‘Believe whatever you want,’ she snapped.
‘It makes no difference to me.
Now will you please go and allow me some privacy.’‘Privacy?’ Angelo queried derisively.
‘Santa Madonna, what has there ever been in this marriage but privacy?’She stiffened defensively.
‘I’m sorry if you’re not satisfied with your bargain.’‘And you are?’ He looked her over in such a way that the sheltering towel seemed, disturbingly, no longer to exist.
‘Perhaps I no longer believe that.’‘As I said before—think what you wish.’ She was beginning to shiver in the damp folds, and did not want him to conclude that she was trembling.
That she feared him in any way.
But—there was something different about him today.
His unannounced arrival in her room was not the kind of aloof, courteous behaviour to which she’d become accustomed.
Besides, his whole attitude seemed edgy—challenging, and this change in him bewildered her.
Made her—anxious.
She added in a low voice, ‘Angelo—please go.’‘When I am ready,’ he said.
‘Also when you have told me the truth about your cousin.
Why was she here? What did she want?’The bald answer to that was—‘You,’ but Ellie hesitated to return it, instinct telling her that these were dangerous waters when she was already out of her depth.
She said quietly, ‘She wished to see the house.
And, of course, to laugh at me.’Oh God, she thought, I didn’t intend to say that.
His gaze sharpened.
‘For what reason?’She swallowed.
‘Because I’m completely out of place here.
And everyone must know this.’He said slowly, ‘Elena, you are the Contessa Manzini.
There is not a soul beneath this roof who does not regard you with affection and respect.’Except yourself …Dismissing the thought, Ellie bent her head.
‘How can you say that when they know—they all must know that we’re only pretending to be married.’ And Silvia in particular …‘Forgive me, but I did not think you would be concerned.’ His voice was level.
‘Dopo tutto, you have never given that impression.’She stared at the floor.
‘Perhaps it was today—seeing Silvia here—looking again at the portraits of the previous Contessas in the salotto and the dining room and seeing how beautiful they were, just as she is.’ She added bitterly, ‘How they would all have known how to behave—what was expected of them all the time—instead of being a fish out of water like me.’The hardness of his mouth relaxed a little, and he spoke more gently.
‘Elena, let me assure you that you do not resemble any fish known to the mind of man.’‘I’m being serious!’‘I am glad to hear it, because it is time we spoke seriously.’She still didn’t look at him.
She said with faint breathlessness, ‘Is that why you’re suddenly here in the middle of the week—to tell me that you’ve decided to end the marriage?’For a brief instant, Angelo was sorely tempted to tell her the whole truth—that he’d been on the brink of spending an enjoyable afternoon in bed with a beautiful girl he’d met at a dinner party two nights earlier, but had suddenly changed his mind for reasons he could not explain even to himself.
That he’d decided to return home on another apparent whim, but that the incident on the road which could so easily have left him seriously injured or dead had turned an impulse into resolution.
Which now prompted him to offer her honesty along with the new beginning which had now crystallised in his mind.
Starting with the moment he had seen her standing naked in the shower, the tendrils of soaked hair hanging round her face, the droplets of water running down over the pale skin of her breasts to her midriff and the slight concavity of her belly, and glistening on her slender thighs.
Recalling too how his body had stirred under his sudden sharp desire to lick each tiny trickle from her flesh and watch her rosy nipples lift and firm to hard peaks under the glide of his tongue.
Had he forgotten, he wondered in astonishment, or had he simply not noticed on that far off night just how lovely she looked without clothing?Then paused, just in time as he realised the exact nature of his prospective confession.
‘Sciocco,’ he apostrophised himself silently.
‘Idiota.’Dio mio, his near-miss must have affected his brain if he imagined for one moment that might be what she wanted to hear from him.
No, he thought, it would be far better—wiser to use the opportunity she had given him, and, leaving all other issues aside, start by answering the question she had asked.
‘No,’ he said quietly.
‘That is not why I am here.
Al contrario.’She looked up at that, her eyes widening, but, he thought, in apprehension more than pleasure, and took a swift mental step backwards.
He went on, ‘I regret if my displeasure at your cousin’s visit caused me to speak roughly to you.’‘It doesn’t matter.’ The grey-green eyes slid past him as if she was looking at the bed.
‘Although you couldn’t possibly imagine I would actually invite her here.’‘Perhaps, mia bella, I was not thinking too clearly.
But I am a little more lucid now, and I have a proposition to put to you.’He paused.
‘Elena, I would like you to reconsider the terms of our marriage.’She repeated ‘Reconsider?’ as if she had never heard the word before.
Then: ‘In what way—reconsider?’‘You said earlier that the other Contessas knew what was expected of them, and that is true.
They were aware, per esempio, that a priority in their lives was to provide an heir for the Manzini dynasty, to ensure our ancient name did not die.’She did not move.
It was as if, he thought, she’d been turned to stone inside the towel that swathed her.
‘And I have the same wish—the same dream of a son to follow me.
I am asking you, therefore, to make our marriage a real one.
To live with me as my wife, and become, in time, the mother of my child.’She stared at him, lips parted, her gaze almost blank and he continued hurriedly, ‘I do not require you to answer me now, Elena.
I realise you need time to think.’ He paused.
‘I hope we can discuss the matter later—over dinner forse.’He smiled at her swiftly and, he hoped, reassuringly, then turned and walked to the door.
Ellie watched him go, with a sense of total unreality, as Silvia’s mocking words buzzed in her head.
‘His duty to his family to have a son,’ her cousin had said.
And ‘You can be of use for that, if nothing else …’This is crazy, she thought.
It cannot be happening to me.
I must be having a bad dream while I’m sleeping off my headache.
And even if it was all true—if he’d really been here asking her to change her entire life, her hopes for the future—her answer, now and for all time, was ‘No.’What else could it possibly be? she asked herself.
And felt tears, harsh and wholly unexpected, burn suddenly in her throat and blur her startled eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHEN SHE WAS calm again, Ellie washed the tearstains from her face, dried her hair, placed her discarded clothing in the linen basket, and put on her robe.
As she tied its sash, her attention was attracted by the noise of some heavy vehicle in the courtyard below.
When she went to the window, she was surprised to see Angelo’s car being loaded on the back of a transporter.