Wife in the Shadows (10 page)

Somewhere in the house, she heard a clock strike yet another hour and she paused, glancing at the door. Perhaps he’d changed his mind, she thought hopefully, having decided that their public performance with the loving cup was quite enough to fulfil the hopes of their well-wishers.

She closed her book and turned to switch off the lamp on her night table only to realise that her bedroom door was opening once again to admit Angelo. He came in quietly, and halted, looking at her across the room, brows raised quizzically.

He said, ‘I thought by now you would indeed be asleep.’

He was wearing, she saw with a sudden thud of the heart, a black silk knee-length robe and apparently nothing else. And for a devastating moment, found herself remembering the night in the tower room and the touch of his bare skin against hers.

‘I—I was reading,’ she returned, her mouth suddenly dry.

‘It must be a fascinating book to keep you awake until this
hour.’ He began to walk slowly towards the bed. ‘Perhaps you should lend it to me to provide me with a suitable diversion for the next week or so. Just as a precaution, you understand.’

He reached the other side of the bed and began to untie the sash that fastened his robe at the waist.

Ellie said hoarsely, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting ready to sleep,
naturalmente.
Or is that perhaps a
trabocchetto
—a trick question?’

‘But you can’t,’ she protested. ‘At least—not here.’

‘If you imagine,
mia sposa,
that I intend to spend the night on that penance of a couch, then you are quite mistaken.’

‘But it’s perfectly comfortable.’

Angelo shrugged gracefully. ‘For you, perhaps, for an hour during the siesta. Not for a man of my height at any time.’

‘Then I’ll sleep there myself,’ she flared, pushing away the covers and swinging her legs out of the bed.

‘And I prefer that you remain where you are.’ He spoke quietly but there was a note of steel in his voice. ‘I advise you to accede to my wishes in this, Elena. Do so, and we shall both pass a peaceful night. But to defy me and force me to bring you back to this bed might have consequences you would not care for.’

He paused. ‘Now I suggest you turn your back, switch off the light and relax. You will soon forget that I am here.’

For a rigid, disquieting moment, she remained where she was, mentally weighing the possible repercussions of disobedience and realising reluctantly that she could not afford to take the risk.

Slowly she slid back under the covers and reached again for the lamp switch, plunging the room into darkness. As she did so, she felt the faint dip in the mattress signalling that he was now lying beside her, even if it was at a safe distance.

But there is no real safety, she thought, resting her hot cheek against the cool of the pillow. I’m in uncharted territory here, and I’m scared. As for forgetting that he’s here—how impossible is that?

By contrast, however, Angelo seemed to have little difficulty
in ignoring her presence. In a matter of minutes, or so it seemed to Ellie, his quiet even breathing revealed that he had fallen asleep, leaving her to lie awake and restive, but unable to show it, her only alternative to gaze unseeingly into the shadows, counting the long minutes as they turned slowly into hours and thinking of all the other nights ahead of her when she would have to do the same, until the time when this strange—even incredible—non-marriage finally came to its end.

And hoping, with something approaching desperation, that it might be soon.

Three months later

Ellie closed her laptop, and stretched gently, easing her back. At the same time, she allowed herself a faint smile of satisfaction. Because of a colleague’s illness, she’d just completed the translation of a lengthy scientific handbook, crammed with the kind of technical jargon known only to the initiated.

The inherent difficulty of the task, too, had demanded total concentration, which meant that she had less time to focus on other, more personal problems. Such as the equally inherent difficulty of presenting a convincing performance to the world in her ongoing role as the young Contessa Manzini, she thought unhappily.

Something which was preying on her mind more and more as her marriage began to turn from weeks into months, although she was at a loss to know why.

On the face of it, she had little to complain about. As she’d suspected it had not taken her long to become familiar with the household routine, which ran like clockwork anyway without any real intervention from her.

And, she had to admit, Angelo had scrupulously kept his word as to how their lives together would be conducted, which was quite simply—apart. That since their wedding night, he had paid precisely three visits to her room, and those only for the sake of appearances, during which they’d slept on strictly opposite sides of that gigantic bed.

And he had never even attempted to lay a hand on her.

Not that she wanted him to, of course, she reminded herself swiftly. So, it was a relief to know that he clearly shared—maybe even exceeded—her own reluctance.

Because there had been no repetition of that burning savagery of a kiss either. His greeting and leave-taking invariably consisted of the merest brush of his lips across her cheek and her fingers, and that only when others were present.

And if there were moments when she wondered whether the marriage was setting a pattern and that she was destined to spend the rest of her life alone and undesired, she kept such thoughts strictly to herself, pretending that the possibility was not as hurtful as it sometimes felt.

And that, of course, there would be someone—someday—when this was over and life became real again.

So there was really nothing for her to be uneasy about. Or not where Angelo was concerned, anyway, she amended swiftly.

Because she could not deny she was being subjected to pressure of a different nature and from another source entirely. Something she had never expected, and found increasingly difficult to deal with.

She got up from her seat and walked restlessly over to the window, staring out at the sunlit landscape with eyes that pictured another scene entirely.

It had begun some six weeks after the wedding. Her godmother had invited her to a lunch party at Largossa—‘A very small affair,
mia cara,
and all female.’

She’d been delighted to find Nonna Cosima present, but less pleased to see Signora Luccino, whom she was learning to call Zia Dorotea. For some reason, the older woman had seemed convinced from the start that Ellie’s marriage was entirely her own design, and that she deserved the credit for bringing it about.

And how wrong was it possible for anyone to be? Ellie thought bitterly. But at least the Signora had brought Tullia with her, which promised some alleviation.

It was during the
aperitivos
before lunch that the first blow fell.

‘You look well,
cara
Elena,’ Zia Dorotea pronounced magisterially. ‘Almost blooming, in fact. Is it possible you have good news for us all?’

Ellie set down her glass of
prosecco
with immense care, controlling the silent scream building inside her. She was aware of Madrina and Nonna Cosima exchanging glances of faint anguish and Tullia’s open glare at her mother, but it made no difference. The words had been spoken. The question ‘Are you pregnant?’ was out there, and awaiting an answer.

Only she had none to give.

She forced a smile. ‘I spent the weekend at Porto Vecchio. If I have colour in my cheeks, it’s probably thanks to the sun and sea breezes.’

‘I hope Angelo has also benefited from the break,’ said Signora Luccino. ‘The last time I saw him, I thought he looked a little strained.’

Ellie bit her lip. ‘He wasn’t able to accompany me. He had—engagements.’
And please don’t ask me where or with whom because I didn’t ask him, and I don’t want to know anyway.

‘Besides,’ she added. ‘It wouldn’t be his kind of place. It’s altogether—too basic.’

‘You are saying he has never been there?’ The Signora sounded scandalised. ‘That you go alone when you have been married less than two months?’

‘Oh, Mamma,’ Tullia intervened impatiently. ‘Husbands and wives do not have to live in each other’s pockets.’

‘Then perhaps they should,’ was the austere reply. ‘Particularly when the future of an ancient dynasty is involved. Angelo needs an heir, and perhaps he should be reminded of the fact.’

Nonna Cosima intervened gently. ‘I think, my dear Dorotea, that we should allow the children to conduct their own lives, and enjoy the freedom of these first months of marriage together. I am sure the nurseries at Vostranto will be occupied soon enough.’

‘But hardly when Angelo spends all week in Rome and Elena disappears to the coast without him at weekends,’ the Signora returned implacably. ‘I gave birth to my own son within the first year of my marriage, because I knew what my duty was.’

Ellie looked down at the gleam of her wedding ring, her face wooden, thankful that no-one in the room knew the entire truth about her relationship with her supposed husband.

At which point, Giovanni had arrived to announce that the Principessa was served, and Ellie was off the hook.

But not permanently, of course. Ever since there’d been little hints, little nudges, often growing into far more pointed enquiries about her health each time she encountered the Signora.

If things had been different with Angelo, she thought, if they’d been something approaching friends instead of strangers whose paths occasionally crossed, then she could have mentioned it to him—perhaps made a joke of it—but asking for it to stop at the same time.

As it was, she had to endure in a silence that was actually becoming painful in some strange way.

Now, she found she was watching her reflection in the glass panes, studying without pleasure the set of her mouth and the guarded wary eyes. If she’d ever bloomed, she thought with a sigh, there were few signs of that now.

She was startled to hear the distant clang of the bell at the front door. Visitors at Vostranto were rare during the week, and did not usually call without an appointment or an invitation. Perhaps the caller had come to the wrong house, she thought.

Yet a few moments later, there was a tap on the door heralding Giorgio’s arrival.

‘The Signora Alberoni has called, madam. I have shown her into the
salotto.’

For a moment she stared at him, initial incomprehension turning into disbelief. Silvia—
Silvia
here? It wasn’t possible.

‘No, I won’t see her. Tell her to go.’

The angry impetuous denial was so clear in her head that she thought she’d already spoken it aloud, until she realised

Giorgio was still waiting for her reply, his expression faintly surprised. Her hands had balled into fists in the folds of her denim skirt and she made herself unclench them, forcing a smile.

‘Grazie,
Giorgio. Will you please ask Assunta to bring coffee and some of the little raisin biscuits? And perhaps Bernardina has made some almond cake?’

Going through the motions of hospitality, she thought, when what she really wanted was to run away screaming.

Then, mustering her composure, she walked down the hall to the
salotto
to confront the cousin who, in one tumultuous night, had brought about the ruin of her life.

O
NE LOOK AT
Silvia told Ellie that her cousin was not there to apologise. She was standing in the centre of the room, a dark red silk dress clinging to every curve, her eyes narrowed as she surveyed her surroundings.

‘You’ve done well for yourself, cara,’ she commented, sending Ellie’s elderly skirt and collarless white blouse a derisive look. ‘Strange how things sometimes turn out.’

She walked over to the fireplace and studied the coat of arms carved into its stonework. ‘This is the first time I have been here. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ Ellie returned quietly. ‘I didn’t know.’

Silvia tossed her head, making her blonde hair shimmer. ‘I tried several times to persuade Angelo to invite me, but he always made some excuse.’

‘I see.’ Ellie lifted her chin. ‘So, what excuse do you have for making this visit now?’

Silvia spread her hands gracefully. ‘Do I need one—to see my own cousin?’ She paused. ‘I didn’t send you a wedding present, because what can one possibly give someone who’s scooped the equivalent of the Euro-lottery? It was really very clever of you.’

She walked to a sofa and sat down crossing her legs. ‘Or was it?’ Her tone was meditative. ‘Maybe it was all the idea of that old witch, his grandmother and her daughter, the Luccino woman. God knows that precious pair have been trying to force
him into an unwanted marriage for years. Did I supply them with the chance they wanted?’

She laughed harshly. ‘How ironic. How truly ironic.’ Ellie took a step forward. ‘Silvia—how could you do such a thing?’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Silvia’s eyes flashed. ‘Did he think—did he really think that I would allow him to throw me aside as if I was nothing? No-one treats me like that—ever. I knew the importance of his deal with Zio Cesare and how damaging its failure would be. Therefore, I decided to teach him a lesson.’ Her smile was calculating. ‘I knew I could still make him want me, and that he would not be able to resist my invitation.’

Ellie said in a low voice, ‘I meant—how could you involve me? As you’ve just said—your own cousin.’

Silvia shrugged negligently. ‘Because I knew you were the last girl in the world that Angelo would ever find attractive, so that when he was found in your room, he would look and feel a complete fool. It was the final perfect touch.’

Ellie turned away. She said in a stifled voice, ‘You must be mad.’

‘He made me suffer,’ Silvia retorted. ‘I wanted him to suffer too. To realise what he had lost when he ended our affair.’

‘But it couldn’t have continued,’ Ellie protested. ‘What would have happened if Ernesto had found out?’

Her cousin shrugged again. ‘He would have divorced me,
naturalmente,
and I would have been free to marry Angelo, who must now be wishing every day of his life that he had not been so hasty and thrown away our happiness.’

Happiness? thought Ellie with disbelief. What happiness could possibly grow from such a selfish obsession—or from inflicting misery on others?

She took a deep breath. ‘If that’s all you came to say, maybe you should leave.’

‘When I’m enjoying all this fabulous hospitality?’ Silvia gave a little, tinkling laugh. ‘I think I’ll stay for a while so we can chat—woman to woman.’ Her voice sank intimately. ‘I’m
dying to know,
carissima,
how you like married life. Does Angelo fulfil every lonely little fantasy you ever had?’

Her gaze swept mockingly over Ellie’s shrinking body. ‘I must tell you that you do not seem the picture of rapture,
mia cara.’

‘You can think what you wish.’ Ellie lifted her chin. ‘However, I have no intention of discussing my relationship with …’ She hesitated. She could not bring herself to say ‘Angelo’ because she never used his given name. On the other hand she could hardly say, ‘Count Manzini’ to Silvia of all people.

So she compromised with ‘my husband’—a description totally lacking in accuracy, too, she reminded herself with a faint stab of unexpected pain.

Although she’d always known that she would have to see her cousin again one day, she’d imagined an occasion when others would be present, obliging her to find a way to smile, be civil and pass on.

She had not bargained for this one-to-one confrontation, or that it would take place so soon—or here—on territory that should have been taboo.

She was surprised that the Count had not given private orders that Signora Alberoni was not to be admitted, but perhaps he’d not believed she would have the gall to simply—invite herself like this.

She was thankful that he was not returning to Vostranto until the following evening. She could only imagine his reaction if he’d arrived back to find his former mistress comfortably ensconced in his
salotto.

That unaccountable pain stirred inside her again. She’d tried very hard not to think about Angelo and Silvia as lovers, but the gloating expression in her cousin’s eyes had said more loudly than any words that she hadn’t forgotten a thing about sharing his bed and his body.

That Silvia was able to recall all the kind of intensely intimate details about him—how it felt to be kissed by him, touched, taken in passion—that Ellie would never know.

That she didn’t want to know, she corrected herself hastily, but which put her at a terrible disadvantage just the same.

She was aware too that she wasn’t handling the situation particularly well, and that Silvia would be enjoying her discomfiture.

And the knowledge that Angelo had never brought his former mistress here in spite of some pretty heavy-duty wheedling was somehow very little comfort.

It was almost a relief when a tap on the door heralded the arrival of Assunta, with a maid following her, pushing a trolley laden with coffee and a lavish selection of biscuits, cakes and pastries.

‘Dio mio.’
Silvia’s laugh sounded melodiously again. ‘But how delicious! I am being so spoiled today.’

But you always have been, Ellie wanted to say. From birth, according to Nonna Vittoria. The baby visited in your cradle only by good fairies bringing you beauty, charm and uncritical love from all those around you. Making you believe that you could have anything you wanted, and live for yourself alone. And that, whatever you did, you would be forgiven.

And I signed up to that too, went along with it for all these years, even though Nonna—and later Madrina—tried to warn me gently to be careful. Because, even if I was always on your side, there was no guarantee you’d always be on mine. Why couldn’t I see that?

Maybe that was why Nonna bequeathed the house at Porto Vecchio to me—because she knew that, some day, something you’d do would make me need a refuge.

Aloud, she said quietly, ‘Assunta, please make sure that the Signora’s driver is looked after.’

‘Oh, I drove myself, cara,’ Silvia informed her, shrugging. ‘As I often do these days.’ She turned a brilliant smile on the housekeeper. ‘So you are the wonderful Assunta. Count Manzini has sung your praises to me so often.’

Assunta inclined her head in a manner that managed to be polite and sceptical at the same time, then withdrew leaving the maid Rosaria to pour the coffee into the exquisite bone china
cups, and hand round the plates of delicacies, giving Silvia the opportunity to fuss with wistful sweetness over the calorific content of each offering.

‘I have to be so careful of my figure for
caro
Ernesto’s sake,’ she sighed. ‘A woman owes it to her husband to make the best of herself, don’t you think so, Elena mia?’ A comment which accompanied another disparaging look at what Ellie was wearing, and also took in the fact that her hair was drawn back and crammed into an elastic band at the nape of her neck.

I don’t think Angelo would care particularly if I starved myself to death or ate until I burst, she thought, suppressing a silent sigh, and deliberately selecting a choux pastry oozing cream.

Even when Rosaria left and they were alone, there were thankfully no further inroads into the subject of Ellie’s marriage, and Silvia reverted to talking about herself—parties she had attended, film premieres where she had been a guest, a fabulous new boutique, a miraculous new hairdresser.

‘Such a pity you do not spend more time in Rome,
cara.
I could show you a whole new world.’ Silvia delicately wiped some crumbs of almond cake from her fingertips and put down the linen napkin. ‘But for now you can show me your world,’ she added, a little smile playing around her lips. ‘So—the full guided tour, if you please.’ And paused before adding, ‘Including, of course, the bedrooms.’

Ellie replaced her cup carefully on its saucer, swallowing down the silent scream rising inside her.

She said levelly, ‘I’ll ring for Assunta. She knows far more about the house’s history than I do.’

Silvia pouted. ‘If you wish, but I would rather hear it from you, the mistress of all this magnificence. And of its master, too.’ She shook her head, as she rose, smoothing her dress over her hips with a languid gesture. ‘Ella-Bella, the little mouse. Who would ever believe it?’

Well, I wouldn’t for one, Ellie thought as she crossed the room and tugged at the embroidered bell pull beside the wide
hearth. Because I know it couldn’t be further from the truth. And so, I suspect, does she.

And wondered again why Silvia was there.

He still could not believe what he had done. It was ridiculous—impossible—almost making him doubt his own sanity.

Because all the arrangements had been in place. The carefully chosen flowers delivered that morning. The lunch reservation in the eminent restaurant of an exclusive hotel, with coffee served privately and discreetly in a suite on the first floor when the meal was over.

And he had talked to her and smiled, and let his eyes caress her, watching her lips part on a small indrawn breath as the first flush of overt desire warmed her smooth skin.

Beautiful, sexy and much more than willing, he’d thought pleasurably. Exactly the kind of recreation he needed after the long hours he’d been working to finalise the Galantana project, and a glorious end to the past weeks of celibacy.

Even now he couldn’t be sure of the moment when it first occurred to him that it was not going to happen. Wasn’t aware of having made the decision, or why he’d done so. He only knew, without a shadow of doubt, that when lunch concluded, there would be no delicious consummation between silk sheets, accompanied by five star brandy. That, in fact, he would be making an excuse and leaving. Regretfully,
naturalmente,
but quite definitely.

He’d seen her shock, her disbelief as she realised the promised seduction was not going to happen after all, then pride had come swiftly to her rescue—and to his. Even so, he’d gone out into the heat of the afternoon calling himself every kind of bastard.

He’d told his secretary that he would not be back in his office that day, so a return to his apartment seemed the obvious choice. And possibly a cold shower, he’d thought in self-derision.

Yet, for some reason, here he was, driving towards Vostranto.

Now I know I’m crazy, he thought bitterly. Because what kind of a welcome can I expect there?

He pulled the car over on to the verge, switching off the engine and staring ahead through the windscreen, his dark eyes moody. The image of a girl’s face rose up in front of him, pale and strained, her soft mouth unsmiling, her eyes sliding nervously away from his. It had been the same each time they’d been together since the wedding, and the truth was that he was at a total loss to know how to ease the unhappy situation between them.

She was, he told himself, unreachable. At least by him. Not, of course, that he had wanted to reach her, he reminded himself swiftly. Not at the beginning when he’d dismissed her so contemptuously as a potential bride.

He’d soon realised, however, that his description of her as a nonentity had been unfair and unjustified. That she’d quickly demonstrated that she had a mind—and a will—all her own which she was prepared to pit against his.

Now, for the first time, he found himself wondering if there’d perhaps been someone else in her life. If his unwelcome intrusion had actually robbed her of a lover, for whom she was still grieving, and if that was why she continued to shrink from him—particularly on those few nightmare occasions when they shared a bed, and she lay a few feet away from him in a trembling silence that had nothing to do with sleep.

But no, he decided, his mouth twisting. If Elena had been in love, had given herself to another man, she would not have been considered by Zia Dorotea or his grandmother as a suitable candidate to become the Contessa Manzini. Which, for some unfathomable reason, she undoubtedly had been, long before Silvia Alberoni’s machinations had forced them together so ludicrously.

Leaving him stranded in the unenviable position of being a husband but without a wife.

Although she was hardly to blame for that, he thought ruefully. In the time leading up to the wedding had he made any real attempt to woo her? To alleviate for her the humiliation of
knowing that she was being married only to preserve a business deal and persuade her instead that, even if they could not expect marital bliss, they might achieve a working relationship with perhaps some attendant pleasure?

Then proved it by stealing her away from the
palazzo
and coaxing her somehow into letting him make gentle lingering love to her.

Yet, in reality, furious at being manipulated into such a proposal, he had instead stressed that their union was a strictly temporary arrangement which would be dispensed with swiftly and efficiently at the appropriate time. And that there would be no physical intimacy between them.

That was what he’d promised, and what, it seemed, he now had to live with.

Because there seemed little chance of any alteration in the
status quo,
he thought flatly. Indeed, the available evidence suggested that she was not even marginally attracted to him. That she might even dislike him or, which was worse, fear being alone with him.

It should never have come to this, he told himself bleakly. I should not have allowed it to happen. And I cannot let it go on.