There was command—stern, urgent—in that deep voice. Obedience in the one that answered it.
‘Si! Si! At once—at once. He is summoned!’
She struggled upright, emotion surging through her again, past the tide of faintness. ‘No...no... I don’t need a doctor—I’m fine... I’m fine.’
Cesare looked down at her. The room, she realised, was suddenly empty. There was only him, towering over her.
‘He is on his way, nevertheless,’ he said.
There was still command in his voice. Then his expression changed. His gaze speared into hers, and in his face Carla saw something that stopped the breath in her body.
‘Why did you come? Tell me—Dio mio—tell me!’
She had never heard him speak like that—with so much raw, vehement emotion in his voice. She felt an answering emotion in herself, yet dared not feel it...dared not.
Her eyes, so deep a violet, searched his, still not daring to believe.
Slowly, falteringly, she spoke. ‘When you wrote...what you wrote—I read... I read Count Alessandro’s words...and then yours...’
Her voice was strained, her words disjointed. Her eyes searched his. She still did not dare to believe. This was the man prepared to marry her out of duty, out of responsibility. So how could he have written what he had? Why? Once before she had allowed herself to hope—hope that his feelings might be starting to echo hers...the very night he’d told her he was leaving her. Destroying her—
So how could she dare to hope again? Could she dare? She had to know.
‘Cesare, why...why did you write what you did? That you would not make the mistake he did?’ Her voice was faint, low. Yet her eyes were wide, distended.
That same vehemence was in his face—the same emotion that was stopping the breath in her body, that she had never seen before in it. It had not been there—not once—in all the time she’d known him.
His eyes burned into hers. ‘You read his words,’ he said. ‘He married his contessa from duty, from expectation. Yet she never wanted to marry him. Never wanted to marry at all. Her vocation was to become a nun. But her family forced her to marry, to do her duty, to bear his children as a noblewoman should do. And he—Count Alessandro—he did as a nobleman should do: protective of his honour, taking pride in his ancient name. He did not love her, his contessa—that was not relevant.’
In Carla’s head she heard again what Cesare had said when he had informed her he was intending to marry—that loving Francesca, his intended wife, was not ‘relevant’. As she remembered, as she gazed at him now, still not daring to believe, she felt the same emotion that had brought her here, to his ancient castello, driven by an urgency that had possessed her utterly.
‘And yet...’ She heard the fracture in Cesare’s voice. ‘And yet there was a woman he did love.’ He paused, his eyes still spearing hers. ‘It was his mistress. The mistress he had taken from desire, whom he had never thought to marry. It was his mistress with whom he spent his hours of leisure. And it was the family he had with her—for babies were impossible to stop in those times, as you know—that he loved. Not the solitary son he had with his contessa—the son who grew to manhood hating the father who so clearly had no time for him, no love. Just as he had no time, no love, for the son’s mother, the Contessa.’
Abruptly he let go her hand, got to his feet. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he strode to the windows overlooking the valley beyond. He spoke with his back to her, gazing out at the night beyond the panes of glass, as if he could see into it, through it, back into a past that was not the youth of Count Alessandro’s heir—but his own youth.
‘My father had no time for me,’ he said.
His voice had changed. Thinned. He was speaking of things he never spoke of. But now he must.
‘He thought me oversensitive! Unlike him, I did not think that being a brilliant shot, a hunter of game, of wildlife slaughtered to hang as trophies on his walls, was a worthy accomplishment, fitting for my rank. He despised me for what he called my squeamishness. Judged me for it. Condemned me. Openly told me I was not up to being his heir.’
He was silent a moment, and his lips pressed together. Then he went on.
‘When he died I determined to prove myself—to prove him wrong. Oh, I still never took to his murderous love of slaughtering wildlife, but I immersed myself in the management of all the heritage that had come to me—the enterprises, the people in my employ, the tenants and clients, all those whom the estates support and who support the estates. I did my duty and beyond to all that my name and title demanded and required of me. I gave his ghost, the ghosts of all my ancestors, no cause at all to think me lacking!’
He turned now, looking back across the room to the figure lying propped up against the pillows on his bed, to the swell of her body visible now in the lamplight limning her features. He felt emotion move within him as he spoke on.
‘And the final duty for me to discharge,’ he said, his voice grave now, and his expression just as grave, ‘was to marry. The final duty of all who bear my name and title is to marry and create a successor.’
His eyes shifted slightly, then came back to Carla. Her eyes were fixed on him, her face gaunt now.
Cesare took a breath. ‘My father always approved of Francesca—always identified her as the ideal woman I should marry. She was suitable in every way—and he told me I would be fortunate indeed if she would agree to the match.’
He shut his eyes again, his face convulsing, then opened his eyes once more. Let his gaze rest unflinchingly on Carla.
‘And so she would have been.’ He stopped, his jaw tightening. ‘If I had not met you.’
There was silence—complete silence.