‘I have pressing matters to deal with there, but I’m sure you will all be well settled by then.’
Giovanni kissed his children goodbye as his wife watched him go, feeling as though in that moment he was walking out of their lives forever.
‘Mama, can we truly have the day off?’ Isabella asked. ‘Can we go to the Bois de la Bâtie place that Papa spoke of?’
But it was to her son that she looked, those soulful eyes of his telling her that he knew, that he could sense that something wasn’t right, that his mother was in mourning.
Papa isn’t coming home once he goes to London, is he?That’s what she imagined Tommaso to be asking her with his eyes, and if he’d voiced his question out loud, she knew there was no way she could lie to him and tell him otherwise.
She walked to the window and looked out at the street below. She loved Geneva, it was the place of her birth; but she’d also come to love Italy, and most especially their country house. And her heart yearned for the acres that had stretched as far as the eye could see, the vineyards peeking at her in the distance, the very air that she’d breathed.
This is home now. This was home before I moved to Italy, and it will be my home again. I have no choice but to make it the place of my heart.
That evening, with the children in bed and the house silent, Delphine did something she hadn’t been brave enough to dobefore. In the past, as a young bride eager to be everything her new husband might expect, she’d waited in her bedroom every night in the event that he might come to see her. She’d brush her hair, change into a pretty lace nightgown, and press perfume to her wrists and decolletage, before arranging herself against the pillows and waiting, listening out for his footfalls, holding her breath as she heard him coming, and then feeling crestfallen when he kept on walking past.
In the very beginning, Giovanni had come to see her, and she’d learned quickly what was expected of a woman when it came to matters of the flesh. But never had she gone to him, even when weeks had stretched into months since his last visit to her bedchamber. She’d simply waited, prepared each night for him in case he decided he wanted to see her.
Tonight, though, Delphine lifted her hand, her knock tentative. She knew he’d heard it by the sound of his boots crossing the floor, and within seconds the door to his quarters was opened.
Giovanni stood there, his expression puzzled as he looked back at his wife, as if she were the last person he could possibly be expecting. ‘Delphine? Is something the matter?’
She moved past him into the room, not asking permission.I am his wife and this is our home. I do not need permission to come into his quarters. I have every right to be here.
Giovanni spun round as she stood before him and slipped her silk robe from her shoulders, braving his gaze as she stepped out of it and lifted her fingers to the straps of her nightgown. She took a tentative step backwards, towards the bed, hoping that he’d follow, hoping that she’d see something in his eyes that told her he desired her, that he finally wanted her in the way she knew a man could want a woman. That he’d change his mind about going to London.
‘Delphine,’ he scolded, quickly crossing the room and taking her hands, stopping her from undressing. ‘Stop that!’
‘Is it so wrong for me to want my husband?’After all this time? After being lonely for so many years?‘I only wanted to spend the night with you before you left for London, so that you remembered me.’
‘Please,’ Giovanni said, bending to retrieve her robe from where it had pooled on the carpet, looking dreadfully embarrassed. ‘Cover yourself.’
Delphine lifted her chin, refusing to let him tell her what to do. She’d spoken to Martina, she knew other wives went to their husbands, that she didn’t have to wait like a virgin bride. This was her right, to seek out pleasure with the man she’d married.
‘What’s wrong with me, Gio?’ she asked softly as she studied his face. When she’d understood as a teenager that they were to marry, she’d looked often at a photo of him, pleased that she wasn’t betrothed to a beast of a man. And now, as she looked over his features, she found that he was as handsome now as he’d been on their wedding day, if not more so. ‘Is there something so wrong with me that you cannot even stand to see me naked? Am I truly so ugly?’
The way he looked at her could have broken her heart if she’d let it. Pain mixed with embarrassment, perhaps—the worst kind of look she could have imagined. Or perhaps it was pity, which was even worse. It was then she realised what a terrible, terrible mistake she’d made in coming to him.
‘Delphine, you are everything I could have wanted in a wife,’ he said, taking her hand in a rare show of affection. ‘You’ve given me an heir to my family’s company and a beautiful daughter, but?—’
She swallowed.But. Of course, there was abut.
‘We were chosen for each other as children, perhaps before we were even born. Our union was a business arrangement andnothing more, something our families decided for us, to unite two great companies by blood, which we have done.’
To you, it was an arrangement. To me, it was a marriage. I thought my husband would fall in love with me, I thought we would be happy together.
‘You wouldn’t have chosen me, if you’d been given the choice?’ she whispered. ‘Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Gio?’
He let go of her hand and walked away a few steps, before eventually turning back to her. ‘The truth is that I wouldn’t have chosen anyone,’ he said. ‘Marriage wasn’t something I wanted. I loved being a bachelor, and if I’d been the younger brother, if the weight of expectation wasn’t on my shoulders…’
He didn’t have to finish his sentence for her to know what he was about to say. He’d done his duty as the heir and eldest son, and now that duty had been achieved, he wouldn’t be seeking out her affection ever again.
‘I understand. This life was chosen for me, too,’ she said. ‘But can we not find a way to?—’
‘Delphine, we will always be married. You are my wife, and I am your husband.’ Giovanni took a breath as his face slowly hardened. ‘But I will be leaving for London on Monday, and I don’t know when I’ll return. I need you to be here to show that my family is serious about expanding our business into Switzerland, and I’ll come to visit, but I think we both know that our marriage is one for show only. A match of convenience.’
He may as well have punched her in the stomach, and it took every inch of her willpower not to run across the room and pound his chest, demanding that he stay, demanding that he give their marriage at least a chance to succeed. Demanding that he give her the chance to be what he needed.
‘So, you’re leaving us?’ she whispered. ‘You’re actually leaving us, after making us leave Italy? After making us move here with you?’
