Husband By Necessity

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‘So we did.’

They exchanged rueful glances and he opened his arms, pulling her into a hug.

Our first quarrel, she thought. Before our first kiss. And if I didn’t want that kiss so badly I wouldn’t be on edge now.

With the house in a bustle there was no chance of developing the hug into something interesting. Footsteps in the corridor made them pull apart hastily. The next moment Renato entered, looking exasperated.

‘The mystery is solved,’ he said. ‘Lorenzo has just called to say he’s on his way home. Apparently he decided this morning to skip all his appointments and come back.’ His voice grated with displeasure on the last words.

‘He couldn’t bear to stay away from Heather,’ Angie sighed. ‘That’s sweet.’

‘It’s not sweet,’ Renato snapped. ‘He had work to do, work he was already behind with.’

‘He’s getting married in a few days—’ Angie protested.

‘Is he at the airport now?’ Bernardo put in quickly before an argument could start.

‘No, he was calling from Rome, where he had to make a connection. He’ll be here in about three hours.’

‘Fine,’ Angie said crisply. ‘I’ll tell Heather.’

She favoured him with a glare before walking out smartly, closely followed by Bernardo.

‘I pity Heather,’ she said crossly. ‘I really do. Fancy having Renato as a brother-in-law.’

‘Perhaps she loves Lorenzo enough not to mind being related to Renato,’ Bernardo observed. ‘They say love can do that to people.’

It flashed across her mind that he might not be talking about Heather and Lorenzo. For he himself was related to Renato, and if—

Don’t be absurd! This is a holiday romance. He hasn’t even kissed you yet!

Lorenzo’s return changed things, but not in the way she’d expected. He arrived that afternoon, looking harassed, and it didn’t seem to Angie that this was a man who’d tossed everything aside to be with his beloved. Instead he hurried to find Renato and the two of them spent the rest of the day closeted in the study, from behind whose door Angie could hear agitated voices.

Perhaps Lorenzo was berating his brother for not taking better care of Heather. She certainly hoped so. She wondered when she would have another chance to be alone with Bernardo.

It came the next day. Lorenzo, looking pale and tense, was swept off by Renato to work at the company’s head office in Palermo, while Baptista claimed Heather’s company.

‘Naturally, we’d be glad if you joined us,’ she said with a smile, ‘but I expect you and Bernardo have made other plans.’

‘Well—’

‘Of course you have. And when the wedding is over I hope you won’t feel you have to hurry back to England. Perhaps you could stay another week?’

‘Thank you, I’d like that,’ Angie said, feeling the sun come out inside her.

This time it was her choice to go to Montedoro. Bernardo offered to show her the island, but she wanted to return to his eagle kingdom, where he was most completely himself.

When they were part of the way up the mountain he turned the car onto the grass and they got out and walked under the trees. From here Sicily was spread out before them in all its glory. Above them birds sang, the trees were in full beauty and the sky was an unbelievable blue. Angie stopped to breathe in the sweet air. The next moment she felt his hand tighten on hers, and she was in his arms.

The feel of his lips locked onto hers sent happiness streaming through her. She kissed him back, fervently, eagerly, inviting him to kiss her more deeply. She felt his clasp grow more confident. He’d understand her at once, and they could bypass the first tentative questions that strangers needed to ask, for they had never been strangers. They’d known each other from the first moment in the airport, and this sweet blazing kiss had been inevitable then.

His lips were just as she had known they would be, firm and decisive, and her own responded frankly, no holding back. To have pretended reserve would have been a kind of dishonesty, when in truth her heart was reaching out to him.

Just now they asked little of each other, an eager embrace and lips seeking lips, exchanging warmth. She caught a glimpse of his face and he was almost smiling, like a man who’d discovered longed-for treasure and found it all he’d dreamed. There was a hint of surprise as well and it touched her heart. It was as though joy was so unfamiliar to him that he hardly dared to claim it as his own.

He trailed the fingers of one hand slowly down her cheek, almost as though he couldn’t believe she was really there. His words confirmed it.

‘You won’t vanish, will you? I’ve thought of this since the moment we met, and now—’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said happily.

‘Except with me?’

‘Except with you.’

‘Kiss me—kiss me—’ His lips were on hers again before she had the chance to speak. Suddenly she was aware of everything in the world about her. The sun had never been so warm, the air so sweet, life so worth living.

Bernardo drew back a little. He was shaking. ‘We must go on to Montedoro,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I don’t trust myself to be alone with you.’ He kissed her briefly one more time. ‘Let’s go.’

Reluctantly she placed her hand in his and followed him to the car. She was moving in a happy dream, and it lasted all the way up the mountain.

Montedoro was in its full summer prosperity, bursting with tourists. To make the chaos worse, it was market day, and fifty stalls were crammed into the tiny piazza at the highest point of the little town. Every stall keeper greeted him with a cry of, ‘E, Signor Bernardo,’ and inclined their head courteously to Angie. Sometimes he merely waved and passed on. Sometimes he stopped to talk, always introducing her, and she became aware that she was being watched curiously on all sides.

They stopped for tea at a tiny convent where the Superior, Mother Francesca, welcomed him as a benefactor and a small, elderly nun made him swear not to leave until he’d tried her new batch of cakes. He solemnly promised, and Angie found herself eating the most delicious almond cakes she’d ever tasted.

Again she could feel the curious eyes on all sides and a frisson went up her spine. It was almost as though Bernardo was showing her to ‘his people’ for a purpose. But that was nonsense. This was a brief flirtation. Nothing more.

But her inner questions were like wisps of smoke. What was happening was out of her control.

While she was just trying to decide on another cake she heard someone knocking on the front door. The sound was faint, muffled by the thick stone walls, but she could just make out that the door was opened, for the knocking ceased, to be replaced by shouting, and the sound of a child crying. Then there were footsteps in the corridor. Mother Francesca hurried out and returned a moment later, looking troubled.

‘A little girl has been knocked down in the street and Dr Fortuno is away,’ she said. ‘So they’ve brought her to Sister Ignatia, our infirmary nurse.’

Bernardo glanced quickly at Angie who immediately said, ‘I’m a doctor. Can I help?’

‘I’d be so grateful,’ the nun replied. ‘We’re worried in case the child has some broken bones.’

The convent infirmary was a small room, with a bed, equipped for little more than first aid. On the bed was lying a little girl of about eight, crying bitterly. With her was an old woman dressed in black. She had a lined, nut brown face and white hair, covered by a black headscarf. Sister Ignatia spoke to her in Sicilian, indicating Angie, and immediately the old woman was up in arms, standing between them and letting forth a stream of Sicilian whose meaning was only too clear.