Bride By Choice

Helen’s reply came whizzing back with the speed of light.

You kidnapped her and forced her to get married?

‘Nobody forces Angie to do anything,’ he responded. ‘She and Bernardo love each other. They just got into a bit of a tangle.’

You mean, she didn’t do what was expected of her, so she was manipulated.

‘It wasn’t like that.’

This time there was no reply, just silence. Alarmed, he seized up the phone, and dialled Helen’s number.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he repeated as soon as she came on the line. ‘We’re all nuts about Angie. We couldn’t just lose her.’

‘I’m not going to listen to you,’ she said firmly. ‘You make it sound nice, but actually it just proves I was right all along. Angie should simply have walked out and left Bernardo standing.’

Four thousand miles plus an imp of mischief emboldened Lorenzo to say, ‘In Sicily a woman just couldn’t do that.’

He held the receiver away from his ear quickly. Even so her shriek of outrage reached him clearly.

‘Martelli, you’re so lucky you’re the other side of the Atlantic!’

‘I know. If we’d been face to face I’d have said, “Si, cara, no, cara. Anything you say, cara”.’

Her chuckle reached him down the line, and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Perhaps that four thousand miles really were useful. Otherwise he might have behaved in a way that would ruin their friendship for ever.

‘Lorenzo-are you still there?’

‘Yes, of course I am.’

‘You went silent suddenly.’

‘I was just thinking-’

‘What about?’

‘Um-what about? I was wishing you could have been there with me, and seen for yourself how nice it really was.’

There was a pause before she said quietly, ‘Do you really?’

‘Yes. I keep imagining how it would be if you saw my home and my family, and I could get rid of some of your tom-fool prejudices.’

‘You’ll never do that. My tom-fool prejudices and I come as part of a prickly package. Aren’t you glad you escaped while you could?’

‘Definitely. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. Working hard.’

‘How’s Erik?’

‘He’s away at the moment.’

So he wasn’t in her apartment, Lorenzo thought. He’d been straining to hear any background noise, but to his relief there was nothing.

‘What time is it over there?’ he asked.

‘Eleven. I’d just gone to bed.’

‘Sorry if I got you up.’

‘That’s all right. I never mind the chance to straighten you out on a few things.’

‘Oh, it’s me that needs straightening out, is it?’

‘Sure is. It must be dawn in Sicily. Why aren’t you in bed?’

‘I am, with a lady friend snoozing gently beside me at this moment.’

There was a tiny pause before she said uncertainly, ‘I don’t believe you.’

He sighed. ‘You know me too well.’

‘Of course.’ He heard the smile in her voice. ‘Underneath that playboy exterior you’re just Little Lord Fauntleroy.’

‘It’s a lie,’ he said indignantly. ‘A wicked slander.’

She burst out laughing and the pleasant sound was in his ears as they said goodnight and hung up.

He got into bed, expecting to sleep at once as he usually did. Instead, he lay in the darkness, brooding on something else that he would have liked to tell her, but couldn’t.

Nobody had enjoyed the unorthodox wedding more than Lorenzo. At the reception he’d danced with all the prettiest girls, as his reputation required, and joined in the songs in his light, pleasing tenor. And, as one wedding begets another, he had especially appreciated the moment when his mother had announced her intention to marry Fede, the long-lost beloved of her youth, who had recently come back into her life.

But it seemed Baptista had another marriage in mind, and suddenly Lorenzo had realised that everyone was looking at him.

He’d jumped in alarm, exclaiming, ‘Who, me? No way!’

They all smiled knowingly.

‘Forget it,’ he’d said firmly. ‘I’ll think about it in ten years. In the meantime, no way! Do you hear me?’

That made them smile even more.

And he couldn’t admit to anyone-not even himself-that for a moment he’d seen Helen’s lovely face, which was absurd because she was the last woman he would think of in connection with marriage. They’d settled all that the first evening.

The brief vision passed, he was laughing again, resolved not to think of it any more.

It was harder to ignore the memory of Bernardo’s face as Angie had become his wife. After all their quarrels, all the pride and tension, they had claimed each other with the certainty of true love. Lorenzo saw and understood this with an insight that had mysteriously grown recently.

Later that night he went to his mother’s room to kiss her goodnight.

‘I think that all went very well,’ she said.

‘Yes, I was worried up to the last moment.’

‘I wasn’t. Not after Bernardo came to me and asked me to help him bring his marriage about. That was when I knew that, for him, Angie was the one.’

‘How did you know?’ Lorenzo asked impulsively. ‘I mean, what’s the difference between a woman’s who’s the one and-well-?’ He wasn’t looking at his mother, and a slight flush had crept into his cheeks.

‘Bernardo is a very proud man,’ Baptista said. ‘And he discovered that Angie mattered to him more than his pride. When a woman matters that much, she is the one.’ A gleam of mischief crept into her eyes. ‘Perhaps one day soon, you too-’

‘That’s enough of that,’ he said hastily.

‘If you say so.’ Baptista put her hand over his. ‘I worry about you, my son.’

‘Me? But I have a wonderful life, Mamma.’

‘I know. Dashing here, there and everywhere, as a young man likes to do. But sometimes you seem to me- adrift.’

‘Mamma, you’re not going to arrange my marriage the way you arranged my brothers’,’ Lorenzo said firmly.

‘I just thought you might have been arranging it yourself. Do you know how often you speak of Elena Angolini?’

‘Do I?’ he asked, alarmed. ‘Never mind. You can forget her. She’s practically engaged to a man called Erik. She says she isn’t, but I’m not fooled. They’ll announce it any day.’

‘Is that why you’re scowling?’

‘I’m not. Goodnight Mamma.’

‘Goodnight, my son.’

Helen reached the airport an hour after Lorenzo’s plane was due to land. Her delay had been unavoidable, but she worried lest he was already through Immigration, looking around vainly for her, wondering if she’d let him down.