The Italians: Angelo, Rocco & Stefano: Wife in the Shadows / A Dangerous Infatuation / The Italian's Blushing Gardener

The courtyard, at the rear of the palazzo was only small but pleasantly shaded by a lemon tree. The ideal setting, he supposed cynically, for such an encounter.

Elena, he saw, was sitting on the broad stone rim of the goldfish pond, her head bent, trailing her fingers through the water.

When Massimo announced him, she got to her feet in one hasty, almost clumsy movement, and Angelo realised that his own tensions at the coming interview were shared, if not exceeded.

At the same time, he saw that she was even paler than usual, her eyes shadowed and her lips pressed together as if to stop them trembling. She was more than tense, he thought with a jolt of shock. She was actually scared, and suddenly the wave of simmering resentment that had carried him here ebbed a little under the need to reassure her.

To explain, as well as he could, that the union being proposed between them would not include any of the usual physical obligations of being his wife. In fact, few constraints at all, if he could only make her believe him. And that she would spend their time together in all the comfort she could wish.

He walked slowly towards her, halting at what he hoped was a safe distance, unwilling to intimidate her further.

He said quietly, ‘Buona sera, Elena. Come sta?’ He paused, and when she made no reply, continued, ‘I think you have been told why I am here.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was husky, her hands curling into fists in the folds of her very ordinary navy skirt. The plain white shirt she wore with it demonstrated she had not thought it necessary to adorn herself for the occasion, he thought sardonically.

She went on quickly, ‘And I need you to know that I—can’t. That what you ask is—quite impossible.’

‘But you do not yet know what I want.’ He kept his voice gentle. ‘And that is what I wish to discuss with you now—alone and privately. An arrangement between the two of us that no-one else will hear of. Are you willing at least to listen to me?’

‘There’s no point.’ She shook her head. ‘I—I have to stop it now while I still can. They may have made you ask me, but they can’t force me to say “yes” in return. Not in this day and age. It would be—barbaric. Even Prince Damiano would have to accept that.’

He said drily, ‘I think, mia bella, that you overestimate the Prince’s degree of tolerance. He expects us to be married. Ecco, a wedding ceremony will take place.’ ‘No,’ Ellie said. ‘It can’t. I—I won’t.’ ‘There is another man in your life perhaps?’ ‘No,’ she said raggedly. ‘But that’s not the point.’ Sighing, Angelo walked over to her and sat down on the pond’s stone surround, indicating with a brief gesture that she should join him. She obeyed mutinously, maintaining a more than decorous distance between them, making him suppress a flicker of irritation.

He said, ‘Neither your wishes nor mine are the only consideration here, Elena. That is the real point, as I believed I had made clear to you.

‘I have already committed myself to serious expenditure on my company’s behalf on the basis of the financial package agreed in principle with Credito Europa. But unless you now become my wife, the package will be withdrawn and my dealings with the bank, which are already public knowledge, will be cancelled altogether with potentially disastrous results.

‘Please understand that I have no intention of allowing such a thing to happen. Galantana provides a living for too many people in these difficult times, and I will not jeopardise my company’s current success or the future of my workforce and suppliers while I have the power to avoid such a catastrophe.’

He looked at her, his mouth twisting wryly. ‘You clearly do not want me as a husband. Bene. Let me be equally frank and say that I do not desire you as a wife.

‘I suggest therefore that we regard our marriage as nothing more than a business deal—a temporary inconvenience that can be speedily concluded once Galantana’s expansion has been paid for.

‘As we shall be sharing no more than a roof, a discreet annulment can be arranged, and you will receive a generous settlement in return for your co-operation.’ He smiled at her coaxingly, willing her to soften. ‘So—what do you say?’

Stormy colour warmed her face. ‘That it’s the most flagrantly immoral idea I’ve ever heard, and you must be mad to think I’d ever agree.’

Angelo stayed silent for a moment, irritation warring with disappointment within him. She might be quiet, he thought, but she was certainly not biddable. He would have to be more direct in his approach.

‘I think madness will be waiting for us if you refuse.’ He allowed a grim note to enter his voice. ‘If the deal with Credito

Europa fails, I shall have no reason to hide the truth about that night at Largossa. I shall tell Prince Damiano about the trick your cousin Silvia played on us both, and why, and point out that there is no reason for our engagement to each other to continue. I believe you can imagine what might follow.’

He bent and picked up a pebble from the ground, then dropped it into the water.

Ellie stared down as the ripples began to spread slowly but surely, becoming wider all the time.

It did not need any great exercise of the imagination, she thought bitterly. The consequences of Silvia’s reckless behaviour had always been there, like shadows on the edge of a room. A very public divorce from Ernesto would probably be the least of it. The shadows would touch them all.

She said, ‘This is like—blackmail.’

‘Call it rather a matter of expediency.’ His voice was level. ‘If there is no marriage between us, the Barzados would no longer be silent, but rush to add their own embellishments to the existing gossip. Do you truly wish to be the centre of stories of midnight orgies at the Largossa estate, Elena? Be responsible for the damage to the Damiano reputation?’

‘No.’ She almost choked on the word. ‘Certo che no. Of course not.’

He shrugged. ‘Then it can all be quite simply avoided. There will be a wedding ceremony and, after it, life will go on much as it does now, except that you will live at my house at Vostranto.’

He ignored her faint gasp and continued, ‘It is quite large enough to accommodate us both without awkwardness. In any case, I intend to remain at my apartment in Rome during the week, so you will have little more of my company than you endure at present.’ He smiled coldly. ‘Perhaps less. And your nights you may spend alone with my goodwill. Let that be clearly understood.’ He shrugged again. ‘Then after an interval—a year, two years perhaps—we can set about dissolving the marriage, and you will be rich and free.’

As she hesitated, he added quietly, ‘Elena, I beg you to think how much we both and others have to lose if you persist in rejecting me.’ He paused. ‘Believe me, if there was another choice to be made, I would take it.’

For a long moment, dizzy with uncertainty, she stared down at the flagstones at her feet, imagining them cracking apart, herself falling through the gap helplessly into some abyss.

In a voice she barely recognised, she said, ‘You promise—you give me your word that you’ll leave me alone. That you won’t …’ She broke off in embarrassment, not knowing what to say.

‘I guarantee you will have nothing to fear from me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I think our previous encounter was enough for us both.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was small, stifled, as she tried hard not to think about those brief shocked and shocking moments, and the greater nightmare that had so swiftly followed. That still enveloped her in spite of his assurances.

And yet …

I do not desire you as a wife.

Words that were, perhaps not quite as comforting as they should have been. That—if she was totally honest—stung a little in their indication that she had somehow fallen short of a standard that was none of her making. That she had not even known was required of her.

‘So may I tell the Prince that you have consented to be my bride?’

She lifted her head and looked at him, her eyes enormous in her pale face. ‘If there is no other way, then I suppose—yes.’

His brows lifted mockingly. ‘You are graciousness itself.’

‘If you wanted a more generous reply,’ she said, ‘you should have asked a more willing lady.’

‘On the contrary, Elena,’ he said softly. ‘I think you will suit my purpose very well.’

He reached for her hand and made to raise it to his lips, but Ellie snatched it back, flushing.

‘Perhaps you’d restrict your overtures to those times when we have an audience to convince, Count.’

There was a pause, then he said courteously, ‘Just as you wish, signorina.’

But Ellie knew that in that moment’s silence she’d detected anger, like a flare of distant lightning, and even though she wrote it off as a typical male reaction to a dent in his machismo, she found the discovery oddly disturbing just the same.

They were married two weeks later at a very quiet ceremony held in the palazzo‘s private chapel.

Ellie refused outright, despite all persuasions, to wear a conventional white gown and veil, and chose instead a silken slip of a dress, high-necked and long-sleeved in a pretty shade of smoky blue.

Signora Luccino looked at it askance, but her brows lifted in open disapproval when she heard that the pressure of work currently being experienced by the bridegroom had caused the postponement of the tradition luna di miele. Indefinitely.