The Forced Marriage by Sara Craven Page B

with colour all the time. When I get home I prefer something—more restful, that’s all.’
    ‘Is that the whole truth?’
    She bit her lip, avoiding his quizzical gaze. ‘Well, I did plan to decorate at first—perhaps—but then I met Chris, so now I’m saving my energies for the home we’re going to share. That’s going to be a riot of colour. The showcase for my career.’
    ‘You say you plan to go on working after you are married?’
    Flora lifted her chin. ‘Naturally. Is something wrong with that?’
    ‘You do not intend to have babies?’
    She began to set a tray with cups, sugar bowl and cream jug. ‘Yes—probably—eventually.’
    ‘You do not sound too certain.’
    She opened the cutlery drawer with a rattle to look for spoons. ‘Maybe I feel I should get the wedding over with before I start organising the nursery.’
    ‘Do you like children?’
    ‘Boiled or fried?’ Flora filled the cafetière and set it on the tray. ‘I don’t know a great deal about them, apart from my sort of nephew, and he’s a nightmare—spoiled rotten and badly behaved. A real tantrum king.’
    ‘Perhaps you should blame the parents rather than the child.’
    ‘I do,’ she said shortly. ‘Each time I’m forced to set eyes on him.’ She picked up the tray and turned, noting that he was still blocking the doorway. ‘Excuse me—please.’
    He made no attempt to move, and she added, her tone sharpening, ‘I—I’d like to get past.’
    ‘Truly?’ he asked softly. ‘I wonder.’ He straightened and took the tray from her suddenly nerveless hands.
    Taking a breath, Flora marched ahead of him back to the sitting room, deliberately choosing the armchair.
    He placed the tray on the glass table and sat down on the sofa. ‘I am beginning to accustom myself to your unsullied environment.’ His tone was silky. ‘But I find it odd that there are no photographs anywhere—none of your Cristoforo—or of your parents either. Are you an orphan, perhaps? Is your past as unrevealing as your walls?’
    ‘Of course not,’ she said coolly. ‘I have plenty of family pictures, but I keep them in an album. I don’t like—clutter.’
    His brows lifted mockingly. ‘Is that how you regard the image of your beloved?’
    ‘No, of course not.’ She bit her lip. ‘You like to deliberately misunderstand.’
    ‘On the contrary, I am trying to make sense of it all.’ He paused. ‘Of you.’
    ‘Then please don’t bother,’ Flora said swiftly. ‘Our acquaintance has been brief, and it ends tonight.’
    ‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘But the night is not yet over. So I am permitted a little speculation.’
    ‘If you want to waste your time.’ Flora reached for the cafetière and filled the cups, controlling a little flurry of unease.
    ‘My time is my own. I can spend it as I wish.’ He paused. ‘So—are you going to show me these photographs of yours—if only to prove they really exist?’
    For a moment she hesitated, then reluctantly opened the door of one of the concealed cupboards beside the fireplace and extracted a heavy album.
    She took it across to him and held it out. ‘Here. I have nothing to hide.’ She gave him a taut smile. ‘My whole history in a big black book.’
    He opened the album and began to turn the pages, his face expressionless as he studied the pictures.
    Flora picked up her coffee cup and sipped with apparent unconcern.
    He said, ‘Your parents are alive and in good health?’
    She paused, chewing her lip again. ‘My father died several years ago,’ she said at last. ‘And my mother remarried—a widower with a daughter about my own age.’
    ‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘The mother of the tantrum king. Is that why you don’t like her?’
    ‘I have no reason to dislike her,’ Flora said evenly. ‘We haven’t a great deal in common, that’s all.’
    He turned another page and paused, the green eyes narrowing. He said, ‘And this, of course, must be Cristoforo. How strange.’
    She