She raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A pity you didn’t make it plainer to me. Once I arrived in Montedaluca, I began to doubt it more with every passing day. Most people in the castello took their cue from the contessa and made me feel like an outsider. Which I was, of course. Apart from your great-aunt Luisa, and the lady you hired to teach me Italian, hardly anyone spoke to me for the six weeks I lived there—including you. You were so busy during the run-up to the wedding you had no time for me. You turned into a stranger.’ Alicia smiled coldly. ‘Which you were, of course. Until then, I didn’t even know you had a title.’
He shrugged dismissively. ‘Such things mean little now.’
‘It meant a great deal to your mother. The only time she deigned to spend with me was filled with instructions on how a future Contessa da Luca must behave.’ Alicia smiled sardonically. ‘She must have been utterly delighted when I bolted.’
He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. She was ravaged with worry.’
‘You surprise me. I thought she would have been over the moon because you were free again.’
‘But I am not free.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Having married you in the cattedrale in Montedaluca, I am bound to you for life.’
Alicia’s eyes flashed. ‘Cut the drama, Francesco. You can get a divorce easily enough. Or easier still you could just get the marriage annulled after what happened—or didn’t happen—between us.’
‘No one knows this,’ he said, his tone so harsh it startled her. ‘Unless you told your mother, or Megan?’
Alicia shivered and drew the cardigan closer. ‘How could I bear to talk about—about that to anyone?’
‘So what reason did you give your mother for leaving me?’
‘I said I’d made a huge mistake; that it was better to make a clean break right away.’ She smiled. ‘Bron, not surprisingly, wished I’d decided before the ceremony rather than after, but she sympathised totally with my refusal to return to Montedaluca. The contessa was no warmer to her than she was to me, even though Bron did her the courtesy of agreeing to hold the wedding in Montedaluca instead of Cardiff.’
‘But Signora Cross soon had her revenge,’ he said grimly.
Alicia frowned. ‘How, exactly?’
‘When my mother accompanied me to Cardiff to see her—’
‘She did what?’
Francesco’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not know this?’
‘I most certainly did not!’
‘It was very soon after you left me, Alicia.’
She stared at him in blank astonishment.
‘You do not believe me?’ He shrugged. ‘It is the truth. Your mother swore to me that you had gone away.’
Alicia regrouped hurriedly. ‘I had. When I got back from Paris I was so—so miserable I was sent off with Megan to stay with her grandmother in Hay-on-Wye for a while to recover. Or try to.’
Francesco’s jaw tightened. ‘I was told nothing of this during the visit. Megan’s parents were there to support your mother. Also the large brother.’ He smiled grimly. ‘They were unmoved by my anguish. Your mother insisted that you never wanted to see me again.’
Alicia stared at him, shaken, feeling the warmth drain from her face.
‘You are very pale. Do you have brandy, Alicia?’ asked Francesco gently. He got up to take her by the hand and led her to the sofa.
‘No.’ She tried to smile, but her lips were stiff. ‘I’ll make some tea in a minute.’
‘Tell me what to do and I will make it,’ he commanded.
‘No. First I just need to sit and get my head round this.’
Francesco sat beside her, keeping tight hold of her hand. ‘I swear it is the truth, Alicia.’
‘I’m sure it is. It would be easy enough to disprove. But it’s a shock, just the same,’ she said huskily, her throat thickening. ‘I just wish I’d known.’
‘Piangi!’ he ordered, and held her close.
Alicia obeyed, but not for long. She blew her nose in the handkerchief Francesco produced, but when she tried to move away he held her tightly, one hand sliding under the ancient cardigan to smooth over the silk covering her shoulders.
‘No, piccola. Stay. It is easier to talk like this, no?’
Oh, yes. Half seduced by his touch, the mixed pain and pleasure of his endearment made it all too dangerously easy. But, a voice in her brain quickly reminded her, although his mother had been partly to blame for her headlong escape from matrimony it had been Francesco’s words that had actually sent his bride on the run. Words that had remained, engraved in her mind, ever since. Alicia pushed at his restraining arms until he released her, then went back to the chair. Sniffing inelegantly, she mopped away the last of her tears and smiled at him in bleak apology as she drew the cardigan closer.
‘I’m afraid I’ve ruined your handkerchief.’
‘Gran Dio, what does that matter?’ His eyes glittered like blue flames. ‘When you ran from me you ruined my life!’
Alicia met the look head on. ‘I thought I was giving it back to you, Signor Conte. I was sure you’d go back to your mamma and Montedaluca, glad to be free of your unsatisfactory bride. I’m sure the contessa was thrilled.’
‘As I have told you,’ he said harshly, ‘she was not.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Nevertheless, it is the truth. When she saw my despair, my mother confessed to much regret that she had not behaved well towards you.’
‘To a “freckled schoolgirl with red hair and a figure like a boy”,’ quoted Alicia with deadly accuracy.
Faint colour rose along Francesco’s patrician cheekbones. ‘You overheard?’
‘Except for the Italian for freckles, which I already knew, your mother took good care to speak English.’
‘So that the servants would not understand,’ he said stiffly.
‘But that I would.’ Alicia shrugged. ‘Not that it matters any more, Francesco. That schoolgirl grew up fast.’
‘And no longer has a figure like a boy.’
‘Nor was my hair ever red!’ That was something which had annoyed her almost as much as the rest of the contessa’s comments had hurt.
His eyes moved over her with a look as tactile as a caress. ‘You have matured into an alluring woman, and I was not the only man who thought so tonight.’
‘I see a lot of men in my work,’ she said indifferently.
The eyes slitted. ‘Is there one you see more than others?’
‘Several I look on as friends to share a meal with.’
‘And a bed?’ he demanded.
‘You have no right to ask me that!’
‘I have every right,’ he said through his teeth. ‘I am your husband.’
‘You gave up any right to call yourself that on our wedding night,’ she shot back.
He took in a deep, unsteady breath. ‘Alicia, in my frustration and disilluzione, I uttered words I have regretted bitterly through all the years since. If you could have witnessed my anguish when I found you gone, you would have had your revenge.’
She