Wife By Arrangement Page 6

  Baptista suffered from a weak heart, and spent much of her time resting, but one morning she appeared at breakfast looking strong and cheerful, and invited Heather to take a short trip with her, although wouldn’t say where they were going.

  ‘I would have invited Angie as well,’ she said as the car took them inland, ‘but she and Bernardo had already made plans.’ She gave a conspiratorial smile.

  ‘I’ve never seen Angie like this before,’ Heather admitted. ‘Usually she’s a bit-well-’

  ‘Love ’em and leave ’em,’ said Baptista robustly. She was proud of her grasp of English idiom.

  ‘Yes, but she seems really absorbed in Bernardo. I wonder about him, though.’

  ‘He’s a very difficult man, but since Angie has been here I’ve seen him happier than ever before. She may have more to contend with than she imagines, but it will be so nice for all of us if it works out.’

  Inland Sicily was more sparsely populated than the coast. Now they were in the rural heartland, where goats grazed within sight of the ruins of a Greek temple. Their way was briefly barred by a flock of sheep, driven by a little nut-brown man with a gap-toothed grin. He nudged his flock to the side and hailed Baptista, who hailed him back.

  ‘We’re on my land now,’ she explained. ‘I have a small estate, a village, some olive groves, and a little villa. It was my dowry.’

  At last they saw the village, called Ellona, clinging to the side of the hill. It was a medieval place with cobblestones, tiny houses and only two buildings of note. One was the church, and the other a pink stone villa with two staircases curving up the outside.

  The midday heat was at its height, and they sat just inside the house, at a French door looking out onto a terrace, with the net curtains moving gently in the faint breeze.

  ‘I ordered English tea in your honour,’ Baptista said, with a note of triumph.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ Heather said, sipping the Earl Grey. ‘Deliziusu.’ She pronounced the Sicilian word very deliberately, to differentiate it from the Italian, delicioso. Baptista smiled.

  ‘Already you are becoming a Sicilian,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I learned some Italian to get on in the store, and Sicilian isn’t too hard if you remember how often it uses “u” where Italian uses “o”. I’ll get the hang of it.’

  ‘What matters is that you are working hard to become one of us, just as I knew you would.’

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ Heather said impulsively. ‘I’ve only been in Sicily a few days, but as soon as I arrived I had such a feeling of-of rightness. I don’t know how else to say it, but it’s as though everything was conspiring to tell me that this is where I belong. I’ve never had that sense before.’

  ‘Then you have come to the right place, and the right people.’ Baptista made a sweep of her hand, indicating the sunlit landscape, down the valley, across to Palermo, with a faint glimpse of the sea beyond. ‘See, the very land welcomes you.’

  ‘This place is so beautiful. Did you live here when you were a child?’

  ‘No, but we visited sometimes in the summer, when the city was too hot. It was my property, to be kept in good condition so that it could be a fine dowry when my marriage was arranged.’

  ‘Arranged?’ Heather echoed, not sure she’d heard correctly. ‘An arranged marriage?’

  Baptista chuckled. ‘Of course. Arranged marriages were very common, and even today-where there is property-’ she gave an eloquent shrug. ‘They often work out very well, despite what you think.’

  ‘But what about love?’

  A faraway look came into Baptista’s eyes. ‘I was in love once,’ she said softly. ‘His name was Federico. I called him Fede. He was a fine-looking boy, tall and strong with dark, speaking eyes, and hands that could hold a woman so gently.’

  She smiled, looking at something deep inside herself. ‘Of course, a well brought up young girl wasn’t supposed to notice things like that, but he was the most handsome young man in Sicily. All the girls were crazy for him, but I was the one he loved.’

  ‘What happened?’ Heather asked.

  ‘Oh, we never had a chance. He was a gardener, and in those days rich girls didn’t marry gardeners. In fact they still don’t. He used to work here and grow such beautiful roses, just for me. He said that whenever he saw a rose, he thought of me.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My parents separated us. He was sent away and I never saw or heard of him again. I tried to find out what had become of him, for I thought if only I could know that he was well I might find a sort of peace. But I never managed to discover anything. He had vanished into a void. That was the hardest thing of all to bear.’

  ‘Vanished?’ Heather echoed, shocked. ‘Do you mean that-?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Baptista said quickly. ‘He vanished. It would be nice to know, one way or the other, but I suppose now I never will.’

  ‘You still think of him-after all these years?’

  ‘He was my one true love, and no woman ever forgets the man who is that,’ Baptista murmured with a touch of wistfulness. ‘I cried for weeks, and was sure my life was over. My parents arranged marriages for me and I refused them all. After several years they were growing worried. I was already twenty-five, a late age for a girl of my generation to marry. Finally they suggested Vincente. He was a good man, although very dull. But I wanted children. So I married him, and I was glad.’

  ‘You fell in love?’

  ‘No, not I with him, nor he with me. But we became dear friends.’ She gave Heather an impish smile. ‘How easy it is to embarrass the young. You are wondering if I knew about my husband and Bernardo’s mother. Of course I did, and it wasn’t the end of the world. I’d had my love, and the happiness I knew in that short time will stay with me all my days. I was glad Vincente could also be happy.’

  ‘But are you saying that-that love doesn’t matter in marriage?’

  ‘I’m saying there is more than one kind of love. Vincente was my dearest friend. As friends we loved each other, and our marriage was strong. When our little girl died we wept in each other’s arms.’

  ‘You had a daughter?’

  ‘Our first child. She died when she was six months old. Her name was Doretta.’ Baptista took her hand. ‘If she had lived, I hope she would have grown up like you, gentle, sweet-natured and strong.’

  Heather laid her other hand over Baptista’s and looked at her with eyes that were suddenly blurred.

  ‘We haven’t known each other very long,’ Baptista said, ‘but sometimes a few days is enough-as you and Lorenzo have discovered. I knew from the first that you were the daughter of my heart, as surely as if I’d given birth to you. Bella Rosaria would have been Doretta’s dowry. Now it will be yours.’

  ‘You mean-you’re giving it to Lorenzo-?’

  ‘No. I am giving it to you.’

  ‘But-I couldn’t possibly-’

  ‘If you refuse, you will break my heart,’ Baptista said simply.

  ‘And I wouldn’t hurt you for the world,’ Heather said at once. ‘Thank you.’

  After all, she thought, the property would return to the family on her wedding day. And that was so close now that the gift probably wouldn’t happen until the actual wedding.

  But Baptista had another surprise for her. She rapped on the floor with her walking stick, and when a maid looked in spoke a few words in Sicilian. A moment later two grave-looking men, dressed in black, entered the room, carrying papers.

  ‘This is my lawyer and his assistant,’ Baptista explained. ‘The papers are all ready for signature, and they will act as witnesses.’

  ‘You mean now?’ Heather asked, slightly aghast.

  ‘There will never be a better time,’ Baptista said calmly taking up a pen.

  ‘Signora-’ Heather said urgently.

  ‘In a few days it will be right for you to call me Mamma,’ Baptista observed. ‘Why not now? It would make me so happy.’

  ‘And me-M
amma.’

  ‘Bene! Now be a dutiful daughter and don’t argue.’

  A few moments later Heather found herself the owner of an estate. They all marked the occasion with a glass of Marsala, and the lawyers departed.

  ‘Now I’m feeling a little tired,’ Baptista announced. ‘I’ll go and lie down for a while, and you can look over your property.’

  As she wandered through the rooms of the elegant little villa Heather knew she’d found the true home she wanted. It was the perfect size for two people in love, and just close enough to Palermo to make it feasible for her and Lorenzo to live here.

  Plans were forming in her mind. Since she could travel with him it would be easy for her to involve herself in his work. Baptista had a seat on the board, and was all for Heather taking an interest in the firm. She and Lorenzo could work together and then retreat to this magic place and make their own world.

  And when their world began to grow she knew exactly the room she wanted for a nursery. It was at the back of the house, overlooking the magnificent, flower-filled gardens. She stood at the window a moment, mentally redecorating this room in pastel shades, then hurried down to explore the grounds.

  Here the air was heady with a thousand scents. Tall trees shaded her progress and birds called overhead as she wandered in a place of pure enchantment. Always she was within sound of rushing water, and sometimes she came upon little fountains, cut into the walls.

  Suddenly the path widened into a small arbour, almost separate from the rest of the garden. Everywhere she looked there were roses, pink, white, yellow, climbing roses, trailing roses, full blooms and small tight buds. And in the centre a bush of brilliant crimson blooms that was in itself a declaration of love.

  ‘I thought you would find this place,’ Baptista said.

  Heather turned and saw her standing there, leaning slightly on her stick.

  ‘I saw you from my window, and wanted to show you my special place myself.’

  ‘Did he-?’

  ‘Yes, Fede began it for me. It was his way of saying what he dared not say in words.’

  She indicated a small wooden bench and they sat there together.

  ‘Over the years I have tended this place with love and it has grown. I’ve protected the plants so that they survived the winters, taking them into greenhouses, or even the house. Some are still the original plants that he put here. Some are from cuttings.

  ‘And I have taken cuttings to the Residenza, and put them in my garden there. But here, in this spot, was where he said to me that no other woman would ever exist for him besides me.’

  She pointed to the glorious red blooms. ‘We planted that together, and I have never let it die,’ she said softly. ‘If he came back now, I could show him that bush and say, “See how I have loved it for your sake.”’

  ‘And I shall love it for yours,’ Heather said softly.

  ‘I knew you would. And when they bury me, and my coffin is piled high with formal tributes from people I cared nothing about, will you make sure a single bloom from this bush lies hidden there somewhere?’

  ‘Of course I will. But don’t you want Lorenzo or Renato to do that for you?’

  She shook her head. ‘When the time comes Lorenzo will sob and forget everything but his grief. You will have to be strong for him then. And Renato is a good man, but there are things about the heart that he doesn’t understand.’

  ‘Just about everything, I should think,’ Heather said, and the two women exchanged a smile. ‘Of course I’ll do this for you,’ she promised.

  ‘Then I can be peaceful, for it was troubling me that there was nobody I could rely on to do this.’

  ‘You still love him, after so long?’

  ‘Not as I think you mean it. Passion is long dead. What matters then is someone to sit with you in the evening sun: someone who will talk and hold your hand, and smile at you with eyes that say, “Let us go, unafraid, into the twilight together.” Sometimes at dusk I’ll come and sit here, and remember. But always I sit alone. I am growing old, my dear daughter, and my heart aches for what I shall never have.’

  She tucked her hand in Heather’s arm, and slowly they made their way back to the house.

  Lorenzo’s reaction later that night was strange. After the first surprise and pleasure, he said, ‘I wonder how Renato will take this. He always hoped to own Bella Rosaria one day.’

  After which Heather braced herself for recriminations, but Renato went up to his room without giving her more than a brief nod.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  R ELATIVES were beginning to converge on Palermo, some to stay in the Residenza, others to occupy the biggest suites in the best hotels. Heather was astonished by the legions of aunts, uncles, cousins that made up the far reaching branches of the Martelli family.

  She met people until she was giddy. The ones she enjoyed the most were Enrico and Giuseppe. They were first cousins to each other, and distant cousins to Baptista, and long ago they had both been in love with her. When she married Vincente Martelli, they had consoled each other’s broken hearts. Forty years later they were still bachelors, still competing for the honour of escorting her. She was allowing them both to squire her to the wedding. Otherwise there would have been a riot.

  Two days before the wedding the great house was gleaming in readiness for the wedding ball. In their bedroom upstairs, Angie and Heather prepared for an evening of dancing.

  After her day on the boat Heather had tanned to a pale biscuit colour that was very becoming. It was a pity, she thought, as she stepped out of the shower, that she couldn’t be the same perfect colour all over. But that would have meant sunbathing naked…

  Suddenly she could feel Renato’s hands gliding over her shoulders and down her spine, lulling her into a warm, hypnotic daze that made everything else unimportant. And later he’d stripped her naked in the cabin. She pressed her hands against her cheeks, which were suddenly burning, wishing desperately that these strange fancies would cease tormenting her.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Angie called.

  ‘Coming,’ she said with relief.

  Lorenzo kissed her hand when he saw her in pale lavender embroidered silk. ‘Every man there will envy me,’ he declared. Despite his gallant words his air was abstracted. But they were all under a strain, she thought.

  There was a burst of applause as they opened the ball together, making the first circuit of the floor alone before the others joined them. Heather had the feeling that everything was happening in slow motion, so that as she whirled in Lorenzo’s arms she had time to see the faces watching them. There was Baptista, flanked by her two cavaliers, smiling contentedly as she saw her dream come true. There were Angie and Bernardo, already looking like a settled couple. Everything was wonderful.

  Then she noticed Renato standing close to the most extravagantly lovely woman she had ever seen. She was a ripe brunette in the full summer of her beauty. Her mouth was ripe and luscious, her dark eyes were as huge and vacant as a cow’s. Everything about her proclaimed lasciviousness, including the speaking look she was directing up at Renato.

  ‘Careful,’ Lorenzo said, tightening his grip on her. ‘You nearly stumbled.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘You were miles away. What were you thinking of?’

  ‘Why-our wedding, of course,’ she said with a bright laugh. ‘I think of it all the time.’

  ‘So do I-the day after tomorrow-and then we’ll tie the knot for ever.’

  ‘Yes-for ever.’

  ‘Thank goodness the others are starting to dance. I don’t feel so conspicuous.’

  ‘Who’s that woman with Renato?’

  ‘That’s Elena Alante, she’s a widow. Renato prefers them married, divorced or widowed. Experienced, anyway. The one over there is Minetta, and just behind her is the Contessa Julia Bennotti. All three of them are-well, Renato is-’

  ‘A brave man,’ Heather suggested lightly.

  ‘Very brave to have them all here
at once. I wonder what possessed him.’

  Heather wondered too when she finally came face to face with Renato. He looked more tense and edgy than she’d seen him before, like a man with a fiend sitting on his shoulder. He greeted Heather with a nod and a smile that seemed to take a lot of effort, and introduced her to Elena. As the two women inclined their heads in greeting Heather became aware of something that made her smile.

  ‘Allow me to congratulate you on your perfume, signora,’ she murmured. ‘It’s delightful.’

  ‘Dear Renato bought it for me recently,’ Elena cooed. ‘It’s called “Deep In The Night”. I keep telling him he shouldn’t buy me so many expensive gifts, but he says I’m special to him.’

  ‘And for a special friend a man buys a special gift,’ Heather murmured. ‘I’m sure he took a lot of trouble to choose exactly the right perfume for you.’

  ‘I think it’s time I had the privilege of dancing with the bride,’ Renato said curtly, taking her hand. Heather let him lead her onto the floor, where another waltz was just beginning.

  ‘That’s enough of your tricks,’ he growled.

  ‘I was only being polite. It really is a lovely perfume. And since you had the nerve to flaunt your harem, surely you shouldn’t be shy about them?’

  ‘There are some things best not talked about,’ he growled, a warning light in his eyes.

  ‘Not a guilty conscience, surely?’

  ‘No, just a sense of propriety,’ he snapped.

  A bitter demon drove her to say, ‘Propriety? You? I wish I’d been a fly on the wall when you gave Elena that perfume, with a gallant speech about how she haunted your thoughts while you were in London-that is, the thoughts you could spare from Julia and Minetta, and, of course, when you weren’t propositioning your brother’s girlfriend-’

  His hand in the small of her back tightened. ‘Stop it,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t dare to talk like that.’

  ‘I-’ It was suddenly hard to breathe. ‘I was only making small talk.’ She pulled herself together. ‘I haven’t yet thanked you for a delightful day out. You were right about spending our honeymoon on your boat.’ She was spinning words, any words, barely knowing what she said.