“Rozzano!” Sophia cried in horror. “We can’t get married that soon! It’s crazy. Six months would be much more sensible—”

“Sensible! Who wants to be sensible?” His eyes glittered.

“Marriage is for keeps, Rozzano. It would be awful if we made a mistake.”

“Four weeks, then!” he said forcefully. “You can’t possibly ask me to wait any longer! We want to be together, don’t we?” He turned her face and lovingly, lingeringly, kissed her mouth. “We’ll be perfect together, Sophia. I know we will. So,” he said, smiling fondly at her, “we’d better start planning the wedding of the decade!”

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Next month, join us in a toast to another happy

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The Mistress Bride (#2056)

by

Michelle Reid

The Impatient Groom

Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

FROM the shadows of the musicians’ gallery, Rozzano watched his sister-in-law’s birthday celebrations and fought a losing battle against the inevitable. He just had to marry. It was an appalling idea—but he couldn’t face the alternative. A vicious claw of pain dragged at his stomach.

In the beautiful eighteenth-century ballroom below, high-maintenance mistresses were performing prettily for their well-heeled lovers and dazzling beauties purred in the arms of elderly tycoons. Several guests were roaming around and slyly fingering the antiques in an attempt to price them.

His chest inflated with a tight, angry breath. These were his possessions, his palace—and these people were defiling them. He despised the crowd his brother ran around with. Tawdry, the lot of them.

And in the midst of the excited, empty chatter his lying, cheating, work-shy brother swaggered like a peacock, flaunting himself and the wealth of the Barsinis while the birthday girl bitched in a corner and her spoilt children screamed and squabbled and stuffed themselves with expensive delicacies.

Prince Rozzano Alessandro di Barsini allowed himself the rare luxury of a malevolent scowl. He had a reputation for being the perfect, urbane gentleman. It would astonish people if they could ever see him otherwise. But Barsini emotions were not for public display.

‘Have emotions if you must!’ his father had said on one memorable occasion. ‘But have the decency to keep them to yourself!’

So all the consuming hatred and fury he felt for his relations had been kept totally private—but, hell, was it good to let the mask slip for a few moments!

Tonight, being polite to everyone for the last hour had tested his patience to breaking point and he was finding it harder and harder to restrain himself in the face of his brother’s excesses. As a child, he had spent painful long hours in isolation, forcing his volcanic passions into the required strait-jacket shaped by his exacting father. After thirty-four years of self-discipline, he had learned his lesson well.

He’d coped by diverting his explosive energies to high-danger, high-energy sports that demanded that he push himself to the limit. But increasingly there were times when Enrico went too far and Rozzano’s control was sorely tried.

Contempt tore at his sensual mouth. He found his brother repulsive, vulgar and immoral. Even now, Enrico was caressing a woman’s back. She was married, with two children—one of the many mistresses Enrico supported. An impotent fury surged through him like a burning acid that his brother should flaunt the woman in the family palazzo!

He thought of the day Enrico had been born and how the tiny, black-haired scrap of humanity had melted his heart. Enrico had seemed like a miracle to him. But he’d been four years old then, and unaware that the innocent gurgling baby would systematically poison the lives of everyone he came in contact with—just for the sheer hell of it.

Rozzano went pale. The poison was in him too. It grieved him to feel such extreme anger and revulsion for someone of his own Mood—but he could never forgive Enrico for what he’d done. Not ever.

He set his jaw in determination, knowing he had no choice but to take drastic action. Otherwise he didn’t know what the devil he was going to do about Enrico—how to curb him, help him, and ensure he did no more damage to the unwary.

Only yesterday he’d tried to talk some sense into him. Enrico had laughed and said that life was for living and who but a fool wanted to work in an office all day? He fumed at the memory. Did his brother imagine that a publishing empire ran itself?

Turning away in rage when some drunken guests collided and knocked over a valuable medieval candle-stand, Rozzano hardened his heart.

As the elder son of one of the most ancient and noble Venetian families, he had a duty to protect the honour—and the survival—of the Barsini name. Enrico and his loathsome brats must not take the title in the event of his death.

He needed an heir. There was no escape then. He had to find a wife. Rozzano drew in a harsh breath, shaken by the finality of the decision he’d made.

Slowly his fingers curled, shaping his finely shaped hands into belligerent fists. He swallowed back the bile that had risen to his throat and groaned. What he did for this family!

Turbulent emotions battled for his heart and mind. He’d vowed not to become involved with a woman ever again. Four years, three months and four days ago, to be precise. He knew that moment of his wife’s death almost to the hour! His even white teeth savaged his lower lip as he struggled for self-control.

A searing black venom blazed in his eyes as bitter resentment fuelled his loathing. Because of the part Enrico had played in his wife’s death, he would have to throw himself on the marriage market again. He’d be forced to choose a woman he didn’t love—couldn’t love—and he’d have to play the doting husband for the rest of his life. What a sentence!

Grim-faced, he thought of the women he knew, the ones who adored him, the many who flirted and were more than willing. He’d give none of them house room.

‘Damn you, Enrico!’ he ground out through his teeth. Happiness would continue to evade him. He had everything—and he had nothing. Except the fatherly affection of an old man.

He groaned. D‘Antiga! He’d almost forgotten!

The church clock chimed and he checked his Cartier watch with a sharp exclamation. First things first. He must leave.

Somewhere in southern England, a solicitor waited with news of D‘Antiga’s fortunes—and this alone had intrigued him enough to draw him half-way across Europe. Maybe they’d found D’Antiga’s runaway daughter! If so, he would not be obliged to run the D‘Antiga estates any longer, on behalf of his late father’s friend.

His expression became smooth and implacable again. His passionate anger was ruthlessly suppressed. Thoughtfully, Rozzano began to descend the gilded stairway. Maybe he could take back the reins of the Barsini publishing house from his brother and get it running smoothly again!

Exhilarated at the prospect, he headed for the water-gate. A nod of his head brought the waiting servants to life, one hurrying to alert his boatman, one passing him his long wool coat, briefcase and gloves.

As always, others smoothed his path for the whole of the tedious journey. When he left his palazzo he travelled by motor launch to Venice’s airport for the flight to London. After a night in his suite at the Dorchester, a chauffeured car took him to the private plane, which conveyed him to an airport on the south coast of England. From there he was driven to a small village in Dorset called Barley Magma.

Il Principe Rozzano Alessandro di Barsini stepped from his hire car looking as immaculate and composed as if he’d just woken and dressed ten minutes earlier.

But even before breakfast he’d dealt with yet another crisis of Enrico’s making, spoken at length to his broker and taken several calls from his publishing outlets around the world. In the car he’d dealt with urgent papers, switching his mind with alacrity from his own affairs to those of D‘Antiga’s perfumeries.

‘Yup, that’s it,’ encouraged the hire driver when he hesitated.

They’d stopped outside a tiny grocer’s shop on the end of a terrace of houses whose golden stone was glowing softly in the September sunshine. A perplexed frown fleetingly dared to spoil the smoothness of Rozzaao’s high, broad forehead and irritation tightened his jaw. A fool’s errand, then. A mistake. He felt the disappointment keenly.

Abruptly he turned back to the car. ‘I have no business with a grocer.’

‘Nah! The solicitor rents rooms above,’ the driver told him cheerfully. He knew wealth when he saw it and anticipated a fat tip. ‘Door round the corner.’

Still doubtful, Rozzano nevertheless thanked him politely. This didn’t look hopeful. ‘Come back for me, if you please. Say...an hour?’

He thought he’d be out before that, but he could always sit beneath the large oak tree and work on his papers. Quickly he strode to the open door at the side of the building. His face showed no hint of his thoughts, which were that there was surely a mix-up.

How, he wondered, as his hand-stitched leather shoes trod each uncarpeted step upwards, could a small-time solicitor in a rural backwater have any connection with the Venetian aristocracy? Let alone solve a thirty-threeyear-old mystery!

His hopes fading, he entered the poorly appointed of fice. A young woman at a desk seemed to be trying to type and gossip on the telephone simultaneously. Without looking up she covered the mouthpiece and snapped a scratchy, ‘Yes?’

His dark eyes narrowed but his tone remained civil and very—perhaps ominously—quiet as he approached her desk.

‘Good morning. I have an appointment. Rozzano Barsini—’

‘Oh! The prince!’ The woman dropped the phone in shock, blushed scarlet and knocked over a pile of files and a mug of coffee, causing Rozzano to step back quickly before his sharply tailored jacket was ruined. ‘Blast! Oh, I’m sorry, Your—um—Highness!’ In confusion, she tried to mop up the mess, apologise and stare in awe all at the same time.

He handed over his soft linen handkerchief, hoping wryly that she wouldn’t curtsey. Her knees looked alarmingly poised to do so.

‘Please calm yourself,’ he said, wearied with the effect his name invariably produced.

He was an unwilling celebrity. Since his wife’s death, the media had been obsessed with his life, reporting every minor detail—and the partying extravagances of his brother. Rozzano controlled the urge to say bitingly that column inches in a newspaper didn’t make someone a god.

‘I’ll wait till you’re ready to announce me,’ he said instead, his voice stiff with restraint.

The secretary cleared up, then flapped and fluttered her way to an inner office from where he could hear an excited conversation developing.

Suppressing a sigh, Rozzano cast a doubtful eye over a rather tired-looking sofa and, easing the knife creases of his dark navy trousers, made himself as comfortable as possible on a rickety wooden chair. Wishing he hadn’t wasted his valuable time, he reached for his phone, to make a few calls.

Only then did he notice the woman sitting by the window. ‘Excuse me! I thought I was alone. Good morning,’ he said politely, tucking his mobile phone back in its slimline holster at his waist

She acknowledged him with a smile that softened her sooty grey eyes. ‘morning,’ she replied easily.

Her voice was so low and lyrical and warmly welcomeing that it immediately had the effect of soothing his irritation.

She must have been aware of who he was, because the secretary had screeched it to the Four Winds, but she seemed relaxed and apparently unimpressed. It was a pleasant change. He looked away out of habit, because up to now he’d avoided possible entanglements with women like the plague, but her reaction had been so surprising that he gave her a second glance.

An amused smile lifted the corners of his mouth and softened his stern features. He’d been forgotten—or dismissed! It was such a novelty that he found himself both intrigued and enchanted.

She was looking out onto the street, her blissful expression suggesting she was dreaming of something delightful. With some regret, Rozzano remembered his manners and turned away again, but not before he’d been deeply struck by the gentle repose of her face and body.

Unlike the fashionably tiny and bean-thin young women he knew, she was quite tall, large-boned and curvaceous—a kind of homely earth-mother type. And yet...

Pretending to flick through an ancient bridal magazine, he tried to work out what was puzzling him. Her clothes, maybe? He’d retained an impression of an ill-fitting gentian-blue polyester dress that sagged at the hem, and a caramel brown cardigan of an uncertain age and style. He hadn’t missed those incredible legs, though—long, slender and bare, tanned to a gleaming, smooth gold and with ankles so shapely that he could pleasurably imagine his hands curving around them. Yet she wore oldfashioned and poorly made shoes—although, he conceded, they’d been well polished. And her rich toffee-coloured hair had been dragged back from her face into a tight, thick plait as if she disapproved of frivolity.

Nothing there, then, other than those legs, to make the heart beat faster. In that case, what had caught his attention, what was so utterly fascinating? Riveted, he put his mind to the conundrum.

Allora. He had it! Excitement glittered in the depths of his shadowed dark eyes. Incongruously, an air of refinement pervaded her whole body. It revealed itself in her perfect posture—the ramrod-straight back, the graceful carriage of her head with its delicate, almost fragile features, and the demure arrangement of those staggeringly beautiful legs.

Interesting. Perhaps he’d strike up a conversation, he thought with idle curiosity...

‘Mr Luscombe’s ready for you now, Your Highness!’ the secretary announced loudly, too loudly, her eyes shining with excitement.

‘Thank you.’

Astonished that he felt annoyed because he hadn’t been able to speak to the blissfully unaware Madonna, Rozzano brought his interest under control, rose and strolled at his usual leisurely pace into Luscombe’s office. As the elderly solicitor greeted him, he heard the secretary add sneeringly, dismissively, ‘Oh, and you’re to come in too, Miss Charlton.’

He swivelled on his heel, startled. The serene, dreaming Madonna had indeed followed him in! What the hell had she to do with the D‘Antiga millions?

‘Would you like coffee, Your Highness?’ suggested the secretary, in a sickeningly unctuous voice.

He shot her a hard look. ‘In my country,’ he said softly, pained that he felt driven to make the rebuke, ‘women take priority over men.’

‘Yes, Jean, bring coffee for everyone!’ The solicitor’s glare at his secretary said it all.

And then Luscombe turned his attention to the seraphic woman behind Rozzano. As the solicitor drew her forward and welcomed her, the anger in his face inelted away and he was all smiles.

So was Rozzano, though he wasn’t sure why. Smiling hadn’t been in his repertoire of expressions for a long time, but when he looked at the Madonna it just happened. While she solemnly shook the solicitor’s hand, he reflected that her very presence seemed to have a balmy effect on his seething brain.

As Frank Luscombe completed the introductions, Rozzano took Sophia Charlton’s slender and graceful hand and, on a totally uncharacteristic and flamboyant impulse, bent low to kiss it.

He looked and smelled gorgeous, she thought, staring at the top of his smooth, dark head and still trying to recall where she’d heard his name before. Since he was a prince, she supposed that she must have read about him attending some jet-set party or a film premiere. How glamorous!

And then his eyes lifted to hers—warm, inky-black and magnetic. Sophia was startled. This was no playboy. He had depth. Intelligence.

A glow relaxed all her muscles, the same inner glow she’d felt when he’d first walked into the waiting room and she’d heard his rich, chocolate-syrup voice and its intriguing accent.

His arrival had prompted her to dream of meeting her prince one day, falling in love and having his children. Even if that ‘prince’ turned out to be a farmhand or an estate agent, he’d be a prince to her!

And they’d have children. Four would be perfect. Sophia sighed. She longed for a baby. The desire had grown more urgent as her biological clock had begun to tick away. Although she’d always made the best of whatever situation she was in, a family would make her life complete.

Humour and common sense dragged her back to reality. Out here in this quiet country setting, white horses bearing spare bachelor princes, farmhands or estate agents were thin on the ground. Especially ones who’d fall madly in love with a thirty-two-year-old spinster in a terminally ill brown cardy!

Amused, she imagined Prince Rozzano leaning down from his white stallion and hooking her up to sit in front of him. He’d unbutton her demure cardigan and fling it away in a fit of unbridled passion.

She stifled a giggle and paid attention, her face as sombre as she could make it.

‘So please, take a seat. And I must apologise for Jean,’ Frank was saying. ‘She’s a temp. My own secretary is on maternity leave.’

‘How lovely!’ she said, suppressing her envy. ‘But I’m sure it’s been difficult for you,’ Sophia sympathised.

She sat down and tried to make her too short skirt cover a bit more thigh. The prince had already given her legs a couple of glances. Unfortunately she couldn’t tell if he’d disapproved or enjoyed the experience.

The secretary knocked on the door and placed a tray on the solicitor’s desk, her hands clumsily knocking against the phone as she did so. Simpering, she handed the prince a cup, looked disappointed when he coolly declined her further services via milk and sugar and stalked out in a sulk, leaving Sophia and Frank to reach for their own less than pristine mugs.

Frank sighed. ‘I give up!’

Sophia’s eyes were laughing at his mock despair. ‘If you’re stuck any time in the future, I could always pop in and give you a hand,’ she offered. ‘I used to do Father’s typing and accounts for him.’

Frank looked bemused. ‘I thought you ran a day nursery before you stopped working to care for him?’

Her face grew soft with the happy memories of those days. ‘I did. I adored it, too,’ she admitted. ‘But I helped Father in my spare time. Frankly, I’d do anything now—so long as it doesn’t involve night or daylight robbery, pushing drugs or—’ She stopped, realising she’d gabbled on without her usual sense of caution. This definitely wasn’t the place to mention prostitution!

‘Or?’ prompted the prince.

‘Anything illegal.’ She made the words as prim as possible.

‘Ah.’

From the look in his eyes, it was plain that he knew exactly what she’d meant! Demurely she continued. ‘Apart from the voluntary work I do at the school, I’ve been out of work since Father died.’ She grimaced. ‘You know what it’s like finding a job here, Frank. If I lived in a town it would be easier, but I can’t afford to move.’

A low laugh escaped when she remembered her last attempt at finding employment.

‘Share it, please, Miss Charlton,’ murmured the prince, the expression in his eyes veiled by his impossibly long lashes.

Both men seemed interested, so she gave a shrug and shared. ‘I was desperate for any kind of work,’ she told them solemnly, ‘so last week I applied for a job as a bin man—person,’ she corrected, remembering to be politically correct.

‘Bin...person?’

The prince’s English was amazing, but obviously aristocrats didn’t know about such things. Solemnly she explained. ‘Refuse collector.’

The prince’s only response was a millimetre lift of his eyebrows. Not a man to wear his humour on his sleeve, then. She was seized by a wicked desire to shock him, or to force a smile to crack that composure.

Frank was more forthcoming. ‘And?’ he queried, grinning.

‘Looking around at the competition, I thought I had a good chance,’ she said, keeping her expression deadpan. ‘Then in came a guy with a shaven head, tattoos and a vest, bursting at the seams with Herculean muscles. I knew all was lost. Given an hour or two I could manage the first three of those, but not the last!’

Frank laughed. She thought the prince was smiling, but she kept her eyes firmly ahead. For some reason he was making her feel edgy. What could he possibly have to do with her?

‘I think,’ Frank observed, still chuckling, ‘you’ll soon have better things to do than to collect other people’s rubbish.’

The prince leaned forward a fraction. Sophia treated herself to a quick glance. From the slight lift of his shoulders she deduced that he was tense, even though no such emotion showed on the perfection of his smooth, oliveskinned face.

But as a vicar’s daughter she’d had practice in reading small gestures. Perception came with the job. How else did you know when a widower was being brave but really wanted to talk and weep over his bereavement? Or that the jar of home-made jam, which one of the parishioners had brought in, was only an excuse for needing a heartto-heart about their wayward daughter?

Her wandering mind suddenly snapped back, to focus on the present situation. And suddenly she was tense too, wondering how an Italian nobleman fitted in with Frank’s mysterious phone call, which had promised she would hear something to her advantage.

‘Like...the offer of a job as a nursery nurse?’ she had asked hopefully.

‘Much better,’ was all Frank would say at the time.

But that was what she wanted—to return to the career she’d adored, surrounded by children, loving them, mothesring them.

‘Sophia?’

Her hand went to her mouth in dismay and then she gave a small laugh of apology, used to missing conversations when she retreated into her inner fantasy world.

‘sorry! I’m a terrible drifter!’ she said amiably.

‘Thinking of Hercules and his vest?’ suggested the prince.

Her eyes twinkled Beneath that cool exterior lurked a decent sense of humour! She felt irrationally pleased.

‘I was thinking of children,’ she told him, with unconscious tenderness. ‘I wish I could find work with them.’

Frank coughed meaningfully but his eyes were smiling at her in a kindly way. Reluctantly she pushed back the memories of the blissful times she’d spent with the kiddies in her care.

‘Yes, I’m listening!’ She sat very calmly, her hands in her lap. ‘Go ahead.’

The solicitor fussily squared the sheaf of papers in front of him. ‘Let me see...Where to start?’

She sensed that the prince had become unnaturally still. Her glance flicked across to him again. He had a strong and hard profile, which suggested a ruthless determination.

In her judgement, he was ruthless with himself, too. The line of his hair at the nape of his neck was unnaturally neat, his collar too dazzling, the set of his tie so exact that it might have been glued in place after careful positioning with the aid of a set square and ruler.

Then she spotted that a small, wayward curl was flick ing around his ear in defiance of his attempted perfection. She felt a wicked pleasure at its mutiny. This man was so immaculately turned out, he might have been carved in marble—clothes and all!

He looked at her then. To her delight his mouth winened into a broad smile in response to hers. She was totally disarmed, as if he was awarding her a rare privilege.

She felt an almost irrepressible urge to tousle his hair. It would look marvellous streaming back from his face in the wind. She could see him now, on nearby Barley Hill, the sun highlighting that incredible bone structure.

‘Are you as impatient as I to know what strange quirk of fate should bring us together in this office?’ he asked her.

His mellow, cultured voice slid deliciously through her. She wallowed in the sensation while pretending to be considering his remark. It was a rarity having a prince turn her insides to treacle and she meant to enjoy every melting second.

‘Not impatient. I’m sure Frank will tell us in his own good time,’ she said good-naturedly. Anyone who’d sat through vicarage teas with long-winded parishioners knew the meaning of patience. ‘But it does seem extraordinary!’

‘My thoughts entirely.’

More than extraordinary, she decided. Improbable! They were from different planets. His clothes certainly were. They fitted his superb body so well that they must have been made for him. The neat line of his broad shoulders was a work of art in itself. More set squares and rulers, she supposed.

His carefully groomed hair and manicured nails suggested a man who had time to spend on himself—or he paid others to take care of his appearance for him. All that and a title too. Other than chalk and cheese, how different could you get?

Sophia leant towards him and whispered on impulse, ‘I think Frank’s got his files mixed up, to be honest.’

He smiled, his eyes softening in a way that made the breath catch in her throat. ‘That had crossed my mind.’

‘Won’t be long,’ Frank muttered, preoccupied with his papers. ‘Just looking for something...’

He looked excited. Sophia frowned. When ever did solicitors lose their cool? Frank’s tension communicated itself to her and a sudden attack of nerves made her fill the painful silence and blurt out to the prince, ‘Do you think I might be your long-lost sister?’

His eyes flickered over her from head to toe and a heat followed his leisurely appraisal, coursing down her body as if a blazing torch had blasted it.

‘I think that’s unlikely, don’t you?’ he murmured, staring at her ankles as if they alone proved she had no aristocratic bones in her body.

‘It was a joke,’ she mumbled, disconcerted by what was happening to her.

The dark chocolate eyes lifted to hers languidly. ‘I know.’

He stared harder, frowning, examining in detail her face and mouth. Then he drew in a harsh breath and jerked himself to the edge of his seat as if something amazing had suddenly occurred to him.

‘Mr Luscombe!’ he shot out abruptly, all princely charm vanishing with a startling suddenness. ‘You told me on the telephone that you had news concerning my father’s friend D’Antiga. Are we talking about his daughter?’

‘In a way,’ said Frank, flustered. ‘But—’

‘She’s dead, I presume.’

Frank frowned, obviously taken aback by the prince’s suddenly curt manner. ‘You’ve guessed right, but if I may—’

‘Was there a child?’

Frank shifted uncomfortably and looked as if he’d been put on the spot. ‘Please, let me break this as gently as I can—’

‘Break what?’ Sophia cried in sudden alarm. ‘Why do you have to be gentle? And what’s the connection between Prince Rozzano and me?’ she insisted, beginning to panic.

As she spoke, she remembered where she’d heard his name before. Some time ago, there had been a picture of him on the front page of every tabloid in the newsagent’s. It had been an image of utter grief. His harrowed face had roused pity in her, she recalled.

The memory of that photo haunted her but the reason remained elusive. What had it been? And did it have any bearing on why he was here?

‘Sophia, my dear.’

‘Yes? Oh. Sorry.’ Her wavering attention was caught by the solicitor’s kindly tones. That increased her anxiety. He was about to tell her something unnerving. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ she asked, her face pale with apprehension.

‘It’s now eleven months since your father died.’

‘Yes, Frank, I know—’

‘For the prince’s benefit, I need to say this.’ Frank turned to the prince to explain further. ‘He suffered from multiple sclerosis. Sophia was his full-time carer for the last six years.’

The prince looked grave, his eyes remaining on hers for several seconds as if he found the information interesting. That’s a long time.’

She looked from Frank to Rozzano, afraid of the reason for their concern. ‘Please get on with it!’ she begged, her lips dry and stiff.

Frank sat back in his chair with a smug expression. ‘Probate of your father’s will is now complete, Sophia,’ he said, excitement threading through every word. ‘It was unusually complicated.’ Frank cleared his throat. ‘Sophia...he kept a secret. Your mother’s secret. She made him promise never to reveal it to you. Being a man of integrity, he kept his word. But just before his death he asked me to put you in the picture when I judged that you were ready. He thought you should know the secret because he loved you and wanted you to be given the chance to—’

The prince made her jump by exclaiming sharply in Italian. As if unable to contain himself, he sprang to his feet and began to pace up and down, his beautifully cut jacket flaring open to reveal a pale gold silk waistcoat hugging his lithe figure.

Totally unnerved by Rozzano’s reaction, Sophia turned back to Frank in desperation.

‘The chance to what?’ she asked plaintively, dismayed at the small, betraying shake in every word.

Rozzano spun around, an undercurrent of excitement spilling into his voice and sparking his dark eyes so that they flashed brilliantly. ‘Can’t you see she’s desperate to know, beneath that very English restraint?’ he said in fast, harsh tones. ‘I know who she is. She’s Violetta’s daughter, isn’t she? Violetta D’Antiga!’

‘Spot on!’ cried Frank, as pleased as punch.

Sophia’s apprehension evaporated in a flash. They were both way off the mark! She relaxed back in her seat in relief.

‘Well! You got my nerves hopping for nothing! Mother’s name was Violet Chaitonl’ She realised that Frank must be so overworked, he was losing his grip! ‘You definitely need a good secretary, Frank, to sort your files,’ she chided. ‘I knew there was a mix-up!’

And then, to her amazement, the prince was kneeling at her feet, his hands taking hers. Their eyes met, hers huge and uncomprehending, his fierce and bright.

She found herself trembling at his nearness. But that wasn’t surprising. He was a dish. An immensely compelling man. Any woman alive would have wilted after glimpsing the raw, driving energy that he kept locked up behind that urbane exterior.

It was scary. And she found it shockingly exciting in a disturbing, sexual way. That, she thought wryly, was the trouble with living a cloistered, sheltered existence. You didn’t often come across men oozing effortless sexual desire in villages boasting one post office and a duck pond.

‘There’s no mistake. We are linked,’ he said simply.

Linked. For a brief moment, Sophia’s breath seemed to have left her body. Electricity seemed to be surging between them as if there was, indeed, a vital connection. And then she grinned shakily because it was so unbelievable—both the connection and the two-way electricity!

What a fool she was! Vicar’s daughter meets Sex On Legs. She was bound to be overwhelmed! She chuckled.

‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘An Italian prince in head-totoe Armani—’

‘Gianfianco Ferre,’ he corrected her in surprise, as if any fool could have identified the style of his elegant suit.

‘OK, Ferre—how am I to know?’ she said mildly. ‘Anyway, you’re telling me that a prince, and an impoverished vicar’s daughter in hand-me-downs are linked?’ she finished in mock astonishment, her eyes alive with inner laughter.

‘A vicar,’ he mused, his black-lashed gaze taking in every feature of her face. ‘That explains a good deal.’

‘Well, explain it to me!’ she suggested, quickly concealing a small tremor of her lower lip.

Her face was tingling where his breath had whispered across it. It felt as if he’d caressed it with his hand...or his mouth. Her eyes became soft and filmy with the lingering sensation.

Again that dazzling, blinding smile. Again the tightness in her chest.

‘Another time,’ he said with great gentleness. ‘Believe me, our lives are connected. That’s why we are both here. Brace yourself for a shock. It is good news—something life-changing.’

CHAPTER TWO

SOPHIA gulped and sat back in her seat, her mind reeling. She didn’t want her life changed. Not drastically, anyway. A job, a man to love and even one child instead of four would do very nicely.

Rozzano’s grasp on her hands reassured her. She could feel his strength pouring into her body. Searching the two men’s faces, she saw compassion and joy in their expressions. It wouldn’t be anything bad, she decided, or they’d be offering her brandy and sympathy and pushing smelling salts under her nose.

‘I’m braced,’ she said with resignation. ‘So tell me.’

The solicitor gestured for Rozzano to continue. The prince studied her with close attention as if he was reading every line of her face. But his expression remained inscrutable. She realised this was a shrewd man, who saw much and revealed little.

‘Your mother died when you were...?’

‘Two.’ Was this relevant? she wondered. But he seemed to be waiting for her to continue, so she decided to humour him. ‘She was walking in the village with me in my buggy when a lorry got out of control and...’

She drew her brows together sharply, the slaty depths of her eyes reflecting her emotions. Her father had been inconsolable. She remembered his endless sobbing which had filled the house for days, the hushed parishioners who’d cared for her and her own confusion when her father kept holding her too tightly, making her cry too.

‘Poor Father,’ she said gently. ‘He loved her so much.’

There was a silence in the room. She was glad that Rozzano didn’t offer any platitudes or sympathy for people he’d never known.

The warmth of his strong hands seemed to increase. Sophia felt her gaze drawn back to his. ‘Tell me about her.’

‘I don’t remember much,’ she confessed. ‘I just have an overall impression of hugs and kisses and laughter... Oh, she always smelt wonderful; she had these fabulous bottles of perfume—’ She stopped to recover her normal speaking voice.

‘Ah. Perfume.’ Rozzano’s brilliant eyes seemed to be having a hypnotic effect on her.

Sophia drew herself upright, banishing the strange feeling that her body ran with a warm and heavy fluid. Ludicrous. There were definitely bones in there somewhere.

‘There are several photos of her in the house of course,’ she finished abruptly.

‘Would you describe her for me?’ the prince asked softly.

She hoped they’d get to the point soon. Her nerves were shredding with every second.

‘Tall, slender, long, silky raven hair, merry eyes. And very, very beautiful in a kind of delicate, ethereal way,’ she replied, her expression growing wistful.

If only she’d known her mother! She’d lain awake for hours some nights, imagining what it must be like to be one of the other girls in the village, borrowing their mother’s make-up, going on shopping trips to town together, coming home from school to the smell of freshly baked cakes...

‘Sophia?’ prompted the prince. ‘Drifting again?’

She nodded and gave him an apologetic look but he didn’t seem to mind. ‘I was indulging in wishful thinking. She sounded adorable. Father talked about her a lot. It seemed,’ she mused, ‘that he felt she’d needed protecting, that she was fragile and vulnerable. Look, I have a picture of her in my bag.’

Rozzano released her hands and she fumbled for the dog-eared and faded snapshot, which had been lovingly examined a thousand times over the years. He took it, nodded and passed it to Frank.

‘Violetta D’Antiga, without any shadow of doubt.’ Rozzano raised an elegant hand to stop the denial on her lips. ’I’ve seen a painting of her, Sophia. There’s no doubt. D‘Antiga was her name before she married.’ He paused. ‘Your mother originally came from Venice.’

Sophia stared wide-eyed with amazement, her heart thumping as she took this in. So this was the mystery! ‘Truly?’ she asked shakily.

‘Truly,’ came Frank’s confirmation. ‘There’s ample proof I can show you.’

For a while she sat there, trying to absorb the news, persuaded only by the certainty in Frank’s voice. ‘I had...no idea,’ she said weakly.

She stared at the prince, who seemed delighted, and she found herself hesitantly smiling too. Then he rose and went to stand by the window. It was as if he knew she needed time to take in what he’d said.

‘I’m half-Italian,’ she said into the silence.

She heard the clink of cups as the men busied themselves with their coffee. Half-Italian. Images from films and travel programmes came into her head. Sunshine, coffee at little tables in exquisite squares beneath striped awnings, excitable chatter, hands gesticulating theatrically... Rich red wine, loving families and passionate emotions.

Yes. Yes! Slowly several things began to click into place and as she chewed the news over she began to understand what made her tick at last.

It had seemed that her emotions had always been at odds with her loving, but almost Victorian, upbringing. It had been so very hard for her to please her beloved father and not to dance along the street for joy, not to fling her arms around people and touch them so much, not to gesticulate wildly or laugh and sing and shout with glee whenever she felt happy and glad to be alive...

But this exuberance had been part of her nature. A delighted grin widened her generous mouth.

‘Venice!’ she said softly. A deep happiness shone in her eyes and she couldn’t keep the joy from showing in every line of her animated face. ‘Venice!’ she whispered with fervent rapture, thinking of the blue lagoon, the islands, the wonderful medieval city built on water...

‘You’re...pleased?’

Rozzano was leaning casually against the windowsill, but the tautness of his folded arms and the rigidity of his shoulders told a different story. So did the deep throb of his voice. It seemed that her answer was important to him and she found this utterly fascinating.

There was more to come; she knew it. Things they hadn’t told her yet. She soberly masked her nervous excitement, forced her hands to relax and replied quite calmly.

‘I’m thrilled,’ she said in all truth.

‘What do you know about Venice?’

Sophia’s eyes instantly reflected her dreams. There was a book of the city at home with wonderful photographs... She gave a little laugh, realising now why her father had shown it to her with such care.

‘Father stayed there as a young man when he was training for the church and researching St Mark, for his thesis.’ Her face became wreathed in smiles. ‘I suppose that’s where he met Mother!’ she declared sentimentally, imagining the two of them being serenaded in a gondola at midnight, floating silently along the dark canals...

‘Sophia? Come back to us?’

The prince’s soft and humour-laden murmur brought her back to the present with a jolt. ‘I was thinking what a romantic city it must be for lovers,’ she explained a little bashfully, adoring the thought of her parents in such a setting. How wonderful it must have been!

‘You know it? You’ve been there?’ he asked with interest.

‘Oh, no! But Father talked about it and I feel I know it. We’d look at a travel book of the city together and he’d tell me about the palazzos, St Mark’s Square, the churches crammed full of paintings by famous artists... I feel I know it. I have the map of the island in my head, how the Grand Canal curves like a backward ’S‘ bend, where the Rialto Bridge is... And it’s so beautiful. To me, Venice looks as if it’s the backdrop in a medieval fairy tale.’

‘It was, once. And I agree. It’s the most beautiful city in the world,’ Rozzano murmured. ‘Venetians feel sorry for anyone not born there!’

‘Now what tells me that you’re Venetian yourself?’ she asked drily. His eyes twinkled at her. Fascinated to learn about her mother’s birthplace, she added, ‘Have your family lived there long?’

‘About seven hundred years,’ he replied without any hint of arrogance.

‘Seven...!’ Open-mouthed in amazement, she gave up trying to imagine what it must be like to trace your ancestors so far back and decided to tease him. ‘Dear, dear. And still stuck in Venice!’ she chided. ‘Not the kind of people to go off and colonise the world, then!’

He threw back his head and laughed in delight before coming forward to take her hands in his. Extraordinary! He kept touching her. Why?

Staring into her startled eyes, he kissed the fingers of both hands. ‘When you find a jewel, you don’t swap it for paste.’

She lowered her lashes, frowning. The touch of his lips had been warm and soft and she’d wished... Ashamed by her waywardness, she did her best to keep her fingers limp and unresponsive beneath his and searched for the threads of the conversation, bending her mind to getting the loose ends tied up.

‘I still don’t understand why you’re here,’ she said, suddenly crisp and efficient ‘And why didn’t Father tell me who my mother was? Being Italian isn’t a crime. It doesn’t make sense.’

The hands holding hers tightened a fraction. ‘I imagine he was protecting her.’

Sophia stiffened at the gravity in Rozzano’s voice. She’d been right. There was more. Something she wouldn’t like. ‘Why?’ she asked, feeling the fear clutch at her heart and squeeze it hard.

He was watching her like a hawk. ‘She had run away.’

Her eyes widened in shock. ‘From what?’

‘Marriage.’

Absently his thumbs stroked her long fingers and she had to work hard to keep her breathing steady. ‘Go on,’ she mumbled.

‘There had been an understanding that she would marry a family friend when she reached eighteen. She’d been virtually betrothed since childhood. I understand, however, that she was very independent and emotional. For most of her teenage years she fought against a loveless marriage.’

‘So would I!’ Sophia declared fervently, feeling appalled at the family pressure her beleaguered mother must have endured.

‘Ye-e-s.’

A faint frown drew Rozzano’s brows together as if her remark was not to his liking. Abruptly he dropped her hands and began to stroll around the room again, picking up objects absently and putting them down. Sophia and Frank followed his every move and she realised just how dominant the prince was, how he had taken over the situation to make it run at his pace, his discretion.

He was used to taking charge, to being obeyed. Sophia found that both attractive and challenging. Wryly she recognised that she wanted him to know that she wasn’t to be ordered around, however mild and compliant she might seem to an outsider. She was her mother’s daughter. If anyone pushed her too far, she’d dig her heels in. And it was time she showed that she was the equal of any prince.

‘So she married my father for love and defied her materialistic family. Quite right, too. I admire her strength of will No one should be pushed into an arranged marriage against his or her wishes!’

He gave a very Italian shrug of his tailored shoulders. ‘A dynastic marriage is not unusual in my experience. Often an aristocrat’s child may grow up with an understanding that he or she will marry someone from a suitable family.’

She wrinkled her nose in disapproval and wondered about Rozzano’s wife—because he’d surely be married. He wore a signet ring on the third finger of his left hand, one with diamond shoulders and entwined initials. Would his marriage have been arranged?

She imagined the awkwardness of his wedding night, facing a bride he didn’t love. And she blushed when her thoughts took her further as she imagined his broad shoulders and muscular torso naked...

‘Barbaric!’ she declared with more force than she’d intended. But she felt annoyed that her body was hot with shocking thoughts of gold-skinned nudity... She swallowed. She must stick to the point. ‘OK. So what’s your connection with her?’ she asked, trying to equate this aristocrat and his unnerving pedigree with her own ordinary family.

There was a long pause. Sophia thought she would break the habit of a lifetime and scream. Her lips parted in breathless panic.

‘For heaven’s sake tell mel’ she urged, her voice throbbing with low and intense passion.

Rozzano’s liquid eyes seemed unnaturally intent on hers, as if he could see the havoc in her mind. ‘Your mother, Violetta, was the daughter of my father’s great friend Alberto D’Antiga. She was to be my father’s bride. But she jilted him.’

She wondered curiously if Rozzano felt insulted on behalf of his father. He gave no hint of it. On the contrary, she thought, her skin prickling with sensation, he was leaning elegantly against Frank’s desk and looking her up and down as if he was giving marks out of ten for every inch she possessed. And the muscles in her body grew tense in response as she battled to stop herself melting into the chair.

He’d be used to that kind of response, she thought crossly, and made sure that he suspected nothing. With a scowl, she said flatly, ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re here.’

The dark eyes became veiled and she wondered if she’d been imagining his appraisal. ‘I look after Alberto D’Antiga’s affairs. We have old family connections and he is ill and alone in the world,’ Rozzano said, a surprising tenderness creeping into his voice. ’Your grandfather is growing weaker every day, Sophia. He will be delighted to know he has a granddaughter.’

‘Hmm. This is the man who drove my mother away from the home she loved!’ Sophia reminded him vigorously.

‘You feel nothing for an old and sick man who is your blood relation?’ Rozzano’s reproachful glance was putting her to shame.

She heaved a sigh and came off her high horse. ‘Of course I do. What’s past is past. I’m sorry he’s not well. And yes, I’d like to contact him. He’s the only family I have now.’ Efficiently she whipped a pen and small notebook from her handbag. ‘Can you let me have his address?’

‘Certainly. Il Conte D’Antiga; that’s D apostrophe, capital A...’

‘Il Conte...’ She looked up to see if the prince was teasing her but he appeared to be perfectly serious.

‘His palazzo is called Ca’ D‘Antiga,’ he drawled. ‘Capital C—’

‘Just a minute!’ Shock widened her smoke-dark eyes. ‘A...count? In a palace? You’re having me on, aren’t you?’ she said with a nervous laugh.

‘No. He is, as you say, a count.’ He saw her disbelief and added quietly, ‘There are many palazzi in Venice. 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 man who crossed her path. And Rozzano was more devastating and handsome than most.

‘Goodness!’ exclaimed the temp, tapping in on her tottery heels.

Sophia blessed the woman for ripping into her panic-stricken thoughts. Nevertheless, she remained still, listening to Frank’s muttered dismissal. Cool water was being dabbed on her temples and wrists.

And then Rozzano’s moistened finger brushed a few times across her trembling mouth. It was terribly, wonderfully sexy and she didn’t know how she kept her eyes shut or stopped herself from catching his fingertip between her lips and tasting it, perhaps letting it wander into the moistness of her mouth...

At the contraction of her loins, Sophia moaned again, aware she needed to release her deep and terrifying feelings. She was in a state of turmoil, and no wonder. Desperately she gritted her teeth, appalled at the way her barriers were tumbling.

His hand stroked hers rhythmically—she knew it was his, recalled its strength, the sinews, the dryness of his palms and the suppleness of his long fingers. And she realised that she could also recall every line of his face, the angles of his eyebrows, the way he stood, walked...

‘Sophia, just relax,’ he murmured somewhere near her ear.

Relax! Suppressing a sharp gasp when his cool breath feathered over her face, she went through every muscle of her body, one by one, in an attempt to do as he said.

She opened her eyes and wished she hadn’t. He was leaning over her, kiss-close, an expression of concern softening his autocratic features.

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘Nothing bad will come of this, Sophia. You and your grandfather will be reunited. You won’t have to worry about money ever again—’

‘My grandfather!’ she breathed raggedly, feeling emotion sweep over her.

She was too choked to continue. All these years and the old man had aged and become ill, unaware that she existed. Without any warning, she began to cry as she lay there, the hot tears squeezing themselves pathetically from the corners of her eyes and running down her cheeks to the top of her jaw.

‘Why’s she upset?’ she heard Frank hiss. ‘I thought she’d be pleased! She deserves a break after all she’s been through,’ he said, warming to his theme while Sophia cringed with dismay at being openly discussed. ‘She gave up everything to look after her father. It can’t have been easy. No fun, no boyfriends, all those years of devoted attention—’

‘Frank,’ she mumbled hastily before the violins started playing, ‘you don’t understand! I’m crying because I have a grandfather who doesn’t even know I’m alive. He might have died and I would never have met him! How could my mother have done this to me?’ she cried passionately, so distressed that she forgot her reserve. ‘Why did she keep me from her family? She was married. She would have been beyond her father’s interference! Surely they could have made up their differences! It seems so cruel—’ She faltered, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘My mother’s become a mystery. I hate that,’ she finished miserably.

‘Then find out. Come to Venice and talk to your grandfather,’ suggested Rozzano gently. ‘Let him explain.’

‘Venice?’ she cried in blank amazement, sitting up.

‘Of course,’ the prince said patiently. ‘He can’t come to you. He isn’t strong. Any day now I fear the worst...’

She bit her lip, getting his drift. Her grandfather didn’t have long to live and time was running out. She hesitated. ‘I couldn’t afford the trip—’

‘You can. You’re rich,’ he reminded her.

‘I don’t have a passport,’ she said stubbornly, blanking her mind to all the things she didn’t want to deal with.

And she knew she was clutching at any straw to stop her from making the journey, even though she longed to meet her grandfather. Fear and love were vying with one another.

‘No passport?’ Rozzano exclaimed in amazement.

‘There’s never been any need,’ she said stiffly. ‘My birth certificate was lost and—’

‘Not lost. In my safekeeping.’ Frank held it out to her.

And there it was. Mother. La Contessa Violetta D‘Antiga. Sophia stared at it but her fingers were shaking so much that it fell from her fingers to the floor. Rozzano reached out to retrieve it and as he bent his cheek came so close that it almost brushed hers.

She felt her chest become banded with iron and her breath suck in sharply.

‘I know this must be difficult for you, but I’ll help you,’ he said, so softly that she strained closer to hear. ‘I’ll be with you every step of the way if you wish.’

There was a sudden violent movement in the open doorway to the waiting room. Almost simultaneously she was dazzled by a series of blinding flashes which made her scream in fear.

Rozzano shot to his feet, muttering ferociously in Italian under his breath, and in a matter of seconds he was roaring through the door in hot pursuit of the intruder.

Sophia saw Frank move to the window. She jumped up with a sudden surge of energy and joined him. Her heart leapt to her mouth. In the street below, Rozzano was shouting and clinging onto the door of a car, which was accelerating away.

‘He’ll be killed!’ she croaked in horror.

Without thinking, she dashed out of the office and down the stairs, running like the wind after the careering car. Rozzano fell, and rolled away from it.

And lay motionless.

He was deeply shaken, though not by his fall, or the brush with danger. He’d taken too many risks paragliding and skiing and had faced fear too often for it to affect him any more. It was his reaction that staggered him.

Astonishingly, he’d wanted to protect Sophia from press exposure—from the lies, and the stories they’d weave about them both. Her scream of terror had aroused in him a response so visceral and primitive that he might have been a caveman, defending his woman!

And so he’d done the unthinkable, broken his own rules, and acted like a fool. He could have kicked himself. The press would have a field-day with this one.

Furious at his stupidity, he lay without moving, allowing his anger to fade and his bruised muscles to recover. He became aware that his head throbbed. A gentle hand touched it. Sophia’s. Wonderful.

His body responded immediately, much to his annoyance, generating warmth in his loins. To his astonishment, the heady combination of virgin and siren had fired an almost uncontrollable desire in him, a desire more powerful than anything he’d felt for years.

Her dreamy smile had driven him mad. He’d wanted to know what she was thinking whenever she ‘drifted’. And, he wanted to be a part of her fantasies. Dammitl He’d have to get a grip.

She checked his pulse. He felt it falter then accelerate and she murmured in tender concern. And he felt cherished for the first time in his life.

Guilt crawled all through him. She was so honest and trusting. He knew he shouldn’t lie there inert—but the urge to play patient to her nurse was overwhelming. Even the thought of that scenario brought a skin-tingling frisson curling through his every nerve, tightening every sinew and heating his blood.

He knew why he’d reacted so violently. The opportunity for action had seemed almost welcome and it had released some of the exquisite agony which had been building up in his love-starved body.

He could smell her now. Wanted to lift his face and inhale her intoxicating fragrance. Disgusted with his lack of control, he pressed his hands harder into the ground and let the gravel take his mind off his carnal needs.

But it was a struggle. Her hands were now systematically feeling his limbs for breakages and he all but groaned, the warmth in his loins becoming searing hot. Desperate to curb any physical reaction to the electric sensation of her hands on his body, he concentrated doggedly on the sounds of the small crowd gathering around them.

They knew her. Liked her. Felt concern for her. He could hear the love in their voices and he was glad. Such a good and decent woman would bring delight to frail Alberto D‘Antiga’s soft heart and the old man would die in peace, knowing that his family name was in good hands.

Unless, of course, some good-looking, gold-digging parasite turned her head! His brows drew together moodily. That mustn’t happen. She’d be hurt. Or worse... corrupted. His jaw tightened. He was back in caveman mode again, taking up his cudgel to crack the head of any man who harmed her. Was that the reaction Violetta had prompted in men?

‘He’s in pain!’ she cried.

He felt the light touch of Sophia’s fingers on his forehead smoothing out the frown lines and heard her soft murmur as she spoke to him, pleading with him, an appealing little catch in her voice giving him immense problems with his self-control.

‘Please open your eyesl’ she begged.

‘Now don’ thee be upsettin‘ theself,’ came a deep, Dorset voice above him.

Warmth and caring flooded to the distressed Sophia. She was clearly a much loved and exceptional woman. It confirmed his initial assessment that Violetta’s daughter was a woman in a million, imbued with rare qualities...

No wonder he’d been intrigued by her. Had wanted to make love to her, then and there! How he’d stopped himself he didn’t know. It was like being a teenager again, ruled by sudden unbridled lust!

And it unnerved him because he wouldn’t be able to walk away from her unwelcome attractions. He’d have to be with her, hour after hour, day after day, introducing her to Venetian society, worrying about her innocence...

He stopped breathing. Something had occurred to him and his brain went into overdrive. Sophia’s hand lay on his chest and she was beginning to panic at its lack of movement, so he let his breath out slowly. He had the answer to all his problems. And as she relaxed in relief he neatly fitted her into his momentous decision.

He would marry her.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS a brilliant solution, he thought. A strange, breathless excitement stole over him. He didn’t love her-never could love any woman. But she would make the perfect wife.

Her hands had moved to his upper thigh. They trembled as she tested the movement of his femur. It was obvious from her hesitant touch that she knew little of men. A surge of excitement almost betrayed him as he imagined teaching her the pleasures of the flesh.

His breathing rasped harshly. He could hardly wait. Sophia even had money of her own! Too many titleseekers and materialistic women had propositioned him. But Sophia...she was different. She had values he admired. She had an eagerness to work and concern for others. She had nursed her ailing father and, more important, she adored children.

Children. He bucked as a shaft of pain sliced through him when the nightmare memory forced its way to the surface. Her hand rested gently on his chest and thinking of her sweet face helped him to drive the dark hell away again.

‘He may have cracked a rib,’ she said anxiously. ‘Did you see how his chest contracted then?’

Racked with guilt, he suffered the gentle exploration of her hands. The pain was deeper than she knew. Deep enough to shut off his heart for ever. Like his father, he had married into the D‘Antiga family. He’d been twentyeight, and had fallen head over heels for the recently divorced Nicoletta who, unknown to him, had a highly colourful sexual past.

A dainty, extravagant thirty-two, she had worked her wiles on him and stolen his heart. They’d only been married for two years when she’d died, pregnant with his child.

Desperately he pushed back the rest of the horror. He couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t make it known. If he did, the Barsini name would be vilified.

But Sophia could ease his nightmares. He needed her tenderness. Hope began to surge through him, and for the first time in years he believed he could find some kind of happiness.

And she? He tried to see his intentions from her point of view. She had shown an appealingly bewildered interest in him. The sex would be fantastic. Her passions ran deep, with an intensity that matched his own. He’d read that in her eyes, in every gesture of her highly charged body.

He could make her happy. He would make her happy. And he could help her to cope, too. It would be hard for her, he argued, to dive head first into Venetian society without a guide. And who better than him to be her mentor?

‘He’s still not responding! I think we should call the doctor,’ she said anxiously.

‘Gone to Durbridge,’ came the reply. ‘Vet’s not far, though. Or the baby nurse’ll be along in a minute.’

Rozzano held back a grin. He’d better ‘recover’ before he experienced some interesting medical practices! Then all he had to do was to win her over—and quickly, before the wolf pack moved in, intent on her money and title. Opening his eyes slowly, he saw the relief on her pale, wide-eyed face.

‘You’re all right!’

He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her. And felt a fraud for his deception. ‘Shaken,’ he said uncomfortably, even though it was the truth.

There was a murmur from the crowd and he was immediately bathed in smiles and friendly words of warning to be careful, to take it easy, to sit up slowly when he felt ready, no rush, don’t you fret...

He felt bad and couldn’t meet their eyes. Many hands helped him to sit and then stand. Someone brushed dust from his back. Someone else offered to fetch him a brandy from the nearby pub. The local midwife—presumably the baby nurse-anxiously offered her services and he declined with gravity yet with a twinkle in his eyes which set everyone laughing.

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