there was no horse, and he had simply decided that he appeared to best advantage in riding clothes.
“Ah, my little dove, you are home at last. God, the days have been endless without you.” He grasped her mittened hands in his and squeezed them.
“Hello, Randall,” she said.
“How beautiful you look, my love. That is a new bonnet?”
“Yes, I bought it in Paris.”
Randall Bennett laughed and pulled her against his chest. “We are talking nonsense. What I really want to do is hold you in my arms.” She felt his hands stroke her back, and she slowly pulled away from him.
“You are looking well, Randall.”
“Since you are with me again, my love, it cannot but be so. Come, Giana, sit down with me, I’ve so much to tell you.”
She placed her hand on his arm and strolled with him to the small circular pond that lay beneath a green web of leaves, and sat down on a narrow stone bench. She spread her skirts gracefully about her and allowed him to lace his fingers through hers.
“It is a pity we have no bread crumbs for the ducks,” Giana said.
“My little dove,” Randall said, his eyes bright with excitement, “I have found the most perfect setting for your beauty.”
“You mean I look well surrounded by quacking ducks?”
“Silly girl,” he said, laughing. The engaging dimple on the right side of his mouth deepened. “No, my love, it is a charming manor house, called Horsham Hall, but an hour by train from London. The owner, poor fellow, is all done up and has to sell. When we return from our honeymoon, it will be our country home. The gardens are exquisite, and of course there will be servants to see to all your needs.”
“My needs?”
Randall dropped his voice to an intimate whisper. “Do you not want your husband to be successful in business, Giana?”
“I suppose it is rather inescapable, given that I am a Van Cleve.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers one by one. “Alas, my love, to be worthy of you, it seems that I will have to spend much of my time in the workaday world. But soon, very soon, Giana, you will have a child, my child.” His voice caressed her and his eyes swept down her slender figure.
“You have not asked me, Randall, about my summer in Italy.”
He looked charmingly rueful. “Forgive me, Giana. My excitement in seeing you finally. I seem to be able to think only of the future, and our life together. Did the time pass as slowly for you as it did for me?”
“Yes, it passed very slowly.”
It occurred to him suddenly that her voice sounded curiously flat. She could not have heard about the opera dancer—he had been so careful. Even her bitch of a mother had steered clear of him during the summer.
He studied her face, but all that struck him was that she looked so very lovely, so unspoiled. “Time will never pass slowly again, my love,” he said.
“You are doubtless right. Let me understand you, Randall. You have found this manor house in the country, and you wish me to live there whilst you are gaining fame and fortune here in London. Or rather,” she added, her eyes roving past him to rest upon a preening duck beside the pond, “just fame. The fortune, of course, is already there.”
“If it pleases you, my darling, we can also purchase a house here in the city,” he said carefully, wondering again at the curious flatness in her voice. But her upturned face was clear, her vivid eyes guileless. “I want only your happiness.”
“I am glad to hear you say that.”
He arched an elegant brow. “Could I want anything else?”
Giana smiled, but her eyes held a strange glitter.
“Giana, has something happened? You seem somehow different, my love. Your mother is prepared to stand by her bargain, is she not?”
“Oh yes,” she said, shrugging. She watched him take a deep relieved breath. “Randall, are you a good lover?”
He started at her question, utterly shocked that she would wonder such a thing, much less ask bluntly about it. He saw that she was perfectly serious, and decided not to chuck her on the chin and call her a naughty puss. Perhaps she had heard something. He laughed softly, intimately, thinking that it behooved him to tread warily. “Giana, my little love, you will have your answer the night of our wedding. I will do my best not to disappoint you.”