Kitabı oku: «The Italian's Token Wife», sayfa 3

He turned away from the window and sat himself down at his desk. He might as well get some work done while he was waiting. It might distract him from the coming confrontation.

Why did it have to be like this? he wondered, his expression drawn. Why this unnecessary, painful showdown with his father? Why couldn’t he simply talk to him—communicate instead of confront?

He sighed. He’d had more communication in the last fifteen years with Giuseppe and his wife Maria. It had been they who’d seen him through from adolescence to adulthood—Giuseppe, who’d doused his morning-after head before his father saw him; Maria, who’d refused to hand him the keys of his first sports car when he’d been too angry to drive after another explosive head-to-head with his father. And it had been Giuseppe who’d listened to him when he’d expounded his dreams of making Viscenti AG a global name, Maria who’d rung a peal over him for leaving a trail of besotted girls behind him, making him wise up and stick to society women.

He knew his father considered him dissolute—hence his determination to force him into matrimony. His mouth tightened. If there had been any real hope of communication with his father he would not have had to do what he had done this morning. A shadow crossed his eyes. It was his mother’s death in a road accident when he was fifteen that had caused the rift between father and son. They had both grieved—but not together. His father, mourning his adored wife, had withdrawn, cutting off his son. And Rafaello knew, with the hindsight of his thirty years, that the wild behaviour he had plunged into as a teenager—the fast cars, the partying, the girls—had been his cry for attention, for help—for love from a father who had turned away from him just when he needed him more than ever.

And now it was too late. The wall between them that had been laid, brick by brick, in Rafaello’s adolescence was too solid to break through. His father had hardened, and so had he. Now there was only challenge—and strife.

With the latest round just about to start.

The sound of a car approaching along the drive made him look up from his work. He could recognise the note of the pricey little roadster that his cousin Lucia drove. It was always important to her to be seen in the right car, wearing the latest clothes by the best designers, and socialising with the right people. Hence her burning desire for a rich husband.

When he could hear voices out in the hallway he strolled out, forcing himself to appear relaxed.

‘Rafaello?’ His father stopped short.

‘Papà.’ Rafaello strolled forward.

‘When did you get here?’ demanded Enrico di Viscenti, visibly taken aback by his son’s arrival.

‘This afternoon,’ replied his son laconically, and proceeded to cross to where his cousin was standing, stock still.

‘Lucia,’ he said dutifully, and bent to kiss her on either cheek. She smelt of too much perfume, and her face was too made up, but she was a handsome female for all that—as she well knew.

‘Rafaello,’ she murmured. ‘Such a surprise.’ Her voice was neutral, her eyes assessing. Rafaello returned her look blandly.

‘As you see, the prodigal returns,’ he observed laconically. ‘Have you had a pleasant day?’

‘Very,’ returned Lucia. ‘Tio Enrico accompanied me to the launch of an art exhibition in Firenze. A new artist I enjoy.’

A polite smile grazed Rafaello’s mouth. ‘And does he enjoy you, too?’ he murmured.

Lucia’s face stiffened immediately. ‘You offend, Rafaello!’ she snapped.

He shrugged elegantly. He shouldn’t bait her, he knew—but he was well aware that Lucia Foscesca took her lovers mostly from artistic circles. Young men who were likely to put up with her in exchange for the influence she could bring to bear on their careers. It was one of the—many—reasons that Rafaello refused to gratify his parent’s insistence on the suitability of marriage between the cousins. Call him old-fashioned—and Lucia frequently did, with a taunting laugh that could not quite hide her annoyance—but he would prefer his bride to be less well acquainted with the opposite sex.

He stilled. The word ‘bride’ pulled him up short. The idea that upstairs a scrawny, unlovely, sexually undiscriminating twenty-one-year-old English girl, with a nameless, fatherless child in her arms, was actually, in the eyes of the law, his bride of less than twelve hours struck him as completely unbelievable. Had he really gone through with it? What he had done still felt completely unreal. Insane. Then he hardened his resolve.

Yes, he had done it—put his name and hers on a wedding certificate. He had had no other option. His hand had been forced. Angry resentment seethed through him, but he banked it down. He’d get his revenge for what his stubborn, pig-headed father had made him do—get it right now.

His father was speaking again.

‘And to what, may I ask—’ his father’s voice sounded biting ‘—do we owe this unexpected honour?’

Rafaello’s dark eyes glinted. ‘Why, Papà, tomorrow is my thirtieth birthday. Surely you knew I would come?’

Enrico di Viscenti’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did I?’ he countered.

His son smiled. ‘And here I am—as dutiful as ever. Come,’ he went on, ‘join me on the terrace—I believe a little…celebration…is in order.’

He was aware of Lucia’s piercing scrutiny and sudden, riveted attention, and his gaze moved from his father to meet her assessing gaze. He smiled blandly, his eyes glinting just as his father’s had done.

‘Lucia—you will join us, of course.’

His voice was urbane, but it signalled volumes. He watched as a slow expression of satisfaction, swiftly veiled, passed over her handsome features.

‘Good,’ said Rafaello, and smiled again. But beneath the smile a hard, tight band seemed to be lashing itself around his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WELL?’ demanded Enrico, taking his seat at the ornate ironwork table at the shady end of the terrace outside the formal drawing room of the villa. ‘Can it be that you have come to your senses at last?’ His voice was sharp, and the gaze he rested on his son even sharper.

The hard, tight rope around Rafaello’s chest lashed the knot around his chest tighter.

‘Did you doubt that I would, Papà?’ he replied, his voice level.

His father made a sound in his throat between a growl and a rasp. ‘I know you are more obstinate and self-willed than any father deserves. It was always the way with you!’

‘Well,’ said Rafaello, with a temporising air, ‘for once I am being the model son—’

If there was a bite in his voice, no one heard it. He went on, ‘But first I would like, Papà, to confirm that if I do what you want, and marry by my thirtieth birthday, you will give me undisputed control of the company. Is that right?’ Rafaello addressed his father directly, keeping his voice brisk and businesslike.

‘Hah!’ exclaimed his father. ‘You know perfectly well it is so.’

‘And you give me your word on that?’

‘Of course.’ He sounded affronted that he had even been asked.

Rafaello smiled inexpressively. ‘In which case, Papà,’ he went smoothly on, his voice bland, ‘you may wish me happy—and keep to your side of the agreement.’

His father stilled, his hands gripping the arms of his chair, unable to speak for the moment. Not so Lucia. With a breathless little laugh, she spoke.

‘Rafaello, you are the most abominable man.’ Her voice was full of flirtatious exasperation. ‘Proposing to me in such a fashion.’ She gave her tinkling laugh again. ‘But I shall punish you for your lack of gallantry, be sure of that.’ She turned to her prospective father-in-law. ‘Tell me, Enrico,’ she said with coy feminine teasing, ‘how shall I punish this boorish son of yours for depriving me of my rightful wooing?’

She gave another little laugh, coquettish now, and let her gaze slip back to her husband-to-be.

There was a curious look on his face. Half-shuttered, half-revealing. He held up a hand.

‘Before we go any further, I think it is time for champagne, no?’

On cue, Giuseppe appeared, bearing the requisite beverage, and as he placed the tray on the table between them Rafaello murmured something to him. The man nodded, and retired. Rafaello busied himself opening the bottle and liberally filling up the glasses and spreading them around.

Lucia gave a click of irritation. ‘Giuseppe has brought one glass too many,’ she said acidly. ‘It is high time he took his pension!’

Rafaello presented her with her foaming narrow glass. ‘When you are mistress here, you may tell him so,’ he said lightly.

A small but distinct smirk of satisfaction—and anticipation—curled at her scarlet mouth. Rafaello watched it, his face still quite unreadable.

His father picked up his glass and got to his feet. ‘A toast.’ Satisfaction rang in his voice. He was well pleased with his son’s decision to finally see reason, as was his niece. ‘A toast to the new Signora di Viscenti—’

Rafaello lifted his glass. ‘How kind,’ he murmured. There was a slight sound in the doorway to the drawing room and he tilted his head towards it. ‘And how very timely.’

The girl stood there, Giuseppe just behind her. Fierce gratification surged through Rafaello. The girl made exactly the picture he had intended. As the others at the table turned to stare at her she stood there, atrociously dressed, her hair drawn back off her plain face with an elastic band, and—best of all—an open-mouthed baby on her hip. Her expression was completely blank.

Rafaello got to his feet and drew her forward. She was as stiff and unyielding as a board, and almost stumbled. He took her hand, making sure the wedding ring was visible.

‘Allow me to present,’ he said, in a voice that was as bland as milk, ‘my wife, Signora di Viscenti.’

For a moment, as Magda stood completely immobile, wanting the earth to swallow her, there was complete silence. Then, a second later, there was uproar.

It was the old man’s voice that was the loudest. It was like a lion roaring. She could understand not a word, but the rage in it was like a hurricane pouring over her. At her side Rafaello di Viscenti, the man to whom she had been legally joined in matrimony, gripped her left hand in a vice.

Her breath was frozen in her chest. The old man—who just had to be Rafaello di Viscenti’s father, for the arrogance of his head and the similarity of the features argued nothing else—was still roaring. The butler-type was looking as if he’d been hit over the head by a heavy object—and the woman sitting next to the older Signor di Viscenti was simply looking totally and completely incredulous.

For one long, timeless instant there was nothing except the roaring Italian rage of the old man, and then, in absolute terror, Benji started to howl.

Magda jerked her hand free and used it to cradle her son up against her breast, turning away, back into the lavishly elegant drawing room.

What on earth was going on? A new voice had interrupted the roaring—Rafaello’s. His voice was sharper, far more biting, but just as angry. Desperately Magda got as far away as she could, clutching the sobbing Benji to her while she tried to calm him—an impossible task, given the human racket going on out on the terrace.

Suddenly her sleeve was seized. There was an overpowering smell of heavy perfume, and a voice was hissing something at her in Italian. The venom in the words, incomprehensible though they were, made Magda flinch.

‘Please—’ she said jerkily. ‘I…I don’t understand.’

The woman caught breath. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Inglese?’ Then she shook Magda’s arm again. ‘Who are you? What are you playing at? Pretending to be Rafaello’s bride.’ The woman tried to seize her ring finger, as if to check its authenticity, but Magda fielded her off, turning so that her body was between the woman and Benji. He was still howling fearfully.

She tore herself away and headed for the door. Stumbling, Benji still wailing in terror, she rushed across the marble hall and hurled herself up the staircase as quickly as she could, heading back to the sanctuary of the bedroom. Only when she was safely within did she pause to draw breath.

Her first thought was for Benji. He was all but hysterical now, and calming him down took for ever. But gradually, as she sat on the bed with him on her lap, rocking gently and soothingly, his anguished sobs died away. A thumb slipped into his mouth and he began to relax at last.

Magda felt shaken to the core. She might not have understood a word of that roaring anger, but the fury had been unmistakable.

Oh, dear God, what have I let myself in for? Please, please, let me wake up and find myself at home…

But it was no dream. She was indeed here, in a Tuscan villa, married to a man whose family had gone apoplectic at the news.

If she listened, she could still hear the storm raging downstairs. It seemed to have moved in from the terrace, but it was still in full flood. Magda shrank back, clutching Benji. He felt her distress and discomfort, and started whimpering again.

Footsteps, hard and angry-sounding, echoed across the marble hall. Doors slammed several times. What sounded like paternal denunciation rang up through the floorboards. Finally, in a last flurry of raised voices, there was a heavier door slamming. It reverberated right through the house, it seemed to Magda, and then everything went quiet. A moment later there came the throaty roar of a powerful internal combustion engine, gunning fiercely and then roaring away.

Silence reined. Total silence. It was almost as unnerving as the noise.

Knowing, instinctively, that the only thing she could do was keep her head tucked well down beneath the parapet, Magda kept to her room. Gradually Benji cheered up, but it was not long before another need made itself increasingly urgently felt. He was hungry.

She rifled through her hand baggage, extracting an apple and some rusks. Benji wolfed them down, still hungry when they were all gone. For the next forty-five minutes Magda tried to mollify him, but in vain. Even juice could not sate him. He needed proper food, and milk. There was nothing for it. She would have to go and find some.

With her heart in her mouth she gingerly opened the door of her bedroom. It was dusky outside on the landing. Cautiously she went down the grand marble staircase into the deserted hall. Hoping to find Giuseppe, she went through what must be a service door into a stone-flagged corridor. A door stood ajar at the end, and she entered reluctantly. If it were just herself she’d go to bed hungry, but she could not starve poor Benji. Surely someone would take pity on him?

As she entered, she realised she was in a vast, old-fashioned kitchen. A cavernous fireplace at the far end was filled with a huge cooking range. Dominating the centre of the room, however, was an endless long wooden table. To the side, beneath an old-fashioned window, an elderly woman was vigorously scrubbing a huge copper saucepan at a stone sink.

As Magda hovered hesitantly in the doorway the woman turned to stare at her.

‘Si?’ she demanded, in an unfriendly tone. Her face was strong-boned, and her expression was anything but welcoming. She glared at Magda.

Magda swallowed. ‘Mi dispiace,’ she ventured haltingly, hoping she was pronouncing it right from the Italian phrasebook she had bought. ‘Ma…este possible…?’

‘I speak English,’ the woman snapped at her. ‘What is it you want?’

Almost, Magda turned and ran. Then, as Benji huddled in closer to her, sensing her unease, she swallowed again. ‘I am so sorry—’ her voice was almost a whisper ‘—but would it be possible, please…a little food…and some milk…for my baby…?’

Fierce black eyes from beneath beetling greying brows bored into her. She felt her throat tighten with tension. Surely the woman would not refuse sustenance for a little child, however angry she was at having been disturbed—as she so clearly was—by such an unwelcome person as the female whom Rafaello di Viscenti had brought here to cause uproar.

The eyes were scanning her, taking in her shabby clothes, her thin, drab figure, the baby clutching her, and then going back to Magda’s strained, nervous face. Suddenly the woman’s expression changed. She threw up her hands, exclaiming something vociferously in her native language, and bustled forward.

‘Come—come—come…’ she announced. ‘Sit—’ She propelled Magda with surprisingly strong arms, considering her age, and plumped her down at one of the chairs at the long table. ‘You are hungry, yes? Foolish girl—why did you not ring from your room?’

‘I…I…didn’t want to be a nuisance…’ Magda stammered.

The woman made a tch-ing noise in her throat. ‘A baby must not wait for his food,’ she announced. ‘Nor the mother.’

She bustled off to the far end of the kitchen, this time to the cooking range. There were various pots on it, and out of one she proceeded to scoop up, with the aid of a huge wooden implement like a spoon, with horizontal prongs, a generous serving of spaghetti. On top of this she ladled spoonfuls of tomato sauce. She carried the dish back to Magda, placed it on the table, and deftly tied a huge tea-towel around Benji’s neck to protect his clothes from the sauce.

Benji’s little mouth was already wide open, and Magda had scarcely time to check the pasta was not too hot before he had seized her wrist and was guiding the forkful towards him.

He made a hearty meal, and as soon as he had finished another, even larger bowl of pasta and sauce was placed in front of Magda.

‘Eat,’ the woman instructed, taking Benji from her. Balancing him expertly on her own hip, she turned to fill a cup with some water, and gave it to him to drink from with equal expertise. Surprisingly, Benji seemed perfectly happy with this, and started to gurgle.

The woman beamed, and addressed him in voluble Italian of which Magda caught only one word—bambino. Then, extracting a wooden stirrer from a large earthenware pot on the window ledge, the woman presented it to Benji—who grabbed it eagerly—and sat herself down opposite Magda.

‘Eat,’ she repeated, as Magda paused in her own consumption of pasta. It was totally delicious, and she was wolfing it down as eagerly as Benji had.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, still feeling intensely awkward as well as grateful.

The woman let her finish, amusing herself by entertaining Benji, who was in no way dismayed to be addressed in a foreign language. Magda watched covertly, between mouthfuls. The woman was obviously very experienced with children, and knew exactly what Benji found entertaining—which was largely banging the wooden stirrer on the table and trying to knock over the pepperpot.

Magda scraped the last of the tomato sauce with her spoon and gave a satisfied sigh. The woman looked across at her.

‘So,’ she announced. ‘Now we talk.’ She hefted Benji from one side of her lap to the other. ‘You tell me,’ she said in her heavily accented English. ‘Is Rafaello the father?’

A look of total stupefaction filled Magda’s face. Her mouth fell open in shock. Her reaction seemed to please the woman.

‘Well, that is one relief at least,’ she announced. The snap was back in her voice, and Magda, finally over-wrought by all the events of the day, found her throat tightening.

‘So,’ went on the woman relentlessly, ‘he has married simply to make his father angry. Idiota!’

Magda stared helplessly. She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what she could say. She had had no idea that she would be walking into such a volatile situation. But evidently it did not surprise the housekeeper—or so she assumed this woman must be.

‘Is he mad, finally to do this to his father?’ the woman exclaimed. ‘Always the same—always. Always they fight like…like the men of sheep…their heads—so!’ She slid one hand past Benji and made a fist, together with the other, and clashed the knuckles together, like rams’ horns impacting. ‘But this—this is the worst.’

‘I…I’m sorry,’ said Magda. It seemed the only thing to say.

The woman said something in Italian. ‘Well, well,’ she went on in English. ‘It is done now. So, if Rafaello is not the father of your child, why do you marry him?’

The bluntness of the question took Magda aback.

‘Um—Signor di Viscenti said he needed to be married for legal reasons by his thirtieth birthday. I…I agreed because…’

She felt silent. Suddenly it seemed shameful to admit that she had married a complete stranger for financial gain.

The woman’s eyes took on a shrewd expression.

‘He offers you money, yes?’

Colour stained Magda’s cheekbones. She looked down. ‘With…with the money Signor di Viscenti has promised me I can buy a little house for my son.’

The tch-ing noise came again. ‘And the father of your bambino? No, no, do not tell me.’ The voice sounded old and tired. ‘He has gone, no? It is always the same—the men do not care and the girls are foolish.’

She started to clear away the empty pasta dishes, handing Benji back to Magda. ‘Well, well, there is nothing to be done. But I tell you—’ a dark, warning look came Magda’s way ‘—after this his father will never forgive Rafaello.’

Sunlight pressing on Rafaello’s eyes made him groan. Slowly, he roused to an unwelcome consciousness, and then wished himself still in oblivion. He’d stormed out of the villa yesterday evening, his father’s curses still ringing in his ears. Tearing down the valley in his high-powered sports car, he’d replayed every ugly word that had been exchanged. His father’s incandescent rage and his own vicious taunting, telling him that thanks to his insistence on his son marrying he now had a daughter-in-law who came complete with a fatherless baby and who cleaned toilets for a living.

For ten seconds he’d thought Enrico would have a cardiac arrest on the spot—until his temper had burst out again and he’d rained down verbal abuse on his son for shaming the family name. As for Lucia, she’d been wearing an expression like Lucretia Borgia on a bad hair day—looking for someone to poison that could only be him.

He’d ended the night working his way through a bottle of grappa and damning the whole world.

A punishing shower brought him back to a semblance of half-life. It was nearly noon, a glance at his watch told him. Noon on his thirtieth birthday. He didn’t feel like celebrating. He crossed to the window of his bedroom and stared out balefully. Below, the vista of the gardens brought him no comfort. He tried to focus on important things. He must go to Rome and call a board meeting to confirm him as the new chairman, then start implementing the strategy for global expansion into the USA and Australia for Viscenti AG that he’d been planning for so long.

A movement to the side of his field of vision caught his eye. The girl and her little boy were rounding the side of the house. She was going very slowly, holding his hand as he toddled unsteadily along the gravelled path. Dio, he’d all but forgotten about her. He watched her stoop swiftly to catch the child as he stumbled momentarily and then set him back on course.

What the hell was he going to do about her? She’d served her purpose—provided him with the wife he required to confront his father. He didn’t need her any more, but he could not risk giving rise to public speculation that his was a fraudulent marriage by sending her back to England straight away. He gave a shrug and turned away. He would tell Maria to keep her out of his hair and she could enjoy a free holiday at the villa while he was in Rome.

He was just about to turn away when another figure came into view, stalking out from the house.

Lucia.

She was clearly on course to the girl, and in a raging temper.

Out in the gardens, Magda came to a halt. That woman, whoever she was, who had been as furious at Rafaello’s announcement as his father had been, was heading purposefully towards her. Magda waited apprehensively. The woman’s high heels scrunched noisily on the path.

She came to a stop in front of her. Yesterday Magda had been in too much shock to take in anything about the woman. Now she could see she was an immaculately coiffed, flashing-eyed brunette, wearing a tight-fitting designer outfit.

Her eyes were narrowed with blazing hostility. Magda’s hand tightened over Benji, who was crouching down to inspect the gravel.

Whatever the woman was going to say to her remained unsaid. More crunching footsteps sounded, heavier and rapid, and Rafaello appeared around the corner of the house. He was wearing, this summer morning, a lightweight suit in pale grey, and he looked, as Magda stared helplessly, completely breathtaking.

He launched into rapid Italian directed at Lucia.

‘You should leave, Lucia. There is nothing for you here—there never was. You should have known I would never marry you.’

Lucia’s eyes flashed angrily. Her face contorted. ‘So you married this putana instead of me! Look at her. She’s like some scrawny chicken.’

The contempt in the woman’s eyes as she raked Magda’s face made Rafaello’s jaw tighten.

‘Basta.’ He cast a rapid glance at the girl. She was looking ashen suddenly, and for a moment Rafaello hoped she didn’t have the wit to realise what Lucia had called her. But doubtless she could hear the hostility in his cousin’s voice, whatever language she spoke. He took a sharp breath.

‘I think, Lucia, it would be best if you returned to your apartment in Firenze. You have done my father no favours in making him think of you as a prospective daughter-in-law.’

An ugly look flashed in the woman’s dark eyes. ‘And you think you have done him a favour bringing him home that…that girl?’ she spat angrily. ‘I hope you are proud of what you have done, Rafaello.’

She turned on her stilettos and stalked off. Slowly, Magda let out her breath, unaware till now that she’d been holding it. Benji was clinging to her hand, huddled close, clearly frightened by the anger all around him.

‘It’s all right, muffin,’ she whispered comfortingly into his hair, as she scooped him up into her arms.

But it wasn’t all right. It was all wrong. Everything here in this beautiful place was as wrong as it could be. Her throat tightened.

‘You should have told me.’

Where the words came from she did not know. Where the courage to say them came from she certainly didn’t know. But she had said them, and now she was looking at the man she had thought she was marrying simply for a matter of legal detail in reasons of business.

But this was surely nothing to do with Viscenti AG—it couldn’t be! The anger and fury that had erupted since she had stepped out on to the terrace yesterday could not possibly be about something as impersonal as business.

This was family. Ugly, emotional, volatile, bitter family.

‘Told you what?’

Rafaello’s voice was sharper than he meant. His unpleasant exchange with Lucia made it sound harsher.

‘Told me that I was walking into a human minefield,’ Magda said tightly. ‘Everyone is furious that you married me. Your father, that woman—whoever she is—even the housekeeper and your butler. I didn’t know everyone here would be angry with me.’ There was a tremor in her voice she tried desperately to conceal.

‘They are not angry with you,’ Rafaello answered flatly. ‘They are angry with me. And the only person I am angry with,’ he continued, even more flatly, ‘is my father. You might as well know…’ He took a heavy breath. ‘He wanted me to marry Lucia—she is my cousin, and would like to be Signora di Viscenti and have my money to spend. She worked on him to persuade him she would be the ideal wife for me—and the ideal mother of the grandchildren he is obsessed with having. He sought to force my compliance by threatening to sell his controlling share of the family company. That I will not permit—I have worked too hard for the last ten years to throw away all my efforts just to ensure I am not manipulated into marriage with a woman I do not wish to marry. So I outmanoeuvred him. I arrived the day before my thirtieth birthday already—already married.’

‘To a putana.’ Her voice was even flatter than his.

Rafaello stiffened. Could she possibly know what that word meant? As if she could read his thoughts, she said thinly, ‘A whore—isn’t that the right translation, Mr di Viscenti?’

She started to walk past him. She just wanted to get away. The ugliness around her was choking her.

He caught her arm. ‘You must take no notice of Lucia. She is bitter and angry. She lashed out at you. That is all.’

‘Thank you—but I prefer not to be lashed out at in the first place. You and your cousin know nothing of me or my circumstances—or my son’s.’

His face darkened at her retort. ‘I know that a young girl with a baby and no man to support it means that you were, at the very least, careless about who you chose to sleep with.’

Her expression stiffened. ‘I think I was more careless, Mr di Viscenti, about whom I chose to marry yesterday morning. I definitely should have checked out your charming relations.’

She shook her arm free and walked rapidly away from him. Behind her, Rafaello swore. Then, quickening his step, he caught up with her.

‘I regret that you were exposed to such a scene,’ he said tightly. ‘But I would suggest you remember that you are being paid a substantial amount of money to undertake what you have done.’

She stopped, deflating instantly at his blunt reminder. She stared down at his polished shoes. He was right—and she must not forget it, however economical with the truth he had been about his reasons for marrying her.

‘I’ve done my best, Mr di Viscenti,’ she answered with quiet dignity, lifting her eyes to him. ‘I’ve done what you wanted me to do, when you wanted me to do it. But I really didn’t appreciate that one of my duties would be to serve as a punch-bag for those of your household who are displeased by your marriage.’