by Mary Lyons
‘Well, the truth is that I fell quite madly and hopelessly in love with you, my darling Antonio, the very first moment I set eyes on you, when I was only eighteen,’ she confessed. ‘And there’s never been anyone else of any importance in my life since then.’
‘Hmm…I’m glad to hear it,’ he murmured huskily, as his flesh swelled and hardened beneath her soft touch.
‘Which is why…why I totally lost my cool—and all control—when you suddenly turned up in Suffolk,’ she admitted, slowly lowering her head to press light kisses to the rough hair on his broad chest, before trailing her lips down his strong body, her long fair hair brushing enticingly over his skin.
‘And then…when you made love to me…’ she murmured, her mouth and hands exploring every inch of his skin, her own pleasure increasing as she felt the deep muscles of his torso and stomach tense and contract beneath her soft touch. ‘When you made love to me…I was in such total, utter heaven that I’d have followed you to the ends of the earth, if need be.’
‘Ah, my darling! I felt exactly the same,’ he murmured, swiftly removing his hands from behind his dark head and cradling her blond head in the palms of his hands as he drew her up towards him, possessing her mouth gently at first, and then with an increasing depth of passion which left her breathless with desire.
As he gradually released his firm grip, she again began trailing her lips slowly down over his muscular chest, savouring the spicy aroma of his cologne and the musky masculine scent of his body. She was caught up by a thrilling feeling of power, astonished by the sheer excitement and delight of hearing the sound of his increasingly ragged breath, the soft groan breaking involuntarily from his throat, provoked by the sweet torment of her hands and lips moving delicately over the most sensitive, vulnerable part of his anatomy.
And then…as if unable to bear any more of the exquisite, lingering torture…a deep shudder seemed to shake his tall frame as, with a fierce growl, he swiftly rolled her over, pinning her to the mattress with his long, hard body.
‘Enough! I have been without the pleasure of your soft body for too long!’ he ground out impatiently, and she was humbled as she became aware of his strong body trembling and shaking, struggling to control his passionate need for her. And then she was only conscious of a frenzied excitement, eagerly welcoming him as he swiftly and smoothly drove himself into her, the powerful, hard thrusts of his body a dark, rhythmic beat that seemed to carry them both up and over the edge of the world, before they found themselves free-falling slowly back to earth.
Much later, as they lay together in a tangle of sheets, their limbs entwined with one another, she slowly surfaced from a drowsy languor to feel him gently running his fingers through the coils of her long fair hair.
‘How I love you, my darling!’ he murmured softly. ‘So much—and for so long.’
‘But…but you haven’t said so,’ she muttered, struggling to sit up. ‘Not for a long time. Not since our honeymoon,’ she added sorrowfully.
‘But, yes—you must have known how I felt?’ he protested. ‘Surely you understood—even those nights when I came to you so late and so secretly—surely you must have understood my great need of you? Did you not understand that every time I took you into my arms I was demonstrating just how much I love and desire you?’
Gina shook her head. ‘I was clearly out of my mind, wasn’t I? In fact, I obviously couldn’t see one inch beyond my own nose. How could I have been such an idiot? To have been looking down the wrong end of the telescope all this while. What a waste of time to have been so terribly unhappy these last months.’
‘It’s all a matter of trust, my darling. As I told myself—you should have known that I am not the sort of man to be a fortune-hunter. I was most deeply hurt. And, I’m sorry to say, furiously angry that you could believe that I would ever behave in such a way. Or to think such thoughts about your grandfather, come to that. Because he loved you most sincerely. And you really should have known that, too.’
Gina gave a heavy sigh. ‘You’re quite right, of course. I seem to have made a complete mess of just about everything. Even going so far as to believe that your poor old uncle Emilio was involved in our marriage. I must have been completely out of my mind for the past few months!’
‘Well…’ Antonio hesitated for a moment. ‘You were wrong, of course. But not entirely so, I’m afraid.’
‘What do you mean?’
He gave a heavy sigh. ‘It has taken me some time to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together—and it was your grandfather’s secretary, Margaret, who gave me the final clue to the puzzle.’
‘The final clue…to what puzzle?’ she demanded impatiently.
‘The question of why my uncle was so convinced that he and your grandfather had arranged our marriage. When of course we both know that they did not.’
‘So—what really happened?’
‘Ah…well, as far as I can see, it goes something like this…’ Antonio said, putting an arm about her slim figure and holding her close to his warm body.
‘I must remind you, first of all, that my uncle did not willingly give up the reins of our family business. He had always been a total autocrat, running the company in his own individual way and brooking no outside interference.’
‘Yes, I had gathered that.’
‘So, when his heart condition became serious, and the doctors told him he must let go, he bitterly resented having to do so. Although I must in all fairness admit that he tried to be philosophical about the situation,’ Antonio pointed out. ‘However, it was clearly hard for him. And he was also very concerned that I was unmarried—that I had not yet provided a son and heir to carry on the family name.
‘And, being an imperious old man, he would constantly press me to get married, and if possible to a woman with a rich dowry—just as he had done, so many years ago. However, I had made it quite clear, many times, that I was not interested in marrying for any reason other than love. Particularly as I had already fallen deeply and irrevocably in love some years before, and was not prepared to accept second best. So—we had a stalemate between us.’
‘You mentioned this woman once before. When you first arrived in Suffolk,’ she said, stirring restlessly in his embrace. ‘I can’t pretend that I’m happy about it. But I think you’d better tell me all about her, don’t you?’
‘All in good time,’ he promised. ‘However, to return to my story. The event which acted as a catalyst was the visit I made to London in search of my missing shipment of wine. You need to know that my uncle was—and is—a smart, tough old man, with a good memory. And he had been a long-time friend of your grandfather, with whom he’d done business for many years. I’d told him that Brandon’s were responsible for the shipment being missing. So, as soon as I left for a quick trip around Europe before travelling to London, he got straight on the phone to your grandfather.’
‘Why on earth did he do that?’ she queried with a frown.
‘Because he knew that Sir Robert was not just as old and as infirm as he was but that he was also very wealthy, and that he had an orphan granddaughter—the heiress to his entire estate. And, above all, because he was determined to prove to me—and maybe the world—that while he might be old, he was still a force to be reckoned with. Incidentally,’ Antonio added with a shrug, ‘my uncle has admitted to everything that I’ve said so far.’
‘But that’s daft!’ she protested. ‘For all your uncle knew, I could have been married with a whole tribe of children!’
‘Which is why he phoned your grandfather—to discover the current situation. And it was then that those two old men decided to put their heads together and see if they couldn’t somehow arrange a marriage between us.’
‘So, it really was all a plot between them after all?’ she exclaimed.
Antonio shook his head. ‘No. Not in the way you mean. Because, of course, it’s just not possible to force anyone into a marriage if they are unwilling to go along with the scheme. So, what
those two old men actually did was, in fact, rather clever. Because, after quizzing Margaret, I now know that the “missing shipment” had already been located in Bristol—long before I reached London.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that all that searching through those dusty cellars in Ipswich was a complete and utter waste of our time?’ she demanded indignantly.
‘Got it in one!’ Antonio laughed. ‘All your grandfather could do—and you must admit he did it very well—was give us the opportunity to meet each other again. He either suspected, or had a very good idea, that you and I had been involved in some sort of romance when you were much younger. So he spun this yarn about the shipment probably being up in Suffolk, and why didn’t I go up and check it out for myself? However, just to make sure that I had to spend at least one night up there, he took me back to his house for lunch—where he managed to spin out the meal for some hours—so that it was very late in the afternoon by the time I left London. And then he just sat back and waited to see what happened!’
‘So…so he and your uncle really did sort of arrange our marriage,’ she said slowly.
‘Yes—but not in the way you supposed. When I returned with you, at the end of the long weekend, to ask his permission to marry you, I have to say that your grandfather seemed almost shocked to begin with.’ Antonio laughed. ‘Quite honestly, my darling, I don’t think even he had ever imagined that his scheme would prove to be quite so successful! Although I can promise you that neither then nor later did he make any mention of the money he was intending to leave me. You have my solemn word on that. In fact, I now know from my uncle that the two old men arranged that little item between them.’
‘OK…I can just about see what happened—and my grandfather certainly had a real stroke of luck with our housekeeper and her husband being away for the weekend. You don’t know Doris Lambert,’ Gina added with a laugh. ‘But I can assure you there would have been absolutely no mad lovemaking sessions going on if she’d been around!’
‘Ah, my darling,’ he murmured, pressing a kiss on her brow. ‘Whatever the difficulty, I would have somehow found a way into your bed.’
‘But what about this woman whom you fell in love with all those years ago? You haven’t yet told me about her.’
‘Really, Gina—how can you be so obtuse?’ He grinned, shaking his head in mock exasperation. ‘It was you, of course. I met you when I was twenty-six and you were only just eighteen—and far too young to cope with a fully adult love affair. Indeed, I was bitterly ashamed that it went even as far as it did.’
‘Which was precisely nowhere!’ she retorted. ‘Even though I would have gone to bed with you like a shot, given half a chance. But all I had to sustain me over the next eight years was one measly kiss!’
‘You’re damned lucky that’s all it was!’ he growled, clasping her tightly in his arms. ‘I had the devil’s own problems keeping my hands off you. Because it was clear that you were very young for your age, and also very innocent. So I knew that I had to wait for you to grow up.
‘In fact, when I found myself driving up to Suffolk, I was a prey to all sorts of fears and doubts,’ Antonio said slowly. ‘It had been a long time. You could have changed out of all recognition. You might not care for me anymore. And, indeed, I might discover that my feelings had changed as well. However, I couldn’t resist finding out what had happened to the lovely young girl with whom I’d unfortunately fallen in love all those years ago. A girl who was so young and untouched. And who’d haunted my mind and body for a long, long time.’
‘Really?’ Gina beamed at him. ‘Really and truly?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Although I did my best to forget her. Even going so far as to become briefly engaged some years ago. However, none of my romances ever really came to a satisfactory conclusion. Nor, incidentally, did I ever have an affair with Carlotta Perez. And if she claimed I did, it was solely in her head. I hope you believe me, querida.’
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘And I did not understand why I was never satisfied with any other women—until I found myself running across a lawn to rescue a girl with long, long blonde hair from a bolting horse.’
‘Except Pegasus was not bolting,’ she reminded him firmly. ‘Just anxious to get back to his stable!’
‘So you told me at the time—and very fiercely, too!’ he laughed. ‘But I still found you absolutely enchanting! And once I held you again in my arms…as I’d done so long ago in Seville…I immediately found myself falling in love with you all over again.’
‘Oh, wow! That’s so romantic!’ Gina sighed happily.
‘I don’t know about romantic. At the time, it felt as if I’d been struck by a savage bolt of lightning. And yet I knew—at that very moment—that there would never be anyone else for me, either in this life or for all eternity.’
‘Oh, darling!’ Gina murmured, staring at him with misty eyes. ‘That’s absolutely the loveliest thing anyone’s ever said to me.’
‘And although we have had many problems in our short marriage,’ he said softly, ‘we will do better in the future, no?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, as his arms closed possessively about her. ‘Yes, we will. Because I love you, Antonio, with all my heart.’
‘And I love you, my darling. I intend to love and cherish you all the days of my life,’ he breathed huskily, his lips claiming hers in a long, ardent kiss of total commitment.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0281-8
THEIR CONVENIENT MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2001.
Copyright © 2000 by Mary Lyons.
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