Ravelli's Defiant Bride. Lynne Graham

death, Belle had thought much along the same lines and had felt horribly guilty to admit, even to herself, that she felt trapped by the existence of her little brothers and sisters and their need for constant loving care. Her grandmother, Isa, had made her generous offer and Belle had kept it in reserve in the back of her mind, believing that it could be a real possibility. But that was before she got into the daily grind of seeing to her siblings’ needs and finally appreciated the amount of sheer hard graft required and that any prospect of her grandmother taking charge was a selfish fantasy. It would be too big a burden for Isa to take on when some days it was even too much for Belle at the age of twenty-three.

      Someone rapped loudly on the back door, making both women jump in surprise. Frowning, Belle opened the door and then relaxed when she saw an old friend waiting on the step. Mark Petrie and Belle had gone to school together where Mark had been one of her few true friends.

      ‘Come in,’ she invited the slimly built dark-haired man clad in casual jeans. ‘Have a seat. Coffee?’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘How are you doing, Mark?’ Isa asked with a welcoming smile.

      ‘I’m doing great. It’s Belle I’m worried about,’ Mark admitted heavily, throwing Isa’s granddaughter a look of unvarnished male admiration. ‘Look, I’ll just spit it right out. I heard my father talking on the phone this morning and he must’ve been talking to someone from Gaetano Ravelli’s family. I think it was the eldest one, Cristo—’

      Tensing at the sound of that familiar name, Belle settled a mug of coffee down on the table for Mark. ‘Why do you think that?’

      ‘Cristo is the executor of Gaetano’s estate and my father was being asked about your mother and, of course, he doesn’t even know Mary’s dead yet. Nobody’s bothered to tell him that she passed while he and Mum were staying with my uncle in Australia—’

      ‘Well, your father and my mother weren’t exactly bosom pals,’ Belle reminded Mark bluntly. There had been a lot of bad blood over the years between the land agent, Daniel Petrie, and Mayhill’s housekeeper, Mary Brophy. ‘So why would anyone mention it to him?’

      Cristo Ravelli, Belle was thinking resentfully. The stuffed-shirt banker and outrageously good-looking eldest son, who never ever smiled. Over the years she had often researched Gaetano’s tangled love life on the Internet, initially out of curiosity but then more often to learn the answers to the questions that her poor trusting mother had never dared to ask. She knew about the wives, the sons and the scandalous affairs and had soon recognised that Gaetano was a deceitful, destructive Svengali with the female sex, who left nothing but wreckage and regrets in his wake. Furthermore, as Gaetano had only ever married rich women, her poor misguided mother had never had a prayer of getting him to the altar.

      ‘The point is, evidently Ravelli’s family have decided they want Gaetano’s children with Mary to be adopted—’

      ‘Adopted?’ Belle interrupted, openly astonished by that suggestion coming at her out of nowhere.

      ‘Obviously the man’s family want the whole affair hushed up,’ Mark opined with a grimace. ‘And what better way to stage a cover-up? It would keep the story out of the papers and tidy up all the loose ends—’

      ‘But they’re not loose ends—they’re children with a family and a home!’ Belle argued in dismay. ‘For goodness’ sake, they belong together!’

      Uncomfortable in receipt of that emotional outburst, Mark cleared his throat. ‘Are you the children’s legal guardian?’

      ‘Well, who else is there?’ Belle asked defensively.

      ‘But it’s not down legally on paper anywhere that you’re their guardian, is it?’ Mark prompted ruefully as her clear green eyes lifted to his in sudden dismay. ‘I didn’t think so. You should go and see a solicitor about your situation as soon as you can and get your claim to the children recognised with all the red tape available...otherwise you might discover that Gaetano’s family have more legal say on the subject of what happens to them than you do.’

      ‘But that would be ridiculous!’ Belle objected. ‘Gaetano had nothing to do with the kids even when he was here.’

      ‘Not according to the law. He paid the older children’s school fees, signed the Lodge over to your mother,’ Mark reminded her with all the devotion to detail inherent in his law-student studies. ‘He may have been a lousy father in the flesh but he did take care of the necessities, which could conceivably give Gaetano’s sons a bigger say than you have in what happens to the children now.’

      ‘But Gaetano left all five of them out of his will,’ Belle pointed out, tilting her chin in challenge.

      ‘That doesn’t matter. The law is the law,’ Mark fielded. ‘Nobody can take their birthright away from them.’

      ‘Adoption...’ Eyes still stunned by that proposition, Belle sank heavily back down into her chair. ‘That’s a crazy idea. They couldn’t have tried this nonsense on if my mother were still alive!’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘Nobody could have said their mother didn’t have the right to say what should happen to them.’

      ‘If only Mary had lived long enough to deal with all this,’ Isa sighed in pained agreement. ‘But maybe, as the children’s granny, I’ll have a say?’

      ‘I doubt it,’ Mark interposed. ‘Until you moved in here after Mary’s death, the children had never lived with you.’

      ‘I could pretend to be Mum...’ Belle breathed abruptly.

      ‘Pretend?’ Isa’s head swivelled round to the younger woman in disbelief. ‘Don’t be silly, Belle.’

      ‘How am I being silly? Cristo Ravelli doesn’t know Mum is dead and if he thinks she’s still alive, he’s very unlikely to try and interfere in their living arrangements.’ Belle lifted her head high, convinced she was correct on that score.

      ‘There’s no way you could pretend to be a woman in her forties!’ Mark protested with an embarrassed laugh at the idea.

      Belle was thinking hard. ‘But I don’t need to look like I’m in my forties...I only need to look old enough to have a fifteen-year-old son and, at the age women are having children these days, I could easily only be in my early thirties,’ she reasoned.

      ‘It would be insane to try and pull off a deception like that,’ her grandmother told her quellingly. ‘Cristo Ravelli would be sure to find out the truth.’

      ‘How? Who’s going to tell him? He’s a Ravelli—he’s not going to be wandering round asking the locals nosy questions. He would have no reason to question my identity. I’ll put my hair up, use a lot of make-up...that’ll help—’

      ‘Belle...I know you’re game for anything but it would be a massive deception to try and pull off,’ Mark said drily. ‘Think about what you’re saying.’

      The kitchen door opened and a thumb-sucking toddler with a mop of black curls stumbled in. He steadied himself against Belle’s denim-clad thigh and then clambered up clumsily into his sister’s lap, taking his welcome for granted. ‘Sleepy,’ he told her, the words slurring. ‘Hug...’

      Belle cradled her youngest half-sibling gently. Franco was very affectionate and he was quick to curve his warm, solid little body into hers. ‘I’ll take him upstairs for a nap,’ she whispered, rising upright again with difficulty because he was a heavy child.

      Belle tucked Franco into his cot beside her bed and for a moment stood looking out of the rear window, which provided a picturesque view of Mayhill House, a gracious grey Georgian mansion set in acres of parkland against the backdrop of the ancient oak woods. Her mother had been a widow and Belle only eight years old when Mary had first started work as Gaetano Ravelli’s housekeeper.

      Belle’s own father had been a violent drunk, renowned for his foul-mouthed harangues and propensity for getting into fights. One night he had stepped