Husband By Necessity

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘Oh, yes, that fits!’ Angie said explosively. ‘I’ve never liked Renato. Now I think I hate them both equally.’

  ‘Darling, don’t pace about like that.’ Trying to calm her, he reached out, but she thrust him aside.

  ‘Don’t come near me,’ she warned. ‘I’m not safe. I’d like to commit murder. Pacing about is only a substitute.’

  He managed to take hold of her, trying to look into her face. She turned bitter, smouldering eyes on him and he was startled. He’d been enchanted by her dainty looks and sunny temper, and impressed by her skills when she tended the little girl. But it hadn’t occurred to him that she had a core of steel.

  ‘Don’t talk about hating,’ he begged. ‘Not you.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I’ve never hated anyone before and I don’t know how to stop. Heather’s nothing, isn’t she? Just a stranger from another country who can be treated any old way-’

  ‘That’s not fair. We’ve welcomed her, made much of her-’

  ‘And then the whole pack of you gathered together to watch her being humiliated,’ she raged.

  He tightened his grip, giving her shoulders a little shake. ‘And so the whole pack of us are tarred with the same brush?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Do you hate all of us-every one?’

  The question brought her up short. She pressed her lips together, trying to keep back tears of anger, and shook her head.

  ‘Oh, stop being so reasonable,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I’m not thinking straight or talking straight. Don’t take any notice, just-just let me go.’

  ‘Never in life,’ he said, tightening his arms and bending his head.

  At first she stiffened, too angry to be kissed. But his lips had the effect of calming anger, and he wouldn’t let her refuse. He was determined to make her forget everything but himself. ‘Don’t hate me,’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t-not you-it’s just-’ Explanations were lost in the excitement that he could induce so easily. What else mattered but this? She clung to him, caring only for the fact that they were here alone together. It seemed so long since the night he’d almost made love to her, and she’d longed for him so much. Now a sweet comfort was beginning to pervade her, as though his very touch could make the world right.

  He caressed her face gently. ‘Hush-hush-forget the others. Think only of us. I thought you looked beautiful today.’

  ‘I hoped you’d like me.’

  ‘Like? Do you think that’s all I feel for you? There’s so much to say, but I can’t say it here or now. As soon as Baptista’s better I shall return to Montedoro. I want you to come with me.’

  ‘How can I leave Heather?’

  ‘Darling, she’s strong. Let her confront the family in her own way. You can’t do it for her. Come with me to the place where we belong together, and there will be only us.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said joyfully. ‘Oh, yes…’

  ‘And perhaps when we’re there, I shall manage to say how much I love you. I wonder if there is a way. But I will try.’

  ‘Tell me now,’ Angie begged.

  ‘I am not skilled with words,’ he said humbly. ‘I can’t tell you what you are in my life, only that you are my life. You are every part of it. We’ve known each other such a little time, yet I think of you as soon as I wake up in the morning and I go to sleep holding you in my heart. You are there in my dreams. All this and more I will tell you, when we are safe in the place that I long to make our home.’

  They slipped quietly back into the house. The lights were low and there was nobody to see them as he led her, hand in hand, up the stairs to her door.

  ‘I shall stay here tonight,’ he said, ‘and we’ll leave tomorrow early. Goodnight.’ He kissed her gently, but through the gentleness she could feel the tumult inside him, matching her own.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he whispered again, and left her.

  Angie slipped into her own room and found it empty. She wondered where Heather was, and if she should go and look for her, but her friend arrived a moment later. She looked pale and drawn, but composed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Angie asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine really. I’ve been fighting with Renato.’ She sounded numb, as though all feeling had died in her.

  ‘I suppose there’s only him to fight since Lorenzo took care to get out of range,’ Angie said bitterly.

  ‘Don’t blame Lorenzo,’ Heather said unexpectedly. ‘I’ve learned a few things from Renato tonight.’ Her eyes kindled. ‘He didn’t like admitting it, but I forced it out of him.’

  ‘Admitting what?’ Angie asked.

  ‘It seems that Lorenzo tried to be honest with me days ago. That’s why he came back from Stockholm early, to tell me he was having doubts and wanted to postpone the wedding. And Renato stopped him. Can you believe that? He even told him I’d been jilted before, so of course Lorenzo felt it was his duty to go through with it.’

  ‘I could strangle Renato,’ Angie said fiercely.

  ‘Join the queue. If there’s one good thing to come out of this, it’s that I won’t have to be related to him. Oh, I can’t think about it any more tonight. I’m so tired, my mind’s shutting down.’

  ‘Will you need me tomorrow?’

  Heather smiled in quick understanding. ‘No, I’m fine. You spend the day with Bernardo.’ Heather smiled and threw her arms about her friend in a sudden burst of emotion. ‘Darling, I’m so glad for you! At least one of us is going to have a happy ending.’

  Although Angie had some qualms about leaving Heather she soon realised that Bernardo had been right when he said her friend needed to find her own way through this. For the first time she understood Heather’s inner strength. When Lorenzo crept back home she didn’t flinch from their meeting, confronting him with a cool dignity and even a touch of humour that made him ashamed. This she learned from Bernardo, who saw Lorenzo straight afterwards.

  Heather was there too when Baptista returned from hospital, much recovered. Despite what had happened the old woman still clung to her as a daughter, and refused to accept back the gift of Bella Rosaria.

  ‘They’re very alike in many ways,’ Bernardo told Angie. ‘Heather has both my brothers creeping around her on hot coals. They can’t make her out, and it puzzles them. Do them both good. I can see why Baptista likes having her here.’

  Angie and Bernardo spent as much time as they could together, growing closer, relishing the sweet understanding that was developing between them. Angie began to see why Baptista said he lived as a relatively poor man. In contrast to the armies of servants at the Residenza, he had only Stella who cleaned the house and did some, but not all of the cooking. Some meals he made for himself, and insisted on her trying them, watching with a touching anxiety until she said they were delicious. His home was frugal to the point of austerity. The only modern comfort was central heating which, he assured her, the bleak winters made vital.

  Once he’d spoken of this place as their future home, but after that he made no formal suggestion of marriage. Yet she noticed that he frequently offered these explanations, as though he felt a duty to make everything clear to her.

  She thought she understood. It wouldn’t be the comfortable life she was used to, but neither was his dwelling the bleak, impoverished hovel that he seemed determined to paint.

  Once he said, ‘I wish it was winter now and you could see for yourself how unpleasant it is-it can’t be described-’

  ‘Darling-’ she stroked his face gently ‘-there’s no need for this.’

  It made her heart ache to see how just her touch and a few words could bring him peace. She knew that he loved her, but it was his need that set the seal on it. She didn’t know what the years ahead might bring, but she was sure nothing could separate them now. They clung together, arms tightly wound around each other, exchanging warmth and reassurance.

  ‘Let’s have a picnic this afternoon,’ he said at last. ‘On a day like this, we should be out.’

/>   ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I’ll make us some snacks.’

  ‘While you’re doing that, can I use your computer to get onto the net?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll log on for you.’ He typed in his password, pulled out the chair for her and said, ‘I’ll bring you some coffee.’

  Angie called up her father’s web site and emailed him through it. Then she browsed through the site, checking out his latest updates. Dr Harvey Wendham was proud of his site, which he maintained himself, almost as proud as he was of the luxurious Harley Street clinic it advertised.

  ‘The old devil,’ she chuckled. ‘He doesn’t stint himself.’

  He was a well-known plastic surgeon whose patients included several film stars and the occasional top-ranking politician, prepared to pay over the odds for his total discretion as much as for his skill. For years he’d worked at the lower-paid end of the medical profession, ‘putting in his time’ as he called it, but now he’d struck gold and was enjoying it.

  Angie knew that he was disappointed that neither of her brothers had joined him in the clinic, and was hoping that she, his youngest child, would make good their de-ficiencies. But she’d hesitated. She had several other job offers, some attractive, some offering little more than hard work and low pay, plus a lot of satisfaction.

  Now all her plans seemed to have been made for her. She loved Bernardo and he loved her. How could she ever think of leaving him?

  ‘Coffee for la signora,’ Bernardo carolled, pushing open the door and carrying in a tray with two cups and a pot of coffee.

  ‘Oh, lovely!’ She began pouring while he looked at the screen over her shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, for he’d muttered something she didn’t understand, but which sounded both disbelieving and contemptuous.

  ‘This fellow who calls himself a doctor, when he cares nothing for the sick, only lining his own pocket.’

  ‘He’s supposed to be very good at what he does,’ Angie observed, enjoying the thought of Bernardo’s face when he learned the truth. Her father’s name wasn’t visible on-screen at the moment. She settled back to relish the joke.

  ‘And what does he do?’ Bernardo said derisively. ‘While there are people in the world with real needs, he does cosmetic surgery, to make himself money. He has a gift that comes from God, and he used it to make himself a million.’

  ‘Several million actually, but a lot of that-’

  She was about to say that much of it was given to charity but Bernardo was in full spate. ‘Several million, because he’s a man who must have money.’

  ‘He also does a lot of good,’ Angie said, beginning to be cross. ‘It’s not just film stars. It’s disfigured children. He happens to be my father, and I’ll thank you not to abuse him.’

  He looked at her strangely. ‘This man is your father?’

  Angie flicked back to a previous page, showing her father’s name: Dr Harvey Wendham, then glanced at Bernardo’s face, expecting to see him look rueful and uncomfortable. Then they could laugh together.

  But he looked as if someone had given him a savage blow over the heart.

  ‘Bernardo-what is it? You look ill.’

  ‘Nothing-nothing,’ he recovered himself quickly, and smiled. But it was a painful smile, as though he were dying inside.

  ‘What is it?’ she begged, suddenly scared.

  ‘I just hadn’t realised-that you came from a wealthy family.’

  She shrugged. ‘All right, we’re well off but-’

  ‘Your father is a multi-millionaire.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘I suppose not-it shouldn’t matter.’

  ‘No, it shouldn’t. I’m still me.’

  ‘I thought you were poor,’ he burst out. ‘You and Heather-’

  ‘Heather’s always been as poor as a church mouse.’

  ‘But you share a home.’

  ‘We’re friends. The house belongs to me. I rent her space in it because I like her company. It’s never come between us.’

  ‘And this house-it wouldn’t happen to be in the wealthiest part of London, would it?’

  ‘It’s in Mayfair, yes. So what?’

  ‘So what?’ he echoed in a shaking voice. ‘So I’ve been living in a fool’s paradise.’

  The flicker of alarm inside her was growing higher, resisting her attempts to quench it. This wasn’t something that could just be laughed aside, after all.

  ‘You don’t mean this makes a difference to us?’ she demanded, trying to keep it light. ‘Why should it? I’m not some spoilt brat. I’m a hard-working and very tough professional woman. That hasn’t changed.’

  ‘No, it hasn’t,’ he said in a voice that was just a little too decided, as though he were trying to reassure himself. ‘You are still Angie, still the woman I love. Nothing can change that. After all, it’s your father who is rich, not you.’

  She drew a slow breath and turned away, so that he shouldn’t see the indecision in her face. She ought to tell him now that her father had settled a million on her the year before, but she knew, with terrified certainty, that it would be a dangerous admission to make to this man whose face had suddenly become so aloof.

  She would tell him one day, of course she would. One day soon. But surely she could wait just a little, until he was ready to hear?

  They went on the planned picnic, smiling and talking brightly as though nothing had happened: as though pretending could undo the damage.

  He drove her down the mountain a short way, stopping at the spot where they had shared their first kiss.

  ‘This is the perfect place,’ she said. ‘Remember when we were here before?’

  She heard the unease in her own voice and knew that he’d heard it too. How futile to recall a time that had gone. Even though it was just a few days ago, that moment, with its happiness, was already far in the past.

  Their efforts to sound normal only made things worse. Something destructive had happened, but she still couldn’t make herself believe it was a serious threat to their love. What did money matter? But the churning unease inside her wouldn’t be calmed.

  They ate the picnic, determinedly cheerful. Once Angie tried to raise the dangerous subject, but he side-stepped it neatly. At last silence fell between them. Angie looked around and found saw him lying back in the grass, one hand behind his head. Smiling, she leaned over him, and saw that he was asleep.

  ‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘When you wake up it will seem better.’

  But when he awoke it wasn’t better. He looked at her with remote eyes, and she realised, with terror, that she didn’t know how to bridge the widening gap between them.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A SLEEPLESS night left her feeling no better, and when Bernardo arrived at the Residenza early something in his face told her that things were worse. He regarded her with a cold, bitter, unfriendliness that she had thought never to see from him.

  ‘I wonder when you would have told me,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Told you what?’ she asked, although her fear was rising.

  ‘Yesterday I said that it was your father who was rich, not you. Why didn’t you tell me about the million he gave you?’

  Dear God! she thought. Not like this. Please, not like this.

  ‘Because I couldn’t,’ she said desperately. ‘You were so worked up about his having money at all, I couldn’t make it worse. I would have told you, when we’d sorted this out, and you were ready to hear. How did you know?’

  ‘From the internet. I searched for your father last night. His name cropped up a good deal, especially on one site called Socialite Doctors. It had links to everything that’s ever been written about him. That’s how I found this.’ He spread out some pages on the table. ‘I printed it out.’

  With dismay she recognised an article that had appeared a few months earlier. Her father, innocently proud of his new home set in extensive leafy grounds, had taken the journalist on a guided tour of its luxurie
s.

  There was herself, described as ‘By day a dedicated doctor, by night, a girl who knows how to party.’ The picture showed her dancing a wild rumba in a revealing dress, her head thrown back in enjoyment. Enough of the background could be seen to show that this was a nightclub, the kind of place where the rich hung out, and only the very best champagne was served.

  More pictures. Herself at the wheel of the car that was her pride and joy, and that nobody living on a doctor’s salary could have afforded. And her home in the most expensive part of London.

  ‘All this time,’ he said heavily, ‘you never told me.’

  ‘I wasn’t deceiving you. It just didn’t occur to me that it was an issue.’

  ‘But you deceived me yesterday about the money your father settled on you. I wonder how long you would have concealed the truth. And how much-or how little-you would have told me.’

  ‘You make it sound as though I had something to be ashamed of,’ she said angrily. ‘I haven’t committed a crime by being rich.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. But you should have been honest with me, and not let me fool myself with dreams about making you my wife and the life we might build together.’

  ‘When should I have told you?’ she demanded indignantly. ‘The day I arrived? Maybe when we met at the airport I should have said, “Keep your distance from me because I’m too rich for you.” How could I know it would matter? You’re not exactly poor yourself.’

  ‘The Martelli family is wealthy, not me. I’ve taken from them the bare minimum I felt entitled to, and don’t live like a rich man. You know why. I can’t change that. It’s too deeply a part of me. It would be like throwing away my soul.’

  ‘And I understand that but-’

  ‘You don’t begin to understand.’ Bernardo was very pale as he added, ‘I don’t entirely understand it myself. I only know that I must live this way. I was going to beg you to marry me. It would have been a hard decision for you, because Montedoro isn’t an easy place to live. But I thought you were like myself, used to a tough life, and perhaps, with love, it might be possible.’