And that was when, at last, he took hold of her more firmly and kissed her as she had only ever dreamed of being kissed. Fiercely. Hungrily. A kiss that blazed with passion. And she found herself responding, clinging to him, gasping, tight spirals of desire twisting in her body.
‘My sweet Sofia.’
His hand was on her breast now, moving lightly, sending a rain of brightness through her. Suddenly all the fear inside her had vanished. She was filled with a bright, hot need that must be satisfied.
He was leading her towards the bed, undoing the buttons of her dress. Then he was slipping it from her shoulders, letting it slither to the floor, and quickly discarding his shirt before laying her on the coverlet.
‘You are beautiful,’ he told her, making her heart swell with happiness, for there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to please him. And she could see from the dark look in his eyes that she did. At least he desired her. That much was plain enough.
And she desired him. Every inch of her ached for him as she reached up her hand to caress his broad chest, letting her fingers slide quiveringly over the taut muscles of his shoulders, feeling the strength of him, longing for that strength to overwhelm her.
He stripped her naked, never hurrying, discarding her garments one by one, inviting her to do the same with his. And all the while he was whipping up her senses with deep, hot kisses and intimate caresses that grew ever more fiery, ever more urgent. Desire licked through her, making her limbs tremble.
‘Damiano! Oh, Damiano!’ she whispered, pressing against him. How I love you! she added silently. Please love me in return!
When the moment came he was swift and sure and gentle. As he entered her, Sofia felt a quick, sharp shaft of pain. Then it was over and he was a part of her. As she clung to him and kissed him, every inch of her was flooded with a sense of pure, exquisite joy.
And that was when she knew she would love him all her life. He was part of her now and nothing could change that and her love for him would be the glorious centre of her life.
The first couple of months were marvellously happy. He still didn’t love her, but he seemed to have grown fond of her and their sex life was wonderfully, greedily satisfying.
‘You’re going to wear me out,’ Damiano would sometimes tease her. ‘Wouldn’t you ever just like to read a book or something in bed?’
And she would laugh and tease him back, turning away from him, ‘OK. No making love tonight. I’m going to catch up on my Shakespeare.’
‘The devil you are!’ He would grab her then and kiss her as they lay there naked in the big four-poster bed. ‘You can catch up on your Shakespeare once I’ve finished with you, young lady!’ And he would take her breast in his hand, teasing the nipple. ‘Though I’m afraid that may not be for quite some time. I can tell this is going to be another long session.’
‘Is that a threat or a promise?’ She would press against him, shivering, her heart tightening with excitement as she felt him harden.
‘It’s a promise.’
‘How do you know? Maybe I don’t want a long session. Maybe I really do want to catch up on my Shakespeare.’
‘OK, then. Go ahead.’ And he would pretend to release her. But even as she clung to him and moaned in protest he would be kissing her and turning her moans of protest into breathless, excited moans of pleasure.
And Sofia would sink back against the pillows in surrender, losing herself in the cascade of sweet sensations that went tumbling over her in great drenching waves of pleasure.
The secret of their glorious sex life was really very simple. Neither of them, quite frankly, could get enough of the other.
Less than three months after their wedding, however, a second tragedy struck that rather took the edge off their happiness. Damiano’s mother died. Of a broken heart, it seemed, for she had never got over the death of her beloved husband.
Damiano was devastated. Coming so soon after the loss of his father, the loss of his mother affected him badly. And though Sofia tried to be there for him she felt inadequate, almost useless. What could a child like her offer him? She was only twenty, after all. And it seemed to her that they started to grow a little apart at that point.
There was something else too that was starting to trouble her, for Sofia had hoped she might get pregnant very quickly. She had always wanted to have lots of children; besides, Damiano needed an heir, and, more than anything, she longed to give him one. Especially now, after the tragic death of his mother, for surely it would help to ease the pain of his loss. It might also, it occurred to her, have another happy side-effect. It might bring them closer together again.
But the months went by and nothing happened and she grew more and more upset, though Damiano assured her, ‘Don’t worry. There’s no hurry. There’s plenty of time. Just put it out of your mind and, you’ll see, it’ll happen.’
But she couldn’t put it out of her mind and it didn’t happen. Suddenly she began to feel like a horrible failure.
And it was around that time that she heard the first stirrings of the rumour that Damiano was seeing Lady Fiona again.
Sofia ignored these tales. The possibility that they were true was a horror so huge that she dared not even look in its direction. Instead, she focused on Damiano. On trying to please him every way she could, in bed and out of it, desperate to make him love her. And then—miracle!—it seemed at last that the power to do so was within her grasp. Just thirteen months after their wedding, she finally became pregnant.
That was a wonderfully happy time. Damiano was ecstatic, and so sensitively caring and so gloriously proud of her. Sofia felt herself blossom. It was all going to be all right now—a fact which seemed secure when a scan showed that the child was a boy. How could he not love her now, when she was about to give him his precious heir?
During her pregnancy he made love to her with less and less frequency, though Sofia kept assuring him that the doctors had said it was all right.
‘I don’t want to take any risks. This baby is too precious,’ he told her. ‘And so are you,’ he added, kissing her. ‘Let’s just err on the side of caution.’
Very well. Sofia accepted that. There would be plenty of sex later. And she felt a thrust of perfect happiness at the thought of all the joys the future held. Soon they would be a real family with a lovely little son. It was as though the stars had dropped down from heaven and kissed her.
But then all that changed. Another wave of rumours reached her concerning Damiano and Lady Fiona. They stopped her in her tracks. She wept for days, but said nothing. And then she found proof in his waste-paper basket.
She flung it at him in fury when he returned to their apartments that evening after a day of official duties.
‘I would like you,’ she spat at him, fighting back tears, ‘to kindly explain the meaning of this!’
Damiano picked up the crumpled fax with infuriating calm. Glancing down at it, he demanded. ‘Where did you find this, if I may ask?’
‘I found it in your office waste basket! That’s where I found it!’
‘And what were you doing in my office rummaging through my waste basket?’
Sofia glared at him. The truth was that she’d been looking for evidence, praying with all her heart that she wouldn’t find it, after storming down to his office late that morning to question him about where he’d been the night before. For he hadn’t slept with her and, when she’d gone to check, she’d discovered that neither had he slept in the room along the corridor that he sometimes used these days, since the advancement of her pregnancy, claiming that when he came home late he didn’t want to disturb her. But when she’d arrived at his office to demand some answers his secretary had told her he was out on an appointment, so, in fury, she’d searched first his desk then his waste-paper basket.
But she didn’t tell him that. Instead, furiously, she told him, ‘It doesn’t matter what I was doing! All that matters is what I found! And, if you don’t mind, I’d very much like y
ou to explain it!’
Damiano said nothing for a moment and a look crossed his face that fleetingly suggested he was far from in agreement that it didn’t matter why she’d been rifling through his waste bin. But another look instantly replaced it, a look of sharp concern, as he took stock of her flushed and agitated face.
He stepped towards her. ‘Sofia, sit down,’ he told her. ‘You shouldn’t be standing there like that.’ For she was half leaning against the back of one of the armchairs, her weight awkwardly balanced, as though she might topple over.
He took hold of her arm. ‘Come on. Sit down.’
Sofia tried to push him away and very nearly did topple over. And that made her feel worse. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was like a great ungainly whale these days, now that she had reached the eighth month of her pregnancy. Not like Fiona, who was slim and svelte and sexy!
‘Leave me alone!’ she started to protest. But he had already caught firm hold of her and was lowering her, whether she liked it or not, into the safety of the armchair.
Then he sat on the arm and took her hand in his, though she clenched her fist tight and would not look at him.
‘Sofia, listen to me,’ he said. ‘This fax means nothing. It certainly doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means.’
‘Doesn’t it? “Thanks again. You were great. Best love, Fiona.”’ Sofia spat the words at him like little darts of poison. She had read it so many times she easily knew it off by heart. Then she flicked a look up at him. ‘You were with her last night, weren’t you?’
He paused for just an instant, a dark frown between his brows. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t. I spent the night out of town. I had a meeting that ran late. I slept in a hotel.’
‘In a hotel with Fiona.’
‘No. On my own.’
Sofia didn’t believe him. ‘So what does that fax mean? In what way were you great to her, if not in bed?’
Damiano gave a small sigh. ‘I gave her some advice, regarding a financial matter, earlier in the day.’ He smiled at her. ‘Don’t be so suspicious. There’s nothing going on between me and Fiona.’
But Sofia was still not convinced. ‘You’re lying,’ she told him. ‘You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? And now you’ve gone back to her. You don’t need me any more. You’ve got the heir you need. Nearly, at any rate.’ She stared down at her huge stomach and suddenly her grief and misery overwhelmed her. With a little cry of anguish she burst into tears.
‘Oh, Sofia, Sofia.’ Damiano took her in his arms then, held her close to him and did his best to comfort her. But Sofia would not be comforted. She wept till her throat ached. For though she wanted to with all her heart she could not believe his story.
Over the next few weeks until Alessandro was born Sofia’s fears continued to haunt her, in spite of the fact that Damiano was at pains to lay them to rest. For she knew what lay behind all his protestations that it was all in her head, that she was simply imagining things. He wanted to put her mind at rest because he was worried about the baby. But his protestations were a lie. He loved and was sleeping with Fiona.
For a while after the birth things got a little better and Sofia was almost able to put her fears behind her. The joy they shared at Alessandro’s arrival was so magical, so special, it seemed to cancel out all her doubts. She felt close to him again.
But not for long. Alessandro was less than three months old when the whole wretched business flared up again. First, a phone call from Lady Fiona was accidentally put through to Sofia. ‘Darling,’ she heard her say before she even had time to speak.
When Sofia told her, coldly, ‘I think you’re speaking to the wrong person,’ Fiona hurriedly put the phone down.
And it simply made her mad when she reported the incident to Damiano and he told her, ‘Don’t be silly. Fiona calls everyone darling.’
Then, shortly after that, there was the fatal Yacht Club dinner. Fiona was there, as Sofia had known she would be—a fact which had already caused angry words between her and Damiano before they had even set out from the palace—and Sofia had scarcely downed her first glass of champagne when she spotted her husband and his scarlet woman talking together at the other end of the room.
It was all perfectly open and public, of course, but it was also perfectly obvious that they were lovers. The way Fiona smiled at him and tossed her glossy dark hair. The way she would lay her hand on his sleeve, fleetingly but significantly, as she spoke to him. They might as well have advertised their shameful affair in neon lights.
That night she and Damiano had a hideous fight. Sofia had never seen him so angry.
‘I’ve had enough of being questioned about every move I make. It either stops or you and I have to make some serious changes!’ His eyes glittered with cold fury. ‘I’m warning you, Sofia. You either stop this nonsense or I’m going to stop it for you!’
‘And what is that supposed to mean?’ She felt dread lap at her heart. ‘At least have the grace to tell me what I’m being threatened with.’ And she felt like weeping and begging him to tell her it wasn’t true, that he didn’t really love Fiona, that they weren’t having an affair. For this time he hadn’t even bothered trying to convince her. This time he was the one making accusations and threats. It was as though he didn’t care any more and that frightened her to death.
But she just stood there, frozen to the spot with fear and misery, as he stormed out of the room, slamming the door.
After that, things began to go downhill pretty rapidly. And it wasn’t just Fiona they fought about any more. Every minor disagreement seemed to flare up into a fight. When she complained of feeling neglected because she saw him so rarely, for more and more he seemed to be throwing himself into his duties, instead of trying to appease her, as he used to do in the beginning, he would get angry and accuse her of being spoiled and demanding. Pretty soon it became clear that she could do nothing to please him and more and more he began to shut her out of his life. Her very presence seemed to irritate him and she was constantly on the edge of tears.
But the worst part of it was that they no longer even slept together. At the time of their final, violent confrontation—a disaster that, just to think of it, still made Sofia shiver—nearly three months had passed since they’d last even shared a bed. So, she was not too surprised when the following evening—ironically, the eve of his sister Caterina’s wedding—Damiano told her of his decision that they should lead separate lives.
‘I trust this arrangement will suit you,’ he concluded in a grim tone. ‘The present set-up is clearly as disagreeable to you as it is to me.’
There was no point in trying to argue. Sofia knew that look in his eyes. She could beg, she could plead, she could tear the hair from her head, but nothing would budge him from his decision. And so she said, with all the dignity she could muster, sounding as though she really meant it, ‘I think it will suit me perfectly. Things can’t go on this way.’ Then she added bitchily, unable to stop herself, ‘No doubt this will leave you free to spend more time with Lady Fiona?’
‘No doubt it will.’ He looked back at her without a flicker. ‘In fact, I think you can count on it,’ he assured her.
So she had her confession at last and she felt something die inside her. He’s lost to me, she thought. Lost to me for ever. And once he’d gone she walked down to the east-wing gardens, seated herself on one of the benches beside the fountain and cried in helpless anguish until she had no more tears left.
That had been five months ago and it had been a lonely, cold five months, but she hadn’t died from her misery as she had thought at first she might. Instead, to her surprise, she had found within herself a strength she had never even suspected she possessed—and she’d done it mostly for Alessandro’s sake, for she owed it to her son to be the sort of mother he deserved and not some grief-stricken wreck.
Over the months she had forced herself to erase Damiano from her mind—she would never, she had feared, succeed in erasing him from he
r heart—and in order to do that she had filled it with other things. Conscientiously, determinedly, she’d found new interests to occupy her. Like Caterina, she’d started to involve herself in charity work, an activity she soon found immensely satisfying. And she’d also become involved in supporting various branches of the arts—particularly ballet, which she’d actually trained in as a child and had always retained a special affection for. She had found that it was possible to get by with these things, that they filled up what would have been a vast gap in her life.
Then, of course, she had her beloved little Alessandro to dote on, for he had rapidly become the main focus of her existence. Her joy. Her inspiration. What put the shine on her life. And, eventually, the desperate, unbearable pain in her had eased. She would never be able to claim that she didn’t care that Damiano didn’t love her or that it didn’t matter to her that he shared another woman’s bed, but at least these things no longer obsessed her. She managed to keep them from her mind for most of the time and, when they did intrude, she’d force herself to think of something else. And so, little by little, she’d carved out a new life for herself. A safe life. A quiet life. A life without jealousy or hurt.
And now this. From the Rose Room window she stared down into the garden. Now he was threatening to turn her safe existence on its head. She felt a sick fear inside her. She mustn’t let it happen. It was far too dangerous. She had too much to lose. For if he were to force himself back into her life again, who knew what terrible effect it might have on her? She might find herself back in that dark place where she’d been before, her brave new life in shreds, all her peace of mind gone.
It was starting to grow dark, and as she stared into the garden she frowned. Where were Alessandro and Alice, his nanny? She hadn’t seen them return, though she’d been looking out for them, planning to go and join them in the nursery for a while.
The Duke's Wife Page 4