‘Here in the west,’ she began, her tone measured, but meaningful, ‘I am well aware that it is the custom for marriages to be based on emotion. Love, as you would call it. It is the fashion, and it is the expectation. But for all that it is not always the case, is it?’
Her eyes were holding Diana’s fixedly.
‘You will forgive me for speaking in a way that you Europeans with your propensity for democracy might find old-fashioned, but for those who are born into responsibilities greater than the acquisition of their own happiness such a custom may not always be appropriate.’
She smiled, exchanging another speaking glance with her hostess.
‘Perhaps we are not so unalike, you and I? At some point I must make a marriage for reasons greater than my own personal concerns—and perhaps that is something that you yourself can understand? Something you have also done?’
She patted Diana’s hand again, holding her gaze questioningly as she did so.
‘I teased you when you visited me,’ she reminded Diana, ‘about having so handsome a husband that surely he must be the most important aspect of your life—m
ore important than anything else. But perhaps...’ She paused, then went on, glancing around her. ‘Perhaps that is not so? You gave me reason to suppose that when you answered me...’
Diana’s eyes dropped and she stared into her lap. Spoke dully as she replied. With heaviness in her voice.
‘I thought I was saving my house...my home. It is dearer to me than anything in the world. I thought—’ she gave a little choke ‘—I thought I would do anything to save it.’
She lifted her eyes, met those of the Princess who, perhaps alone of anyone she knew, would understand.
‘Even marry for it.’ She took a breath, felt it as tight as wire around her throat. ‘So that’s what I did. I married to save my house, my home, my inheritance. To honour what my father had done for me.’
She gave the Princess a sad, painful smile.
‘My mother left my father when I was a child, but he chose never to remarry. It was for my sake. You will not need me to tell you that in England it is the tradition for sons to inherit family estates, not daughters—unless there is no son. My father knew how much I loved Greymont, how important it had become to me. It gave me the sense of security, of continuity, I so desperately needed after my mother abandoned and rejected me. So he gave up his chance of happiness to ensure mine.’
She sighed.
‘When he died, and I found I needed so much money to honour his sacrifice for me, I made the decision to marry money. Forgive me,’ she said tightly, ‘for such vulgar talk—but without money Greymont would eventually decay into a ruin. You know that, Your Highness, from your own house that you are saving.’
The Princess nodded. ‘So you married the handsome man who just happened to have the wealth that you required for this?’ She gestured all around her. She paused, then, ‘It does not sound so absurd a decision. It was a marriage that made sense, no? Your husband ensured the future of your home and you, my dear Mrs Tramontes, provided the beauty that any husband must treasure!’ She paused again, her eyes enquiring. ‘So, what is it that has gone so very wrong?’
She searched Diana’s face.
Diana, filled with misery, crumpled the sodden tissue in her hands, meshing her fingers restlessly.
‘I thought... I thought he married me out of self-interest. Just as I had married him! Because we were useful to each other. I—I thought,’ she said, her voice faltering, ‘that was the only reason and that it would be enough. But then—’ She broke off, gave a cry. ‘Oh, Your Highness,’ she said in anguish, ‘your kindness, your brother’s generosity, worked magic that was disastrous for me! Disastrous because—’
She felt silent. Incapable of admitting what had happened out under the scorching desert sun in the Arabian Nights fantasy she had indulged in so recklessly. So punishingly stupidly...
The Princess took her writhing hands. Stilled them. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Tell me why it was so disastrous for you.’
There was kindness in her voice, and command as well—but not the command of a princess, but that of a woman, knowing the ways of women. The mistakes they made—mistakes that could ruin lives. Devastate them.
And with a faltering voice, stammering words, Diana told her.
There was silence. Only the sound of birdsong through the open window and the sound, very far off, of a lawn being mowed beyond the rose garden.
‘Oh, my poor friend.’ The Princess’s voice was rich with sympathy, with pity. ‘My poor, poor friend.’
* * *
The small café was all but deserted. Nikos sat with an untouched beer, his half-brother likewise.
‘My father,’ said Antoine, ‘was not an easy man. He was considerably older than our mother. A difficult, demanding man whom she should never have married. That no woman should have married,’ he said dryly. ‘But there it was—too late. She was his wife. His comtesse. And required to behave in a manner he considered appropriate. Which demanded, above all, her producing an heir.’
Antoine’s voice was dryer still.