The Duke's Wife. Stephanie Howard

him. Blindly, she grabbed at his arm. ‘Who do you think you are,’ she demanded, ‘treating me in this high-handed fashion?’

      Damiano turned to look at her, eyes harsh and unrepentant. ‘Who I think I am is your husband and who I think you are is my wife. And it’s high time that’s what we started behaving like in public.’

      ‘Newer! I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you salvage your precious dignity! I don’t give a damn about your reputation and I’m not going to cooperate!’

      ‘Oh, yes, you are.’

      ‘And how do you suppose you can make me? You can’t make me, you know! There isn’t a thing you can do!’

      ‘I think you’re wrong about that.’ As she still clung to his sleeve, Damiano fixed her with a look as harsh as an Arctic winter. ‘In fact, you’ve probably never been more wrong about anything in your life.’

      ‘You’re the one who’s wrong!’ But her defiance was half-hearted. That look in his eyes was making her heart freeze and suddenly Sofia was seriously frightened. ‘You’re bluffing,’ she accused, praying she might be right.

      Damiano shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid I’m not.’

      ‘Why, what would you do?’

      ‘I don’t think you really want to find that out.’ He frowned. ‘Be sensible. Just do as I say. Believe me, that’s the best solution by far.’

      But still Sofia refused. ‘I won’t cooperate. No matter what!’

      ‘Oh, yes, you will.’

      ‘And how will you make me?’ She continued to clutch at his sleeve. ‘Go on! What will you do?’

      Damiano took a deep breath. ‘OK. Since you insist.’ And he fixed her anxious face with eyes as black as Hades. ‘It’s really very simple... If you refuse to cooperate, you’ll be barred from seeing our son until you come to your senses.’

      So, finally she had her answer. Sofia’s heart stopped dead in her chest. ‘You couldn’t do that,’ she protested feebly, scarcely able to get the words out.

      ‘You think not?’

      ‘But you wouldn’t.’ Her cheeks were bloodless, transparent. ‘Even you,’ she stammered, feeling sick and suddenly faint, ‘wouldn’t do a monstrous thing like that.’

      ‘Oh, yes, I would.’ There was not a shred of mercy in his eyes. ‘And, if you don’t believe me, go ahead and put me to the test.’

      ‘You monster!’

      A sudden burst of anger exploded inside her. Barely knowing what she was doing, Sofia took a swing at him, aiming to punch his shoulder with her fist. But he was already shaking her off and, as she swung, she lost her balance and went staggering backwards across the carpet, catching the corner of the coffee-table a sharp blow with her leg. As she landed like a rag doll in her chair, there was a sickening crash as the blue and gold tea service went shattering to the floor.

      In her state of shock, Sofia barely noticed the disaster at her feet. ‘You monster!’ she shouted again. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t do that!’

      But there was no reply. Damiano had already left the room.

      

      Damiano had not intended that the meeting would end up that way. On the contrary, he had set the whole thing up most carefully, deliberately choosing the Rose Room for its relaxed, cosy atmosphere and ordering tea in the hope of keeping the mood civilised, but still things had degenerated into the usual shambles. It just wasn’t possible to have a civilised encounter with Sofia any more.

      After he’d left the Rose Room, so mad that he hadn’t even heard the crash of toppled china, he had stormed down the corridor to his private quarters, flung open the door, startling poor Emilio, his valet, and demanded, ‘Look out my riding gear and tell Kurt to prepare Sirdar. There’s been a change of plan. I’m going for a ride.’

      Kurt was the Duke’s senior stable lad, Sirdar his favourite bay stallion, and as Emilio hurried off to do his master’s bidding he knew without being told that the meeting with the Duchess had not gone well. For whenever he was upset or angry this was the Duke’s favourite therapy—a hard ride through the acres that surrounded the royal palace. It was his way of exorcising the demons in his head. And demons there were aplenty. As he strode through to his private bathroom—all tiled in black and gold with a huge sunken bath—impatiently tearing off his shirt as he went, Damiano was almost exploding with seething anger. Damn Sofia! Why did she have to make things so difficult? Why couldn’t she just do as he told her and be done with it?

      He turned on the cold tap over the huge washbasin and stuck his head under it for a minute. Then he straightened and shook his head, splashing the mirror with a rain of water, grabbed a towel from the rail and gave his hair a quick rub. As though the situation weren’t bad enough without Sofia making it worse!

      As he turned away from the washbasin and tossed the towel aside, Damiano didn’t even so much as glance at his reflection in the mirror, as most men with his looks and physique undoubtedly would have done. For he had the most glorious face—it wasn’t just Sofia who thought that—and the tanned, exquisitely muscled body of an athlete. But the way he looked was something Damiano had never paid much attention to—which of course simply had the effect of making him even more impossibly attractive.

      His unconcern grew out of the fact that he tended to have his mind on higher things, namely the duties and responsibilities that went with his position as reigning duke. Responsibilities to his people. Duties to his crown. For what drove Damiano was his absolute conviction that his principal role in life was to serve his country and honour the name of Montecrespi. All else in his life took second place to that.

      He strode through to his dressing room where Emilio had already laid out his riding gear—creamcoloured breeches, burgundy jacket and high leather boots polished as bright as conkers—and, pulling off his trousers, began quickly to get dressed.

      These rumours about divorce had upset him deeply. Never in all the years of his family’s rule of San Rinaldo had a royal Montecrespi been divorced. Of course, divorce happened all over. It was a fact of modern life. And it would never have occurred to Damiano to impose his views on others. But divorce was out of the question for him and Sofia. And the rumours were pernicious. They simply had to be stopped.

      As he emerged from the dressing room, Emilio was waiting to inform him, ‘I’ve spoken with Kurt, Your Grace. He’s preparing Sirdar for you now.’

      ‘Thanks, Emilio.’ Damiano smiled at him. Emilio, who had been with him for over twelve years, was as much a valued friend as a valet. ‘If anyone phones for me, tell them I’ll be back in about an hour.’

      On swift strides now he headed down to the stables. As he had explained to Sofia, he needed her cooperation, and it had been his fondest hope that she would offer it freely, though he might have known, of course, that to hope for that was madness. He cursed beneath his breath, recalling the bitter finale of their meeting. And now look what her hard-headedness had forced him into!

      The last thing Damiano had wanted was to be pushed into making threats, especially threats that involved Alessandro. For, in spite of all her faults, Sofia was a wonderful mother—the best mother a man could ever wish for his son. And he esteemed her for that, deeply and sincerely, and he felt profoundly uneasy about the threat he had made. He’d been praying with all his heart that it would not come to that.

      But now that the deed was done, would he stand by his threat? he wondered. Would he really be prepared to deprive Sofia of her son and little Alessandro of the mother he so adored? In the end, if it came to it, would he actually be capable of behaving like the monster Sofia had accused him of being?

      Over the next hour, as he pounded across woodland and through thicket, Damiano continued to ask himself these questions. And when, once more calm, he finally arrived back at the stables and slid from Sirdar’s steaming back he knew the