Gino’s Arranged Bride

She whisked the phone out of his hand. ‘Hello, Mark?-what’s all the panic?’ There was a pause during which Gino didn’t even pretend he wasn’t listening. ‘Tonight? Can’t you get anyone else?-All right, I’ll do it. Where do I go?-Is that all the info you can give me?-exactly how sexy?-black lace, OK. I’ll see you there.’

She made some notes, and hung up to find Gino regarding her wryly.

‘I know this is an unusual marriage,’ he said, speaking lightly, ‘but it’s still a little soon for you to be dating other men, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not dating anyone.’

‘Well, pardon me for being cynical, Signora Farnese, but when my wife arranges to meet another man and asks how sexy he wants her to be, then my antenna begins to twitch.’

‘It’s perfectly innocent.’

‘Black lace? Tell me about it.’

His grim tone, so different from anything she’d heard from Gino before, annoyed her enough to make her say, ‘I don’t see why I should. We had an agreement-’

‘It didn’t include you making a fool of me. If it’s so innocent, why the secrecy?’

‘Because you’ll make a big fuss about it.’

‘I’ll make an even bigger one if you don’t tell me.’

Laura sighed and gave up. ‘It’s just a way of earning a little extra money.’

‘Oh, this I have to hear!’

‘It’s very little different to working in a pub.’

‘Except that you have to conceal it from your husband.’

‘I wish you’d stop calling yourself my husband,’ she said crossly.

‘Well, I’m sure we dropped into the Register Office for some reason. Remind me what it was.’

‘Very funny! Look, Mark is an old friend from my dancing days. Now he runs a little agency, organising party entertainment.’

Laura hesitated, realising that the next bit might be rather difficult.

‘Don’t stop,’ Gino encouraged.

‘I deliver good-luck telegrams, birthday greetings that sort of thing. It’s a kind of practical joke because I pretend to be something else-a policewoman, coming to make an arrest, something like that. And then, just when the ‘victim’ is getting agitated, you reveal the truth.’

‘Where does the sexy bit come in?’ Gino asked remorselessly.

‘Well, of course you have to take off the uniform, and show that you’re wearing something pretty underneath.’

‘You mean strip off the uniform, don’t you?’ he demanded in mounting outrage. ‘You’re a stripogram girl, aren’t you?’

‘That’s one way of putting it-’

‘Do you end up wearing anything at all?’

‘Of course I do. It’s not a striptease.’

He gave a grim laugh. ‘You’ll have to forgive me if the distinction is lost on me.’

‘I undress down to satin and lace underwear.’

‘Black lace, I gather?’ he demanded ironically.

‘In this case, yes.’

‘And other times?’

‘It depends what the occasion demands.’

‘And does Mark turn up with your costume?’

‘Only the outer costume-policewoman, traffic warden, soldier, that sort of thing. But I have my own underwear. I keep several items so that I’m ready for anything.’

‘Would you care to rephrase that?’ he asked dangerously.

‘I meant ready for any occasion. As underwear goes it’s really quite proper, and I don’t show all that much.’

‘Laura, how can you be so naive? You’re going to stand in the middle of a crowd of men and remove your clothes, and you say it’s not a striptease. What do you think a striptease is?’

‘A stripper takes off far more than I do, and ends up almost naked.’

Gino tore his hair. ‘You don’t know how men’s minds work. What matters isn’t what you’re left wearing, but what you’re seen taking off. Just watching it removed is-exciting. It’s meant to be.’

‘You speak as an expert of strip joints, I take it?’

‘Don’t try to turn this around on me. Just watch my lips. I don’t want my wife taking off her clothes in front of other men.’

‘Oh, nonsense! I’ve been doing it for two years.’

‘How come nobody knew?’

‘I don’t do it often. Once a month, maybe twice. It makes a bit of extra money, and I never came to any harm.’

‘You weren’t married to me then, and don’t tell me that you’re not because in the eyes of the world, you are. I am an Italian, not a milky Englishman. I don’t say, “Yes dear, no dear, expose your body if you want to, dear.” I say that what you propose to do is an infamia, and I won’t allow it.’

He was as close to angry as she had ever seen him. His dark eyes glowed with a light that was almost fierce, and his mouth was set in stubborn lines.

‘Don’t tell me what you will and won’t allow,’ she said, incensed. ‘This isn’t the nineteenth century.’

‘I want you to stop,’ he said very deliberately. ‘Do you understand that?’

‘All right, I won’t do it again after tonight.’

‘You won’t do it tonight.’

‘Yes, I will, because I’ve given my word and that’s that. I’ll tell Mark this is the last time, but I won’t let him down.’

Gino glared directly into her eyes. Laura glared back. She’d been her own woman for too long now to take kindly to high-handedness, even from Gino.

At last he turned away sharply, muttering something in Italian that sounded like swearing, and walked out of the front door.

‘Damn!’ she muttered. ‘Damn! Damn!’

After a moment she looked out into the street. There was no sign of Gino, but instinct took her across the road in the direction of the park.

As she’d hoped, he was there, on the same bench as the day they’d met. He was sitting with his hands clasped between his knees, glowering at the ground. He glanced up at her approach, and then away again.

‘Go away,’ he growled as she sat down beside him. ‘Let a man sulk in peace.’

How like him, she thought, to diffuse it with a joke. To think she’d been hoping for a little jealousy.

‘No, you never sulk,’ she said. ‘I’ve never known you to get mad before.’

‘I’ve never known you to be stupid before.’

‘I told you, this will be the last. That’s a promise.’

‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’

‘I’m only delivering a birthday card.’

‘With you as the birthday gift? Gift-wrapped, ready to be unwrapped?’

‘The main part is the joke where I tell him he’s under arrest-’

‘No, the main part is where you take your clothes off in front of a crowd of slavering men. Mio Dio! To think the English are supposed to be a cool, calm race! You don’t go tonight.’

‘I do.’

‘You do not. What do you take me for? You think I’ll just sit back and let you leave the house, knowing where you’re going and why?’

‘I haven’t asked you to let me do anything,’ she seethed. ‘Even if we were really married I wouldn’t ask your permission. But we’re not married. It’s an arrangement, that’s all. And you’re breaching the terms.’

‘I don’t recall any terms that cover this situation.’