And then Tore Renzetti would make that all-important up-front payment, and they would be home and dry. It didn’t matter how he behaved or what he said afterwards once he realised he hadn’t gotten the sister he had expected: She could take it. Of course, she could take anything the horrible man handed out in punishment! Her heart hammered inside her too-tight bodice, and her narrow shoulders braced.
The entire deception would have been much easier had her grandfather not insisted on a church wedding with the accompanying guests. There were too many people who would recognise that the bride was not the woman she was supposed to be. Shy, socially awkward Violet was cringing in horror at the threat of a public scene and of being exposed in public by an irate man. He might not have bothered to meet either twin but ultimately, he was sure to spot the difference between a five-foot-five-inch blonde and the less than five-foot-nothing brunette who had literally stepped into her sister’s shoes. She could only be grateful that her grandfather, Tomaso Barone, barely knew her or her sister, having disowned their mother long before they were even born.
And anyway, what did any of it ultimately matter? Tore Renzetti and her grandfatherwantedthis marriage, and it was immaterial to both of them which sister he wed. Tabitha would’ve been a stranger, too.
‘The full veil is a little theatrical,’ her grandfather complained.
‘I don’t want anyone to notice if I cry,’ Violet declared defensively.
‘Why would you cry? You’re marrying a hugely wealthy man with high-society status and the blessing of your family. You’ll never want for anything again. It’ll be a big change for you. No outstanding debts and the very best of everything. You’ve got it made. You should bethankingme for setting this up for you!’
Violet winced. Tomaso Barone was proud as punch of selling her off like a product because he was delighted that she was marrying into wealth and class. This wedding meant something to him while it meant nothing to Violet or her sister. Although thatwasan actual lie, she adjusted with a pang of discomfiture as she thought of her mother’s frail health and wondered if they were chasing windmills while inwardly praying for a good outcome for the older woman. Even if the treatment were only to grant Lucia a couple of extra years rather than cure her, she reasoned heavily, it would be worth it.
She stumbled walking into the church. The heavy lace veil covered her face but made it hard to see steps. Her ankle twingeing as she shakily moved on, she accepted her grandfather planting her hand on his forearm and breathed in with a shudder at the foot of the aisle. Her future husband awaited her. Tabitha had looked him up online and announced that he was gorgeous, but doubtless that had been her lively sister endeavouring to make her sacrifice seem less of a sacrifice. Violet was ashamed to admit that she still hadn’t looked because she was already too intimidated by the whole process. And then she looked ahead to the man at the altar…
Shock gripped her for a split second. The man awaiting her bore more than a passing resemblance to one of the elegant elves in her favouriteLord of the Ringsmovies. Very tall, very fair, very, very beautiful. No, she hadn’t been expecting that; she hadn’t been expecting that at all. She stared, helplessly entranced, marvelling that there wasn’t some kind of crown on his silver-gilt hair and actual magical sparkles surrounding him. Just a stupid flight of fancy, she told herself off, but in truth she had been so terrified entering the church that anything that warded off the ice-cold taste of fear was welcome.
She didn’t like angry men, having grown up with one in the person of her father, and her bridegroom promised to be very angry indeed at the deception practised on him. A man like him, rich, arrogant and hugely sought after by ambitious women, wasn’t accustomed to receiving less than he saw as his due. And Violet had known since childhood that she wasn’t the beautiful twin, blessed with that angelic fairness that distinguished Tabitha. No, she was short and dark and infuriatingly curvy.
Tore surveyed his bride approaching in literal astonishment. Her gait was awkward and stiff and the obscuring ornate veil she wore put him in mind of the Bride of Frankenstein. How many women covered their face that much in this day and age? Right, he reflected impatiently,obviouslyshe was plain and had no looks to speak of. Maybe she was stupid as well, not to have registered that her appearance was absolutely meaningless to him. Even if she looked a bit ridiculous? He gritted his teeth; possibly he would never take her out in public. She was visibly shaking like a leaf. Tore gritted his teeth again, thinking of that up-front demand of cash, reminding himself that this woman was an unashamed, tawdry gold digger. He reached down and grasped her hand.
He had never seen such a small hand except on a child and it was ice-cold, lost within his, fingers convulsing like he was threatening her in some way. He breathed in deep, ignored it and the ceremony began. She spoke her responses in a strange little gruff voice. It made him want to rip the veil off and offer her a glass of water. It hugely irritated him. Perhaps there was something wrong with her, physically, mentally… How the hell was he to know?
And then it was done and he was threading the ring on a tiny finger. He hadn’t bothered with a ring for himself, had no intention of acting like a married man inanyway. He refused to change his own life. His bride could have the trappings but nothing else. She got the name, the ring, the money, the houses to share and that was that. Tore Renzetti did not do parasites, unwilling to work for a living.
Work was the spice of life to Tore. Aldo was forever urging him to take it easy, to relax, to make something of his free time, but Tore had never wanted free time. For him, there was always another mountain waiting to be conquered just ahead. He was purely goal oriented, always had been, always would be, and no woman had ever challenged that and probably never would. Tore had long since worked out that he was cold as ice in the heart department. Even in adolescence he had been blessedly free of crushes and infatuations because he was intensely critical and more prone to spotting flaws than perfections. And he liked himself that way; his cool, shrewd intelligence protecting him from the mistakes that others less blessed screwed up their lives with.
But by the time he stepped with his bride into a rear room to sign the register, the final legal step of their cursed alliance, he was out of patience. He watched her sign her name, except he was too clever not to notice that it was the wrong name and immediately he picked her up on it.
‘It’s not Violet,’ he told her with amusement because what else could it be but a silly mistake. ‘Your name is Tabitha—’
‘Er…no, it’s not, it’s Violet,’ she said in a very small, squeaky voice as he signed in his place.
‘And lift that stupid veil!’ he told her abruptly, marriage apparently conferring on him the right to speak to her as if she were a very young child. ‘It looks like something you’d wear in an amateur stage production ofTheCorpseBride.’
Violet trembled and began to fuss with the edges of the heavy veil.
Her bridegroom hissed something in a foreign language and impatiently tossed up the veil for her. It was too sudden a movement for the weight of the veil and the heavy long blond wig beneath it, and the whole lot went flying off the back of her head, leaving her fully exposed in the skull cap restraining her black hair.
‘What the hell…’Tore exclaimed in disbelief.
‘Violet?’Her grandfather demanded from the other side of the table.
‘Where’s Tabitha?’
The other older man, Tore’s grandfather, was simply wide-eyed at the other side of the table where the signing had taken place. ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked hesitantly.
‘It’s some kind of a scam,’ Tore declared with distaste, whipping off the skull cap so that a torrent of blue-black wavy hair fell round his bride’s pixie face and tumbled to her waist. And there she was, like something he dimly thought might pop out from behind a tree on a moonlight walk with her enormous blue eyes.
He had never liked blue eyes, he reminded himself. His vicious aunt had had blue eyes. He remembered the look in those eyes when she slapped him for getting in her way or seeing something he shouldn’t have seen. He had seen stuff at four years old that no child should be allowed to see, and he had never forgotten those seedy glimpses of adult life. Forgiving, tolerant of those who broke the rules of decency, he was not, and wouldneverbe that way inclined. You got one chance with Tore Renzetti. Blow that chance and you never got another.
‘I’m s-so s-sorry,’ Violet stammered unevenly.
‘You’re not,’ Tore informed her in a wrathful undertone. ‘But you will be…’
And with that disturbing assurance, Tore lifted her right off her feet so that her borrowed, rather too large, shoes fell off and he stormed for the exit door.
‘But what about the reception I’ve organised?’ Tomaso Barone demanded in a panic from behind them.
