The Italian's Bought Bride

She’d kept her head down and well out of society’s glare these last years, working two jobs to pay for her schooling. She was far, far from this glamorous crowd, the glittering lifestyle. Yet the people who knew her, who were supposed to love her…what had happened seven years ago still mattered to them. And it always would.

It didn’t bother her on a day-to-day basis. She didn’t need these people. She had a new life now, a good one. When she’d left that night, she’d gained her freedom, but the price for that freedom had been, quite literally, everything.

It had been a price worth paying.

The music died down and Allegra saw everyone heading to the tables. Dinner was about to be served.

Taking another deep breath, she moved through the crowds again and found her place card. She was at a table tucked in the back with a motley handful of guests who looked to be nearly as out of place as she was. Distant, vaguely embarrassing relatives, colleagues and friends who necessitated an invitation yet were not an asset to the sparkling and successful party George Mason intended for his daughter.

An art therapist with a disreputable past certainly fitted into that category, Allegra thought ruefully.

With a murmured hello, she took her place between an overweight aunt and a weedy looking businessman. The meal passed in stilted conversations and awkward silences as eight misfits attempted to get along.

Allegra let the conversation wash over her in a meaningless tide of sound and wondered just how soon she could leave.

She wanted to see Daphne but, with the cold, ambitious Charles Edmunds at her cousin’s side, Allegra wasn’t expecting a cosy cousinly chat.

The plates were cleared and her uncle stood up to speak. Allegra watched him posture importantly, talking about how he knew Charles Edmunds, cracking business jokes. At one point he pontificated on the importance of family and she smothered the stab of resentment that threatened to pierce her composure.

Soon after, the music started up again and Allegra excused herself from the table before anyone could ask her to dance. The junior from Charles’s office had been eyeing her with a determined expression.

She moved through the crowds, her head held high, her eyes meeting no one else’s.

Daphne stood apart with her husband, pale and luminous in a designer wedding gown that hugged her slight figure before flaring out in a row of ruffles.

‘Hello, Daphne,’ Allegra said.

Her cousin—the cousin she’d shared summers in Italy with, swimming and laughing and plaiting each other’s hair—now turned to her with a worried expression.

‘Hh… Hello, Allegra,’ she said after a moment, her apprehensive gaze flicking to her husband. ‘Have you met Charles?’

Charles Edmunds smiled coolly. ‘Yes, your cousin came to our engagement party. Don’t you remember, darling?’

He made it sound as if she’d crashed the party. She supposed that was what her attendance felt like. Still, she’d wanted to come, had wanted to show that no matter what they did or thought, she was still family.

‘Daphne, I only wanted to congratulate you,’ Allegra said quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave a bit early—’

‘Oh, Allegra—’ Daphne looked both relieved and regretful ‘—I’m sorry…’

‘No, it’s fine.’ Allegra smiled and squeezed her cousin’s hand. ‘It’s fine. I’m tired anyway. It’s been a long day.’

‘Thank you,’ Daphne whispered, and Allegra wondered just what her cousin was thanking her for. For coming? Or for leaving? Or for simply not making a scene?

As if she ever would. She’d only made one scene in her life, and she didn’t plan on doing so again.

‘Goodbye,’ she murmured, and quickly kissed her cousin’s cold cheek.

In the foyer, she found the cloakroom and handed the attendant her ticket. She watched as the woman riffled through the rack of luxury wraps for her own plain and inexpensive coat.

‘Here you are, miss.’

‘Thank you.’

She was just about to pull it on when she heard a voice—a voice of cool confidence and warm admiration. A voice that slid across her senses and into her soul, stirring up those emotions and memories she’d tried so hard to lock away.

It all came rushing back with that voice—the memories, the fear, the regrets, the betrayal. It hurtled back, making her relive the worst night of her life once more, simply by hearing two little words that she knew, somehow, would change her world for ever.

‘Hello, Allegra,’ Stefano said.

CHAPTER TWO

Seven years earlier

TOMORROW WOULD BE her wedding day. A day of lacy dresses and sunlit kisses, of magic, of promise, of joy and wonder.

Allegra pressed one hand to her wildly beating heart. Outside the Tuscan villa, night settled softly, stealing over purple- cloaked hills and winding its way through the dusty olive groves.

Inside the warm glow of a lamp cast the room into pools of light and shadow. Allegra surveyed her childhood bedroom: the pink pillows and teddy bears vying for space on her narrow girl’s bed, the shelf of well-thumbed Enid Blyton books borrowed from English cousins, her early sketches lovingly framed by her childhood nurse, and lastly—wonderfully—her wedding dress, as frothy a confection as any young bride could wish for, swathed in plastic and hanging from her cupboard door.

She let out a little laugh, a giggle of girlish joy. She was getting married!

She’d met Stefano Capozzi thirteen months ago, at her eighteenth birthday party. She’d seen him as she’d picked her way down the stairs in her new, awkward heels. He’d been waiting at the bottom like Rhett Butler, amber eyes glinting with promise, one hand stretched out to her.

She’d taken his hand as naturally as if she’d known him, as if she’d expected him to be there. When he’d asked her to dance, she’d simply walked into his arms.

It had been so easy. So right.

And, Allegra thought happily, there hadn’t been a misstep since. Stefano had asked her out a handful of times, to restaurants and the theatre and a few local parties. He’d written her letters from Paris and Rome, when he was on business, and sent her flowers and trinkets.

And then he’d asked her to marry him…to be his wife. And he would be her husband.

Another giggle escaped her and she heard an answering echo of a laugh from outside, low, throaty, seductive. Allegra opened the shutter and peeped out; she saw a couple in the shadow of a tree, arms, bodies entwined. The woman’s head was thrown back and the man was kissing her neck.

Allegra shivered. Stefano had never kissed her neck. The few times he’d kissed her, he had been chaste, almost brotherly, yet the brush of his lips against her skin had sent a strange sensation pooling deep inside, flooding through her with an unfamiliar, new warmth.

Now she watched, fascinated, as the unknown couple’s bodies moved and writhed in a sensuous dance.

She drew in a little breath, her eyes still fastened on the couple, the balmy night air cooling her flushed face. Suddenly she wanted to see Stefano. She wanted to say…what?

That she loved him? She’d never said those three little words, and neither had he, but it hardly mattered. Surely he saw it shining from her eyes every time she looked at him. And, as for Stefano…how could she doubt? He’d sought her out, he’d courted her like a troubadour. Of course he loved her.

Yet now she wanted to see him, talk to him. Touch him.

A blush rose to her face and she turned away from the window and the couple, who had moved further into the shadows, her hands pressed to her hot cheeks.

She’d only seen Stefano with his shirt off once, when they’d all gone swimming in the lake. She’d had a glimpse of bare, brown muscle before she’d jerked her gaze away.

And yet tomorrow they would be married. They would be lovers. She knew as much; even she, kept away in convent school, knew the basics of life. Of sex.

Her mind darted away from the implications, the impossibilities. What vague images her fevered brain conjured were blurred, strange, embarrassing.

Yet she still wanted to see him. Now.

Stefano was a night owl; he’d told her before. Allegra didn’t think he’d be in bed yet. He’d be downstairs, in her father’s study or library, reading one of his fusty old books.

She could find him.

Taking a breath, Allegra opened her bedroom door and crept down the passage. The soft September air was cool, although perhaps she was just hot.

Her hand was slick on the wrought iron railing as she went down the stairs. In the hall, she heard voices from the library.

‘This time tomorrow you will have your little bride,’ her father, Roberto, said. He sounded as sleekly satisfied as a tomcat.

‘And you will have what you want,’ Stefano replied, and Allegra jerked involuntarily at the sound of his voice—cool, urbane, indifferent.

She’d never heard him speak in such a tone before.

‘Yes, indeed I will. This is a good business arrangement for us both, Stefano…my son.’

‘Indeed it is,’ Stefano agreed in a bland tone that still somehow made Allegra shiver. ‘I’m pleased that you approached me.’

‘And not too bad a price, eh?’ Roberto chuckled, an ugly, indulgent sound. Allegra’s flesh crawled at the sound—a sound she realized she’d never heard, a sound she’d been protected from. Her father’s own callousness. Towards her.

‘Allegra’s mother has raised her well,’ Roberto continued. ‘She’ll give you five or six bambinos and then you can keep her in the country.’ He chuckled again. ‘She’ll know her place. And I know a woman in Milan…she’s very good.’

‘Is she?’

Allegra choked, one fist pressed to her lips. What was her father saying? What was Stefano saying?

Their words beat a remorseless echo in her numb brain. Business arrangement. A deal to be brokered. A bargain to be had.

A woman to be sold.

They were talking about a marriage. Hers.

She shook her head in mute, instinctive denial.

‘Yes,’ Roberto said, ‘she is. There are many pleasures for the married man, Stefano.’

Stefano gave a light answering laugh. ‘That I believe.’

Allegra closed her eyes, her hand still against her mouth. She felt dizzy and strange, her heart thudding hopelessly in her chest.

She took a calming breath and tried to think. To trust. Surely there was some explanation why Stefano was saying the things he was, sounding the way he was. If she just asked…it would be all right. Everything would be just as it had been.

‘Allegra! What are you doing here?’

Her eyes flew open. Stefano stood in front of her, an expression of concern—or was it annoyance?—on his face. Suddenly Allegra couldn’t tell. She wondered if she’d ever been able to tell.

Even now, her gaze roved hungrily over his features—the bronzed planes of his cheekbones, the thick chocolate-coloured hair swept away from his forehead, his amber eyes glinting in the dim light.

‘I…’ Her mouth was dry and the questions died in her heart. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’ ‘Too excited, fiorina?’ Stefano smiled, but now everything had been cast into doubt and Allegra wondered if she saw arrogant amusement in that gesture rather than the tendernessshe’d always supposed. ‘In less than twelve hours we will be man and wife. Can you not wait until then to see me?’ He cupped her cheek, letting his thumb drift to caress her lips. Her mouth parted involuntarily and his smile deepened. ‘Go to bed, Allegra. Dream of me.’

He dropped his hand and turned away, dismissing her. Allegra watched him, watched the clean, broad lines of his back, tapering to narrow hips, watched him move away from her.

‘Do you love me?’ As soon as she’d asked the question, she wished she could bite back the words. Gobble them up and swallow them whole. They sounded desperate, pleading, pathetic.

And yet it was a reasonable question, wasn’t it? They were about to be married. Yet as she saw Stefano turn slowly around, his body tense and alert, she felt as if it wasn’t.

She felt as if she’d asked something wrong. Something stupid.

‘Allegra?’ he queried softly, and she heard a stern note of warning in the sound of her name.

‘I heard you…and Papa…’ she whispered, wanting even now to explain, to understand. Yet the words trailed off as she saw Stefano’s expression change, his eyes turning blank and hard, the mobile curve of his mouth flattening into an unforgiving line.

‘Business, Allegra, business between men. It is nothing you need concern yourself with.’

‘It sounded…’ Her mouth was dry and she licked her lips. ‘It sounded so…’

‘So what?’ Stefano challenged.

‘Cold,’ she whispered.

Stefano raised his eyebrows. ‘What are you trying to say to me, Allegra? Are you having second thoughts?’

‘No!’ She grabbed for his hand and after a second he coolly withdrew it. ‘Stefano…I just wondered…the things you said…’

‘Do you doubt that I’ll care for you? Protect and provide for you?’ he demanded.

‘No,’ Allegra said quickly, ‘but Stefano, I want more than that. I want—’

He shook his head with slow, final deliberation. ‘What more is there?’

Allegra gazed at him with wide, startled eyes. What more is there? So much more, she wanted to say. There was kindness, respect, honesty. Sharing joy and laughter, as well as sorrow and heartache. Bearing one another’s burdens in love. Yet she saw the hard lines of Stefano’s face, the coldness of his eyes, and knew that he was not thinking of these things.

They didn’t matter.

They didn’t exist.

Allegra licked her lips. ‘But Stefano…’ she whispered, although she didn’t know what to say. She barely knew what to feel.

Stefano held one hand up to stop her half-spoken plea. Something twisted his features, flickered in his eyes. Allegra didn’t know what it was, but she didn’t like it. When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, cold and frightening. ‘Are you questioning what kind of man I am?’

His voice and face were so harsh, unfamiliar. Allegra shook her head. ‘No!’ she gasped, and it came out in a half sob for she knew then that she was. And so did he.

Stefano was silent for a long moment, his gaze hard and fastened on hers, until Allegra could bear it no longer and stared at the floor.

She realized he was treating her like a child—a child to be charmed or chastened, placated or punished.

With sudden, stark clarity, she realized he’d always treated her this way. She’d never felt like a wife, or even a woman.

She wondered if she ever would.

‘Go to bed, Allegra.’ He tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, his thumb skimming her face once more. ‘Go to bed, mylittle bride. Tomorrow is our wedding day. A new beginning, for both of us.’

‘Yes…’ she whispered. Except it didn’t feel like a beginning. It felt like the end. Her throat was raw and aching and she couldn’t look at him as she nodded. The implications of what he had said to her father—what he had now said to her—were flooding through her, an endless tide of confusion and fear. ‘Yes…all right.’

‘Do not be afraid.’

She nodded again, jerkily, as she moved backwards up the stairs. Stefano gazed up at her, his eyes burning into her mind, her heart, her soul. Burning and destroying.

She turned around and ran the rest of the way up.

‘Allegra!’

Gasping aloud in frightened surprise, she saw her mother, Isabel, striding down the upstairs corridor. Allegra glanced behind her, but she could no longer see Stefano.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Isabel demanded, belting her dressing gown, her long, still-blonde hair streaming behind her in a smooth ripple.

‘I…I couldn’t sleep.’ Allegra stumbled into her bedroom and her mother followed. Everything was unchanged, she saw—the teddy bears, the tattered books, her wedding dress. All signs of her innocence, her ignorance.

‘What is wrong?’ Isabel asked. Her face, with its austere beauty, was harsh. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost!’

‘Nothing is wrong,’ Allegra lied quickly. ‘I couldn’t sleep and I went for a drink of water.’

Isabel arched one eyebrow and Allegra shrank back a little. She wasn’t frightened of her mother, but she couldn’t help but be nervous around her. After a lifetime of nannies and boarding school, she sometimes wondered if she even knew her mother at all.

Isabel’s cold eyes swept over Allegra’s dishevelled appearance. ‘Have you seen Stefano?’ she asked, and there was a sly note in her voice that made Allegra’s skin crawl even as she shook her head.

‘No. No, I—’

‘Don’t lie to me, Allegra.’ Isabel took her daughter’s chin in her hand, forcing her to remain still, as pinned as a butterfly uselessly fluttering its fragile wings. ‘You never could lie to me,’ Isabel said. ‘You’ve seen him. But what’s happened?’ There was a cruel note in her voice as she added, ‘Has the fairy tale been tarnished, my dear daughter?’

Allegra didn’t know what her mother meant, but she didn’t like her tone. Even so, she felt trapped, helpless. And alone.

And she wanted to confide in someone, anyone, even her mother.

‘I saw him,’ she whispered, blinking back tears.

There was a tiny pause that spoke far more than anything her mother could have said in words. ‘And?’

‘I heard him talking to Papa…’ Allegra closed her eyes, shook her head.

Her mother exhaled impatiently. ‘So?’

‘It’s all been a business arrangement!’ This came out in a wretched whisper that caught on the jagged edge of her throat. Tears stung her eyes. ‘Stefano never loved me.’

Her mother watched her with cool impassivity. ‘Of course he didn’t.’

Allegra’s mouth dropped open as another illusion was ripped away. ‘You knew? You knew all along…?’ Yet even as she spoke the words, Allegra wondered why she was surprised. Her mother had never confided in her, never seemed to enjoy her company. Why shouldn’t Isabel know? Why shouldn’t she have been in on the sordid deal, the business of brokering a wife, selling a daughter?

‘Oh, Allegra, you are such a child.’ Isabel sounded weary rather than regretful. ‘Of course I knew. Your father approached Stefano before your eighteenth birthday and suggested the match. Our social connections, his money. That was why he was at your party. That was why you had a party.’

‘Just to meet him?’

‘For him to meet you,’ Isabel corrected coolly. ‘To see if you were suitable. And you were.’

Allegra let out a wild laugh. ‘I don’t want to be suitable! I want to be loved!’

‘Like Cinderella?’ It would have been a taunt if her mother didn’t sound so tired, so bitter. ‘Like Snow White? Life is not a fairy tale, Allegra. It wasn’t for me and it won’t be for you.’

Allegra spun away, her hands scrubbing her face, bunching in her hair as if she could somehow yank the memory from her mind, forget the words Stefano had spoken to her father and then to her. Both conversations had damned him.

‘It’s not the Dark Ages, either,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘You speak of this…this as if people can just barter brides…’

‘For women like us, well-placed, wealthy, it is not so far,’ Isabel returned grimly. ‘Stefano seems like a good man. Be thankful.’

Seems, Allegra thought, but was he? She thought of the way he’d spoken to her father, the way he’d spoken to her, the coldness in his eyes, how he’d scolded and then dismissed her. What more is there?

She realized she didn’t know him at all.

She never had.

‘Honourable,’ Isabel added, and now true bitterness twisted her words, her face. ‘He has treated you well so far, hasn’t he?’ She paused. ‘You could do worse.’

Allegra turned to stare at her mother, the cool beauty transformed for a moment by hatred and despair. She thought of her father’s words, I know a woman in Milan, and inwardly shuddered.

‘As you did?’ she asked in a low voice.

Isabel shrugged, but her eyes were hard. ‘Like you, I had no choice.’

‘Papa spoke…Stefano said…things…’

‘About other women?’ Isabel guessed with a hard laugh. She shrugged. ‘You’ll be glad for it, in the end.’

Allegra’s eyes widened. ‘Never!’

‘Trust me,’ Isabel returned coldly.

Allegra was compelled to ask, her voice turning ragged, ‘Have you ever been happy?’

Isabel shrugged again, closed her eyes for a moment. ‘When the bambinos come…’

Yet her mother had never seemed to enjoy motherhood; Allegra was an only child and she’d been tended by nannies and governesses her whole life, until she’d gone to the convent school.

Would children—the hope of children—be enough to sustain her through a cold, loveless marriage? A marriage she had, only moments ago, believed to be the culmination of all her young hopes. Now she realized she had no idea what those hopes had truly been. They had been the thinnest vapour, as insubstantial as smoke. Gone now. Gone with the wind.

She thought of how she’d compared Stefano to Rhett Butler and she choked on a terrible, incredulous laugh.

‘I can’t do it.’

A crack reverberated through the air as her mother slapped her face. Allegra reeled in shock. She’d never been hit before.

‘Allegra, you are getting married tomorrow.’

Allegra thought of the church, the guests, the food, the flowers. The expense.

She thought of Stefano.

‘Mama, please,’ she whispered, one hand pressed to her face, using an endearment she’d only spoken as a child. ‘Don’t make me.’

‘You do not know what you’re saying,’ Isabel snapped. ‘What can you do, Allegra? What have you been prepared to do besides marry and have children, plan menus and dress nicely? Hmm? Tell me!’ Her mother’s voice rose with fury. ‘Tell me! What?’

Allegra stared at her mother, pale-faced and wild eyed. ‘I don’t have to be like you,’ she whispered.

‘Hah!’ Isabel turned away, one shoulder hunched in disdain.

Allegra thought of Stefano’s smooth words, the little gifts, and wondered if they’d all been calculated, all condescensions. Not too bad a price. He’d bought her. Like a cow, or a car. An object. An object to be used.

He hadn’t cared what she thought, hadn’t even cared to tell her the truth of their marriage, of his courtship, of anything.

Something hardened then, crystallised into cold comprehension inside her.

Now she knew what it was like to be a woman.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said quietly, this time without trembling or fear. ‘I won’t.’

Her mother was silent for a long moment. Outside, a peal of womanly laughter, husky with promise, echoed through the night.

Allegra waited, held her breath, hoped…

Hoped for what? How could her mother, who barely cared for her or even noticed her at all, help her out of this predicament?

Yet still she waited. There was nothing else she could do, knew to do.

Finally Isabel turned around. ‘It would destroy your father if this marriage fell through,’ she said. There was a strange note of speculative satisfaction in her voice. Allegra chose to ignore it. ‘Absolutely destroy him,’ she added, and now the relish was obvious.

Allegra let her breath out slowly. ‘I don’t care,’ she said in a low voice. ‘He destroyed me by manipulating me—by giving me away!’