by Diana Fraser
“That didn’t last.”
She chose to ignore the not-so-subtle barb.
“Anyway, where are we going? Same place?”
“No. The festival first—and then? Something different.”
“We’re going sight seeing? That really doesn’t sound like you.”
“I prefer to think of it as gazing upon immortality.”
“An art gallery then?”
“Why are you English so prosaic?”
“Please, no praise—it just comes naturally.”
“When you were last in Milan, we were both too busy to enjoy it. Last night you said you knew nothing of its treasures. It’s time to rectify that.”
“You’re educating me then.”
“No. You don’t need any more education. You’ve spent your whole life filling yourself with facts and figures and certificates. It’s time to look at the emotional side, the spiritual side of Milan.”
“What exactly are we going to see?”
“You will soon find out.”
He squeezed her arm gently to his side in a gesture of affection that disarmed her. She realized that she really didn’t care where he was taking her, so long as she was with him.
It wasn’t until several hours later that they’d emerged from Naviglio with its criss-cross of canals and carnival atmosphere. They’d eaten at an osterie serving delicious Lombard cuisine and been entertained by street performers and musicians. But then the sun had dipped behind a building and Giovanni had hailed a cab for the short ride to the Castello Sforzesco.
Despite it being a familiar landmark, Rose had never entered. She’d always been too busy to join the throngs of tourists to check out the treasures within. But today, with the sun lowering in the sky, the fountain spun its rainbows in the sky only for them. The festival had robbed the usual tourist attractions of their crowds, lending a quiet magic to the beautiful buildings.
“The Castello Sforzesco? Why here?”
“You’ll see.”
“Will we have time? It must be closing soon.”
“We’re only going to one room. It will not take long. The Sala degli Scarlioni.”
She looked up at the Filarete Tower that fronted the massive brick fortress.
“Not bad as ancestral homes go. Is that why you wanted to bring me here? To impress me?”
“It’s true it was originally built by my ancestors. But I doubt much is left from the fourteenth century. And I doubt such a thing will impress you. But I’m hoping what I will show you will.”
They walked in silence through the massive Piazza d’Armi past treasures—architectural and artistic—without stopping. Time seemed to stop as soon as they’d entered the building; the traffic was muffled and the outside world rolled away.
It was only when they entered a vast room, with red zigzag lines running around the top that Giovanni paused. He took hold of her hand and drew her directly to a small sculpture standing in an alcove.
“The Rondanini Pieta. Michelangelo’s final sculpture. He was working on it in the last weeks of his life—1564. What do you think?”
“It beautiful. And strange.”
She stood silent, looking at the statue, taking in the cool marble lines—its finished and unfinished qualities.
“It’s not his usual work, that much is true. It’s of the Virgin Mary mourning the dead body of Christ. She has her arms around him, holding him to her.”
She moved round to see the statue from the side. “But she looks like she’s the one needing the support. Look, it’s almost as if he’s propping her up. Don’t you think?” She turned to face him.
To her surprise he was watching her closely.
“I think you’re right. The divine Christ is also a broken man, supportive and yet needing support.”
“Well, I guess nobody’s perfect—even Christ.”
“Some might find your conclusion sacrilegious, cara. But, aesthetically? Esattamente. Nobody stands alone. Come, our excursion is over.”
They walked out into the Ducal Courtyard and back onto the streets of Milan. The peace and quiet of the Castello Sforzesco were gone and they were once again a part of the busyness of the world.
The peace may have disappeared and so, too, had some of the magic. But Giovanni’s message had been as clear as daylight. Told in his inimitable style.
He was asking her to trust him, to lean on him, to have faith in him.
There were a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t trust him and she would have given them to him if he’d simply asked her outright. But he was too clever for that. He wanted her to make an emotional choice, not a logical one.
The Palazzo was in darkness when they arrived back. Giovanni closed the front door behind them and flicked on the light switch.
“Drink?”
Rose nodded and they entered the formal salon. It wasn’t used often but was a beautiful room, particularly at that time of evening when the light was soft and mellow and played tricks on the ornate plasterwork, giving it a depth and mystery. She sat on an overstuffed chaise longue upholstered many decades before in a pale blue and eau de Nil chintz and ran her fingers over the faded silk, as exquisite as all the other furniture. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to grow up in such surroundings.
He handed her a glass of dark red wine and settled in the seat opposite.
“Why are you smiling?”
“At this beauty. It’s all around you. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like to grow up surrounded by such things.”
“It was magical. It was normal.”
“How can magic be normal?”
He shook his head and took a sip of wine.
“Come, there must have been moments of magic in your life?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it out loud.
“No fairies, no mermaids, no glittering mirage in which anything could exist, in which your imagination wasn’t limited?”
“An imagination was a dangerous thing to have in a council estate in east London. You had to have eyes in the back of your head. My mother believed magic came from a bottle of pills.” She shook her head again. “You’ve no idea, Giovanni.”
He frowned. “Everyone needs magic. I will show you some tomorrow.”
“Umm. It’s so easily conjured up, is it?”
“There is no conjuring involved. It is all around us.” He leant towards her and took both his hands in his. “You simply need showing.”
She smiled. He was as irresistible as he was unfathomable.
“How much longer, Rose?”
Distracted by the warmth of his hands on hers and the direction of her thoughts, it took her a minute to understand what he meant.
“How much longer,” he repeated, “before you have found the proof you need?”
“Oh!” She sat back, discomfited by the sudden change from personal to business. “Only a few days. I have most of it.”
“Ahh. It did not take so long to discover that Alberto is thieving from his own family?”
“No. He hadn’t covered his tracks well. I guess he thought his family would never investigate him.”
“And he’s right. I had an ulterior motive in taking it this far.”
“Your dislike of him?”
He grunted. “No, that was not enough. I have disliked him ever since he was a child and tore wings of butterflies.” He looked into the distance. “I could never imagine why he would want to do that.” Then he looked at her once more. “But then I could never understand him at all.”
“Why then?”
“I have my reasons.”
“And you don’t intend to tell me.”
He leaned towards her. “We may still be married in name, cara mia, but I do not, nor ever have, told you everything.”
“Secrets?”
“There is no harm in secrets, providing they are kept for good reason.”
His words brought hope to her heart.
She started forward. “You believe that?”
“Of course.”
“Even if it’s someone other than you with the secrets?”
“What are you trying to tell me?”
She hesitated. She wanted him to know everything but had no idea what his reaction would be. She risked everything in the telling.
The silence was broken by the massive seventeenth-century grandfather clock chiming the hour—two long, deep tones reverberated around the room. It was ten past nine. The grandfather clock was kept for aesthetic and sentimental reasons only. That was the thing about Giovanni. He had a passionate attachment to those things he loved. She just didn’t know whether she was one of those things any more.
“Giovanni? Tell me. Do you believe that Alberto was my lover?”
Silence lay heavy but Rose was determined not to break it.
“I don’t know. That is your secret.”
She could see the tension flicker in his face, in his body, in the way he held his glass of wine.
“Is it? You have never asked me the question directly so how do you know that I will not tell you the answer.”
“You will tell me what I wish to hear because you are not an unkind person.”
“You think I am kind, but a liar?”
He put his wine glass down too quickly and drops of the dark burgundy spilt onto the rosewood table. He stood before her, looking down at her, intensity evident in every fiber of his body.
“Was Alberto your lover?”
She stood up and tilted her face to his. She wanted to see him clearly when she answered him.
“No. There’s no way that I ever—”
He stopped her by putting his finger to her mouth.
“That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Then you should have asked sooner.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her gently on the mouth. She melted into his arms, feeling weak with relief that he’d finally kissed her. The longing for his touch and heat upon her had been building since their last kiss and she was finally able to release some of the tension.
He held her more tightly to his body and she could feel everything: from the fastenings of his clothes digging into her breasts to his hardness, showing clearly his equal need for her.
It was enough to make her lose the last shreds of restraint. She deepened the kiss, pulling up his shirt with her hands, feeling the heat from his body against her hands. The sensation of the hairs of his body against her sensitive fingertips triggered a soft explosion inside. She gasped.
But it was an explosion that ignited further heat, rather than lessening it. She felt she was going to go crazy if she couldn’t feel his body against hers. She slipped her hands round and began undoing his shirt buttons. She’d never wanted him so badly as at that moment.
It wasn’t just physical, though. She knew that the hunger inside stemmed from the fact that she’d told him the truth and she’d been believed.
He reacted strongly, holding her close while their kisses built until they pulled away, his lips seeking out her neck and chest. She arched back giving him freer access as her hands busied themselves with unbuttoning his trousers.
It was then that he stopped. He groaned deep against her chest, she could feel it reverberate. She froze. It was a groan of self control.
“Giovanni?”
He held his hand over hers and pulled it away.
“Not like this.”
“What are you doing? You never pull away from me.”
“We are not ready for this.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m ready.” She pulled herself to him.
“No. If we make love now, it would be like putting a plaster on a deep wound. Soothing yes, but not healing.”
“You don’t want me any more, do you?” Tell me the truth.”
He kissed her gently. “How can you say that?”
“Easy. When we were married you couldn’t keep you hands off me. But now? The occasional kiss if I force you into it, followed by a freeze. As if you’re disappointed you’ve succumbed.”
He shook his head wearily.
She stepped away when there was no further response. “With my work complete I can go now. I still have four months left on the contract. But you surely don’t want me here, now I’ve met my end of the bargain.”
“You will go when I say so.”
The flash of anger reassured her. The old Giovanni was still there lurking beneath. She wanted to tease it up further. She ran her hand down his chest.
“No I won’t. I’ll go what I’m ready. I may have fulfilled my contractual obligations but there’s also some unfinished personal business I need to attend to.”
“Really? More secrets you’re keeping from me?”
“Darling. So cynical. It is not good in one so young.” She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him, long and soft on the lips. Her deep-boned anger at his refusal to make love to her kept her in rigid control this time. “Good night.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Walking, endlessly walking and searching.
But she couldn’t find her.
It was cold.
She had to find her before her baby became too cold. She needed to warm her with her own body.
“Cara!” She heard him calling their baby, their beloved, and she stumbled on.
Then doors closed behind her, hands held her briefly.
She felt heat surround her and she relaxed for a while.
But the peace didn’t last.
A baby crying, her little face distorted with the hysteria of needing her mother.
“Carina!” Rose tried to cry out in her panic, but no sound came. She tried to move towards her baby but her legs were trapped and unable to move. She heard a male voice call her baby once more and knew it to be Giovanni. She tried to ask him for help but was struck mute as before.
Her hands reached out but there were too many things between them, she had to get to her.
“Cara! Wake up!”
She sat bolt upright, panting with the exertion that was only taking place in her dreams. Slowly the room came into focus. A wedge of weak sunshine sliced through the room, leaving the rest in obscurity.
“Cara.” His voice came softly now. His arm came around her shoulders. She dropped her head in her hands.
“A bad dream,” she said weakly.
“It must have been. It was one of your more elaborate sleepwalking efforts.”
“I slept walked? Oh God, where did I go?”
Embarrassment filled the place of grief. She stayed close to him to hide her burning cheeks.
“You even managed the elevator and came to me, as was right.”
She wanted to lean on his strength. But what if it gave way? She’d have nothing then.
“But you can’t help me.” The whisper emerged from lips that felt unwilling to move, unwilling to form the words that could simultaneously bridge the gap between them and destroy his future.
Holding her close, he drew her face up to his.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because some things are finished and you just have to live with the consequences.”
“Then let me help you with those.”
She couldn’t face his searching eyes and closed her own, turning away.
“Why should you? Why would you want to?”
“You don’t know?” He stood up, looked down at her for a moment, before walking to the partially open shutters and closing them. In the darkness she couldn’t see his expression. “Because you are my wife.”
“You’ve made it plain that just being married isn’t a relationship. Why do you want to help me?”
Inside, she was screaming for him to tell her the words she hadn’t heard for over two long years: the words she’d thought were gone forever. But perhaps a remnant of his love still survived.
But as he turned, her hopes were extinguished.
“Stay here. Get some more sleep. I’ll tell your team you won’
t be in the office today. And nor will I. I’ll be waiting downstairs. Come when you are rested.”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll need your report first. And then I will show you why I want to help you.”
Business again, no doubt. She slumped back, her heart still racing at the thought of her daughter needing her—and her husband not needing her.
But her daughter was dead.
She turned away from the slim lines of dimmed sunlight that escaped from around the shutters and finally slept on a pillow wet with the tears of a mother in mourning still.
“Brittle,” was the only word Giovanni could think to describe his Rose as she sat on the opposite side of this desk, going through her report on Alberto’s crimes.
Shadows lay beneath—and behind—her eyes.
The one was physical—he could deal with that—the other was harder but he was determined to shed light on it nonetheless.
Her report was faultless and told him nothing he hadn’t already guessed. He hardly listened to the damning details. It was on her that his full attention was focused.
She was barely holding it together.
He steepled his fingers and considered her.
She stopped talking, sat back, eyes narrowed. “You’re not listening to a word I’m saying are you?”
“Not really. Leave it. I’ll pass it to my lawyers and they will set the wheels in motion. It is over for now.”
“And you take this news with such equanimity? Your own family. It will drive them apart. Your mother will be devastated.”
“No doubt. Not that she doesn’t suspect, but I imagine she’ll be upset that the truth will be made public. It will force her to recognize that her youngest and dearest son is a thief as well as many other things. Don’t be concerned about my family. We are one in name only.”
He watched as she kneaded her forehead as if to release the tension that he knew was held within.
“This has all been a farce hasn’t it?”
“A reason maybe, but no farce. You’ve done the job I asked you to do.”
“So I can go whenever I choose?”
“Of course. You’ve always been able to do that. You really should read the fine print in your contracts.”