no need. I’ll be fine once I have my medication. Will you come in the car with me back to the house? You can run inside and find the pump spray.’
‘I’ll go and fetch Nico.’
‘No,’ Iris said sharply. ‘I don’t want to cause a fuss and spoil the wedding.’
There was no time to waste arguing and Sienna ran round to the other side of the car and jumped in. The journey through the village only took a few minutes. When the chauffeur turned onto the driveway of Sethbury Hall she felt a familiar sense of awe as she stared at the imposing manor house where she had once lived with Nico. She had always felt like an imposter. The daughter of the village publican who had married above her station, some of the villagers had whispered. Cinderella had found her prince, but the fairy tale had ended in a bitter divorce.
The car came to a halt and Iris said faintly, ‘You remember where my room is, Sienna? The pump spray should be on my bedside table. Please hurry.’
NICO LOCATED HIS grandmother in the orangery but Sienna wasn’t with her. He strolled across to the open glass doors and scanned the terrace where most of the guests had congregated, but there was no sign of a yellow dress.
His jaw tightened. Inexplicably he was disappointed that his ex-wife hadn’t accompanied Iris to Sethbury Hall. Frankly it was something of a surprise that Sienna had disobeyed him. When they’d been married she had always been eager to please him, especially in bed. Sometimes her puppy-like devotion had irritated him but she had been very young; a teenage bride, sweetly shy and biddable.
He frowned, remembering her accusation on the day she had walked out of their marriage that he had taken her for granted. With hindsight perhaps he had, he thought uncomfortably. Dio, but he had been young himself, with a weight of duty and responsibility on his shoulders. Sienna had been another of his responsibilities. Pregnant with his child and terrified of her abusive father. Nico had done the only thing he could do and offered to marry her.
He cursed beneath his breath. The last thing he wanted was a trip down memory lane. When he’d spotted Sienna in the church earlier he had thought at first that he must have imagined her. Standing in front of the altar with his brother had evoked memories of his own wedding ten years earlier, when Danny had been his best man.
Nico remembered the sense of panic he’d felt on his wedding day, of being trapped. He’d looked over his shoulder towards the door, wondering if he could make a run for it. But at that moment Sienna had walked into the church. She had looked exquisite in her bridal gown, with her long hair streaming down her back. She’d held a bouquet of cream roses over her stomach and looked as nervous as he felt.
He’d accepted that he couldn’t abandon her and his baby, and as he’d watched her walk towards him, he had been impatient for their wedding day to be over so that he could take her to bed. Their passion was white-hot and when he was buried deep inside her he did not care that he was marrying her out of duty. She was his exclusively and she was carrying his child. At least that was what he had believed then.
Nico jerked his mind away from the past and declined the glass of sherry a waiter offered him. He could do with a drink but his preferred poison was oak-barrel-aged cognac. As he strode up the sweeping staircase to his private suite of rooms, he told himself that he could take a short break from his best-man duties. Danny and his elegant bride were mingling with their guests while canapés were served on the terrace.
Entering his sitting room, he went straight to the bar and poured himself a drink. The cognac was smooth and mellow with a pleasant heat at the back of his throat. He looked across the room, puzzled that his bedroom door was open. He was sure it had been shut when he’d left the suite earlier. His heart kicked in his chest when he saw a white hat decorated with yellow flowers on the bed.
‘I’m intrigued, cara,’ he murmured, strolling into the bedroom just as Sienna emerged from the en-suite bathroom. ‘First you were at the church and now I find you in my bedroom. Not that I am complaining,’ he assured her. Far from it. Lust as hot as molten lava rushed through his veins when she ran her fingers through her hair. Was the gesture a deliberate ploy to make him notice the glossy waves that had been hidden beneath her hat in the church?
Her hair was the same shade of dark red as a vintage burgundy wine and he knew the colour was entirely natural. When she was younger her hair had been waist-length, but now it fell to just past her shoulders with layers framing her face and drawing attention to her peaches-and-cream skin and wide grey eyes.
‘Your bedroom?’ Sienna frowned. ‘I thought your grandparents occupied the master suite?’
‘They did when my grandfather was alive. But my grandmother has become less mobile in the last few years and when she moved into the new annexe on the ground floor I had these rooms refurbished.’
‘That would explain why I can’t find her medicine. Iris gave me the impression that she still used the same rooms as she did when I lived at Sethbury Hall. I expect she was confused. She asked me to fetch her angina pump spray, but I couldn’t find it on the bedside table and I’ve been looking for it in the bathroom cupboards.’
‘I don’t understand why Nonna asked you.’
‘She was having an angina attack.’ Impatience flashed in Sienna’s eyes. ‘Don’t just stand there. Your grandmother looked in a bad way and she needs her medication. How do I get to the annexe?’ She went to step past him and stiffened when he caught hold of her arm.
‘I meant why did she send you to get her medicine rather than one of the household staff who know where her rooms are?’ Nico’s eyes narrowed. ‘Iris seemed perfectly well when I saw her a few minutes ago. She does suffer from angina but she takes tablets to control it. As far as I am aware she hasn’t had an attack since she was diagnosed with the condition and she carries a pump spray merely as a precaution.’
‘Well, maybe she forgot to take her tablet and that’s why she had an angina attack.’ Sienna threw her hands in the air. ‘Don’t you believe me? Why would I make something like that up?’
‘To give you an excuse to visit my bedroom?’ Nico had no idea what was going on but when he flicked his gaze to the four-poster bed, his libido didn’t give a damn why his incredibly sexy ex-wife was in his room.
She whirled away from him and he noted how her silky dress clung to the rounded curves of her pert derriere. Fire licked through his veins and burned even hotter when she faced him and put her hands on her hips, causing her dress to pull tight across her breasts. Despite her slender build, Sienna had always been full up top, and Nico was definitely a breast man.
‘That’s right.’ Her sarcastic tone forced his gaze up to her face and he was fascinated by the gleam of temper in her eyes. The girl he’d married had been timid and amenable and would not have dreamed of disagreeing with him, let alone glare at him as if she was itching for a fight. ‘I was desperate to be alone with you so I invented the story that your grandmother had sent me to find her medication.’ Sienna gave him a withering look. ‘Your ego must be enormous if you think I was so blown away when you kissed me in the church that I want you to do it again.’
His ego wasn’t the only thing that was enormous, Nico silently derided himself, conscious that his arousal was uncomfortably hard beneath his suit trousers. As for that
