The Italian's Token Wife

‘Come, come,’ she said brightly in English, ‘there is so much to do, and so little time. But, oh, the result will be favoloso!’

She beckoned to her smilingly. ‘Rafaello we send away—he is quite useless here, and I have no wish for his opinions.’ She glanced at him humorously. ‘Vattene! Vattene! A piu tardi.’ She made shooing gestures with her hands.

Magda finally found her voice. ‘Please—what is happening?’

The woman’s dark eyes sparkled mischievously. ‘A surprise!’

Magda looked anxiously at Rafaello, hands clenching each other over the worn strap of her bag. His face was unreadable, but abruptly he said something to the woman, who, giving an understanding nod, headed out through a door at the rear of the room. He looked at Magda a moment as she stood there, visibly anxious.

‘There is nothing to worry about,’ he said. His voice came more tersely than he had intended. ‘Just place yourself in Olivia’s hands and you will be fine.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said stiffly.

He looked down at her a moment longer. Then, as if finding the words difficult, he said, ‘If I could undo what you heard my father say this morning I would do so. But I cannot. All I can do,’ he finished, ‘is disprove it.’

Her face stilled. It was like a mask sliding over her face—the way it had been when he had taken her back into her room, the way it had been at breakfast. Giving her a wall to hide behind—a wall to shield her from what she had heard his father tell her.

Only the eyes gave her away. He could see the hurt in them.

‘But you can’t disprove it,’ she said quietly, her voice quite expressionless. ‘Because it is the truth, isn’t it? What your father said? I was…am…the perfect insult to throw at him. The total opposite of anything your family could possibly welcome as a bride. And that’s why you married me. That’s exactly why you married me and not someone from your own world. To insult your father.’

He made a noise in his throat as though he was going to speak, but she went on. ‘I told you it didn’t matter, and it doesn’t. You are paying me a hundred thousand pounds, and for that I have no business to make a fuss.’

She spoke quite steadily, but all the same there was something not quite right with her voice.

Something twisted inside Rafaello like a knife in his gut. ‘You say it is the truth, Magda—but it isn’t. You’ve already proved it a lie to me—and to my aunt and uncle, and Maria and Giuseppe. Now I just want to finish the job.’

She stared at him. ‘What part is a lie? Tell me? That Benji has no father? That I dress like something left on a rubbish dump? That I clean toilets for a living? That I am so far from being the sort of female who could be your wife that I might as well be a clod of earth underfoot? What part is a lie?’

A nerve started to tick in his cheek. She was looking at him quite expressionlessly, but he felt emotions surging inside him. One was anger, that same brand of anger that had driven him this morning. But there was more than anger.

Guilt. It burned him like acid.

He spelt out his repudiation to her. ‘You are not the first woman to have a child outside marriage. It is no longer the stigma it once was—even here in Italy. And we have already discussed your situation—you obviously have the intelligence to be something far more, and one day, when you are freed from the drudgery of poverty, you shall be. Your origins are not your fault, any more than your son’s are his. And as for your appearance—well, that is about to be dealt with.’

He turned his face away from her—he did not want to see her looking at him, hiding the hurt behind that shuttered mask she had put over her face. ‘Olivia.’ He spoke in Italian and the woman emerged, an enquiring look on her face.

‘It is all explained?’ she said in English. ‘Good.’ She smiled at Magda again. ‘Now we begin.’

‘I will return later,’ said Rafaello to Magda, and walked out.

She stared after him helplessly. What should she do? Should she go after him and tell him…? Tell him what? Tell him she’d like to do something else—like go back to London and never lay eyes on him or his family or his precious Tuscan villa ever again? Well, she couldn’t. She had signed papers—a contract, a wedding certificate—and there was nothing whatsoever she could do until Rafaello di Viscenti decided it was time to send her back to England without risking any possibility of the marriage being declared fraudulent and invalid and so play right into his father’s hands again.