Bride By Choice

‘Look, I know exactly what’s going through Lorenzo Martelli’s head at this minute.’

‘You don’t,’ he muttered.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Nothing. Tell me what’s going through his head.’

‘He’ll know that there are four unmarried daughters—Patrizia, Olivia, and Carlotta—and me. And he’ll be expecting one or all of us to make a play for him.’

He didn’t answer, but he ran a finger around the inside of his collar.

‘The Martellis are rich so he’ll think he’s a god of creation,’ Helen said, warming to her theme, ‘loftily waiting while we parade before him and he takes his pick.’

‘The jerk!’ he said with feeling.

‘Exactly. Look, I know I go on about it too much, but it’s how I psyche myself up for the evening ahead.’ She looked at her watch and said reluctantly, ‘I’m afraid I have to go now. I’ll call the desk and fix a cab.’

‘I’d offer you a lift,’ he said, ‘But as I’ve only just arrived I don’t have any transport. Still, maybe I can escort you to your cab.’

‘That would be nice,’ she said cordially. ‘By the way, you haven’t told me your name.’

‘Why, that’s right—hey I see someone I must say goodbye to. Then I’ll get my things from my room. See you in a moment.’

While he was gone Helen sought out Dilys who agreed to collect her luggage and take it home. Then she looked for her boss, uneasily conscious that she’d allowed herself to become distracted from her job tonight. But Mr Dacre was beaming.

‘Good work, good work,’ he carolled. ‘Knew I could rely on you.’

Before she could ask what he meant the young man reappeared, claiming her arm. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said quickly, making a gesture of farewell at Mr Dacre, but not stopping.

He had acquired an outdoor coat and a large leather bag that bulged, although she couldn’t see what it contained. As they descended to the street heads turned to watch such a handsome couple.

As they left the building Helen was struck by sudden inspiration. ‘Come with me.’

‘What?’

‘Come home with me. Come to supper.’

He looked apprehensive. ‘What are you planning?’

‘We just walk in together and—you know—sort of act close.’

‘And then this Martelli character will know you’re not available, huh?’

‘That’s right. Oh, please, it won’t cause you any trouble, I promise.’

He doubted it. With every word he knew he was getting in deeper, storing up trouble for the moment when Helen Angolini discovered the truth. And then there would be the devil to pay. But that would make her magnificent eyes sparkle at him, and what the hell! He was a brave man! Wasn’t he?

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘This guy needs taking down a peg and I’m the man to do it.’

‘You’re wonderful, you know that?’

‘I’m crazy, that’s what I am.’

The cab was waiting. As they approached it Helen noticed Erik waving to her as if he wanted to speak, so she took a couple of steps towards him.

‘Are you off to the lion’s den?’ he asked, giving her his gentle smile.

‘’Fraid so.’

‘I’d have offered you a lift but I’m not your parents’ favourite person. I’ll see you tomorrow. I want to hear all about your trip. ’Bye, honey.’ He kissed her cheek and went on his way.

‘Boyfriend?’ her companion asked as she returned to the taxi.

‘Sort of. I took him home to supper once and my parents set out to sabotage any relationship we might have. Momma told him all the most embarrassing stories about my childhood and then warned him about my Latin temper.’ She chuckled. ‘But Erik played her at her own game beautifully. He said his ancestors were Vikings, and if a woman got mad the man just tossed her over his shoulder and strode off to the cave. Erik’s the most gentle soul alive, but Momma didn’t know what to say. Still, I haven’t taken him there again.’

‘Just see him on the quiet, huh?’

‘We go out now and then.’

When they were settled in the cab she gave the driver the address on Mulberry Street. ‘That’s in a part of Manhattan called Little Italy, if you can believe it,’ she said, exasperated.

‘I believe it.’

Almost as soon as they started moving Helen had to answer her mobile.

‘Yes, Mamma, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in half an hour. I’m looking forward to meeting him. No really, I’m just thrilled that he’s honouring us with his presence tonight.’ She hung up with a sigh, and found her companion grinning at her.

‘You’re a very accomplished liar,’ he said.

‘It’s simpler to say what Mamma wants to hear,’ she sighed. ‘Anything else she just blanks out.’

It was only a few short miles from Park Avenue to Little Italy, but the atmosphere changed swiftly from glamour and luxury to teeming life. Despite her antagonism to her background Helen could never resist a twinge of pleasure as the familiar streets appeared. This was home, whatever else she might say.

But as they glided past the butcher’s shop that had been the family business as long as she could remember she saw, with a faint inward groan, that every window in the apartment above was filled with faces. They went up for three floors. When you were the eldest unmarried daughter of an Italian family, you lived your life in a spotlight.

As they got out of the cab Helen shivered for the wind was like a knife and there was snow in the air.

Her companion paid off the driver and turned to view the fascinated spectators regarding him from above. A surge of madness swept over him. He was going to be punished for what he was about to do, but it would be worth it.

‘Look,’ he said, taking Helen’s arm, ‘they’re all watching us. Let’s give them something to watch.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Like this,’ he said, drawing her close and leaning down so that his mouth was almost touching hers.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered, torn between indignation at his nerve and excitement at the way his breath fluttered against her lips.

‘I’m giving you the chance to stand up for yourself,’ he murmured. ‘Right here, where everyone can see you.’

‘You make it sound so easy.’

‘It is easy. Either you’re a modern, liberated woman, or you’re a dutiful daughter who’ll let herself be marched into marriage with a fat old man.’

With every word his lips flickered lightly against hers, making it hard to think clearly. He was right—maybe. It was hard to tell when little tremors of excitement were scurrying through her.

‘I don’t normally kiss men I’ve only just met,’ she protested.

‘Well, they don’t know we’ve only just met.’

‘But I don’t even know your na—’

The gentle pressure of his lips cut off the last word, and she felt his arms tighten about her just a little, not enough to be threatening, just enough to say he meant business. He was laughing too, inviting her to share the joke even while he kissed her with lips she instinctively sensed had kissed a thousand times before.

Those lips knew far too much, she thought. They were experts in teasing a woman until her head was in a whirl. And they brought back the visions that had assailed her when she first saw him, visions of abundance, riches and sunshine. The wind was as cold as ever, but now she was filled with warmth, melting her, overwhelming her.

‘It would look more convincing if you kissed me back,’ he murmured. ‘Put your arms around my neck.’

Her mind told him to stop his nonsense, but her hands were already sliding up until she could touch his hair, wind her fingers in it, relish the soft, springiness against her palm. She was pulling him closer because she wanted more of him, longed for what only the firm warmth of his mouth could give her. And when she found herself kissing him fervently back it was useless to pretend that she was only trying to ‘make it convincing’. She was doing this because she wanted to.

She flattened her hands against his chest. ‘I think we’ve done enough,’ she said in a shaking voice.

‘We haven’t even started,’ he whispered, and even then she noticed that his voice too was shaking. Looking up she saw his eyes in the near darkness, and thought there was a look of astonishment.

‘Let me go,’ she said urgently. She was suddenly full of alarm. She had to be free of him before it was too late. Trying to strike a lighter note she said, ‘If Lorenzo Martelli saw that he might take a stiletto to you.’

‘Let him come. I’m brave enough for anything tonight.’

There was the sound of doors, voices raised in excitement. Suddenly he grasped Helen’s hand. ‘You will take my side in the row, won’t you?’ he begged.

‘There may not be a row.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said in a voice that was hollow with approaching doom. ‘There’s going to be a row.’

She stared at him, puzzled. But before she could ask, her mother was on them, and incredibly she was laughing, hugging her eldest daughter to her and muttering, ‘What a clever girl you are!’

‘Mamma, I have someone with me. Didn’t you see what we were—?’

‘Oh course I saw. We all did. When Poppa told me who he was we got out the best champagne.’

‘Poppa knows him?’

‘He collected him from the airport two days ago. There now! Didn’t we choose a splendid husband for you?’

She was suddenly dizzy. There was a fog about her head, but not thick enough to shield her from the incredible, the monstrous, the outrageous truth. There was Poppa pumping the young man by the hand, bellowing, ‘Lorenzo!’ There were her sisters, surrounding him excitedly, urging him inside.

And there was Lorenzo Martelli, letting himself be hauled away, meeting Helen’s stormy eyes from the safety of a distance, and giving her a shrug in which guilt, helplessness and mischief were equally mixed, before turning tail and seeking refuge in the safety of the house.

CHAPTER TWO

MAMMA was almost bouncing up and down in her excitement, kissing her daughter again and again.

‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ she enthused. ‘Fancy the two of you liking each other at once! Just wait until your Aunt Lucia in Maryland hears about this.’

Helen blanched at the thought of this story spreading all over Maryland. How long before it got to California? ‘Mamma, don’t tell Aunt Lucia anything just now.’

‘You’re right. Wait until you’ve got his ring on your finger.’

‘Mamma—’

‘OK, OK. But you gotta tell me how you met him.’

‘He was at the hotel reception tonight.’

‘Of course. He wants to sell them his vegetables. Oh, it’ll be a marriage made in heaven.’

‘It isn’t a marriage made anywhere,’ Helen said crossly. ‘I’m not marrying him.’

Signora Angolini screamed. ‘What you mean? What kind of a girl kisses a man in front of the whole street and then says she won’t marry him?’

‘It’s not in front of the—’ A prickle on her spine caused her to look up the high buildings. Row upon row they rose, and wherever she looked the windows were packed with smiling faces.

‘I think we’d better get indoors,’ she said faintly. One ghastly fact was becoming clearer by the moment. There was no way she could tell her family the truth. If kissing her ‘fiancé’ in the street was bad, kissing a man whose identity she hadn’t known was a hundred times worse. The Angolini family would never recover from the shame.

Their home was an apartment over the butcher’s shop that was Nicolo Angolini’s pride and joy. Although large, it was always slightly cramped by two parents and three daughters. Tonight it was packed to the seams with the three sons, their wives and children. By the time Helen and Mamma had climbed the stairs the introductions had been made, and Lorenzo was the centre of a smiling crowd.

Now Helen discovered the purpose of the leather bag. Lorenzo had come bearing gifts, wine and delicacies from Sicily that made Mamma tearful as she recalled the homeland that she had last seen as a girl. Helen was so touched by her mother’s happiness that she almost forgave Lorenzo. Almost.

Her sisters were in ecstasies.

‘He’s really handsome,’ Patrizia whispered, seconded by Olivia and Carlotta. ‘Oh, Elena, you’re so lucky.’

‘My name is Helen, and one more word out of any of you will be your last,’ she muttered.

‘But I want to be a bridesmaid,’ wailed Carlotta, who was fifteen.

‘You’ll be a statistic in the missing persons’ column in a minute,’ Helen warned.

Her sisters exchanged significant looks, understanding that Elena (who had always been ‘difficult’) might be a little sensitive just now.

Turning away from them she edged her way up to Lorenzo, until she got close enough to mutter. ‘We have to talk.’

‘Look, I’m sorry—’

‘You’re going to be.’

‘It just happened.’

To the delight of her whole family she put her hands on his shoulders, gazing up into his face with an utterly charming smile. ‘You’re a scheming rat,’ she murmured.

‘I didn’t mean it to be like it was.’

‘Have you told my family the truth?’

‘No.’

‘Good. Because if you do, you’re dead.’ She glided away, still smiling. Lorenzo gulped.

The folding doors between the two main rooms had been pushed back, creating one large room, connected to the kitchen by a hatch, through which Mamma passed enough food to supply an army. Pride of place was given to a variety of meat courses.

Everyone wanted to talk to Lorenzo, which saved Helen from having to do so. She needed time to compose her thoughts. Memories of the things she’d said tonight flitted through her horrified brain. She’d actually told him that her parents were trying to arrange their marriage. And he not only hadn’t warned her, but he’d joined in her vilification of Lorenzo Martelli.

To cap his iniquity he’d tricked her into accepting his kiss, and actually kissing him back. At this point her thoughts became lost in disorder. Warmth rose in her and she had a horrible feeling that it was showing in her cheeks.

Great! Now he would see her blushing, and that would make him even more full of himself. She looked at him angrily across the table, and found that he was watching her, as she’d feared. But not as though he were pleased with himself. There was a question in his eyes, and his lips wore a half smile that she would have found delightful under other circumstances.

It was all part of the trickery, she warned herself. Having insulted her, he was now bent on winning forgiveness on easy terms. Well, he could think again!

Lorenzo was talking about his family back in Palermo. Helen gathered that his father had died some years earlier, but his mother was still alive, although in frail health.

‘She called me last week,’ Mamma said, ‘to say you were coming. And I told her you would always be welcome in our home.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly made me welcome tonight,’ Lorenzo assured her with his charming smile that took in everyone at the table.

‘Do you have any brothers and sisters?’ Carlotta wanted to know.

‘Two brothers, Renato and Bernardo, both older than me. No sisters, but a sister-in-law. Renato has recently married an English woman called Heather, and their first baby is due later this year.’

Poppa was frowning. ‘I didn’t know your parents had three sons,’ he said. ‘I thought it was only two.’

‘No, there are three of us.’ Lorenzo’s smile was still perfect, but Helen detected a fleeting tension in him, and noticed how adroitly he turned the conversation.

He was wonderful in company, Helen realised. He could be ‘man-to-man’ with her father and brothers, while charming Mamma and making her sisters laugh. In no time at all he had them all on his side, which struck Helen as a really dirty trick.

The most difficult part of the evening was that for once she had her parents’ total, unqualified approval. They had picked out a suitable husband, and instead of arguing she had moved to first base in a couple of hours. In this atmosphere it was impossible to tell them that their choice was a devious, unscrupulous deceiver who ought to be hung up by his thumbs until he promised never to approach a woman again.

Lorenzo, watching her, read her thoughts with tolerable accuracy, but he was too much occupied with getting his bearings to worry about the retribution awaiting him. As a Sicilian he was used to large gatherings, but it was taking all his presence of mind to hold his own in this one. Apart from brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, there were also a couple of Mamma’s nieces with their husbands. Of these, the one who stuck in Lorenzo’s mind was Giorgio, because he disliked him so much.

Giorgio was a huge man with a spiteful face and a bullying nature. He was also blatantly on the make, and lost no time in telling Lorenzo about his family back in Sicily who’d been trying to sell their produce to Martellis for years, but had been scandalously rejected. He implied that now he expected this injustice to be put right.

Lorenzo fenced with him and escaped as soon as he could, giving a huge sigh of relief. That was one more reason to be glad he wasn’t marrying Helen Angolini. Even if she hadn’t rejected him first.

To be fair, he was beginning to understand her feelings. The men of the Angolini family were of a type that was becoming outdated even in Sicily where tradition still prevailed. In this household male superiority was still taken as the norm. Only the younger women, who spent their working lives outside in a different world, questioned it. The men, enclosed in the haven of Little Italy, thought nothing had changed.

The dinner was superb and Lorenzo was able to praise his hostess’s cooking with real pleasure. She smiled and accepted his tribute with a few words, but when her husband intervened to say that Angolini meats were second to none she retired and let him take the credit.

Lorenzo tried again, but this time it was Giorgio who butted in, interrupting Signora Angolini in a way that nobody would have been allowed to do with his own mother. Mamma’s reaction was to rise with a smile and a nod to her daughters to help her clear away. After that the party broke into two groups, women washing up and making coffee, and men gathering to talk.

The evening culminated in a grand family toast to Lorenzo, and an invitation to supper whenever he wished. At last the family began to drift off to their own homes, in some cases just across the street. The party was over. Poppa yawned. He had to get up early next morning.

‘Time for me to go,’ Lorenzo said heartily.

‘No, no, you stay a while,’ Mamma protested. ‘We’re all going to bed, but Elena can make you some more coffee.’

‘Yes, do stay,’ Helen said affably, but with her hand implacably through Lorenzo’s arm. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’

He gave her a hunted look.

The younger girls drifted off to bed. Mamma and Poppa beamed and departed. Helen surveyed her prey.

‘You are Lorenzo Martelli,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘And you’ve been Lorenzo Martelli all this time?’

‘Well, it’s not something that comes and goes,’ he said defensively. ‘I’m kinda stuck with it.’

‘You were Lorenzo Martelli while we were talking at the hotel?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘And you were Lorenzo Martelli when you kissed me?’

‘Guilty!’

‘Even though you knew I disliked you?’

‘You disliked some guy who doesn’t exist,’ he protested. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘It sure was. I disliked Lorenzo Martelli then and I dislike him ten times more now that I know he’s a devious scoundrel without a shred of honour. Shall I tell you what I’d like to do to you?’

‘I think I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Kissing me like that was a dishonourable act, and if I told Poppa the full truth you’d be mincemeat.’

‘Not if he wants you to marry me,’ he was unwise enough to say. ‘All right, all right!’ He backed off fast. ‘Whatever you were going to do, don’t do it. I shouldn’t have stolen that kiss, and I’m sorry, but I got carried away by your beauty and—’

‘I’m warning you, Martelli, don’t insult my intelligence. You should be ashamed of yourself. No gentleman would do what you did.’

‘I’m not a gentleman,’ he protested quickly, evidently seeing this as some sort of defence. ‘I never pretended to be one.’

‘You got that kiss from me by false pretences.’

‘You’re right. How about I give it back?’

‘Come one step closer and you’re dead.’

‘Aw, now look, that kiss wasn’t a one-sided business. You kissed me back.’

‘It’s a lie! Nothing on earth would persuade me to kiss that man.’

‘Will you quit talking about me as though I wasn’t here? And don’t tell me I don’t know when a woman’s kissing me.’

‘That will be your experience talking, I suppose?’ she asked, her eyes kindling. ‘Your vast experience?

He took a nervous step behind a chair. ‘Fair to middling,’ he said self-consciously.

‘Hah!’

He rallied his forces, such as they were. ‘May I ask what you mean by “Hah!” in that voice?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘You don’t know what you mean by it, do you? When a woman knows she’s talking nonsense she says “Hah!”’

‘Oh, really? Well, consider this. Everyone in the street saw us kissing, and that makes it a very public thing. I can’t tell them I didn’t know your name because that would bring shame and disgrace on my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my nephews and nieces, my aunts and uncles, their aunts and uncles, their ancestors, their cousins and the whole shooting match going right back to Sicily. What’s more, my mother is dying to tell Aunt Lucia in Maryland, who will certainly pass it on to Aunt Zita in Idaho, who will telegraph it to Los Angeles. This is a Sicilian family. Today Manhattan. Tomorrow the world. Do you realise,’ she demanded, incensed, ‘that now they’ll expect me to marry you?’

‘No problem. I can take care of that.’

‘How?’

‘I swear I’ll never propose. My solemn word, so you’re quite safe. And to make doubly sure, I’ll talk to your parents and tell them I’ve decided I don’t like you very much.’

‘After what they saw in the street?’

‘I’ll tell them you’re a lousy kisser—don’t throw that!’

He ducked as a book came flying past his head and struck the wall with a loud crack.

‘Out,’ she told him.

‘Shouldn’t we fix our next date? They’ll expect it—’

‘Out!’

He got as far as the door before saying, ‘Are you spending the night here?’

‘No, I’m going back to my apartment.’

‘Then shouldn’t we be leaving together?’

Helen breathed hard. ‘Signor Martelli, if you’d been listening to a word I said, you’d know that I would prefer not to share the same planet with you, never mind the same cab.’

‘I know,’ he said gravely. ‘I’m not keen on you either, but we have to make these sacrifices.’

‘Who’ll know if we leave together or not?’

‘Anyone who’s standing at their window.’

The appalling truth of this hit her like a sledge-hammer. ‘Which means the whole street,’ she groaned. ‘I’ll call us a cab.’

When she’d finished making the call he was holding up her coat, and Helen put her arms in the sleeves, accepting the inevitable. They had to leave together, or there would be talk, and there’d already been too much of that.

Luckily the cab appeared quickly and they both behaved with perfect propriety. Lorenzo gave her his arm down the steps of the building, which were slippery from frost. She allowed him to show her to the vehicle and open the door for her. She never looked up but she was burningly conscious of many pairs of eyes watching from above.

As the car’s tail lights disappeared around the corner Mamma Angolini dropped the curtain of her bedroom window, and heaved a sentimental sigh. ‘Did you see the way he handed her in?’

Poppa, standing beside her, frowned, ‘But what were those noises earlier?’

‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘They were just having a lovers’ tiff.’

In the back of the cab Lorenzo said placatingly, ‘Why don’t we stop for a drink somewhere, and straighten this out?’