His thoughts were strange as the ceremony progressed. Memories flickered across his mind.
Last night he’d dreamt that he was a young boy again, kneeling by the banister, filled with fear at the angry yelling coming from downstairs as his mother raged at his father, vitriolic and denouncing. And then had come the slamming of a door. And the silence. Deadly, ominous silence. And fear had bitten at his throat like a wolf...
He’d awoken in a cold sweat, and it had taken a while to bring himself entirely out of the dream and realise how different his reality was now. How it always would be.
His eyes went to the quiet, beautiful woman at his side. A line of Shakespeare drifted through his head.‘My gracious silence...’
Then the priest paused in his sonorous recitation of the words of the marriage service and Luca frowned, wondering why. What had the man just said?
‘If any of you know just cause or impediment...’
Ah, yes, that was it—the infamousSpeak now or for ever hold your peacebit.
For a second, a moment of time so brief it did not really exist, a memory flashed, so vivid, so intense, it seared like a brand across his skull.
A naked body, lush and wanton, a cloud of hair around a face set with deep smoky eyes, a rich scarlet mouth lifted to his... And desire, hot and humid, searing and urgent, scorching through him.
No! He banished it, obliterated it. Destroyed it utterly. It did not exist. He would not permit it to exist. Would crush it out of existence. It was in the past. Over. Finished as soon as it had happened.
No impediment...
No, none—because he would not allow it. He would allow only what was happening now. He drew a breath. Certainty filled him. No, there was no just cause or impediment whatsoever against him taking the woman of his dreams to be his wife...
Except...
From the back of the church came footsteps—like nails striking the flagstones of the aisle. A voice—harsh and strident—was breaking the hallowed silence. Heads were turning...breaths were being held across the congregation.
A voice was calling out.
Announcing.
Denouncing...
He felt his head turn. Felt his gaze falling on the figure of the woman walking down the aisle. A red suit exposed every curve of her voluptuous body. A matching pill box hat with a black veil concealed her face.
A veil she threw back as she approached.
At his side he heard Tomaso give a snarl of rage, start forward.
But he himself did not move. Could not.
He could only level his eyes on her with a fury he had not known he could possess—a fury that should strike her into silence if there were any justice in the world...any decency.
But there was no justice...no decency. There was only her voice, ringing out like sacrilege. Freezing him to the very marrow of his bones.
‘Hecannotmarry her!’ she cried out. ‘I am pregnant with his child!’
The whole world had frozen.Shehad frozen. Ariana’s hand dropped to her side, suddenly as heavy as lead. In front of her she could see the appalling tableau—her grandfather clutching his silver-topped stick, then raising it as if he would lunge forward and strike her. Luca standing there, as frozen as she, his eyes like pits, basilisk in their power to destroy her. And Mia—whose slight, slender body suddenly buckled...
Instinctively, Ariana lurched forward to try to catch her, but her cousin’s bridegroom was there before her, folding her against him to stop her fainting fall. She saw her grandfather’s stick clatter to the flagstones and then he was beside Mia as well, the priest too, helping her to a pew. Everyone was gathering around her. All across the church voices were raised...people were aghast, appalled.
Ariana turned. Fled. Filled with sickness and horror at what she had done. What she had had to do...been forced to do...
Because there was no other way...no other way...no other way...
The words screamed in her head, circling like angry seagulls, shrieking and flapping.
She burst out of the church, desperate to get away, to find her car. It was parked in the next street, for thepiazzahad been kept clear for the wedding cars.