Stephanie Howard: The Duke's Wife

Sofia ignored these tales. The possibility that they were true was a horror so huge that she dared not even look in its direction. Instead, she focused on Damiano. On trying to please him every way she could, in bed and out of it, desperate to make him love her. And then—miracle!—it seemed at last that the power to do so was within her grasp. Just thirteen months after their wedding, she finally became pregnant.

That was a wonderfully happy time. Damiano was ecstatic, and so sensitively caring and so gloriously proud of her. Sofia felt herself blossom. It was all going to be all right now—a fact which seemed secure when a scan showed that the child was a boy. How could he not love her now, when she was about to give him his precious heir?

During her pregnancy he made love to her with less and less frequency, though Sofia kept assuring him that the doctors had said it was all right.

‘I don’t want to take any risks. This baby is too precious,’ he told her. ‘And so are you,’ he added, kissing her. ‘Let’s just err on the side of caution.’

Very well. Sofia accepted that. There would be plenty of sex later. And she felt a thrust of perfect happiness at the thought of all the joys the future held. Soon they would be a real family with a lovely little son. It was as though the stars had dropped down from heaven and kissed her.

But then all that changed. Another wave of rumours reached her concerning Damiano and Lady Fiona. They stopped her in her tracks. She wept for days, but said nothing. And then she found proof in his waste-paper basket.

She flung it at him in fury when he returned to their apartments that evening after a day of official duties.

‘I would like you,’ she spat at him, fighting back tears, ‘to kindly explain the meaning of this!’

Damiano picked up the crumpled fax with infuriating calm. Glancing down at it, he demanded. ‘Where did you find this, if I may ask?’

‘I found it in your office waste basket! That’s where I found it!’

‘And what were you doing in my office rummaging through my waste basket?’

Sofia glared at him. The truth was that she’d been looking for evidence, praying with all her heart that she wouldn’t find it, after storming down to his office late that morning to question him about where he’d been the night before. For he hadn’t slept with her and, when she’d gone to check, she’d discovered that neither had he slept in the room along the corridor that he sometimes used these days, since the advancement of her pregnancy, claiming that when he came home late he didn’t want to disturb her. But when she’d arrived at his office to demand some answers his secretary had told her he was out on an appointment, so, in fury, she’d searched first his desk then his waste-paper basket.

But she didn’t tell him that. Instead, furiously, she told him, ‘It doesn’t matter what I was doing! All that matters is what I found! And, if you don’t mind, I’d very much like you to explain it!’

Damiano said nothing for a moment and a look crossed his face that fleetingly suggested he was far from in agreement that it didn’t matter why she’d been rifling through his waste bin. But another look instantly replaced it, a look of sharp concern, as he took stock of her flushed and agitated face.

He stepped towards her. ‘Sofia, sit down,’ he told her. ‘You shouldn’t be standing there like that.’ For she was half leaning against the back of one of the armchairs, her weight awkwardly balanced, as though she might topple over.

He took hold of her arm. ‘Come on. Sit down.’

Sofia tried to push him away and very nearly did topple over. And that made her feel worse. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was like a great ungainly whale these days, now that she had reached the eighth month of her pregnancy. Not like Fiona, who was slim and svelte and sexy!

‘Leave me alone!’ she started to protest. But he had already caught firm hold of her and was lowering her, whether she liked it or not, into the safety of the armchair.

Then he sat on the arm and took her hand in his, though she clenched her fist tight and would not look at him.

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