And I’ll wonder tonight, as I always do when he comes to me, if he’s secretly glad not to have to pretend a desire he doesn’t feel.
Then I’ll close my eyes and dig my nails in the palms of my hands and keep very still trying not to think of anything at all—or feel anything at all which is getting more and more difficult each time.
And when he goes back to his own room and I’m alone, I’ll lie awake for hours, trying not to cry, or—even worse—to follow him and ask—beg.
She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap.
‘I don’t think that’s really feasible.
We just aren’t—suited to each other.’‘I am grieved to hear you say it.’ Nonna Cosima’s voice was very quiet.
‘You see, mia cara, we thought long before that night at Largossa—your godmother and I—Dorotea too—that you would make Angelo an ideal wife.
That you would find your match in each other.’ She sighed.
‘It seems we were not as clever as we thought.’Ellie was silent for a moment, then she said, stumbling a little, ‘Did Angelo also know what you thought—what you wanted?’The older woman hesitated ‘Dear child, it was no secret that his family—his friends felt it was high time he was married.’ ‘But I—I’d been—suggested?’ ‘Mentioned, perhaps, no more.’‘I see.’ Ellie rose, smoothing her dress.
‘It—explains a great deal.’ And makes me understand why there was really no escape—for either of us …‘Elena.’ Nonna Cosima took her hand, her eyes anxious.
‘Promise me that Angelo is not unkind to you.’‘No,’ Ellie returned after a pause.
‘Under the circumstances, he’s very—considerate.
And generous too.’ She touched fleetingly the diamonds in her ears and at her throat, forcing a smile.
‘I really have nothing to complain about.’She bent and kissed the scented cheek, smiled again in what she hoped was reassurance, then walked away.
Her circuit of the room completed, and her duty done, she looked round for Angelo and saw him several yards away, head slightly bent while he listened with rapt and smiling attention to what was being said to him.
As she started towards him, the groups of people around him moved slightly, giving her a clearer view and she realised that his companion was Silvia, standing so near him that their bodies were almost touching as she looked up into his eyes, lips pouting, and one crimson tipped hand resting on his sleeve as if to emphasise the closeness of their association.
Ellie halted, shocked and turned away abruptly, nearly cannoning into a waiter carrying drinks.
She muttered an apology then tossed the remaining wine in her glass down her throat before grabbing another from the tray, and swallowing a third of its contents in one gulp before heading for one of the long windows that had been opened on to the balcony beyond.
It had rained earlier, and there was a freshness in the air to combat the traffic fumes from the streets below.
Ellie leaned on the wrought iron rail, aware of a trembling sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Her husband, she thought, with Silvia—as if time had somehow rolled back and they had regained their former intimacy.
But how could it have happened?Since her unexpected descent on Vostranto the previous year, and the quarrel that it had provoked, her cousin’s name had not been mentioned.
Nor had she been encountered at any of the social events that Ellie had attended, largely, she’d supposed, because Silvia would not find the company sufficiently entertaining.
Yet here she was at the kind of function she would normally have avoided.
Unless, of course, she had good reason to be there.
Ellie took another mammoth swallow of wine, feeling the jolt of it curl down to her toes, although it didn’t totally dispel that strange inner shaking as she’d hoped.
It was one thing to tell herself that Angelo would not feel obliged to remain faithful, and quite another to face the reality of his betrayal of his marriage vows—and with Silvia.
Did her cousin simply have to crook her little finger and watch him come running? she asked herself, anger building inside her.
Was Angelo’s desire for her so overwhelming that he could now overlook everything else that had happened—the selfish, vengeful trick she had played on both of them?‘Well,’ she said aloud.
‘If so, I don’t have to wait around and watch.’She finished the last of her wine, left the glass on a convenient ledge, and, feeling oddly empowered, walked back into the room and headed for the door.
A hand fell on her arm, halting her.
‘Where have you been?’ Angelo demanded.
‘I have been looking for you.’‘I’ve been playing the part of your wife,’ she said.
‘And now I’m going to have the car brought round and go home.’‘Without a word to me?’ His brows lifted.
‘How was I supposed to get back to Vostranto?’‘I intended to leave a message.
And I imagined you would spend the night in Rome,’ she said.
‘As you so often do.’He said silkily, ‘Not when I have one of my rare appointments with you, mia bella.
An occasion not to be missed, believe me.’‘Indeed? Then I’m afraid, for once, you’ll have to excuse me.’His mouth curled.
‘You are developing a headache, perhaps? The usual reason for a wife to evade her husband’s attentions.’‘No,’ she said, forcing her voice to speak coolly, dispassionately.
‘Nothing like that.
I’ve simply decided I just can’t do this any more.
And therefore I’d prefer to be alone tonight.’‘And if I wish to adhere to my own preferences?’There was a note in his voice she’d never heard before, but her eyes were steady as they met the anger in his.
Her tone was level too.
‘Then your signoria will have to use force.
Or accept that we’re better apart.’‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Perhaps that would be safer—for tonight at least.
So, I shall not detain you further.’ He stepped back, making her a slight formal bow.
‘Arrivederci, carissima.’‘Goodnight,’ Ellie whispered, and went to the door, fighting an impulse to look back and see if he was watching her leave.
Or whether he had already turned away in search of Silvia.
Because that was something she found she could not bear to know.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE AWOKE SLOWLY, and lay for a moment totally disorientated, staring at plain white walls and spring sunlight lying slatted across the polished boards of the floor, wondering why the bed was so much narrower, and why Donata was not here opening the shutters and bringing her morning coffee.
Of course, she thought.
I must have been having a dream about Vostranto.
That’s what threw me.
But I’m actually at Casa Bianca.
I drove down to Porto Vecchio yesterday.
And I’m not going back.
A week had passed since the night of the reception.
Seven days and nights had come and gone without a word from Angelo.
He was in Rome, and she was at his house in the hills, but the real distance between them covered continents rather than miles.
‘Better apart’ she had told him, and it seemed that he now agreed with her, she’d told herself as she roamed restlessly round Vostranto.
That he accepted that they should put an end to this ill-assorted marriage and start their lives again.
After all, she reasoned, there was nothing to keep them together, not even the hope of a baby, and she would agree without argument to whatever means he chose to achieve their mutual freedom.