Page 19 of Marriage Made In Hate

And those differences are less—far less now.

She was the niece of his own godfather—legitimate, respectable—and she was her uncle’s heir. Nor was she an East End barmaid pulling pints any longer—someone who’d never heard of Titian, or the Renaissance, or anything else that people like Luca and Matteo took for granted.

Her chin went up.

Even if I still was, so what? That doesn’t make me dirt beneath his lordly feet!

Feeling more resolute, more justified, she followed Luca, stepping into a high-ceilinged marble-floored hall far grander than her uncle’s, and far more graceful too.

Pilasters marched along the wall, and sculptures too—busts that looked Roman—and the ceiling, when she glanced up, her eye drawn to it, was adorned with a flamboyant mural of classical gods and goddesses disporting themselves, with cherubs peeping out over trompe l’oeil balconies.

‘One of my ancestors got a bit carried away,’ Luca remarked dryly. ‘His wife indulged him for this space, but you will be glad to know she restrained him elsewhere. Come and see. I’ll give you the quick version of the tour, and then we can break for lunch.’

His tone was civil enough, and he seemed less tense. Bianca followed his lead.

Briskly, he showed her around the grand but gracious rooms, giving her a thumbnail commentary on what they were seeing. Despite her mixed feelings about the place Luca called home, she found its graceful, elegant beauty very appealing.

He only showed her the ground floor, ignoring the sweeping double staircase soaring upwards from the wide main hall.

‘We’ll have lunch in the small dining room,’ he said. ‘It’s a breakfast room, really. My mother had it refurbished, as it had become somewhat shabby and neglected.’

He led the way to the rear of the house, to a room opening out by the sweeping double staircase.

Immediately she stepped inside, Bianca exclaimed, ‘Oh, this is so beautiful!’

She gazed about pleasurably. Though far smaller than the grand reception rooms along the front facade, this room was just as elegantly proportioned, and it had an intimacy to it that gave it a charm she could not resist. The walls were hung with warm yellow silk, and there was a delicately stencilled ceiling, an exquisitely woven oval carpet in matching warm yellow, with patterning that echoed the ceiling tracery.

An elegant eighteenth-century oval table sat in the centre of the room, set with silver and crystal, and a simple but beautiful floral arrangement of creamy yellow roses was held in a silver-gilt epergne.

To one side of the room French windows stood open to the gardens beyond.

Instinctively, Bianca stepped through them.

As at her uncle’s house, a paved terrace ran along the rear facade, leading on to the level gardens, but here, because of its elevated position, there was an immediate vista— a sweeping view of the valley beyond the distant edge of the gardens, each side sheltered by the gentle rise of a forested hillside.

‘They chose this site well, I think, my ancestors,’ she heard Luca say, stepping out beside her. And for the first time Bianca heard warmth in his voice.

‘It’s absolutely beautiful,’ she breathed.

She gave a low laugh. ‘I seem to be saying that all the time…about everything you’ve shown me!

’ She gestured with her hand. ‘I love the way the gardens seem to blend into the landscape all around, as if they are part of it. It’s hard to see where the grounds end and the countryside and woods begin. ’

‘That was the idea. The gardens were remodelled in the late eighteenth century, when the visconte opened up the formal baroque arrangement to accommodate the natural topography. It was deliberately done in the English style, which was much admired at the time—and not just in England.’

Bianca nodded. ‘Yes, Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton and their followers.’

Luca cast her a swift look. ‘Exactly,’ he said.

She gave a slight smile, gazing about her at the glorious vista.

‘English aristocrats at the time often came out to Italy,’ she remarked musingly, ‘going home with Roman and Greek trophies to ornament their own stately homes, and Italian aristocrats adopted the fashion for naturalistic landscaping. Each borrowing from the other!’ She turned to Luca.

‘I know that many English stately homes are littered with faux Roman temples in the classical style, but presumably here in Italy you can boast the real thing?’

‘We can indeed,’ Luca said. ‘Where the gardens give way to woodland, as the hill steepens over to the west…’ he indicated with his arm ‘…there are the remains of a very small Roman temple. It’s at the site where a spring that was believed to have healing qualities emerges.

’ He paused. ‘I’ll show it to you after lunch, if you’re interested. ’

She smiled. ‘Thank you—that would be lovely. And Matteo will probably ask if I’ve seen it.’

For a moment something changed in Luca’s eyes, but she didn’t know what. Not that she should care, of course, what he felt or thought. He was nothing to do with her any more. They were being forced into each other’s unwilling company simply out of mutual compassion for Matteo—that was all.

I need to remember that.

They went back indoors. It was cooler inside—noticeably so.

A manservant was there, and Luca greeted him in a familiar fashion as Bianca took the chair being held for her and Luca sat himself down too.

The oval table was now adorned with a variety of platters whose delicate decoration matched the walls and carpet.

‘My mother found this service hidden away and was delighted with it. She styled the room around it. The original wall coverings were too faded to save, unfortunately, but the carpet, which was originally in a bedroom, was mended where it had become worn, and the ceiling was re-stencilled. It became her favourite room in the palazzo .’

‘I can see why,’ Bianca said warmly, casting another appreciative glance around her.

It was strange to think of Luca with a mother—or a father, come to that. Or a home at all. In London he’d been a high-flying ex-pat, his apartment ultramodern and anonymous.

He was just passing through—and picking me up in passing too. Then letting me go again. I never meant anything to him…

She felt a knot start to form inside her at old, painful memories. Determinedly, she unknotted it. That was then, and this was now—and there was no connection between them. No connection between herself and Luca, either, apart from Matteo.

Luca glanced at the manservant. ‘Thank you—we’ll look after ourselves now,’ he said, and the man took his leave.

Bianca reached for the crested silver serving spoons and helped herself to a slice of cold poached salmon, and then a liberal helping of salad. Luca poured them both a glass of white wine. Today she accepted it—she felt she needed it.

It was disquieting to see Luca here in his ancestral environment.

All the silver was crested with the same device as on the gold signet ring on his finger—some mythical heraldic figure—and the two guardian stone beasts at the front door had brought home to her just how very different the world he came from was from the one she came from.

No wonder it never entered his head that I might ever be a part of it.

To him it was absurd—unthinkable. An Italian aristocrat, with a centuries-old palazzo, and a girl like me off a council estate in the East End?

Of course I was nothing more to him than a novelty!

How could I ever have been anything else to him?

The pang that came was familiar, but the thought that came with it was not.

I wanted too much from him. More than our affair allowed me.

She started to eat. The salmon was delicious, perfectly poached, the salads fresh and light, the wine crisp and cold.

For a while they said nothing, then Luca spoke.

‘You’re not wearing the ring I bought you,’ he said.

Was that annoyance in his voice?

Bianca looked across at him. ‘Of course not. If the jeweller could tell that it looks like a miniature version of the D’Alabruschi betrothal ring, I assumed your staff here might well notice it too!

That’s the last thing you need. As it is, I’m just a guest you’re showing your stately home to and that’s all.

’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry I chose that particular ring.

Obviously I had no idea—’ She broke off.

Took a breath. ‘You should have stopped me…bought a different one.’

‘I didn’t know the jeweller would recognise it, or, indeed, recognise me. And besides—’

It was Luca who broke off now. Then resumed. ‘Besides, it suits you. Emeralds always will,’ he added dryly. He paused again, minutely this time. ‘Of course you’ll be able to buy your own soon.’

‘Oh, yes—going on a jewellery acquisition spree is the first thing I’ll do the moment my uncle is dead and buried!’ Bianca retorted sarcastically.

Luca’s brows snapped together in a frown. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

She subsided. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She took a breath. ‘It must be…odd…for you to see me with your godfather…as his niece.’

He looked at her. ‘Yes,’ he said. He paused a moment, his expression changing, then added, ‘But I wish you well, Bianca. I hope you know that.’

She met his eyes. ‘Do you? But it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s a long time since our paths crossed.’ She took another breath. ‘And seeing you here, in this place, surrounded by all this… I can see more clearly than I could then. Of course what I wanted was impossible—unthinkable!’

She resumed eating. The silence seemed awkward suddenly.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Bianca.’

Her eyes flew up. He was frowning again, but there was a shadowing in his eyes she had not seen before…something in his voice she hadn’t heard before.

‘I said what I did about how different our worlds were, and how impossible it was for us to continue our affair, let alone anything else, because…’

He took a sharply indrawn breath, and she could see his grip on the crested silver cutlery tightening.

‘Because it seemed to me better that you should hate me than miss me.’

She stared. ‘I did both,’ she said. Her voice was bleak.

Her hand reached for her wine glass, a jerking movement, and she took a gulp, setting it back down on the coaster—that was silver and crested too, she noticed absently.

‘I loathed your guts—and I howled into my pillow every night!’ Her lips compressed. ‘But whilst it was your fault I loathed your guts, it was my fault I howled.’

She levelled her gaze at him, unflinchingly.

Suddenly she was going to say what she felt she should.

Seeing Luca’s ancestral pile, having it brought home to her just how great the differences between them had been six years ago, was—like it or not—giving her a different perspective on why he had ended things with her.

Put bluntly, it would have seemed impossible to him to continue with her once he’d left London.

To him, she had been an East London girl, fit only for an affair that belonged to his posting to the City.

She might have had hopes that were actually delusions—he never had.

She held her gaze steady. ‘I can’t blame you for dumping me, Luca.

I was an idiot to fall for you, and an idiot to think there was anything more between us than there was…

to want there to be more. I should have accepted what it was—that we’d had a good time together and we were nothing more than a novelty act to each other.

It was my fault I didn’t see that…my fault I got hurt. ’

She went back to eating, not wanting to see his reaction. Her throat felt tight. For all her painful honesty in admitting he hadn’t been responsible for what she’d come to want from him, she didn’t want to see that bleak truth reflected in his face.

It would hurt too much.

Far, far too much.

And the fact that it would hurt at all was the most disquieting thought yet…