The Reluctant Husband

‘I did try to persuade you to resume your education,’ he reminded her drily.

‘Oh, keep quiet...stop dragging it all back up. It makes me feel ill!’ Frankie snapped, spinning away with smarting eyes.

He had wanted her to attend a further education college in Florence. Florence! The Caparellis had been aghast when she’d mentioned it. What kind of a husband sent his wife back to school? She could read, she could write, she could count—what more did he want? And Frankie had been genuinely terrified of being sent away to a strange city where her ignorance would be exposed, where the other students might laugh at her poor Italian and where, worst of all, she would not have Santino.

In her innocence, she had actually asked Santino if he would go to Florence with her, and he had said that he would only be able to visit because the demands of his job would not allow him to live there. Of course, in the kindest possible way, she conceded grudgingly, Santino had been trying to make the first step towards loosening the ties of their ridiculous marriage by persuading her into a separation and a measure of independence. He had known very well that she was so infatuated with him that she was unlikely to make a recovery as long as he was still around.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He had even said that, yes, he would miss her very much but that he felt that she would greatly gain in self-confidence if she completed her education. And she had accused him then of being ashamed of her and had raced upstairs in floods of inconsolable tears. She had refused to eat for the rest of that weekend, had alternately sulked and sobbed every time he’d tried to reason with her. No, she reflected painfully, nobody could ever say that Santino had found marriage to his child-bride a bed of roses... or, indeed, any kind of a bed at all, she conceded with burning cheeks.

‘We have a lot to talk about,’ Santino commented flatly.

Tension hummed in the air. For the first time, Frankie became aware of that thick tension and frowned at the surprising coldness she was only now registering in Santino’s voice. Before, Santino had been teasing her, yet now he was undeniably distant and cool. She didn’t know him in this mood. The awareness disconcerted her and then made her angrily defensive.

‘On a personal basis we have nothing to talk about, but good luck with your fraud case!’ Frankie told him with a ferociously bright smile. ‘However, if you want to discuss the—’

‘If you mention those villas one more time, I will lose my temper. What are they to me? Nothing,’ Santino derided with a dismissive gesture of one lean hand. ‘The bait by which

I brought you here, but now no more! Their role is played now.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t a clue what more you expect from me, and nor do I intend to hang around to find out,’ Frankie asserted, colliding with hard golden eyes that were curiously chilling, and, since that was not a sensation which she had ever associated with Santino before, she paled and tensed up even more.

‘You will. Your wings are now clipped. No longer will you fly free,’ Santino retorted with the cool, clear diction generally reserved for a child slow of understanding. ‘We are still married.’

‘Why do you keep on saying that?’ Frankie demanded in sudden flaring repudiation. ‘It’s just not true!’

‘Five years ago you made only a brief initial statement to your solicitor, who has since retired. I spoke to his son yesterday. He checked the files for me. His father advised you in a letter to consult another solicitor, one more experienced in the matrimonial field. No further action was taken,’ he completed drily.

Frankie trembled. There was something horribly convincing about Santino’s growing impatience with her. ‘If there’s been some stupid oversight, I’m sorry, and I promise that I’ll take care of it as soon as I go home again—’

‘Not on the grounds of non-consummation!’ Santino slotted in grimly.

‘Any grounds you like, for goodness’ sake...I’m not fussy,’ Frankie muttered, badly shaken by the idea that they might still be legally married.

‘Five years ago I would have agreed to an annulment.’ Santino surveyed her tense face with cool, narrowed eyes. ‘Indeed, then I considered it my duty to set you free. But that is not a duty which I recognise now. To be crude, Francesca... I now want the wife that I paid for.’

‘That you...what?’ Frankie parroted shakily.

‘I now intend to take possession of what I paid for. That is my right.’

Frankie uttered a strangled laugh that fell like a brick in the rushing silence. She stared at him incredulously. ‘You’re either crazy or joking...you’ve got to be joking!’

‘Why?’ Santino scanned her with fulminating dark golden eyes. ‘Let’s drop the face-saving euphemisms. For a start, you trapped me into marriage.’

Frankie flinched visibly. ‘I didn’t—’

Santino dealt her a quelling glance. ‘Don’t dare to deny it. Well do I recall your silence when you were questioned by your grandfather. I had never in my life laid a finger upon you but not one word did you say to that effect!’

Frankie studied the ground, belated shame rising inexorably to choke her. She had been so furious with Santino that awful night for taking her back to Sienta. She had been running away and, using him as an unsuspecting means of escape, had hidden herself behind the rear seat of his car. It had been an impulsive act, prompted by pure desperation...

Santino’s great-uncle, Father Vassari, had died that week. She had known that Santino would no longer have any reason to come to the village. She had been in disgrace on the home front too. Incapable of hiding her feelings for Santino, she had stirred up the sort of malicious local gossip that enraged her grandfather. Furious with her, he had told her that she could no longer even write to Santino.

Santino hadn’t discovered her presence in his car until he’d stopped for petrol on the coast. It had been the one and only time he had ever lost his temper with her. His sheer fury had crushed her. Deaf to her every plea for understanding and assistance, he had stuffed her forcibly back into the car and driven her all the way back home, but it bad been dawn by the time they got there. In Gino Caparelli’s eyes, her overnight absence in male company had ruined her reputation beyond all possibility of redemption. He had instantly demanded that Santino do the honourable thing and marry her.

‘Grandfather knew nothing had happened,’ Frankie began in a wobbly voice, struggling to find even a weak line of self-defence.

‘And I knew that after what you had done your life would be hell in that house if I didn’t marry you! I let conscience persuade me that you were my responsibility. And what did I receive in return?’ Santino prompted witheringly. ‘A bride who took her teddy bear to bed...’

Frankie’s colour was now so high, she was convinced it would take Arctic snow to cool her down again.