The Italian’s Rightful Bride

CHAPTER SIX

SHE saw Billy as she was crossing the hall and beckoned him to follow her upstairs to his room.

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said when they were inside. ‘Change of plan. You’re coming with me.’

‘I’m not going to be a pageboy,’ he said, looking around wildly.

‘All right, it’s a deal. Now go and chuck a few things into a bag.’

‘But you said it was all right for me to stay here.’

‘Not any more.’

She went to her own room and began to pack hurriedly, growing more enraged with every moment. Gustavo’s refusal to be reasonable, as much as his haughtiness, had stunned her.

The knock at her door was tentative, even slightly nervous. Still seething, she yanked it open.

Gustavo was standing there. ‘May I come in?’

She stood back for him to pass, and closed the door behind him.

‘Are you still speaking to me?’ he asked.

‘Just about.’

‘I suppose it’s more than I deserve. Joanna, please forgive my ill-temper. I don’t know what got into me. Of course you must go, if-if you think it’s necessary.’

In the face of his contrition her anger died. She faced him, arms akimbo, her face full of fond exasperation.

‘How could you believe that I wouldn’t come back?’

‘It sounds crazy, I know. It’s just that what’s happening out there is so important to me, and naturally it matters that the boss should be there.’

He sounded self-conscious, like a man hiding his true thoughts. Joanna wouldn’t allow herself to speculate on what those thoughts might be.

‘Mum,’ Billy said, bursting in, ‘do I need to pack my-?’ He stopped, seeing Gustavo.

‘You too?’ Gustavo said quickly. ‘But you surely don’t want to leave just when you’re beginning to ride so well?’

‘I was originally hoping to leave Billy here,’ Joanna said. ‘But then-’

‘And I hope you will,’ Gustavo said. ‘You know he’ll be all right, and Renata would be lonely without him.’

‘That would be better,’ Joanna admitted. ‘Thank you. It’s all right, Billy, you can unpack.’

‘But you just told me to pack.’

‘Well, now you’re staying, so you can unpack.’

In silence, Billy looked from one to the other, and tapped his forehead.

By late that evening Joanna was in London, installed in the Ritz, desperately relieved to have got away from Gustavo.

His contrition had been welcome, but it hadn’t wiped out the memory of their quarrel when she’d seen a side of him that had shocked her-a man who demanded his own way as a right, who could be coldly autocratic to anyone who dared defy him.

She supposed it was inevitable in his position, but it was new to her, and it made her realise that she’d had a lucky escape.

She really would like to consult the British Museum, although it was perhaps less urgent than she’d made it sound. She spent three days there, hard at work. Every evening she called Billy, ready to return at once if he seemed less than happy. But his cheerful voice always reassured her.

‘How is Gustavo?’ she asked politely on the third evening.

‘He’s a bit worked up at the moment,’ Billy observed. ‘I think he’s got shares in an airline.’

‘Shares in an…? Billy, what are you talking about?’

‘They’re all on strike. Every airport in the country is closed down.’

‘Oh, yes, I think I saw something on the news last night. Poor Gustavo. He does have bad luck. Is he around for me to talk to?’

‘No, he’s out for the evening.’

‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.’

For the evening or for the night? she wondered as she hung up.

But it was no concern of hers.

The following afternoon she returned to the hotel, hot, tired and eager for a shower. A strand of hair flopped over her forehead and she knew she looked far from her best. As she collected her messages the receptionist said, ‘There’s a gentleman waiting to see you.’

In the heartbeat before she turned to see him Joanna knew who she wanted it to be more than anyone in the world.

He had risen as she came in, and stood quietly watching her, an uncertain smile on his face. Joanna walked towards him, passionately glad to see him.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘How do you come to be here?’

‘I happened to have business in London.’

‘What a coincidence that we should both stay here.’

He shrugged. ‘I always stay here, and I guessed that you might, so I asked at the desk.’

‘So the airports are open again?’

‘I’ve no idea. They were closed yesterday, so I took the train.’

‘All that way by train? Why, it must take-’

‘Twenty-eight hours.’

‘Your business must be very urgent.’

He nodded, not taking his eyes from her. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘It is.’

She made no answer. It mattered too much for words.

A sudden awkwardness overtook them both. The moment wasn’t right.

He glanced at the books she was carrying. ‘From the museum?’

‘Yes, I treated myself in the museum shop.’

‘They look heavy. May I carry them up for you?’

She relinquished them to him. Together they went to the lift, then up to her suite.

‘I need a drink,’ she said, kicking off her shoes. ‘Who’d think you could get so tired just looking at manuscripts?’

‘Paperwork,’ he agreed. ‘Guaranteed to give you a headache.’

They were talking about nothing to gain time and space. Now that their first greeting was over she was disconcerted at the sight of him. This wasn’t the man whose body she’d clasped through the mud, or the arrogant autocrat who had antagonised her. He looked desperately weary, like someone who’d already absorbed too many blows and was tensed for more. He confirmed it when she asked what he wanted to drink and he asked for a whisky, which she’d never seen him with before.

He downed it in one and said heavily, ‘I lied to you. I knew you were here. I asked Billy.’

‘He didn’t tell me that.’

‘I swore him to secrecy. I said I wanted to surprise you, and he mustn’t spoil it.’

‘I’ll bet he loved that, the little monkey.’

‘Yes, he did. I envy you. What a son to have!’

She remembered that his own son wasn’t his son at all, but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound insultingly trivial.

‘Another drink?’ she asked gently.

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t. I’m going to ask you to dinner, so I’d better keep a clear head.’

‘Like I’m an ogre?’ she said lightly. ‘Forget it. We’ll eat here and I’ll be the host.’

‘Thank you.’ He held out his glass and she poured him another whisky.

‘I lied about having business too,’ he admitted. ‘I just followed you. I couldn’t bear it that you went away angry with me, even though I deserved it.’

‘I wasn’t angry-’ she began, but he interrupted her quickly.

‘Yes, you were, and you were right. I behaved abominably.’

‘I don’t think you were abominable,’ she said, although she’d been thinking exactly that. ‘I was just a bit surprised. I’ve never seen you like that before.’

He smiled faintly. ‘I didn’t want you to go and I couldn’t think of any other way to say it. I’m afraid I tend to fall back on barking out orders when-when I feel at a disadvantage. I shouldn’t have acted that way, with you of all people.’

‘You don’t owe me anything.’

‘We both know what I owe you, but-let’s talk about that later. First tell me why you suddenly decided to leave Montegiano.’

‘I told you-’

‘Yes, yes, you told me some neat story about working in the British Museum.’

‘I’ve really been to the British Museum, and I’ve discovered some fascinating-’

‘Joanna, can we please forget about old ruins for a while, even my old ruins? Right now they don’t seem very important.’

‘I never thought to hear you say that.’

‘Neither did I, but sometimes… Did you leave to get away from me?’

‘How-exactly-do you mean that?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Do I make things too difficult for you-because of the past?’

‘What past? We were friends. We’re still friends. End of story. Look, I knew whose home it was when I went there. I wasn’t taken by surprise. I just thought it would be nice to see how you were.’

‘But you didn’t expect to find me alone. Perhaps if you’d known that, you wouldn’t have come.’

‘Why should you say that?’

‘Because I wonder if you found our meeting awkward.’

‘After all these years? We’re not the same people that we were then.’

‘True,’ he said, looking into his glass. ‘The years do their work. They give and they take away. They show us the lessons to be learned, and those lessons change us, so that we look back and don’t recognise ourselves as we were then.’

‘Would you go back to being the man you were then?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘At twenty-two I wasn’t even a man. Just a callow boy who thought he knew it all because he’d been raised in a privileged position. What a fool! I fell for the first fairy tale that was fed to me. A man with a shred of experience or worldly wisdom would have seen through her.’

‘Was it really as bad as that?’ she asked sympathetically.

He nodded.

‘I thought I’d arrive to see you and Crystal together in domestic bliss.’

‘Domestic bliss,’ he said wryly. ‘It was never that.’

‘It didn’t occur to me that things might have gone wrong, especially after I read in the papers about your son being born.’

He winced. ‘Yes, there was a proper announcement about a son and heir being born to the Prince of Montegiano. But you should have seen what the papers made of the other juicy little item, when the boy turned out to be the son and heir of the princess’s fitness instructor.’

She heard the pain in his voice, and saw it in his twisted smile. How much was wounded love for a woman who had betrayed him? she wondered. And how much was humiliation, because the world knew he was a cuckold?

Did it matter? Whatever the truth, his misery was intense.

‘Let’s have some dinner,’ she said briskly. ‘Everything looks better on a full stomach.’ She handed him the room-service menu. ‘I feel like a feast.’

She was afraid that he might demur at the idea of her treating him, but he simply looked contented. When the feast was chosen she said, with a twinkle, ‘I’ll leave the wines to you.’

‘Tactful lady!’

‘Well, I’m not going to risk choosing wines for an Italian, and a Roman at that.’

‘Not only tactful but also wise.’

‘We’ll do it properly,’ she said. ‘A different wine with every course. And champagne.’

‘Champagne?’

Just having him here was a cause for celebration, but she couldn’t say that so she just gave a private smile of happiness.

When the meal arrived they gave it all their attention for a while. Gustavo said little, but now and then he glanced across at her, as though making sure that she was still there.

After a while, when it seemed to her that he was more relaxed, Joanna said gently, ‘What happened?’

‘What happened was that I made the biggest mistake any man has ever made,’ he said slowly. ‘I gave my whole heart and soul to a woman who had no heart to give back. She fed me a line and I fell for it.’

‘But she was crazy about you. I saw you together.’

He shook his head. ‘No, she wanted me to be crazy about her. It’s not the same thing. And she knew how to make me crazy. It was the title. She fancied being a princess. She as good as admitted it eventually.’

‘How long did it take you to see the truth?’

‘Much longer than it should have done. I couldn’t let myself admit that she was greedy, selfish and cold. Which probably makes me a coward.’

His voice was sharp with bitterness and self-mockery.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ Joanna urged.

‘Why not? Someone should be hard on me for being such a fool. And with you I can be honest because you know the truth that nobody else knows.’

She gazed at him, shocked that everything she had tried to do for him had come to this.

‘But it wasn’t your fault. You wouldn’t be the first man in the world to be taken in.’

‘No, but-here’s the joke-I considered myself being above that sort of thing. After all, I was a Montegiano, a man of pride and position.’

He gave a gruff laugh. ‘Joanna, you have no idea of the stupidity of a boy of twenty-two who’s been raised to think too well of himself. He makes mistake after mistake. The merest country bumpkin would have known better than I did.’

She held her breath, knowing what it must cost him to reveal himself like this, praying not to spoil everything by a clumsy word.

‘You’ve really been through the mill, haven’t you?’ she asked.

He shrugged.

‘Don’t you have friends you can talk to?’

‘There’s nobody I can admit all this to, the way I can to you. You’re the only person in the world who could understand because you saw things nobody else saw. We haven’t seen each other for twelve years, yet in an odd way you know me better than anyone alive.’

He passed his hand over his eyes.

‘Perhaps that’s why I came running after you. I need to be with you, talk to you, even lean on you. That isn’t very dignified, I know-’

‘Why does it have to be dignified?’ she said urgently. ‘Why can’t you ask for my help if you need it? I’m your friend, Gustavo, and if my friendship can help you then it’s there.’

She took his hand. ‘Talk to me, Gustavo. Tell me all the things you’ve been hiding away under that tightly buttoned-down exterior of yours. Because if you don’t let them out soon, you’ll go crazy.’

Joanna had a sudden sense of standing at a crossroads, of being given back the chance she’d overlooked years ago: the chance to be the friend he badly needed.

It wasn’t love. It might even stand in the way of love. But it was what he craved from her, and she would not fail him.

‘Tell me,’ she said softly. ‘When did it start to go wrong? You were so happy at first.’

‘At first I thought I’d landed in heaven. She seemed the perfect wife, beautiful, loving, always looking for ways to please me. My vanity was so colossal that I accepted that as natural.’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’ she burst out indignantly. It hurt her to hear him put himself down. ‘If you love someone you do want to please them, because when they’re happy, you’re happy. Wasn’t it that way with you too?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I loved finding ways to give her pleasure. That’s why we went to Las Vegas. All I wanted was some quiet place where I could be alone with her, but she didn’t like quiet places. She wanted excitement. I always knew we were different in that way, but I thought the love would help us overcome that.’

‘But it didn’t?’

‘How can it when it’s all on one side?’ he asked quietly.

‘But she did love you once.’

‘Did she? Even now I wish I could believe it. I suppose she loved me well enough when she got her own way, but I started to realise that I was always the one to yield.

‘For a while even that didn’t matter. She got pregnant and I was thrilled. Yes, I wanted a son, I don’t deny it. And when it was a girl, I was disappointed-for about five minutes. Then I saw how gorgeous she was and I forgot all about wanting a son.

‘As she grew older I loved her more, because she’s so like my mother. She looks like her, she has her mental sharpness, and her stubbornness.’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘Mamma also saw the world in her own way, and you could point out the facts until you were blue in the face.’

‘But Renata’s a child,’ Joanna reminded him. ‘She’ll understand in time.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d known Mamma.’

‘I did. Well, I met her briefly.’

‘Yes, she liked you a lot. She was furious with me for letting you go.’ He gave a brief laugh. ‘If you could have heard what she called me.’

Joanna laughed. ‘And you took no notice because you’re as stubborn as her. The line passes from her to Renata through you.’

‘Yes,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘And it makes me wonder if Renata will ever turn back to me. There’s something implacable about her that makes me afraid.’

‘Was Renata close to Crystal?’

‘She wanted to be. She longed to be pretty like her mother, and Crystal would have liked a daughter who looked like a dainty fairy, which Renata doesn’t.’

‘She’s better than that,’ Joanna said at once. ‘Her looks are going to be striking when she grows up.’

‘That’s what I think,’ he said eagerly. ‘But Crystal couldn’t see it. She lost interest. The poor little kid was always trying to get her mother’s attention, always wondering why she couldn’t have it.’

‘It sounds to me as if her fantasies started right back then,’ Joanna mused.

‘How do you mean?’

‘We all tell each other fairy tales to cope with the pain of rejection,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘Renata invented another Crystal, one who was proud of her and wanted to be with her. In her mother’s presence she had to face the reality, but when she was alone she could believe the fairy-tale version. Now Crystal’s gone that version has taken over, but it actually began long ago.’

‘Of course it did,’ Gustavo said, looking at her quickly. ‘Why didn’t I see it before?’

‘You were too close, and you have that pain to cope with as well.’

‘Renata’s rejection. Yes. But what can I do?’

‘Be patient. She’ll choose the time. There’s no other way.’

‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘I know you’re right, it’s just-’

‘It’s just that you’re not the most patient man in the world,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I know.’

She poured him some more wine, and he drank it.

‘So Crystal wasn’t happy,’ Joanna said, to encourage him to continue.

‘No, I think she felt fairly soon that she’d made a mistake. I think that’s my fault for marrying her in such haste. I should have brought her to Montegiano first so that she could see for herself whether the life would suit her. But I wanted her so much that I just grabbed the chance. We might both have been saved a lot of grief if I hadn’t.

‘She was bored with the estate, bored with motherhood, in fact bored with everything I valued. I’ll never forget talking to her one day, trying to tell her what Montegiano meant to me. And I caught a certain look in her eyes-sheer blankness. She was just waiting for me to shut up.

‘She wanted a grandiose apartment in Rome and a high-society life. That time I held out. We had our friends and I’d take her into Rome as much as possible, but I wouldn’t move there permanently.

‘When she realised I meant it, there was a bitter quarrel. That was when I discovered her real opinion of me, stuffy and dull, a man who couldn’t give her the exciting life she wanted. She packed her bags, moved to the most expensive hotel in Rome and waited for me to crack. When I didn’t, she returned after six weeks.

‘I told myself she’d come back because she still loved me, but I believe she just liked the title, and still thought she could persuade me.

‘It’s been like that through the years. If she was thwarted she’d move out for a while and run up vast bills to punish me. I learned not to enquire too closely into what she got up to in the city.’

‘You think she was unfaithful?’

‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Couldn’t you have divorced her then? Or did you still love her too much?’

‘No, the love died some time back, but I was reared in the tradition that said you don’t break up the home, no matter what. And there was Renata. I had to think of what divorce would do to her. And now I’ve seen what it has done to her, I still think I was right.’

‘What happened in the end?’

‘Crystal started attending a gym in the city, said it was time to take proper care of her figure. Her instructor was called Leo. I only saw him once, all greasy hair and gigolo smile.

‘Suddenly she was pregnant. I even thought that perhaps we might have some hope after all, especially when it was a boy. But then I heard her talking on the phone to Leo, and it all became clear. I confronted her. She called me every name she could think of, packed her bags and left for good, with the baby, but without Renata.’

‘Suppose she’d wanted Renata?’ Joanna asked. ‘Would you have let her go?’

‘Yes. I’d expect to have her back for long visits; after all, she’s my child too. But I’d let Renata do whatever would make her happy.’

He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, leaving it slightly ruffled. Joanna regarded him tenderly, and reached for the phone to call Room Service. In a few moments a waiter had arrived to remove the remains of the meal. When the door had closed behind him Gustavo moved to the large, comfortable sofa and sat down in a way that was almost a collapse.

Joanna came over to an armchair near him, and poured him a large whisky.

‘Are you trying to get me drunk?’ he asked with a grin.

‘Possibly. I think it might do you good to let your hair down for once. I won’t tell on you.’

He took the tumbler and drained it. It pleased her to see him more relaxed, although whether it was the whisky or the relief of confiding in her, she couldn’t tell. But she found that she didn’t care. It was sweet to reach out to him and feel that she’d brought him some relief, even perhaps a little contentment.

She found that he was smiling at her, a strange smile that seemed to be sizing her up.

‘Of course,’ he said lightly, ‘I blame you for everything.’

‘Me? How?’

‘Because it was entirely your fault that I married Crystal.’