Lucy Gordon - Rinaldo’s Inherited Bride

Before having breakfast Alex took a cool shower. She felt hot all through, deep down, intensely hot in a way that no water could soothe. The feeling had been there since Rinaldo’s hands had encircled her waist, holding her against him.

Perhaps it was lucky, she thought, that Gino had not caught her. He would certainly have turned that intimate moment into a kiss.

But Rinaldo had been completely unmoved.

She rubbed soap over the place, feeling again the pressure of his fingers, and the warmth going through her in endless waves. She turned the water onto cold, and let it lave her again and again, hoping for the feeling to go.

She waited a long time before going downstairs, and when she did she found that the brothers had gone.

Despite the occasional battles Alex found her introduction to Belluna genuinely fascinating. Rinaldo had given her a view from a distance, but now she rode with Gino, getting a closer view of fields full of corn and olives, vineyards stretching away on steep slopes.

‘We grow the Sangiovese grapes that make Chianti,’ he said. ‘ True Chianti, made and bottled in this region. We have our imitators all over the world, but they’re not the same.’

His voice contained a hint of Tuscan arrogance, that made Alex smile, realising that there was more to him than an easygoing charmer.

But for pure arrogance, the kind that made her want to dance with rage, she thought there was no beating Rinaldo. He made no comment about their long absences together. The whole matter seemed beneath his notice. Nor did he show much interest when they discussed their adventures in the evening.

He would listen, grunting, to the day’s events, then take himself off to his study at the first opportunity.

‘He makes me want to bang my head against the wall,’ Alex raged one evening when he’d gone.

‘Bang his ,’ Gino suggested. ‘More fun.’

‘Ah, but would I make any impression on it?’

‘Not a hope. People have been trying for years.’

‘How does anyone put up with him?’ Alex asked bitterly. There was something about the way Rinaldo overlooked her that made her seethe.

‘It takes long practise,’ Gino said, yawning. ‘It’s been a tiring day.’

‘Yes, I’m going straight to bed.’

She had grown even more fond of the bedroom, whose décor and furniture were so far behind the times. She had soon gotten into the Italian habit of stripping off the duvet and all the sheets each morning and hanging them out of the window to air. Teresa protested that a guest should not be working, but Alex enjoyed the job.

She particularly relished the moment when she’d lost her grip, and the duvet fell from the window, landing on Rinaldo who happened to be underneath. His yell and the infuriated look he cast up at her were among her happiest memories. In fact, much the pleasure of her stay lay in the knowledge that she was infuriating him.

‘Teresa is upset with you,’ he observed one morning at breakfast.

‘Yes, I know. She thinks it’s shocking that I do my own room and help her in the kitchen.’

‘Then why hurt her feelings?’

‘Because I don’t want to put any more burdens onto her aching bones. Have either of you any idea how old Teresa is?’

‘Older than I can count, I know that,’ Gino said.

‘Do you really think she can manage this great house with no help?’

‘I’ve offered to get someone else in,’ Rinaldo informed her. ‘She won’t have it.’

Alex made a sound of exasperation intended to cover all men.

‘And you left matters there because it was convenient,’ she snorted. ‘Great!’

‘May I remind you that my father was alive until recently?’ Rinaldo said coldly. ‘It was his decision.’

‘Then it was the wrong decision and you should have overruled him. Don’t tell me you couldn’t have done that. Teresa is an old woman and it’s too much for her. She won’t admit it because she’s proud, and she’s afraid you’ll send her away.’

‘What nonsense! Of course I wouldn’t!’

‘Don’t tell me, tell her. Say she’s got to have someone else in to do the heavy work, whether she likes it or not. Be firm. Are you a man or a mouse?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said, eyeing her grimly.

‘Oh, stop that! You know I’m right.’

‘Heaven preserve me from women who say, “You know I’m right”.’

‘Yes, because you know they are.’

‘Can’t you two talk without fighting?’ Gino asked plaintively.

Alex shrugged. ‘It’s as good a way of communicating as any other,’ she said, her eyes on Rinaldo. ‘At least it’s honest. People are never so sincere as when they’re abusing each other.’

‘I don’t understand that,’ Gino said.

But Rinaldo understood perfectly. She could see that. He was giving her the same look of ironic complicity that she’d seen after Enrico’s funeral. It said that they saw the world through the same eyes, and to hell with the others.

‘I’m merely astonished at your extravagance,’ he said. ‘The more wages I have to pay the longer you have to wait for your money.’

Alex rolled her eyes to heaven.

‘Give me patience!’ she implored some unseen deity. ‘This house is full of empty rooms. The new maid will live in one of them, which will be part of her wages that will cost you nothing. You see? All problems solved.’

‘When I consider how anxious I was to bring you here,’ Rinaldo observed, ‘I can only wonder at my own foolishness.’

‘For pity’s sake stop arguing,’ she told him. ‘Just do it. Soften it by telling Teresa she can choose the person herself. She’s probably got a relative who’d be ideal. Go on. Do it.’

‘You’re taking a risk,’ Gino muttered, his eyes on his brother as if he was a lion about to spring. ‘He doesn’t like being ordered about. Never fear. I’ll protect you.’

‘I can protect myself against Rinaldo perfectly, thank you,’ Alex said, although she too was watching him carefully. ‘After all, what can he do to me?’

‘Throw you out,’ Rinaldo growled.

‘Not you,’ she jeered. ‘You might think you want to, but then you wouldn’t have me under your eye. Think of the sleep you’d lose, wondering what I was doing, who I was seeing. No, I’m safe enough.’

‘Alex,’ Gino begged, ‘please be careful.’

‘Who wants to be careful? That’s boring.’ She was enjoying herself.

‘I understood,’ Rinaldo said frostily, ‘that we were to have first refusal.’

‘Certainly. That’s what I’ll tell Montelli and all the others, but who’s to say I can’t tell them over a candlelit supper?’

‘Hey,’ Gino said at once, ‘if there are any candlelit suppers to be bought, I’ll buy them.’

‘With champagne?’

‘With anything you want, amor mio .’

Rinaldo rose sharply and went into the kitchen. A little later they heard the sound of argument and weeping, interspersed with Rinaldo’s voice, speaking more gently than Alex had ever heard before.

The next day he drove Teresa to the village where she had been born, about fifty miles away. When they returned in the evening they were accompanied by two hefty young women whom Teresa introduced as her great-nieces, Celia and Franca.

When she had shepherded them into the house Rinaldo detained Alex with a touch on her arm.

‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I never thought of it but-you were right.’

Alex smiled. ‘She’ll be happier with their company, too.’

‘I never thought of that either. She and Poppa used to chat in the evenings sometimes, when he wasn’t out with Enrico. Since he died she sits in the kitchen alone. Why did you see it and not me?’