TO HIS credit it had not, Alicia conceded now as she reached the hotel chosen as the venue for the party. She handed her raincoat in, then hurried off to the flower-banked function room overlooking Cardiff Bay. She checked with the catering manager, to be told the waitresses were ready to serve the canapés, and the waiters were lined up at the bar, champagne bottles at the ready. At her signal the pianist began to play, and she returned to the entrance to smile in welcome as the first batch of guests arrived.
‘Looking good, Alicia,’ said the managing director jovially. ‘Excellent job.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled, pleased.
For the next hour Alicia’s entire attention was focussed on making sure that everything ran to plan, and that the press had access not only to the sponsor’s management but to all the celebrities, rugby and otherwise, who were present. Satisfied that drinks were circulating fast enough, she checked that dinner would be served on time—welcome news, since her only meal that day had been a sketchy breakfast. As she rejoined the party the marketing director, who had once played at centre for Cardiff, caught her by the arm.
‘Come with me, my fair Alicia,’ said David Rees-Jones. ‘A guy’s just arrived who says he knows you. I played against him once in a game against Italy.’
She stiffened, alarm bells ringing as David relentlessly towed her through the crowd to join the man at one of the great windows looking down on the water. ‘You remember Francesco da Luca? How come you two know each other?’
Alicia’s eyes narrowed in fierce warning at Francesco.
‘What are you doing here?’ she hissed, pinning on a bright, social smile.
Francesco’s triumphant answering smile set her teeth on edge. ‘I was invited.’
She turned narrowed, hostile eyes on him. ‘Insist?’
He laid a hand on his heart. ‘Mi dispiace. Request is better?’
‘No. As far as I’m concerned, we have nothing to talk about.’
‘But we do, Alicia.’ He took her hand. ‘I will take you home when the party is over.’
She shook her head. ‘The party was over for us a long time ago, Francesco.’
His grasp tightened. ‘Ah no, contessa, you are mistaken.’
‘Wait,’ he commanded. ‘Why did your mother move from Blake Street?’
Conscious of curious eyes turned in their direction, Alicia kept her smile pinned in place as though they were just indulging in party chat. ‘She got married.’
His eyes softened as he released her. ‘And do you like her husband?’
‘Yes, very much. Now, I’ve got to go—’
‘Not until you tell me where you live.’
Oh well. He had to know sometime. ‘I rent a flat right here in the Bay.’
‘You live alone there?’
She nodded curtly, and hurried off through the crowd.
It seemed like hours before the meal and the speeches were finally over. At last Alicia collected her raincoat and went down to the foyer, where most of the management and their wives and partners were waiting for taxis. And, with them, Francesco da Luca.
‘Well done, Alicia. A triumph for Wales and for the party tonight,’ said John Griffiths with satisfaction. ‘Can we drop you on our way?’
‘I have a taxi waiting,’ said Francesco swiftly.
‘Ah. We leave her in good hands, then.’
Goodnights were exchanged, and before Alicia could argue that she lived near enough to walk home she was giving a taxi driver her address, which Francesco noted down in something he took from his wallet. He needed the information anyway, thought Alicia, resigned. Ever since Bron’s surprise marriage and her move to her husband’s home in Cowbridge, there had been no way for Francesco to demand news of his missing bride. And presumably he wanted to marry again and provide an heir for Montedaluca. In which case he could just send her the necessary papers to sign and that would be that. Mission accomplished.
The ridiculously short journey was accomplished in fraught silence, which lasted after Francesco paid the driver and continued as he followed Alicia into the lift in the foyer of her waterside building. By the time the doors opened at her floor, every nerve in her body was tied in knots.
Francesco’s jaw clenched. ‘My mother is dead,’ he reminded her.
‘And, as I said in my letter, I’m truly sorry for your loss.’
‘Of course. She was the most important person in your life. You must miss her very much.’
‘I do. But I do not pretend that, now she is dead, she was a saint.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I regret that she did not welcome you to our home with warmth.’
That was an understatement for the permafrost which had chilled Alicia to the bone. She shrugged. ‘But she was right when she told me I was an unsuitable bride for her son.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Mamma said this to you?’
‘I’m sure she said it to you, too.’
‘Davverro, but I made it plain to her that you were the only bride I wanted.’
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.’
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?’
‘But Signora Cross soon had her revenge,’ he said grimly.
Alicia frowned. ‘How, exactly?’
‘When my mother accompanied me to Cardiff to see her—’
Francesco’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not know this?’
‘It was very soon after you left me, Alicia.’
She stared at him in blank astonishment.
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.’
‘Piangi!’ he ordered, and held her close.
‘No, piccola. Stay. It is easier to talk like this, no?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve ruined your handkerchief.’
‘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 shrugged impatiently. ‘I wanted escape, not revenge.’
‘And threw your rings on the floor!’
‘Better than having theft added to my sins,’ she retorted. ‘I scrubbed myself, pulled on my old clothes and ran off via the service lift with my back pack, desperate to get away before you came back.’
‘You had no thought that I would be demented, thinking of you alone in Paris?’ Francesco’s jaw tightened. ‘I was such an ogre, Alicia?’
She shrugged. ‘If not an ogre, you were nothing like the man I fell in love with. Though the change had started long before then. When I arrived to stay in Montedaluca before the wedding, you were different, so preoccupied with your business affairs, that you had very little time for me. Almost from the start I began to wonder if I was making a big mistake. But I just didn’t have the courage to put a stop to all the preparations your mother had made. Afterwards I wished to God I had. You said such terrible things; I was heartbroken. But not for long,’ she added quickly. ‘My heart soon healed once I cut you out of it.’
They stared at each other in tense silence.
‘So. Tell me what happened next,’ said Francesco at last.
‘Not much. I spent a long time with Meg, pulling myself together, then I had another holiday alone with Bron in Cornwall. And then I went to college. Only not here in Cardiff, as originally planned.’
‘Because you thought I might trace you there?’
She gave a flippant little laugh. ‘Heavens no, that never occurred to me. I knew you’d rung Bron a few times to ask about me, but because you never came after me—or so I thought—I assumed you were glad to get shot of me. I transferred to the university where Megan was reading law, and I changed to economics because by then an art-history degree with a year’s study in Florence was the last thing I wanted.’ She smiled at him sardonically. ‘You wouldn’t have recognised the convent schoolgirl, Francesco. I was the archetypal student—with body piercing, bare midriff even in the dead of winter, and skirts so short they terrified my mother. I dyed multi-coloured streaks in my hair, drank beer in the union with the rugby team, and partied like mad.’
He sat very still, his eyes locked with hers. ‘You held me responsible for this?’
‘Life has shaped her that way.’
‘She has never told you more about your father?’
‘No.’ Suddenly Alicia could take no more. ‘Enough of this, Francesco. Would you please go now?’
He got up at once. ‘Va bene. But I will take you to lunch tomorrow.’
She shook her head. ‘Sorry. I’m having lunch with Megan.’
‘No.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I will relieve you of my unwanted company immediately. A domani.’
An hour later she gave up all idea of sleeping and got up again, cursing Francesco for spoiling what should have been a wonderful day. Wales had beaten Italy—which for her was a particularly personal triumph—and the party she’d organised had been a success, except for the presence of Francesco da Luca. She should have been on cloud nine. Alicia sighed irritably, made some tea, propped up the pillows on her bed and sat upright against them, unable to get the da Lucas’ visit to her mother out of her mind. In the morning she would ring Bron to get her side of the story before Francesco returned tomorrow night. Bronwen Cross had obviously not wanted her daughter to go back to her bridegroom.
After Megan had arrived Bron was only too happy to continue with her babysitting services, and soon became so much a part of the family that, when she discovered to her horror that she herself was pregnant, it was to Eira that she turned in despair. There was no question of abortion for someone of Bron’s faith, nor of giving her baby up for adoption. She also flatly refused to name the father, or to ask him for support as Huw urged, but due to a modest inheritance from her mother Bron was able to rent the entire attic flat of the house in Blake Street and carry on at university. And when Alicia was born at the end of September, in good time for the autumn term, Eira volunteered to look after her along with her own children for a small fee the young mother insisted on. It was an arrangement which not only suited everyone, but allowed Bron to combine motherhood with studying for a fine-arts degree.