Wife in the Shadows (13 page)

Which, of course, was sheer madness, but, then, nothing that was happening seemed to be real. Except, she thought, for his body, which with one last measured thrust, was now completely sheathed inside hers. His voice saying quietly, ‘Is it well with you, Elena? I need you to tell me.’

And her whispered, ‘Yes.’

In spite of everything, he was trying to be kind, she thought, bewildered, even as some female instinct she’d not known she possessed told her that, if she had let him, he could have been so much more than that.

He began to move inside her, gently at first, then more forcefully, withdrawing a little, then pushing back ever more deeply, awakening new and threatening feelings. Making her realise with alarm she would have to fight her body’s wish to respond to the imperative drive of his loins as their force increased.

That there was an unfamiliar tide rising in her bloodstream, her bones, her skin, nudging at every atom of her consciousness that threatened to overwhelm her, urging her to lift her hips in answer to each warm and silken thrust. To make demands that were all her own.

And then—it was over. She heard his breathing change, quicken. He threw back his head, his voice crying out harshly almost bitterly and she felt a spurt of scalding heat far within her. Then he was still and there was silence.

For a moment or two, Angelo remained where he was, head bent, chest heaving, sweat slicking the bronzed shoulders, then, with the same care he’d shown her when it began, he lifted himself away from her, lying supine at her side, one arm resting across his closed eyes.

Ellie lay still too, her heartbeat going crazy as she attempted to adjust to what had happened. The words, ‘It could have been so much worse,’ were running through her brain like a ribbon unwinding, but she was not sure she believed them. Instead, and with even greater difficulty, she had to face what might have been …

He had done exactly what she’d told him she would accept, she thought. No more, no less. She had faced him and won, so why did she suddenly feel as if she had lost? Because that made no sense—no sense at all.

She turned her head slowly to look at him just as Angelo sat up abruptly, swinging his legs to the floor, and reaching down for his discarded robe.

‘Congratulations, Elena.’ He tossed the words over his shoulder. ‘You have survived your ordeal with great fortitude. Let us hope for both our sakes that you will soon have good news for me, so that you are never called upon to endure it again.’

She watched him walk to the door. Her lips parted to say something—she wasn’t sure what, it might have been just his name—then the door closed behind him, and she realised it was too late.

Too late, she repeated silently, and turned over, burying her face in the pillow.

The following April

She had learned long ago how to conduct herself at all these social events which Angelo required her to attend at his side.

Had mastered how to walk in with her hand resting lightly on his arm, and her smile already nailed securely in place. To offer all the appearance of a cherished young wife blissfully approaching the first anniversary of her wedding to one of the most glamorous men in the city. And to dazzle them with the diamonds and other jewels that would be regarded as an overt sign of Count Manzini’s satisfaction with his marriage.

Knowing that none of the eyes watching them—friendly, inimical, admiring or jealous—must be allowed to catch even a glimpse of the reality of her abject failure and his bitter disappointment. Their mutual ongoing nightmare.

Tonight—a charity reception which Contessa Cosima was helping to host in aid of an orphanage—was an occasion like any other. She moved slowly round the room, slender in her black dress, the drink in her hand virtually untouched, pausing to greet acquaintances, to laugh and talk for a while before moving on, her timing immaculate, her appearance serene.

But underneath it all, her stomach was churning as she contemplated the end of the evening, the return to Vostranto and, later still, the promise of her husband’s brief, monthly visit to her bedroom, conducted as always with cool efficiency and dispatch. Her terms strictly adhered to in every respect. The only verbal exchange between them Angelo’s polite enquiry about her physical comfort as he took her.

Also just an occasion like any other, she told herself, her throat tightening. That was how she had to look at it, anyway, even when it could mean going to him eventually to tell him she had not conceived this time either. Just as she’d done every month up to now.

But maybe it wouldn’t be like that, she thought. Maybe tonight, Nature would relent and her magic trick would work, as it had done only a few weeks ago for Tullia.

And if Ellie’s delighted congratulations to her friend had
concealed different emotional strata, she was the only one who’d known it.

‘And you, too, must have a baby very soon, Elena,’ Tullia had declared buoyantly, hugging her. ‘Then the children can play together.’

Zia Dorotea had sniffed and looked on the verge of launching some tart remark, but subsided after meeting Nonna Cosima’s steady look.

Tonight, Angelo’s grandmother was seated in a high-backed chair at the side of the room, and she smiled and beckoned when she saw Ellie.

‘Mia cara,
I wish you to meet my dear friend, Mother Felicitas. She is the superior of the Daughters of the Nativity who run the orphanage for us.’

The woman beside her was small and rosy-cheeked with sparkling dark eyes, wearing an ankle-length grey dress and a crisply starched white headdress and veil.

‘This is a great pleasure, Contessa.’ An appraising glance accompanied her handshake. ‘We have always been blessed by the support of the Manzini family, and your godmother, the Principessa Damiano is another benefactor.’

She smiled. ‘I am told that, unlike the Count’s late mother and grandmother, you are a working wife, but I hope that in the future we can also persuade you to find time in your busy life for us. It would be an honour.’

Ellie coloured faintly. ‘I—I’d really like that. Although I’ve never had a great deal to do with children.’

‘But all that will change for you soon, I expect.’ Mother Felicitas’s glance was kind as she rose to her feet. ‘That is life’s way.’

‘Yes,’ Ellie agreed quietly. ‘I—I hope so.’

‘I must go now,’ the nun added. ‘Good night, my dear Cosima, and thank you for all you do for our children. Please bring Count Angelo’s charming wife to visit us soon. We would be so delighted.’

‘Come and sit with me, my child,’ Nonna Cosima said when

Mother Felicitas had gone. ‘You look a little pale this evening. You are not working too hard?’ ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Angelo is spending longer hours at Galantana than anyone can remember,’ his grandmother continued musingly. ‘And still using his apartment in the city while he does so, it seems.’ She paused. ‘I hope you are making time for each other in all this ceaseless industry. That is what a marriage needs, dearest girl, in order to succeed.’

Ellie bent her head. ‘It also requires a couple who love each other,’ she said in a low voice. ‘And who weren’t forced together for the sake of some outmoded convention.’

‘Is that how it still seems to you?’ Cosima Manzini queried softly. ‘I am sorry to hear it.’ She gave a faint rueful smile. ‘I would not deny that my grandson has serious flaws, but I had hoped that, by now, he might have found a way of recommending himself to you as a husband, Elena. That you would be building a life together.’

Whereas, thought Ellie with a pang, we’ve never been further apart. And the fact that Angelo spends so much time in Rome should be a relief, but in another way it’s sheer torture.

Because I know the way we live at Vostranto—the fact that there’s no real intimacy in our lives and that the time we’ve spent in bed together since we were married can probably be measured in hours—and I realise that can’t possibly be enough for him.

Because he’s a man who has needs that I wouldn’t know how to fulfil, even if I wanted to, and when I’m with him at a function like this, or at a dinner party and I see how the women look at him, I find, in spite of myself, that I’m wondering where he really spends his nights in Rome—and with whom.

Whether any of the girls who smile and chatter to me are really laughing at me behind my back—the dull wife, not only betrayed but apparently barren too.

And I’ll wonder tonight, as I always do when he comes to me, if he’s secretly glad not to have to pretend a desire he doesn’t feel. Then I’ll close my eyes and dig my nails in the
palms of my hands and keep very still trying not to think of anything at all—or feel anything at all which is getting more and more difficult each time. And when he goes back to his own room and I’m alone, I’ll lie awake for hours, trying not to cry, or—even worse—to follow him and ask—beg.

She looked down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. ‘I don’t think that’s really feasible. We just aren’t—suited to each other.’

‘I am grieved to hear you say it.’ Nonna Cosima’s voice was very quiet. ‘You see,
mia cara,
we thought long before that night at Largossa—your godmother and I—Dorotea too—that you would make Angelo an ideal wife. That you would find your match in each other.’ She sighed. ‘It seems we were not as clever as we thought.’

Ellie was silent for a moment, then she said, stumbling a little, ‘Did Angelo also know what you thought—what you wanted?’

The older woman hesitated ‘Dear child, it was no secret that his family—his friends felt it was high time he was married.’ ‘But I—I’d been—suggested?’ ‘Mentioned, perhaps, no more.’

‘I see.’ Ellie rose, smoothing her dress. ‘It—explains a great deal.’
And makes me understand why there was really no escape—for either of us …

‘Elena.’ Nonna Cosima took her hand, her eyes anxious. ‘Promise me that Angelo is not unkind to you.’

‘No,’ Ellie returned after a pause. ‘Under the circumstances, he’s very—considerate. And generous too.’ She touched fleetingly the diamonds in her ears and at her throat, forcing a smile. ‘I really have nothing to complain about.’

She bent and kissed the scented cheek, smiled again in what she hoped was reassurance, then walked away.

Her circuit of the room completed, and her duty done, she looked round for Angelo and saw him several yards away, head slightly bent while he listened with rapt and smiling attention to what was being said to him. As she started towards him, the groups of people around him moved slightly, giving her a
clearer view and she realised that his companion was Silvia, standing so near him that their bodies were almost touching as she looked up into his eyes, lips pouting, and one crimson tipped hand resting on his sleeve as if to emphasise the closeness of their association.

Ellie halted, shocked and turned away abruptly, nearly cannoning into a waiter carrying drinks. She muttered an apology then tossed the remaining wine in her glass down her throat before grabbing another from the tray, and swallowing a third of its contents in one gulp before heading for one of the long windows that had been opened on to the balcony beyond.

It had rained earlier, and there was a freshness in the air to combat the traffic fumes from the streets below. Ellie leaned on the wrought iron rail, aware of a trembling sensation in the pit of her stomach.

Her husband, she thought, with Silvia—as if time had somehow rolled back and they had regained their former intimacy. But how could it have happened?

Since her unexpected descent on Vostranto the previous year, and the quarrel that it had provoked, her cousin’s name had not been mentioned. Nor had she been encountered at any of the social events that Ellie had attended, largely, she’d supposed, because Silvia would not find the company sufficiently entertaining.

Yet here she was at the kind of function she would normally have avoided. Unless, of course, she had good reason to be there.

Ellie took another mammoth swallow of wine, feeling the jolt of it curl down to her toes, although it didn’t totally dispel that strange inner shaking as she’d hoped.

It was one thing to tell herself that Angelo would not feel obliged to remain faithful, and quite another to face the reality of his betrayal of his marriage vows—and with Silvia.

Did her cousin simply have to crook her little finger and watch him come running? she asked herself, anger building inside her. Was Angelo’s desire for her so overwhelming that
he could now overlook everything else that had happened—the selfish, vengeful trick she had played on both of them?

‘Well,’ she said aloud. ‘If so, I don’t have to wait around and watch.’

She finished the last of her wine, left the glass on a convenient ledge, and, feeling oddly empowered, walked back into the room and headed for the door.

A hand fell on her arm, halting her. ‘Where have you been?’ Angelo demanded. ‘I have been looking for you.’

‘I’ve been playing the part of your wife,’ she said. ‘And now I’m going to have the car brought round and go home.’

‘Without a word to me?’ His brows lifted. ‘How was I supposed to get back to Vostranto?’

‘I intended to leave a message. And I imagined you would spend the night in Rome,’ she said. ‘As you so often do.’

He said silkily, ‘Not when I have one of my rare appointments with you,
mia bella.
An occasion not to be missed, believe me.’

‘Indeed? Then I’m afraid, for once, you’ll have to excuse me.’

His mouth curled. ‘You are developing a headache, perhaps? The usual reason for a wife to evade her husband’s attentions.’

‘No,’ she said, forcing her voice to speak coolly, dispassionately. ‘Nothing like that. I’ve simply decided I just can’t do this any more. And therefore I’d prefer to be alone tonight.’

‘And if I wish to adhere to my own preferences?’

There was a note in his voice she’d never heard before, but her eyes were steady as they met the anger in his. Her tone was level too. ‘Then your
signoria
will have to use force. Or accept that we’re better apart.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps that would be safer—for tonight at least. So, I shall not detain you further.’ He stepped back, making her a slight formal bow.
‘Arrivederci, carissima.’