Second Marriage

'Here.' A large, crisp white handkerchief appeared un­der her nose in the next moment. 'Blow.'

'I don't want to blow.' It was childish but she had to keep a mental distance from him. She dared not even begin to think, hope, what his presence in England—in her part of England—might mean.

Nevertheless, she knew in the next second or two that her nose was going to behave in a most unladylike fash­ion, and so she snatched the handkerchief without look­ing at him, drying her face with the scented linen and then giving her nose the requisite blow.

&nb

sp; 'Better?'

It was the tender note that did it, that and the fact that she made the mistake of turning her head and looking at him. He looked gorgeous, devastatingly gorgeous, and tired, shattered—haggard, even—but still possessed of the sort of dark hypnotic magnetism that would make a fortune if it could be gift-wrapped.

And, contrary to every sensible, logical, self-protecting principle she had hammered herself with for the last few weeks, she fell against him, her face lifted up to his and her hands going round his neck in a bear hug that would have crushed a lesser man. 'I hate you…' And then his mouth had claimed hers, violently, posses­sively, ravaging her with a need that exactly matched the burning desire that was consuming her from head to toe.

'Claire, for crying out loud…' It was a low, deep groan, and then she found herself literally lifted back into her seat from lying across his lap. The next moment the car's engine had growled into life and they were moving into the flow of traffic.

'Fasten your seat belt.'

'What?' She stared at him, unable to respond to the terse command as ice froze her limbs.

'I said, fasten your seat belt—and stop looking at me like that, dammit. Did you want me to take you in the front of a hired car with half of the Kent population passing by?' he asked grittily. 'Because in one minute more that's exactly what would have happened.'

'I wouldn't have minded,' she said, with touching honesty.

'Well, your brothers would. I have had two of them breathing down my neck for the last half an hour while I talked to your parents, and it was not something I wish to repeat.' It was said with significant emphasis. 'And I understand the one who is still at work is the biggest of them all.'

'You've been to my home?' she asked incredulously.

'Of course I've been to your home. How do you think I know where you work?' he asked softly, glancing at her for one moment and then swerving violently away from the kerb as his eyes became fixed on her swollen, ravished mouth. 'Hell, you're going to kill us both.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you,' he groaned slowly. 'What I want to do to you right at this moment is not conducive to good driv­ing, but I have to get to where other people are to talk to you. I cannot trust myself if we are alone, and I have to explain without touching you…'

'But why do we need other people?' she asked dazedly, and then, as she glanced down, the state of his body provided the answer. His arousal was hot and fierce. 'Oh…'

'Yes, oh,' he agreed grimly, not looking at her now. But she didn't mind—oh, she didn't, she didn't, she didn't. Because it was going to be all right, however grim and controlled and austere he appeared right now. He had come for her, hadn't he? Braved her parents, her brothers, and come to seek her out. It had to be all right…didn't it?

It did. He parked right in the middle of the town at the edge of the market square, which was still full of mums and tots sitting by the fountain, commuters having a break in the sunshine before their journey home, shop­pers, and the inevitable courting couples sitting close on the wooden slatted seats.

'I love you, Claire, and I cannot let you go.' It was said without any preamble, but as she turned to him again he opened his door and got out, walking round to her side and drawing her out of the car with a shake of his head. 'Out, wench,' he said wryly, 'I need to talk to you, to explain, to…to ask your forgiveness. And one more minute in that car and all these little children are going to have a firsthand demonstration of the facts of life.'

'Romano…' But he drew her over to a vacant seat, with just a few pigeons pecking desultorily at the crumbs of a broken ice-cream cornet as their audience.

'I cannot live without you at my side, Claire.' She stared at him, stilled by the desperate note in his voice that had wiped away any amusement or lightness. 'But it will not be easy. You have to understand this—under­stand what you would be taking on if you want me. It is not right, it is not fair that I ask you to marry me like this—you are warmth and light and purity and I…I am dark, here, in the heart of me.'

'You are asking me to marry you?' she asked stupidly, her senses drinking in the closeness of him, the smell, the sheer sensual power, even as her mind refused to co­operate with any coherent instructions.

'You once said to me that you would not let the past beat you—you remember this?' he asked huskily.

She shook her head numbly, her mind refusing to con­centrate on anything but the fact, the glorious, wonder­ful, amazing fact, that he wanted to marry her.

'Sì, you did, and it hit me like the…the nail from the blue?'

'A bolt from the blue,' she corrected him dazedly, her eyes drinking in the sheer beauty of him.

'Ah, yes, the bolt. And that was because for the last three years the past has beaten me, held me, ground me into the dust. I did not want to acknowledge it, but it is true. And then, when I met you, when I fell instantly and terribly in love, the past was there in all its black­ness, telling me that this would not work either, that you could not be what you seemed, that even if you were it would all turn to ashes given time. And so I played the coward—'

'No—no, you didn't. You were trying to be honest—'