The ceremony had been beautiful: the little church packed to overflowing, the square crowded with the villagers who hadn’t been able to squash inside.
There were flowers everywhere, and waving people lining the road back to the villa, ready to follow on foot, by bicycle, on mule-drawn carts to enjoy the reception, because everyone had been invited.
Sitting with her brand-new, endlessly fascinating, shatteringly handsome husband in the back of the flower-strewn chauffeur-driven Bugatti drophead, the Verdi tiara glittering in the sunlight, Portia returned the waves and smiles ecstatically. She almost swooned with a happiness that seemed too great to contain in one mortal body when Lucenzo took her in his arms and to a great roar of crowd approval kissed her very soundly.
And she knew exactly what he meant when he tucked her bright head against his wide shoulder and whispered, ‘I am jealous of all these people, my beautiful darling. How soon do you think we can slip away?’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8651-5
THE ITALIAN’S BRIDE
First North American Publication 2002.
Copyright © 2001 by Diana Hamilton.
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