‘Please show Mrs Renzetti to her quarters,’ Tore instructed curtly. ‘And feed her!’
As he stood in the grand hall, a peal of chiming laughter sent his head back around. His bride was clinging to the balustrade and giggling like a drain.‘Quarters?’she queried with amusement. ‘Am I in the army now?’
‘I’m Dora, Mrs Renzetti, your husband’s housekeeper. The other member of staff is Mr Jenkins, who is in charge of the household,’ Dora told her chattily, guiding her across a massive landing and down a corridor that led through another door. ‘I do hope you like the rooms prepared for you.’
‘I need a bedroom for my daughter,’ Violet announced. ‘She’s eleven months old.’
‘A baby!’ Dora carolled in apparent delight at the news. ‘We’ll all very much enjoy having a child in the house. When will she be arriving, Mrs Renzetti?’
‘This evening,’ Violet decided, for while Tabby was available to look after Belle, Violet wanted her adored little girl back under the same roof as fast as possible. ‘I’ll need transport for my possessions and to collect her.’
‘I’ll inform Mr Jenkins immediately,’ Dora told her, pushing back a door and allowing Violet to precede her into the most lovely room set up with the kind of colour scheme and furnishings that took Violet’s breath away.
‘This is…gorgeous,’ Violet pronounced truthfully because around her she was seeing the grace and beauty of a decor enabled by unlimited wealth. Silk-draped curtains, fresh flowers, antique furniture and paintings. It was all so far beyond her personal experience that she was tempted to pinch herself at the idea of actuallylivingin such a room.
‘Let me show you the rest of it,’ Dora urged.
And there was a lot ofthe rest of it, Violet registered as she was shown a second bedroom that would have to house Belle, and a large sitting room, dining room, study and a very nice, spacious kitchen, which made her eyes flash with appreciation. She could bake here in her new home if she put in an industrial oven and then go to work as usual. It also dawned on her that with such rooms put at her disposal, her bridegroom clearly didn’t wish to see her at all and her chin lifted at that obvious point. Being married to Tore promised to suit Violet perfectly.
‘Mr Renzetti’s grandmother does have a good eye for decoration,’ the housekeeper confided. ‘A lovely lady as well, very down-to-earth.’
Well, that news was something. Violet hoped that she wasn’t already so prejudiced against Tore that she assumed his family was all cut from the same cloth.
‘Now, what would you like to eat?’ Dora asked in completion.
‘If there’s food in the kitchen I can look after myself.’
‘But why would you when we’re here to do it for you?’ the older woman quipped and asked her again what she would like to eat.
Violet conceded the point, not wanting to behave like a lodger in the household when she was supposed to be its new mistress, even if the staff had to suspect she wasn’t going to be a normal wife when she had her own wing to occupy. Thirty minutes later, Dora had helpfully unhooked her wedding dress, and Violet had changed into serviceable jeans and a long-sleeved top. She ate her perfectly cooked omelette with satisfaction and sped downstairs at the news her transport was waiting for her. Three years of someone cooking for her? Oh, she could definitely get with such a programme, she decided with determined cheer. She spent enough time in the kitchen at work and had little enthusiasm for doing it outside work as well. There would be no cleaning, either, she reflected. She would get her evenings back again…
Tabby rushed to the door to greet her when she arrived at her former flat. Her twin had decided to move in the week before the wedding when Violet had begun to panic because Joy, Violet’s childminder, tenant and a part-time student had decided to move home and live with her parents to save on expenses.
‘I’ve been climbing the walls since Grandfather phoned me and asked me what was going on!’ Tabitha exclaimed. ‘And then I didn’t hear a word from you. What’s he like?’
Violet correctly interpreted that question as relating to Tore rather than their grandfather. ‘Obnoxious, arrogant—’
‘Pretty good-looking, though, isn’t he?’
‘Don’t see what that has to do with anything,’ Violet parried, stooping to grab Belle, who had crawled into the hall to greet her with enthusiasm. She gazed down into that lovely little smiling face and hugged her daughter, suddenly happy for the first time that day. ‘Tore is none too chuffed that I’ve got a kid, but it doesn’t matter because he’s put me on what seems to be the opposite side of his extremely large house with my own accommodation.’
‘Oh, that’s brilliant!’ Tabby gasped, hugging both her and Belle. ‘I was feeling so guilty and worried about you. You know, that he might push the sex angle,’ she extended with a wince.
‘Oh, no worries there! He’s far too superior to want anything of that nature from me,’ Violet laughed. ‘He couldn’t get away from me fast enough after the ceremony at the church!’
Across London at the same moment, Tore was struggling to handle a situation he had never expected to arise. ‘But it’s a marriage of convenience,’ he reminded his grandfather on the phone. ‘We won’t behavinga honeymoon.’
‘Why not?’ Aldo Renzetti enquired mildly. ‘At least getting to know each other as friends will make the next three years more bearable for both of you. And there’s a little kid involved now, a baby, I understand. You can’t ignore the needs of a child for three years. You’re a stepfather now, Tore. Surely, I don’t have to tell you that you have a duty to be present for that little one?’
Tore wanted to tear his hair out, scream, shout, violently disagree but of course, as usual, he forced himself to live up to Aldo’s old-fashioned ideas of family, duty and honour. ‘No, you don’t,’ he murmured as gently as he could when he was furious and fighting to hide the fact. ‘Very well. Violet and I and herlittle one,’ he voiced with a grimace, ‘will be delighted to accept your generous gift.’
‘You’ve always loved thecastello, Tore. We spent many happy summers there with you. Make the most of the opportunity not to turn your wife into an enemy for the future,’ Aldo advised sunnily.
Tore breathed in deep and raw as he tossed his cell phone down. He wanted to kill someone. He was taking the wife he despised and her child on a honeymoon he didn’t want. Why? He was too much of a coward to tell his grandfather that he didn’t intend to take his gold-digging wife to the foot of the street if he could help it. Aldo would consider such feelings cruel and insensitive even though Tore had told the older man about that up-front demand for cash. But then Aldo was the same man who had stepped up without hesitation to accept the responsibility of raising his late son’s child. Naturally, Aldo now saw Tore as an acting stepfather. He was that kind of man, decent, kind and honourable, the same man whom Tore loved like the father he had never known, and the only reason Tore had accepted this marriage of convenience.
Aldo regarded all women as innately fragile and in need of loving, caring support and loyalty. The fact that Tore had planned to spend his wedding night with a leggy blonde in unashamed adultery would horrify Aldo. Well, now he wasn’t going to be horrified because Tore would not be spending a single night with a leggy blonde in London. Evidently, that ring on his finger was cutting him off from sex as well, which for Tore was a truly appalling development.
Of course, he hadn’t ever planned to be faithful! Any more than he had planned to bed his wife! He might be married to an undersized, mouthy single parent but he didnotsee himself as a married man or a potential stepfather to a young child. Not in this particular marriage, anyway.
