‘It’s my bedroom,’ Raffaele admitted, reckoning that he wasn’t quite getting the reaction he had hoped for from his new bride. ‘You’re not into history, are you?’
‘Not living in it, no,’ Vivi admitted truthfully, wondering why she was being brought into his bedroom and then scolding herself for not appreciating that it was perfectly natural for a member of staff to show a new bride into what was presumably supposed to be the marital bedroom.
‘You are free to do whatever you like with your own bedroom to make yourself more comfortable here,’ Raffaele told her, crossing the room to cast open a communicating door that opened onto another door, and opening that as well.
She was to have her own bedroom, of course she was, she registered, following him to step through the double doorways and see another big bedroom, which was mercifully not quite as much of a museum piece as his. The bed was shaped like a swan but the décor was lighter and brighter and less rich and ornate. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, because it was.
A quick smile flashed across Raffaele’s lean, startlingly handsome face, lightening his eyes to the gold of a sunset fringed by black lace and, just looking at him, she felt her breath trapped in her throat for an instant.
‘This room hasn’t been occupied since my stepmother died, so I had it refurnished and decorated for you.’
‘You really didn’t ever think of us staying in London,’ she acknowledged thoughtfully.
‘No, this is very much home for me and I hope that in time it can feel like your home as well,’ Raffaele asserted with impressive sincerity.
Impressive, Vivi tagged, because she couldn’t credit that he could possibly mean such a sentiment when it came to her. After all, she was the wife he had taken merely to make a fat profit and he had originally intended to leave the church without her by his side. According to Raffaele, her pregnancy had changed everything, but it hadn’t changed the essential facts, which were that he had never expected to stay married to her and that they were ill-suited as a couple, she reasoned briskly. All the wishing in the world couldn’t alter those inescapable facts.
In the aftermath of that reflection, she marvelled at the hollow sensation of emptiness and sadness filling her, reckoning that she was still tired and feeling intimidated by her opulent surroundings. ‘What time’s dinner?’ she enquired.
‘Eight but I’ve ordered a snack for you. It’ll be brought up soon.’
He had barely stepped back to his room when a knock on the door sounded and her maid, Sofi, appeared, holding a tray. Vivi tucked into the delicious omelette and salad and the lingering nausea ebbed. Sofi reappeared and eagerly showed her the built-in closets in the dressing room where her small collection of clothing huddled shamefacedly on opulent padded hangers and in scented drawers. Life at the palazzo, Vivi reckoned, was a complete other world, far removed from that of more ordinary folk. She sat down on the bed while thinking about that and somehow fell asleep again, waking with a start to see the light beyond the windows dimming and wondering what was wrong with her that she was feeling so incredibly tired all the time. And then she remembered...again and patted her tummy ruefully.
It was after seven and, recalling that dinner was at eight, she was galvanised into action, stripping where she stood to dive into the bathroom and straight into the shower. She would get her hair straightened again, she thought blissfully. She hadn’t had time before the wedding with so much else to stress about. Now she could return to being sleek, straight-haired Vivi, whom she much preferred. She might be pregnant but that didn’t mean she had to let her standards slip. She was unnerved to return to her bedroom, luckily wrapped in a towel, to find Sofi hovering expectantly to offer assistance. What with, Vivi wondered, until Sofi shyly confided in quite good English that she was trained to do different hairstyles and make-up.
Vivi sped into the dressing room and snatched her single long dress off a hanger, a gown bought for her first meeting with her grandad and hopefully formal enough to meet the palazzo standards. Sofi turned out to be a miracle with curly hair, leaving Vivi scrutinising her elegant reflection in surprise, for she had never been very good at putting her hair up and when she had, it had still always looked like an uncontrollable mop.
She picked her path delicately downstairs in her high heels and was ushered by Amedeo into a grand salon, where she took one glance of consternation at Raffaele and realised that she had got it wrong. He sported faded jeans and an open-necked white shirt. He looked fantastic but the difference between them sent colour surging into her cheeks. ‘This really says it all about us,’ she commented, indicating her long dress, her attempt at formality, with a dismissive hand. ‘You dressed down and I dressed up.’
‘What does it say about us?’ Raffaele pressed. ‘I simply assumed that after a long day in formal clothing you would prefer to relax...as do I.’
‘But you normally dress up for dinner, don’t you?’ Vivi cut in, determined to make her point even if it was beginning to feel like a petty point.
‘Sì,’ Raffaele conceded grudgingly.
Vivi lifted her chin, mortified colour lying in bright bars across her triangular face as she walked down to the foot of the room, keen to put as much space as possible between them. ‘You don’t need to dress down for my benefit, then,’ she sniped.
Raffaele resisted the urge to heave a sigh and wonder why he always, always got it wrong with Vivi. He tried to be sensitive and he embarrassed her. He tried to be caring and she got sick as a dog. ‘I’m getting tired of your defeatist, negative attitude,’ he intoned with complete honesty. ‘I appreciate that you’re in a situation not of your choosing, but I am as well and at least I’m trying to make the best of it.’
Caught utterly unprepared by that raw condemnation, Vivi coloured to the roots of her hair. ‘That’s not true,’ she said stiffly.
‘It is true. You misread everything I do. You hold spite. You judge me.’
‘For living like a prince in a palace?’ Vivi shot back at him defensively.
‘I was born here...this is my life. You expect me to apologise for it?’ Raffaele shouted down the length of the room at her, the sound of his raised voice cracking like a stinging whiplash through her because in her experience Raffaele never raised his voice and it thoroughly unnerved her. Out of the corner of her eye she noted Amedeo hurriedly retreating from the doorway and, if possible, she felt even more humiliated.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Vivi told him, throwing back her slight shoulders and stalking back towards the hall.
Raffaele planted himself in her path like an immoveable rock. ‘No, for once in your life, you’re going to listen to me.’
‘Like hell I am!’ Vivi snapped back at him like a spitting cat. ‘The day I listen to you while you talk down to me there’ll be two blue moons in the sky and a flying pig!’
‘Listen to me,’ Raffaele ground out wrathfully, struggling to get a hold on a temper that he never usually lost.
Vivi told him very rudely where he could go and what he could do with himself when he got there and raced past him at the speed of a lemming ready to throw herself off a cliff. She climbed the stairs even faster, sped into her bedroom and just stood there breathing fast. Behind her the door opened and she spun round, as rigid as a stick of rock.
‘We can do better than this,’ Raffaele breathed in a driven undertone. ‘I’m sorry that I shouted at you but sometimes you push me too far.’
‘I have a habit of doing that with you,’ Vivi muttered, somewhat mollified by the apology and relieved he no longer seemed angry. ‘I don’t know why.’
‘Don’t you?’ Raffaele questioned, an eloquent ebony brow lifting, unimpressed. ‘You do it to keep me at a distance.’
Vivi was appalled that he could interpret her behaviour