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The Impatient Groom

Page 15

by Sara Wood


  ‘She’s terrified of crowds,’ he explained. ‘She’s stayed here ever since I grew too old for her care. Are you all right, darling? You seem to be shivering.’

  Looking concerned, he hurried on and set her down in the bridal suite, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. And she remembered how a long, long time ago she’d wondered what this moment would be like in a marriage of convenience. Now she knew.

  A fit of nerves started her teeth chattering. ‘I’m cold,’ she said feebly.

  His eyes kindled. ‘I’ll warm you.’

  ‘No!’ She backed away, her eyes wide with terror.

  ‘Sophia, sweetheart!’ he coaxed, taking a step towards her.

  ‘Don’t come any nearer!’ she cried in panic.

  He raised his hands and stayed put ‘Why don’t you have a bath?’ he suggested gently. ‘I’ll shower and we can—’

  ‘Yes. A bath.’

  ‘Poor darling!’, he crooned understandingly. ‘It’s been quite a day! You were wonderful, Sophia. When I turned and saw you for the first time, you looked so beautiful that I thought my heart—’

  ‘I’ll have that bath,’ she mumbled abruptly, her voice high and unnatural.

  ‘Sure.’ He reached out and drew her quaking body to his. The kiss was sweet and tormenting, gentle enough not to be a threat, but igniting her nevertheless. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘See you in a short time, mmm? The bathroom’s in there. All your things are ready for you.’

  She fled and shut the door behind her in relief. Her legs wouldn’t hold her and she slumped to the floor. It was his warm and loving voice she couldn’t bear. The adoration in his eyes. The tender smile on his devastatingly handsome, treacherous, vile face.

  Limply she struggled to her feet and searched for a key or a bolt to lock the door. There was nothing. But then it was a bridal suite and brides weren’t supposed to keep their husbands out.

  Resigned, she tore off the hated suit and flung it into a corner. Tears streamed down her face as she kicked off the pretty, glove-soft stilettos, which she’d so admired. They’d go in the bin tomorrow, she vowed grimly.

  Almost blinded by tears, she reached out to turn on the taps. While the water ran into the deep marble bath, she scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand and stared down at herself miserably. She’d chosen her underwear with loving care, thinking of the moment when Rozzano would run his hands over the sensuous satin briefs and bra. She’d imagined him kneeling at her feet, slowly unfastening her suspenders and sliding the sexy lace-topped stockings down, kissing every inch of exposed skin as he did so.

  Instead, he’d had more than his fill of lace-topped stockings for one day and here she was, undressing herself.

  As she would for... She winced. How many years of emptiness would there be? The cold, loveless days stretched ahead with a terrifying certainty. She didn’t know if she’d have the strength of mind to sustain her decision to remain in a loveless marriage.

  She dragged her teeth over her lip to silence the terrible pain inside her. She had to stop wishing for that golden future she’d expected as her right, and face facts. Between now and the end of her bath, she had to accept what had happened and plan her own future.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TURNING off the taps, she found her favourite bath oil on an elegant Georgian table and added it to the water, doing her best to ignore her delicate lace nightdress and peignoir on the nearby chaise longue. They’d been chosen with such care. Such joy.

  She stepped into the bath and looked around, scowling. Oil paintings hung on the walls, silver candelabra romantically lit the room, a central chandelier in Venetian glass sent rainbow colours from its sparkling crystal facets. Even the darn bathroom was filled with relics of the past! she thought bitterly. And she’d become just another part of Barsini tradition. A baby machine.

  ‘Not this time!’ she muttered rebelliously at the watching ancestors.

  She lay in the bath, miserable and angry at the same time. Every now and then she’d feel cold and she’d top up the water, adding a little more of the subtly perfumed oils she’d come to adore. She could have luxury for the rest of her life. But it was worth nothing without Rozzano’s love.

  The love she craved must come from elsewhere. From children. She would revert to her old life of caring for the underprivileged—but this time she’d have the money to fund her plans.

  ‘Sophia?’

  ‘Not ready!’ she croaked.

  ‘I am.’

  The door opened. Hastily she slid under the silky blue water as he entered. Her eyes rounded. He was wearing a towel and nothing else. The hunger rose in her body, shortening her breath. And a savage pain seared through her quaking frame.

  She had to tell him. Before it was too late.

  ‘I wondered if you were all right,’ he said fondly.

  ‘Shattered.’ Horrified at the frightened little whisper, she closed her eyes and hoped he’d take the hint. ‘Headache.’

  ‘It’s not surprising. I’ll give you a massage. Come on,’ he murmured, his voice unnervingly close. ‘I’ll help you out and get you into bed—’

  ‘No, Rozzano, I—’

  She gasped, her eyes snapping open at the touch of his hand on her breast A groan escaped her before she could stop it and he kissed her open mouth luxuriantly while his hand slid over the swell of her soapy breast, making her moan and writhe in need.

  ‘Are you teasing me? I do believe you are!’ he said softly into her mouth. ‘Witch! I’ll make you regret that!’

  His fingers were everywhere, tormenting her, making her cling to him helplessly. And then she was being lifted into the air and carried, still dripping, into the bedroom.

  Every time she fought to speak, he silenced her with bruising, passionate kisses. She quaked as he slid her onto the sandwashed silk sheets. He was intensely aroused and so was she, however unwillingly. And she loathed herself for betraying herself so easily.

  Frantically her body slid beneath his in an attempt to wriggle free. Laughing, he pinned her with his weight and with a groan of anguish she grabbed his face and ground her mouth against his, hating, wanting, despising, needing him with a passion that terrified her.

  The smooth glide of his hands over her wet, fevered body was sending her mad with frustration. Her glittering eyes met his and she bucked in shock that he could still maintain that glib pretence of loving desire. Furious with his duplicity, she felt compelled to move her body fiercely beneath him for some kind of physical relief because she knew that she would be forever a virgin, forever childless. And that terrible injustice hurt her beyond belief.

  Distraught, she gave an involuntary wail of despair, which caused him to freeze.

  ‘Sophia, darling, what is it?’ he asked hoarsely.

  Sobbing, she fought him, beating her fists against his chest and feeling empty and ashamed that she should still love him despite everything she knew.

  ‘I hate you!’ she screamed hysterically, wrenching this way and that as he caught her wrists and pushed her arms over her head. Frightened and vulnerable, her nude body horrifyingly available to him, she stared in terror at his shocked face and realised that revenge wasn’t sweet at all. It was agony.

  ‘Please don’t hurt me!’ she begged. ‘Just leave me alone!’

  When he flinched but made no other response, she let out a shuddering sob and said in a cold, dead voice, ‘Let me go, Rozzano. It’s all over between us.’

  He tried to speak but seemed too dazed. Amazingly, she felt sorry for him-actually wanted to comfort him! She was mad. Had he thought of her when he’d gone off to find Arabella on the day of his wedding? Had he given a damn about his bride when he’d eased off Arabella’s lacy-topped stockings-which, she reminded herself in rage, were just like the ones she wore because he adored them ?

  ‘Traitor! Get off me!’ she seethed, beside herself with misery. ‘Get off before I scream the place down and ruin your damn reputation!’ />
  Like an automaton he obeyed. Reached for his robe and knotted the belt. Stood staring at her as if he were in some slow-moving nightmare.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said dully.

  ‘Don’t you?’ she scathed, scrabbling to sit up and pulling the sheet over her.

  It was embroidered with violets, she thought bleakly. They could have been making love here in this lovely four-poster, easing the ache in their bodies, confirming their commitment to one another. They would have slept afterwards, and then in the morning they would have snuggled into each other’s arms and discussed their plans for the day and for the rest of their lives...

  Damn herself for putting herself through such self torturel She wouldn’t daydream again! The cold, hard reality of the future was hers—and hers alone.

  ‘Sophia!’ Evidently confused, he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, his face tight with strain. ‘Explain!’ he jerked out passionately. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘It’s simple,’ she said in a low tone. She drew in a long breath from her cramped lungs. ‘Think, Rozzano. What is your worst nightmare?’

  ‘That you should cease to love me,’ he rasped without hesitation.

  She almost faltered. He was so slick, so quick with the right answer that she would have been convinced if it hadn’t been for the evidence of her own eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said bitterly. ‘That’s not it. Try childlessness. I’m your means to an heir. That’s your dream, isn’t it?’

  There was a coldness about his face now, the aristocratic features taking on a hard, chiselled appearance.

  ‘You know I want us to have children,’ he replied, without emotion.

  Her mouth curled in contempt. Now they were getting to the real man, to the coat-of-arms heart that sat inside his damn princely body, crushing any stray feelings thai might ruin his wretched game plan!

  ‘You want them so badly that you’d sell your soul to the devil to get them!’ she ground out.

  His dark eyes flared with anger and then were veiled. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Yes, you do!’ Impatient with the throbbing of her head, she sat up and grimly pulled out all the pins holding her hair. As it tumbled down to her shoulders in angry, bouncing waves, she flashed a malevolent glance at him and said, ‘Get this straight, Rozzano. I won’t ever have your children. Not unless you intend to rape me!’

  He felt a roaring in his ears as her words struck him like a death-blow. And the past came back to destroy him. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. It couldn’t happen, he told himself, fighting for sanity. Not again.

  His brain refused to function. There was only the raw nightmare, filiing his head with an unbearable insistence. To escape it, he had to move, do something. Fight his way back to normality.

  ‘Rozzano!’

  Her shocked scream brought him out of his daze. He looked down at his bleeding hand, clenched in a fist, and the shattered crystal goblets on the table. With a muttered curse at his blind stupidity, he strode to one of the basins in the room and stuck his fist under the cold tap.

  She was by his side. Naked and damp beneath the hastily donned bathrobe. Smelling delicious. Warm, infinitely desirable. He jammed his teeth together, refusing to give way to his instincts which demanded that he should turn to her, take her in his arms and kiss the nightmare away.

  ‘Is there any glass in your cuts?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I don’t know.’ And he didn’t much care.

  ‘Let me look—’

  ‘No, Sophia!’ He saw her flinch at his roar and began to examine his hand, knowing he must control himself whatever the provocation.

  ‘I have some tweezers, if—’

  ‘Not necessary.’ He took the scrubbing brush and some soap and swept the wounds, glad of the pain.

  Sophia had cried out as if his action had hurt her too. Her hand had gone to her mouth and she’d looked shocked by his extreme action. He wrapped a linen cloth tightly around his fist and blessed the diversion. Now he could show composure, regardless of the fear he felt in his heart.

  ‘Right,’ he said grimly, turning to face her. ‘What lies has Enrico been spinning now?’

  She took several steps back, her expression cold and hurt. ‘None.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘I saw you!’ she spat. ‘Stripping Arabella at my wedding reception!’

  He started. ‘How-?’

  ‘What the hell does it matter how?’ she yelled. ‘You were making love to her a few hours after your marriage! You rat! Couldn’t you have been more discreet? Couldn’t you have pretended we were happily married—?’

  ‘I didn’t make love to her!’ he snapped, appalled by what she was saying. ‘I was telling her to get dressed—’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘It’s true, dammit!’ .

  ‘It didn’t look like that to me! And you can deny it till you’re blue in the face but I won’t believe you! I should never have married you! But you wove your web of lies and charmed me as you charm everyone. You’ve got your bride. You don’t need to worry that she’s a golddigger. Unfortunately, your bride has cottoned on to the kind of man you are and she doesn’t love you at all.’

  ‘You desire me,’ he drawled, ruthlessly killing his stunned reaction stone-dead.

  ‘If you think I’m going to sleep with you for sex alone, then you don’t know me!’ she blazed.

  ‘Why not? You want children!’ he shot out, before he could stop himself.

  She flinched. ‘You brute!’ she cried hoarsely, close to tears.

  He was furious with himself for speaking without thinking. But he realised that he’d been harbouring the hope that if he could get her into bed they could heal their differences.

  ‘We have common desires,’ he said, more controlled now.

  ‘Yes. I’d love to have babies!’ she cried. ‘You’re the one who’s taken that choice away from me! Now I’ll have to be content with caring for other people’s children, working in an orphanage, setting one up perhaps. It’ll be some consolation, Rozzano-but it won’t be what I want!’

  ‘Then come to bed with me.’ He let his hunger for her burn in his eyes. She shuddered, her mouth sweetly sensual as her tongue slicked over her parted lips. Desperate to grab her, he took a steadying breath and began to fight for his dream. ‘We’re both tired. For the sake of appearances we must sleep in this room. Lie in my arms and let’s talk this out.’

  ‘No!’ She wrapped her robe tightly around her as if to shut him out for ever. ‘I’ve decided what I want our future to be, Rozzano.’

  ‘Have you, indeed?’

  ‘In public, we’ll be like any normal, happily married couple. For my grandfather’s sake only. Not for your family honour or your darn pride!’

  ‘And in private?’ he enquired, a terrible coldness stealing through every vein in his body.

  ‘You don’t touch me. No sex. No sly caresses. Nothing! And you’ll take no part in D’Antiga business from now on. You have your own business to run. I intend to get involved in charity work, especially in orphanages. That’s where my future lies, Rozzano. As for yours, you can do what you darn well please, providing you don’t hurt Grandfather. Now, perhaps you’d like to take a pillow and make yourself comfortable on the sofa.’

  He stared at her aghast. She’d worked everything out. Her eyes blazed with a hatred that sliced deep into his cold body and he could see that she was adamant. But he had to make one final effort.

  ‘I married you,’ he said hoarsely, ‘with one thing in mind—’

  ‘Yes!’ she spat. ‘The future of the house of Barsini! Wealth marries wealth. Very convenient. Well, I’ve had it up to here with your family!’ she cried, slashing her hand across her throat in a violent gesture. The past is history—‘

  ‘I can’t avoid it,’ he said tightly. ‘I live in it, day by day.’

  ‘I know,’ she muttered. ‘And you’re all so wrapped up in your no
ble past that you forget to live in the present—’

  ‘No. Sophia.’ He’d taken three stirides and was in front of her before he knew what he was doing. Tormented by her beauty, he hardened his eyes so that he didn’t betray himself. ‘I honour the past, but I live for now. I wouldn’t be a successful businessman otherwise,’ he said harshly. ‘This matter between us is to do with trust. And you don’t choose to trust me, do you?’

  ‘No. Because,’ she said tremulously, her eyes shining with unshed tears, ‘I’ve realised that you put your dynasty above everything else.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ he denied vehemently. ‘Whoever told you—’

  ‘Oh, stop it, Rozzano!’ she yelled, clapping her hands to her ears. ‘I won’t listen to your slick lies any more!’

  He could see that she had reached the end of her tether. Tomorrow she would be calmer. His eyes glittered. And he’d find out what devils had got into his bride.

  Without a word, he picked up one of the pillows from the bed and flung it on the sofa. Grimly he gathered up the cream linen coverlet and settled himself down for the night. Conection. Until Sophia fell asleep. He had no intention of spending his wedding night any other way than that which he’d planned: making love to his wife.

  Curled up in a self-pitying ball, Sophia waited for sleep. But, tired though she was, she couldn’t relax. Her mind kept re-enacting in excruciating detail all the events of the day, which had been initially euphoric, finally a living hell.

  It was a long time later when she heard him move. Holding her breath, she listened. His footfalls were approaching. Life leapt into her listless body, demanding that she should satisfy its urges, and she despaired that she would ever get over her physical infatuation for him. The bed depressed behind her.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she warned furiously, screwing herself up even tighter.

  ‘This is my bed,’ he growled. ‘I’m damn well sleeping in it!’

  Hastily she moved to the edge and lay there, hanging on to the mattress, her stiff body defying him to come anywhere near her.

 

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