A Law Unto Himself. PENNY JORDAN

a tactful means of allowing him time to mature and come to realise what an asset she would be as his wife.

      Such marriages were not uncommon among the families that formed the social circle in which her family moved. Marriage was, after all, a serious business, involving not only the young couple concerned but also their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

      The hardest thing of all to bear had been the silences that seemed to fall whenever she walked into a room… the way people watched her, discussed her, pitied her… for who would marry her now? She who had been destined almost from birth for such a high position.

      She had endured it for as long as she could, through a mixture of pride and concern for her parents.

      Her grandfather had never approved of his eldest son’s choice of bride, the pretty English girl who had come to Italy to care for the twin nieces of his cousin, but her father had insisted on marrying her and they had been very, very happy.

      The birth of three sons, followed by a daughter, had gone a long way to softening the Duca’s attitude, but now, with Paolo’s rejection of Francesca, all the old bitterness had flared up, and her grandfather, whose fiery temper was notorious, had almost gone as far as to suggest that it was because of Francesca’s English blood that Paolo had left her for someone else.

      That had been when Francesca had decided she had had enough, and it was through the good offices of her godparents that she was now bound for the country of her mother’s birth, to spend an extended visit with Elliott and Beatrice Chalmers, a couple whom Francesca had often heard her godparents mention but whom she had never met.

      The English couple had two children, a little boy of three and a baby of six months. They lived in the country, Francesca had been told, and her godmother had remarked solicitously that she hoped the fresh English air would bring the colour back to her pale face, and the kilos to her slender body.

      In her mother’s eyes, Francesca had read her relief in seeing her daughter make the first decision since the catastrophe of the telegram’s arrival on the morning of her wedding, announcing that there would be no bridegroom. Normally positive by nature, Francesca had sunk into a swamp of apathy, retreating inside herself as the only means she had, in a large and very voluble Italian family, of finding a retreat where she could gather up her strength and lick her wounds.

      And there were wounds. She had not loved Paolo in the way that romantic novels described the emotion, it was true, but she had cared for him, respected him… and looked forward to being his wife and the mother of his children and to the life they would live together. She had thought he looked forward to them too, so it had been a cruel blow to discover not only that he had deserted her for someone else, but also that he had not had the courage to inform her of his decision himself.

      What was almost as hard to endure was the realisation that there had been friends who had known what was going on, but who had said nothing. Her trust had been shattered and left in a million splintered pieces. Not just her trust in others, but her trust in herself as well, and she now looked into the past with revulsion, seeing herself as stupidly self-satisfied, so absorbed in her own contentment that she had been blind to reality; so unaware of the feelings of others that she had never even guessed that something was wrong; so caught up in the pleasant meandering of her own life that it never even occurred to her that someone else might yearn for the swift, heady rush of the youthful torrent.

      What was wrong with her, that she had never felt any need to experience what Paolo must have experienced? Falling in love, being in love; to her these had been foolish pastimes, suitable only for teenagers; dangerous waters through which she had happily passed unscathed to reach these maturely reflective years of her mid-twenties. Not even as a teenager had she wanted to fall in love, seeing it as a risky, impractical experience, and at twenty-four to Paolo’s twenty-five, the idea that he might fall in love, had anyone put it to her, would have struck her as too ludicrous to even merit a reply.

      Now she knew better. Now she knew herself better as well, since she had used the months since the wedding as a period of intense inner reflection and analysis, and she had come to see, in her quiet determination to concentrate all her skills and intelligence in fulfilling her role as Paolo’s wife, a deeply buried desire to atone to her grandfather for her father’s rebellion, and her mother’s English blood.

      That realisation had made her feel deeply ashamed, because her parents loved her dearly, cherished her deeply, and cared far, far more for her than did her arrogant grandfather, to whom a granddaughter could never have the importance of a grandson.

      Her parents had seen her off at the airport, her mother whispering fiercely that she was glad she had not married Paolo.

      ‘He was never good enough for you, my darling,’ she had told her. ‘I want you to know the same kind of love I’ve shared with your father. And you will know it.’

      Would she? Francesca grimaced wryly to herself, a soft twist of full lips painted in the autumn’s latest fashion colour.

      Somehow she doubted it… For one thing, she didn’t particularly want to. If these last few months had taught her one thing about herself, they had taught her the value of being independent.

      Her university degree, her knowledge of the history of her country and its dynasties, her very genuine love of searching out elusive facts had, according to her godfather, given her an invaluable foundation on which to build a new kind of life… a career to fulfil her instead of marriage… the exciting challenge of the real world, instead of the enclosed atmosphere of a protective Italian family.

      He had helped her to get started, had encouraged and praised her, had given her work to do, and she had found that she thrived on the challenge.

      Even so, there was still a vast emptiness in her life… a feeling of alienation… a desire to escape, which she had finally and reluctantly given in to by accepting Beatrice Chalmers’ kind invitation to stay with them.

      ‘Do you think she’ll be comfortable here, Elliott? She’s been used to so much more luxurious surroundings,’ Beatrice fretted as she studied her pretty guest suite with an anxious frown.

      ‘From what Carlo told us about her, I doubt she’ll be very concerned with her surroundings,’ Elliott told her drily. ‘I hope to God she isn’t going to be constantly awash with tears and laments.’

      ‘Oh, Elliott, that isn’t fair,’ Beatrice reproached him. ‘Lucia said she had dealt with the whole thing very bravely. It can’t have been easy. You won’t forget to pick her up from the airport, will you?’

      ‘Would I dare?’ Elliott asked drily.

      ‘Oh, and that reminds me… I’ve asked Oliver over for dinner on Friday,’ Beatrice interrupted him briefly.

      ‘Bea,’ Elliott warned her. ‘I hope you aren’t thinking of matchmaking…’

      He saw his wife’s guilty flush and sighed, reaching out to tousle her glossy dark hair.

      ‘I suppose there’s no point in my telling you that you’re playing with fire, is there?’

      ‘Because Oliver’s a misogynist?’ she responded spiritedly.

      ‘Oliver’s been badly burned, Bea,’ he told her gently. ‘And because of it he’s inclined to let the world know that he’s now fireproof. He won’t take kindly to being manipulated into providing a bit of light relief for our lamenting Lucretia, you know.’

      He saw how her face had fallen and kissed her lightly. Four years of marriage, and she still had the power to move him in a way that no one else could ever match.

      ‘I must go,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘I’ve got a board meeting at ten.’

      Watching him drive away, Beatrice wondered if she should perhaps cancel Friday’s dinner party. Guiltily she acknowledged that it was true that she had deliberately invited Oliver hoping that the presence of a single, attractive male might help to raise Francesca’s spirits a little; especially such a fascinating