Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride

CHAPTER TWELVE

FOR a long moment Alex couldn’t move. Inwardly she was weeping. Dear Gino, so generous and affectionate, the last man she would ever want to hurt! But his face was telling her that he was stricken to the heart.

Rinaldo was sleeping with his head against her, his whole attitude that of a man who had come home to the place where he belonged. Her arms were about him in a way that would have told Gino how things were between them, even if nothing else did.

‘Gino!’ Her lips formed his name without sound.

Still he neither moved nor spoke, while his face seemed to grow paler every moment. Alex reached out a hand to him.

Then he moved, backing away to the door, his eyes, filled with bitter betrayal, fixed on his brother and the woman he loved.

Despairingly she gave Rinaldo a little shake, awaking him. When he saw his brother he tensed and gave a soft groan.

Gino had reached the door, shaking his head as though trying to deny what his eyes saw. Then he vanished.

‘Gino!’ Rinaldo shouted.

He hurled himself out of bed, pulling on his jeans and racing to the door almost in one movement. Alex sat with her head in her hands, devastated by the sudden catastrophe, torn with anguish for Gino, who didn’t deserve to be hurt like this.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Please, no! Oh, Gino, Gino!’

Huddling on her clothes she went down to where Rinaldo had caught up with Gino in the room that led to the veranda. The tall windows had been thrown open, showing the low table, and the chairs where the three of them had spent happy evenings.

Gino was striding about the room, as though his pain was something he could leave behind. He turned when he heard Alex and she was shocked by his face.

It was as though all the youth had drained out of it, leaving it haggard and joyless. He looked from one to the other.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked. ‘It wouldn’t have been difficult, would it? Hell-the way you pulled the wool over my eyes, pretending to be enemies, letting me believe what I wanted. The only thing I don’t understand is why?’

His eyes were cold and hard as he faced Alex. ‘Did it give you some sort of pleasure to lead me by the nose?’

‘I didn’t-truly I didn’t-’

‘Don’t insult my intelligence, Alex. All this time-’

‘But it isn’t all this time. You talk about Rinaldo and me pretending to be enemies, but it wasn’t a pretence. When you’ve seen us quarrelling it’s been real.’

‘So what changed?’

‘Nothing changed,’ Rinaldo said quietly. ‘What we felt for each other was there all the time, but we didn’t know it. Or maybe we suspected, and were fighting it. I resented her at first, you know I did. I didn’t want to fall in love with her, but I couldn’t help myself because she’s a wonderful-’

‘All right,’ Gino said harshly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rinaldo said. He seemed cast down in a way Alex had never seen before, and she realised that in his own way he too was devastated. He loved his brother, and it was tearing him apart to quarrel with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I just hoped you’d understand-’

‘I understand all I need to,’ Gino said.

‘Gino, listen,’ Alex begged, ‘Rinaldo hasn’t taken anything that was yours. It was always going to be him. It took us both too long to realise it, but it’s as he says. There was something there between us right from the start. All the time we were quarrelling, we were falling in love as well.’

As she spoke she’d moved forward so that she was standing directly before Gino.

‘Please,’ she said softly, ‘please believe me, I’d do anything rather than hurt you.’

‘Would you? You could have warned me.’

‘But I didn’t know how you felt. You treat love as a game, and you play it so well that that’s all it seems.’

‘It started that way,’ he agreed, ‘but then I found I was really in love with you.’

‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘If I had-I could have told you earlier that I could never love you.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Not as you want, anyway,’ she said desperately.

He nodded. ‘Not as I want,’ he repeated softly.

‘What happened at the party-I would have prevented that if I could.’

Gino made a despairing gesture. ‘So I made a fool of myself in front of our neighbours. That’s not important.’

He looked at Rinaldo. ‘I came back here tonight to find you. I wanted to speak to you, ask your advice-there’s a laugh. And I’ll tell you another thing that’s funny. The one thing I never thought of was that I’d find her in your bed.’

‘I wish that had never happened,’ Rinaldo said gravely. ‘But Alex and I love each other, and we’re going to be married. I didn’t take her from you. The choice was hers.’

Alex hadn’t thought it possible for Gino to grow paler, but suddenly his face seemed to become grey, the grey of death.

‘Be damned to the pair of you,’ he said with soft violence, and strode out.

‘Gino-!’ Alex cried, reaching for him.

‘No,’ Rinaldo stopped her following. ‘He can’t bear the sight of either of us right now. When he calms down he’ll forgive us. But right now he needs to be alone, and we should respect that.’

Bleakly she nodded and let him lead her away. Together they climbed the stairs but at the top they paused, looking at each other. Then, as if by a signal, they went their separate ways. They couldn’t be together again tonight, not in the face of Gino’s anguished condemnation.

Alex went alone in her room and after a moment she heard Rinaldo’s door close.

It seemed strange to come down in the early morning and not find Gino there. His handsome, smiling face, his clowning and his kind heart had always been part of her pleasure in Belluna.

She did love him. Not as she loved Rinaldo, with a dark, burning passion, but with the tender affection of a sister. But he wanted so much more from her that the chasm was unbridgeable.

She went out onto the veranda, hoping against hope that she would see him. But the morning was quiet.

Then her eyes fell on the chair where he always sat. The jacket he’d worn the night before was tossed down there. Alex ran her fingers over it, thinking of him putting it on before the party, slipping the ring into the pocket, planning how he would propose to her. He’d been full of young, eager love, sure of being loved in return. And it had turned to heartbreak.

There was a clatter as something fell to the floor. It was the ring he’d tried to give her. She sat down heavily and leaned her head on her hands.

After a moment she heard Rinaldo, felt his hand on her shoulder.

‘That’s how I feel too,’ he said.

They sat together for a while, just taking comfort from each other’s presence.

‘Gino’s gone away,’ he said at last. ‘His car isn’t there, and some of his clothes are missing.’

‘But he’ll come back?’ she said quickly.

‘Of course he will. We just have to be patient. Everything will work out.’

Meeting his eyes, Alex saw that he didn’t believe it any more than she.

‘All these years,’ he sighed, ‘watching him grow up, being a second father to him, and now-dear God, what have I done to him?’

‘What have we done to him?’ Alex said.

‘He’s changed. Grown up. Last night it was like talking to an old man.’ He sighed. ‘Whatever happens now, we’ll never see the Gino we knew.’

Alex forced herself to say the words that terrified her.

‘How can I stay here if it’s going to do this to him? If I go away-’

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘I can’t live without you. I won’t let you go.’

‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she whispered, ‘but-’

‘No buts. We have the right to our love. Besides, your leaving wouldn’t solve anything. Gino and I can’t turn time back to before you came, and even if I could do that, I wouldn’t.’ His voice deepened, became tender. ‘Never to have known you, loved you, to return to the half-life where you didn’t exist-I couldn’t do it.

‘Thank heavens!’ she said huskily. ‘I was so afraid you’d want me to go.’

‘Then you don’t know me very well. I can’t live without you now. The only reconciliation my brother and I can have is when he discovers the woman who will really be his love.’

He took her face between his hands.

‘I told him we were to be married, although I hadn’t asked you.’

‘You know you didn’t need to ask me. All I want is to stay here with you.’

‘That’s all I want too. Please God, we’ll have many years together.’

They set the date of their wedding for three weeks ahead, and chose a small village church, on the edge of the farm. Many of the guests would be the farm-hands who, more than any others, had cause to rejoice at this marriage.

Wedding presents poured in, but the only gift they wanted was news of Gino, who had not returned.

He arrived unexpectedly one day while they were both out, and they reached home to find his car standing outside while he loaded luggage onto it.

His appearance shocked them. He had actually aged. His face, once so full of smiles, looked as though it would never smile again.

‘I came for the rest of my things,’ he said. ‘But I waited for you. I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.’

‘You’re going for good?’ Rinaldo asked. ‘But this is your home.’

He did smile then, wanly and with irony.

‘What do you suggest?’ he asked. ‘That we all three live together? You know we can’t.’

They were silenced, knowing he was right.

‘Where have you been?’ Rinaldo demanded at last.

‘I’m staying with friends while I sort myself out. I think I’ll go abroad.’

‘But you own part of this farm,’ Rinaldo reminded him.

‘I know. We’ll have to make some kind of arrangement about that.’

‘We’ve got time,’ Rinaldo argued. ‘At least stay here until the wedding-’

Gino stopped him. ‘No,’ he said with finality.

‘But you will be there?’ Alex implored.

‘I don’t know. Don’t count on me.’

‘There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,’ Rinaldo said heavily. ‘I never thought it would be like this, but you must know. It’s about Poppa. You’ve often asked me what happened at the hospital, when I was alone with him, and I could never tell you, because I couldn’t remember. It was as though a curtain had been drawn across it, blotting it out from me. But that night-the night you came home-’

‘Go on,’ Gino said.

‘It came back, while I was asleep. He spoke to me, and he tried to tell me about the money. He couldn’t finish the words, but he tried. He didn’t want to leave us to discover it the way we did.’

Gino nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said at last. ‘I’m glad you told me. It seems to give him back to us somehow.’

‘Yes,’ Rinaldo said at once. ‘That’s exactly what I felt.’

For a moment they were brothers again.

‘I’d better go now,’ Gino said. He hesitated before asking in a low voice, ‘May I speak to Alex alone?’

‘Of course,’ she said at once.

Rinaldo nodded, and turned away to go into the house.

‘It’s all right,’ Gino said. ‘I’m not going to embarrass you. I just wanted to say-I don’t know. I’d planned to say so much, and now it’s all gone out of my head.’

‘Forgive me,’ she pleaded.

‘There’s nothing to forgive. You had the right to make your own choice. You’ll never know how much I love you, because now I’m not free to tell you.’

‘I think you just have told me,’ she whispered.

He shook his head.

‘That doesn’t begin to say it. It was like a miracle to me to discover that such feeling could exist.’

‘You’ll feel it again, when you meet the right person for you.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said, and she knew he didn’t believe her. ‘But if that shouldn’t happen-thank you.’

It was a moment before she could speak.

‘You have nothing to thank me for,’ she said at last.

‘Oh, yes, I have everything to thank you for. And I do.’

She put out a hand to him but he flinched away, softening the gesture with a smile that it hurt her to see.

‘The truth was staring me in the face all the time, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘That night when we had dinner, and I said you always brought the conversation back to Rinaldo. There was the clue, if only I had the wit to see it. It’s nobody’s fault but mine.’

‘Come in and stay for a while,’ she begged. ‘Don’t go like this.’

‘I think I’d better leave.’

‘At least come in and get your ring. You left it behind.’

‘You fetch it for me. I’ll wait here.’

She went into the house, turning in the doorway to see him standing beside the car, looking at her.

Upstairs she found Rinaldo and explained her errand. He followed her into her room and waited while she found the ring.

‘When I give this to him,’ she said, ‘perhaps we-’

She was stopped by the sound of a car engine.

‘Oh, no!’ she gasped.

From the window they saw Gino’s car vanishing in the distance.

She couldn’t help herself then. She hid her face against Rinaldo and wept.

The wedding was both sad and happy. If things had been different Alex and Rinaldo would have bickered lovingly about which of them would claim Gino’s services-she wanted him to give her away, and he wanted him as best man.

As it was, she was given away by Isidoro, her lawyer, and Rinaldo’s best man was his foreman.

But all other thoughts faded as they stood together before the altar. This was her moment of glorious fulfilment, the moment that would inspire the rest of her life. Looking at Rinaldo she knew that it was the same with him.

Suddenly she heard a faint whisper in the church. Turning her head a little she managed to look over her shoulder enough to see the door.

A young man was standing there, silhouetted against the light. Alex couldn’t see his face, but the sun just touched his hair, giving him almost a halo. He stood very still.

Then she thought she saw him move, coming forward to sit in a pew.

Of course he had come, she thought, happy and relieved. Whatever his pain, Gino’s warm heart wouldn’t let him stay away.

The priest was asking Rinaldo if he took her to be his wife. In a firm voice he declared his intention of doing so. Then it was her turn.

She forgot Gino. All her attention now was for the man she loved, making her his, as he was hers, for life.

But as the service ended and he kissed her, Alex murmured, ‘Gino’s here.’

‘I know. I saw him by the door.’

It was all they needed to be happy. As they turned and walked back down the aisle together their eyes were searching row after row of faces, looking for the one face that mattered.

But he wasn’t there. If he had ever been there, he had gone again.

The reception was held in the largest barn, hung with flowers and ribbons. The bride and groom laughed, drank toasts, and danced, but each was secretly longing for the moment when everyone would be gone, and they could begin their true life together. There was no sign of Gino.

When the last guest had gone they made their way across to the house, and there found an unexpected face.

‘Bruno!’ Rinaldo exclaimed with pleasure. ‘We hoped to see you earlier.’

‘I came with Gino, but he left at once and I felt I should stay with him.’

‘I wish he’d talked to me,’ Rinaldo said heavily. ‘I’ve been trying to arrange things so that he’ll have some money to live on, but he writes to say he won’t take anything. He should accept something. Part of this place is his.’

‘I know, but he feels he can’t draw an income from the farm when he won’t be here to do any work. With the money he won’t accept you can hire more workers.’

Bruno’s manner suddenly became uneasy and he couldn’t meet Alex’s eye. ‘Signora, he apologises for the way he ran away before. I believe his feelings overcame him that day. The only thing he wants-’

‘Is the ring,’ she said. ‘I’ll get it.’

Recently she had locked the valuable object in Rinaldo’s office for safe keeping. It took only a moment to bring it out.

‘Thank you,’ Bruno said, slipping it into his pocket. ‘And finally, there is this.’ He proffered a letter. ‘He wrote it after he left the church, and asked me to give it to you. And now, goodnight.’

He slipped away, leaving Alex staring at the letter in her hand. From the kitchen came the sound of Teresa calling the maids.

‘Come,’ Rinaldo said, taking her arm and drawing her towards the stairs. ‘Let us read it where we can be certain of not being disturbed.’

The house was quiet as they closed the door of her bedroom behind them.

Standing by the window, still in her bridal gown, Alex took out the letter and read the words on the envelope. Her heart leapt as she saw,

To my brother and sister.

‘Read it to me,’ Rinaldo said quietly.

Alex opened the sheet within, and began to read.

I thought I couldn’t bear to witness your wedding, but in the end I had to come, just for a few minutes. You looked so right together. Forgive me for not staying longer.

Forget my cruel words. I was half crazy and didn’t know what I was saying.

I can’t come back. We three cannot live under the same roof. But there’s no hatred or anger.

Alex, I thought you were the woman for me, but you can’t be, and I think perhaps Rinaldo needs you more. Take care of him. He needs to be cared for. But you already know that.

Perhaps, as you said, there’s someone else, waiting for me to find her. Then she and I can share what the two of you share. I hope so.

God bless you both!

Your brother, Gino.

The letter ended with a typical Gino joke.

PS: You might name your first baby after me.

PPS: Only if it’s a boy, of course.

‘How like him to say that,’ Alex said between tears and laughter.

‘Yes,’ Rinaldo said, and his voice too was husky.

He switched off the light. Outside the open window the countryside lay quiet under the moon.

‘I wonder where he is now,’ she said.

Instead of answering Rinaldo drew her away from the window.

‘He is where he will find his own destiny,’ he said, ‘as we have. Don’t fear for him. He is a far stronger man than we thought, and his time will come.’

He drew her possessively into his arms.

‘But now, amor mio, the time is ours. Let us waste it no longer.’