The Italian's Token Wife

Self-consciously, as they moved out on to the bright sunlit pavement from the restaurant, she fished inside the stylish handbag that matched the shoes and extracted the pair of dark glasses that Olivia had bestowed upon her. It was much easier, wearing sunglasses, to look without being seen. And as they strolled along, Rafaello’s hand attentively at her elbow, she realised with a kind of disbelieving shock that they were drawing attention. At first she thought it was just that women were looking at Rafaello, a highly understandable phenomenon, but then she became aware that she, too, was drawing eyes.

Men were looking at her, quite openly, quite obviously, as they walked past, or they looked across at her from the cafés. It was so blatant that she felt as if she had no clothes on, and found she had pressed closer, quite unconsciously, to Rafaello.

He glanced down at her, a wry smile indenting his mouth.

‘In Italy we are not shy about admiring a beautiful woman. Do not worry—with me beside you they will do no more than look. But—’ his voice became dry ‘I do not advise that you tour on your own—you would be like a honeypot to every man around.’

She felt herself colouring—and heard Rafaello’s words humming in her head.

He called me a beautiful woman!

In a daze, she walked on.

Along the walls it was easier. There were more tourists here, and she felt she drew less attention. She moved a little away from Rafaello again, and he let her be, simply strolling beside her, constraining his pace to hers.

It was a leisurely progress as Rafaello stopped to point out landmarks on both the city side of the walls and the outer sides.

‘The wealthy Lucchesi in the sixteenth century built their summer villas in the countryside around the city, and several are open to view. Perhaps we shall go and visit one another day. There is so much to see in Tuscany you will be spoilt for choice.’

‘Please,’ said Magda, awkward suddenly, ‘you do not have to take me around. I am perfectly happy staying in the villa—I am sure you must be very busy with work and so on.’

‘There is nothing that needs my urgent attention,’ Rafaello said dismissively. The board meeting to confirm him as chairman would not take place until the following week. The delay did not alarm him—his father would not, could not, for his pride’s sake, renege on the unholy bargain he had struck with his son.

His mind flicked away. He did not want to think about his father right now. Too much anger roiled beneath the surface. A grim smile flickered on his mouth. When they returned he would force his father to acknowledge Magda—wipe out the ugly, cruel litany he had thrown at him, that was choking in his father’s craw.

He glanced down at the silky head that barely reached to his shoulders. He could still not get over the transformation. It was, indeed, incredible. She walked along beside him, high heels doing all sorts of miraculous things to her posture, and the dress, blessedly simple—though he knew the bill for anything that simple, that superbly cut, would be astronomical—doing the most amazing things to her figure. As for the rest of her—well, it was a dream. Not scrawny, but wand-slim. Not plain and pasty but…radiant. That was the only word for her now.

She would grace any setting—and he would make his father see that. Make him acknowledge her intelligence, her education—self-taught, and all the more credit to her, he thought soberly, given her grim financial circumstances. Make him see that every cruel description of her had been wrong—see even that it had been her devotion to her baby that had made her stoop to such menial work as he had found her in.

A frown flickered in his eyes.

Abruptly, without thinking, he spoke.

‘Tell me about Benji’s father.’

Magda halted in mid-step, then started walking again. There had been a harshness in Rafaello’s voice that took her aback. Why did he want to know?

Slowly, she framed the words. ‘It…it isn’t easy to tell,’ she answered. ‘You see,’ she went on, looking ahead of her, ‘when I was in the home—’

‘Home?’

‘Children’s home—care home. An orphanage—I don’t know what it would be in Italian.’

‘Brefotrofio.’ He frowned. What was this? She had been an orfano? ‘What happened to your parents?’

‘I…I don’t know.’

‘Come?’

She risked a glance at him. He was frowning. It made him look intimidating.

‘How is it you do not know?’ he pursued.

‘I…I don’t know who my parents were. I…I was found, when I was a few hours old. The police tried, without success, to trace the woman…well, girl, really, I suppose—most women who abandon their babies are very young; she was probably a teenager, pregnant by mistake and terrified, which is why…why she just wanted to get rid of me.’ Her voice was strained. ‘It’s very understandable.’