The Italian’s Rightful Bride

CHAPTER TWELVE

FOR those working on the dig, only one thing now mattered. How soon could they work their way through the bricks concealing the secret chamber? Brick after brick was eased out, dusted off carefully, and handed up to Lily, who inspected it minutely before passing it on to Danny, who X-rayed it. Sonya then put it through a battery of other tests, including scan and radar.

Joanna’s conviction grew. This was the earlier part of the old lost palazzo, which meant it was at least fifth century, and perhaps earlier. When the brick that should have been in the last layer was removed, revealing just one more ‘last layer’, Joanna led the cries of agonised exasperation.

‘I can’t bear any more,’ Hal moaned.

‘Oh, shut up, you cry-baby!’ she told him, calming down and managing to laugh. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

It took another half-day to work through the last brick into the gap.

‘We’re through,’ she said. ‘Let’s have the flashlight.’

In another moment she was shining the light through into the darkness. What she saw made her sit down suddenly, breathing hard.

‘What is it?’ Lily and Danny demanded in one voice.

‘Take this,’ she said, holding out the flashlight, ‘and tell me what you see in there.’

One by one they looked, but nobody spoke a word. They were all too dumbfounded.

‘I think,’ Joanna said slowly, ‘that I should fetch Gustavo.’

The light was fading as she reached the house and went straight to the library, where she found Gustavo at his desk with Renata, poring over an atlas, heads together.

‘There’s something I think you should come and see,’ she said as calmly as she could manage.

She was pleased to see that he instinctively glanced at his daughter, including her in the expedition.

‘I thought you’d all be coming in to supper about now,’ he said.

‘This is much better than supper,’ she said.

A mysterious, suppressed glee in her manner made him look at her, puzzled.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Come and see,’ she told him.

Renata took her father’s hand. ‘Let’s go, Papa.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You lead the way.’

They went back in Joanna’s car and found the excavation full of brilliant lights that had been hauled out from the trucks.

‘We’ve got out another brick,’ Hal confided in a tone of excitement.

‘What have you discovered?’ Gustavo wanted to know.

‘Take this,’ she said, giving him the flashlight, ‘and look through there.’

He crouched down to follow the beam and she heard him draw in his breath.

‘Is that-what I think it is?’ he asked.

‘It’s gold,’ Joanna said. ‘I’m almost sure of it.’

‘The lost treasure of Montegiano,’ he murmured.

‘It’ll take us some days to get right in there and remove what we find,’ Joanna said cautiously. ‘But it’s looking good.’

‘Thank you for bringing me to see it,’ he said. ‘If only-’

‘Yes,’ Joanna said, nodding in understanding. ‘If only-’

‘We’ll have to be patient, Papa,’ Renata said, speaking like a nanny. Protecting her father was something she now took very seriously.

Joanna awoke suddenly, instantly alert. It was still dark but instinct told her that there was somebody in her room.

‘Who’s there?’ she demanded.

‘It’s only me,’ came Gustavo’s voice. ‘Forgive me for coming in like this but I couldn’t knock in case anyone heard. No, don’t put the light on.’

She pulled herself up in bed. He was sitting on the bed and in the near-darkness she could just make out the glint in his eyes and the excitement that radiated from him.

Her pulses were racing, making it hard for her to speak. Why had he come to her room like this in the darkness?

‘Gustavo, why have you come here?’ she managed to whisper at last.

‘I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been lying awake thinking about everything-we’re on the brink of so many things; don’t you feel that?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

If only he would kiss her. Since their night together a shadow had seemed to fall between them, but now he was here, seeking her out as though that shadow had never been. But why didn’t he touch her?

‘I can’t stand the waiting any longer,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it now.’

‘Let’s-?’

‘Go out to the dig and find out what’s there.’

‘Go to the dig?’ she echoed in a daze.

‘I know it’s still dark but the dawn will break soon. There’ll be enough light to find something, surely?’

She stared at his face that had grown a little clearer as the light increased.

‘Is this why you came creeping into my room?’ she asked, incensed.

‘I know I shouldn’t have done it like this, but you understand, don’t you?’

‘I’m beginning to.’

He didn’t seem to notice a slightly grim edge to her voice. He was possessed by his own excitement over whatever might be found. Clearly this was the only thing he could focus on.

‘I’ll join you downstairs in a minute,’ she said.

He had the car’s engine already running when she got in, and in ten minutes they were there. She got out some lighting and they descended into the foundations.

‘We managed to get another couple of bricks out,’ she said. ‘You can see better now.’

She flooded the chamber with light, while he gazed through, drawing in a slow breath.

‘It’s almost close enough to touch,’ he said, trying to reach in. ‘No, I can’t get through that hole.’

‘Here, take the light. I’m thinner.’

She reached forward, easing herself through the hole until she could just touch something. It came off in her hand and she had to grab it.

‘Pull me back,’ she said quickly.

He hauled her towards him so fast that she had to hook her arm about his neck to steady herself. He held on, not letting her go, but breathing fast.

‘I’m not sure that I dare to look at it,’ he said. ‘It matters too much.’

‘Does it?’ she said, and she couldn’t keep a certain sadness out of her voice. This wasn’t what she had hoped mattered to him.

‘More than anything you could know,’ he said fervently.

‘In that case,’ she said calmly, ‘let’s look at it.’

He lowered her to the ground and they sat down on a low wall while she held up the object she had found.

It was a large brooch, made of some yellowish metal, with stones embedded in it that looked like bits of cheap old coloured glass.

‘Oh,’ he said in a deflated voice.

‘What do you mean, “oh”?’ she asked through her rising excitement.

‘Cheap and nasty,’ he said heavily. ‘Why did they bother to preserve it?’

‘Cheap and nasty?’ she asked indignantly. ‘Do you think jewels looked the same fifteen hundred years ago as they do now? They didn’t shine and glitter like modern stones.’

‘Yes, but these…’ He stopped as her excitement began to get through to him. ‘Do you mean that those bits of glass are-?’

‘The last time I found something with “bits of glass” it sold for five million dollars,’ she said. ‘I’m sticking my neck out, but I think it’s real-real gold, real rubies, real emeralds-’

She got no further. His arms were about her, hugging her so tightly that she was breathless. The brooch fell, unnoticed, to the ground as he kissed her again and again.

‘Gustavo,’ she said, laughing and kissing him back.

‘We won,’ he cried exultantly. ‘We won. It’s all right; everything’s wonderful.’

‘Is it?’ she asked, her head reeling. ‘Well, I know you’re going to be very rich-’

‘But that’s what’s wonderful, don’t you see? I can ask you to marry me now.’

She placed her hands on his shoulders, frowning a little.

‘Now? You can only ask now?’

‘Of course. I’m independent now. I won’t look like a fortune-hunter to you now.’

Her frown deepened. ‘You never did look like a fortune-hunter to me. Put me down.’

He did so, while still keeping hold of her.

‘If you only knew how hopeless it looked to me-how could I approach you when I needed your money so badly?’

‘Why shouldn’t you? You did it once before. I didn’t blame you then. Why should you think I’d blame you now?’

‘But can’t you see that this is different? When we met the first time-it was a bargain on both sides. We knew the terms before we even met. In its way it was an honest transaction. But now-’

‘But now we’ve made love,’ she said slowly. ‘And that makes a difference. You’ll be saying next that I compromised your honour.’ She gave a mirthless laugh.

‘If anyone compromised it, I did. I tried to tell you that there were things I should have said first-’

‘But I already knew you were short of money. You needed to raise cash to repay Crystal. I think you told me that the first day. What were you doing? Warning me off?’

‘Of course not. You were just an old friend I felt I could trust. It was only later that it mattered so much-after London… Hell!’

He ran his hands through his hair. He wasn’t good at this. He preferred things to be straightforward.

‘After London-’ he tried again ‘-I thought we were closer-’

‘So did I-’

‘If Freddy hadn’t appeared-well, he did, and I had to be patient. I knew our time would come-it had to.’

‘The night of the party, the night Crystal appeared.’

‘Yes, she put all sorts of ugly ideas into my head.’

‘Trust her to do that! You shouldn’t have listened.’

‘She wants the rest of her money at once. Try not listening to that.’

‘I know. Freddy told me. The two of them are rapidly becoming as thick as thieves, but so what? How can they affect us?’

‘She suggested that I marry you to repay her. Did Freddy tell you that?’

‘No, but he thought of it for himself.’

‘I’ll bet he did. I’ll bet he’s slavering at the prospect.’

‘What does he matter?’ she cried. ‘Why must you tie yourself in knots about this?’

‘Because that night I made love to you,’ he said frantically, ‘I did it because I wanted to. I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone, but how can you ever believe that?’

‘Because you’ve just told me.’

‘Well, I would, wouldn’t I? If I’m after your money that’s just what I’d do. Perhaps you should think before believing a word I say.’

‘Why are you so determined to put the case for the prosecution?’ she cried.

‘Because nobody else is going to put it.’

‘Gustavo, I heard the case for the prosecution years ago. I’ve lived with it. Now I want to hear the other one.’

‘You should be cautious-I had a motive for behaving badly.’

‘Some people thought you were behaving badly when you married Crystal,’ she flung at him. ‘But you didn’t care. You outfaced them because that was how much you loved her. So why can’t you outface people for me?’

‘Darling-’

‘Don’t call me darling, you hypocrite.’

‘I love you, and I’ll damned well call you what I like. Or doesn’t it mean anything that I love you?’

There! He’d said it!

After all these years he’d said that he loved her, and instead of being the sweet, glorious moment she’d dreamed of, it had come as part of a stupid quarrel.

But it wasn’t stupid. It struck at the heart of her love and what that love meant to her.

‘It would have meant something if you did love me,’ she said slowly. ‘But actually I come some way down your list of priorities.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said distractedly. ‘I know this isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen-’

‘To hell with what’s supposed to happen!’ she cried. ‘You’ve spent so much of your life doing what you were supposed to do that you’ve forgotten how to do anything else. Why can’t you just follow your heart, like you did with her?’

‘I wish you’d leave her out of it.’

‘How can I? You loved her so much that you didn’t care what anyone thought, or even what you thought of yourself. Now it’s different. Your priorities are first, your pride; second, your reputation; third, me.’

‘That’s unfair.’

‘The truth is often unfair, and it is the truth. Well, it’s not good enough. I don’t want a half-love. I want one that matters so much that you’ll trample everything else down for me, like you did before. And I can’t have it, not from you, anyway. I even got better from Freddy.’

‘Freddy was a fortune-hunter.’

She sighed. ‘Gustavo, if I started worrying about the motives of men who had less than me I’d die an old maid. It includes most of them. I have my own standards, and that doesn’t include a man’s bank balance, or lack of it. I don’t care! I only care how much he loves me.’

‘And I’ve told you that I do.’

‘No, you don’t. What you love is your own opinion of yourself as a decent man.’

‘And you? You don’t love me at all, do you?’

‘How the hell do you know?’

‘Because you’re finding excuses to back off, just like last time. Isn’t that true?’

She was about to tell him everything, but her temper had risen and hell would freeze over before she made a declaration of love here and now. Her heart was bitter with disappointment that it had come to this.

‘I think we should go home now,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the time or place.’

‘I think it is.’

‘Don’t try to talk to me, Gustavo. I’m so angry I may never want to talk to you again.’

‘I don’t understand you.’

‘No, you don’t, do you? That’s one thing we can agree on. You’ve never understood anything about me. Not then, not now.’

She stormed off, climbed out of the dig in a rage, ran to the car and drove away.

She got halfway back to the house before common sense returned and she remembered that he had no means of transport. Groaning, she turned back and drove until she saw him.

‘Get in,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And don’t say a word to me, ever again, do you understand?’

‘No,’ he said in a hollow voice. ‘I don’t understand anything.’

‘Then just keep quiet anyway.’

Over the next few days the full extent of the treasure was revealed, and it was greater than anyone’s hopes.

Joanna’s professional pride warred with her personal frustration and misery.

She could have had it all and she’d thrown it away because of some stupid, niggling bother.

No, she stopped herself there. It hadn’t been stupid. And she couldn’t have had it all. She could have had only the small portion Gustavo had been willing to offer. He could love her if…

And that ‘if’ damned him. If everything else was right. If he could keep his pride as well. With Crystal he’d thrown all other thoughts to the winds. With her there was an ‘if’. And though it broke her heart a second time, she would not accept a conditional love in return for her wholehearted one.

There were plenty of other things to think of. It was time for Billy to go back to England and the boarding-school he attended. He liked being there, but she knew everything would have been happier if she’d settled in Italy and brought him to live here.

Freddy was taking him to England and staying a couple of days before returning to Rome and settling in a hotel near Crystal. He, at least, was over the moon about developments. So was Crystal, according to Freddy.

On the night before Freddy’s departure Gustavo forced himself, like a good host, to join his unwanted guest in the library.

‘May I get you another drink?’ he asked politely.

‘Don’t mind if you do.’ Freddy held out the glass and Gustavo refilled it.

‘Is your packing all done?’

‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.’

‘I hope you don’t feel that you haven’t been welcome here,’ Gustavo said, forcing himself to remain courteous.

‘Oh, I can make myself welcome anywhere,’ Freddy said, slightly changing the meaning. ‘It’s been a good visit. I’ve seen plenty of my son, and I’m easier in my mind about you.’

‘About me?’ Gustavo said in surprise. ‘Why should you be concerned about me?’

‘I’m not. You can jump off a bridge for all I care. No offence, of course.’

‘None taken,’ Gustavo assured him.

‘No, I’m thinking of you and Joanna. Plus, of course, you and Billy. But Billy says you’re OK.’

‘That’s very kind of him,’ Gustavo said cautiously. ‘But I don’t quite see-’

‘Oh, for the love of heaven!’ Freddy groaned. ‘You and Joanna have been pussyfooting about for twelve years. Don’t you think that’s enough?’

‘I think you’ve misunderstood the situation-’

‘You mean you weren’t engaged? Funny, everyone said you were.’

‘If you were at my wedding I’m surprised you didn’t get the whole story then.’

‘I did, in several versions. Never quite known which one to believe.’

‘Well, let’s leave it that way.’

‘How can we leave it?’ Freddy demanded, aggrieved. ‘Sooner or later you’re going to marry Joanna and be Billy’s stepfather-’

As always when the conversation turned to personal matters Gustavo felt himself grow tense.

‘I don’t know where you get such an idea-’ he began.

‘Everyone knows. Here, fill that up again, there’s a good fellow.’

He held out his glass and Gustavo refilled it mechanically. Then he filled his own glass, drained it, refilled it.

‘Then everyone is mistaken,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s no question of it.’

Freddy gave vent to an extremely rude word, expressive of disbelief and derision.

‘What’s the matter with you two?’ he demanded. ‘You’re crazy about each other, so where’s the big problem? Lord, if I ever knew such a pair! Just because you made a mess of it once it doesn’t mean you have to go on making a mess of it, does it?’

‘Signor Manton-’

‘Call me Freddy. It won’t kill you, after all the other names you’ve been calling me under your breath. I know you don’t like me. So what? I don’t much like you.’

‘Would you be good enough to tell me what I’ve done to incur your dislike?’ Gustavo said, at his most wooden.

‘Damned well ruined my marriage.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I can believe that,’ Freddy said, a tad wildly. ‘You’re exactly the fellow who wouldn’t have any idea what I was talking about. I’m talking about my wife being in love with you, that’s what I’m talking about.’

‘Joanna was never in love with me.’

‘Don’t tell me. I lived with her for eight years and I know her a sight better than you do. I was in love with that girl. D’you know, I was faithful to her for four whole years, including when she was pregnant.’

‘You are to be commended,’ Gustavo snapped with an irony that was lost on Freddy.

‘That’s what I think. Four years. It makes me faint to think of it, even now. Where’s that decanter?’

He filled his own glass again. Gustavo was staring at him.

‘Four years,’ Freddy repeated, sounding more dismayed by the minute. ‘And much good it did me. We never had a chance. And why? Because she was in love with you from the first.’

Gustavo found his voice at last.

‘But that is not true. Joanna was delighted to end our engagement-’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Freddy said impatiently. ‘Wise up. Of course she didn’t want to end it, but what did you expect her to do? Wear the willow for you, and let the world see how much she minded? Do you think she has so little self-respect?’

The air seemed to be singing in Gustavo’s ears.

‘She told you this?’ he asked in a strange voice.

‘Not in so many words, but bit by bit I’ve pieced it together. At your wedding nobody could talk about anything else but the groom marrying one girl when he’d been engaged to another one a week earlier.

‘When I met Joanna I thought you were off your head to have let her go. My goodness, she was a cracking little dancer! How we kicked up our heels that night! It was her way of showing the world that she was fancy-free. Which she wasn’t.’

‘That is not what she told me,’ Gustavo said slowly.

‘She told you what she knew you wanted to hear. The fact is that she was madly in love with you, but she saw you kissing the other girl, so she gave you your release papers, and fed you some cock-and-bull story to make it easy for you.’

He paused to see if Gustavo would speak, but there was no sound. Gustavo’s eyes seemed to burn into him.

‘When we met again a year later, I thought she might be over you,’ Freddy went on. ‘But she wasn’t. Mind you, I wasn’t sure until after we were married. I may not be the sharpest tool in the box but I know when I’m making love to a woman who’s pretending I’m another man.’

Like a shaft of lightning a memory came back to Gustavo.

‘More than one way of being unfaithful,’ he murmured. ‘That’s what you said.’

‘That’s right. Jo was always strictly faithful to me in the technical sense, but there were always three of us in the bed, if you know what I mean.’

‘But…’ Gustavo struggled for the right words, trying not to yield too easily to the spurt of joy that was mounting inside him ‘…this is only a theory. You might have misunderstood-’

‘Well, I didn’t. I know that because we once had a bit of a barney and she virtually admitted it. She was fond of me in her way, and it was a good marriage to start with. We can share jokes, you see, and that can paper over a lot of cracks for a while. But when it came down to it, you were always the one.

‘That’s partly why I turned up at Etta’s wedding, because I’d heard a rumour that you and she were going to be there together, and you were divorced. I wanted to talk about Billy as well, but, as Jo pointed out, I could have done that by phone.

‘I needed to see you, get the lie of the land. That’s also why I barged in on you in that rude way. I wanted to catch you unawares. Yes, yes, I know I’m a vulgarian. Let’s take that bit as read. Anyway, I found out what I wanted to know.’

‘And what do you think you found out?’

‘She’s nuts about you, you’re nuts about her. End of story. Or it should be if you weren’t such a pair of chumps. Get on with it, for Pete’s sake, before I lose patience.’

Gustavo sat in silence, feeling as though something had winded him.

‘Did it really never occur to you,’ Freddy asked kindly, ‘that Jo did what she knew you wanted, and broke her own heart in the process?’

Gustavo shook his head.

‘Damned if I see how you could have missed it.’

Gustavo gave a faint smile, directed at himself.

‘Maybe I’m not the sharpest tool in the box, either,’ he admitted.

‘No “maybe” about it. Isn’t it time you did something? Or are you going to wait another twelve years?’

Gustavo slammed his glass down.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not.’

In the hall he met Billy.

‘Have you seen my dad?’

‘In the library. Have you seen your mother?’

‘In her room.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Thanks.’

He marched into Joanna’s room without knocking. She was just drying off after stepping out of the shower, and she whirled on him indignantly.

‘You’ve got a nerve-’ she said, trying to grab the towel.

‘I have now. I lost my nerve for a while but I’ve got it back. We’ve got to forget all the nonsense we talked the other night because…’

It should have been so easy, he thought distractedly. Where were the speeches of love, the declarations of passion that had come so easily the other time?

But the other time hadn’t mattered like this, and suddenly he was tongue-tied. The only words that would come were-

‘Is your ex-husband an honest man?’

‘What?’

‘Is he an honest man? When he says you love me, that you’ve always loved me, going right back to last time-can I believe him?’

She stared at him, incredulous. He met her eyes, his own filled with a terrible intensity that showed what this meant to him. For a moment the whole world seemed to hang in the balance.

‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘You can believe him. I fell in love with you back then. I knew you didn’t love me but I’d have married you and hoped for the best. I was going to make you love me. Only then Crystal turned up and I knew it was no use. You can’t make people love you.’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘You can only wait and hope that their eyes will open and they’ll see the truth before it’s too late.’

He grasped her shoulders so urgently that the last of the towel slipped to the floor. She didn’t notice.

‘Tell me it isn’t too late for us,’ he begged.

Her eyes shone. ‘It will never be too late as far as I’m concerned.’

‘Since we met again I’ve known that you were the one and only, but telling you so was impossible. There seemed to be so many things in the way, but they were all fantasies. I’d have known that if I were seeing straight.

‘I said once that you shouldn’t have released me, but if you hadn’t it would never have worked out well for us. We could never have had then the marriage that we’re going to have now.’

‘Are we?’

He took her in his arms. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we are.’

It was a kiss to mark the end of the lonely years and seal a promise.

‘Tell me that you love me,’ he whispered against her lips.

‘I’ve always loved you, and I always will. Gustavo, my darling, are you quite sure?’

‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.’

‘People will call you a fortune-hunter.’

‘They can call me what they like as long as you call me husband. I was blind for far too long. But now I can see the way ahead, and it’s there for both of us.’

He lifted her up in his arms, holding her against his chest.

‘Come, my darling,’ he said. ‘No more waiting. Our time has come, and nothing will ever part us again.’