The Italian's Rightful Bride
Lucy Gordon
Joanna had been head over heels in love with her convenient fiancé, Gustavo Ferrara, when he fell in love with–and married–someone else!Now, twelve years on, Gustavo Ferrara, now single, is thrown into turmoil at seeing Joanna again. He's older, wiser, and he realizes Joanna is the person he should have married–but he has no idea how much he hurt her. Can he persuade her to give him another chance…or is she once bitten, twice shy…?
She was the woman he wanted. Twelve years ago it had been too soon. Now the time was right for them.
Or, at least, for him. “Forgive me,” Gustavo said gently. “I just wish I could turn the clock back to before tonight, but I can’t decide how far back to go.”
“To the last moment of happiness?” Joanna said. “Or the last moment before a terrible mistake? Or perhaps it doesn’t matter, and we’d make the same mistake again.”
“Joanna, you’re talking mysteries. What mistake could you ever have made?”
She shook her head. “I cannot tell you. You must let me have my secrets.”
But he too shook his head. “No, I want to know your secrets. Every one of them. I want to know what you’re thinking and feeling. I want—I want you.”
Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa, and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.
Two of her books have won the Romance Writers of America RITA
award—Song of the Lorelei and His Brother’s Child in the Best Traditional Romance category.
You can visit her Web site at www.lucy-gordon.com
The Italian’s Rightful Bride
Lucy Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
PROLOGUE
“‘SOLID gold vases, mouth-watering jewels, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.”’
Joanna, stretched out on the beach, turned her head to where her ten-year-old son was sitting on the sand beside her, his head in a newspaper.
‘What are you on about, darling?’
‘Big find,’ he said, peering at her over the top. ‘Palace, fabulous treasure.’ He saw her regarding him with amused disbelief and said, ‘Well, they found a few old bricks, anyway.’
‘That sounds more like it.’ She laughed. ‘I’m used to the way you embellish things. Where did they find these “old bricks”?’
‘Rome,’ he said, giving her the paper.
Following his pointing finger, she saw a small item with a few basic details.
“‘Fascinating and unique foundations—vast palace—fifteen hundred years old—”’
‘It sounds right up your street, Mum,’ Billy observed. ‘Ruins, crumbling with age—’
‘If that’s meant to be a comment on my appearance, you can save it,’ she told him. ‘I may look merely ancient but I feel prehistoric.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said cheekily.
‘I’ll send you to bed without any supper.’
‘You and what army?’ he challenged her.
His face was wicked and gleeful. She adored him.
Because her job took her away from home, and she was sharing Billy with her ex-husband, they saw too little of each other. This summer they were treating themselves to a holiday at Cervia, on the Adriatic coast of Italy.
It had been glorious to have nothing to do but stretch out on the beach and talk to Billy, who was mature for his years. But for both of them inactivity had soon begun to pall, and the newspaper item stirred all her professional instincts.
She had a glittering reputation as an archaeologist, or a ‘rubble and bone merchant’ as Billy irreverently put it, and this was, as he’d said, right up her street. As she read she hummed softly under her breath.
Foundations of huge building found in the grounds of the Palazzo Montegiano, ancestral home of the hereditary princes of Montegiano, and the residence of the present Prince Gustavo.
The humming stopped.
‘Have you ever been to Rome, Mum?’ Billy asked. ‘Mum? Mum?’
Receiving no reply, he leaned closer and waved his hands. ‘Earth to Mum. Come in, please.’
‘Sorry,’ she said hastily. ‘What did you say?’
‘Have you ever been to Rome?’
‘Er—yes—yes—’
‘You sound half-witted,’ he said kindly.
‘Do I, darling? Sorry, it’s just—he always said there was a great lost palace.’
‘He? You know this Prince Thingy?’
‘I met him once, years ago,’ she said vaguely. ‘How about an ice cream?’
Steering him away from the subject was an act of desperation. Because there was no way she could say to her darling son, ‘Gustavo Montegiano is the man I once loved more than I ever loved your father, the man I could have married if I’d been sufficiently selfish.’
And she might have added, ‘He’s the man who broke my heart without even knowing that he possessed it.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘RING, damn you, ring!’
Prince Gustavo fixed his gaze on the phone, which stayed obstinately dead.
‘You were supposed to call every week, without fail,’ he growled. ‘And it’s been two weeks.’
Silence.
He got up from his desk and went impatiently over to the tall windows through which he could see the stone terrace. On the last of the broad steps that led down to the lawn sat a nine-year-old girl, her shoulders hunched in childish misery.
The sight increased Gustavo’s anger. He strode back, snatched up the telephone and dialled with sharp, stabbing movements.
He knew nobody had ever forced his ex-wife to do what didn’t suit her. But this time he was going to insist, not for himself, but for the little girl who pined for some sign that her mother remembered her.
‘Crystal?’ he snapped at last. ‘You were supposed to call.’
‘Caro,’ came the soft purr that had once sent shivers up his spine. ‘If you only knew how busy I am—’
‘Too busy for your daughter?’
‘My poor little Renata? How is she?’
‘Pining for her mother,’ he said furiously. ‘And now I’ve got you on the line you’re going to talk to her.’
‘But, sweetie, I’ve no time. You caught me on my way out, and please don’t call again—’
‘Never mind going out,’ he said. ‘Renata’s just outside and she can be here in a moment.’ He could hear the little girl’s footsteps running along the terrace.
‘I have to go,’ came Crystal’s voice. ‘Tell her I love her.’
‘I’m damned if I will. Tell her yourself. Crystal—Crystal?’
But she had gone, hanging up at the exact moment the child came running into the room.
‘Let me talk to Mamma,’ she cried, seizing the phone from him. ‘Mamma, Mamma.’
He saw the joy drain out of her face as she heard the dead tone. And, as he’d feared, the face she then turned on him was full of accusation.
‘Why didn’t you let me talk to her?’ she cried.
‘Darling, she was in a rush—it was a bad time for her—’
‘No, it was your fault. I heard you shouting at her. You don’t want her to talk to me.’
‘That isn’t true—’
He tried to take his daughter into his arms but she resisted him, not by struggling but by standing stiff, her face blank and unrevealing.
Just like me, he thought sadly, remembering the times in his life when he had concealed his innermost self in the same way. There was no doubt that this was truly his child, unlike Crystal’s second offspring, whose birth had precipitated the divorce.
‘Darling…’ he tried again, but gave up in the face of her silent hostility.
She blamed him for her mother’s desertion and the fact that she’d been left behind, because she couldn’t bear to believe anything else. And was it kinder to force the truth on her, or go along with her fantasy of a mother who yearned for her and a cruel father who kept them apart? He only wished he knew.
Reluctantly he released her and she ran out at once. Gustavo sat down heavily at his desk and buried his head in his hands.
‘Have I come at a bad time?’
Gustavo looked up to see an elderly man in shabby, earth-stained clothes who stood in the tall window, mopping his brow.
‘No, come in,’ Gustavo said with relief, opening an ornate eighteenth-century cupboard and revealing a small fridge concealed inside.
‘How is it going?’ he asked, pouring two beers.
‘I’ve gone about as far as I can,’ Professor Carlo Francese said, puffing from his recent exertions. ‘But my expertise is limited.’
‘Not in my experience,’ Gustavo said loyally.
They had been friends for eight years, ever since Gustavo had allowed his palazzo to be used for an archaeological convention. Carlo was an archaeologist with a major reputation, and when ancient foundations had recently been discovered on Gustavo’s estate he had called Carlo first.
‘Gustavo, this is potentially the biggest find for a century, and you need serious professionals. Fentoni is the best. He’ll jump at it.’
He gave Gustavo a shrewd look. ‘You’re not listening.’
‘Of course I am, it was just—hell and damnation!’
‘Crystal?’
‘Who else? It’s not so much that she betrayed me with another man, bore him a son and made a fool of me. I hate that, but I can bear it. What I can’t forgive is the way she left without a backward glance at Renata, and doesn’t bother to keep in touch. My little girl is breaking her heart, and I can’t help her.’
‘I never much liked Crystal,’ Carlo admitted slowly. ‘I remember meeting her a few years after your wedding. You were totally crazy about her but she always struck me as slightly detached.’
‘Totally crazy,’ he murmured with a wry, reminiscent grin. ‘That’s true. I went on believing in her far too long, but I had to. In order to marry her I behaved very badly to someone else that I should have married, and I suppose I needed to believe that the “prize” I’d won was worth it.’
‘Behaved badly?’ The professor’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘You mean really badly?’
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Gustavo said with a reluctant grin, ‘but there was no grand drama. Neither the lady nor I were in love. It was to be a suitable marriage, virtually an arranged one.’
Carlo wasn’t shocked. Whatever the modern world might imagine, such things were still common among the great aristocratic families of Europe. Money gravitated to titles, and where vast estates and ancient houses were concerned it was a matter of family duty to protect them.
And if there was one thing Gustavo understood it was his duty.
‘So what happened about this arranged marriage?’ Carlo asked now.
‘My father was alive then, and he’d had some bad luck. A friend of my mother’s knew of an English girl who had a great fortune. I met her, and we got on well.’
‘What was she like?’
Gustavo considered for a moment.
‘She was a nice person,’ he said at last. ‘Gentle and understanding, someone I could talk to. We would have had a good marriage, in a sedate kind of way. But then Crystal appeared, and suddenly sedate wasn’t enough.
‘She was—’ he struggled for words ‘—like a comet flaming across the sky. She dazzled me. I couldn’t see the truth, which was that she was ruthless and selfish. I saw it later, but by then we were married.’
‘How did you break it off with your fiancée?’
‘I didn’t. She broke it off with me. She was wonderful. She’d seen what was happening and said that, if I preferred Crystal, there was no problem. After all, what woman wanted a reluctant husband? That was how she put it, and it all sounded so reasonable.’
‘Suppose she’d refused to release you? Would you have gone through with the wedding?’
‘Of course.’ Gustavo sounded slightly shocked. ‘I’d given my word of honour.’
‘What about your family’s reaction?’
‘They weren’t pleased but there was nothing they could do. We presented it to the world as a mutual decision, which in many ways it was, since I think my fiancée was secretly glad to be rid of me.’
He grinned.
‘When I say “we” presented it to the world, I really mean that she did. She did all the talking while I stood there like a dummy and probably looking like one. My father was furious at losing her inheritance.’
‘Crystal was poor, then?’
‘No, she had a fortune, but it was more modest.’
‘So you didn’t put family interests first that time?’ Carlo observed. ‘Crystal must have been quite something.’
Gustavo nodded and fell silent, remembering the impact his wife had made on his younger self. She’d been all laughter and sensuality, reckless and passionately emotional, or so he’d thought. It was only later that he’d understood how limited was her capacity for any honest emotion.
He’d fallen into the trap of thinking that because her feelings were freely expressed, they must be deep. With himself it was the opposite. His feelings were too intense to be spoken of, and so the world mistakenly called him chilly.
But the friend watching him sympathetically at this moment knew better. He did not persist with the subject.
‘The sooner you get this place studied by Fentoni and his team the better,’ he observed.
‘I suppose he’s expensive,’ Gustavo said wryly.
‘The best always is. I guess money’s tight again?’
‘Crystal wants every last penny back. She’s entitled to it, but it’s a strain.’
‘Well, perhaps this discovery will turn out to be a gold-mine.’
‘To be sure,’ Gustavo said without conviction. ‘All right, let’s contact him.’
Carlo snatched up the phone. ‘I’ll do it now.’
While he was getting through Gustavo returned to the window to look out over the lawns to where he could see his daughter in the distance. She was sitting on a tree stump, her knees drawn up, her arms clasped around them.
She looked up and, although she was too far off for him to discern her face, he was sure her expression was hostile. He smiled and waved to her, but she looked away.
He wanted to bang his head against the wall, riven with guilt and despair that he couldn’t make things right for her.
Carlo was chattering urgently into the phone, sounding exasperated.
‘Fentoni, old friend, this is a far more important job—Oh, damn your contract. Tell them you’ve changed your mind and want to do this instead— How much? Oh, I see.’
He looked up at Gustavo with a shrug of resignation.
‘So who else, then?’ he said back into the phone. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of her, but if Mrs Manton is English, do we want her pronouncing on Italian artefacts? All right, I’ll take your word for that. Have you got her number?’
He scribbled something down, and came off the phone to find Gustavo scowling.
‘English?’
‘Specialising in Italy,’ Carlo told him. ‘Fentoni says she was his best pupil. Why don’t you let me deal with this? I’ll contact her, fix a visit, you can see what you think of her, and then agree terms.’
‘Thanks, Carlo. I’ll leave everything in your hands.’
When Joanna Manton received the call on her cellphone, and understood what Carlo wanted, she had only one question.
‘Are you saying that Prince Gustavo actually asked for me?’
‘No, no,’ his voice came down the line. ‘You were recommended by Professor Fentoni. I suggest you come down and look the place over.’
She was silent, torn by temptation. Surely it could do no harm to see Gustavo again after twelve years? She was no longer a girl, buffeted by feelings she couldn’t control.
It would even do her good to see him. Like her, he would be older, different, and the image that had persisted in her heart, defying all attempts to remove it, would be supplanted by reality. And at last she would be free.
‘I was planning to spend the summer knocking about with my ten-year-old son,’ she said.
‘Bring him with you. His Excellency has a daughter of the same age. When shall I expect you?’
‘I don’t know…’ she wavered.
Billy, who had been shamelessly eavesdropping her end of the conversation, mouthed, ‘Montegiano?’
She nodded.
‘Tell him you’ll go.’
‘Billy!’
‘Mum, you want this job so much you can taste it. You know you do.’ He grabbed the phone and spoke into it. ‘She’s on her way.’ Catching her indignant look, he said innocently, ‘I’m just trying to stop you wasting a lot of time. Why do women always dither?’
Secretly she was glad he’d taken the decision out of her hands. She told Carlo that she would be there in a few days, and hung up.
‘Billy, I thought you wanted us to enjoy ourselves.’
He gave her a hilarious grin. ‘But, Mum, we hate enjoying ourselves. It’s so boring.’
She shared his laughter. He was a kindred spirit.
The next morning they piled everything into the car and set off to travel the five hundred miles across Italy, to the outskirts of Rome. As she neared their destination she found herself slowing down, making excuses for the delay.
‘We’ll stay here tonight,’ she said when they reached the edge of the little town of Tivoli.
‘But it’s only another fifteen miles to Rome,’ he protested.
‘I’m tired,’ she said quickly, ‘and I’d rather arrive early tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.’
Later that night, when Billy had gone to bed, she sat by her window, looking in the direction that led to Rome, and called herself a coward.
Whyever had she agreed to do this? Some things were best left in the past. Yet the truth was that part of her was still the eighteen-year-old Lady Joanna who’d agreed to meet Prince Gustavo as a prospective husband, but in a mood of amused indulgence because Aunt Lilian, who’d planned everything, was such a dear.
‘I’m not really interested,’ she’d told her on the night before Gustavo arrived. ‘Fancy linking us up because he needs my money and you want me to be a princess.’
Aunt Lilian had winced. ‘That’s a very vulgar way of putting it. In our world the right people must meet the right people.’
By ‘our world’ she’d meant wealth and titles. Joanna had an earl among her relatives and a huge fortune, so she was included in the charmed circle, which, even in a modern, supposedly democratic age, remained mostly closed to outsiders.
Joanna had thought all this was hilarious. How young she had been, how full of modern ideas! How sure that she knew it all! How stupidly, cruelly, fatally ignorant!
Sometimes fairy tales came true. Sometimes the sun shone, the birds sang and moon rhymed with June.
That summer had been a time of magic, when the Good Fairy had cast her spell, and everything was perfect for a brief moment.
Even twelve years later, just closing her eyes and letting her mind roam free could bring back the warmth and the sense of once-in-a-lifetime sweetness.
There had been a week-long house party, given by her second cousin, the earl, Lord Rannley, at his stately home in England, Rannley Towers.
She’d first seen Gustavo walking across the lawn towards the house. He was some way off so she had had several minutes to notice everything about him.
He was over six feet, with dark hair and a lean body, moving with a controlled grace that had held her entranced attention. It had been a hot day and he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and pulled open the throat.
And that was how he lived in her mind ever after, Prince Charming in the story, handsome and elegant. Everything was perfect, too perfect to be true, if only she’d had the sense to see it.
But she’d lost all her common sense by the time he reached her, one of her cousins introduced them and he had said, in his quiet voice, ‘Buon giorno, signorina. It is a great pleasure to meet you.’
Nobody had warned her that it was possible for the world to turn upside down in a moment because of a young man with dark eyes and a gentle gravity that went straight to her heart.
But it had happened, and after that there was no turning back.
Naturally nobody mentioned the reason for the meeting. Officially Gustavo was travelling to see something of the world, and was calling on old friends of his father. But when the family sat down to dinner he was seated beside Joanna.
She had a hard time dressing for that meal. Now that she’d seen him she examined her own appearance critically.
‘And I’m nothing much,’ she sighed. ‘I’m too tall, too thin—’
‘Not thin,’ Aunt Lilian protested loyally. ‘Slender.’
‘Thin,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Most girls would give their eye-teeth to be your size. If you took a little trouble you’d be beautiful and elegant.’
‘Not beautiful. Not me.’
Aunt Lilian groaned, but there was some justice in Joanna’s complaint. Her hair was fair, not blonde but mousy, her figure coltish rather than elegant. Her face was pleasant despite a slightly irregular mouth and a nose that she wished a fraction shorter. Her eyes were her best feature, being a restful grey, but it wasn’t the deep blue she would have liked. Everything about her just missed being something better, and she had never been so acutely aware of it as now.
The dress she chose was a restrained blue silk which had cost the earth and did little for her. After trying her hair up, then down, then up, she finally let it hang loose about her shoulders. Her make-up was like the dress, restrained, chiefly because she lacked the self-confidence to be bold.
Nobody could have faulted Gustavo’s behaviour over dinner. He talked to everyone and didn’t try to monopolise Joanna. But when he turned to her she felt as though the rest of the room had vanished.
She didn’t know what they talked about either then or over the next few days. They went riding together. There was laughter and idle chatter, and sometimes she would find him looking at her with a serious expression that made her heart turn over.
Halfway through the week he invited her out to a restaurant. He was the perfect host, charming, attentive, but not, to her disappointment, flirtatious. He asked about her life and she told him about how she’d lived since her parents died and her Aunt Lilian had raised her.
He told her about his own life on the Montegiano estate, and the love in his voice told her why he was prepared to put his home before everything else in his life.
‘For six hundred years my family have lived in the same house,’ he told her, ‘always adding to it and making it more beautiful.’
‘It sounds wonderful,’ she told him eagerly. ‘I love old places.’
‘I would like you to see it.’
When they were drinking wine, he said with a touch of ruefulness, ‘You know what our friends plan for us, don’t you?’
Her heart began to beat faster. Was he going to propose right now?
But when she nodded he only said, ‘We must not let them make complicated something that should be very simple. This is our decision, not theirs. There can be nothing without affection and respect.’
The words ‘affection and respect’ chilled her slightly, for they fell far short of what she wanted. But for a while it was enough to be here with him, intoxicated by his presence, falling more deeply in love with every passing second.
Afterwards they went to a nightclub, and danced together. At last, after so much dreaming and hoping, she was in the circle of his arms, feeling his hand firm on her waist, the warmth of his body moving against her. The sensation was so sweet as to be almost unbearable.
She was wildly, passionately in love. She knew now that the songs and the stories were right after all. The world was bathed in a golden light and soon heaven would be hers.
At the end of the week he invited her and Aunt Lilian to visit his estate just outside Rome. She was in seventh heaven. Of course he wanted to show her his home before making any final decisions.
She was so sure she understood him that even his reticence did not trouble her too much. He was naturally quiet and controlled. But that was only on the surface. Behind his barriers she sensed another man, vibrant, thrilling, waiting for the right woman to free his heart.
She knew she could be that woman, because they were alike. She too was quiet and retiring, and they would have a meeting of minds leading on inevitably to a meeting of hearts.
That, at any rate, was what she told herself.
The Montegiano estate only increased Joanna’s sense of magic. Standing about three miles outside Rome, it covered a thousand acres, culminating in the great palace that stood on a rise, dominating the surrounding landscape.
For someone as much in love with the past as Joanna the house was a marvel. Down long corridors she wandered, meeting ancestors who looked down from centuries past. Gustavo described them in a way that brought them to life for her, and was clearly impressed by her knowledgeable interest.
‘You know a great deal about history, and especially of my country,’ he said, smiling.
‘I’ve always been crazy about the past. I went on an archaeological dig once, and loved it. I’d probably go to college and study archaeology if I wasn’t…’
Just in time she stopped herself from saying, If I wasn’t going to get married, and hastily substituted, ‘if I wasn’t the sort of person who dithers about deciding things.’
She knew she was being studied by every employee in the place, all waiting with bated breath for the announcement.
Day after day she and Gustavo rode together, and he told her about the estate he loved in a voice that was gentle, almost emotional. One day as they walked through the woods he said, ‘Do you like my home, Joanna?’
‘I love it,’ she said fervently.
‘Do you think you could be happy living here?’
That was his proposal.
She accepted so quickly that the memory made her blush later. She brushed her fears aside, desperate to seize her heart’s desire.
When, at last, he kissed her it made her forget everything else. There was skill in everything he did, covering her mouth, teasing her with his lips, caressing, holding her close. The effect on her was electric. Yet even then she was cautious enough to hold back a little, waiting until she could sense that his passion was as deep as her own.
The wedding was set to take place two months later, in England. Two weeks before the date Gustavo and his family arrived to stay at Rannley Towers and take part in a series of glittering festivities. In the weeks apart they corresponded, but mostly about practical affairs. They talked about the estate, the life they would live there. He addressed her as ‘My dearest Joanna’ and signed himself ‘Yours affectionately’.
But when she saw him again nothing mattered but that he was here, and they would soon be married.
Her dress was a masterpiece of ivory silk, cut simply to suit her tall figure. The sleeves were long, almost down to the hem, the train stretched behind her and the veil streamed down to the floor and over the train. When she put it on and regarded herself in the mirror she knew that she was beautiful. Now, surely, he would fall in love with her?
And then Crystal arrived.
CHAPTER TWO
AT THE time she seemed like the wicked witch, but Joanna supposed that the bad fairy was more accurate, because Crystal actually looked like a fairy, being petite with blonde hair that fluffed about her face like candy-floss.
She had deep blue eyes, full of fun, a dainty nose, a mouth that was pure Cupid, and her delicious, gurgling laugh was irresistible. She was lovely, glamorous, enchanting.
Everything I wasn’t.
Crystal had been invited to stay in the house by Frank, one of Joanna’s many cousins, who was courting her. At their first meeting Joanna had liked her. Crystal charmed everyone with her beauty and her wicked sense of humour.
She had a way of talking rapidly, so that Gustavo often asked her to slow down or explain some English word to him. Several times Joanna heard her saying, ‘No, no, you say it like this.’
Then she would dissolve into laughter at his pronunciation, and he would laugh with her.
Was it then that Joanna first sensed danger?
How can I tell? Whatever I sensed, I wouldn’t admit it.
So many things: the burning look that flashed briefly in his eyes for Crystal, which had never been there for her. The way he watched the door until she entered, and relaxed when she appeared.
A hundred tiny little details, which she pretended meant nothing, until the day when it was no longer possible to pretend.
At first she thought he was alone. Coming from the brilliant sunlight into the trees, she saw only him, and her heart leapt before she noticed that he was leaning over and down towards the woman in his arms.
But then she saw them, and the way he was raining kisses on her upturned face, kissing her to the point of madness, again and again, so that Joanna knew that kisses would never be enough for him.
Kissing as he had never kissed her.
She stood and watched, her heart breaking, her world shattering around her.
She drew back behind a great oak, although it was needless. They were beyond noticing her or anything else. She heard him say,
‘I’m sorry, my darling. I had no right to do this when I have nothing to offer you.’
‘Why can’t we be happy?’ That was Crystal’s voice. ‘Don’t you love me?’
‘You know I love you,’ he said, almost violently. ‘I didn’t know I could feel like this. If I had—’
He stopped. Joanna listened, her heart beating madly. If he had…
‘If you’d met me first, you wouldn’t have proposed to Joanna, would you?’
‘Never,’ he said hoarsely.
‘Don’t you want to marry me, my darling?’
‘Don’t ask me that.’
‘But I must ask it,’ she persisted in her soft, enticing voice. ‘If we’re going to lose each other, at least give me honesty.’
‘All right, I want to marry you,’ he said in a fierce, passionate voice. ‘I can’t, but neither can I stop loving and wanting you. You’re there with me every moment, night and day, waking or sleeping.’
‘Then how can you cast me aside?’
‘Because I have made promises to Joanna. My darling, I beg you to understand, I must keep those promises.’
‘Why? She doesn’t love you any more than you love her.’
‘But we’re a few days from our wedding. How can I humiliate her in front of the world?’
‘Gustavo, have you thought of the future? All those years tied to a woman you don’t love. How will you endure them?’
The silence that followed froze Joanna to the soul. Just a few seconds, but enough to make her feel that she was dying. At last his answer came in a voice that was bleak with despair.
‘I’ll survive, somehow.’
She’d thought her heart couldn’t break any more, but when she heard that she knew she was wrong.
And strangely, it was the knowledge that there was nothing more to hope for that made it possible for her to step out from behind the tree, smiling and saying brightly, ‘Isn’t there something you want to tell me?’
Their faces were imprinted on her memory forever, Gustavo’s pale and shocked, Crystal’s with an expression she couldn’t read. Only later did she think of cats and cream. At the time she was concentrating on what she must do.
Crystal spoke first, sounding suitably uneasy.
‘Joanna, we didn’t mean you to find out like this.’
‘It doesn’t matter how I found out,’ she answered with a fair assumption of gaiety. ‘The point is that we’re still in time to put matters right.’
‘I have no intention of asking you to free me.’ Gustavo’s voice was hollow.
‘But perhaps I’d like to chuck you out,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘Oh, come on, this isn’t the nineteenth century. The sky isn’t going to fall if there’s a last-minute change of plan.’
She never forgot the look on his face then, sheer blinding hope at the thought of not having to marry her.
‘You—mean that?’ he asked as though unable to believe his ears.
‘Of course I mean it. Honestly, darling,’ she added, using the term of endearment for the first time, ‘if you’re in love with someone else—well, why should I want you?’
‘But the formalities—’
‘Blow the formalities. We’ve changed our minds. Both of us. Come on, let’s get it over with.’
She turned away quickly, not sure how long she could keep up the façade. As she began to walk she heard Gustavo call, ‘Joanna…’
And there it was, the note she had dreamed of hearing in his voice, warm and emotional now that he was grateful for his release. She fled back to the house.
She had only the dimmest recollection of what followed. There was family uproar, scene after scene in which she did most of the talking, laughing as she insisted that it was a mutual decision and she couldn’t be happier.
She doubted if anyone was fooled, especially as the engagement to Crystal came immediately after. But in the face of her determination there was nothing anybody could do.
A special licence was obtained with Crystal’s name on it and the wedding was to go ahead on the same day in the same church, with one bride substituted for another. Joanna sailed through the whole process, apparently with not a care in the world. She dreaded their wedding, but knew she had to be there or the world would know why.
For a while the need to put on an act kept her mind on the terrible ache inside. At night she sobbed herself to sleep. By day she smiled and smiled and smiled.
By the night before the wedding the strain of weeping in secret was tearing her apart. She wanted to scream aloud, impossible in that house.
Outside it had begun to rain, water coming down in noisy torrents with the occasional thunderclap. Too distraught to think clearly, she threw on some clothes and left the house by a side-door, running across the grass towards the trees.
Deep in the wood she gave vent to her grief, crying like a wounded animal, and even once banging her head against a tree, screaming, ‘Why—why—why?’
Why? Because he loves her and not you. Because she’s beautiful and dazzling and you’re dull and ordinary. Because all the money in the world isn’t enough to make him want you.
When it was over she felt no better, just completely exhausted. She sank to the ground, leaning back against a tree trunk, whispering hoarsely, ‘Why did I do it? Why did I give him up so easily? When we were married I could have made him love me.’
The regret made her start to weep again, but this time weakly, in helpless, devastating misery.
After an hour she dragged herself to her feet and stumbled out of the wood, desperate to get back to the house before the sun came up, and she could be seen.
She managed it, thankful that nobody had seen her, and ran up the back stairs until she reached the floor where her room was. She was almost there—the next corridor—
‘Joanna!’
Her worst nightmare came true. Gustavo stood there in his dressing gown, astonished at the sight of her.
‘Whatever has happened to you?’ he said, concerned. ‘You’ve been out in that rain?’
‘It wasn’t raining when I went out,’ she said, struggling for words.
‘But it’s been raining for an hour.’
‘I walked a long way. I needed some air. It took time to get back.’ She had no idea what she was saying.
‘You’re hurt,’ he said, looking at her forehead.
‘I fell,’ she gasped. ‘I hit my head on a log.’
‘You need a doctor. Let me—’
‘Keep away from me.’
He was reaching gentle fingers towards her bruise, but she knew if he touched her she’d start screaming again.
‘Your teeth are chattering,’ he said, his hand falling. ‘Go and have a hot bath or you’ll catch cold. My dear, you’ve got water dripping from your hair and over your face.’
The water on her face wasn’t rain. He stood there looking at her tears and didn’t know it.
‘Please look after yourself,’ he said. ‘I don’t want you being too unwell for my wedding tomorrow, not when I owe it all to you.’
The warmth in his voice was her undoing. She fled to her own room and locked the door. Tearing off her clothes, she got under a hot shower and stayed there, not moving, just leaning against the tiled wall.
After a long time her brain started working again, enough to make her wonder how he’d come to be in that corridor at that hour. Then she remembered that it was near to where Crystal slept.
She’d thought her tears were all cried out, but she found she was wrong. This time it was the shower that disguised them.
Next day she sat in the body of the church, looking at Gustavo’s back as he waited for his bride, then saw him turn and watch her approach with an expression of such total adoration that she closed her eyes. For a dreadful moment she actually feared she was going to faint, but she recovered and sat rigid as Crystal became his wife.
Now he was lost to her forever.
But he’d been lost anyway. Her regret of last night had been foolish. He might have married her, but he would never, ever have loved her.
The reception was followed by a ball at which she danced until she was ready to drop. That was how she met Freddy Manton, who seemed to appear from nowhere, a friend of a friend of a friend. He was handsome, charming and a great dancer. Their steps blended perfectly, and they put on a bravura display that made the others applaud.
When the music became soft and tender Joanna and Freddy danced again, holding each other romantically close. It was her way of telling the world that she didn’t care whom Gustavo married. She hoped he would notice.
But when he waltzed past with Crystal clasped in his arms, Joanna knew that he was oblivious to everyone else in the world. His bride’s face was raised to his, and for a cruel moment Joanna saw the worship in his gaze. She closed her eyes, feeling her brave pretence shatter around her.
At last it was time for the bride and groom to leave for their honeymoon. Joanna had wanted to go straight to Italy, but Crystal had set her heart on Las Vegas, and Gustavo could refuse her nothing.
Determined to play out the charade to the end, Joanna joined the crowd waving them off. Was it accident or spite that made Crystal toss the bouquet to her? She caught it instinctively, before she could stop herself, then stood there, clutching the bouquet that should always have been hers.
It was only later that she fully understood what that day had done to her. She had passed through the fire and emerged stronger, because something that had been burned to ash could never be burned again.
She enrolled in college, studied archaeology and blanked out grief by working herself into the ground.
‘If you ask me you had a nervous breakdown,’ Aunt Lilian said later. ‘Whenever I saw you, you looked as if you were dying. And instead of being sensible like other girls, and taking a cruise, you made everything worse by working away at those awful books.’
But far from making things worse, Joanna knew that ‘those awful books’ had saved her. After a year her tutors were predicting great things for her.
Grief finally subsided into a dull ache that she managed to push aside in the fascination with the subject she loved.
She made herself a promise. Never again would she allow herself to feel anything with the depth and intensity she’d felt for Gustavo. She knew she couldn’t stand it a second time.
She was safe now. She could protect herself from hurt. But she had paid a terrible price.
She began going to parties again, even enjoying them. Finally, one evening, as she was sipping champagne—
‘Fancy meeting you here!’
It was Freddy Manton, beaming at her.
‘I looked for you later but you’d vanished,’ he said. ‘I’ve been heartbroken ever since.’
‘You don’t look very heartbroken.’ She laughed.
They began seeing each other. He was good company, merry, slightly feckless, but kind-hearted. She was lonely, and managed to persuade herself that her affection for him would be enough. They married while she was still at college and she became pregnant immediately, only just managing to get her exams out of the way before rushing to the hospital for Billy’s arrival.
To do Freddy justice, he really tried, managing to be faithful for a whole four years, a record for him. For Billy’s sake they stayed together for another four years, until his infidelities exasperated her beyond bearing.
The divorce was amicable. If she’d been really in love with him their parting would have hurt more than it did.
She knew almost nothing about Gustavo in the intervening years. Recently she had chanced to pick up a newspaper bearing the announcement that Their Excellencies Prince and Princess Montegiano had been blessed with a son and heir, their first child since the birth of their daughter ten years previously.
So the marriage had flourished, she thought. She had done the right thing.
It worked out well for both of us, she mused now. Life’s gone well for me too. I’m in control, settled, even happy. My job is great, I’m friendly with my ex. I have a son I adore and who thinks I’m ‘OK’—a big compliment from a ten-year-old boy. I’m one of the lucky ones.
So why did I return here?
She looked out at the quiet streets of Tivoli, then past them to the vista that led to Rome.
Because after all these years, it’s time to exorcise the ghost and be free to get on with my life.
She reached the gates of the Montegiano estate to find them exactly as she had last seen them. The gatekeeper called to the house and received a message to let her in. Driving the long road to the house was like a rewind of her previous experience.
She chatted calmly to Billy, refusing to think of what would happen in a few minutes when she would see him for the first time in twelve years.
Crystal would be there and she would see them together, husband and wife. The sight of their domesticity would be the final piece in the puzzle.
At last the huge palazzo came in sight, just as she remembered it, broad white marble steps sweeping up between tall, elegant columns. As her car neared an elderly man came out and stood waiting, a smile of welcome on his face.
‘I’m Professor Carlo Francese,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’ll be your host while Gustavo’s away.’
He wasn’t here. Her heart skipped a beat.
But it was good, she told herself. She needed no distractions.
Billy and Carlo took to each other at once, she was glad to see.
‘You’re in the Julius Caesar room,’ Carlo explained. ‘It’s always given to the guest of honour.’
She almost said, Yes, I know. The room had been hers when she was last here.
It had changed a lot, and she could see that money had been spent reviving it. It now looked new, shining, and, to Joanna’s eye, less charming. Billy had been given the room next door, which was equally grandiose and reduced him to fits of laughter.
After a wash and brush-up she knocked on his door. He joined her, looking around him at the gorgeous hallway, with its marble columns and frescoed ceiling.
‘What a place!’ he said with an appreciative whistle.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘What’s up, Billy?’ He had turned suddenly.
‘I just thought I saw someone on the stairs. There.’
They looked just in time to see the pale face of a little girl staring up at them with hostility. Then she vanished.
Joanna went downstairs, braced to see Crystal, but there was no sign of her. Carlo ushered them into a magnificent room with tall windows overlooking the lawns, and immediately plunged into talking about the foundations that had been discovered.
Billy listened, asking some intelligent questions, to Joanna’s pride. But then something seemed to distract him, and he slipped away.
‘We saw a little girl upstairs,’ Joanna ventured.
‘That would be Renata,’ Carlo said at once. ‘Gustavo’s daughter.’ He sighed. ‘Poor child.’
‘Why poor? Is she jealous now that she has a little brother?’
Carlo looked around and dropped his voice.
‘Gustavo’s divorce has just become final. The little boy wasn’t his, and his wife has taken the child to live with her lover.’
Joanna drew in a sharp breath.
‘His—you mean Crystal?’
‘Yes; do you know her?’
‘We met briefly many years ago, but I haven’t stayed in touch. I didn’t know this.’
‘As you can imagine, it’s hit Gustavo very hard, so we don’t talk about it. But I thought you should know the situation.’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, I’m glad you warned me.’
Carlo didn’t seem to notice anything odd in her manner.
‘When you’re ready we’ll go and see the dig,’ he said. ‘It’s about a mile away.’
‘I can’t wait.’
As soon as she saw the discovery Joanna knew she had come to the right place. Her personal feelings didn’t matter. This was the find of the century, and it had to be hers.
From the corner of her eye she could see Renata and Billy. They seemed to have established perfect rapport, and she was showing him around the site, pointing out places of interest. After a while they strolled away together.
She spent the rest of the day with Carlo, becoming more convinced that this really was the great lost palace Gustavo had spoken of. At dinner that evening she met Laura, a smiling, middle-aged woman who looked after Renata. To Joanna’s amusement Billy turned his charm on her and within minutes Laura was lost.
‘You and Renata seem to get on well,’ she said to him as they climbed the stairs later that night.
‘She’s been telling me about Prince Gustavo,’ Billy said, frowning. ‘Honestly, Mum, he’s a monster. You know her mother’s gone?’
‘Yes, Carlo told me.’
‘Apparently he drove her out and wouldn’t let Renata go with her. He actually grabbed hold of Renata and kept her here by force. She says he’s full of hate and he’s taking it out on her.’
‘Billy, I don’t believe that,’ she said at once.
‘Why?’ he asked.
‘Well—’
‘Why not, Mum? You always said, “Stick to the evidence.” Where’s the evidence that Renata’s wrong?’
She was caught, since she could hardly say that she’d known Gustavo and this wasn’t like him. And how well had she known him?
‘Sometimes I wish I hadn’t brought you up to be so logical,’ she sighed.
‘Too late now.’
‘Let’s wait and hear the evidence for the other side,’ she countered.
‘That’s right, Mum. When he gets here you ask him what really happened.’
‘Go to bed,’ she said firmly. ‘And stop being cheeky.’
He gave his wicked grin. ‘It’s too late for that too,’ he said, and vanished into his room before she could think of an answer.
Within two days Joanna had assembled a crack team, all of them people who had worked with her on other digs. Plunging into work was a relief. It took her mind off Gustavo and the situation she’d found.
She resisted the picture Billy had drawn, of a man so enraged that he cruelly penalised his child. But she, more than anyone, knew how he’d adored Crystal, and how her desertion must have devastated him. What had bitterness and misery done to him?
She could hardly believe that Renata was Gustavo and Crystal’s child since she looked like neither of them. Her little face lacked any hint of her mother’s beauty, being round and plump. Joanna, who remembered her own childhood, when she’d felt plain and dull, sympathised with her.
But Renata’s eyes were intelligent. She would sit with Billy and his mother, sharing their snack, but saying nothing until suddenly, like the bursting of a dam, she would make an awkward attempt to reach out.
‘Billy told me about his father,’ she blurted out once. ‘He says you’re divorced.’
‘Yes, we are,’ Joanna said gently.
‘My parents are divorced.’
‘I’ve heard.’
‘Billy says his father’s always calling him on his cellphone.’
‘That’s right. Several times a week.’
‘My mother calls me every single day,’ Renata said defiantly. ‘She bought me a cellphone just for the two of us, because she says she couldn’t get through the day without talking to me.’
‘That’s a lovely thing for her to say.’
‘Sometimes she cries because Papa won’t let us be together. But Mamma says one day she’s going to come and rescue me, and then we’re going to run away to the end of the world, where Papa can’t find us.’
Her voice had been growing more wobbly as she spoke, until she was forced to stop. Joanna saw her turn away to wipe her eyes, and wondered if she was weeping because of her father’s unkindness or because she knew it was all a fantasy. She felt helpless.
Billy had listened to this, saying nothing, but watching Renata with kindly eyes. At last he drew her away, giving his mother a brief nod, as if to say that he would take over now.
He’s years older than ten, she thought with a wry smile.
As the days wore on the heat mounted until the afternoons were almost unbearable.
‘All right, guys, time for a break,’ she called out one day when it was nearly one o’clock. ‘Take a siesta; come back when it’s cooler.’
They headed for the house, eager to find shade. As often before, Joanna didn’t go with them. She loved being left alone with the work, not doing anything, simply absorbing the past.
She brushed earth from her clothes, thankful that she’d worn wide canvas trousers that let in some air to cool her legs. Over them she had a man’s shirt, tied at the waist with one of Freddy’s old ties that she kept for the purpose. Her head was protected by a vast-brimmed canvas hat.
She loved to stretch out in the warmth, even though someone as fair-skinned as herself had to work hard not to be burned. Years of working in the sun had turned her a permanent light brown, and bleached her hair.
She kicked off her old canvas shoes and lay flat on the ground, arms flung wide, head obliterated by the huge hat. She supposed she looked like a hobo, but she didn’t care. This was bliss.
Beginning to doze, she was only vaguely aware of a car stopping nearby. She sensed rather than heard someone looming over her then dropping to one knee.
‘Go away,’ she muttered. ‘I’m asleep.’
‘Excuse me…’
The man’s voice was polite but firm, and there was power in the hand that grasped her shoulder. Reluctantly Joanna moved the hat aside and looked up.
At first she couldn’t see properly. His head blotted out the sun, throwing his face into darkness.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, grumpy at being disturbed.
But she knew before he replied. Her vision was clearing and the face gazing quizzically down at her was the one she would never forget.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE sat up, studying him. He was older, heavier, with a careworn look that did not belong on a man of only thirty-four. She saw that much in an instant, also the touch of premature grey at the sides of his head.
He was frowning at her. ‘Have we met before?’
‘We did once,’ she told him gently. ‘A long time ago.’
‘Forgive me…’ He searched her face. ‘It will come to me in a moment.’
‘Time changes us all,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘I might not have recognised you if I hadn’t been prepared. And twelve years is a long time.’
‘Twelve—? Maria Vergine! Joanna!’
‘At last!’ she chuckled, having regained her composure enough to see the funny side. ‘How unflattering you are!’
He reddened, and she remembered how shy he could sometimes be. It was odd, and appealing, in a man who lived at the peak of society.
‘I didn’t mean—well, as you say, old times. It’s good to see you again. But how do you come to be here? Are you with…?’ He indicated the dig.
‘Yes, I did finally become an archaeologist.’
He reached out his hand to help her to her feet. It was as she remembered, lean but steely strong.
‘It was always what you really wanted, I recall,’ he said. ‘You used to talk of it.’
‘You mean I bent your ear endlessly,’ she reminded him, dusting herself down. ‘Goodness knows how you endured me!’
‘I liked it. You were so passionate about your favourite subject, it made your eyes light up. So you finally achieved your ambition, and now work with Mrs Manton, who, Carlo assures me, is the very best. Why are you laughing?’
‘I must thank Carlo for his good opinion.’
‘His—? You mean—?’
Her eyes teased him. ‘Uhuh!’
‘You are Mrs Manton?’
‘I plead guilty.’
He groaned. ‘I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me, except that you’re young to have such a reputation.’
‘Ah, but I’m the best,’ she reminded him, laughing.
‘I’m sure you are. Well, it’s good to know that an old friend is doing this work.’
‘Not just me. I have a team that I use for big jobs. They’ve gone back to the house for some lunch.’
‘Then let us do the same. It’s too hot to stand out here.’
‘Now I remember,’ he said as they drove back. ‘When Carlo called me he mentioned a team, and that you’re all staying in the house.’
‘I hope you don’t mind your house being invaded. It keeps us close to the work.’
‘Of course. Where else would you stay?’
Joanna was getting her bearings. She had seen him and, although an intensely attractive man, he was no longer the romantic Prince Charming of her memories. She was full of relief. Everything was going to be all right.
‘I’ll have our lunch served in my office and we can catch up on old times,’ Gustavo said as they approached the house.
But in the same moment Carlo appeared at the top of the steps, waving gleefully as he saw them.
‘It will have to wait,’ Gustavo said. ‘Let’s go in so that I can meet your team.’
The next hour was taken up with introductions. Gustavo greeted everyone involved in the dig and joined them in the buffet lunch. He behaved perfectly, spending time with each one and giving them his whole attention.
Joanna knew that this was part of noblesse oblige, something he’d been taught from childhood as the gracious behaviour expected of a prince. But the effect was still charming, and she was amused to notice that the three young women in her team flowered under it.
Claire had only just left college, cheerfully called herself the dogsbody of the group, and obviously regarded Gustavo with almost schoolgirl admiration.
Raven-haired Lily was an anthropologist, a blazing beauty and an incurable romantic who fell in love in ten minutes and out again in five. One look was enough to tell Joanna that Lily was already far gone.
Even Sally, a short, stern young woman, who was always gruff except when dealing with computers, gazed up at Gustavo, her attention riveted.
It forced Joanna to see him through their eyes, not overlaid by memories of how he had been, but as the mature man he was now, and she had to admit that she understood their reaction.
He’d been very young when she had loved him, little more than a boy. Now the years had brought him to his prime, and his prime was splendid. He seemed to have actually grown, but had merely filled out. As a boy he’d been too lean for his height. Now the slight extra weight he carried made him impressive.
He smiled suddenly, and at last she saw something familiar. It was more of a half-smile, as though some part of him was holding back, concealed behind it. Just as it had always been.
‘Does anyone know where my daughter is?’ he asked, looking around.
‘She’s probably with my son,’ Joanna told him. ‘They get on well.’
‘You have a son?’ he said swiftly. ‘How old?’
‘Ten.’
‘And your husband—is he with you here?’
‘No, we divorced a couple of years back.’
‘We must talk later. I want to hear all about you.’
‘And I about you.’ Then something caught her eye and she pointed to the door. ‘That’s Billy, coming in now, with Renata.’
He turned at once, smiling at the little girl, making a quick move towards her. For a very brief moment Renata smiled, but it was gone so quickly that it was clear she had suppressed it. When Gustavo tried to hug her she gave him only the slightest response.
‘This is my son, Billy,’ Joanna said, quickly moving over to them. ‘Billy, this is Prince Gustavo.’
‘Just Gustavo,’ he said at once, extending his hand.
Billy shook it politely but Joanna was dismayed to notice that his manner was restrained, with none of his usual eager friendliness. Gustavo didn’t react, but she had the feeling he’d noticed.
Hal, Joanna’s right-hand man, was pouring himself a large beer, saying, ‘OK, boss, what’s the programme for this afternoon. Boss? Boss?’
She came back to the present.
‘Sorry, were you talking to me?’
‘Do I call anyone else boss?’ he asked patiently.
‘Not if you’re wise. OK, this afternoon we’re going to—’
‘May I interrupt a moment?’ Gustavo said smoothly. ‘I just want to say that I hope you’ll all join me for dinner tonight.’
‘Do we have to dress posh?’ Hal asked, looking at his magnificent surroundings. ‘Because I forgot to bring my white tie and tails.’
‘Informal dress, I promise,’ Gustavo assured him. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go.’
He touched Renata lightly on the shoulder, indicating with his head for her to follow him. But the child scowled and turned away. He watched her for a moment, and it seemed to Joanna that he was longing for her to turn back and smile at him. When she didn’t, he walked out.
That evening Joanna soaked herself in water, allowing the tensions as well as the dust of the day to leave her.
She’d seen him and it had been a shock, because no matter how well prepared she’d thought herself, the reality had been nothing like her expectations. After twelve years, she thought, how else could it be? And how much had she changed in that time?
And whatever else was different, he was still as wickedly attractive as before. Watching the three other women had told her that.
She dressed herself in a pair of black velvet trousers and a brilliant-red silk blouse. In her ears she wore solid gold earrings.
She was dissatisfied with her hair, which she’d meant to trim back to shoulder-length, then forgotten. She had to settle for brushing it vigorously and hoping it wouldn’t look too tousled.
Lily and Claire, who were sharing a room, joined her in the corridor. Lily especially was looking forward to the coming evening, as her low-cut dress proclaimed.
‘Just get him!’ she exclaimed. ‘Wow! Is he fit or what?’
Joanna pretended to be shocked.
‘Are you talking about His Excellency, Prince Gustavo Montegiano?’ she asked. ‘Come, come! Where’s your respect for rank?’
‘He can pull rank on me any time he likes,’ Lily said, contriving to give the words a lascivious meaning. ‘Come on, now, you’ve got to admit he’s wow! Those eyes. Those muscles.’
‘Don’t you ever think about anything but men?’ Sally asked, appearing with Hal, and falling into step beside them as they descended the stairs.
‘Yes, but I spend too much time with the ones who’ve been dead for centuries,’ Lily pointed out. ‘Living fellers tend to look very good after that.’
‘I’m living,’ Hal said. Where Lily was concerned he existed in a permanent state of hope.
‘Down, Fido!’ Lily said.
‘What happened to his wife?’ Sally asked.
‘They’re divorced,’ Joanna explained, keeping her voice low. ‘But please don’t talk about that.’
‘Discretion is my middle name,’ Lily said untruthfully. ‘But honestly, was she crazy? Can you imagine any woman having that, and not clinging on for dear life?’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ Joanna asked tensely.
‘Perhaps he’s not as gorgeous as he looks,’ Claire put in.
‘And perhaps pigs fly,’ Lily scoffed.
‘No, I mean as a person,’ Claire said. ‘He might have a nasty temper—’
‘He’d still be as sexy as hell!’ Lily pointed out.
‘Will you two hush?’ Joanna said frantically. ‘Not another word, in my hearing or out of it. Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere.’
She remembered the dining room well. In this grandiose room she and Gustavo had been toasted on the night of their engagement. Now it had a livelier air.
It was a good evening with plenty of laughter. Carlo was there, also the children, with Laura. They had spent the last couple of hours riding. Renata was already skilled and Billy was learning.
‘So that’s where you were,’ Gustavo said to Renata. ‘I looked for you.’
Joanna watched the little girl, remembering the harsh things that, according to Billy, she had said about her father. Surely they could not be true?
Renata maintained a cool demeanour towards Gustavo, but when he wasn’t looking at her she would fix her eyes on him with something that might have been longing. If he glanced back at her, she hurriedly turned away.
Gustavo wanted to hear all about the dig.
‘I suppose it’s too soon to have discovered anything significant,’ he said.
‘Much too soon,’ Joanna said. ‘We’re still in what Hal calls the “getting-dirty-with-nothing-to-show-for-it” stage.’
In this way she tossed the ball to Hal, who, being naturally talkative, seized it. He then monopolised the conversation, although once he did say, ‘You should really talk to the chief. She’s a terrible slave-driver. We’re all scared of her.’
Everyone laughed and Joanna said, ‘So I should hope.’
She stayed mostly quiet, letting the others talk. Sometimes Gustavo darted a curious glance at her, but he seldom spoke to her, although she was sitting at right angles to him, at the head of the table.
After the meal Laura announced that it was time for the children to go to bed. Billy and Renata said their goodbyes politely. Renata allowed her father to kiss her cheek but she didn’t kiss him back. Nor did he try to make her. He simply stood still while she left the room without a backward glance at him.
The sight of this big, impressive man seemingly beaten into submission by a child’s hostility made something catch at Joanna’s throat. She turned away, feeling as though she was invading his privacy.
Suddenly the evening had lost its savour for her, and, as though she had X-ray vision, she divined that it was the same with him. He talked and smiled, but a snub from a little girl had quenched a light inside him.
He did his duty to the last minute, escorting them up the stairs and saying goodnight as though he had all the time in the world. But she knew that secretly he was longing to escape, and her heart ached for him when first one person, then another had ‘just one more thing’ to say.
But at last it was all over, everyone had gone to their rooms and the corridor was quiet. Joanna noticed a faint beam of light coming from under Billy’s door, and went in.
‘You should be asleep, not reading,’ she said.
‘Honestly, Mum, how can anyone sleep with that racket going on outside?’ he said, sounding aggrieved. ‘Why do people always say goodnight at the tops of their voices?’
‘All right,’ she said, recognising some justice in this, without actually being fooled by it. ‘They’ve all gone now, so put the book away.’
‘OK, Mum.’
They hugged each other and she slipped out into the long, wide corridor. The lights had been turned low and it was a moment before she realised that she wasn’t alone. Gustavo stood a few yards away, his hand resting on the handle of Renata’s door.
It was on the far side, and a slight bend in the corridor meant that she could plainly make him out, even in the gloom. She saw him try the handle, then again, until he was forced to accept that the door was locked.
For a long moment he stood there. Then he spoke and Joanna thought he said, ‘Please, my darling.’
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