Wife By Arrangement. Lucy GordonЧитать онлайн книгу.
she was on the flight to Palermo, still wondering what had come over her. Beside her sat Dr Angela Wenham: Angie, her closest friend and flatmate, who was enjoying a well-earned holiday.
‘I’m so glad you asked me to come with you as bridesmaid,’ Angie said now. ‘I’m looking forward to a few days just living for pleasure.’
Besides being brainy and hard working Angie was also pretty, daintily built, and a social butterfly. Her recent stint on hospital night duty had severely restricted her romantic life, and she was intent on making up for it, if the smile on her delightful, impish face was anything to go by.
‘Fancy you being swept off your feet,’ Angie chuckled ‘Much more my style than yours.’
‘Yes, it’s not like sturdy, dependable me, is it?’ Heather mused. ‘And the way I acted that night—I swear I didn’t know myself. Normally I’m a quiet sort of person, but I was ranting and raving, telling him where to get off—’
Angie collapsed with laughter. ‘You? Ranting and raving? How I wish I’d been there to see that!’
‘I swear it’s true. I even told him I disliked him enough to turn Lorenzo down.’
‘Wasn’t that true?’
‘No, it wasn’t. But he got me so mad I said the first thing that came into my head.’
Angie looked mischievous. ‘You did say he had two brothers, didn’t you?’
‘You’re incorrigible,’ Heather laughed. ‘I’ve only met Renato.’
‘Ah, yes, the monster Renato.’
‘I have to be fair. He’s not a monster. I was mad at the way he inspected me, but he could have died because of me. He’s welcomed me into the family, and he actually restored his cancelled order afterwards. Someone turned up from the Ritz and collected it.’
‘Tell me about the other one.’
‘There’s also a half-brother, called Bernardo. Their father had an affair with a woman from one of the mountain villages, and Bernardo was their son. They were together in the car crash that killed them both, and Lorenzo’s mother took the boy in and raised him with her own sons.’
‘What an incredible woman!’
‘I know. Her name’s Baptista, and if I’m worried about anything, it’s how she’s going to view me.’
‘But you showed me the letter she wrote you. It was lovely.’
‘It’s just that someone who can put her own feelings aside to do what she saw as her duty—well, you’d never really know what she was thinking, would you?’
‘It’s what Lorenzo thinks about you that counts,’ Angie said staunchly. ‘Hey, isn’t that Sicily, down there?’
From here they could see the triangular island: close to Italy, yet apart from it, separated only by a narrow strip of water, the Straits of Messina, yet with its own distinct identity.
‘A Sicilian,’ Lorenzo had told her, ‘is always a Sicilian first and an Italian afterwards. Sometimes he is barely an Italian at all. So many races meet in us that we think of ourselves as a race apart, doing things our own way.’
She was searching for him as soon as she and Angie left Customs. And there he was, with another man. He waved eagerly to her and broke into a run. Heather hastened towards him, while Angie brought up the rear, smiling, pushing the baggage trolley, and eyeing the second man with pleasurable speculation.
Lorenzo hugged his bride, kissing her between words. ‘It’s been such—a long—time, my darling.’
‘Yes—yes,’ she said kissing him back.
It was marvellous how certain she was now that she was here. Within a few minutes of landing in Sicily Heather knew she had come home. Everything about this place felt perfect, even before she’d discovered the details. And that could only mean that she was doing the right thing in marrying Lorenzo.
‘This is my brother, Bernardo,’ Lorenzo said at last, indicating the man with him.
‘Half-brother,’ murmured the man.
‘Bernardo, meet Heather, my bride-to-be.’
She introduced Angie to Lorenzo. But when he tried to present Bernardo his brother waved him away with a grin. ‘We’ve already introduced ourselves,’ he said, ‘while you two were—er—saying hello.’
This caused general laughter. Bernardo took charge of the trolley and they made their way to the car, where he invited Angie to sit in the front with him.
‘They won’t want to be disturbed,’ he said, smiling.
So many sensations were converging on Heather that she had only a confused impression of the most brilliant colours she had ever seen, the bluest sky, the sweetest air. Bernardo swung the car around the outskirts of Palermo and down the coast, and soon the Residenza Martelli came into sight.
Heather sat up to watch it eagerly. Lorenzo had told her about his home, how it was built on an incline, overlooking the sea, but no words had conveyed its beauty. It rose before them, tier upon tier, balcony on balcony, each one a sea of blooms. Geraniums, jasmine, white and red oleanders, clematis and bougainvillaea danced together in a dizzying riot of colour that was always in perfect harmony.
Then they were on a winding road that twisted and turned, bringing the villa nearer until at last they swung into a courtyard. A flight of broad steps led up to a wide, arched entrance, with a door that was being opened from the inside. Through it came a small, elderly woman, making her way slowly with the aid of a walking stick. She took her place on the top step.
‘That’s my mother,’ Lorenzo said, taking Heather’s hand to lead her up the stairs.
Baptista looked imperious, despite her evident frailty and the fact that she barely came up to Lorenzo’s shoulder. She was in her early sixties, but illness had aged her and she looked older. Beneath her shining white hair her face was sharp, and her brilliant blue eyes missed nothing. But Heather saw the warmth in those eyes, and when the thin arms went around her she felt the unexpected strength in the old woman’s embrace.
‘Welcome, my dear,’ Baptista said. ‘Welcome to the family.’
She was beaming, her expression full of kindness. She greeted Angie equally warmly. ‘When you have seen your room, then we can take a little refreshment together.’
Although the house bore the modest title of Residenza, it might more aptly have been called a palace. It was built in medieval style, of beautiful yellow stone, with long tile and mosaic corridors. The rooms were lined sometimes with marble, sometimes with tapestries. Everywhere Heather saw wealth, beauty, elegance, and an inbred assumption of authority.
She and Angie were sharing a huge room. It bore two large four-poster beds hung with white net curtains which matched those at the tall windows leading onto the broad terrace, facing inland. Beneath it was the huge garden, and beyond that the land stretched away until it rose into dark, misty mountains on the horizon. Everywhere the colours had a vividness Heather had never seen before. After the pastel shades of England their sheer depth and brightness overwhelmed her.
A maid helped them unpack, then showed them out onto the terrace that went all around the house, and led them to the front, where Baptista was seated at a small rustic table, looking out over the bay. Bernardo and Lorenzo were there, and immediately drew out chairs, and when they were seated filled their glasses with Marsala. A larger table nearby was laden with Sicilian cheesecake, zabaglione, coffee ice with whipped cream, candied fruit ring, and several other things that they were too dazed to take in.
‘I wasn’t sure of your preferences, so I ordered a variety,’ Baptista murmured.
The food and wine were delicious. Overhead a flowered awning sheltered them from the bright sun, and a soft breeze was springing up. Heather wondered how she had