Stolen Bride. Sally Carr
bit into her flesh. ‘Who are you to stop this wedding?’ he roared. ‘What right do you have here?’
His voice boomed around the church, echoed and died away. Only silence was left. So sudden and so deep it seemed a physical thing. All her relatives, everyone she knew, Luca’s family, her uncle’s business colleagues, people who together could make more noise than an average football crowd just by saying their prayers, seemed struck dumb. Even Luca seemed suddenly uncertain, his authority reduced to blustering.
Cara’s eyes rose to meet the stranger’s, and she felt an odd little lift in her heart. ‘I have the oldest right in the world,’ he drawled. ‘This woman just happens to be my wife.’
Her breath seemed to catch in her throat at his words. She could feel Luca staring at her, questioning the stranger’s words, but she wouldn’t return the look, knowing even he could read the truth in her eyes.
He was coming closer now, the stranger, that long-legged stride looking so slow and in reality so fast. He was wearing a blue linen shirt and white chinos, his hair not black as she had thought, but a deep dark brown, his eyes as blue as a summer sky at midnight.
He had a look in those eyes that dared her to tell the truth, and trusted her not to. The look in the eyes of a man determined to release a wild thing from a trap, even though it might turn on him.
He strolled up to her, and seemingly with no effort at all, took her hand from Luca’s. She did not resist, even though she could feel the eyes of every single one of her relatives staring at her in pure shock. And still they were silent.
She knew how they felt. It was as though she was being hypnotised. As though she was dreaming. Her fingers felt cold in his warm ones, and she realised suddenly she was shivering uncontrollably.
He nodded curtly at Luca and then looked at her once more. ‘Come along, darling.’
She looked at her fingers almost with surprise as they curled instinctively in his, and then, as she gazed into his eyes once more, she gave him the ghost of a smile and let him lead her towards the door.
‘It is a lie!’ shouted Uncle Pancrazio, his voice echoing around the church’s high ceiling. ‘What do you think you are doing! Of course she is not married.’
Cara looked into the stranger’s eyes and then at her uncle. ‘It is true.’ She forced the words out, feeling oddly light-headed at the lie she was telling. Was it really her speaking? ‘Last summer—’
‘Just keep walking,’ whispered the stranger, urging her along as she gabbled at her uncle. ‘Whatever happens, don’t stop.’
‘Last summer!’ roared her uncle. ‘You faithless—I will kill you both!’
‘Run!’ yelled the stranger, pulling her out of the church and down the sweeping stone steps. ‘There’s a killer in there!’ he shouted at a knot of bodyguards, now bounding towards them from the waiting cars, already loosening their jackets and reaching inside for their guns. ‘Quick! I’ll look after her.’
As the chaos of shouting, milling bodies erupted in the church doorway, Cara breathlessly stumbled almost headlong down the steps and then down the deserted street. The stranger was fumbling in his pockets as he ran, pulling out some keys and then opening a car door. He got in and pushed open the door on the other side. ‘Get in,’ he ordered.
Cara stood irresolute. ‘But—’ she began.
‘No buts,’ he snapped. ‘We haven’t time. Your family will come round that corner in ten seconds flat, and they’re not going to be carrying violin cases.’
Cara took one wild glance back and then somehow squeezed herself and the billowing dress into the passenger seat. Her veil parted from the wreath of fresh flowers on her head and bobbed briefly in the air behind them before dragging down onto the dust. It was the last thing she saw before the stranger wrenched the car round a tight bend and she finally managed to shut the door.
They drove in silence for several miles, the stranger concentrating tautly on driving as fast as he could, his eyes constantly flicking to the rear-view mirror.
Cara tightly clasped her hands, which were trembling almost uncontrollably. Was this really happening? It was so... She shrugged and gave up looking for a description. Her brain seemed to have simply frozen in shock.
She pinched the skin on the back of her hand. Could she be dreaming all this? It was hot in the car, and the sun was blazing straight in her eyes. Blinking a little, she moved her legs slightly, and the silk of her dress rustled coldly against her skin. She definitely wasn’t dreaming.
She looked at the stranger out of the corner of her eye. What on earth had she done? He could be anybody. He could be the sort of attacker her uncle and Luca were always on guard against. And she had actually let him take her away. Luca had once called her stupid, she remembered, and she had been furiously angry. Maybe he had been right after all.
She turned her head to look carefully at the stranger’s face and then back at her lap. ‘Who are you?’ she said at last. And then without waiting for an answer demanded, ‘Why are you doing this? Where are you taking me? Are you kidnapping me? What—’
He lifted one hand off the steering wheel, and she instinctively recoiled. Was he going to hit her, like Luca had once done? But the stranger was merely holding his hand, palm outward, like a traffic policeman.
“My name is Finn Cormac,’ he said at last.
English. He was speaking English. But how did he know she would understand? Her eyes widened at the implications of that. No one had spoken English to her for a long, long time. But it was not something she could ever forget how to speak. It was the language of her childhood, of happy times, of the finishing school she had been to when she was eighteen, when she had had her one and only glimpse of freedom.
She stared at him, wondering exactly how much he did know about her. ‘But who—’ she began.
‘No.’ He waggled his hand and she fell silent. ‘If you’re going to jabber at me, you can get out of the car. Now is not the time for twenty questions.’
Her mouth closed and she looked at him warily. He didn’t look like a kidnapper. But then what did one look like? And besides, it had been her defiance at the altar that had set this whole thing in motion.
She subsided in her seat, confused by the strangeness of his name and the unreality of what was going on. Questions still buzzed around her brain, but she recog-nised the sense of what he had said. Now was not the time for them.
‘I am Carenza Gambini,’ she said at last. ‘But everyone calls me Cara.’
He nodded. ‘I know.’
She breathed in deeply, then looked sidewise at him. He was driving very fast, with utter concentration on the road ahead. She almost didn’t like to disturb him. She tried to think of what her family was doing. Her uncle had been furious. The way he had shouted at her had been almost enough to stop her in her tracks.
And he had turned so paper white when she had followed the stranger that he had looked ill. She felt a sudden shaft of guilt and then thought about the way Luca had pulled her to him. Did he care enough about her to follow?
‘Do you think Luca will really come after me?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Are you joking?’ demanded Finn, his foot hard on the accelerator. ‘Is this Italy or Iceland?’
She breathed out slowly. Of course Luca would come after her. They all would. It had been a stupid question. She knew her family better than anyone. But she had been thinking in terms of how Luca felt about her. Maybe he did love her, after all. ‘Maybe she had just made a terrible mistake.
‘He doesn’t love me,’ she offered, hoping Finn would contradict her. Hoping she had been wrong.
‘You’re his property, sweetheart,’ replied Finn matter-of-factly. ‘And you’ve