The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,45

the great hall, the long table now laid for a meal for twenty. Vittorio turned to her.

‘A small wedding reception, and then we can retire. I’m sure you’re tired.’ He spoke with a careful politeness that managed to make Ana feel even more awkward and strange. She nodded jerkily.

‘Thank you.’

Vittorio nodded back, and Ana wondered if this kind of stilted conversation was what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life.

What had she just done? What had she agreed to?

Like the ceremony, the wedding reception passed in a blur that still managed to make Ana both uncomfortable and exhausted. It wasn’t a normal marriage, and people seemed to sense that, so it wasn’t a normal wedding reception either. Her friends regarded her a bit quizzically; everyone she’d told had been utterly surprised by her abrupt engagement, although too polite perhaps to show it. Even her Aunt Iris, a distant stranger, scrutinized her with pursed lips and narrowed eyes, as if she suspected that something was amiss. Vittorio’s brother, Bernardo, shook her hand; his fingers were cold against hers and his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Constantia didn’t speak to her at all.

Ana did her best to chat and smile with those who did want to talk to her; she ate a few mouthfuls of the delicious cicchetti, meatballs and fried crab, as well as one of the region’s specialities, a lobster risotto. And of course there was wine: a rich red wine with the pasta, and crisp white wine with the fish, and prosecco with lemon sorbet for dessert.

By the time the plates had been cleared, Ana felt both exhausted and a bit dizzy. She saw Vittorio signal to a servant, and then moments later felt someone’s hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Paola smiling at her.

‘Come, the wedding feast is nearly over. I’ll help you out of your dress.’

‘Out of…?’ Ana repeated blankly, her mind fuzzy from the food and wine. Of course; the wedding was over, it was now her wedding night.

Vittorio had been vague about what he expected—what he wanted—from their first night together as husband and wife. He’d mentioned that he would give her time; there was no need to consummate their marriage on the very first night.

Yet what did he want? What did she want?

She knew the answer to the second question: him.

Ana let Paola lead her away from the reception, up to an unfamiliar corridor—she’d never even been upstairs before—and finally to a bedroom suite. Ana took in the massive stone fireplace, a fire already laid, the huge four poster bed piled high with velvet and satin pillows and the dimmed lighting. It was a room for seduction. It was a room for love.

‘How did you know where to go?’ she asked Paola, who had already closed the door and was reaching for the back of Ana’s dress, and the thirty-six buttons that went from the nape of her neck to the small of her back.

‘One of the servants showed me. Vittorio has a timetable, apparently. It’s all very organized, isn’t it?’

‘That’s a good thing,’ Ana replied. She couldn’t help but feel just a little defensive; she heard a note of censure in her friend’s voice.

‘So,’ Paola asked as she finished with the buttons and the dress sank around Ana’s ankles in a pool of satin, ‘just how convenient is this marriage, anyway?’ She gestured towards the room with its candlelight and pillows with a wry smile.

‘Not that convenient, I suppose.’ Ana smiled, felt the leap of anticipation in her belly, the tightening of her muscles and nerves in heady expectation. She was ready. She wanted this. So terribly, dangerously much.

‘Do you love him, Ana?’ Paola asked quietly. Ana stepped out of her dress, standing in just a thin slip, and reached for the pins that held her hair in its fussy chignon. Her back remained to Paola.

‘No,’ she said after a moment, ‘but that’s all right.’

‘Is it?’

Ana turned around. ‘I know you married for love, Paola, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only way. Vittorio and I want to be happy together, and I think we will be.’ Brave words. She’d believed them once, when she’d accepted his proposal, when she’d agreed with all of his logical points. It had made sense.

Yet, looking at that bed piled high with pillows and flickering with candlelit shadows, there was nothing sensible about it.

‘I almost forgot,’ Paola said. ‘Your husband left this for you.’ She gestured to a plain white