The Italian's Wife

Later? Never, Holly told herself, returning the phone to Jeremy,

blanking out his questioning appraisal. What was there to talk about?

Rio had said he hadn't had a choice, but in actuality he had made his

choice. Of course he was sorry. He had a conscience. But when push came

to shove

he just hadn't been able to resist the woman he really cared

about.

'Rio's a very decent guy,' Jeremy asserted forcefully. 'He's my cousin.

I know him. OK...I didn't see what actually happened but I'm certain

there's nothing for you to get upset about.'

'Are you?' Holly held back an hysterical laugh at that plea on Rio's

behalf. Decent guys don't walk out on their wives at parties. Only

besotted ones did.

'There has to be some explanation. Christabel was acting weird and her

antics were embarrassing Frank and Lily. Her date didn't stay long.'

Jeremy lowered his voice to a constrained mutter. 'You know, she wasn't

wearing anything under that dress.'

Slut, Holly thought, aghast and shocked, tears welling up in her aching

eyes. Christabel had got to him with sex. Real brazen-hussy stuff. She

was going to burn her stupid lace-topped stockings. Waste of time. She

should have known better than to try to appeal to a bloke on that level.

Especially when it was now painfully obvious that she was literally

still in the nursery league in that department.

An hour later Holly wrote the ubiquitous note.

It was really great while it lasted but now it's over.

Dry-eyed, she packed her plainer clothes and then called a taxi. Hadn't

she always known it wouldn't last? It had been wonderful while it had

lasted, she reminded herself doggedly. And he had never said he loved

her and she had never said she loved him. But he had given her a wedding

ring and only hours ago he had given her a second ring that looked very

much like an engagement ring. And suddenly she hated him with a hatred

that tore her apart and she was sobbing into her suitcase, stabbed to

the heart at

166

the image of him with Christabel. It took her a good ten minutes to

plaster herself back together again.

Striving not to waken their nanny in her room next door, Holly crept

about her son's room, gathering up essentials. Timothy was going to miss

Rio so much, she reflected wretchedly. But what could she do about that?

Why was it that at the most awful moments of her life she always felt

powerless and guilty, as if everything that went wrong was her fault?

No, she caught herself up on that thought. She was making her own

decisions, not waiting on him. She was leaving him. She was going to

divorce him for adultery too. If he was expecting civilised forgiveness,

he had no hope. She might even make him wait the full three years before

she agreed to a divorce. Not that a hussy like Christabel was likely to

be put off by the prospect of living in sin. Stop it, stop it, her saner

self intervened. Let him go, let him have her if he loves her, and to

behave as he had he had to love her...

167

'What have you done to that pastry?' Mary Sansom demanded in dismay. 'It

looks like you've been torturing it!'

Holly stared down at the shredded pastry and then glanced across the

kitchen at her mother, a sturdy little woman with iron-grey hair,

wrapped in a floral apron. 'I'll make some more.'

'I'll see to it.' The concern in her parent's steady blue eyes filled

Holly with guilt.

She had been trying so hard to be cheerful, but putting a happy face on

her misery was a challenge she had yet to meet. It had been almost three

weeks since she had left London. By the end of her first day home she

had been hoarse from making a clean breast of everything that had

happened to her since Timothy had been born. And there had been tears,

rebukes and regrets, but a lot of love too. That her parents could

forgive her for all the grief she had caused had been a tremendous

comfort to Holly, as was her mother and father's loving acceptance of

their baby grandson. So she felt that they deserved more than the

continual sight of her drooping like a wet weekend.

Yet, as the days dragged by, her mother or her father would often come

up with some statement that unsettled Holly. Is this bloke you married a

fool, then?' her father had asked, infuriating her with that mere

suggestion. 'I reckon only a right fool would wed one woman when he

still fancied his chances with another.'

'You just never think before you act,' her mother had lamented. 'But

marriages have to be worked at and you

168

should have talked to your husband. He was good to you. Why would he

suddenly take off with this other shameless piece? I can tell you, your

father would have no truck with a female like that,' her mother had told

her with staunch and touching pride. 'No decent man would want a woman

who carried on that way.'

Holly went up to bed that night and feared that the generation gap was

yawning. She lay in her pine bed and felt the tears trickling again. She

felt as if half of her had been brutally ripped away. She missed him

with every breath she drew. She turned a dozen times a day to tell him

something before she remembered that he wasn't there any more. She ached

for him and despised herself and kept on wanting to phone him but could

not begin to imagine what she could possibly say.

Two days later Mary Sansom announced over breakfast that the house

needed 'a good going-over'. Knowing well that a thorough cleaning

session was intended, Holly suppressed a groan. By teatime even the

battered kitchen range shone from industrious polishing. Her parents

were attending a church social that evening and Holly noticed that her

mother seemed unusually quiet and anxious.

'You know, Dad and I...we always want what's best for you,' the older

woman remarked without warning as Holly carried cake tins out to the car

for her. 'It's not as though you've done so well on your own.'

Hurt by a comment that she was none the less well aware her mother had

grounds to make, Holly retreated back indoors and got on with putting

Timothy to bed. 'Da...Da?' he asked in a small mournful voice, from

which hope had pretty much gone.

Eyes overflowing with tears of regret, Holly was on the stairs when she

heard the back-door knocker sound that her mother had overlooked

something in her

father flustered departure, she hurried to answer it.

It was Rio. Stunned, Holly gaped at him, her tear-streaked face pale as

a ghost between the tangled bronze ringlets tumbling round her

shoulders. He gazed down at her with dark golden eyes that glittered

below the heavy fringe of his black lashes and it was as if he had

yanked a panic button in her heart, setting off a chain reaction that

went right through her slender body in a stormy wave. She parted dry

lips. 'How...how did you find me?' 'Finding you down here was easy.

Unfortunately I wasted over two weeks on the assumption that you'd taken

some job and stayed

on in London,' Rio admitted. 'Are you planning to

invite me indoors?'

At that pointed question, Holly coloured and stepped back. Clad in

fitted black jeans, a cream sweater and a loose-cut black fleece-lined

jacket, Rio cut a powerful figure, dominating the homely kitchen, his

dark head reaching within a couple of inches of the overhanging rafters.

'Watch out for the doorways,' she said automatically. "They're lower.'

Poised with his back to the low-burning fire, Rio was staring at her. As

his incisive gaze wandered intently over her she realised what a mess

she must look, for her hair needed to be tidied and she was wearing

ancient jeans and an even more ancient sweatshirt. 'You look about

sixteen...' Rio murmured huskily. Picturing Christabel's glittering

sophistication, Holly paled and tore her gaze away. She stared out

instead at the sleek red Ferrari parked in the yard. 'How did you get