Free The Bride Who Wouldn't by Carol Marinelli Page A

himself. Surely he could not have reacted any worse to her confession, and so why was she smiling too? Why did she feel a cloak of shame lift as she also started to laugh?
    “Lady garden!” Isaak said again.
    “That’s what she called it.”
    “No wonder you’ve got issues.” He looked down at her. “I could have fun with that forever… I’m going to trim the lady garden.” There was a knock at the door. “I’m going to plant seeds in the lady garden.” Then he called for the maid to come in.
    He was still laughing as a tray was delivered to his lap.
    Oh my, she thought of the serious faces of umpteen counsellors and doctors she had visited over the years and then she looked to the smiling face of possibly the most insensitive man, but again she’d misread him.
    “You did nothing wrong,” he said when the door had closed and it was just the two of them. “Nothing. Lucky I did not have your mother, she would have been losing it three times a day.”
    She just stared back at him, and he was suddenly serious. “Yes.” Isaak nodded. “It is normal, it is nice.” He picked up her hand and gave it a kiss. “I am sorry to laugh but…”
    “No.” She stared at him, it was the honesty of his reaction that had lifted her. It was that he truly did not seem to think what she had done had been a problem. Oh, the counsellors and doctors had said the same and intellectually she knew they were right—but her mother’s horror and revulsion at such a formative time bypassed all logic and had settled in deep.
    But then so too did Isaak settle in deep, for suddenly his eyes were serious and he leant over and gave her a very nice kiss.
    “She should not have shamed you. That was so, so wrong.”

Chapter 10
    “E njoy,” Isaak said from the bed as Kate, wrapped in a bathrobe, was about to leave for a day of pampering in the spa.
    “I shall.”
    He just knew she was lying, and Isaak called her back.
    “Remember last night when you ordered the wine?” He took her hand. “If they suggest something that does not appeal, say no. If you want more pressure or less, then you say so.”
    “I shall.”
    “Good,” Isaak said. “It is your day.”
    “What will you do?”
    “I want to look up my uncle, maybe look for images of the ring.” He picked up her hand and examined the ring closely.
    Kate took it off and handed it to him. Then she went to the safe, opened it, took out a small pouch, and poured the earrings into his palm.
    “I was always going to return these to you. When I thought we’d be getting an annulment, I was going to give them to you.”
    “These were a gift to you though.”
    “It’s your history Isaak. I think these are the most beautiful earrings I have ever seen. I would never have sold them, and I’d have never worn them.”
    “Why?”
    It hurt to admit. “My family would sell them in a heartbeat. If I kept them, then it would be in a safety deposit box. They belong to you.”
    “No.” Isaak shook his head. “They were a gift, and so they belong to you. I would love to see you wearing them, but for now, thank you. It might help me in my search. I don’t know where to start,” he admitted. “What do you suggest?”
    “The library,” Kate suggested. “They’ll have different information to the one I work at. Not everything is online. Sometimes it’s just down to luck.”
    When she left, Isaak stared at the earrings and ring for ages, and although he might try the library this afternoon, Isaak decided to try speaking with a jeweller. After a brief word with the concierge as to whom they might suggest, Isaak found himself just a block or so away speaking with an elderly man who examined them closely but was of little more help than Kate.
    “Often hallmarks are scratched out,” he explained as he examined the ring. “This is not Faberge or Bolin but these are seriously beautiful pieces.” He pointed to the claw that raised the diamond. This puts it around 1870, but these swirls