That’s where he first started to make love to me. The night that he carried me upstairs, began our affair. Made me his.
But he was never hers. Never. Not even now, when he was forcing himself to marry her for the sake of the child she carried. The as yet unreal being who would become, as the months yielded to each other, so very, very real. Binding them to each other with an indissoluble bond, even if she were to divorce him and he was to marry—belatedly—his aristocratic Francesca.
This child will bind us to each other for ever. With him wishing it were not so and me...me haunted by what can never be. I can never be the woman he loves.
Into her head came the images on that triptych—the paintings that had catalysed their affair so many months ago. The Count flanked by the two women in his life. The peasant girl, gowned in red silk, who could never aspire to be his wife. And his pale, haunted wife, dutifully married, bonded for life, whether or not she had ever wanted to be.
I’ve become them both. The mistress he kept for his bed and the wife he married for duty, for a legitimate heir. Neither woman was happy. How could they be?
The bitterness was in her throat. Her heart.
They reached the cool, marbled hallway.
‘Shall I see you up to your room?’
Cesare’s voice penetrated her dark, bleak thoughts.
She shook her head. ‘No—it’s fine. I remember the way.’
She hadn
’t meant to sound sarcastic, and hoped she hadn’t. Cesare did not seem to notice anyway. He only nodded.
He took her hands, holding them lightly but in a clasp she could not easily pull away from. His eyes looked into hers.
‘Carla—I’m... I’m sorry. Sorry for so much. But however...however difficult things are to start with, you have my word that I will do my best—my very best—to be a good husband to you.’
His gaze held hers, but she found it hard...impossible...to bear it.
‘I have said that we can make this work, and we can.’ He took a breath. ‘We can have a very civilised marriage. If we do divorce, at some later date—well, that is not for now. It is for then. And it may not come to that.’
For a moment it was as if he might say something more. She saw a tic in his cheek—indicating, she knew, that he was holding himself in strict self-control.
She drew back her hands. ‘Cesare—go. There isn’t anything more to say.’ Her gaze slid away, not wanting to meet his. Heaviness weighed her down.
Be careful what you long for.
The warning sounded in her head. Once she had longed to become Cesare’s wife—but not like this. Oh, not like this!
‘Very well—I will take my leave, then.’
He did not make any gesture of farewell. Once, long ago, he would have dropped a swift, possessing kiss upon her lips, as if it were the seal of possession for their next time together. Now she was carrying his child, and that was seal of possession enough.
Except that I am a possession he does not want...
‘Goodbye, Cesare.’
She did not say any more. What could she say? She’d said everything that could be said. Now they were simply bound to the motions they would need to go through.
She stepped back, waiting for him to leave. But suddenly, impulsively, he took her shoulders, dropped onto her forehead a brief flash of his lips. She felt his hands pressing on her shoulders, the shock of his mouth on her skin.
‘We can make this work, Carla.’
There was intensity in his voice, in his eyes, pouring into hers. Then he was releasing her, striding away, throwing open the doors and moving out into the sunshine beyond to climb into his car and drive away.
Carla stood, listening to the engine fade into the distance. She walked forward to close the doors. Then slowly, very slowly, went upstairs.
How could they make it work? How?