The Italian's Token Wife. Julia James

her sleeve was seized. There was an overpowering smell of heavy perfume, and a voice was hissing something at her in Italian. The venom in the words, incomprehensible though they were, made Magda flinch.

      ‘Please—’ she said jerkily. ‘I…I don’t understand.’

      The woman caught breath. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Inglese?’ Then she shook Magda’s arm again. ‘Who are you? What are you playing at? Pretending to be Rafaello’s bride.’ The woman tried to seize her ring finger, as if to check its authenticity, but Magda fielded her off, turning so that her body was between the woman and Benji. He was still howling fearfully.

      She tore herself away and headed for the door. Stumbling, Benji still wailing in terror, she rushed across the marble hall and hurled herself up the staircase as quickly as she could, heading back to the sanctuary of the bedroom. Only when she was safely within did she pause to draw breath.

      Her first thought was for Benji. He was all but hysterical now, and calming him down took for ever. But gradually, as she sat on the bed with him on her lap, rocking gently and soothingly, his anguished sobs died away. A thumb slipped into his mouth and he began to relax at last.

      Magda felt shaken to the core. She might not have understood a word of that roaring anger, but the fury had been unmistakable.

      Oh, dear God, what have I let myself in for? Please, please, let me wake up and find myself at home…

      But it was no dream. She was indeed here, in a Tuscan villa, married to a man whose family had gone apoplectic at the news.

      If she listened, she could still hear the storm raging downstairs. It seemed to have moved in from the terrace, but it was still in full flood. Magda shrank back, clutching Benji. He felt her distress and discomfort, and started whimpering again.

      Footsteps, hard and angry-sounding, echoed across the marble hall. Doors slammed several times. What sounded like paternal denunciation rang up through the floorboards. Finally, in a last flurry of raised voices, there was a heavier door slamming. It reverberated right through the house, it seemed to Magda, and then everything went quiet. A moment later there came the throaty roar of a powerful internal combustion engine, gunning fiercely and then roaring away.

      Silence reined. Total silence. It was almost as unnerving as the noise.

      Knowing, instinctively, that the only thing she could do was keep her head tucked well down beneath the parapet, Magda kept to her room. Gradually Benji cheered up, but it was not long before another need made itself increasingly urgently felt. He was hungry.

      She rifled through her hand baggage, extracting an apple and some rusks. Benji wolfed them down, still hungry when they were all gone. For the next forty-five minutes Magda tried to mollify him, but in vain. Even juice could not sate him. He needed proper food, and milk. There was nothing for it. She would have to go and find some.

      With her heart in her mouth she gingerly opened the door of her bedroom. It was dusky outside on the landing. Cautiously she went down the grand marble staircase into the deserted hall. Hoping to find Giuseppe, she went through what must be a service door into a stone-flagged corridor. A door stood ajar at the end, and she entered reluctantly. If it were just herself she’d go to bed hungry, but she could not starve poor Benji. Surely someone would take pity on him?

      As she entered, she realised she was in a vast, old-fashioned kitchen. A cavernous fireplace at the far end was filled with a huge cooking range. Dominating the centre of the room, however, was an endless long wooden table. To the side, beneath an old-fashioned window, an elderly woman was vigorously scrubbing a huge copper saucepan at a stone sink.

      As Magda hovered hesitantly in the doorway the woman turned to stare at her.