She had been open and honest with him in her letter, admitting to reading what his mother had written, telling him how much she loved him and saying she hoped that now they could be together, but telling him as well that she would wait for him to make contact with her, and if he did not then she would leave for England, as arranged, and accept that their relationship was over.
She told herself she was worrying unnecessarily, because Raphael did love her. He had told her so himself. He had said, too, how much he wanted her as the mother of his children. It was foolish of her to have any doubts, but it was the right thing to do to wait for him to come to her to confirm his feelings for her.
By this time tomorrow he would be here, and she would be in his arms.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT WAS over, Charley acknowledged bleakly, as the plane taking her home to Manchester began its descent through the grey clouds to the rain-soaked tarmac of the airport. Her throat felt raw from the tears she refused to allow herself to cry. Now, with them threatening again, she had to close her eyes tightly, no doubt making the man sitting next to her think she was a nervous passenger. Charley smiled wryly.
Right up until the last moment she had gone on hoping—right up until the car had arrived for her this morning and she had finally had to accept that Raphael did not want her.
It was ten days now since she had sent him the letters. At first with every new hour she had expected to see him arrive at the palazzo, to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.
But when the hours and then the days began to pass, without him making any contact with her at all, her expectation had turned to despair. Unable to eat or sleep, she had watched hollow-eyed, night after night, unable to sleep, simply staring out through her bedroom window into the darkness, hoping against hope that he would appear.
His silence meant that her pride would not allow her to contact him again—not so much as an e-mail. What was the point when he had made it so very clear that he no longer wanted her?
Soon now she would be home. Home? There was no home for her now. It was hard for her to keep her misery at bay as the plane touched down. Her only true home, the only home she wanted, was within Raphael’s heart, and there was
no place there for her. She was an outcast, denied the only place she wanted to be, the only man she wanted to love.
The arrivals hall was busy with people pressing close to the barriers, eager to see the friends and family they were there to welcome. Charley barely spared them a glance. She hadn’t warned her own family to expect her, clinging on right to the last second before her plane took off to the hope that by some miracle Raphael would not allow her to leave.
How foolish she had been—but at least she had her memories. She was past the waiting crowd now and in the arrivals hall proper, thronged with tired travellers intent on making their way to whatever transport they had arranged to get them from the airport to their homes. She would have to take a taxi—expensive, but fortunately the house she shared with her sisters in South Manchester wasn’t very far from the airport.
She could hear the sound of movement behind her—someone walking fast, someone reaching for her arm. No, not someone, she recognised weakly as she turned round. Not someone at all, but the only one.
‘Raphael…’ As she breathed his name Charley wondered if somehow he was merely a figment of her imagination, an image she had conjured up out of her own need—because how could he be here?
But he was, and he was pulling her into his arms and holding her there, his heart thumping heavily and fast against her.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ was all Charley could manage to say.
‘Believe it,’ Raphael responded. ‘Believe it, and believe too that I will not leave your side until you have promised that you will never leave me again.’
‘I thought it was what you wanted,’ Charley tried to protest, but her heart wasn’t in it—it was far too busy racing with joy and disbelief because Raphael was here, with her.
‘You are what I want—all I want—all I will ever want. I can’t go on without you. I thought I could, but I can’t. Will you marry me, Charlotte Wareham? Will you come back to Italy with me and be my wife?’
He looked and sounded so humble, or at least as humble as it was possible for such a naturally proud man to be, that Charley suspected she would have forgiven him anything.
‘There is nothing I want more than for us to be together, Raphael.’
‘We will be married as soon as it can be arranged. I do not intend to risk losing you again.’ He was holding her hand now, twining his fingers through her own, lacing the two of them together.
‘I have been thinking about this matter of children,’ he told her abruptly. He was looking at a point over her shoulder, and his jaw was tensing, Charley observed, as it did when he was trying to control his emotions.
‘With modern-day medical science it is perfectly possible for us to have a child that will not carry my genes—a child, that will be born of you but will not carry my genes. A child that I will love as my own because it is part of you. That way I shall not be depriving you of motherhood. And, as for myself, if the day should come when it becomes evident that I have inherited my mother’s family’s curse then I shall end our marriage and give you your freedom.’
Charley stared at him in confused bewilderment, unable to say anything as the thoughts rushed around inside her head. Hadn’t he read her letter?
‘Did you get the letter I sent to you in Rome?’ she asked him.
Immediately Raphael frowned.
‘No. I left Rome three days after we parted. I could not work, I could not sleep—I could not do anything but think about you and all that I had lost. I own a small skiing chalet up in the mountains. I went there, intending to force myself to give up all thoughts of you, but instead I came to realise that I could not bear my life without you. I began to think that maybe you were right—that maybe my anger was not a sign of what I had inherited. I wanted to believe that more than you can know, because it was my way back to you. Then I told myself that we could still have a child—a child that would carry your genes only—and my hopes grew. All I wanted was to be with you, to talk with you and ask you to be my wife, but there was an accident on my way back to Rome.’
‘An accident?’ Anxiety sharpened Charley’s voice. ‘What happened? Are you all right?’