CARLA WAS SWIMMING—slowly but steadily ploughing up and down the length of the pool at her mother’s villa. Had it really only been a week since she’d made her decision to set Cesare free?
As she climbed out of the water she felt a familiar tightening of her chest—an ache of emotion burning within her. Regret? Could it be that? Regret at having walked away from the one chance she would have to be part of Cesare’s life?
No—marriage to Cesare like that would have been unbearable! She had told him so, and it was true. True, true, true. So that was what she must hold to—all that must guide her now. However hard it was.
‘Darling, are you all right? You mustn’t overdo it.’
Marlene’s voice was concerned as she hurried forward with an enveloping towel, draping it around Carla’s wet back.
Carla smiled her thanks, taking a seat in the sunshine while her mother fussed about her. Her mother had been fussing...hovering...ever since she’d arrived back from Italy. And as she’d heard her daughter out Carla had seen the reaction in her face.
‘He’s offered to marry you?’ she’d said.
Her eyes had worked over Carla. Then slid away into her own past.
‘The decision must be yours,’ Marlene had said slowly. ‘But for my part I think it’s the right one—the decision you’ve made.’ She’d paused a moment before continuing. ‘Marrying your father was the worst mistake I made. I’d hoped it would make him love me. But it did the opposite. He married me because of pressure from his father, who held the purse strings and did not want any scandal. But when his father died—you were only a toddler—he took off.’ She’d paused again. ‘When he was killed in that car crash there was a woman with him—and he’d just filed for divorce.’
She’d looked at her daughter, her eyes troubled.
‘I ruined his life—and marriage brought no happiness for me either.’ She’d taken a breath, exhaled sadly. ‘No happy ending—for me or for him.’
No happy ending...
The words hovered in Carla’s mind. Her mother’s sorry tale only confirmed the rightness of her decision to leave Italy, to tell Cesare in that solitary voicemail that it was all she could face doing—that she preferred single motherhood to forcing him to marry her instead of the woman he wanted to marry.
‘Go back to her, Cesare, and make the marriage you have always been destined to make. I don’t want to be the one to part you from her—not for any reason. She is the woman you chose for your wife, not me. The time we had together was very...very special to me. But it is over. I wish you well. This is my choice. Please do not try and dissuade me from it.’
She had had no reply. Knew that she must be glad she had not. Knew that she must be glad she had set him free. Must bear the pain that came with that.
To have nothing of him... Nothing—just as I had when he left me—nothing of him.
Yet as she sat sipping at her iced fruit juice, feeling the Spanish summer heat warm her damp limbs, her hand slipped to curve around the swell of her abdomen.
No, not nothing. This is Cesare’s gift to me.
And memories—memories that she would never lose. Never!
Cesare reaching for her, taking her mouth with his, slow and seductive, arousing and sensual, taking his fill of her as her hands stroked his smooth, hard body, glorying in the feel of it beneath her exploring, delicately circling fingertips.
Cesare, his body melded with hers in the white heat of passion, desire burning with a searing flame, until she cried out, her body arching in ecstasy, the ecstasy of his possession...
A possession she could never know again.
She felt that ache form in her chest again, around her heart. An ache that would never leave her. Could never leave her. The ache of a broken heart that could never mend. She could never have the man she loved, loving her in return.
No happy ending...
* * *
Cesare walked up the wide, imposing staircase to the panelled, gilded galleria. Along the walls priceless Old Masters marched on either side. But he did not look at them. He went only to the far end of the long room. Stood before the triptych, letting his eyes rest on the three portraits, thinking of their tangled, entwined lives.
Once he had thought he knew them...presumed to know them...these three people from so long ago. Thought to know his ancestor, whose blood ran in his veins. The ancestor who had been free to choose, flanked by the women either side of him. The woman he’d chosen for his wife. The woman he’d chosen for his mistress.
Free to choose.
Abruptly, he turned away. Nodded at the two men waiting patiently at the entrance to the galleria.
‘You can remove it now,’ he told them.
Without a backward glance, he walked out of the room.
His expression was unreadable. But emotion was heavy within him. Weighing him down. In his head he heard, over and over again, as he had done since he had first listened to her voicemail, Carla’s farewell to him.
‘This is my choice. Please do not try and dissuade me from it.’
Behind him he heard the sounds of the triptych being taken down, dismantled. Packed up.
He walked on, face set.
* * *
Carla was breakfasting with her mother. The weather was cooler today now, and she was glad. Glad, too, that by the time she was in late pregnancy she would be cooler still.
As it did so often, her hand glided protectively over her abdomen. Her thoughts were full. She must stay calm, serene. Let no agitation break through—no emotion or trauma. She had chosen this path—single motherhood—over a tormented marriage to Cesare. It had been the right choice to make.
Her expression changed. Vito was appalled that she was not going to marry Cesare, but she remained adamant. She would not be swayed. And, for himself, Vito had finally found a ray of hope in his search for the woman she had caused to flee. She might have been located at last. She wished him well—hoped that he would find the happiness he sought.
As for herself—well, happiness was beyond her now. Cesare had accepted her decision. She had heard nothing more from him.
I grew up fatherless, and my child will too. But it will have me, and my mother, and safety and love, and that is all that really matters.
That was what she told herself. That was what she must believe. As for Cesare—well, he would marry his marchese’s daughter and live the life he had always planned.
And I will have his child—his gift to me.
It was more than she had ever hoped to have of him. She must be content with that. In time her battered heart would heal, and Cesare would have no place in it any longer.
A sliver of pain pierced her, but she ignored it. Soon, surely, it would cease. The ache in her heart would ease. It must.
It must.
‘The mail, señora.’
Her mother’s maid was placing a stash of post on the table, breaking Carla’s painful reverie. Idly, she watched her mother sort it, then pause.
‘This is for you,’ she said, holding up a bulky envelope, her expression wary.
Carla felt herself tense—the stamp was Italian, the dark, decisive handwriting instantly recognisable. Steeling herself, she opened it, taking out several folded papers.
It will be some sort of legal document I have to sign, foregoing any claim on his estate for the baby, or a contract making me a maintenance allowance or something.
But as she unfolded them she gasped. It was neither of those things.
‘Darling, what is it?’ Marlene’s voice was immediately alarmed.
Carla stared, then looked blankly across at her mother. In a hollow voice she spoke. ‘It’s from a secure art vault in Rome. It tells me...’ She swallowed. ‘It tells me that the Luciezo-Caradino triptych is now in storage. That it is being held in trust—for...for...’
Instinctively her hand went to her ripening abdomen, her eyes distending. She dropped the letter, seized up the piece of paper with Cesare’s handwriting, and the third folded document.
‘Mum, I—I—’
She could say no more—only got to her feet, stumbling slightly as she walked away, past the pool, to find the bench underneath the shade of the bougainvillea arbour, overlooking the beach.
She sat down with trembling legs. Opened Cesare’s letter to read it. The writing came into focus, burned into her retinas—Cesare’s words to her.
I have made this bequest to you not only for the child you carry but as a token—a symbol of what is between us. To understand why, I ask you to read the enclosed. It is a typed transcript from the personal diary of Count Alessandro, who was portrayed by Luciezo.
Read it now, before you read more of this letter.
She let the page fall to her lap, then unfolded the transcript with fumbling fingers. Made herself read it. The Italian was old-fashioned, with some words she did not know. But as she read she felt the world shift and rearrange itself.
Slowly, with a hollow feeling within her, she set it aside, picked up Cesare’s letter again. Resumed reading.
It was brief.
I will not make the mistake he made. Whatever decision you now make, know that I am not my ancestor.
It was signed starkly, simply, with his name: Cesare.
Carefully—very, very carefully—her heart hammering in her chest, she put the papers back in the envelope. Then she went up onto the patio, where her mother was anxiously looking for her.
Marlene started to get to her feet, but Carla stayed her.
‘I have to go to him,’ she said.
Her voice was strange. Hollow. Her heart was filling with an emotion she could feel overwhelming her, drowning her.
* * *
The hire car ate up the miles, racing along the autostrada across the lush countryside of Lazio as she snaked ever upwards into the mountainous terrain, gaining at last, as darkness fell, the mighty stone entrance to the massive bulk of the Castello Mantegna.
I will not make the mistake he made.
Slowly, she made her way to the gate, looked at the walls of the castello louring over her. A postern door was set into the towering iron-studded gates, with an ancient metal bell-pull beside it. And a more modern intercom and surveillance camera.
She pressed the buzzer, giving her name. There was silence—complete and absolute silence. No response at all from within that stony fastness.
Her head sank. Defeat was in the slump of her shoulders.
Fool! Oh—fool, fool, fool!
The words berated her, like blows.
‘Signorina! Prego—prego!’
The man at the now open postern gate was in the uniform of a security guard—which, Carla realised dimly, given the value of the artworks within, even without the priceless triptych, made sense. He was beckoning her frantically.
Heart in her mouth, she stepped inside, through the gate into the vast, cobbled courtyard within. The guard was apologising fervently, but her eyes were darting either side to the ranks of former stables, now garaging, and the old medieval kitchens, now staff and estate office quarters. Both wings were utterly dominated by the huge mass of the castello itself, rising darkly ahead of her.
Dusk was gathering in this huge paved courtyard, and security lights were coming on as she was conducted across it to a pair of palatial iron-studded doors that were being thrown open even as she spoke. Inside, she could see a huge, cavernous hall, brilliantly lit with massive candelabras. And across it, striding rapidly, came the figure of the man she had come to brave in his mountain fastness.
Cesare di Mondave, Conte di Mantegna, lord of his domain...
Faintness drummed at her. The effects of her early start that morning—after a night in which the hours had passed sleepless and tormented with confusion, with emotions that had pummelled through her mercilessly, relentlessly—the drive to the airport, the flight to Rome, the disembarking, the hiring of the car, the journey here. Exhaustion weighed her down like a heavy, smothering coat. Her nerves were shattered, her strength gone.
She sank downwards.
He was there instantly, with an oath, catching her. Catching her up into his arms, even though she weighed more now than she had ever done, as her body ripened with its precious burden. But as if she were a feather he bore her off. She closed her eyes, head sinking onto his shoulder. Feeling his strength, his warmth, his very scent...
Cesare.
His name soared in her head, fighting through the clouds, the thick mist that surrounded her. He was going through doorways, up a marble staircase, all the while casting urgent, abrupt instructions at those whose footsteps she heard running. There were anxious voices, male and female, until at the last she was lowered down upon the softest counterpane. She sank into it and her eyes fluttered. She was lying on a vast, ornate four-poster, silk-hung, and lights were springing up everywhere. Cesare was hovering above her, and there was a bevy of people, so it seemed, behind him.
‘Il dottore! Get him here—now!’
There was command—stern, urgent—in that deep voice. Obedience in the one that answered it.
‘Si! Si! At once—at once. He is summoned!’
She struggled upright, emotion surging through her again, past the tide of faintness. ‘No...no... I don’t need a doctor—I’m fine... I’m fine.’
Cesare looked down at her. The room, she realised, was suddenly empty. There was only him, towering over her.
‘He is on his way, nevertheless,’ he said.
There was still command in his voice. Then his expression changed. His gaze speared into hers, and in his face Carla saw something that stopped the breath in her body.
‘Why did you come? Tell me—Dio mio—tell me!’
She had never heard him speak like that—with so much raw, vehement emotion in his voice. She felt an answering emotion in herself, yet dared not feel it...dared not.
Her eyes, so deep a violet, searched his, still not daring to believe.
Slowly, falteringly, she spoke. ‘When you wrote...what you wrote—I read... I read Count Alessandro’s words...and then yours...’
Her voice was strained, her words disjointed. Her eyes searched his. She still did not dare to believe. This was the man prepared to marry her out of duty, out of responsibility. So how could he have written what he had? Why? Once before she had allowed herself to hope—hope that his feelings might be starting to echo hers...the very night he’d told her he was leaving her. Destroying her—
So how could she dare to hope again? Could she dare? She had to know.
‘Cesare, why...why did you write what you did? That you would not make the mistake he did?’ Her voice was faint, low. Yet her eyes were wide, distended.
That same vehemence was in his face—the same emotion that was stopping the breath in her body, that she had never seen before in it. It had not been there—not once—in all the time she’d known him.
His eyes burned into hers. ‘You read his words,’ he said. ‘He married his contessa from duty, from expectation. Yet she never wanted to marry him. Never wanted to marry at all. Her vocation was to become a nun. But her family forced her to marry, to do her duty, to bear his children as a noblewoman should do. And he—Count Alessandro—he did as a nobleman should do: protective of his honour, taking pride in his ancient name. He did not love her, his contessa—that was not relevant.’
In Carla’s head she heard again what Cesare had said when he had informed her he was intending to marry—that loving Francesca, his intended wife, was not ‘relevant’. As she remembered, as she gazed at him now, still not daring to believe, she felt the same emotion that had brought her here, to his ancient castello, driven by an urgency that had possessed her utterly.
‘And yet...’ She heard the fracture in Cesare’s voice. ‘And yet there was a woman he did love.’ He paused, his eyes still spearing hers. ‘It was his mistress. The mistress he had taken from desire, whom he had never thought to marry. It was his mistress with whom he spent his hours of leisure. And it was the family he had with her—for babies were impossible to stop in those times, as you know—that he loved. Not the solitary son he had with his contessa—the son who grew to manhood hating the father who so clearly had no time for him, no love. Just as he had no time, no love, for the son’s mother, the Contessa.’
Abruptly he let go her hand, got to his feet. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he strode to the windows overlooking the valley beyond. He spoke with his back to her, gazing out at the night beyond the panes of glass, as if he could see into it, through it, back into a past that was not the youth of Count Alessandro’s heir—but his own youth.
‘My father had no time for me,’ he said.
His voice had changed. Thinned. He was speaking of things he never spoke of. But now he must.
‘He thought me oversensitive! Unlike him, I did not think that being a brilliant shot, a hunter of game, of wildlife slaughtered to hang as trophies on his walls, was a worthy accomplishment, fitting for my rank. He despised me for what he called my squeamishness. Judged me for it. Condemned me. Openly told me I was not up to being his heir.’
He was silent a moment, and his lips pressed together. Then he went on.
‘When he died I determined to prove myself—to prove him wrong. Oh, I still never took to his murderous love of slaughtering wildlife, but I immersed myself in the management of all the heritage that had come to me—the enterprises, the people in my employ, the tenants and clients, all those whom the estates support and who support the estates. I did my duty and beyond to all that my name and title demanded and required of me. I gave his ghost, the ghosts of all my ancestors, no cause at all to think me lacking!’
He turned now, looking back across the room to the figure lying propped up against the pillows on his bed, to the swell of her body visible now in the lamplight limning her features. He felt emotion move within him as he spoke on.
‘And the final duty for me to discharge,’ he said, his voice grave now, and his expression just as grave, ‘was to marry. The final duty of all who bear my name and title is to marry and create a successor.’
His eyes shifted slightly, then came back to Carla. Her eyes were fixed on him, her face gaunt now.
Cesare took a breath. ‘My father always approved of Francesca—always identified her as the ideal woman I should marry. She was suitable in every way—and he told me I would be fortunate indeed if she would agree to the match.’
He shut his eyes again, his face convulsing, then opened his eyes once more. Let his gaze rest unflinchingly on Carla.
‘And so she would have been.’ He stopped, his jaw tightening. ‘If I had not met you.’
There was silence—complete silence.
‘But when Francesca wrote to me, told me she had gained her doctorate earlier than she’d expected, she said she would need to choose between staying on in the USA and coming home to marry me.’ He paused, his eyes looking inward, his mouth tightening. ‘My first reaction to her letter should have told me.’ His face twisted. ‘Told me that I had changed profoundly. For my first reaction was immediate.’ He paused. ‘It was to cry out in my head, Not yet!’
His gaze came back to Carla.
‘Instead—’ He took a heavy breath. ‘Instead I told myself how ideal marriage to Francesca would be. How entirely suited she was to be my wife...how well she would take on the role of my contessa. She knew all that it would entail and, unlike my own mother, who made being her husband’s wife the sole reason for her existence, Francesca would continue her academic research here in Italy. When she gave me her decision I knew there was only one thing for me to do.’ He paused again, and when he spoke his voice was heavier still. ‘Remove you from my life’.
She had shut her eyes. He could see it—see how her fingers on the counterpane had spasmed suddenly.
His voice was quiet now, and yet she could hear every word as clearly, as distinctly as the space between them would allow.
‘But there was a place I could not remove you from. A place I did not even know you had come to occupy.’
She could hear him now, in the darkness of her blinded vision.
‘A place, Carla, where you will always be. That you can never be removed from. Never!’
The sudden vehemence in his voice made her eyes flare open. She could see his gaze burning at her.
‘I did not know you were there, Carla! I did not know it even when I was filled with jealous rage—a rage I knew with my head that I had no right at all to feel. Yet it tore me apart all the same! When I heard that you’d become engaged to Vito Viscari—’ His voice twisted. ‘Madness overcame me that night I came to your apartment, blackly rejoicing that he had not married you.’ His expression changed again, became gaunt and bleak. ‘Even when Viscari told me that you carried my child—even then, Carla, when I knew we would marry, must marry, even then I did not realise.’
He stood still, hands thrust deep into his pockets, looking at her across the space that was between them.
‘All I could think was how I’d never been permitted to choose—how first it had been my duty to marry Francesca, if she would have me, and then...’ he took a ragged breath ‘...it became my duty to marry you instead.’
She shut her eyes for a moment, feeling the bleakness she had felt at knowing she was forcing Cesare to marry her. But he was speaking still, his voice changing yet again.
‘When I came back here I found myself seeking out that Luciezo portrait—thinking how my ancestor had been free to choose whatever he willed, as I had never been. And yet—’
He broke off, his face working. Carla’s eyes were on him again, wide, distended, and her throat was tightening.
‘Yet when I read his journal...’ He exhaled slowly, his eyes never leaving hers, filled with a darkness that chilled her suddenly. ‘When I read his final words, then—’
When he resumed, his voice was raw.
‘He cursed himself—cursed what he had done, the choice that he had made in marrying a woman he could not love. He had blighted his whole life—and the lives of both his wife and his mistress, condemning them all to unhappiness. It was a mistake that could never be mended—never!’
Carla felt her own face work, her throat close.
Words burst from her, pained and anguished. ‘That is what I felt I would do if I married you! It would be as if I had become both those Caradino portraits—the pregnant mistress becoming the unhappy wife!’
Her fingers clenched again, spasming.
‘I knew you didn’t want to marry me! How could you, when you’d chosen another woman to marry, had set me aside as you had? How could I condemn you to a loveless marriage to me—condemn you to a marriage you’d never wanted?’
Her voice dropped.
‘How could I condemn myself to it? Condemn myself to the kind of marriage my own mother made—and bitterly regretted. Just as my father regretted it. And...’ Her throat closed painfully. ‘Just as you would regret it too. Regret a loveless marriage—’
She broke off, emotion choking her voice. Her eyes closed, and it was as if she could feel sharp shards of glass beneath her lids. There was a sudden dip in the bed—the heavy weight of Cesare jackknifing down beside her. His hand closed over hers, stilling its clenching.
Her eyes flared open, diamond tears within.
Emotion was in his face, strong and powerful, sending a sudden surge to her pulse, a tightening of her throat. There was a searing in her heart against what he might say next.
‘It would not be loveless.’ Intensity infused his voice. ‘It would not be loveless,’ Cesare said again. ‘When I read Alessandro’s cry of despair and remorse for the mistake he had made, the mistake that could never be amended, I knew—finally knew—what I had blinded myself to! I realised, with a flash of lightning in my eyes, that I could leave you, or you could leave me, and it would make no difference—none at all. For you were lodged in that place from which you could never be removed.’
He paused. Eyes resting on her. The truth was in them, as he knew it must be now.
‘In my heart, Carla. Where you will always be. You are the woman I would choose for my wife. Whether you carry our child or not.’ He took a breath. ‘I would choose you—because I love you.’
She heard his words—heard that one most precious word that was more to her than all the world—heard it and felt her heart fill with an emotion she could scarcely bear. Did she see the same emotion in his eyes?
She felt Cesare’s strong hand press down on hers. Another ragged breath broke from him.
‘That is what I wanted you to know. Needed you to know. You may not love me, Carla, but I needed you to know my heart. So that whatever choice you make now—whether to marry me or not—you know that you are in my heart for all time. And that you always will be.’
He took a shuddering breath. Poured all that he was into his next words.
‘The choice is yours—it always will be—but if you feel...if you can feel even a fraction of what I feel for you, will you accept my hand, my heart, my life, my love?’
Carla felt her hand move beneath his. Curl into his. Hold his fast. Those diamond tears were still glittering in her eyes and she could not speak. She started to lift her free hand and in an instant he had caught it. Raised it slowly to his lips.
She saw his expression change, grow sombre again.
‘Alessandro is dust,’ he said. ‘As are his wife and the woman he loved. For them all, his regret, his remorse, came too late. But we—’ And yet again he broke off as strong emotion worked in his face. ‘We live now—and we can make our future what we will. We can seize it, Carla—seize it and make it our own!’
His hands pressed hers.
‘My most beloved preciosa, will you accept my hand in marriage? Will you stand at my side all my life, as my beloved wife—my contessa? Will you give me the priceless gift of your heart, your love? Will you let the precious child within you be the proof and symbol of our love, our life together? Will you be...’ his voice caught ‘...in one person, both my wife and the woman I love?’
His voice changed, became overwrought with emotion.
‘Will you unite the triptych—not, as you feared, as an unhappy mistress becoming the unhappy wife, but in the way it should have been united? So that there is no division between wife and love—united in the same woman. United in you.’
She felt her heart turn over and fill to the brim with a joy she had never thought to feel.
Cesare, oh, Cesare—my Cesare!
He leant forward to kiss her tears away, then kissed her mouth. Her fingers clutched his as he drew away again.
‘I tried not to fall in love with you,’ she said, her voice low and strained. ‘Right from the first, when we began our affair, I knew that that was all it could ever be. I knew all along there could be no future for us. That one day you would set me aside to make the kind of marriage I knew you must make. But I could not stop myself. I fell in love with you despite my warnings to myself. And when you ended it...I went into a kind of madness.’
Her face shadowed.
‘I behaved despicably to Vito. I nearly ruined his life. That’s why—’ She took a ragged breath. ‘That’s why I realised I could not ruin your life when you did not love me. When you wanted to marry Francesca—’
She broke off, her expression changing suddenly.
‘Francesca! Cesare—?’ Concern was open in her voice.
He smiled. A wry, self-mocking smile. ‘Francesca,’ he said, ‘has gone to California! It seems,’ he went on, half rueful, half relieved, ‘that she, too, did not wish to make a loveless marriage—or any marriage at all! She wrote to tell me that out of the blue she has been invited to join an ultra-prestigious research team on the West Coast, led by a Nobel laureate, and it is her heart’s desire to take up the post. She is beside herself with excitement, and knows I will understand why she cannot marry me now after all.’
He smiled again, and Carla could see relief in it, as well as a self-deprecating ruefulness.
‘Astrophysics is her love—not being my contessa!’
Carla’s expression changed. ‘Count Alessandro’s wife wanted to be a nun...’ she mused. ‘That was her true calling.’
Cesare nodded, seeing the analogy. ‘And scientific research is calling Francesca. For which—’ he dropped a kiss on Carla’s forehead ‘—I am profoundly grateful.’ He smiled again. ‘You will like her, you know, if she makes it to our wedding. But you will have to accept that you won’t understand much of what fascinates her so.’
The wry look was back in his face again, and then his expression altered a little, and he frowned slightly.
‘Maybe that was a warning to me—the fact that I found it hard to communicate with her about her work. Although I know she would always have discharged her responsibilities as Contessa, her heart would not have been in it. I think,’ he said, ‘it took our betrothal to make her realise that what she had grown up with—the expectation she’d always had of what her future was to be—was not, after all, what she wanted.’ His voice grew sombre again now. ‘Just as did I.’
He paused, his eyes holding Carla’s. Then went on.
‘I do not ask forgiveness for what I did to you—only for...understanding. If you can bring yourself to give me that, then—’
She did not let him finish. ‘I give you both, Cesare—I understand and I forgive! From my heart—believe me!’
Her voice was broken with the urgency of what she said.
His expression changed again, lightening now, and he slid the palm of one hand across her abdomen, catching his breath as he felt the ripening curve of her body. For a moment he closed his eyes, almost unable to believe that this moment had come. A great peace had come upon him, filling his every cell, suffusing his body—his mind and his soul.
He leant towards her, his lips brushing hers, and Carla met them, her eyes fluttering shut as if to contain the immensity of the joy within her. His kiss was warm and deep, and in it were the seeds for a harvest of happiness she would reap all her life.
‘My dearest heart,’ Cesare said. ‘My dearest love.’
He kissed her again—tenderly, cherishingly—this woman he loved, whom he had so nearly lost. Who would now be at his side and in his heart all his life.
For a long, long moment they simply held each other, feeling the closeness of their hearts, feeling the peace of love envelop them. Unite them.
‘My Cesare,’ she whispered.
For now he was hers—truly hers—and all her hopes had been fulfilled, all her fears and losses had gone for ever.
Her fingers slid around the strong nape of his neck, splaying into his raven hair. She knew he was hers and she was his. For all time—now and far beyond mere time.
There was the sound of a knock upon the door, the door opening. Cesare’s steward announced the doctor.
Cesare glanced at Carla. She had a look of dazed happiness on her face that made a smile curve at Cesare’s mouth. Maybe the doctor was not needed. But the woman he loved carried a gift for them both that was infinitely precious.
After greeting the doctor, he left him to his examination and, out in the hall, gave instructions for the best vintage champagne in his extensive cellars to be fetched. Then, in time-honoured fashion he paced outside the bedroom door, until the doctor emerged.
‘Well?’ He pounced immediately.
The doctor nodded. ‘Quite well,’ he pronounced. ‘Fatigue and an excess of emotion, that is all.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Would I be presumptuous,’ he asked, his eyes slightly wary, ‘in offering you, Signor Conte, my felicitations?’
Relief flooded through Cesare. He met the doctor’s eyes. ‘You would not,’ he said decisively.
He spoke deliberately. His steward had returned, ready to show the doctor out. The words Cesare had spoken would be all his steward would require. Within ten minutes every person in the castello would know that a different chatelaine from the one they had been expecting would now be in their future.
His heart, as he went back into his bedroom, was soaring. Carla possessed the one attribute that was all he needed in his wife.
She is the woman I love—and will love all my days.
And he was the man she loved.
What else could matter but that? That was what his ancestor Alessandro had taught him, through his own heart-wrenching regret.
I will not make the mistake he made.
The words seared in his consciousness again as he swept Carla—the woman he loved—into his arms.
‘The doctor tells me all is well.’
His eyes were warm—so warm—and Carla felt her heart turn over. Could she really be this happy? Could she truly be this happy? And yet she was.
This is real, and it is true—it is not my mere hopes and dreams!
Wonder filled her, and then pierced even more as Cesare drew back and with a sudden movement did what she had never seen him do before. He took from his little finger the signet ring engraved with the crest of his house, which he never removed—not for bathing, or swimming, or for any reason—and then reached for her hand again.
His eyes went to her. ‘For my contessa,’ he said, and slid the ring, still warm from his skin, onto her finger.
Then he closed his hand over hers, knuckling her hand under his. He smiled.
‘There’s actually a signet ring specifically for the Contessa,’ he said. ‘My mother wore it always from her wedding day. But for tonight, my dearest love, as we celebrate this moment, wear my ring, which I have never taken from my finger since the day I placed it there—the day my father died.’
She felt her throat catch. So simple a gesture—so profound a meaning. She felt tears well in her eyes again. His hand tightened over hers.
‘No more tears!’ he commanded. ‘I will not permit it!’
Her face quivered into tearful laughter. ‘There speaks il Conte!’
‘Indeed he does,’ he agreed, patting her hand.
He dropped a kiss on her forehead, then started to draw her to her feet.
‘If you feel ready, mi amore, can you face my household? My steward will now have informed everyone of our news, and I have ordered champagne to be served in the salon. One glass, I am sure, will not harm our child.’
He helped her stand up, and walked with her to the door.
‘And then I am sure you will wish to phone your mother, will you not? I hope she will be glad for you now that she need have no fear that you are repeating her own experience of marriage, and now that she knows how much I love you.’
His expression softened, and Carla felt again that wash of bliss go through her.
Then another emotion caught her. She halted.
‘Cesare—my mother is...controversial,’ she said uneasily. ‘When she sold Guido Viscari’s shares after Vito refused to marry me, Lucia ensured she became persona non grata in Rome—’
‘I think you will find,’ replied Cesare, his voice dry and edged with hauteur, ‘that as my mother-in-law, and grandmother to my heir, she will find no doors closed to her—in Rome, or anywhere else!’
Carla smiled. ‘Thank you,’ she acknowledged gratefully. ‘Though I know she means to live in Spain now, which makes things easier all round.’
‘She will visit here whenever she wishes,’ Cesare ordained. ‘Starting with our wedding. Which—’ he glanced at her speakingly, his eyes going to the slight swell where their child was growing ‘—I would ask to be as soon as possible.’
She looked at him, her eyes glowing with love. ‘I would marry you tonight! You need only send for your chaplain!’
His hand stilled on the handle of the door before he opened it. ‘Before, you wanted a civil ceremony only.’
Carla shook her head vigorously. ‘Cesare—now I will marry you in your chapel here—before God and all your ancestors. I want our marriage to last all our lives and for all eternity, for that is how long I will love you!’
She leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder, feeling his strength, his presence, his love for her. Her hand entwined with his, the gold of his signet ring indenting her finger, their hands meshing fast, indissoluble. She felt his hand tighten in return, heard the husk in his voice as he answered her.
‘And it is how long I will love you,’ he promised her.
He took a breath, resolution in his stance as he opened their bedroom door. Beyond was the wide landing, the marble staircase sweeping down to the hall, and waiting there, he knew, would be all his household. Beyond he could see the salon doors thrown wide open, brilliantly lit, and champagne awaiting them all.
He stepped out with Carla, leading her to the head of the stairs. And as they paused for a moment, looking down, applause broke out below. He turned to Carla, raised her hand to his lips, then smiled at her, with a smile as warm as the love in his heart.
‘Ready?’ he murmured.
‘Quite, quite ready,’ she answered.
And at his side—as she would always be now—she went down with him to take her place as the woman he would marry, the woman he would love all his life—his wife and his own true love. One and the same.
* * *
The metre-thick stone walls of the castello’s chapel seemed to absorb all the low murmurings of the small, select congregation, which stilled as the priest—Cesare’s chaplain—raised his hands and began to speak the words of the age-old sacrament.
Inside her breast Carla could feel her heart beating strongly. Emotion filled her—and she felt a low, fine tremble go through her as she stood there, her cream lace gown moulding to the fullness of her ripening figure. Stood beside the man who was her bridegroom. Waiting for him to say the words that would unite them in marriage—as they were already united in love, each for each other, and both of them for the child who would soon be born to them, who would continue the ancient family of which she was now an indissoluble part.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed CARRYING HIS SCANDALOUS HEIR why not explore these other stories by Julia James?
CAPTIVATED BY THE GREEK
A TYCOON TO BE RECKONED WITH
A CINDERELLA FOR THE GREEK
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from CHRISTMAS AT THE TYCOON’S COMMAND by Jennifer Hayward.
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