But it doesn’t really matter.’ She lifted her chin.
‘The house is gone, and soon I shall be gone too.’She paused.
‘So, how did you find me? Did Mother Felicitas contact you—even though she promised.
?’‘No,’ he said.
‘She did not.
No-one did.
I saw some mail on a desk at the property company addressed to the Daughters of the Nativity, and remembered that I’d seen you talking to Mother Felicitas at that last reception we’d attended together.’His mouth twisted.
‘Suddenly, after all the fruitless days and weeks of searching, everything fell into place.
So, I came here asking for you, and she sent me here.’Poco was lying on his back at Ellie’s feet, waving ecstatic paws in the air and she knelt to scratch his tummy, her hair falling across her flushed face, her stomach churning weakly.
‘You were looking for me? But why? We—we’d said—goodbye to each other.’‘We said a great deal,’ Angelo returned abruptly.
‘But I am not sure how much of it was true.’‘Well, I know the truth now.’ She did not look at him, concentrating fiercely on Poco.
‘If you are speaking of the letter I sent you,’ he said harshly.
‘I wrote it because I was hurt and angry.
I regretted it at once and tried to prevent it being delivered, but I was too late.
And by the time I was able to return to Porto Vecchio, you had disappeared.’‘What possible right had you to be hurt and angry?’ She did look up then, her eyes accusing.
‘Or are you going to deny that you went back to Rome because of my cousin Silvia?’‘I deny nothing.
I answered a cry for help from my grandmother.’ Angelo strolled forward.
‘Silvia had appeared at Nonna Cosima’s house in hysterics, screaming that I had destroyed her marriage and that honour demanded I should offer the protection of my name to her and the child she was expecting by me.’ He paused, smiling faintly.
‘It was something of an emergency, you understand.
I had to go.’Ellie gasped.
‘You find it amusing?’‘Most absurdities are laughable, mia cara.’Her voice shook.
‘And poor Ernesto’s broken heart—his humiliation at knowing his wife is having another man’s baby—that’s also a joke?’‘Ernesto,’ he said, ‘knows no such thing, and I doubt he would care anyway.
He ended the marriage himself, Elena mia, by leaving your cousin very publicly for his secretary, Renata Carlone.
They have been lovers for some time and I understand that when he has obtained his freedom, they will be married.
I fear Silvia is the one to be left humiliated.’‘But he adored her,’ Ellie protested.
‘He was desperately jealous of every other man who came near her.’‘Once, perhaps,’ Angelo said grimly.
‘But his passion for her now, like the baby she claimed to be expecting, exists only in her imagination.’Ellie took a breath.
‘You mean—she’s not pregnant?’‘Not by me.
Nor by anyone else,’ he said tersely.
‘Once I confronted her, demanding that she should submit to the usual tests, and warning her that I would insist on DNA evidence in due course, she became first evasive—then sullen—before finally admitting she could not be sure of her condition.
In other words, she was lying.’‘But she came to see me,’ Ellie protested.
‘She—she told me that you were still her lover, and thrilled about the baby, which was why you needed the quickest possible divorce or annulment.’‘And you believed her?’ Angelo’s tone was incredulous.
‘In spite of everything she has done? And in spite of everything that you and I have been to each other?’ He closed his eyes.
‘Santa Madonna, how is it possible?’‘But she knew—about us,’ Ellie insisted desperately.
‘She knew everything.
She said you’d simply been doing what was necessary, for her sake, to persuade me to agree to whatever you wanted.’‘And so I did, carissima,’ he said quietly.
‘But for my own sake, not hers.’Ellie lifted Poco into her arms.
Held him like a shield.
‘But how could she know what had happened between us unless you told her?’‘Quite easily, mia bella.
I have suspected for a while that I was being watched, and at Porto Vecchio, I became certain of it.
There was a woman staying at the hotel who somehow contrived to be on the beach—at the trattoria—everywhere that we went.
‘I spoke to Ernesto and he told me he had found fees for a private detective agency on Silvia’s credit card, and thought wrongly that he was their target.’He shrugged a shoulder.
‘Clearly, she was hoping for evidence of my infidelity in order to make trouble between us.
Instead, she discovered only that I was having an affair with my own wife.’Ellie looked away.
She said in a low voice, ‘Or pretending to do so.’ She rallied.
‘But you still wanted her.
I—I saw you together at that reception, remember.
Saw the way she looked at you and how you smiled back at her.’‘Body language can be deceptive, carissima,’ he said.
‘To an onlooker, it may well have appeared a pleasant conversation.
But what a pity you cannot read lips instead, or you would have known that I was telling her with great frankness that she was wasting her time.
That it was over between us long ago.
That she would never have any place in my life, and I wished her not to approach me again.’‘Oh.’ Ellie swallowed, trying to steady the turmoil in her mind.
‘Where is Silvia now?’‘She has thrown herself on the mercy of your godmother,’ he said drily.
‘But I understand Prince Damiano is already tired of scenes and tantrums and has delivered an ultimatum, ordering her to leave.’She said bitterly, ‘And the Prince’s orders are invariably obeyed, as I know to my cost.’‘Do you mean that?’ he asked gently.
Another long stride brought him dangerously close.
‘Has our life together always been so unbearable? Can you look into my eyes and tell me so?’She didn’t dare look at him at all.
She said huskily, ‘Don’t—please.
You never wanted to marry me.
We both know that.
Why didn’t you just let me go? Why did you come after me?’Angelo was silent for a moment.
‘I must be completely honest, carissima.
And the truth is that I did not wish to be married at all.
I resented the family pressure being exerted upon me to—do my duty, and furiously angered by the trick Silvia played on us both.
‘But once you became my wife, Elena, things changed.
I changed.
Vostranto was a house I loved, but, with you as its mistress, it became more.
It turned into a home—a place that I cherished and was glad to return to, even though you treated me like a stranger each time I did so,’ he added wryly.
‘Keeping always at a distance and barely speaking to me.’He sighed abruptly.
‘I told myself I should find comfort elsewhere.
I even went looking, but still spent my nights alone.
‘When you finally agreed to share your bed with me, I accepted your terms because, in my arrogance, I believed I could eventually persuade you to surrender—to enjoy being in my arms.
‘Only it never happened.
Each time we lay together, you shrank from me.
Withheld the slightest response, even a kind word.
‘I was once told some nonsense about a woman’s body rejecting the seed of a man she did not truly love, but I began to wonder if it could be true.