His Reluctant Bride

by Sara Craven

  Teodoro set the tray on a side-table, and offered the contessa a deferential arm which she ignored, walking slowly and stiffly to the door. Where she turned.

  ‘You will be sorry for this.’ Her tone sounded almost conversational. ‘In the past I have argued against Emilio’s wish to have the inquiry into Bianca’s death reopened. But no longer. This time, marchese, you will appear and answer for what you did. And your loyal accomplice, Giacomo Raboni, will be made to tell all he knows—in public. Emilio will see to that.’

  Another lightning flash lit up the room. In its momentary glare, Sandro’s face looked carved from granite, the scar livid against his cheek.

  He said, ‘If he hopes to buy Giacomo, he is wasting his time.’

  The contessa shrugged. ‘Everyone has their price, my dear cousin,’ she said softly. She sent Polly a malevolent glance. ‘Including, if you remember, the little gold-digger you call your wife. Where will she be, I wonder, when you come out of jail?’

  Teodoro, his face rigid with shock, seemed to grow another six inches in height. He took the contessa’s arm without gentleness and hustled her from the room.

  The thunder roared again, and rain began to fall, huge, heavy drops beating a tattoo on the terrace, and hurling themselves in gusts against the window.

  Polly sank down on one of the sofas, because her legs would no longer support her. Resting her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands and waited for the shaking to stop.

  Eventually she became aware that Sandro had come to sit beside her, and she raised her head and looked at him.

  She said in a small, quiet voice, ‘That was so—terrible.’

  ‘I am sorry, Paola.’ He spoke gently. ‘You should not have had to endure that. I did not realise she was so near the edge.’ His hand covered hers and she realised he was trembling a little too.

  She said on a rush, ‘I—I should go up to the nursery. Charlie may be frightened of the storm.’

  ‘In a moment,’ he said. ‘But stay with me now. We need to talk.’

  ‘Yes.’ She ran the tip of her tongue round her dry mouth. ‘I—I suppose we must.’ She paused. ‘I always knew the contessa didn’t like me,’ she said slowly. ‘But—it was more than that. It was hatred. Not just for me—but also for you.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘Until now, I only saw the bitterness, and thought I understood. When she came here twenty years ago, I think she believed that my father would eventually offer her marriage. Only he had no such intention. His relationship with my mother had brought happiness to neither, and, after her death, he was content with an occasional discreet liaison.

  ‘When Antonia saw she had nothing to hope for from him, she diverted all that fierce energy into preparing Bianca as a bride for me. Perhaps she felt her own thwarted dreams would be fulfilled by the next generation. But it was not the usual matchmaking that older women sometimes indulge in. Even as young as I was, and as careless, I sensed there was something wrong. Something obsessive—and dark. Just as I felt …’ He paused. ‘Well, that is not important. Let me say that I began to spend as little time as possible at Comadora.’

  ‘But why did your father go along with her scheme if he saw how you felt?’

  Sandro hesitated. ‘He saw marriage as a business arrangement, not a matter of emotion,’ he told her slowly. ‘Also I believe he felt guilty, so his encouragement was a form of recompense to Antonia for having disappointed her so deeply himself.’

  Polly thought of the portrait of the late marchese which hung at the top of the stairs, remembering the harsh lines of the dark face beneath the grizzled hair, the thin mouth and piercing eyes that she felt followed her as she passed. Not a man, she thought, who looked as if he ever suffered from remorse, and she repressed a shiver.

  ‘When the accident happened to Bianca, the contessa must have felt as if she’d died herself,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t blame her too harshly. Especially …’ She stopped hurriedly, aware that she’d been about to say when there are so many questions over what really happened.

  ‘Especially?’ Sandro had noticed her hesitation.

  She said, ‘Especially when you have lost someone that you love so much.’ She remembered the weeks after her return to England. The greyness of her life as one bleak day followed another. The nights she’d spent in bitter weeping, her eyes and throat raw with grief and bewilderment. Her stunned sense of isolation, caught as she was between her mother’s anger and her father’s disappointment.

  ‘She’ll feel as if she’s in an abyss,’ she went on, half to herself. ‘With no way out, and no one to turn to. Facing an eternity of emptiness.’

  Her own turning point had come when she’d felt the first faint flutter of her baby moving inside her, she realised. And from somewhere she’d found the strength to reclaim her life and sanity.

  If there hadn’t been Charlie, she thought, I could have ended up like the contessa, corroded with anger and bitterness.

  He said with faint grimness, ‘Almost you persuade me, cara, but not quite. She cannot remain here.’

  ‘But you can’t make her go,’ Polly said passionately. ‘Can’t you see she means what she says? She and Emilio will rake up everything that happened three years ago and use it against you. You know that they will.’

  He was very still suddenly. And when he moved, it was to release her hand.

  He said quietly, almost conversationally, ‘You speak, cara, as if I had something to fear. Is that what you think?’

  ‘How do I know what to think?’ The loss of the gentle clasp of his fingers round hers made her feel suddenly bereft. ‘All I hear is that the inquiry wasn’t told everything. That Rafaella’s grandfather, who found you, is sworn to secrecy. My God, you’ve just admitted as much.’ She swallowed. ‘So I have to believe you have something to hide—and that the contessa and your vile cousin will move heaven and earth to uncover it. And once these things start, who knows where they can lead?’

  ‘Clearly you imagine they could lead to prison,’ Sandro drawled. ‘Unless I decide instead to submit to blackmail. Neither option has much appeal, bella mia. And I would not be much of a man if I were to choose either of them without a fight.

  ‘But then you do not have a very high opinion of me, anyway,’ he added with a shrug. ‘Is that why you have been trying to persuade Giacomo to meet you through Rafaella? And why you have had no success?

  ‘Unfortunately for you, whenever an attempt is made to contact him, he immediately informs my lawyers, and they tell me. And that, my loving wife, is one of the other reasons I decided to make an early return, to suggest that you waste no more time on these fruitless enquiries.

  ‘But then, what does it really matter?’ He got to his feet, stretching lithely. ‘Except that I am once again the villain,’ he added mockingly. ‘But that is something I shall have to live with.’

  He paused. ‘And now I am going to shower and change,’ he went on. ‘Under the circumstances, I shall dine in the town tonight. I would not wish to spoil your appetite by forcing you to eat with a murderer.’

  ‘I never said that,’ Polly protested. ‘I never would.’

  His smile was grim. ‘But I swear it must have crossed your mind, mi adorata. And the knowledge of that might turn my stomach too.’

  As he strode to the door, she said huskily, ‘Sandro—please. I just need to know the truth.’

  ‘Truth,’ he echoed contemptuously. ‘It is just a word, Paola, like so many others. Like love, for example, and loyalty. Like honour and faith. Just words to be used and forgotten, as we will eventually forget today ever existed.’ He inclined his head curtly, and was gone.

  Polly sat staring at the closed door. She knew she should go after him, pour out all her doubts and fears—all her confused emotions. Make him listen. Make him, somehow, understand.

  He had clearly expected her to trust him without question, but how was that possible when she was still dealing with the nightmare of the past, and
his betrayal?

  We both loved him, she thought wretchedly. Both Bianca, and myself. And he wanted neither of us. The only difference is that I survived, and she didn’t. The margin is that small.

  And I still love him, no matter what he does, or what he is. And I know now that beyond logic, beyond reason, I always shall, because I can’t help myself. He’s part of me—my flesh, my blood, the pulse of my heart. Because, in spite of everything, I only feel safe with his arms around me.

  And, like the contessa, that’s a tragedy I have somehow to endure.

  She gave a long, shaking sigh. The abyss was back, it seemed, and deeper than ever. And with as little hope for escape.

  After a while she got up wearily, and went to the table where the forgotten coffee waited. It was still hot, and it provided her momentarily with the jolt she needed.

  She and Sandro might be a million miles apart, but upstairs was a child who might need her.

  When she reached the nursery she paused, taking a deep breath before she went in. If she walked into the usual wall of resentment, she wasn’t sure she could bear it.

  Dorotea was there, seated in one of the big rocking chairs that flanked the hearth, knitting busily, while opposite her sat Julie with Charlie on her lap, fast asleep.

  The older woman looked up at Polly hovering in the doorway, and her plump face creased into an equally hesitant smile.

  She got to her feet, indicating respectfully that Polly should take her seat, then signalled to Julie to transfer the little boy to his mother’s arms.

  This safely achieved, Dorotea stood for a moment, and patted Polly awkwardly on the shoulder as Charlie murmured drowsily and pushed his small round head against the familiar curve of her breast. ‘Bene,’ she said. ‘Is good now, vossignoria, sì?’

  ‘Sì,’ Polly agreed, her throat tightening. ‘This—is good.’

  Dorotea beckoned to Julie, and they both disappeared into the night nursery, leaving Polly alone with her child. Leaning back, eyes half closed, she listened to the storm retreating over the hills. Just the act of holding Charlie quietly seemed to offer a kind of peace amid the turmoil of emotions that assailed her.

  Whatever Sandro might feel about her, she told herself, whatever darkness there might be inside him, his love for Charlie was unqualified and beyond doubt, and she could cling to that. Because even if her husband never smiled at her again—never touched her—their son remained an indissoluble link between them.

  She was suddenly aware she was no longer alone, and, glancing round, saw Sandro standing in the doorway, watching her, his mouth hard, the dark brows drawn together.

  She wanted to speak, but what could she say? Tell him that as long as they were together, nothing else mattered? But they were not together, and how could they ever be, when there was so much to divide them?

  Unless you came to me now, she thought, her heart in her eyes as she looked back at him. Unless you held us—your wife, and your child. And if you would promise to try and love me a little as you love him. Then I wouldn’t care about anything else.

  Surely—surely he could feel the yearning in her, the unassuaged and aching need, and show her a little mercy—couldn’t he?

  But just as her lips pleadingly framed his name, he turned away and left as silently as he’d appeared.

  And Polly sat where she was, forcing back the tears that were bitter in her throat, because she could not allow Charlie to wake and find her crying.

  She spent a restless, unhappy night, and woke late the following morning, to the sunlight and an incongruously flawless sky.

  ‘Buongiorno, madame.’ Rafaella appeared with coffee as if on signal. ‘It is so beautiful today with no storm.’ She beamed at Polly. ‘The marchese asks if you will honour him by joining him at breakfast. And wishes you to know that Signor Molena will be there also.’

  ‘Molena?’ Polly queried, feeling the name should mean something.

  ‘His signore’s avoccato,’ Rafaella explained.

  ‘Oh,’ Polly said in a hollow voice, recalling that terrible afternoon at her mother’s house. ‘The lawyer. I—I remember.’

  ‘Sì, the lawyer.’ Rafaella said the word with care, and smiled again. ‘Today, vossignoria is to meet with my grandfather,’ she added with real excitement. ‘His excellency has said so.’

  Polly stared at her. ‘Your grandfather?’ she said slowly. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Certamente, madame.’ The girl paused. ‘Also the contessa goes with you,’ she added more hesitantly.

  ‘I see.’ Polly digested that apprehensively, not understanding at all. ‘Is she—well enough?’

  She had questioned Teodoro haltingly about the contessa’s condition the previous evening, and been told that the doctor had paid her a lengthy visit, and administered a sedative. Also that a nurse would be coming to spend the night, and that a transfer to a private clinic the next day was also being considered.

  Polly, wincing inwardly, had given him a quiet word of thanks.

  But if the contessa was well enough to go out, maybe a less rigorous solution would be found, she thought.

  She popped into the nursery on her way downstairs to kiss Charlie good morning, and wished she could have lingered there forever.

  When she finally reached the door of the sala da pranzo, she had to force herself to open the door and go in.

  ‘Good morning, cara,’ Sandro rose politely. ‘You remember Alberto, of course.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to see you again, marchesa.’ Signor Molena bowed politely, and she murmured something in reply.

  Why was he there? she wondered as she helped herself to a slice of cold ham she would never eat, and poured some coffee. Had he been summoned to tell her that her brief, ill-starred marriage was over?

  She sat pushing the meat round her plate, while the two men talked quietly, their faces slightly troubled.

  But the coffee put heart into her, and when Sandro said abruptly, ‘If you have finished breakfast, Paola, we will go,’ she was able to rise to her feet with a semblance of composure.

  There were two cars parked in front of the house, and Polly saw that the contessa was being helped into the second of them by a brisk-looking woman in a white uniform.

  The older woman looked bent and ill, and for an instant Polly quailed. Then she felt her arm taken firmly, and Sandro was guiding her towards the leading car.

  She hung back, looking up into his face, searching in vain for some sign of softening.

  ‘Sandro,’ she whispered. ‘Please—we don’t have to do this.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘we do, cara mia.’

  ‘But it’s none of my business—I see that now. And I’m sorry—so sorry to have interfered.’

  ‘It is too late to draw back,’ he told her harshly. ‘Only the truth will do for my cousin, and for you, it seems. This is what you wanted, and this is what you will get. So, andiamo. Let’s go.’

  She sat rigidly beside him in the back of the car, her hands clenched together, as Signor Molena took his place beside the chauffeur, and the cars began to move forward.

  And above the whisper of tyres on gravel, she could hear a small voice in her head repeating ‘Too late’ over and over again, and she was afraid.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE dusty road in front of them climbed steeply and endlessly. They had passed through several tiny villages where the main streets were passable by only one vehicle at a time, but all signs of habitation were now behind them.

  Polly had gone down to the town and visited the marina several times, but this was the first time she had been driven up into the mountains behind Comadora, and she was too tense to take real stock of her surroundings.

  After the rain, the air was clear, and the creamy stone of the jagged crags, heavily veined in shades of grey and green, seemed close enough to touch. It was a landscape of scrub and thorn, stabbed in places with the darkness of cedars. Above it a solitary bird wheeled, watchful and predatory.
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br />   She found she was shivering slightly, and broke the silence. ‘Is this the road to Sorrento?’

  ‘One of them.’ He did not look at her, and she could see his hand was clenched on his thigh.

  I’ve made him do this, she thought bleakly. Made him confront whatever demons are waiting in this desolate place, and he’ll never forgive me.

  They had been travelling for about ten more minutes when the chauffeur began to slow down. The car rounded a sharp bend, and Polly gasped soundlessly as she saw that immediately beyond it the ground fell away, and she was looking down into a deep gorge with a glimmer of water far below.

  They pulled over to the rough verge on the opposite side of the narrow road, and stopped.

  Sandro turned to Polly, his face expressionless. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘if you wish to see.’

  After the fuss she’d made, she thought wretchedly, she could hardly tell him it was the last thing she wanted, so she followed him out into the sunlight. In spite of the heat, she felt cold.

  Sandro’s face was rigid, the slash of the scar prominent against his dark skin. Alberto Molena came to his side, talking softly, encouragingly, and eventually he nodded curtly and they crossed the road together, and stood looking down into the depths below.

  She did not go with them. Her eyes had detected a flash further along the road, as if the sunlight was being reflected back from glass. She could see a smudge of colour too, and guessed this was the shrine that Sandro had mentioned.

  There was nothing unique about it. Polly knew that they were seen all over the Mediterranean where bad accidents had occurred. But none of the others had carried any meaning for her.

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, she went to face one of her own demons. Bianca had indeed been a beautiful girl, her face heart-shaped, and her eyes dark and dreaming. The only jarring note was struck by a set, almost hard look about the mouth, but Polly supposed she could not be blamed for that.

  Knowing the man you love feels nothing for you in return can do that to you, she thought sadly.