‘Was I too rough?’ he whispered into her hair.
‘No, I liked it...like that,’ she framed unevenly, still trying to catch her breath. ‘But I’m glad Antoine is still out on the mower because he would have heard us if he’d been indoors.’
Gianni burst out laughing as he released her from his weight and rolled over, only to curve her round to face him again. ‘Only you would think of that,’ he said appreciatively. ‘I think we expended so much energy that we’ve almost dried your hair.’
‘It’ll be like a haystack after that,’ Jo forecast without much concern because she knew she would be getting back in the shower to wash it again. ‘Gran used to say I had hair like my mother and it had a will and a life of its own.’
‘You never talk about your mother.’
‘I have no memory of her at all. I have photos of her, but I only know her through what others have told me about her,’ Jo confided. ‘It’s all second-hand and some of it is likely just conjecture.’
‘Tell me about her,’ Gianni urged.
‘She was quite independent. She married a man who was a lot older when she was twenty and it was against my grandparents’ wishes. Unfortunately, the marriage didn’t last and she wouldn’t come home to the family after the divorce. I kind of understand that,’ Jo admitted wryly. ‘Her brother, Abraham, was the star on the home front because he was an up-and-coming businessman and Grandpa’s big hope for the future. He was always being held up to her as the act to follow. There wasn’t really room for her to be herself there and she had an office job in London, lots of friends and a good social life.’
‘When did she get pregnant with you?’
‘A few years after the divorce. My grandparents didn’t know until after I was born and she brought me back for a visit. They offered to keep me during the week so that she could work and she agreed, saying she would spend weekends with us at Ladymead. Six months later, she died in a train crash on her way to visit.’
‘It’s tragic that both your grandmother’s children died before her. It’s possible that I could have enquiries made to see if we could establish who your father is...if you were interested?’
Jo gave him a rueful smile. ‘Thanks, but no, thanks. I have all the family I need. Sybil thinks my father may possibly have been a married man and a colleague of my mother’s. I think I’ll let sleeping dogs lie. I can live with not knowing.’
Gianni pulled her closer and curved an arm round her. ‘I felt I should offer.’
‘It’s a kind idea but I’m happy as I am,’ she told him truthfully, loving the easy affection with which he held her close even though she reckoned it was virtually meaningless to a man who had already decided she only had a shelf life of five years’ duration. A minimum of five years for her as wife could also mean Gianni’s maximum, she reasoned, wondering why she hadn’t seen that possibility before.
‘Hi, this is Jo,’ the voice declared brightly. ‘I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you later...’
Gianni almost threw his phone at the wall in frustration. How many times had he listened to Jo’s voicemail? He had told her what the time difference was and she had still tried to call him back when he was asleep! He had barely spoken to his wife in two long weeks. He had asked her to accompany him to New York for the all-important board meeting that would decide his future. Jo, however, had cited the many workers starting repairs at Ladymead and her need to help her family to move out into their temporary home in the village and he had grudgingly given way.
He strode down the gilded corridor in the penthouse that his mother had once furnished like the Palace of Versailles. Glimmers of that theatrical magnificence still lingered in the elaborate walls and ceilings, but Fiona had made a clean sweep of all the fussy furniture and had installed modern pieces.
Gianni was in a rage. Fresh from the board meeting that had lacerated his hopes and expectations, he was in very bad form. While his position as CEO of Renzetti Inc had been confirmed, the board had insisted on reviewing his status in three months’ time. Gianni, who had made multimillion-dollar profits for the business, wason probation. Nobody had employed that provocative term but that deferred decision had still gone down with Gianni like a lead balloon. He had wanted certainty and certainty wasn’t on offer. Consequently, it seemed to him that he had got married for nothing. Certainly, his marriage hadn’t paid off!
What was even worse in his opinion was that no sooner had they returned home than Jo seemed to have become perpetually unavailable. Her driving motivation seemed to be finding a million things to do other than simply beinghiswife. And he wanted Jo around more. He wanted her with him. Why shouldn’t he feel like that when they were a couple?
He had brought forward his flight home. It infuriated him not to be able to speak to Jo. He had wanted to tell her about the board meeting, had known that she would instantly make him feel better about that contentious decision. Unlike him, she had a way with words. But Jo, it seemed, had little room for him in her busy itinerary. They were still in the first month of their marriage but Jo was more interested in her family’s needs, not to mention organising the co-ordination of the complex repairs on Ladymead and the housing of her pets. He had little doubt that she was also still loyally meeting her duties at the church and for her various charities! Only Gianni seemed to have drawn the short straw.
That same morning, Jo screened a yawn as she endeavoured to keep the joiners and the roofers from each other’s throats as they quarrelled about who had arrived first and who therefore had the right to clear everyone else out and start work unimpeded. Jo was already stressed by the fact that her grandmother had tripped over a rug and hurt her ankle and Sybil had had to take the older woman to the local A & E for treatment. Trixie was fairly useless in a crisis, prone to panic attacks and absolutely hopeless at handling grumpy men. While Jo suggested staggered access to the foreman as a means of keeping the peace between the various work teams, she pushed back the hard hat, which was hot on such a warm day, and longed for the fresh air and the chance to shed her fluorescent high-vis jacket. The council health and safety representative had insisted that everyone who crossed the threshold of the house had to wear protective gear even though the real work hadn’t started yet.
Jo checked her watch as the workmen reached agreement and she left them to it because she had to help prepare the church hall for the summer jumble sale. Her grandmother had volunteered and Jo felt duty-bound to cover for her absence. She wondered where Gianni was and what he was doing. Most of all, she wanted to know how that board meeting had gone and he hadn’t called her yet.
Shedding her safety gear with relief in the front garden, she headed back to Belvedere where Duffy, on his perch in the orangery, greeted her with a biblical quote. ‘“In the world you will have tribulation...”’
‘Thanks, Duffy. Just the cheery word I needed,’ Jo jibed.
The house her family would be using until Ladymead was liveable again was too small for a parrot with a giant noisy personality and Gianni had agreed that the bird could stay with them.
‘Have you time for lunch, Jo?’ Abigail asked as she passed back through the hall.
‘Give me five minutes. I’m all dusty and I need to change first,’ Jo confided as she hurried up the stairs.
At the top of the staircase, she felt suddenly dizzy and grabbed onto the balustrade to stay upright. She had broken out in a cold sweat as well. Breathing in slow and deep, she wondered if she had been racing around too much in the heat, although she hadn’t had much choice about that after her grandmother’s fall. Trixie had been in hysterics and she had had to rush over there. And she still hadn’t remembered to thank Gianni for having a gate cut in the wall between Ladymead and Belvedere, so that she could easily move between the properties without taking a car out onto the road.
She grabbed the first cool dress that met her eyes in her dressing room, an old favourite that still had plenty of wear in it even if Gianni had suggested that she should now be dumping her older clothes and utilising the designer garments she had worn on their short honeymoon. A dreamy look momentarily crept across Jo’s face. Those few short days in Provence had been magical. She had never felt closer to another human being than she had felt to Gianni, but she didn’t kid herself that it had been the same way for him. Gianni had buckets of charm and she was quite sure that most women responded to him as she had. He was very passionate, but she didn’t count sex as an advantage. Gianni liked sex and he found her attractive. She refused to believe that that made her anything special in his eyes. So, here she was, talking herself down again, trying not to get too emotional about stuff.
Unfortunately, without even trying, Gianni could hurt her feelings as well. Out of sight seemed to be out of mind when Gianni was involved. He had only phoned her a couple of times since he had departed and her chatty texts had gone unanswered apart from the very first when he had texted back,