His Reluctant Bride

by Sara Craven

  Darling, I’m so truly sorry.

  Your loving mother.

  Polly snatched up the packet and began to tear it open, her carefully manicured nails snapping as she wrestled with the tape, until she reached the bundle of airmail envelopes inside.

  About five of them had been opened, in all, but each of the letters had been carefully inscribed by her mother with the date it had been received.

  The first one began abruptly,

  Paola,

  I have to tell you that I am in hospital in Naples. I have been in a bad car crash, and will have to remain here for several more weeks. There is an English nurse working here on an exchange, and she is writing this for me, because I can do very little for myself, except lie here and think. And my thoughts are not happy.

  I have known for some time that you have left Sorrento, and no one will tell me where you have gone. But the company you worked for has said it will forward this to you, so I can only hope it will reach you.

  Forgive me for not writing before, my dearest love, but when I first recovered consciousness I could remember little of what had happened. However my memory has slowly returned, and with it came you, my blessed girl.

  The specialists also feared that I had damaged my back so severely that I might never be able to walk again, and I knew I could not keep you to your promise of marriage if I was to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

  I know now that I shall make a full recovery, but it will take time, which would pass more quickly if you were with me. Please write or call me, and come to me soon.

  Your Alessandro.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ Polly whispered. She slid off the sofa onto her knees, the flimsy blue envelopes cascading round her.

  The next one was in his own shaky handwriting.

  My darling, why have I not heard from you? If it is the money that my father gave you to leave, I promise it does not matter to me. I know how ruthless he can be, and how confused and miserable he must have made you. It was the last thing he told me before the accident, and we quarrelled terribly. I swore to him that if he had truly forced you to leave, I would never see him or speak to him again. And that I would find you wherever you had gone, and make you my wife.

  In the letters that followed he told her his real identity, and all about Bianca, and the accident, holding nothing back, she discovered with incredulity. He wrote,

  It has been decided that for the sake of the family name, none of this should be made public. Also my father is very sick, and any more shocks could kill him. He has asked me to forgive him for sending you away, and we are better friends than we were. I hope you can forgive him too, as he accepts now that I shall always love you, and is ready to welcome you as a daughter.

  He ended, ‘My dear love, this silence from you is more than I can bear.’

  ‘Sandro,’ Polly whispered, tears pouring down her face. ‘Oh, Sandro.’

  She tore open more envelopes, scanning the increasingly desperate words.

  ‘My face was torn by a piece of rock,’ he told her at one point. ‘The doctors say I should have plastic surgery, but I know that if you were only here to kiss me, I would be healed.’

  And later:

  I think of you night and day, my sweet one, and pray for you to come back to me, but God doesn’t seem to hear me. If you no longer want me, be merciful and tell me so. With each day that passes, it becomes more difficult to hope.

  And eventually the desperation faded, and the anger and bitterness began. And the reproaches.

  I see now that you never loved me. That my father was right when he said that you had found out somehow who I was, and decided to make money from your knowledge. You should have held out for a better price, Paola. The lovely body you gave me was worth far more than that pittance.

  And at last:

  My father has died, may God give him peace, and I am now the Marquis Valessi. I am also enough of a fool to still want you. Even now, if you came to me, I would take you, although not as my wife. And if the thought of my scarring revolts you, you can always close your eyes, and think of the financial rewards.

  But I shall not ask again.

  ‘Yet you did,’ Polly wept aloud, rocking backwards and forwards on her knees. ‘In spite of everything, you came to find me. Oh, God, if I’d known—if I’d only known …’

  She suddenly heard the unwelcome sound of the door opening. She looked round, her eyes blurred with tears, and saw Sandro in the doorway, staring at her, his lips parted in shock.

  If she’d been humiliated the other night, it seemed nothing to what she felt now. She’d intended to walk out of the palazzo, and his life, with her head high, commanding his grudging respect if nothing else.

  But, at this terrible moment, Polly knew exactly what she looked like. Because she did not cry prettily. Her face would be blubbered with tears, her nose running and her damp hair plastered to her forehead. And when she sobbed out loud, her mouth looked like a frog’s.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ She choked on the words.

  ‘Teodoro said you were asking for me.’ There was no harshness in his voice, or arrogance. He sounded uncertain—bewildered.

  ‘But I was coming to you, not you to me.’ She glared at him, and actually hiccuped as she did so. ‘So will you please get out?’

  But instead, he walked towards her. Sank to his knees beside her, his hands framing her wet, snuffling, desperate face.

  ‘Paola,’ he said gently. ‘What is it?’

  She tried to think of a lie, but somehow, with his eyes looking tenderly and gravely into hers, only the truth would do.

  ‘You loved me,’ she burst out, her voice breaking. She gestured wildly at the scattered letters. ‘You really loved me, and I never knew,’ she ended on a little wail.

  ‘I loved you the first moment I saw you.’ He produced an exquisite linen square, and began to dry her white, unhappy face. ‘You know that.’ As he moved he heard the rustle of paper under his knee, and glanced down. His brows snapped together. ‘Where did you get these?’ he demanded abruptly.

  ‘My mother sent them. She wanted me to know how you’d really felt after I left. And that you hadn’t sent me away—only it’s too late—too late.’ And she began to sob again.

  ‘Mi amore,’ he said softly. ‘Mi adorata. What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’re going to send me away,’ Polly said wildly. ‘You’re going to ask that man to tell me—to get rid of me. I—I saw him earlier, waiting for you. Waiting for his orders. But from you, this time, not your father.’

  She tried to swallow. ‘And I’ll go—really. I won’t make a fuss, I promise—except that I’m doing that already, I suppose, but you weren’t meant to see me like this, so it doesn’t count.’

  ‘Paola,’ he said, cutting through her confused ramblings. ‘My beloved, my angel. How can I send you away? It would cut the heart out of my body.’

  ‘But I saw him,’ she gulped. ‘The lawyer—your lawyer, who threatened me and tried to pay me that money. And you think I took it.’ She began to grope for the appropriate letter. ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘I know you did not,’ he said quietly, capturing her hands and holding them in both of his. ‘As he has just been persuaded to admit. He deceived my father, and he deceived me. And he has never been my lawyer. He is simply a creature of the contessa’s that my father used once as an intermediary. You need never think of him again.’

  ‘But what happened to the money?’ She stared at him.

  ‘I believe that he and the contessa divided it between them,’ he said drily. ‘Alberto has found unexplained funds deposited to her credit around that time.’

  ‘The contessa a thief?’ Polly took his handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘Surely not.’

  He shrugged. ‘For years, Teodoro has suspected her of—er—creative accountancy with the palazzo’s finances. But forget her too,’ he added firmly. ‘And tell me why you have been crying.’

  She bent
her head. ‘Because you were alone and in pain all those months, and I didn’t know.’

  ‘How could you,’ he said, ‘when you did not get my letters?’ He paused. ‘Would you have come to me if you had known?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and tried to smile. ‘Even if I’d had to walk all the way over broken glass.’

  He said softly, ‘My sweet, my beautiful girl.’

  She kept staring at the floor. ‘That’s not true,’ she said gruffly. ‘When I cry I look like a frog.’

  ‘Do you?’ There was the breath of a smile in his voice. He bent and kissed her lightly and tenderly on the lips. ‘Then now you are a princess again. And I will try very hard to give you no more cause for grief.’

  He got lithely to his feet, pulling her up with him, then seated himself on the sofa with her on his knee, held close in his arms.

  He looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Paola, is it true? Do you love me?’

  ‘I never stopped,’ she admitted shakily. ‘Although God knows I tried.’

  ‘I cannot blame you for that,’ Sandro said ruefully. ‘I tried hard myself, but it was impossible. And I knew that despite anything you might do, I was condemned to love you always, until death, and beyond. So, at last, I came to find you.’

  She smoothed the collar of his shirt, not looking at him directly. ‘But what about your mistress in Rome? Your vile cousin Emilio told me about her.’

  ‘That was over a long time ago,’ he said, adding grimly, ‘As Emilio well knows.’ He hesitated. ‘But she was not the only one, cara. See, I confess everything, but it was a time when I thought you were lost to me forever. My father had just died, and my life was hell. But all it taught me was that you were my only love, and always would be.’

  She looked up into the dark face, her eyes questioning. ‘Then why—why—that other night …?’

  He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly, ‘Because I was angry, and I wanted you very badly. That is a dangerous combination in a man, cara mia.

  ‘When I saw you standing there, I thought paradise was mine at last. I looked at you, longing for you to tell me that you loved me—or at least that you desired me. One kiss—a touch of your hand—and I would have been yours.

  ‘But you spoke only of Carlino—his happiness, his need for a playmate, as if that mattered more, somehow, than you being in my arms, a woman with her man.

  ‘It was as if my being exonerated of Bianca’s death had convinced you that I was a suitable candidate for fatherhood again. I felt as if I was some tame stud, to be used only when required. And that my needs and emotions were immaterial.

  ‘And frankly I found that unbearable—an insult to my manhood, and everything I felt for you. But I was also scared that anger might get the better of me, and I would lose all control and treat you in a way we could both regret for the rest of our lives.

  ‘So I told myself, Bene—if that is all she wants, it is all she shall have. Until afterwards, when I saw your wounded eyes.’ He drew her closer repentantly. ‘I was afraid that I had hurt you too much—driven you away forever.’

  ‘But I’d been scared too,’ she whispered. ‘In case you rejected me. I knew how much you loved Charlie, and thought he might prove a link between us. A way to approach you.’

  ‘And do you know why I love him so?’ Sandro asked quietly. ‘Because he reminds me of you, when we first met—so innocent, so trusting, so unstinting in affection. And he wanted to be with me, even though I was being shunned by you.’

  Polly sighed. ‘And I thought you only wanted him. That I was just here on sufferance.’

  His mouth twisted. ‘More suffering than sufferance, I think, bella mia. Living with you has been heaven and hell. Heaven to hear the sound of your voice, see your smile, breathe, sometimes, the fragrance of your skin—your hair.

  ‘But hell to be aware of all these things, and yet be denied the right to hold you in my arms at night.

  ‘I should have told you. I came back early from that trip principally because I could not bear to be apart from you another day.’

  ‘I dared not believe you,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t risk having my heart broken a second time.’

  He said softly, ‘So, are you prepared to take that risk now, carissima? To be my wife, and face whatever our lives bring at my side?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled into his eyes. ‘I’m ready to do that, caro mio. My dear love.’

  He carried her in his arms out of the room, and up the broad sweep of the staircase.

  ‘So much for public decorum,’ she teased breathlessly.

  ‘At least you are still wearing your clothes.’ His answering grin was as mischievous as a boy’s.

  But when they were alone and the door was not merely closed but locked, Polly saw the stark hunger in his eyes, and knew a fleeting moment of fear, in case he demanded more than she had the power to give.

  Then his hands descended on her bare shoulders, and her body exploded wildly in the sheer shock of recognition. And of overwhelming, aching need.

  He bent his head, and his lips parted hers deeply and sensuously. His arms tightened round her, crushing her breasts fiercely against his hard chest.

  When the long kiss ended, they were both breathless. Then he reached for her again. They undressed each other, swiftly, almost frantically, tearing at buttons and zips, ripping recalcitrant fabric away. And the years of separation faded into oblivion as Polly lay naked in his arms at last in the sunlit warmth of the afternoon.

  Their mouths feverishly explored the familiarity of flesh and bone, seeking unforgotten pleasures, reviving the shuddering sweetness of touch, their voices whispering—urging.

  His tongue was liquid fire against her taut nipples, his fingers like silk as they found the molten, eager core of her and lingered, creating their own exquisite torment.

  ‘Do you remember?’ he murmured against her lips. ‘The things you once said to me?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten nothing.’ Her voice was a husky purr.

  ‘Then say them now.’ He whispered, as his body slid into hers with one powerful thrust. He was not gentle, but she did not wish him to be so. His claim on her was as total as her surrender to him, and she gloried in it, her body arching against him, drawing him ever more deeply into the moist heat of her. Closing round the pulsating length of him, and making him groan with pleasure. And all the time, her lips whispered against his skin, until time ceased to exist, and her voice splintered hoarsely into rapture. Speech was impossible, overtaken by her incoherent, delirious cries of delight.

  And, as he came in his turn, Sandro cried out her name as if it had been dragged from the very depths of his being.

  Afterwards, they lay wrapped together, sated and languid. ‘Am I forgiven?’ he whispered.

  ‘For the other night?’ She stretched herself against him bonelessly, smiling against his shoulder. ‘Far too early to tell, excellenza.’

  ‘Dio mio. You have other penances in mind?’

  ‘Enough to last for the rest of our lives.’ Polly sighed luxuriously. ‘And only an hour ago, I thought I would never be happy again.’

  ‘I always hoped, mi adorata,’ Sandro said drowsily. ‘Even when it seemed all hope was gone.’

  ‘Now we have something better than hope,’ she told him gently. ‘We have each other. Forever.’ And she pressed her lips tenderly to his scarred cheek.

  The Count’s Blackmail Bargain

  Sara Craven

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT WAS a warm, golden morning in Rome, so how in the name of God was the city in the apparent grip of a small earthquake?

  The noble Conte Alessio Ramontella lifted his aching head from the pillow, and, groaning faintly from the effort, attempted to focus his eyes. True, the bed looked like a disaster area, but the room was not moving, and the severe pounding, which he’d assumed was the noise of buildings collapsing nearby, seemed to be coming instead from the direction of his bedroom door.

  And the agitated shouting he co
uld hear was not emanating from some buried victim either, but could be recognised as the voice of his manservant Giorgio urging him to wake up.

  Using small, economical movements that would not disturb the blonde, naked beauty still slumbering beside him, or increase the pressure from his hangover, Alessio got up from the bed, and extracted his robe from the tangle of discarded clothing on the floor, before treading across the marble-tiled floor to the door.

  He pulled the garment round him, and opened the door an inch or two.

  ‘This is not a working day,’ he informed the anxious face outside. ‘Am I to be allowed no peace?’

  ‘Forgive me, Eccellenza.’ Giorgio wrung his hands. ‘For the world I would not have disturbed you. But it is your aunt, the Signora Vicente.’

  There was an ominous pause, then: ‘Here?’ Alessio bit out the word.

  ‘On her way,’ Giorgio admitted nervously. ‘She telephoned to announce her intention to visit you.’

  Alessio swore softly. ‘Didn’t you have enough wit to say I was away?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course, Eccellenza.’ Giorgio spoke with real sorrow. ‘But regrettably she did not believe me.’

  Alessio swore again more fluently. ‘How long have I got?’

  ‘That will depend on the traffic, signore, but I think we must count in minutes.’ He added reproachfully, ‘I have been knocking and knocking…’

  With another groan, Alessio forced himself into action. ‘Get a cab for my guest,’ he ordered. ‘Tell the driver to come to the rear entrance, and to be quick about it. This is an emergency. Then prepare coffee for the Signora, and some of the little almond biscuits that she likes.’

  He shut the door, and went back to the bed, his hangover eclipsed by more pressing concerns. He looked down at all the smooth, tanned loveliness displayed for his delectation, and his mouth tightened.

  Dio, what a fool he’d been to break his own cardinal rule, and allow her to stay the night.