Bride By Choice

noticed how adroitly he turned the conversation.

He was wonderful in company, Helen realised. He could be ‘man-to-man’ with her father and brothers, while charming Mamma and making her sisters laugh. In no time at all he had them all on his side, which struck Helen as a really dirty trick.

The most difficult part of the evening was that for once she had her parents’ total, unqualified approval. They had picked out a suitable husband, and instead of arguing she had moved to first base in a couple of hours. In this atmosphere it was impossible to tell them that their choice was a devious, unscrupulous deceiver who ought to be hung up by his thumbs until he promised never to approach a woman again.

Lorenzo, watching her, read her thoughts with tolerable accuracy, but he was too much occupied with getting his bearings to worry about the retribution awaiting him. As a Sicilian he was used to large gatherings, but it was taking all his presence of mind to hold his own in this one. Apart from brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, there were also a couple of Mamma’s nieces with their husbands. Of these, the one who stuck in Lorenzo’s mind was Giorgio, because he disliked him so much.

Giorgio was a huge man with a spiteful face and a bullying nature. He was also blatantly on the make, and lost no time in telling Lorenzo about his family back in Sicily who’d been trying to sell their produce to Martellis for years, but had been scandalously rejected. He implied that now he expected this injustice to be put right.

Lorenzo fenced with him and escaped as soon as he could, giving a huge sigh of relief. That was one more reason to be glad he wasn’t marrying Helen Angolini. Even if she hadn’t rejected him first.

To be fair, he was beginning to understand her feelings. The men of the Angolini family were of a type that was becoming outdated even in Sicily where tradition still prevailed. In this household male superiority was still taken as the norm. Only the younger women, who spent their working lives outside in a different world, questioned it. The men, enclosed in the haven of Little Italy, thought nothing had changed.

The dinner was superb and Lorenzo was able to praise his hostess’s cooking with real pleasure. She smiled and accepted his tribute with a few words, but when her husband intervened to say that Angolini meats were second to none she retired and let him take the credit.

Lorenzo tried again, but this time it was Giorgio who butted in, interrupting Signora Angolini in a way that nobody would have been allowed to do with his own mother. Mamma’s reaction was to rise with a smile and a nod to her daughters to help her clear away. After that the party broke into two groups, women washing up and making coffee, and men gathering to talk.

The evening culminated in a grand family toast to Lorenzo, and an invitation to supper whenever he wished. At last the family began to drift off to their own homes, in some cases just across the street. The party was over. Poppa yawned. He had to get up early next morning.

‘Time for me to go,’ Lorenzo said heartily.

‘No, no, you stay a while,’ Mamma protested. ‘We’re all going to bed, but Elena can make you some more coffee.’

‘Yes, do stay,’ Helen said affably, but with her hand implacably through Lorenzo’s arm. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’

He gave her a hunted look.

The younger girls drifted off to bed. Mamma and Poppa beamed and departed. Helen surveyed her prey.

‘You are Lorenzo Martelli,’ she said through gritted teeth.

‘Yes,’ he admitted.

‘And you’ve been Lorenzo Martelli all this time?’

‘Well, it’s not something that comes and goes,’ he said defensively. ‘I’m kinda stuck with it.’

‘You were Lorenzo Martelli while we were talking at the hotel?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘And you were Lorenzo Martelli when you kissed me?’

‘Guilty!’

‘Even though you knew I disliked you?’

‘You disliked some guy who doesn’t exist,’ he protested. ‘That wasn’t me.’

‘It sure was. I disliked Lorenzo Martelli then and I dislike him ten times more now that I know he’s a devious scoundrel without a shred of honour. Shall I tell you what I’d like to do to you?’

‘I think I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘Kissing me like that was a dishonourable act, and if I told Poppa the full truth you’d be mincemeat.’

‘Not if he wants you to marry me,’ he was unwise enough to say. ‘All right, all right!’ He backed off fast. ‘Whatever you were going to do, don’t do it. I shouldn’t have stolen that kiss, and I’m sorry, but I got carried away by your beauty and-’

‘I’m warning you, Martelli, don’t insult my intelligence. You should be ashamed of yourself. No gentleman would do what you did.’

‘I’m not a gentleman,’ he protested quickly, evidently seeing this as some sort of defence. ‘I never pretended to be one.’

‘You got that kiss from me by false pretences.’

‘You’re right. How about I give it back?’

‘Come one step closer and you’re dead.’

‘Aw, now look, that kiss wasn’t a one-sided business. You kissed me back.’

‘It’s a lie! Nothing on earth would persuade me to kiss that man.’

‘Will you quit talking about me as though I wasn’t here? And don’t tell me I don’t know when a woman’s kissing me.’

‘That will be your experience talking, I suppose?’ she asked, her eyes kindling. ‘Your vast experience?

He took a nervous step behind a chair. ‘Fair to middling,’ he said self-consciously.

‘Hah!’

He rallied his forces, such as they were. ‘May I ask what you mean by “Hah!” in that voice?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘You don’t know what you mean by it, do you? When a woman knows she’s talking nonsense she says “Hah!”’

‘Oh, really? Well, consider this. Everyone in the street saw us kissing, and that makes it a very public thing. I can’t tell them I didn’t know your name because that would bring shame and disgrace on my parents, my brothers, my sisters, my nephews and nieces, my aunts and uncles, their aunts and uncles, their ancestors, their cousins and the whole shooting match going right back to Sicily. What’s more, my mother is dying to tell Aunt Lucia in Maryland, who will certainly pass it on to Aunt Zita in Idaho, who will telegraph it to Los Angeles. This is a Sicilian family. Today Manhattan. Tomorrow the world. Do you realise,’ she demanded, incensed, ‘that now they’ll expect me to marry you?’

‘No problem. I can take care of that.’

‘How?’

‘I swear I’ll never propose. My solemn word, so you’re quite safe. And to make doubly sure, I’ll talk to your parents and tell them I’ve decided I don’t like you very much.’

‘After what they saw in the street?’

‘I’ll tell them you’re a lousy kisser-don’t throw that!’

He ducked as a book came flying past his head and struck the wall with a loud crack.

‘Out,’ she told him.

‘Shouldn’t we fix our next date? They’ll expect it-’

‘Out!’

He got as far as the door before saying, ‘Are you spending the night here?’

‘No, I’m going back to my apartment.’

‘Then shouldn’t we be leaving together?’

Helen breathed hard. ‘Signor Martelli, if you’d been listening to a word I said, you’d know that I would prefer not to share the same planet with you, never mind the same cab.’

‘I know,’ he said gravely. ‘I’m not keen on you either, but we have to make these sacrifices.’

‘Who’ll know if we leave together or not?’