PROLOGUE
THEMEDIEVALCHURCHwas bathed in the warm sunshine filling thepiazzain the ancient hilltop town in central Italy. Sunshine that did not warm Ariana. Instead, only cold filled her. Cold that almost had her shivering. Or something did.
Fear.
Fear of what she was about to do—what she had to nerve herself to do...steel herself to do.
Face set, hidden from view by the little veil that dipped from the deliberately stylish and very expensive hat, which went with the equally stylish and expensive tightly cinched suit curving over her shapely figure, she walked up to the arched entrance of the church, invitation at the ready.
The service had already started, and the choir were singing an anthem as she slipped unobtrusively into a seat at the back. She sat down, feeling sick with nerves, wishing with all her being that she could just bolt and run. But shehadto do this.
She bowed her head, as if in prayer, but actually to avoid looking at the well-dressed congregation...or the figures by the altar rail. Another rush of fearfulness assailed her at the enormity of what she was about to do.
But there’s no other way—none!
The anthem finished, there was a rustling among the congregation, and then the priest—a high-ranking cleric, as befitted so grand a society wedding—began to intone the words of the ceremony.
A dizziness filled Ariana’s head, and her heart was hammering. She had to time this right—totally and absolutely right—to the very moment.
The dreaded moment.
The dreadful moment...
And then it came. The words that had never received a response at any wedding she’d been to. But today, right now, they would. They must...
There’s no other way—however much I long with all my being not to do this!
She heard the priest say the words—her cue, her signal. Heard the dutiful pause that followed. Heard herself stand, step into the wide aisle. She started to walk forward, every step compelled from her by a strength of will to overcome her repugnance at what she was doing. What she was about to do.
She started to speak, forcing the words out through her constricted throat. The words shehadto say, falling like a sacrilege across the sacrament of holy matrimony. Words to halt it in its tracks.
‘Yes!I have an objection! And I will not hold my peace! This marriage cannot take place!’
She saw heads turn, heard the collective gasp of shock from the congregation as they stared at her, striding down the aisle on high heels that struck like nails on the flagstones, towards the two figures by the altar rail.
The bride, a slender column in white, her face invisible beneath a long lace veil, did not move. But the groom did. Ariana’s fixed gaze saw him turn. Slowly, like a jaguar that had just heard something behind him move. Something that might be prey—or a fellow predator.
The cold inside her froze instantly to solid ice as his gaze came to rest on her. It was as if liquid nitrogen had just been poured down her throat. She felt her senses sway, and with every instinct in her body she wanted to halt and turn...and flee...
But she would not.Couldnot. She had to do this. Had to play it to the very end.
His eyes, like a basilisk, watched her approach. They were all that she could see.
Not the man who had given away the bride, now starting forward with an oath, nor the bride herself, still not turning, motionless like a statue. Let alone the best man, the half-dozen bridesmaids, flower girls and page boys all staring open-mouthed at her approach.
Not even the priest stepping forward now, his expression half concerned, because her interruption must, in light of his professional duty, be attended to, and half holding the collective outrage she could feel coming at her in waves from the congregation at her stupendous, scandalous socialfaux pasin doing what she was so appallingly doing.
The priest opened his mouth to speak, to demand the reason for her outburst, but she pre-empted him. She stopped dead, some way still from the altar rail and the front row of pews, and threw back her short veil.
Andthenshe saw the basilisk eyes change.
Saw recognition.
For a second, a micron of time so short it almost ceased to exist, she saw something flare in the obsidian eyes. A black flame...
Then it was gone. Now in his eyes there was only a blade so sharp she could feel it cutting the flesh from her bones.
He started forward, but she was already speaking. Her voice a clarion, heard by all present. Heard by the motionless bride, her back still turned to her. Heard by the groom, with tension in every line of his tall, lean body, every plane of his hard, stark face. In the sculpted mouth now whipped to a narrow line.