The Italian’s Rightful Bride

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘True,’ he said, looking into his glass. ‘The years do their work. They give and they take away. They show us the lessons to be learned, and those lessons change us, so that we look back and don’t recognise ourselves as we were then.’

  ‘Would you go back to being the man you were then?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘At twenty-two I wasn’t even a man. Just a callow boy who thought he knew it all because he’d been raised in a privileged position. What a fool! I fell for the first fairy tale that was fed to me. A man with a shred of experience or worldly wisdom would have seen through her.’

  ‘Was it really as bad as that?’ she asked sympathetically.

  He nodded.

  ‘I thought I’d arrive to see you and Crystal together in domestic bliss.’

  ‘Domestic bliss,’ he said wryly. ‘It was never that.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to me that things might have gone wrong, especially after I read in the papers about your son being born.’

  He winced. ‘Yes, there was a proper announcement about a son and heir being born to the Prince of Montegiano. But you should have seen what the papers made of the other juicy little item, when the boy turned out to be the son and heir of the princess’s fitness instructor.’

  She heard the pain in his voice, and saw it in his twisted smile. How much was wounded love for a woman who had betrayed him? she wondered. And how much was humiliation, because the world knew he was a cuckold?

  Did it matter? Whatever the truth, his misery was intense.

  ‘Let’s have some dinner,’ she said briskly. ‘Everything looks better on a full stomach.’ She handed him the room-service menu. ‘I feel like a feast.’

  She was afraid that he might demur at the idea of her treating him, but he simply looked contented. When the feast was chosen she said, with a twinkle, ‘I’ll leave the wines to you.’

  ‘Tactful lady!’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to risk choosing wines for an Italian, and a Roman at that.’

  ‘Not only tactful but also wise.’

  ‘We’ll do it properly,’ she said. ‘A different wine with every course. And champagne.’

  ‘Champagne?’

  Just having him here was a cause for celebration, but she couldn’t say that so she just gave a private smile of happiness.

  When the meal arrived they gave it all their attention for a while. Gustavo said little, but now and then he glanced across at her, as though making sure that she was still there.

  After a while, when it seemed to her that he was more relaxed, Joanna said gently, ‘What happened?’

  ‘What happened was that I made the biggest mistake any man has ever made,’ he said slowly. ‘I gave my whole heart and soul to a woman who had no heart to give back. She fed me a line and I fell for it.’

  ‘But she was crazy about you. I saw you together.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, she wanted me to be crazy about her. It’s not the same thing. And she knew how to make me crazy. It was the title. She fancied being a princess. She as good as admitted it eventually.’

  ‘How long did it take you to see the truth?’

  ‘Much longer than it should have done. I couldn’t let myself admit that she was greedy, selfish and cold. Which probably makes me a coward.’

  His voice was sharp with bitterness and self-mockery.

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Joanna urged.

  ‘Why not? Someone should be hard on me for being such a fool. And with you I can be honest because you know the truth that nobody else knows.’

  She gazed at him, shocked that everything she had tried to do for him had come to this.

  ‘But it wasn’t your fault. You wouldn’t be the first man in the world to be taken in.’

  ‘No, but-here’s the joke-I considered myself being above that sort of thing. After all, I was a Montegiano, a man of pride and position.’

  He gave a gruff laugh. ‘Joanna, you have no idea of the stupidity of a boy of twenty-two who’s been raised to think too well of himself. He makes mistake after mistake. The merest country bumpkin would have known better than I did.’

  She held her breath, knowing what it must cost him to reveal himself like this, praying not to spoil everything by a clumsy word.

  ‘You’ve really been through the mill, haven’t you?’ she asked.

  He shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you have friends you can talk to?’

  ‘There’s nobody I can admit all this to, the way I can to you. You’re the only person in the world who could understand because you saw things nobody else saw. We haven’t seen each other for twelve years, yet in an odd way you know me better than anyone alive.’

  He passed his hand over his eyes.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why I came running after you. I need to be with you, talk to you, even lean on you. That isn’t very dignified, I know-’

  ‘Why does it have to be dignified?’ she said urgently. ‘Why can’t you ask for my help if you need it? I’m your friend, Gustavo, and if my friendship can help you then it’s there.’

  She took his hand. ‘Talk to me, Gustavo. Tell me all the things you’ve been hiding away under that tightly buttoned-down exterior of yours. Because if you don’t let them out soon, you’ll go crazy.’

  Joanna had a sudden sense of standing at a crossroads, of being given back the chance she’d overlooked years ago: the chance to be the friend he badly needed.

  It wasn’t love. It might even stand in the way of love. But it was what he craved from her, and she would not fail him.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said softly. ‘When did it start to go wrong? You were so happy at first.’

  ‘At first I thought I’d landed in heaven. She seemed the perfect wife, beautiful, loving, always looking for ways to please me. My vanity was so colossal that I accepted that as natural.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you?’ she burst out indignantly. It hurt her to hear him put himself down. ‘If you love someone you do want to please them, because when they’re happy, you’re happy. Wasn’t it that way with you too?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I loved finding ways to give her pleasure. That’s why we went to Las Vegas. All I wanted was some quiet place where I could be alone with her, but she didn’t like quiet places. She wanted excitement. I always knew we were different in that way, but I thought the love would help us overcome that.’

  ‘But it didn’t?’

  ‘How can it when it’s all on one side?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘But she did love you once.’

  ‘Did she? Even now I wish I could believe it. I suppose she loved me well enough when she got her own way, but I started to realise that I was always the one to yield.

  ‘For a while even that didn’t matter. She got pregnant and I was thrilled. Yes, I wanted a son, I don’t deny it. And when it was a girl, I was disappointed-for about five minutes. Then I saw how gorgeous she was and I forgot all about wanting a son.

  ‘As she grew older I loved her more, because she’s so like my mother. She looks like her, she has her mental sharpness, and her stubbornness.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Mamma also saw the world in her own way, and you could point out the facts until you were blue in the face.’

  ‘But Renata’s a child,’ Joanna reminded him. ‘She’ll understand in time.’

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d known Mamma.’

  ‘I did. Well, I met her briefly.’

  ‘Yes, she liked you a lot. She was furious with me for letting you go.’ He gave a brief laugh. ‘If you could have heard what she called me.’

  Joanna laughed. ‘And you took no notice because you’re as stubborn as her. The line passes from her to Renata through you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘And it makes me wonder if Renata will ever turn back to me. There’s something implacable about her that makes me afraid.’

  ‘Was Renata close to Crystal?’

  ‘She wanted to be. She longed to be pretty like her mother
, and Crystal would have liked a daughter who looked like a dainty fairy, which Renata doesn’t.’

  ‘She’s better than that,’ Joanna said at once. ‘Her looks are going to be striking when she grows up.’

  ‘That’s what I think,’ he said eagerly. ‘But Crystal couldn’t see it. She lost interest. The poor little kid was always trying to get her mother’s attention, always wondering why she couldn’t have it.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if her fantasies started right back then,’ Joanna mused.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘We all tell each other fairy tales to cope with the pain of rejection,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘Renata invented another Crystal, one who was proud of her and wanted to be with her. In her mother’s presence she had to face the reality, but when she was alone she could believe the fairy-tale version. Now Crystal’s gone that version has taken over, but it actually began long ago.’

  ‘Of course it did,’ Gustavo said, looking at her quickly. ‘Why didn’t I see it before?’

  ‘You were too close, and you have that pain to cope with as well.’

  ‘Renata’s rejection. Yes. But what can I do?’

  ‘Be patient. She’ll choose the time. There’s no other way.’

  ‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I know you’re right, it’s just-’

  ‘It’s just that you’re not the most patient man in the world,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I know.’

  She poured him some more wine, and he drank it.

  ‘So Crystal wasn’t happy,’ Joanna said, to encourage him to continue.

  ‘No, I think she felt fairly soon that she’d made a mistake. I think that’s my fault for marrying her in such haste. I should have brought her to Montegiano first so that she could see for herself whether the life would suit her. But I wanted her so much that I just grabbed the chance. We might both have been saved a lot of grief if I hadn’t.

  ‘She was bored with the estate, bored with motherhood, in fact bored with everything I valued. I’ll never forget talking to her one day, trying to tell her what Montegiano meant to me. And I caught a certain look in her eyes-sheer blankness. She was just waiting for me to shut up.

  ‘She wanted a grandiose apartment in Rome and a high-society life. That time I held out. We had our friends and I’d take her into Rome as much as possible, but I wouldn’t move there permanently.

  ‘When she realised I meant it, there was a bitter quarrel. That was when I discovered her real opinion of me, stuffy and dull, a man who couldn’t give her the exciting life she wanted. She packed her bags, moved to the most expensive hotel in Rome and waited for me to crack. When I didn’t, she returned after six weeks.

  ‘I told myself she’d come back because she still loved me, but I believe she just liked the title, and still thought she could persuade me.

  ‘It’s been like that through the years. If she was thwarted she’d move out for a while and run up vast bills to punish me. I learned not to enquire too closely into what she got up to in the city.’

  ‘You think she was unfaithful?’

  ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have divorced her then? Or did you still love her too much?’

  ‘No, the love died some time back, but I was reared in the tradition that said you don’t break up the home, no matter what. And there was Renata. I had to think of what divorce would do to her. And now I’ve seen what it has done to her, I still think I was right.’

  ‘What happened in the end?’

  ‘Crystal started attending a gym in the city, said it was time to take proper care of her figure. Her instructor was called Leo. I only saw him once, all greasy hair and gigolo smile.

  ‘Suddenly she was pregnant. I even thought that perhaps we might have some hope after all, especially when it was a boy. But then I heard her talking on the phone to Leo, and it all became clear. I confronted her. She called me every name she could think of, packed her bags and left for good, with the baby, but without Renata.’

  ‘Suppose she’d wanted Renata?’ Joanna asked. ‘Would you have let her go?’

  ‘Yes. I’d expect to have her back for long visits; after all, she’s my child too. But I’d let Renata do whatever would make her happy.’

  He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, leaving it slightly ruffled. Joanna regarded him tenderly, and reached for the phone to call Room Service. In a few moments a waiter had arrived to remove the remains of the meal. When the door had closed behind him Gustavo moved to the large, comfortable sofa and sat down in a way that was almost a collapse.

  Joanna came over to an armchair near him, and poured him a large whisky.

  ‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’ he asked with a grin.

  ‘Possibly. I think it might do you good to let your hair down for once. I won’t tell on you.’

  He took the tumbler and drained it. It pleased her to see him more relaxed, although whether it was the whisky or the relief of confiding in her, she couldn’t tell. But she found that she didn’t care. It was sweet to reach out to him and feel that she’d brought him some relief, even perhaps a little contentment.

  She found that he was smiling at her, a strange smile that seemed to be sizing her up.

  ‘Of course,’ he said lightly, ‘I blame you for everything.’

  ‘Me? How?’

  ‘Because it was entirely your fault that I married Crystal.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘YOU were crazy for her,’ Joanna reminded him.

  ‘But I was engaged to you. If you’d held me to that we’d have married and lived happily ever after. Instead, you released me with quite indecent haste, abandoning me to my fate.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said, catching his ironic mood. ‘So I should have been your nanny, should I?’

  He sighed. ‘Some men need nannies to stop them making fools of themselves. The melancholy truth is that I may be one of them.’

  They laughed together.

  ‘If I had held you to the engagement, would you really have married me?’ she asked. ‘You’d have let me coerce you?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have coerced me,’ he said quietly. ‘But you might have reminded me where my honour lay.’

  ‘Love or honour,’ she mused. ‘It’s an unequal contest. Anyway, where does honour lie?’

  ‘That’s the last question I expected you to ask.’

  ‘You abandoned my large fortune for her small one because you really wanted to marry for love,’ she pointed out. ‘I call that honourable. I admired you for it. Truth to tell, I admired you for marrying Crystal more than for proposing to me. And if you’d let me force you into marriage, I’d have lost all respect for you.’

  He was silent. What she was saying amazed him.

  ‘But actually,’ she went on, ‘I don’t think I could have held you to our engagement, whatever you think. I think you’d have followed your heart anyway. At least, I hope you would.’

  He stared at her. ‘Do you mean that?’

  ‘Of course I mean it. You put your love first, as a man should. It’s not as though we were actually married. If we had been, and had children, that would have been different. You’d have had a duty to them. But you had none to me.’

  He made a helpless gesture.

  ‘I don’t know how to answer that.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I never really knew you, did I?’

  ‘No, not for a minute. Or I you. Gustavo, you’re wrong about living happily ever after. We wouldn’t have been happy together. You’d have been yearning for Crystal and resenting me for trapping you. Besides, do you think I have no pride? Who wants an unwilling husband?’

  ‘And maybe you were secretly glad to be rid of me,’ he mused.

  She nodded. ‘Maybe,’ she said lightly.

  He became awkward.

  ‘Joanna, there’s something I have to ask you. You may say that I have no right, and you’d be correct, but it’s been puzzling-no, troubling me.’

  ‘Go on.’
<
br />   His voice was tense.

  ‘Why did you agree to marry me in the first place?’

  For one blinding moment Joanna was tempted to tell him the truth. After keeping the secret all these years, she had an overpowering need to reveal it, and surely she could risk telling him now?

  But then she pulled herself back from the brink. He had come here for her help and she was about to pile more burdens onto him. For the knowledge of her love would be a burden if he could not return it.

  So her shrug was a masterpiece of helplessness. ‘Who knows? I believed in family expectations, just like you did. I was supposed to make a splendid marriage, and you were the best prize on the market. I was dazzled.’

  ‘But by the time things fell apart you’d seen how little it all meant. You’re right, our marriage wouldn’t have worked. You needed something else, something that fulfilled and satisfied you more than I could ever do. You made a life that you chose for yourself, that was more important to you than any man.’

  ‘Now you sound like Freddy. He used to accuse me of loving my “other life”, as he called it, more than him.’

  ‘Was it true?’

  She nodded. ‘I guess it was. Poor Freddy. It was good for a while, but I wasn’t right for him. The only really good thing I did for him was to have Billy.’

  ‘He’s a son any parent could be proud of,’ Gustavo reflected. ‘A wonderful boy.’

  ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ she said, her face and voice softening as she thought of her darling.

  ‘Is he very like his father?’

  ‘In some ways. He gets his brains and his independence from me, and his outrageous charm from Freddy.’

  ‘So your husband was very charming?’

  ‘He is. He may not be my husband any more, but he’ll be charming until the day he dies.’

  Her smile as she said this made Gustavo observe, ‘You sound as if you’re still fond of him.’

  ‘I am. Enormously. I’ve grown more and more fond of him since our divorce. He’s kind, amusing and great fun. In fact, he’s the perfect party guest, and great company as long as you’re not actually married to him.’

  ‘Why did you break up?’