The Impatient Groom Read Online Free PDF Page B

She looked up to see if the prince was teasing her but he appeared to be perfectly serious.
    â€˜His palazzo is called Ca’ D‘Antiga,’ he drawled. ‘Capital C—’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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—’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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—’
    â€˜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.
    Was he deliberately dominating her? she wondered. She contemplated jumping up and doing a bit of striding around herself, but she knew that right at this moment her legs would buckle. A weak, rubbery goo seemed to have replaced her bones.
    He pushed back his jacket and thrust his hands into his pockets, drawing her unwilling attention to his narrow waist and slim hips. She lowered her eyes. He was speaking and his purring voice curled into her with remorseless insistence, distracting her even from the staggering claim he’d made about her mother.
    He is unbelievably magnetic, she thought, terrified that he’d realise—rightly—that her shallow breathing wasn’t entirely due to his revelations. Desperately she struggled to stop herself reacting so stupidly to Rozzano’s highoctane sex appeal and to attend to what he was saying.
    â€˜But you’ll find that your grandfather,’ he was telling her smoothly, ‘is a kind and generous man. He would be very happy to see you take your place in Venetian society.’
    She gave a short laugh, seeing herself parading in a tiara and ermine-trimmed robes, or whatever count’s granddaughters wore. Probably fluorescent Versace and a baseball cap nowadays, she thought mefully, trying to make herself see the funny side.
    Rozzano