The Forced Marriage

Flora’s lips parted in a soundless gasp. She stared up at Marco. “You—can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” He shrugged. “I have to return there, and you need to escape. It solves several problems.”

And creates a hundred others. She thought it, but did not say it. She said slowly, “Marco—why do you want me with you?”

He put his lips to the agitated pulse in her throat. “You have a short memory, mia cara. Do you really not know?”

Mamma Mia!

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Marriage in Peril

by

Miranda Lee

June, #2326

The Forced Marriage

Sara Craven

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Endpage

CHAPTER ONE

‘TELL me something,’ said Hester. ‘Are you absolutely certain you want to get married?’

Flora Graham, whose thoughts had drifted to the ongoing knotty problem of informing those concerned that she didn’t want her spoiled and brattish nephew as a pageboy, hurriedly snapped back to the immediate present, the crowded and cheerful restaurant, and her best friend and bridesmaid eyeing her with concern across the table.

‘Of course I do.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Chris and I are perfect for each other; you know that. I couldn’t be happier.’

‘You don’t look particularly happy,’ Hester said judicially, refilling their coffee cups.

Flora rolled her eyes in mock despair. ‘You wait until it’s your turn, and you find yourself in the middle of a three-ring circus with no time off for good behaviour. My mother must have been having one of her deaf days when I said I wanted a small quiet wedding.’

‘Then why don’t you have one?’ Hester met her astonished look steadily. ‘Why don’t you ask Chris to get a special licence, and slope off somewhere and do the business? I’ll happily be one witness, and maybe Chris’s best man would be the other.’

Flora went on staring at her. ‘Because we can’t. We’re committed to all these arrangements—all that expense. We’d be letting so many people down. It’s too late.’

‘Honey, it’s never too late.’ Hester’s voice was persuasive. ‘And I’m sure most people would understand.’

Flora gave a wry shake of the head. ‘Not my mother,’ she said. And, my God, certainly not Chris’s. ‘Anyway, don’t you want to do your bridesmaid thing? I’ve arranged for you to catch my bouquet afterwards.’

‘Having observed you closely since the engagement party, I think I’ll pass,’ Hester said drily. ‘I’m not ready for a nervous breakdown.’ She paused. ‘Talking of engagements, I see you’re not wearing your ring. Would that be a Freudian slip?’

‘No, I damaged a claw in the setting last week, and it’s being repaired.’ Flora’s frown deepened. ‘What is this, Hes? You’re beginning to sound as if you don’t like Chris.’

‘That’s not true,’ her friend said slowly. ‘But, even if you hate me for ever, I have to tell you I think you could do better.’

Flora gasped. ‘You don’t mean that. I love Chris, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Hester was silent for a moment. ‘Flo, in all the years we’ve known each other I’ve seen you with various men, but never in a serious relationship with any of them. Although that’s fine,’ she added hastily. ‘You’ve never slept around, and I admire you for sticking to your principles. But I always thought that when you fell, you’d fall hard. Passion to die for—heaven, hell and heartbreak—the works. And I don’t see much sign of that with you and Chris.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Flora said calmly. ‘It sounds very uncomfortable.’

‘But it should be uncomfortable,’ Hester returned implacably. ‘Love isn’t some cosy old coat that you slip on because it’s less trouble than shopping for a new one.’

‘But that isn’t how I feel at all,’ Flora protested. ‘I— I’m crazy about him.’

‘Really?’ Hester was inexorable. ‘In that case, why aren’t you living together?’

‘The flat needs work—decoration. We want it to be perfect. After all, it’s going to be my showcase, and it’s taking longer than we thought.’ Flora realised with exasperation how feeble that sounded.

‘That,’ said Hester, ‘hardly suggests that you can’t keep your hands off each other. And I suppose the cost of refurbishment prevents you sneaking off together for a romantic weekend in the country?’

‘When we’re married,’ Flora said defiantly, ‘every weekend will be romantic.’

‘Be honest, now.’ Hester leaned forward. ‘If Chris came to you tomorrow and said he wanted to call it off, would it be the end of your world?’

‘Yes.’ Flora lifted her chin. ‘Yes, it would.’ She paused. ‘Perhaps Chris and I aren’t the most demonstrative couple in the world, but who says you have to wear your heart on your sleeve?’

‘Sometimes,’ Hester said gently, ‘you simply can’t help yourself.’ She drank the rest of her coffee and reached for her bag, and the bill. ‘However, if that’s how you really feel, and you’re sure about it, there’s no more to be said.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘On the other hand, if you ever have doubts about what you’re doing, I’ll be around to pick up the pieces. Sal the demon flatmate is off to Brussels for three months, so I’ve a spare room again.’

‘It’s a sweet offer,’ Flora said gently. ‘And I don’t hate you for making it, even though it’s not necessary.’ She gave Hester an affectionate grin. ‘I thought it was supposed to be the bride who got the pre-wedding jitters, not the bridesmaid.’

‘I’d be happier if you were jittery,’ Hester retorted. ‘You act as though you’re resigned to your fate. And there’s no need to be. You’re gorgeous and the world is full of attractive men waiting to be attracted.’ She dropped a swift kiss on Flora’s hair as she went past. ‘And, if you don’t believe me, check out the guy over there at the corner table,’ she added in sepulchral tones. ‘He’s had his eyes on you all through lunch.’ And, with a conspiratorial wink, she was gone.

Flora ought to have left too. Instead she found she was reaching for the cafetière and refilling her cup again. Maybe she should include sugar this time, she thought, biting her lip. Wasn’t that one of the treatments for shock?

Because she couldn’t pretend that Hester’s blunt remarks had just slid off her consciousness like water off a duck’s back.

Stunned, she thought wryly, is the appropriate word.

And all from an innocuous girlie lunch to make a final decision between old rose and delphinium-blue for Hester’s dress.

Unbelievable.

And it wasn’t the drink talking either. In vino veritas hardly applied to a glass of Chardonnay apiece and a litre of mineral water.

No, it was clear this had been brewing for some time, and, with a month to go before the wedding, Hester had decided it was time to speak her mind.

But I really wish she hadn’t, Flora thought, biting her lip. I was perfectly content when I sat down at this table. And I’ve enough on my mind without doing a detailed analysis of my feelings for Chris, and seeing how they measure on some emotional Richter scale I never knew existed.

I love Chris, and I know we’re going to have a good marriage—one that will last, too. And surely that matters far more than—sexual fireworks.

She felt her mind edging gently away from that particular subject, and paused quite deliberately. Because that would also be all right once they were married, she reassured herself, and that previous fiasco would be entirely forgotten.

She glanced at her watch and rose. Time was pressing, and she would have to take a cab to her next appointment.

On her way out of the restaurant she remembered Hester’s parting remarks and risked a swift sideways glance at the table in question. Only to find herself looking straight into the eyes of its occupant.

He was very dark, she registered as she looked away, her face warming with embarrassment, with curling hair worn longer than she approved of. He was also startlingly attractive, in an olive-skinned Mediterranean way. The image of an elegant high-bridged nose, sculptured cheekbones, a firm chin with a cleft in it, and a mobile mouth that quirked sensuously under her regard accompanied her out of the restaurant and into the sunlit street beyond.

My God, she realised, half-amused, half-concerned. I could practically draw him from memory.

And, damn you, Hes. That was something else I didn’t need.

She stepped to the edge of the kerb and looked down the street for an approaching taxi. But there wasn’t one in sight, so she started to walk in the required direction, pausing every now and then to look back.

She didn’t even see her assailant coming. The first hint of danger was a hand in her back, pushing her violently, and a wrench at the strap of her bag that nearly dragged it from her grasp.

Flora felt herself go sprawling, the bag pinned underneath her, as she filled her lungs and screamed for help. On the ground, she covered her head with her hands, terrified that she was going to be punched or kicked.

Then she heard men’s voices shouting, a squeal of brakes, and the sound of running feet.

Flora stayed still, exactly where she was, the breath sobbing in her throat.

She could hear someone speaking to her in husky, faintly accented English.

‘Are you hurt, signorina? Shall I call an ambulance for you? Can you speak?’

‘She may not talk, mate, but she can yell. Nearly took me eardrums out,’ said a deeper, gruffer voice. ‘Let’s see if we can get her to her feet.’

‘It’s all right.’ Flora raised her head dazedly and looked around her. ‘I can manage.’

‘I don’t think so.’ The first voice again. ‘I believe you must accept a little help, signorina.’

Flora turned unwillingly in the speaker’s direction, to have all her worst fears confirmed.

Seen at close range—and he was kneeling beside her so he could hardly have been any closer—the man from the restaurant was even more devastating. His mouth was set grimly now, but she could imagine how it would soften. And his eyes, she had leisure to note, were green, with tiny gold flecks. A whisper of some expensive male cologne reached her, and, suddenly keen to get out of range of its evocative scent, Flora hauled herself up on to her knees.

‘Ouch.’ Major mistake, she thought, wincing. She’d ripped her tights and grazed her legs when she fell. Her elbows and palms were sore too.

‘Come on, ducks.’ It was Voice Two. A burly arm went round her, lifting her bodily to her feet. ‘Why don’t I pop you in the cab and take you to the nearest casualty department, eh?’

‘Cab?’ Flora repeated. ‘I—I wanted a cab.’

‘Well, I could see that, and I was just pulling over when that bastard jumped you. Then this other gentleman came flying up, and the mugger legged it.’

‘Oh.’ Flora made herself look at the ‘other gentleman’, who stood, smiling faintly, those astonishing eyes trailing over her in a cool and disturbingly thorough assessment. ‘Well—thank you.’

He inclined his head gravely. ‘Your bag is safe? And he took nothing else?’

‘He didn’t really get the chance.’ She gave him a brief, formal smile, then turned to the cabbie. ‘I need to go to Belvedere Row. I’m supposed to be meeting someone there and I’m going to be late.’

‘I hardly think you can keep your appointment like that,’ her rescuer intervened firmly. ‘At the least you require a clothes brush, and your cuts should also be attended to.’

Before she could protest Flora found herself manoeuvred into the back of the cab, with the stranger taking the seat beside her.

‘The Mayfair Tower Hotel, please,’ he directed the driver.

‘I can’t go there.’ Flora shot bolt upright. ‘My appointment’s in the other direction.’

‘And when you are clean and tidy, another cab will take you there.’ An autocratic note could be detected in the level tone. ‘It is a business meeting? Then it is simple. You call on your cellphone and explain why you are delayed.’

‘So what’s it to be, love?’ the driver demanded through the partition. ‘The Mayfair Tower?’

Flora hesitated. ‘Yes—I suppose.’

‘A wise decision,’ her companion applauded smoothly.

She sent him a steely glance. ‘Do you enjoy arranging other people’s lives?’

His answering smile warmed into a grin. ‘Only those that I have saved,’ he drawled.

Deep within her an odd tingle stirred uneasily. She tried to withdraw unobtrusively, further into her corner of the taxi.

‘Isn’t that rather an exaggeration?’

He shrugged powerful shoulders that the elegant lines of his charcoal suit accentuated rather than diminished. The top button of his pale grey silk shirt was undone, Flora noticed, and the knot of his ruby tie loosened. For the rest of him, he was about six feet tall, lean and muscular, with legs that seemed to go on for ever.

He wasn’t merely attractive, she acknowledged unwillingly. He was seriously glamorous.

‘Then let’s say I spared you the inconvenience of losing your credit cards and money. To many people, that would be life and death.’

She smiled constrainedly. ‘And my engagement ring is at the jeweller’s, so really I’ve got off lightly.’

That was clumsily done, she apostrophised herself silently, and saw by his sardonic smile that he thought so too.

She hurried into speech again. ‘Why the Mayfair Tower?’

‘I happen to be staying there.’

There was a silence, then she said, ‘Then you must let me drop you off before I take this cab back to my flat, to clean up and change.’

‘You are afraid I shall make unwelcome advances to you?’ His brows lifted. ‘Allow me to reassure you. I never seduce maidens in distress—unless, of course, they insist.’

Her mouth tightened. ‘I dare say you think this is very amusing…’

‘On the contrary, signorina, I take the whole situation with the utmost seriousness.’ For a moment, there was an odd note in his voice.

Then he added with cool courtesy, ‘You are trying to shrug off what has happened, but you have had a severe shock and that will bring its own reaction. I do not think you should be alone.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Flora said tautly. ‘But I really can’t go with you. You must see that.’

‘I seem to be singularly blind this afternoon.’ He took a slim wallet from an inside pocket of his jacket and extracted a card. ‘Perhaps a formal introduction may convince you of my respectability.’

Flora accepted the card and studied it dubiously. ‘Marco Valante,’ she read. And beneath it ‘Altimazza Inc’. She glanced up. ‘The pharmaceutical company?’

‘You have heard of us?’ His brows lifted.

‘Of course.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re incredibly successful. Whenever your shares are offered my fiancé recommends them to his clients.’

‘He is a broker, perhaps?’ he inquired politely.

‘An independent financial adviser.’

‘Ah, and do you work in the same area?’

‘Oh, no,’ Flora said hastily. ‘I’m a consultant in property sales.’

His brows rose. ‘You sell houses?’

‘Not directly. The agencies hire me to show people how to present their properties to the best advantage when potential buyers are going round. I get them to refurbish tired décor—or tone down strident colour schemes.’

‘I imagine that would not always be easy.’

She smiled reluctantly. ‘No. We have a saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and sometimes sellers are inclined to pull up the drawbridge. I have to convince them that their property is no longer a loved home but a commodity which they want to sell at a profit. Sometimes it takes a lot of persuasion.’

He looked at her reflectively. ‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that you could persuade a monk to abandon his vows, mia cara.’

Flora stiffened. ‘Please—don’t say things like that.’

He pantomimed astonishment. ‘Because you are to be married you can no longer receive compliments from other men? How quaint.’

‘That,’ she said, ‘is not what I meant.’

Totally relaxed in his own corner, he grinned at her. ‘And you must not be teased either? Si, capisce. From now on I will behave like a saint.’

He didn’t look like a saint, Flora thought. More like a rebel angel…

She glanced back at the card he had given her. ‘You don’t look like a chemist,’ she said, and almost added either.

‘I’m not.’ He pulled a face. ‘I work in the accounting section, mainly raising funding for our research projects.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well—that would explain it.’

Actually, it explained nothing, because he wasn’t her idea of an accountant either, by a mile and a half.

‘Does everything have to be readily comprehensible?’ he enquired softly. ‘Do you never wish to embark on a long, slow voyage of discovery?’

Flora had the feeling that he was needling her again, but she refused to react. ‘I’m more used to first impressions—instant reactions. It’s part of my job.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘You know who I am. Will you grant me the same privilege?’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes—of course…’

She delved into her misused bag and produced one of her own business cards. He read it, then looked back at her, those amazing eyes glinting under their heavy lids. ‘Flora,’ he said softly. ‘The goddess of the springtime.’

She flushed and looked away. ‘Actually, I was named after my grandmother—far more prosaic.’

‘So, tell me—Flora—will you continue to work after you are married?’

‘Naturally.’

‘You are sure that your man will not guard you even more closely when you are his wife?’

‘That’s nonsense,’ Flora said indignantly. ‘Chris doesn’t guard me.’

‘Good,’ Marco Valante said briskly. ‘Because we have arrived at the hotel, and there is nothing, therefore, to prevent you going in with me.’

Flora had every intention of offering him a last haughty word of thanks, then hobbling out of his life for ever. But suddenly the commissionaire was there, helping her out of the taxi and holding open the big swing doors so she could go in.

And then she was in the foyer, all marble and plate glass, and Marco Valante had joined her and was giving soft-voiced orders that people were hurrying to obey—a lot of them concerning herself.

And suddenly the reality of making the kind of scene which would extract her from this situation seemed totally beyond her capabilities.

In fact, she was forced to acknowledge, all she really wanted to do was find somewhere quiet and burst into tears.

She didn’t even utter a protest when she was escorted to the lift and taken up to the first floor. She walked beside Marco Valante to the end of the corridor, and waited while he slotted in his key card and opened the door.

Mutely, she preceded him into the room.

Although this was no mere room, she saw at once. It was a large and luxuriously furnished suite, and they were standing in the sitting room. The curtains were half drawn, to exclude the afternoon sun, and he went over and flung them wide.

‘Sit down.’ He indicated one of the deeply cushioned sofas and she sank down on it with unaccustomed obedience, principally because her throbbing legs were threatening to give way beneath her.

‘I have told them to send the nurse here to dress your cuts,’ he said. ‘I have also ordered some tea for you, and if you go into the bathroom you will find a robe you can wear while your suit is being valeted.’

She said shakily, ‘You’re pretty autocratic for an accountant.’

He shrugged. ‘I wish to make some kind of amends for what happened earlier.’

‘I don’t see why,’ Flora objected. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘But I could, perhaps, have prevented it if I had been quicker. If I had obeyed my instinct and left the restaurant when you did.’

‘Why should you do that?’ Reaction was beginning to set in. She felt deathly cold suddenly, and wrapped her arms round her body, gritting her teeth to stop them from chattering.

‘I thought,’ he said softly, ‘that I was not permitted to pay you compliments. But, if you must know, I wanted very much to make the acquaintance of a beautiful girl with hair that Titian might have painted.’

So Hes had been right, Flora realised with a little jolt of shock. He had indeed been watching her during lunch.

‘Presumably,’ she said, with an effort, ‘you have a thing about red-haired women.’

‘Not until today, when I saw you in the sunlight, Flora mia.’

For a moment her heart skipped a treacherous beat, before reason cut in and she wondered with intentional cynicism how many other women that particular line had worked with.

She closed her eyes, deliberately shutting him out. Using it as a form of rejection.

While at the same time she thought, ‘I should not—I really should not be here.’

And only realised she had spoken aloud when he said quietly, ‘Yet you are perfectly safe. For at any moment people will start arriving, and I shall probably never be alone with you again.’

And never, mourned a small voice in her head, is such a very long time. And such a very lonely word. But that was a thought she kept strictly to herself.

She said, ‘Perhaps you’d show me where the bathroom is.’

She had, inevitably, to cross his bedroom to reach it, and she followed him, her eyes fixed rigidly on his back, trying not to notice the kingsize bed with its sculptured ivory coverlet.

The bathroom was all creamy tiles edged with gold, and she stood at a basin shaped like a shell and took her first good look at herself, her lips shaping into a silent whistle of dismay.

Shock had drained her normally pale skin and she looked like a ghost, her clear grey eyes wide and startled. There was a smudge on her cheek, and her shirt was dirty and ripped, exposing several inches of lacy bra. Which Marco Valante was bound to have noticed, she thought, biting her lip.

Well, perhaps the valeting service could lend her a safety pin, she told herself as she removed her suit and carefully peeled off her torn tights.

She washed her face and hands, then did her best to make herself look less waif-like with the powder and lipstick in her bag, before turning her attention to her unruly cloud of dark red hair.

Usually, for work, she stifled its natural wave, drawing it severely back from her face and confining it at the nape of her neck with a barrette or a bow of dark ribbon. Although a few tendrils invariably managed to escape and curl round her face.

But today the ribbon had gone, allowing the whole gleaming mass to tumble untrammelled round her shoulders, and no amount of struggling with a comb could restore it to its normal control.

But then nothing was normal today, she thought with a sigh, as she put on the oversized towelling robe and secured its sash round her slim waist. It covered her completely, but she still felt absurdly self-conscious as she made her way back to the sitting room.

Only it was not Marco Valante awaiting her but the nurse, a brisk blonde in a neat navy uniform, clearly more accustomed to reassuring elderly tourists about their digestive problems. But she cleaned Flora up with kindly efficiency, putting antiseptic cream and small waterproof dressings over the worst of her grazes.