Lucy Gordon - Wife By Arrangement

‘That isn’t your concern any more. We could have been happy. Or at least I thought we could. I loved you, and I thought in time I could win your love. I hadn’t reckoned on your heart being so stubborn and awkward. Why do you think I used my mother as an intermediary? Because I knew it was too soon for you to have got over him. If I’d approached you myself, talking of love, it would only have driven you off further.’

‘But you knew-I mean there were things between us even then-’

‘Yes, desire, not love. Sometimes I felt you wanted me, but with your body, not your heart. That wasn’t mine, and if only you knew how much I wanted it, to have you look at me as I’d seen you look at him. I tried to keep it businesslike, not to alarm you, but that day in the temple-well-’ He sighed. ‘I couldn’t always stick to my good intentions. And all the time I loved you so desperately that I thought you’d see and understand. But you never saw, because you never wanted to. It was all Lorenzo with you.

‘We talked, once, about our day on the boat and what might have happened. You said you’d been in love with him, and I said love was a complication even when it was an illusion. If you knew how hard I prayed for you to say then that your love for him had been an illusion. I was holding my breath, willing you to say it-but you didn’t. And I suppose I knew the truth.’

His face was as bleak as a winter’s day, and for the first time his eyes weren’t closed to her, but open, defenceless, letting her see the suffering man within. She put her hand out but he flinched away from it. She couldn’t speak. Everything in her was concentrated on hearing what he would say next.

‘I should have let you go then,’ he said at last, ‘and this wouldn’t have needed to happen. Well, it’s happened. I brought it on myself, and I make no complaint.’

‘I don’t believe it’s you I’m hearing say all this,’ she breathed.

‘No? Well, I’ve been unlike myself since I knew you.’ He took a shuddering breath. ‘I’ll make it easy for you, but go quickly. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up.’

‘Renato-’

‘For God’s sake go!’ His face was livid. ‘Get out of here, and never let me see you again.’

SHE took a step towards him. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You’re my husband and I love you, and I’m staying right here with you.’

‘Don’t play games with me,’ he said hoarsely. ‘You’ve already told me that you slept with him.’

‘I said no such thing. I’ve said that I slept in Lorenzo’s bed last night-’ in her eagerness she seized his arms and gave him a little shake ‘-but I didn’t say that Lorenzo was there with me.’

‘What?’ he whispered.

His wretchedness made her heart ache. ‘Oh, darling!’ She touched his face. ‘What a fool you are! While I was sleeping in Lorenzo’s bed, he was sleeping in a police cell.’

‘What-did-you-say?’

‘He wasn’t with me. He spent the night under lock and key, sleeping on a bunk, with a blanket. Why do you think he looks as if he’s slept in his clothes? Because he has.’

He stared at her as her words pierced his cloud of misery. And suddenly the sun shone more brilliantly, the steeple bells rang and the trumpets sounded a fanfare.

‘A police cell?’ he echoed, as though repeating her words was all he could do.

‘He called me yesterday from a police station in London. He’d been arrested for driving under the influence and taking a swipe at a policeman. I figured I’d better get over there fast. Mamma was out and I thought the fewer people who knew about it the better, so I just caught the first plane to London.

‘I arrived yesterday evening and went straight to the station, but I couldn’t get him out because they were afraid he’d skip the country. So he had to spend the night in the cell. I stayed in his hotel room. It seemed silly to pay for another when his was empt-’

She was silenced by the crushing pressure of his mouth on hers. There were no words for the feelings that possessed them. For each the declaration of love had come in the unlikeliest way, catching them unawares, trapping them into admissions that their pride might have made impossible for years. Joy, triumph and blazing, overwhelming relief mingled in their kiss, lighting up the world.

‘Tell me it’s true,’ he said against her mouth. ‘Promise me that I won’t wake up in a minute-kiss me-kiss me-’

‘It’s all true, I swear it. I never slept with Lorenzo.’

‘No, not that-the other thing you said-about loving me-’

‘I do love you, Renato. There’s nobody I want but you. But I never thought you’d say you love me.’

‘Does a man go insane for a woman, the way I have, unless he loves her?’

‘You always had so many good reasons that were nothing to do with love.’

‘Fool’s reasons. I swore I’d never let a woman matter that much to me again. And then I met you, but it was already too late because you loved another man. I had to tell myself anything except that I loved you.’ He kissed her fiercely again and again. ‘I’ve been so afraid…’

Lost in happiness, she was only vaguely aware that she was moving, climbing, somehow they were upstairs. The sudden sound was the door of their bedroom being kicked shut then their clothes being hastily torn off as they reached feverishly for each other.

They made love like people who’d met for the first time. There was pleasure, but also relief and reassurance. Above all there was boundless hope. Only a few minutes ago the future hadn’t existed. Now it stretched to infinity, full of joy and fulfilment.

‘I suppose we ought to get up,’ Heather said at last, reluctantly. ‘Mamma will be awake, and she’ll wonder why Lorenzo is home. I wonder what he’s telling her. We must find out and make sure we don’t give him away.’

‘You wrong Lorenzo,’ Renato said at once. ‘He’ll tell her the truth. Whatever else you can say about him-and you can say a good deal-he’s honest.’

‘Yes. Do you realise how much we owe his honesty?’

But Renato didn’t answer, and she realised that his wounds were still raw, and he had some way to go yet.

‘Tell me the rest of the story,’ he said at last. ‘What happened? Did you spring him from gaol? Are the two of you on the run?’

‘Luckily, desperate measures weren’t needed. I got him a lawyer, and first thing this morning he was up before the magistrate. It wasn’t very serious. He was only a little bit over the limit, and there was no accident, nobody hurt.’

‘What about assaulting the policeman?’

‘It was just a little swipe. He barely touched him. He was fined and bound over to keep the peace. I know he has a lot of appointments in England but I thought I’d better get him back here quickly.’

‘You did the right thing. I won’t send him back for a while. But somebody has to visit his customers, and you’re the best person. You did brilliantly on that Scottish trip-’

‘Brilliantly? You were breathing down my neck-checking up on me-’

He kissed her. ‘It’s nice to know I’m not the only fool in the family. I went to Scotland because I couldn’t stand being apart from you another day.’

She snuggled against him, wondering if Lorenzo’s proximity in England might also have had something to do with it. But she didn’t ask. She no longer needed to.

‘So there it is,’ he murmured, ‘the last piece in that jigsaw you were talking about. We fit it exactly.’

‘It’s odd, I’m not quite sure-’ She brooded.

‘If we love each other, what else can there be?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just that I have an odd feeling that there are still two pieces missing.’

‘Forget it,’ he said, holding her tightly. ‘We’ve found each other. I’d nearly given up hope of that happening.’

She let it go and snuggled against him, revelling in her happiness. But the thought wouldn’t be entirely dismissed that the jigsaw wasn’t quite complete.

Two pieces to go.

She made the trip to England and returned to be plunged into the preparations for Baptista’s birthday party, to be given in the Great Hall of the Residenza.

‘We can kill two birds with one stone,’ Renato said to her one evening. ‘You know I’ve been thinking of branching out into flowers. There are some that we grow here better than anywhere else in the world, and it’s an area you might take charge of.’

‘I’d love to,’ she said eagerly.

‘Then you should start meeting some of the specialist growers. ‘I’m especially interested in this man,’ he said, handing her a business card bearing the name Vincenzo Tordone. ‘He has acres of greenhouses that can supply everything in winter. I’d like you to look him over and let me know what you think. If his stuff is high quality we can use him to fill the house with flowers on Mamma’s birthday, and set up a deal afterwards.’

Pleased, Heather visited Vincenzo Tordone in his office in Palermo. He was a tall, thin man in his late sixties, with white hair and a gently courteous manner that won her over at once. He took her on a visit to his glass-covered acres just outside the city, and she marvelled at the variety of perfect blooms that flourished under his hands.

‘I have a business in Rome,’ he told her as they sipped Marsala afterwards. ‘It’s a good business. My wife was Roman, and when she was alive she helped me to run it. Now she’s dead I’ve handed the reins to my son and daughter, and returned to my home.’

‘You’re Sicilian, then?’

‘Oh, yes. I was born in this country, and lived here until my twenties. One day I shall die and be buried here.’ He sighed with pleasure. ‘This is the best land in the world to grow plants. There’s nowhere so fertile, nowhere else where the flowers raise their heads so eagerly.’

He made her talk about herself, and she gave a carefully edited description of how she had come from England and ended up marrying into the Martelli family.