Husband By Necessity

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘Ah, you’re a nurse?’

  ‘I’m a doctor,’ Angie said, slightly nettled at his assumption.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said hastily. ‘Sicily is still a little old-fashioned in some respects.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  They walked side by side for a few minutes. ‘Are you annoyed with me?’ he asked at last.

  ‘No,’ she said too quickly.

  ‘I think you are. Try not to be. I spend my life in the mountains where people still hark back to an earlier age. To you, perhaps, we would appear rough and uncivilised.’

  He didn’t smile, but there was a gentleness in his manner that won her over. Her curiosity about him was growing.

  ‘I’m not annoyed,’ she said. ‘It was silly of me to make a fuss about nothing. I was telling you about Heather. We got to know and like each other, and eventually moved in together. We’ve shared a home for several years now.’

  ‘Can you tell me something about her? She’s so different from-that is, Lorenzo-’ He stopped in some confusion.

  It was odd, she thought, that this man from a wealthy background should seem so shy and ill at ease. Whatever else he might be, he wasn’t a smooth-tongued charmer, and she liked him better for it.

  ‘Lorenzo has played the field with ladies of easy virtue and you’re wondering what Heather is like,’ she supplied cheerfully.

  Bernardo coloured and pulled himself together. ‘Since Renato approves of her I know she’s not a lady of easy virtue,’ he said hastily. ‘He speaks of her in the highest terms.’

  ‘She doesn’t speak of him in the highest terms,’ Angie said darkly. ‘She says he behaved outrageously.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard the story about that evening. I think those two will always be at odds, with Lorenzo in the middle, being pulled each way.’

  ‘I’m interested to meet Renato. What’s he like?’

  ‘He’s the head of the family,’ Bernardo said with a hint of austerity in his tone.

  ‘And that really means something here, I guess.’

  ‘Doesn’t it mean something in your country?’

  ‘Not really,’ Angie said, considering. ‘Of course, we all respect my father, but that’s because he’s been a doctor for forty years and helped thousands of people.’

  ‘Is that why you became a doctor too?’

  ‘We all did, my two brothers and me. And my mother was a doctor when she was alive. She died while I was still doing my training.’

  ‘Then your parents founded a dynasty.’

  Angie laughed. ‘I wish Dad could hear you. He never encouraged us to follow his footsteps. I remember him saying, “Whatever you do, don’t go into medicine. It’s a dog’s life and you won’t get any sleep for years.” Of course, we all did. But I must tell you-’ she eyed Bernardo mischievously, ‘that in England a man doesn’t get respect just for being a man. In fact-’

  ‘Go on,’ Bernardo said with a smile far back in his dark eyes. ‘You are longing to say something that will be “one in the eye” for me.’

  ‘When I took my medical exams, it was a point of honour with me to get higher marks than either of my brothers. I did too.’ She giggled as gleefully as a child. ‘They were so mad.’

  The smile had reached Bernardo’s mouth. He was regarding her with delight. ‘And your Papa?’

  ‘Before the exams he said, “Go for it!” and afterwards he said, “Good on you!”’

  ‘And what did your brothers say?’

  ‘Before or after they’d put arsenic in my soup? They just doubled up with laughter at the thought of what I had in front of me.’

  ‘And what was that?’

  ‘Four years of post-graduate work. General medicine, general surgery, accident and emergency, obstetrics, gynaecology, paediatrics, psychiatry and general practice.’

  ‘It sounds terrible,’ Bernardo said, half laughing, half frowning.

  ‘It was. I think it’s made as nightmarish as possible to discourage the weaklings. But I’m no weakling. Look at that.’ She clenched her fist and bent her arm in a ‘Mr Muscleman’ pose.

  Bernardo laid tentative fingers on the barely perceptible bulge. ‘I’m terrified,’ he said with a smile. ‘All these qualifications, and you’re only-’ he regarded her warily. He’d been going to say ‘only a little girl’ but decided hastily against it.

  ‘I’m twenty-eight years old,’ she declared, ‘and a lot tougher than I look.’

  ‘You could scarcely be less,’ Bernardo observed, with an admiring glance at her fairy figure.

  She laughed and ran a few steps ahead of him to where the path vanished into a tunnel of trees, and turned, skipping backwards, teasing him. As holiday romances went, this one showed signs of going very well. He didn’t run after her as another man might have done, but simply held out his hand, watching her, until she stopped skipping and laid her fingers lightly in his palm.

  Hand in hand they strolled among the trees, while a sense of enchantment crept over her. It was nothing he said or did. He wasn’t the most handsome man in the world. He wasn’t even the most handsome man she’d romanced, but his looks pleased her deeply. The smile that had started at the airport was growing by the minute.

  ‘I think this garden is wonderful,’ she sighed, gazing around her.

  ‘Yes, it’s perfect,’ he agreed.

  A touch of constraint in his voice made her look at him quickly. ‘But you don’t like it?’

  ‘I’m-not comfortable with perfection,’ he said after a moment. ‘For me, it is too precise. A man cannot feel free in a place like this.’ He checked himself abruptly and gave a polite smile.

  ‘Where can he feel free?’ she asked, her interest growing every moment.

  ‘When he’s up high among the birds, where the golden eagles fly so close that it feels as though he’s their brother.’

  ‘Golden eagles?’ she echoed eagerly. ‘Where?’

  ‘In my home in the mountains. I come here very little. My real home is Montedoro.’

  ‘Let me see-monte means a mountain, and “oro” is gold. Is that right?’

  ‘You know Italian?’

  ‘My mother’s sister married an Italian. When I was a child we visited them every summer.’

  ‘And you are right. It is “mountain of gold”.’

  ‘Because of the golden eagles?’

  ‘Partly. But also because it’s the first place the sun touches at dawn, and the last place it leaves at sunset. It’s the most beautiful place on earth.’

  ‘It sounds like it,’ Angie said wistfully.

  He gave her a curious look. ‘Would you-?’ He broke off with a grunt of embarrassed laughter. ‘That is, I wonder if-?’

  ‘Yes?’ she encouraged him.

  Bernardo drew a deep breath while Angie waited eagerly for what she was sure he was going to say.

  ‘Hey-Bernardo.’

  He came back to himself with a start. Angie had the strangest feeling of waking from a dream. And there was Lorenzo, coming along the path, hailing them. ‘Time to get ready for dinner,’ he called.

  As Angie returned to the house with the two of them she was disappointed but not discouraged. Bernardo wanted to show her his home, she was certain of it, and she was every moment growing more eager to learn all about him. The evening lay ahead, and if she couldn’t tempt that invitation out of him, she was losing her touch.

  She joined Heather in their room and threw herself onto her bed, putting her hands behind her head, with a sigh of pleasure.

  ‘C.H. or S.A?’

  ‘S.A.,’ Angie said happily. ‘Definitely S.A.’

  Heather looked alarmed. ‘You be careful!’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Angie said innocently.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do. I’ve seen you when you’ve set your heart on twisting a man around your little finger. You’ve got all the tried and tested tricks and a few you invented. But Bernardo doesn’t strike me as a man to be fooled with.’

  ‘He isn�
��t,’ Angie confirmed. ‘He’s terribly serious and thoughtful.’ She chuckled. ‘That’s why he’s going to be such a challenge.’

  ‘I give up.’

  ‘Yes, do, darling. I’m beyond redemption.’

  For dinner she wore a dress of blues and greens in the kind of glowing shades that belonged on a peacock. Many blondes couldn’t have got away with it, but Angie looked like a star. She wondered if Bernardo would think so.

  She had her answer as she descended the great stairway a little behind Heather, and had the satisfaction of seeing Bernardo look right past the bride, the official guest of honour, to seek out herself. There was even more satisfaction in the subtle change that came over him at the sight of her. He became more alive, every inch of him responding to her as intensely as she was responding to him. She felt a tingle of happy expectancy deep inside as he took her hand and began to take her around his friends and family, introducing her.

  Now that she had a chance to study Lorenzo more closely she realised how delightful he was, and she could understand her serious minded friend being bowled over by him. Perhaps he was a touch immature, but his looks and charm were both overwhelming, and no doubt he would soon grow up.

  But she couldn’t warm to Renato, who struck her as an unpleasant, cynical man, harsh and overbearing. He was tall and splendidly built, but although there was no doubt about his physical attractions, and he greeted her pleasantly, she disliked him, and she could see that her friend was going to have to fight him some time soon.

  There were two long tables, each seating thirty. The Martellis were the great family of the area, and the wedding was the event of the year. Baptista headed one table, with the bride and groom. Renato and Bernardo headed the other. Renato was an accomplished host, but Bernardo gave most of his attention to the lady by his side. Perhaps this was fair, as, being English, she needed to have Sicilian cuisine explained to her.

  ‘Bean fritters?’ he offered. ‘Or perhaps you would prefer stuffed rice ball fritters, or orange salad?’

  ‘That’s just one course?’ Angie asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Certainly. The next course is the rice and pasta dishes, pasta with cauliflower, sardines-’

  ‘Yum, yum. Lead me to it.’

  Like many petite women Angie could eat like a starved lion without gaining an ounce. This she proceeded to do, to Bernardo’s delight. He watched entranced as she demolished a dish of rabbit in sweet and sour sauce, then pressed her to fried pastries with ricotta cheese, which she accepted with relish.

  ‘I have never seen a woman eat like you,’ he said admiringly. Then horrified realisation dawned, ‘No, I didn’t mean it like that! I meant-’ He stopped, for Angie was convulsed. Her laughter had a rich, resonant quality that made him smile. He felt his embarrassment evaporate. She understood, and everything was all right. Of course it was.

  ‘I’m an awkward clod,’ he said. ‘I never know the right thing to say.’

  She made a face. ‘Who wants to be saying the right thing all the time? It’s more interesting if people say what they really mean.’

  ‘Some of the things I say and mean disconcert people,’ he admitted ruefully.

  ‘I can imagine.’

  The meal was ending, the guests were rising from the table and splitting into groups. Bernardo drew her aside, oblivious to his duties to the other guests. Nor was he the only brother being a poor host. Renato had just returned after twice leaving the table to take a phone call. Bernardo saw her looking in his direction.

  ‘Renato is the Worker of the family and Lorenzo the Charmer,’ he said.

  ‘And what are you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.

  He took two glasses from a passing waiter, handed one to her and led the way through a small side door. He hadn’t asked if she wanted to draw apart with him, but there had been no need. Angie slipped her hand in his and went gladly.

  Away from the dining room the house was quiet. Their feet clicked softly against the floor tiles and the sound echoed in the gloom.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ Angie asked.

  He looked surprised. ‘Nowhere. I just wanted to be alone with you. Is that all right?’

  She smiled, liking his awkward bluntness better than the smooth charm of the men she knew. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s all right.’

  He showed her over the vast magnificence of the house, with its great windows that gave onto glorious views no matter which side they faced, its long tapestry hung corridors, and ornate rooms.

  ‘This is the picture gallery,’ he said, showing her into a long room, hung with portraits. ‘That was Vincente, my father,’ he said, indicating a portrait nearest the door. ‘The one next to him was his father, then his brother, and so on.’

  There were too many faces to take in all at once, but Angie’s attention was held by a small picture, almost lost among the others, showing a man dressed in eighteenth-century style, with a sharp, wary face, regarding the world with suspicion.

  ‘Lodovico Martelli,’ Bernardo told her. ‘About ten generations back.’

  ‘But it’s you,’ she said in wonder.

  ‘There’s a slight resemblance,’ he conceded.

  ‘Slight, nothing. It’s you to the life. You’re a true Martelli.’

  ‘In some ways,’ he said after a moment.

  She couldn’t pursue the subject, because she remembered just in time that what she knew of his situation didn’t come from him.

  They strolled out onto the terrace. Night had fallen, and in the velvety blackness the only lights came from the house behind them.

  He was bound to kiss her now, she thought, and she found she was longing for it to happen. He was different from all other men, and his kisses would be different too. Through the few inches that separated them she could feel him trembling.

  Then he did something that left her completely taken aback. Slowly he took her hand in his two hands, raised it, and laid it gently against his cheek.

  ‘Perhaps-’ he said, and seemed unable to continue.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Perhaps-we should be getting back to the others. I’m being a very bad host.’

  With another man she would have said, I think you’re being the perfect host, in a teasing voice and a smile that would tell him she was interested. But the flirtatious banter died on her lips. Somehow, with Bernardo, the words wouldn’t get themselves said.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she said. ‘We ought to go back.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  B ERNARDO’S dream was always the same. The young boy was alone in the house, waiting for the return of his mother. The boy was himself, but he could stand aside and watch him, knowing everything he was thinking and feeling as the darkness fell and the knock on the door told him that the world had changed forever. His mother would never return. She lay dead at the bottom of the mountain, trapped with his father in the smashed wreck of a car.

  Like a slide show the scene changed. The boy was there again, fighting back the tears over his mother’s body, making frantic, grief-stricken promises, to protect her memory, to honour her forever. For her neighbours had called her prostituta, and the fact that her lover had been a great man made no real difference, except on the surface. They’d deferred to her, because otherwise Vincente Martelli would have made them suffer. But she was still a prostituta.

  He’d known, and he’d sworn to erase that stain, to become a strong man like his father and force them to respect her memory. But he’d had to break his promises almost at once.

  A different scene. Himself, hiding in the darkness of his mother’s house while the argument raged about what to do with him, for he was only twelve, too young to live alone, and the house now belonged to his dead father’s family. There’d been talk of an institution. He was a bastardo. He had no rights and no name.

  Another knock on the door, and the world changed again. Outside stood a beautiful, frail woman in her forties. Signora Baptista Martelli, his father
’s betrayed wife, who must surely hate him. But she only smiled sadly and said she had come to take him home.

  He’d wept then, to his eternal shame, for he considered himself too old for weeping. But the sobs had devastated him, making it impossible to explain that this was his home and he wanted no other. Having started, he couldn’t stop. He wept for days, and all the while everything he loved and valued was taken away from him, and the wealthy Martellis swallowed him up, a helpless prisoner.

  It was at this point in the dream that Bernardo always awoke to find his pillow wet and his body shaking. He would be in his room at the Residenza, for the nightmare came to him nowhere else. It stripped away the twenty years that had passed since, making him a grieving, helpless child again, instead of the hard, confident man that the world saw.

  He pulled on some jeans and went, bare-chested, out onto the small balcony outside his window. The cool night air awoke him properly and he stood holding onto the rail, feeling the distress fade until he could cope with it again.

  Tomorrow he would leave this place and return to his home in the mountains, among his mother’s people, where he belonged. He would come back in time for the wedding.

  Below he could see the broad terrace. A flicker of white curtain caught his eye and he knew it came from the room where the bride and her companion slept. He wished he hadn’t thought of that, for it seemed to bring Angie there before him, teasing as nobody had ever teased him before, bringing warmth to his hard, joyless life.

  So strong was the vision that when he heard her soft laughter floating up he didn’t at first realise that she was really there. But then a very real, human voice said, ‘Psst!’ and he looked down to see her sitting on the stone ledge of the terrace, gazing impishly up at him.

  He was a man of few social graces. His brothers would have appreciated the audience, Renato with cynical speculation, Lorenzo with amused relish. Bernardo tensed, affronted at being looked at when he was unaware, and horribly conscious of his bare chest. But then he noticed how the moonlight picked out her slender legs, and the way her hair was fluffed up as though she’d only just risen from bed, and he thought-he was almost sure-that beneath her short robe she had nothing on.