Page 65 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

‘If I stayed here long enough, I guarantee I could find them,’ Giles said. ‘The style of that bird fragment we saw, even the horse’s head, the way the bridle was reproduced—’

‘Oh, Giles!’ Giulia said with affectionate exasperation.

‘Oh, everyone! No more antiquities!’ David interrupted, laughing. ‘We were having a nice time talking about normal things.’

‘You must be hungry.’ Lucia said to Giulia and Giles. ‘I should stir myself and see about luncheon, but I’m so comfortable.’

‘I’d like to swim first,’ Giles said.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Giulia, at once. ‘It’s so hot! A bathe would cool us down.’

‘We’ve brought our things,’ said Louisa.

‘Very well, swim first, and luncheon will be ready when you come up,’ said Lucia. ‘You can change in my room, Louisa – David, you can use the wood store.’

The young people jumped up, and the professor said, ‘You make me feel old with your energy. If only the sea would come to me, rise up and collect me kindly, but that walk down the cliff, in this heat …’

Giles was almost in the house when he seemed to remember Kitty, and turned back to say, ‘Are you coming?’

She looked up, but his eyes did not connect with hers. I’m just an afterthought when she’s around . ‘I bathed this morning,’ she said.

He might have said, ‘Come anyway, ‘or ‘You can bathe more than once, you know,’ and she’d have jumped up. If he had even smiled at her … But he said indifferently, ‘Very well,’ and went inside to change.

By the time they came out, changed and ready, Lucia had hauled herself up to go inside and bespeak luncheon, while Flavio had sunk back into his book, and was verging on slumber.

Kitty had picked up a book too. ‘Ready?’ she heard Giles say, and the four young people came past her, jumped gaily down the verandah step and trotted across the terrace to the dark place between the trees where the path began – twisting, winding, uneven, down the steep cliff to the rocky cove and the blue, rocking waves.

Nobody looked at her or called to her before they disappeared into that dark mouth. She felt abandoned and bitter.

Luncheon was always light, cold meats, cheeses, salads and fruits, served at the big table on the verandah.

There was easy talk, and laughter. The light outside was thick and strange, and the heat was so intense that even in the shade it was too warm.

Conversation flagged after a while, except for Giles and Giulia, who continued to talk about the ruins they had visited, and the mosaics in particular – a conversation that wandered in and out of history and occasionally fell into Italian and out again, as though there were no difference between the languages.

Kitty, her chair drawn back into the deepest shade, watched them, brooding, and felt the ache in her lower stomach again, an ache that made her clench all her muscles.

‘The storm’s coming,’ Louisa said, into a pause. ‘I think we ought to be walking back, Davy. Mama will be worried.’

‘It may pass us by,’ Lucia said. ‘They sometimes go round to the south.’

‘Still, we ought to go,’ David said. ‘Thank you so much for your hospitality.’

‘Shall we see you this evening?’ Lucia asked.

‘Thanks, but Matteo’s friends have asked us – the Morettis.’

When they had gone, Flavio yawned and roused himself to say, ‘A sonnellino , I think, is the answer to this heavy air.’

Lucia agreed. ‘We should all lie down on our beds until it makes up its mind whether to storm or not. My dears, won’t you?’

‘You’re right,’ said Giles. ‘I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

They all went upstairs, Kitty trailing after Giles. The Lombardis turned one way at the top of the stairs, and Giles and Kitty the other. At the door to his room, Giles turned and frowned at Kitty. ‘Are you all right? You’re very quiet.’

Tears came to her eyes. Was this all she deserved? From the man who could chat to Giulia, it seemed, for hours at a time. Who seemed to be able to ignore her very existence when it suited him.

‘What do you care?’ she said, low and angry.

He seemed startled. ‘What do you mean by that?’ She had turned away. ‘Kitty? What’s wrong?’

She didn’t answer, went into her room, threw the door shut behind her – but he was quick enough to catch it, followed her in and closed it quietly.

‘Now, what is all this?’ he asked, in the firm, reasonable tones of a man dealing with a fractious child.

‘You should know!’ she cried. ‘You would know if you paid me the least attention. But I don’t exist for you when she’s around!’

‘What are you talking about?’ He sounded genuinely baffled, and it enraged her.

‘You went off with Giulia this morning – just the two of you alone – and you expect me to put up with it. You talk to her as if there’s no-one else in the world but the two of you, and I’m supposed to smile and bear it.

I know she’s beautiful – I could hardly help knowing when everyone talks about it, everyone – and I know she’s much cleverer than me.

But you married me ! I’m your wife , whether you like it or not! ’

He took a step closer. ‘Keep your voice down, for Heaven’s sake,’ he urged. ‘You don’t want them to hear.’

She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. ‘You married me , and I know it was my money you wanted, I know that, I’m not a fool, but it doesn’t mean you’re entitled to pretend I don’t exist! I deserve better, I deserve to be treated with respect!’

‘I do respect—’ he began.

‘You don’t even look at me. You don’t address a word to me. Anyone who didn’t know, seeing us at luncheon, would have thought I was one of the servants. You can’t treat me like that, Giles! I won’t have it! I expect – I expect—’

She was trembling with passion, and her rage had carried her, but now belatedly she had heard herself, and self-consciousness returned, weighting her tongue with dread.

How had she dared speak to him like that?

It was against the habits of a lifetime.

She was as shocked with herself as she had been angry with him.

And as the rage deflated, she was left with the terrible fear that she had broken something.

What have I done? He’ll never love me now .

I’ve spoiled everything. Tears, already close to the surface, welled up and spilled down her face in a terrible flood.

‘Kitty, don’t,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t cry. Tell me what you want. I don’t understand.’

He didn’t understand ? Had he not listened to a word? It was the last straw. She was just an hysterical woman to him, a thing with unpredictable moods, like a wild animal there was no reasoning with. Soothe her, like a mad thing – but don’t take her seriously!

‘I’m your wife ,’ she sobbed again.

‘Kitty—’ He took a step forward, hand out, like someone approaching a snarling dog.

I’m not a dog! she cried in her mind. ‘Leave me alone!’ she sobbed aloud. ‘Go away and leave me alone!’

And – God help her – he did.

Giles lay on his bed, bemused. What had happened to the shy little girl he had married?

Where had this rage, this passion sprung from?

He had been surprised – agreeably surprised – by the physical passion they had shared; but for him, it occupied a separate compartment in his head.

He’d had very little to do with women in his life.

He always treated them as he treated anyone else, and since there had never been an intimate relationship, that strategy had worked out all right.

It had not really occurred him, not consciously, that having done what they did in bed together, at night, in the dark, there ought to be any change in how they behaved towards each other in daylight.

She was jealous of Giulia – he thought he had gathered that from her incoherent raving.

He was genuinely surprised. He had never had romantic feelings towards Giulia.

She was like a sister to him – or, perhaps he should more accurately say, like a brother.

He had known her for many years, had almost grown up with her, given that his important growing up had happened after he left home.

He liked her mind, liked talking to her, but the idea of flirting with her, even if he had known how to flirt (Richard would have laughed at the idea) made him feel a bit nauseous.

How could Kitty think it? It was a sign of her deranged mind.

Him and Giulia? It was practically incest.

And yet – as he lay staring at the ceiling, where a thin line of light from the side of the blind tracked slowly from one side of the room to the other – and yet, deep down in his mind there was a seed of guilt, which he was unwilling to acknowledge.

Women had not featured in his life as differentiated creatures – but there was one, wasn’t there?

He had deliberately put aside, deeply buried his feelings for Nina; but he’d had them, even while he had been courting Kitty.

He took them out now and looked at them.

He had loved talking to Nina, and it had not been at all like talking to Giulia.

With Giulia it was purely intellectual, just the same as when he spoke to Lucia or Flavio.

But with Nina, every encounter had been an exquisite pleasure, every word had seemed to have a deeper meaning.

He had felt connected to her in a way he had never known before, as though a cord were attaching her to him, as essential and life-giving as an umbilicus.

She had mattered , in a way that Giulia or any other woman did not.

He had married Kitty, but he had already given to another woman what the matrimonial state demanded should be for her and her alone. In that way, he had betrayed her, and a small part of him betrayed her still. He had been unfaithful to her, and she knew it – she just had mistaken the object.