CATHERINE GEORGE - The Italian Count's Defiant Bride

She stiffened, alarm bells ringing as David relentlessly towed her through the crowd to join the man at one of the great windows looking down on the water. ‘You remember Francesco da Luca? How come you two know each other?’

Alicia’s eyes narrowed in fierce warning at Francesco.

‘We met years ago in Florence,’ he said smoothly, and took her hand to kiss it. ‘ Com’esta , Alicia? You look very beautiful tonight.’

‘She looks beautiful every night, friend,’ said David cheerfully, and with a wink atAlicia excused himself to greet some late arrivals.

‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed, pinning on a bright, social smile.

Francesco’s triumphant answering smile set her teeth on edge. ‘I was invited.’

‘By David?’

‘No.’ He manoeuvred her nearer the window, neatly isolating her from the rest of the room. ‘Last night I dined with some old rugby friends who introduced me to John Griffiths. He was most kind to invite me here tonight.’

Alicia stared, seething, through the window. If his invitation had come from the managing director, she had to grin and bear it. Even if it choked her. ‘Are you here long?’ she asked politely, as though they were strangers.

‘For as long as necessary,’ said Francesco with emphasis, and moved closer. ‘I insist that we talk tonight, Alicia.’

She turned narrowed, hostile eyes on him. ‘Insist?’

He laid a hand on his heart. ‘ Mi dispiace. Request is better?’

‘No. As far as I’m concerned, we have nothing to talk about.’

‘But we do, Alicia.’ He took her hand. ‘I will take you home when the party is over.’

She shook her head. ‘The party was over for us a long time ago, Francesco.’

His grasp tightened. ‘Ah no, contessa , you are mistaken.’

‘Neither mistaken nor interested, Francesco. And don’t call me that! Now, let me go, please. Dinner is about to be served.’ Not that she felt hungry any more.

‘Wait,’ he commanded. ‘Why did your mother move from Blake Street?’

Conscious of curious eyes turned in their direction, Alicia kept her smile pinned in place as though they were just indulging in party chat. ‘She got married.’

His eyes softened as he released her. ‘And do you like her husband?’

‘Yes, very much. Now, I’ve got to go—’

‘Not until you tell me where you live.’

Oh well. He had to know sometime. ‘I rent a flat right here in the Bay.’

‘You live alone there?’

She nodded curtly, and hurried off through the crowd.

It seemed like hours before the meal and the speeches were finally over. At last Alicia collected her raincoat and went down to the foyer, where most of the management and their wives and partners were waiting for taxis. And, with them, Francesco da Luca.

‘Well done, Alicia. A triumph for Wales and for the party tonight,’ said John Griffiths with satisfaction. ‘Can we drop you on our way?’

‘I have a taxi waiting,’ said Francesco swiftly.

‘Ah. We leave her in good hands, then.’

Goodnights were exchanged, and before Alicia could argue that she lived near enough to walk home she was giving a taxi driver her address, which Francesco noted down in something he took from his wallet. He needed the information anyway, thought Alicia, resigned. Ever since Bron’s surprise marriage and her move to her husband’s home in Cowbridge, there had been no way for Francesco to demand news of his missing bride. And presumably he wanted to marry again and provide an heir for Montedaluca. In which case he could just send her the necessary papers to sign and that would be that. Mission accomplished.

The ridiculously short journey was accomplished in fraught silence, which lasted after Francesco paid the driver and continued as he followed Alicia into the lift in the foyer of her waterside building. By the time the doors opened at her floor, every nerve in her body was tied in knots.

When she ushered him into her sitting room, Francesco made straight for the glass doors which opened onto a minuscule balcony overlooking the Bay. He turned to her with a smile. ‘You also have a room with a view, Alicia.’

‘It’s why I couldn’t resist the flat,’ she admitted, ignoring the memory his words brought to life. ‘Though the basement swimming-pool and parking facilities make it worth the steep rent.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘Would you like some coffee, or a drink? I can give you some passable wine.’

‘ Grazie , nothing.’ He looked round the room, at the small sofa and the one chair that could be remotely described as comfortable. ‘Let us sit down.’

Alicia took off her raincoat, and conscious, now that she was alone with Francesco, that her caramel silk shift stopped short of her knees and left one shoulder bare, excused herself to put her raincoat away. Feeling defenceless without it, she snatched up an elderly black cardigan and wrapped herself in it to rejoin her uninvited guest.

She took the chair and waved him to the sofa. ‘All right, Francesco. But I warn you, I’m tired. So I hope this won’t take long.’

He sat down, eyeing the cardigan in amusement. ‘If that garment is meant to hide you from me, Alicia, it does not succeed.’ His eyes moved over her in slow, nerve-jangling scrutiny. ‘You have changed much from the shy young girl I first met.’

He had changed too. His face was harder, older, but no less striking than the first time she’d seen it, caught on camera in grinning triumph. ‘I grew up, Francesco. It took me longer than most girls, but the treatment you and the contessa dished out fast-forwarded me into adulthood pretty rapidly in the end.’

Francesco’s jaw clenched. ‘My mother is dead,’ he reminded her.

‘And, as I said in my letter, I’m truly sorry for your loss.’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course. She was the most important person in your life. You must miss her very much.’

‘I do. But I do not pretend that, now she is dead, she was a saint.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I regret that she did not welcome you to our home with warmth.’

That was an understatement for the permafrost which had chilled Alicia to the bone. She shrugged. ‘But she was right when she told me I was an unsuitable bride for her son.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Mamma said this to you?’

‘I’m sure she said it to you, too.’

‘ Davverro , but I made it plain to her that you were the only bride I wanted.’

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A pity you didn’t make it plainer to me. Once I arrived in Montedaluca, I began to doubt it more with every passing day. Most people in the castello took their cue from the contessa and made me feel like an outsider. Which I was, of course. Apart from your great-aunt Luisa, and the lady you hired to teach me Italian, hardly anyone spoke to me for the six weeks I lived there—including you. You were so busy during the run-up to the wedding you had no time for me. You turned into a stranger.’ Alicia smiled coldly. ‘Which you were, of course. Until then, I didn’t even know you had a title.’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘Such things mean little now.’

‘It meant a great deal to your mother. The only time she deigned to spend with me was filled with instructions on how a future Contessa da Luca must behave.’ Alicia smiled sardonically. ‘She must have been utterly delighted when I bolted.’

He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. She was ravaged with worry.’

‘You surprise me. I thought she would have been over the moon because you were free again.’

‘But I am not free.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Having married you in the cattedrale in Montedaluca, I am bound to you for life.’