The Italian's Token Wife

Subtlety clearly wasn’t her strong point, thought Magda, and once again caught herself glancing at Rafaello. This time he met her eye, and for the barest second only amusement glimmered in them. And something else, too. A question. His aunt caught it, too.

‘Magda will be perfectly safe,’ she said caustically. ‘She need tell me nothing she does not wish to.’

Personally, Magda had severe doubts about that, but the time she had spent over dinner had convinced her that, overbearing and autocratic as Elizavetta Calvi was, she was fundamentally well-meaning. There was no hostility directed at her.

And so it proved. Over two cups of coffee Rafaello’s aunt proceeded to grill her comprehensively about her life, her job, her child and her reasons for marrying Rafaello di Viscenti. Only on one aspect did she hold back, to Magda’s surprise—Benji’s parentage.

‘Such things happen,’ she said bluntly. ‘They always have and they always will. But I tell you, frankly I admire your courage in deciding to keep your child—it would have been so easy to have given him away.’

Never! The word leapt in Magda’s throat, filling her with horror. More horror came on its heels—the knowledge that her own unknown birth mother had not even bothered to try and give her away. Simply left her to die in an alleyway. But she had survived, and with Benji would go on doing so.

Through the French windows she saw the silhouette of the man she had married for a hundred thousand pounds. Something kicked inside her, hard and painful. She looked away. No. That was pointless. Immature fantasy. Stupid and pathetic. He was not for her. Not even in her dreams.

She was awakened next morning by a maid bringing in a tray of coffee.

‘Buon giorno, signora,’ the girl said smilingly, cooing in Italian over Benji. He was still asleep, and Magda wondered at that as she sipped her fragrant coffee, looking out through the window to the tops of the cypress trees beyond, all bathed in morning sunlight.

She felt a wave of wellbeing go through her. All my life I’ll remember this, she thought—how beautiful this place is. She felt sadness pricking at her that her time here was to be so short, before telling herself sternly that she was fortunate beyond belief to be here at all.

Her mind went back to the evening before, filling her with strange emotions. Rafaello’s aunt and uncle had been so nice to her—and Rafaello had been so polite and civil, too! Signora Calvi hadn’t even seemed to mind that she had married her nephew for money.

‘Of course it is wrong,’ she had said, in that unarguable fashion of hers, ‘but it is quite understandable. I do not blame you, child.’

Magda frowned. Did that mean she blamed her nephew?

Heaviness filled her. Although she had walked into this minefield unwittingly, it was a still a horrible position to be in—everyone wishing you were a million miles away…

Benji’s waking was a welcome diversion. He always woke in a playful, affectionate mood which could melt her even on days when she was half-dead with tiredness, let alone now, when her days were easy and her nights undisturbed.

Later, with both of them dressed, she picked up the coffee tray carefully with one hand, took Benji’s small fingers with the other and set off for the kitchen and breakfast. But as she closed the bedroom door behind her she heard footsteps coming along from the far end of the wide landing.

Rafaello’s father was walking towards her. When he saw her, he stopped dead. Magda froze. Although she’d seen him only briefly that hideous afternoon three days ago, she knew it was Enrico di Viscenti immediately. He was far too much like Rafaello some thirty-odd years on.

His face hardened. Magda didn’t know what to do. Say good morning? Say nothing? Go back into her bedroom?

Benji, sensing the atmosphere, wrapped his arms around her leg as she stood there, coffee tray in her hand, not having a clue what to do.

‘So,’ said Enrico di Viscenti in a harsh voice, ‘you are still here.’

Magda said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.

‘Do you imagine you will make yourself a home here?’ Enrico threw at her in that same harsh voice. ‘Do you imagine yourself as a great lady now—you and your bastardo?’

She tensed all the way through her body.

Rafaello’s father took a menacing step towards her. His dark eyes bored into hers, filled with fury and disgust.

‘Then know this! My benighted son chose you to insult me. He threw it in my face that he defied my wishes so much he deliberately brought home a bride who is the lowest of the low. He chose you because you are the worst wife he could find—plain, ignorant, common, amoral. From the slums of London, cleaning toilets for a living. He chose you to disgust me.’