The Impatient Groom

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.