The Italian Duke's Wife. PENNY JORDAN

a woman they can show off—not one they’ve got to apologise for.’

      ‘You mean some men don’t,’ Jodie had corrected her, with as much dignity as she could muster.

      ‘Most men,’ Louise had insisted, before adding bluntly, ‘After all, how many men besides John have actually wanted so much as a date with you, Jodie? Think about it. And let’s not forget,’ she had added, pressing home her advantage, ‘any man is bound to worry about what he’s going to have to face in the future, with a wife who’s got health problems, from a financial point of view alone.’

      ‘I haven’t got health problems,’ Jodie had objected. ‘The hospital has given me a complete all-clear—’

      ‘Because they can’t do any more for you. You told me that yourself. Your leg is never going to be as it was, is it? You get tired if you have to walk any distance now—imagine how awful it would be for poor John if in, say, ten years you needed to be in a wheelchair. How would he cope? With the business booming the way it is, John needs a wife who is a social asset to him, not one who is going to be a handicap. You really mustn’t be so selfish, Jodie. John and I are trying to make this as easy for you as we can.’

      It was the ‘John and I’ that had done it, igniting Jodie’s temper so that she had exploded and told her one-time friend in no uncertain terms exactly what she thought of both her and of John, ending up with, ‘And, personally, the last kind of man I would want to commit to is one so shallow that all he sees is what lies on the surface. To be honest with you, Louise, you’ve done me a big favour. If it hadn’t been for you I might have gone ahead and married John without knowing how weak and unreliable he is. You obviously aren’t as fussy in that regard as I am.’ She had finished pointedly, ‘But I should be careful, if I were you. After all, you won’t be young and glamorous for ever, will you? And, since you’ve said yourself that looks are so immensely important to John, you’re going to have to live with the knowledge that ultimately he may dump you for someone younger and prettier.’

      She had been shaking from head to foot as she walked away from Louise. And when John had turned up on her doorstep less than an hour later, accusing her of upsetting Louise, she hadn’t known whether to laugh or to cry. In the end she had laughed. Somehow it had seemed the better option.

      It was then she had gone out and bought herself the shortest denim miniskirt she could find. The accident had not been her parents’ fault, and she had fought long and hard to be able to overcome her own injuries. From now on, she had decided, she was going to wear her scars with pride, and no man was ever, ever again going to tell her to cover up her legs because of them.

      For ease of travelling, though, right now she was wearing a pair of jeans—an old, faded pair of jeans that made her look totally out of place next to Lorenzo in his beautifully tailored suit, she thought, as he propelled her across the courtyard and into a cavernous baronial hall, his hand resting firmly on the middle of her back.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE room they entered was furnished with several pieces of intricately carved dark wooden furniture. A coat of arms had been cut into the stone lintel above the huge fireplace. The carpet on the stone floor beneath her feet looked worn and shabby, and she could see where the film of dust on a table in the middle of the room had been disturbed by something thrown down on it with such force that it had skidded through it.

      A door in the far wall was thrown open, and a woman stood there, framed in the opening. Immediately Jodie forgot her surroundings as she focused on her. Tall and soignée, she was everything one imagined a wealthy and elegant Italian woman should be. Her dark hair was pulled back in a smooth knot to reveal the perfect bone structure of her face. Dark eyes flashed a look of triumphant possessive mockery towards Lorenzo—the same kind of predatory female look Jodie had seen in Louise’s eyes when she had looked at John. The other woman hadn’t even seen her, hidden as she was in the shadows. Who was she?

      A sense of disquiet started to seep through her; an awareness of deep and dark waters driven by dangerous unseen currents that could suck her down into their icy depths if she wasn’t careful. Instinctively Jodie sensed that Louise and this woman were two of a kind, and that knowledge was enough to rub against the still painfully raw emotional nerves inside herself. She looked at Lorenzo. He looked relaxed, but she could feel his tension in the sudden increased pressure of his fingers, where they were splayed across her back. Something was going on here that she wasn’t privy to—but what? So many unanswered questions, and they were destined to remain unanswered, Jodie guessed, as she watched the full mouth thin, crimson with carefully applied lipgloss, and the delicate nostrils flare. A huge diamond flashed blindingly as the woman raised one hand to touch the deep vee neckline of the expensive black dress she was wearing in a deliberate gesture of enticement. What man could resist following with his gaze the scarlet glisten of the long nails as they rested briefly in the valley between the tight, high fullness of her perfectly shaped breasts?

      Her dress moulded to a waist so small that Jodie guessed it must be the result of a tightly laced corset, before curving lushly over rounded hips. Its hemline revealed a pair of long, slender, warmly tanned legs, whilst her feet, with their scarlet-painted toenails, were adorned with the highest and most delicate pair of strappy sandals Jodie had ever seen. She looked like someone who was about to walk into the most sophisticated and luxurious kind of setting there was, instead of being here in this dilapidated fortress in the middle of nowhere.

      A look of open triumph lit the Italian woman’s face as she sashayed towards Lorenzo. But her brown eyes lacked any kind of warmth, Jodie noticed, and as she walked, talking quickly, her voice sounded harsh and slightly flat, jarring against Jodie’s ears, rather than warm and musical as she had expected.

      She had almost reached them when Lorenzo held up a commanding hand and said smoothly, ‘In English, if you please, Caterina. That way, my wife-to-be will be able to understand you.’

      The effect of his words on the woman was cataclysmic. She stopped moving and turned to look at Jodie, who discovered that she was being propelled forward out of the shadows and anchored to Lorenzo’s side by means of his almost manacle-like grip on her wrist.

      A furious, disbelieving female glare savaged Jodie where she stood, followed by an equally furious outburst of Italian.

      ‘This way,’ Lorenzo instructed Jodie, ignoring her.

      ‘No!’ The woman placed herself in front of them, and said in English, ‘You will not do this to me. You cannot! Who is she?’

      ‘I have just told you. My wife-to-be,’ Lorenzo answered her dismissively.

      ‘No. You cannot do this.’ The flat, metallic voice was filled with fury. ‘No. No!’ She was shaking her head from side to side so violently that Jodie felt dizzy, but not one single strand of the immaculately coiffed hair escaped. ‘No,’ she repeated. ‘You will not make such a nothing your duchessa, Lorenzo?’

      His duchess?

      ‘You will not speak so of my intended wife,’ she heard Lorenzo saying coldly.

      Dear God, what on earth had she got herself into?

      ‘Where has she come from? What gutter did you—?’

      Immediately a look of haughty rejection stiffened Lorenzo’s expression, but Caterina ignored it, grabbing hold of his arm and insisting, ‘Answer me, Lorenzo, or I will…’