by Pippa Roscoe
As he followed Maria and her brother down a corridor of terracotta Matthieu fought to shake off the tendrils of the nightmare he’d had the previous evening. The first one he’d had in years. He’d tried to dismiss it as mental foolishness, but it had sunk its claws into his heart and kept him almost silent on the way to Siena. He doubted very much it had anything to do with meeting Maria’s brother, but couldn’t shake the thought that it might have something to do with his feelings for his wife.
They rounded a corner and entered a large and surprisingly beautiful living area, bringing Matthieu back to the present. The soft cream and burnt-orange colours surprisingly soothing to a man who lived in monochrome. Instantly Matthieu eyed the presence of another man and his wife, who for a second were mid-conversation. The tall, dark-haired man Matthieu realised must have been Theo Tersi, and the woman, the Crown Princess of Iondorra.
For a second, Theo turned and cast him such a fierce look, Matthieu was impressed. Until the princess took one look at Maria and descended into squeals of pure delight and hand-wringing, which completely cut the tension in the room.
‘Maria! Look at you,’ the princess cried, rushing up from her seat and taking Maria in her arms, leaning back slightly as if not to crush the baby. ‘Can I?’ she asked, and, barely giving Maria a second to answer, her hands swept around the swell of their child. ‘Oh, you are positively blooming.’ And then she covered her hand with her mouth. ‘Oh, that’s such a trite thing to say, but you are!’
Maria laughed, the men in the room rolled their eyes, and the princess laughed again.
‘Matthieu,’ Maria said, turning to him, ‘this is Princess Sofia de Loria of—’
‘Please. No titles here. We’re family.’ The exquisite petite blonde woman turned to Matthieu and struck him with an aquamarine gaze.
Matthieu had met with more royals than he could shake a stick at and, no matter her pleas for familiarity, still bowed his head ceremoniously.
‘Your Highness.’
Sofia laughingly sighed. ‘Okay, but it’s Sofia from here on out.’ She turned to Maria. ‘Now, we’re just going to let the men do their thing and once they’ve got their chest-beating out of their system, we can eat,’ and the princess drew Maria from the room, while his wife cast worried looks at each of the three men.
For a moment, they watched the retreating forms of the two women, and then returned their attention to each other. Finally deciding to get this over with, Matthieu gestured for them to continue, to which Sebastian simply raised an eyebrow and Theo simply sighed.
‘So, Montcour—’
‘It’s perhaps a little late to be asking about my intentions,’ Matthieu cut in. He might be respectful of Sebastian’s position, but that didn’t change a lifetime of being in control and in charge.
‘And there I was, going to ask you if you wanted a drink. But that’s fine,’ Sebastian replied with an insincere shoulder shrug. ‘We can get straight to business. Your reputation, whilst discreet, is colourful.’
‘And yours, while quite shockingly public, is perhaps a little obvious,’ Matthieu shot back. Before coming here, he had most definitely done his research.
‘Obvious?’ Seb said, as if outraged.
Theo made a face to suggest that there might have been something in what Matthieu was implying.
Seb must have caught it. ‘I don’t know what you’re so smug about, TT.’
Theo simply grinned back at his friend.
‘I think we can all agree that our reputations before have little bearing on now,’ Matthieu said.
‘Absolutely not. You have married my sister!’
‘Yes.’
‘And she’s pregnant!’
‘Yes,’ Matthieu said again, his tone almost bored. ‘These are undeniable facts.’
Sebastian scowled. ‘I take it there wasn’t a pre-nup, given the hastiness of the wedding that ensured Maria’s family and friends would not attend.’
‘That was Maria’s decision,’ he replied, refusing to allow the sting of guilt and the righteousness of Sebastian’s ire to penetrate his thoughts.
‘The pre-nup or the wedding guests?’
Sidestepping the answer, Matthieu pressed on. ‘Maria is entitled to everything I have.’
‘Everything?’ Theo queried.
Matthieu shrugged. ‘All seven point four billion dollars of it, should she want it.’
Even Sebastian looked begrudgingly impressed.
‘Is it in writing?’ he demanded.
‘It is with my lawyers.’
Seb glanced at Theo, who shrugged.
‘For Maria, it’s not about money.’
‘Yes,’ Matthieu agreed. ‘I’ve realised that.’
‘Her life, her childhood, it wasn’t easy.’ Sebastian bit out the words through a jaw so clenched Matthieu feared for his dentist. ‘I... I tried to provide what her—our—father was unable to. Montcour—she is exclusively the only thing in this world I care for. And if you hurt her, I swear to God—’
‘You will be entitled to take whatever form of revenge you deem fit,’ Matthieu said easily and sincerely. ‘Truly.’
Sebastian narrowed his eyes as if trying to work out what Matthieu’s game was.
‘I mean it.’
He cocked his head to one side. ‘Maria may come across as spirited and independent, but there is a softness to her that people like us can so easily crush.’ Matthieu frowned at the description, an action that Seb caught. ‘You disagree?’
‘When I think of Maria I don’t see softness, I see strength. Determination. She is fierce when challenged and quick with her laughter and her generosity. She is truly unique and very much a credit to the Rohan de Luen name.’
‘Don’t think to win me over with compliments, Montcour.’
‘I have neither the inclination nor the desire to do so,’ Matthieu pressed on. ‘No offence, but you matter very little to me. All that does is Maria. She clearly wants the two—three,’ he said acknowledging the importance of Theo in her family unit, ‘of us to get on. I’m sure that we can manage to be civil.’
‘There will be nothing civil about me if you break her heart,’ Sebastian warned.
‘As I said. That I understand and respect. I’d expect nothing less from my wife’s brother.’
A gentle knock interrupted the conversation. Sofia stepped over the threshold.
‘Lunch will be about twenty minutes, and, Matthieu, you can find Maria in the room on the second floor, third door on the left. I believe that you’ve all had enough manticulating for now. If not, then perhaps it could resume after dessert?’
Matthieu couldn’t help but smile at the sweetly intoned speech Sofia had just delivered and, casting a last look at Sebastian and Theo, went in search of Maria.
* * *
Maria was in the room she stayed in when visiting with Sebastian. The last time she’d been here was nearly a year ago celebrating the end of her degree, which...now felt like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then, she couldn’t help but think as she smoothed a hand over a belly that contained a child. Their child.
The room was large, soft and warm, but oddly she found herself comparing it to the stark but beautiful estate on the edge of Lake Lucerne. Maria had lived in many places over the years, always reluctant to see any of them as a home, after their exile from Spain, but that was exactly how she’d begun to see Matthieu’s estate. Her home.
Over by the far wall were the ten boxes she’d shipped here before she went to marry Matthieu. And oddly she found herself half hesitant, half urgent, to riffle through her jewellery equipment and materials.
She was just about to cross the room when she heard a knock on the door. Turning, she called for Matthieu to enter. She knew it was him, felt it on her skin, in the air, as if somehow she had become so attuned to his presence, she just
...knew.
‘Hi,’ he said as he stepped into the room, taking it all in with one expansive gaze, before finally settling back on her. It gave her the time to assess for any physical damage.
‘So it didn’t descend into fisticuffs, then?’ she asked, half afraid of the answer.
‘Why would it have? I can be charming, you know.’
‘It wasn’t you I was worried about.’
‘They are both perfectly intact, I assure you.’
Maria couldn’t help but smile, only to follow the return of his gaze to the boxes lining the far wall. She turned back to look at them too. The sum total of her life in London.
‘What are in those boxes?’
‘Mostly equipment and materials.’
‘You sent them here?’
Rather than bring them with you?
The implied question rang in the air like the vibrations of a bell tolled.
She walked over to one of the boxes and peeked into the depths where the tape had come away. She couldn’t help but smile as she peeled back the tape a little more and slipped her hand inside to retrieve the spool of silver threading. She ran her hand over it, caressing it like a long-lost friend. Only now did she realise how much she had missed her time in the studio space she had rented in Bermondsey. The busy hum of others as they worked around her, each person lost in their own imagination, bent on creating reality from dreams.
‘I didn’t want to look as if I was moving in and taking over,’ she replied, the lie falling heavily even to her own ears.
She felt Matthieu move across the room behind her, the heat from his body warming the cool that had descended over her. Using that heat, feeding off it, she went to the small lock box of finished pieces that she had packed shortly after returning to London after their first meeting in Switzerland when she had told him about their baby.
Opening it, she removed one of the pieces from the clear plastic bag and unwrapped the soft tissue paper carefully protecting it. It was a ring—the last piece she had made before discovering she was pregnant. This was the first piece she had made since the exhibition that wasn’t a commission. That wasn’t for someone else. This one had been for her.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Matthieu said quietly and with some reverence.
‘Thank you.’ Pride gently shimmered through her words. A small pearl sat within a swirl of beaten gold, sweeping up around the orb like a wave, as if on the brink of concealing the beautiful natural formation. She had always been fascinated by the concentric layering of pearls... How something so stunning was formed through layers and layers of calcium carbonate surrounding what was once an irritant to the small mollusc that created it. This pearl hadn’t been considered perfect enough to be classed as a gemstone, but it was no less precious to her.
‘Do you miss it?’
‘Yes and no,’ she replied honestly. ‘Coming home from Iondorra, after... Theo and Sofia, after you... I was determined to forge a “new me”,’ she said slightly ironically. ‘To put aside the childish fantasies I had hidden behind for years. That night...it was so much for me,’ she said, turning back to Matthieu. ‘I realised so many things. Like how I’d been hiding behind an infatuation with an idea of someone, when in truth the reality of you was so...overwhelming. And how much I had allowed my brother to protect me from the harsh realities of life. And while that was fine, it felt as if I’d also been protected from other experiences.
‘Before I discovered I was pregnant, I threw myself into a lot of commissioned work—many of which had come from my first exhibition. I was almost feverish in the determination to make this “work” pay, to provide security for myself, to become independent from Sebastian, from anyone really.’
She paused, now thinking of the way her imagination had unfurled in the last few months. The way that her self-imposed hiatus from jewellery had, in a way, fed her starved creativity, which had diminished since she’d accepted more commissions after her show.
‘Thinking of it now, I was running before I could walk. I was overwhelmed by how wonderful it was that people wanted my work, but somehow sacrificed some of my self in the process. I think I lost a little of that—was certainly at risk of morphing into the extreme of what I had always wanted.’
‘And what was that?’
‘I just wanted enough. Enough to get by and allow me the time and finances to pursue the pieces that I really wanted to make. And if people, customers, wanted those pieces, all the better. But I never wanted to lose the love of it—I never wanted to destroy the one thing that had given me so much pleasure and so much...company during my childhood.’
‘Company?’
‘Sorry, that sounds strange. But even as a child, I would spend hours lost in my imagination, designing pieces in my mind, trying to work out how it could be done, what materials would be best...’
‘You were lonely?’
‘A little perhaps. Seb was forced to work all hours to ensure that the family didn’t lose everything. My father and Valeria were rarely there, either locked away in a different part of Italy, or still desperately trying to cling to a lifestyle they no longer had. Meanwhile I had been thrust into a new school with a new language, which didn’t exactly form the best basis for deep and lasting friendships.’
Matthieu seemed to take that in before turning back to the ring. ‘May I?’
Maria gently pressed it into his open hand.
‘So without commissions, this is what you like to create?’
‘Yes.’ The smile returning to her lips warmed the word, warmed her deep within.
‘There is space in Lucerne for a studio if you—’
‘No,’ Maria interrupted. ‘No, that is a kind offer, but... I prefer to be around others when I work. There’s a strange but wonderful feeling when you are lost in your own world, yet surrounded by others. It feels...’
‘Less lonely?’
* * *
Matthieu silently cursed. He couldn’t help but think that he had somehow taken this bright and beautiful woman and hidden her away from the world. Dragged her back to his lair, and for a moment he feared that he might actually be harming her. Keeping her locked away from the sunlight and from the things that she needed most.
He cursed the nightmare that had somehow lifted the lid on memories he had not confronted for years. Because he knew so well, too well, how lonely a child could be. All those days, weeks and months spent in a hospital room, checked on by nurses and visited by Malcolm, but when he was alone, the silence had wrapped around him and become deafening.
A silence that had carried on in his life until... Until Maria.
Matthieu bit back another curse. Even as Maria spoke of the need for company, to be surrounded by people and life, all he wanted to do was take her back to Lucerne and surround her with himself. To protect her, hide her away from the world where she only knew him. The beast began to stir in his breast again, roaring mine. As if his heart had recognised her as his and only his, the world outside be damned.
And that, above all things, scared him the most. Because he had worked so hard, for so many years, to ensure that he was never bound in such a way to another person. And now that he was...
Matthieu pushed aside the thought that had grown thorns and threatened to bloom into his mind. He looked at Maria, lost in her own thoughts as she caressed the spun silver in her hands, and purposefully unfurled his clenched hand to reveal the ring she had made before she had come to live with him.
‘It doesn’t have to be that way any more, Maria,’ he said, no longer sure if he was talking about her loneliness or his past.
‘It doesn’t feel as if it is,’ she said, her hand once again sweeping over the outline of their child. Her eyes held a ring of truth, shining within them, offering, rather than asking for, assurance. An assurance he suddenly wanted to turn from. Because his wife was upsetting everything he t
hought about his life. Every natural instinct to turn around and retreat, to close himself off from the world just as he was beginning to hope. To hope for something more than the constraints he’d put on his heart the night of the fire.
* * *
‘You can stay, Maria, if you need—or want,’ Sebastian said, sweeping her up in his arms to say goodbye even as his words contradicted his actions. She smiled, relishing the comfort and more that her brother offered.
The meal had been delicious—Matthieu keeping to his promise to eat everything she chose for herself, making her smile and the men at the table sceptical. Although the conversation had been a little slow to start, Sofia and Maria making the most of it, both her husband and her brother had soon relaxed into the gentle, teasing tone that had descended. And it had felt glorious to Maria, who had been so worried at the thought of any kind of confrontation. She had been so grateful to Sofia, who had completely put aside her faux pas from the night of the gala in Iondorra, and now when Maria looked at Theo she marvelled at how deeply wrongly she had interpreted not only their relationship but her own feelings for him. Joy rose within her chest as she thought now of how they had found happiness together...the same kind of happiness she had found with Matthieu perhaps? She couldn’t help but cast her mind into a future where she and her husband surrounded a beautiful child, with dark wayward curls and devastating honey-green eyes, with love and happiness. Some long-distant sunlit future, the thought of which filled her with inescapable joy.
‘That’s okay. I’m good, really, Seb. I am.’ And she felt it too. Somehow talking to Matthieu, sharing something of herself with him had forged a connection deep within her. Unaccountably she felt overwhelmed by emotion. As if being reunited with her things had triggered something—and not just the idea that had sparked in her mind the moment she’d seen her equipment and materials. The urge to create something for Matthieu, something that would potentially mean so much to him. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she wanted to give something back to him. Because in a way, that was what he had done for her. Bringing her here, to see her brother, to stand beside her. She had shrugged into the safety he had offered her. The future.