The Italian's Rightful Bride. Lucy Gordon

I owe it all to you.’

      The warmth in his voice was her undoing. She fled to her own room and locked the door. Tearing off her clothes, she got under a hot shower and stayed there, not moving, just leaning against the tiled wall.

      After a long time her brain started working again, enough to make her wonder how he’d come to be in that corridor at that hour. Then she remembered that it was near to where Crystal slept.

      She’d thought her tears were all cried out, but she found she was wrong. This time it was the shower that disguised them.

      Next day she sat in the body of the church, looking at Gustavo’s back as he waited for his bride, then saw him turn and watch her approach with an expression of such total adoration that she closed her eyes. For a dreadful moment she actually feared she was going to faint, but she recovered and sat rigid as Crystal became his wife.

      Now he was lost to her forever.

      But he’d been lost anyway. Her regret of last night had been foolish. He might have married her, but he would never, ever have loved her.

      The reception was followed by a ball at which she danced until she was ready to drop. That was how she met Freddy Manton, who seemed to appear from nowhere, a friend of a friend of a friend. He was handsome, charming and a great dancer. Their steps blended perfectly, and they put on a bravura display that made the others applaud.

      When the music became soft and tender Joanna and Freddy danced again, holding each other romantically close. It was her way of telling the world that she didn’t care whom Gustavo married. She hoped he would notice.

      But when he waltzed past with Crystal clasped in his arms, Joanna knew that he was oblivious to everyone else in the world. His bride’s face was raised to his, and for a cruel moment Joanna saw the worship in his gaze. She closed her eyes, feeling her brave pretence shatter around her.

      At last it was time for the bride and groom to leave for their honeymoon. Joanna had wanted to go straight to Italy, but Crystal had set her heart on Las Vegas, and Gustavo could refuse her nothing.

      Determined to play out the charade to the end, Joanna joined the crowd waving them off. Was it accident or spite that made Crystal toss the bouquet to her? She caught it instinctively, before she could stop herself, then stood there, clutching the bouquet that should always have been hers.

      It was only later that she fully understood what that day had done to her. She had passed through the fire and emerged stronger, because something that had been burned to ash could never be burned again.

      She enrolled in college, studied archaeology and blanked out grief by working herself into the ground.

      ‘If you ask me you had a nervous breakdown,’ Aunt Lilian said later. ‘Whenever I saw you, you looked as if you were dying. And instead of being sensible like other girls, and taking a cruise, you made everything worse by working away at those awful books.’

      But far from making things worse, Joanna knew that ‘those awful books’ had saved her. After a year her tutors were predicting great things for her.

      Grief finally subsided into a dull ache that she managed to push aside in the fascination with the subject she loved.

      She made herself a promise. Never again would she allow herself to feel anything with the depth and intensity she’d felt for Gustavo. She knew she couldn’t stand it a second time.

      She was safe now. She could protect herself from hurt. But she had paid a terrible price.

      She began going to parties again, even enjoying them. Finally, one evening, as she was sipping champagne—

      ‘Fancy meeting you here!’

      It was Freddy Manton, beaming at her.

      ‘I looked for you later but you’d vanished,’ he said. ‘I’ve been heartbroken ever since.’

      ‘You don’t look very heartbroken.’ She laughed.

      They began seeing each other. He was good company, merry, slightly feckless, but kind-hearted. She was lonely, and managed to persuade herself that her affection for him would be enough. They married while she was still at college and she became pregnant immediately, only just managing to get her exams out of the way before rushing to the hospital for Billy’s arrival.

      To do Freddy justice, he really tried, managing to be faithful for a whole four years, a record for him. For Billy’s sake they stayed together for another four years, until his infidelities exasperated her beyond bearing.

      The divorce was amicable. If she’d been really in love with him their parting would have hurt more than it did.

      She knew almost nothing about Gustavo in the intervening years. Recently she had chanced to pick up a newspaper bearing the announcement that Their Excellencies Prince and Princess Montegiano had been blessed with a son and heir, their first child since the birth of their daughter ten years previously.

      So the marriage had flourished, she thought. She had done the right thing.

      It worked out well for both of us, she mused now. Life’s gone well for me too. I’m in control, settled, even happy. My job is great, I’m friendly with my ex. I have a son I adore and who thinks I’m ‘OK’—a big compliment from a ten-year-old boy. I’m one of the lucky ones.

      So why did I return here?

      She looked out at the quiet streets of Tivoli, then past them to the vista that led to Rome.

      Because after all these years, it’s time to exorcise the ghost and be free to get on with my life.

      She reached the gates of the Montegiano estate to find them exactly as she had last seen them. The gatekeeper called to the house and received a message to let her in. Driving the long road to the house was like a rewind of her previous experience.

      She chatted calmly to Billy, refusing to think of what would happen in a few minutes when she would see him for the first time in twelve years.

      Crystal would be there and she would see them together, husband and wife. The sight of their domesticity would be the final piece in the puzzle.

      At last the huge palazzo came in sight, just as she remembered it, broad white marble steps sweeping up between tall, elegant columns. As her car neared an elderly man came out and stood waiting, a smile of welcome on his face.

      ‘I’m Professor Carlo Francese,’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘We spoke on the phone. I’ll be your host while Gustavo’s away.’

      He wasn’t here. Her heart skipped a beat.

      But it was good, she told herself. She needed no distractions.

      Billy and Carlo took to each other at once, she was glad to see.

      ‘You’re in the Julius Caesar room,’ Carlo explained. ‘It’s always given to the guest of honour.’

      She almost said, Yes, I know. The room had been hers when she was last here.

      It had changed a lot, and she could see that money had been spent reviving it. It now looked new, shining, and, to Joanna’s eye, less charming. Billy had been given the room next door, which was equally grandiose and reduced him to fits of laughter.

      After a wash and brush-up she knocked on his door. He joined her, looking around him at the gorgeous hallway, with its marble columns and frescoed ceiling.

      ‘What a place!’ he said with an appreciative whistle.

      ‘It is, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘What’s up, Billy?’ He had turned suddenly.

      ‘I just thought I saw someone on the stairs. There.’

      They looked just in time to see the pale face of a little girl staring up at them with hostility. Then she vanished.

      Joanna went downstairs, braced to see Crystal, but there was no sign of her. Carlo ushered them into a magnificent room with tall windows