Stephanie Howard - The Duke's Wife

At that thought, a coldness touched her. Her trouble was that she’d been too efficient. Less than two years after their marriage Alessandro had been born and from that moment Damiano had had no further use for her. She had served her purpose. That was the brutal, cruel truth of it.

As she pushed that thought away, squashing the hurt that bubbled up, Damiano was saying, ‘I was sorry to hear that. About your dinner engagement with the Pasquales, I mean.’ He paused. ‘You see, I would like you to accompany me to the opera that evening.’

‘The opera?’ Sofia blinked at him.

‘The first night of the new production. As you know, it’s going to be a very special occasion.’

Of course Sofia knew. How could she not know? Thursday was to see the reopening of the newly redecorated Royal Theatre, with an all-star production of Madame Butterfly to mark the occasion. But why on earth was he suggesting that she accompany him?

She said, fixing him with openly perplexed grey-blue eyes, ‘I find this very strange. You always go alone to these things.’

‘I have been doing so, yes.’

‘I mean that was the arrangement.’

‘It was.’ Damiano paused and deliberately held her gaze. ‘But let’s just say I’ve decided to review our arrangement.’

‘Review it? Why?’ Sofia felt a jolt of fear. ‘Why would you want to do that? I would say it was working rather well.’

‘By keeping us out of each other’s hair, you mean?’ Damiano raised one cynical eyebrow. ‘Yes, on that level I would say it was working well too. But there are other things to be considered now. Which is why I think we must review it.’ He paused, the dark eyes narrowing as he looked at her. ‘Why I’m afraid,’ he amended, ‘I must insist that we do.’

It was at that moment that there was a discreet tap on the Rose Room door. A moment later the door opened and a maidservant appeared pushing a trolley laden with tea things—a beautiful blue and gold Castello tea service, Castello being the world-famous locally made porcelain, and an array of silver dishes piled with biscuits and tiny pastries.

She executed a quick curtsy. ‘Your Graces,’ she greeted them, with a quick, discreet bob of her head. Then soundlessly she began to lay out the cups and plates and things on the low mahogany table that stood between the Duke and Duchess.

Sofia had barely glanced at her. Her gaze was fixed on Damiano as she struggled to suppress the sense of dread that rose within her. She had been right to think he had something important on his mind, though she had never dreamed for one moment that it might be anything like this. And this, quite frankly, was the worst nightmare she could imagine.

The arrangement they’d been referring to was the arrangement they’d made five months ago when the situation between them had become frankly intolerable. For it had come to the point when virtually all they did was fight—only in private, of course, though, increasingly, even in public they’d been more and more hard-pressed to conceal the growing rift between them.

It was Damiano who’d instigated the arrangement. ‘From now on,’ he’d decreed, ‘we’ll lead separate lives. No more public appearances together, except on State occasions, when unfortunately it can’t be avoided. And in private we’ll just try to keep out of each other’s way.’

And that was what had happened. He’d moved out of their shared rooms and into separate quarters in the west wing of the palace. And though it had broken Sofia’s heart she had gone along with the arrangement, for there was no way that things could have continued as they were and she’d known that the solution her heart really longed for, namely that Damiano might after all grow to care for her a little, was nothing but a fantasy that would never become reality. So, in the absence of any hope of love, reluctantly she’d settled for less conflict.

To her surprise, once she’d recovered from the initial blow of the separation, she’d discovered that their arrangement actually made her life much easier. For she’d gradually come to realise that it was a great deal less painful to live without her husband’s love when she didn’t see him every day. Little by little, the wounds inside her had begun to heal, and she had gained new strength from the discovery that she could in fact survive without him, after all.

And now he wanted to change all that. To review their arrangement. Fear flickered inside her. She couldn’t let him do it.

As the maid finished pouring the tea and soundlessly withdrew, Sofia sat forward in her seat and looked anxiously at Damiano. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Why would you want to review it?’

Damiano watched her for a moment, knowing what she was thinking, seeing quite plainly the look of horror on her face. ‘Because it’s had some unforeseen and deeply undesirable consequences,’ he told her. As he spoke, he leaned forward and picked up his cup of tea. He glanced at Sofia over the top of it as he drank. ‘You must have heard the rumours that are going around?’

‘I hear a lot of rumours.’ There was a controlled edge to her voice as she said it. ‘Which particular rumours might you be referring to?’

She suspected she knew, of course, and one thing was for sure—he wasn’t referring to the rumours, so far confined to the palace, concerning himself and Lady Fiona. Not that these were really rumours. More plain, simple fact.

Damiano laid down his teacup. Again, he knew what she was thinking, but he simply said, his tone matter-of-fact, ‘The rumours I’m referring to are the ones that have appeared in several newspapers, both here and abroad, in France and in England... The ones speculating that you and I are about to divorce.’

It was as Sofia had suspected, for she was aware of these stories, which had shocked and deeply hurt her when she’d first heard them. Though she feigned bravado now as she tilted her chin at him. ‘And have you come to tell me these rumours are true?’ She forced a disdainful little laugh. ‘That would be good news!’

Damiano’s expression hardened. The black eyes drove through her. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that is not what I’ve come to tell you. What I’ve come to tell you is that I don’t like these rumours in the least.’

Sofia felt something spark inside her and she was tempted to shoot back at him, Well, you’ve only yourself to blame that they started in the first place! It was his affair with Fiona that had caused all the trouble between them. It was thanks to his infidelity that they were leading separate lives, causing people to speculate about divorce! But she did not say it, though once she would have. She had learned that there was no point in raking up that subject. Things would only get ugly and she’d end up feeling torn apart. So instead she said, with a contemptuous little tilt of her head, ‘So, you don’t like the rumours? Well, that’s most unfortunate. But I’m at a loss to imagine what you expect me to do about it.’

‘What I’d like you to do is help me put a stop to them.’

‘Why? Maybe they suit me.’

Sofia’s tone was defiant, and her defiance, as she was aware, sprang from a powerful sense of injury. That he had never loved her was bad enough, but he had also made a fool of her. She had discovered that he had taken up with Lady Fiona, his mistress before their marriage, only a matter of months after their wedding, then after the birth of Alessandro he’d abandoned Sofia more or less totally for her. And, though he’d been discreet and the affair had never reached the newspapers, everyone at the palace knew about it, and Sofia hated him for subjecting her to that humiliation.

She took a deep breath and threw him a look of angry challenge. ‘The more people talk about us getting divorced, the more used they’re going to get to the idea. So if we decide to go ahead there’ll be absolutely no problem. If you ask me, these rumours ought to be encouraged.’