Free Wife in the Shadows by Sara Craven Page B

I’d simply been tricked into the wrong bed, or I’d have found myself lying on the pavement outside, thrown there by his security staff. And the consequences of that would be truly horrendous.
    Therefore if I want his money, I have to bite on the bullet by accepting the eternally damned terms he spelled out to me with such care, and somehow persuade the little Signorina Milk and Water to become my wife. With the assurance that, once the knot is tied, the finance will become immediately available.
    He punched the arm of the sofa with his clenched fist.
    Dear God, what a prospect, he thought despairingly. To have to marry a girl who looks at me as if she’d come across a snake sleeping in the sunshine. Who shrinks from my lightest touch and answers me in monosyllables from surely the coldest mouth in Rome.
    But I know quite well it’s not the Prince pulling the strings. That I have his charming wife, plus my own grandmother, and, of course, Zia Dorotea to thank for this current horror. All they needed was the opportunity I was stupid enough to give them, and my fate was sealed.
    I must have been insane to think that an engagement would be enough to satisfy them, he told himself. And perhaps I should have asked myself too if their chosen candidate for the post of my wife was really only the scapegoat she appeared to be.
    And, for a brooding moment, found himself remembering a slim body warm against his and soft lips that had briefly trembled beneath his kiss. Very briefly, he thought, because the next moment, she had scratched him like a tigress.
    Restively, he finished the whisky in his glass and set it aside. Well if there was no other way to secure the promised loan, and they all wished to transform Elena Blake into the Contessa Manzini, he would oblige them.
    But, he decided with icy resolution, she would have the title and the status—nothing more, because she was the last womanin the world he would have chosen for himself, and he had no intention of making her his wife in any real sense.
    In fact, he told himself harshly, he would continue to seek his pleasures where he found them, though with rather more discretion in future, and he hoped they would all—the girl Elena included—be satisfied with the result of their machinations.
    And as he had the phone number of an enchanting creature he’d met at a reception the previous week, instead of drinking himself into oblivion, he would call her right now and see if she was free for lunch, and whatever else the afternoon might suggest.
    Starting, he thought with sudden grimness, as he meant to go on.
    At first she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Didn’t want to believe it, yet found herself listening numbly to what Madrina was saying so gently but with such total finality.
    At last, she said, her voice shaking, ‘I didn’t even want to be engaged. You know that. But—marriage—to him! I couldn’t—not possibly. And he—he doesn’t wish it either. I know it.’
    The Principessa patted her hand. ‘But after what happened between you, the Count has to make reparation. Surely, you understand this.’
    She sounded like the voice of sweet reason, Ellie thought, aghast.
    ‘Your engagement must now be followed by a wedding,’ her godmother went on. ‘Quite apart from other considerations, our families bear two ancient names, and his own sense of honour as well as ours demands it. Besides it is high time he was married.’
    She added with a note of reproof, ‘You cannot have forgotten, dearest child, the exact circumstances under which you were discovered.’
    ‘No,’ Ellie said bitterly. ‘Or the reason for it.’
    The Principessa pursed her lips warningly. ‘Put whatever you imagine out of your mind, Elena. It is of no use to dwell on something that cannot be altered.’ She paused, then wenton more briskly. ‘Do not forget that Angelo Manzini is one of Rome’s most eligible bachelors, and many young women would be glad to take your place at