Wife By Arrangement. Lucy Gordon

before Renato had caught up with her.

      ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said, reaching for her arm.

      ‘Don’t call me ridiculous,’ she seethed, shaking him off. ‘What’s ridiculous is you thinking you can move people like pawns on a chess board.’

      ‘I haven’t had much difficulty so far,’ he was rash enough to say.

      ‘So I guessed. But you hadn’t met me then.’

      ‘Indeed I hadn’t—’

      ‘It’s been a short acquaintance, not a pleasant one. This is where it ends.’

      She turned away sharply and headed for the street. Outside, the night traffic of Piccadilly honked and blared. Renato caught up with her at the door, taking her arm again. ‘Please, Heather, come back inside and let’s discuss this calmly.’

      ‘I don’t feel calm. I feel like throwing something at your head.’

      ‘You’re punishing Lorenzo because you’re mad at me, and that isn’t fair.’

      ‘Not, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that he has you for a brother, but he’s stuck with you. I’m not, however, and I intend to keep it that way.’

      ‘All right, insult me if it gives you pleasure—’

      ‘After the way you’ve insulted me, it gives me more pleasure than I can say!’

      ‘But don’t do this to Lorenzo.’

      ‘I’m doing it for Lorenzo. We’d only make each other unhappy. Now, will you please let me go, or do I have to scream for a policeman?’

      She pulled free and stormed out onto the pavement, heading straight across the road to where she could see a taxi approaching. She was too angry for caution. Through the noise of the traffic she thought she heard Renato’s horrified voice shouting her name. She didn’t see the car bearing down on her, only the glare of the headlights against the darkness. Then Renato seized her and swung her violently sideways. Somebody screamed, there was an ugly sound of brakes, and the next moment she was lying in the road.

      For a moment she couldn’t breathe. But she didn’t seem to be injured. A crowd was gathering around her, hands outstretched. Lorenzo burst through, crying, ‘Heather, my God! Oh, my God!’

      His voice rose on a note of horror and she realised that he wasn’t looking at her but at his brother. Renato lay in the road, bleeding from a wound in his arm. With a terrible sick feeling Heather saw why Lorenzo had cried out. Renato looked as though he’d severed an artery. Blood was streaming from his arm in a river, and if something wasn’t done fast he had little time left.

      ‘Give me your tie,’ she told Lorenzo. ‘Quickly!’

      He wrenched it off, while she fumbled in her bag for her pen. Her head was spinning but she fought to clear it while her hands moved swiftly, wrapping the tie around Renato’s arm above the wound, knotting it, slipping the pen through and twisting it. Renato’s eyes were open and he was looking at her, but she tried to think of nothing but what she was doing, twisting, twisting, while the tourniquet around his arm grew tighter and tighter, until at last—oh, thank God!—the bleeding lessened and stopped as the vein was closed.

      ‘Lorenzo—’ she gasped.

      ‘Yes,’ he said, taking the tourniquet from her. ‘I’ll hold it now.’

      ‘Thank you—I’m feeling a little—’ Her head was swimming.

      ‘No, you’re not going to faint,’ Renato murmured.

      ‘Aren’t I?’

      ‘A woman like you doesn’t faint. She takes over and gives orders, but she never weakens.’ His voice was almost inaudible, but she heard every word.

      ‘Let us through, please.’

      Suddenly an ambulance was there, the crew urging their way through the crowd, taking over. There were police too, talking to the motorist who was wringing his hands and protesting his innocence. Heather forced her head to clear. She still had something to do.

      ‘It wasn’t his fault,’ she said urgently to the policeman. ‘I ran out in front of him.’

      ‘All right, miss, we’ll talk at the hospital,’ the young constable said.

      Lorenzo helped her into the ambulance and sat beside her, pulling off his jacket and wrapping it around her, warming her against the shock. Renato presented a ghastly sight, covered in blood and with a pallor on his face that suggested death hadn’t been far off. One of the crew was giving him oxygen, and at last he opened his eyes over the mask. His gaze wandered to Heather, then to Lorenzo. His expression was intent, as though he were sending a silent message to one of them. Or perhaps both.

      At the hospital Renato was hurried away for emergency treatment, while Heather’s grazes were tended. She emerged to find Lorenzo sitting in the corridor with two policemen. She repeated what she’d said before, exonerating the driver. At last they left, satisfied, and she could be alone with Lorenzo.

      He put his arms about her. ‘Are you all right, darling?’

      ‘Yes, it was just scratches. What about Renato?’

      ‘He’s in there.’ He indicated the opposite door. ‘They’ve stopped the bleeding and given him a transfusion. He’s got to stay here a few days, but he’s going to be all right.’

      A doctor emerged. ‘You can come in for a minute. Just one of you.’

      ‘I’m his brother,’ Lorenzo said, ‘but this is my fiancée—please.’

      ‘All right, but try to be quiet.’

      Renato looked less alarming without his blood-stained clothes, but still very pale. He was lying with his eyes closed, not moving but for the light rise and fall of his chest.

      ‘I’ve never seen him this still,’ Lorenzo said. ‘Usually he’s striding about, giving orders. What did he say to make you storm out like that?’

      ‘I can hardly remember. Whatever it was, I shouldn’t have put his life in danger.’

      ‘I only know that he was bleeding to death and you saved him. Thank you, amor mia. I know he can be a bear, but he’s a good fellow really. Thank God you were there!’

      ‘If I hadn’t been there it wouldn’t have happened,’ she said, touched by his belief in her, but feeling guilty at the same time.

      Lorenzo slipped an arm about her shoulders. She rested her head against him and they sat together, exchanging warmth and comfort.

      ‘Are you angry that I called you my fiancée?’ he asked after a while.

      ‘No, I’m not angry.’

      ‘Do you love me enough to forgive Renato, and take me on?’

      Renato’s eyes had opened and he was watching them. ‘Say yes,’ he urged her. ‘Don’t turn us down.’

      ‘Us?’

      ‘If you marry one Martelli, you get the whole pack of us.’

      ‘I’ll be a good husband,’ Lorenzo vowed. ‘Good enough to make up for Renato.’

      ‘What more do you need to hear than that?’ Renato asked.

      ‘Nothing,’ she said with a smile. ‘I guess I can take the risk!’

      Suddenly everything was happening fast. The traumatic evening had swept her up in a fierce tide of emotion, and under its influence she’d promised to marry Lorenzo.

      In an instant, it seemed she was part of the Martelli family. Renato had stretched out his good hand and clasped hers, weakly, but with warmth. ‘Now I shall have a sister.’

      Within twenty-four hours her left hand bore a ring with