Пенни Джордан: THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE

see, it stipulates only that I must marry within six

weeks of her death if I want to inherit the Castillo

from her. It does not specify who I should marry."

Caterina stared at him, unable to conceal her anger.

It stripped from her the good looks which had in her

youth made her a sought-after model, and left in their

place the ugliness of her true nature.

"No, that cannot be true. You have altered it,

changed it — you and that sneering notary. You

have— Where does it say? Let me see!"

She virtually flung herself at him and Lorenzo retrieved

the will he had thrown down onto the table

earlier. Seizing it, she read it, her face white with

rage.

"You have changed it. Somehow you have— She

wanted you to marry me!" She was almost hysterical

with fury.

"No." Lorenzo shook his head, his face impassive

as he watched her. "Nonna wanted to give me what

she believed I wanted. And that, most assuredly, is

not you."

As Lorenzo stood beneath the flickering light of the

old-fashioned flambeaux, the small abrupt movement

of his head was reflected and repeated in the shadows

from the flames.

The Castillo had been designed as a fortress rather

than a home, long before the Montesavro Dukes of

the Renaissance had captured it from their foes and

then clothed and softened its sheer stone walls with

the artistic richness of their age. It still possessed an

aura of forbidding and forbidden darkness.

Like Lorenzo himself.

Dark shadows carved hollows beneath the sculptured

bone structure he had inherited from the warrior

prince who had been the first of their line, and his

height and the breadth of his shoulders emphasised

the predatory sleekness of his body. His mouth was

thin-lipped—"cruel", women liked to call it, as they

begged for its hardness against their own and tried to

soften it into hunger for them. It was his eyes, though,

that were his most arresting feature. Curiously light

for an Italian, they were more silver than grey, and

piercingly determined to strip away his enemies" defences.

His well-groomed hair was thick and dark, his

suit hand-made and expensive. But then, he did not

need to depend on any inheritance from his late maternal

grandmother to make him a wealthy man. He

was already that in his own right.

There were those who said, foolishly and theatrically,

that for a man to accumulate so much money

there had to be some trickery involved — some sleight

of hand or hidden use of certain dark powers. But

Lorenzo had no time for such stupidity. He had made

his money simply by using his intelligence, by making

the right investments at the right time, and thus

building the respectable sum he had been left by his

parents into a fortune that ran into many, many millions.

Unlike his late cousin, Gino, who had allowed his

greedy wife to ruin him financially. His greedy widow

now, Lorenzo reminded himself savagely. Not that

Caterina had ever behaved like a widow, or indeed

like a wife.

Poor Gino, who had loved her so much. Lorenzo

lifted his hand to his forehead. It felt damp with perspiration.

Caused by guilt? It had after all been by

claiming friendship with him that Caterina had first

brought herself to Gino’s attention.

Lorenzo had been eighteen to Caterina’s twenty-

two when he had first met her, and was easily seduced

by her determination. It hadn’t taken him long,

though, to recognise her for the adventuress that she

was. No longer, in fact, than her first hint to him that

she expected him to repay her sexual favours with

expensive gifts. As a result of that, he had ended his

brief fling with her immediately.

He had been at university when she had inveigled

herself into his kinder cousin Gino’s heart and life,

and the next time he had seen her Caterina had been

wearing Gino’s engagement ring whilst his cousin

wore a besotted expression of adoration. He had tried

to warn his cousin then, of just what she was, but

Gino had been in too deeply ever to listen, and had

even accused him of jealousy. For the first time that

Lorenzo could remember they had quarrelled, with

Gino accusing Lorenzo of wanting Caterina for himself,

and she had cleverly played on that to keep them

apart until after her and Gino’s marriage.

Later, Lorenzo and his cousin had been reconciled,

but Gino had never stopped worshipping his wife,

even though she had been blatantly unfaithful to him

with a string of lovers.

"Where are you going?" Caterina demanded shrilly

as Lorenzo turned on his heel and walked away

from her.

From the other side of the hall Lorenzo looked

back at her.

"I am going," he told her evenly, "to find myself a

wife — any wife. Just so long as she is not you. You

could have seen to it that I was warned that my grandmother

was near to death, so that I could have been

here with her, but you chose not to. And we both

know why."

"You cannot marry someone else. I will not let

you."

"You cannot stop me."

She shook her head. "You will not find another

wife, Lorenzo. Or at least not the kind of wife you

would be willing to accept — not in such a sort space

of time. You are far too proud to marry some little

village girl of no social standing, and besides…" She

paused, then gave him a taunting look and said softly,

"If necessary I shall tell everyone about the child I

was to have had, whom you made me destroy."

"Your lover’s child," he reminded her. "Not Gino’s

child. You told me that yourself."

"But I shall tell others that it was your child. After

all, many people know that Gino believed you loved

me."

"I should have told him that I loathed you."

"He would not have believed you," Caterina told

him smugly. "Just as he would not have believed the

child was not his. How does it feel to know that you

are responsible for the taking of an unborn child"s

life, Lorenzo?"

He took a step towards her, a look of such blazing

fury in his eyes that she ran for the door, pulling it

open and sliding through it.

Lorenzo cursed savagely under his breath and then

went back to the table where he had dropped his

grandmother’s will.

He had been filled with fury and disbelief when his

grandmother’s notary had finally managed to make

contact with him to tell him of his fears, and how he

had managed to prevent Caterina from having all her

own way by deliberately removing her name from the

will so that it merely required Lorenzo to marry in

order to inherit, rather than specifically having to

marry Caterina.

The notary, almost as elderly as his grandmother

had been, had apologised to Lorenzo if he had done

the wrong thing, but Lorenzo had quickly reassured

him that he had not. Without the notary"s interference

Caterina would have trapped him very cleverly. She

was right about one thing. He did want the Castillo.

And he intended to have it.

Right now, though, he had to get away from it before

he did something he would regret, he reflected

as he strode out into the courtyard and breathed in

the clean tang of the evening air, mercifully devoid

of Caterina’s heavy, smothering perfume.

SHE was going to have to give in and do that U-turn

she had sworn she would not make, Jodie admitted