Wife in the Shadows (18 page)

But the person she most needed to forgive was herself—for allowing it to happen. For letting him indulge his sexual ego at her expense.

If he’d needed to make sure she’d meant what she said, why hadn’t he been honest with her—told her that he had resumed his affair with her cousin and that Silvia was pregnant? It would have hurt terribly, but it would hardly have been any great surprise. A blow she’d been expecting to fall. Besides, the raw and monstrous pain now tearing her apart was far worse.

Yet that was not her only torment. Because even hating him as she did—as she must do—could not confer any kind of immunity from him. On the contrary, she had to face the humiliating truth that she dared not risk another confrontation. That her anger and misery over his treachery might not be
sufficient protection. That if he smiled at her, moved towards her or—dear God—touched her, she might not be able to trust herself to turn away.

She needed another refuge and fast. A place where no-one would dream of looking for her. Not Nonna Cosima, Madrina or even Tullia, she thought with a pang. And once they learned the reason for her sudden disappearance, as they soon would, none of them could really blame her.

A place where she would be safe, she told herself with a sigh. And where she might one day forget that she was also running from herself.

‘And they lived happily ever after.’ The story drawn to its proper conclusion, Ellie closed her book and smiled down at the semi-circle of entranced faces in front of her.

‘More,
signorina,
more,’ a chorus of small voices petitioned, but she shook her head.

‘It is almost time for the lunch bell. If you are late, Mother Felicitas might say there must be no more stories.’

However far-fetched the threat, the children accepted it and trooped off.

Ellie slid the book into her bag, and rose, preparing to follow them, then paused, walking instead to the sunlit window. It was a wonderful view of rolling green hills, shimmering in the haze of summer heat, interspersed with fields of yellow mustard and scarlet poppies. The nearest town was a mere smudge on the horizon.

Directly below was a small paved courtyard with a mulberry tree, its canopy shading a wooden seat, which had become one of Ellie’s favourite places.

The convent was the perfect sanctuary, she thought. And she would never be able to sufficiently repay Mother Felicitas for offering it to her. Or for asking so few questions.

When Ellie had told her haltingly that her marriage was over, she had simply expressed quiet concern. And she had also acceded to Ellie’s request that no-one should be informed of her presence—with one proviso.

‘I understand that you need time and privacy to consider your future, my dear child, and they are yours. But if anyone asks me directly at any point if you are with us here, I will not lie.’

Ellie bent her head. ‘That—won’t happen.’

Nor had it. Six weeks before, while she was still at Casa Bianca, she had written to both Angelo’s grandmother and the Principessa stating that she was well and happy but needed to be alone, and asking them to understand and not worry about her.

Her room in the part of the convent that housed the orphanage and school was pleasant if a little Spartan, its bed too narrow to encourage forbidden dreams.

On the practical side, Mother Felicitas had arranged an extra table and chair so that she could continue to work as usual. She paid for her board and lodging, but in addition she helped out in the school, giving informal English lessons to some of the older children and reading her own translations of popular children’s stories to the younger ones.

Her mail was being sent on by arrangement from the property company selling her house in Porto Vecchio, but so far there was no sign of the documentation which would begin the legal dissolution of her marriage.

Clearly Angelo’s lawyers did not share Silvia’s sense of urgency about the procedure, thought Ellie who found the delay bewildering. Apart from anything else, surely Angelo’s pride would demand his heir should be born in wedlock.

She found the whole situation becoming seriously unsettling. How could she begin again, or even plan positively for the future, with this cloud still hanging over her?

In spite of the convent’s almost tangible air of peace, the strain of waiting was taking its physical toll of her. The food was good and plentiful, but her appetite had temporarily deserted her, and she had lost a little weight. She felt weary much of the time too, yet had trouble sleeping. In addition, and not too surprisingly, she found herself often on the verge of tears. She’d taken her troubles apologetically to the Infirmarian,

Sister Perpetua who, in her quiet noncommittal way, had recommended fresh air and exercise.

She’d followed her advice, yet, this morning, she’d woken with a slight headache and vague queasiness as if she was coming down with a virus.

I can’t afford to be ill, she told herself. I’ve too much else to cope with, and I don’t want to be a liability to the nuns either.

Being with the children had lifted her as it invariably did, and the headache at least had faded. But the thought of food was totally unappealing, Ellie admitted with a sigh, resting her forehead against the glass. Maybe she would forget the mid-day meal and rest on her bed for a while.

As she turned from the window, Mother Felicitas came into the room, an envelope in her hand.

‘This came for you, dear child.’

It was from the property company in Porto Vecchio, Ellie saw listlessly. Perhaps they’d sold Casa Bianca, which would be gratifying, of course, but still wasn’t the news she was expecting.

She slit open the envelope and extracted the single sheet, scanning the typewritten contents.

There had been, she read, a lot of interest in Casa Bianca, but they had accepted on her behalf an excellent cash offer well above the asking price from Count Angelo Manzini.

Ellie gave a gasp, her hand straying to her lips as the words swam in front of her incredulous gaze. She turned to Mother Felicitas. Her voice barely audible, she said, ‘My home. He’s bought my home—for her …’ and felt herself slide down into impenetrable darkness.

‘T
HERE’S NOTHING WRONG
with me,’ Ellie protested. ‘I shouldn’t be in the Infirmary. I—I just had a shock, that’s all, and that’s why I fainted. I—I’m not ill.’

‘No, no.’ Mother Felicitas patted her hand. ‘Sister Perpetua assures me that the symptoms of early pregnancy are often uncomfortable, but only rarely do they become serious.’

If a bomb had gone off in the quiet Infirmary, Ellie could not have been more horrified.

When she could speak: ‘A baby? She says I’m having a baby? But I can’t be. It’s impossible.’

‘She nursed in an obstetrics hospital before she joined our Order,’ Mother Felicitas said gently. ‘She told me what she suspected over a week ago.’ She paused. ‘Whatever has happened in the past, Contessa, this is news that you must share with your husband.’

‘No.’ Ellie sat up, icy with sudden alarm. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘But you may carry the heir to an important name, my child. This cannot remain a secret. Count Manzini has to know he is to be a father.’

‘That’s the last thing he’ll want to hear,’ Ellie whispered. ‘Please believe me, Reverend Mother, and don’t ask me to explain.’ And as the realisation of everything she had lost overwhelmed her, she began to weep silently and hopelessly.

Worn out emotionally, she slept better that night, aided by a tisana of Sister Perpetua’s making, and woke the next day calmer, and filled with a new sense of resolution.

She would close her mind to the past, and use the money that Angelo had paid to take Casa Bianca from her to fund her new life in England.

He had everything now, she thought, pain twisting inside her. Her pride, her memories, her little house—and the love—the need she’d tried desperately to deny, and which he had also taken so carelessly, because he could.

At lunchtime, she made herself eat a bowl of soup and a little pasta, then, encouraged by Sister Perpetua, went to sit out under the mulberry tree. It was a hot, drowsy day with little breeze when even the birdsong seemed muted, and not ideal, she thought wryly, for the making of serious plans. For looking forward instead of back as she must do.

And at first, when she heard the excited yapping of a dog disturbing the stillness, Ellie thought she must be having a waking dream.

But bundling across the courtyard towards her was total reality with a round face and drooping ears, his tail wagging furiously and his barking changing to squeaks of excitement.

She jerked upright, staring in disbelief. ‘Poco?’ she whispered. ‘Poco, what are you doing here?’

And then she realised who was following him, standing in the archway, tall and lean in cream denim pants and a black polo shirt, watching her in silence.

Oh, no, she wailed inwardly. It can’t be true. This can’t be happening to me.

She knew what she must look like—washed out with scared eyes and lank hair in a faded cotton dress—and as she jumped to her feet, she folded her arms defensively across her body.

Angelo halted, brows lifting almost resignedly as he saw the gesture. He said quietly,
‘Buona sera,
Elena.
Come sta?’

‘I was all right,’ she said. ‘Until now.’

He was thinner, she thought with a wrench of the heart, the lines of the dark face more clearly marked, his eyes shadowed, his mouth bleaker. But she could not let herself see these things. Feel the ache of them.

She said tautly, ‘I’m told you’ve bought Casa Bianca. If you
mean it as a gift for Silvia, you’ve wasted your money. She never liked Porto Vecchio even as a child. She always preferred places with glitz and glamour.’

‘I bought it for myself,’ he said. ‘Do you wish to know why?’

‘I presume because it’s a way of providing for me that I can’t refuse. 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. If you hated me too much to make a baby with me. And I realised the hell our marriage must have become for you.

‘And when you ran away rather than submit to me again, I knew I could not go on torturing you like this.

‘So I followed you to Porto Vecchio to tell you not to be
afraid any more. That I would not make you more unhappy than you already were by persisting with our marriage.

‘But, seeing you—watching you on the beach that first morning, I saw a girl I did not recognise. No longer withdrawn and reticent, but someone who sang and laughed and danced in the waves. Someone I longed to know in every way.

‘And I began to wonder if we had met as strangers in a distant place, without outside interference, whether things could have been different between us. If we might have fallen in love and found we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

‘I decided there and then that I had to know. That I must discover if it would ever be possible to win you for my own, so, perhaps mistakenly, I became Luca, and courted you as my Helen.’

He took Poco from her arms and set him gently on the ground. Took her hands and drew her down beside him on the bench.

‘I bought Casa Bianca,
mi amore,
because it was there I experienced the only true happiness of my life. Where I learned the enchantment of making love to the woman I loved. Of enjoying life’s simplicities in her company. Of becoming a real husband to my adorable wife, the other half of myself.

‘I believed what we had created there would go with us when we became Angelo and Elena once more, as, eventually, we would have to do. Instead, I faced the worst rejection of all and realised I had failed. That you
might
have learned to welcome my lovemaking but you did not want my love, because your freedom was far more important to you than any future we might have together. As if we had been playing some game, which had now ended.’

She tried to say his name and he put a quiet finger on her trembling lips.

‘One moment more,
carissima.
I returned to Rome feeling defeated—empty. In a way, I welcomed your cousin’s ludicrous intervention because it gave me a focus for my anger, and made me realise that I too would go to any lengths to get
you back, even when I found you had run away again, and all hope seemed lost.’

He took a deep breath, his hands tightening on hers.

‘And this is why I have come to find you, Elena mia. To ask you to come back to me and learn, if you can, to love me as I love you. To be my wife forever.

‘I told Mother Felicitas that I had come to take you home, and even if you send me away again,
mia bella,
I shall not give up. Ah, my sweet one, will you not even look at me?’

She met his gaze, saw the uncertainty that haunted its tenderness and hunger.

She said quietly, ‘Don’t you see—I had to keep you a stranger. I thought it was the only way I could avoid a broken heart. I knew Silvia still wanted you—was obsessed with becoming your Contessa. She came to Vostranto and told me so. Told me she could get you back, and I believed her.’

She took an uneven breath. ‘All my life, it seemed, I’d been the shadow to her sun, and I told myself that would never change. That I’d never be more than the girl who’d been forced on you, and, therefore, keeping you at a distance would be my only salvation. Because I couldn’t bear to be touched, knowing you wished I was someone else. And I was scared that one night I would let you see how I really felt, and that you might laugh at me or, even worse, pity me.