Her mother’s eyes were piercing. ‘Can you?’ she said. Her expression changed. ‘Darling, it’s you I’m thinking of! Affairs can go badly wrong.’ She paused again. ‘I should know. For me there was no happy ending. And that’s what I fear for you! There can be no happy ending for you as Cesare di Mondave’s mistress—’
Rejection was instant in Carla. ‘Mistress? Of course I’m not his mistress!’
Yet even as she rejected the term across her mind seared the memory of that triptych, and the sixteenth-century’s Conte’s mistress.
I am not that woman—I am nothing whatsoever like that wretched woman! I am not Cesare’s mistress, I am his lover, and he is my lover, and we are together by choice, of our own free will, and I’m perfectly happy with that. Perfectly!
She could see her mother backing off, taking another breath. ‘Well, whatever you call yourself it doesn’t matter. All that matters to me is that you don’t get hurt!’
She shook her head one more time.
‘I know I can’t stop you, but...’ she looked worriedly across at Carla, holding her gaze ‘...promise me that, whatever happens, when it comes to Cesare di Mondave you won’t go and do something unforgivably stupid.’ She took a breath. ‘Promise me that you won’t go and fall in love with him!’
There was silence. Absolute silence. And then Marlene’s voice again, sounding hollow now.
‘Please promise me that, Carla—please.’
But Carla could not answer. Could not answer at all...
Emotion was pouring over her like an avalanche. Wiping the breath from her lungs. Suffocating her with a blinding white truth...
* * *
Cesare was out on the terrace, hands curled around the cold stone of the balustrade. Above the gardens and the valley the moon was rising, casting its silver glow over the world. His expression was studied.
Francesca.
Francesca delle Ristori—Donna Francesca—daughter of a marchese, granddaughter of a duke on her mother’s side, daughter of one of his father’s best friends, and ideally suited to be the next Contessa di Mantegna.
Ideally suited to be his wife.
He’d known her all his life. Known her and liked her. And what was not to like? She was intelligent—extremely so—sweet-natured, good-tempered, and, as a bonus, beautiful. She had a pale, ash-blonde beauty that would adorn his arm...that some of their children, surely, would inherit.
Into his head, memory pierced. His father talking to him...at him...shortly before the seizure that had killed him.
‘She’ll be the perfect wife for you—if you’ve any sense at all you’ll see that! She’s serious, committed and would be an ornament in her role as your mother’s successor!’
It was impossible to disagree with hi
s father’s judgement. Francesca would, there was no doubt in his mind whatsoever, make a perfect wife, the perfect next Contessa di Mantegna and mother of the future Count.
When the right time came.
If it was to come at all.
His jaw tightened. That, he knew, was the meat of Francesca’s letter to him. Was this long-mooted marriage of theirs to take place—or not? A decision was necessary. And very soon.
And that was the problem he had.
It’s come too soon.
As the words formed in his head his inner vision blotted out the moonlit valley before him. He was seeing Lake Garda, sunlight bright on its deep, dark waters, the reflection of the jagged mountains in its surface, seeing his arm casually around the woman beside him as they leant against the stone balustrade on the hotel terrace overlooking the vista.
The memory burned tangibly in him—he could almost feel the soft curve of her hip indenting into his, her hand around his waist. More vivid memory came now, of the last time they had made love, her body threshing beneath his, her mouth hungry for his, her passion released, ardent and sensual, so arousing a contrast with her air of English composure when she was not in his embrace.
I don’t want to give that up—not yet.
Oh, one day he would marry—of course he would—but his own preference would have been to postpone marriage for some time. For him there was no necessity to do so yet. But his marriage must be a partnership—with his wife an equal partner. Not for him a marriage like his parents’. His wife would not live the life of his mother, shaping herself around his father’s wishes, giving up everything else in her life but her role as Contessa. No, Francesca would be very different—and that included her very understandable desire to marry when the time was right for her.