The Italian Count's Defiant Bride

‘I have every right,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I am your husband.’

‘You gave up any right to call yourself that on our wedding night,’ she shot back.

He took in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Alicia, in my frustration and disilluzione, I uttered words I have regretted bitterly through all the years since. If you could have witnessed my anguish when I found you gone, you would have had your revenge.’

She shrugged impatiently. ‘I wanted escape, not revenge.’

‘And threw your rings on the floor!’

‘Better than having theft added to my sins,’ she retorted. ‘I scrubbed myself, pulled on my old clothes and ran off via the service lift with my back pack, desperate to get away before you came back.’

‘You had no thought that I would be demented, thinking of you alone in Paris?’ Francesco’s jaw tightened. ‘I was such an ogre, Alicia?’

She shrugged. ‘If not an ogre, you were nothing like the man I fell in love with. Though the change had started long before then. When I arrived to stay in Montedaluca before the wedding, you were different, so preoccupied with your business affairs, that you had very little time for me. Almost from the start I began to wonder if I was making a big mistake. But I just didn’t have the courage to put a stop to all the preparations your mother had made. Afterwards I wished to God I had. You said such terrible things; I was heartbroken. But not for long,’ she added quickly. ‘My heart soon healed once I cut you out of it.’

They stared at each other in tense silence.

‘So. Tell me what happened next,’ said Francesco at last.

‘Not much. I spent a long time with Meg, pulling myself together, then I had another holiday alone with Bron in Cornwall. And then I went to college. Only not here in Cardiff, as originally planned.’

‘Because you thought I might trace you there?’

She gave a flippant little laugh. ‘Heavens no, that never occurred to me. I knew you’d rung Bron a few times to ask about me, but because you never came after me—or so I thought—I assumed you were glad to get shot of me. I transferred to the university where Megan was reading law, and I changed to economics because by then an art-history degree with a year’s study in Florence was the last thing I wanted.’ She smiled at him sardonically. ‘You wouldn’t have recognised the convent schoolgirl, Francesco. I was the archetypal student—with body piercing, bare midriff even in the dead of winter, and skirts so short they terrified my mother. I dyed multi-coloured streaks in my hair, drank beer in the union with the rugby team, and partied like mad.’

He sat very still, his eyes locked with hers. ‘You held me responsible for this?’

Alicia nodded vehemently. ‘Of course I did. But after a while Bron read the riot act, and told me I was worrying Megan so much her work was suffering, which meant her parents were worried too. So I put you out of my mind, cut the partying and got down to work myself.’

‘And in time my pride would no longer allow me to continue pleading with Signora Cross for news of you,’ Francesco said bitterly. ‘She is a very strong lady.’

‘Life has shaped her that way.’

‘She has never told you more about your father?’

‘No.’ Suddenly Alicia could take no more. ‘Enough of this, Francesco. Would you please go now?’

He got up at once. ‘Va bene. But I will take you to lunch tomorrow.’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m having lunch with Megan.’

‘Then I shall come here in the evening.’ His eyes locked on hers. ‘Make very sure you are here, Alicia. I will not return to Montedaluca until the problem is resolved.’

‘Oh, very well,’ she said wearily. ‘But come after dinner, please.’ No way was she going to prepare a meal for him. ‘Do you want to ring for a taxi?’

‘No.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I will relieve you of my unwanted company immediately. A domani.’

‘Goodnight.’ Well aware that she’d offended him, Alicia saw him to the door. She locked up and turned out the lights, and with a grateful sigh made for her bedroom, suddenly so tired it was a struggle to go through her usual routine before she crawled into bed.

An hour later she gave up all idea of sleeping and got up again, cursing Francesco for spoiling what should have been a wonderful day. Wales had beaten Italy—which for her was a particularly personal triumph—and the party she’d organised had been a success, except for the presence of Francesco da Luca. She should have been on cloud nine. Alicia sighed irritably, made some tea, propped up the pillows on her bed and sat upright against them, unable to get the da Lucas’ visit to her mother out of her mind. In the morning she would ring Bron to get her side of the story before Francesco returned tomorrow night. Bronwen Cross had obviously not wanted her daughter to go back to her bridegroom.

But Alicia felt no animosity towards her mother, who early on in life had learned to make her own way. Bronwen Cross’s father had died when she was twelve, and her mother a relatively short time later during Bron’s first year at Cardiff University. At the time the newly-orphaned Bronwen was lodging in the home of Huw and Eira Davies in a room in the attic flat they let out to students to help pay the mortgage on their Victorian town house.

Huw Davies was a solicitor, and in spite of the long hours he worked in his aim to achieve partnership in his firm he was a godsend to his grieving young lodger in sorting out the legalities after the death of her mother. In exchange Bron looked after his young son, Gareth, during Eira’s trips to the ante-natal clinic at nearby Glossop Terrace, the hospital where the second Davies baby would soon be born.