Gino’s Arranged Bride

‘He really fusses over her,’ Laura said, going into her room.

When there was no answer she looked up and found Gino staring out of the window at the golden landscape. He seemed transfixed.

Quietly Laura came to stand beside him. He neither moved nor spoke, but she could sense feelings of satisfaction, almost of joy, coming from him as he looked out at his home once more.

‘It’s not raining here,’ she said softly.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It does rain sometimes, but not-it’s different.’ He seemed to come out of a dream. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

‘About Rinaldo and the way he fusses over Alex. You wouldn’t think it at first. He looks one of the strong, silent types.’

‘I suppose he is,’ Gino said. ‘But he lost his first wife when she gave birth. It always haunted him, and I suppose now more than ever.’

Downstairs they met the housekeeper Teresa, an elderly woman, and the two maids, powerfully built young females called Claudia and Franca, whom Gino told her were Teresa’s great-nieces.

The meal was a banquet. The table had been decorated with flowers and candles, and the fare was a celebration of Tuscan cooking. First there was finocchiona, salami flavoured with fennel seeds, then black cabbage soup, followed by stuffed pheasants with cream and truffles. To finish there were sorbets, or fruits in syrup, with ice cream.

Rinaldo sat at one end of the table with Laura on his right. Alex sat on her other side. Rinaldo sometimes engaged her in courteous conversation, but mostly he left the talking to his wife. If Laura happened to glance at him she always found his eyes on Alex, anxiously brooding.

To Laura’s relief, the three servants all spoke English, even if a fairly basic kind. Rinaldo explained how Alex had won Teresa’s heart by alerting him to the fact that she was getting old and needed help in the house.

‘For her sake Teresa started to learn English,’ he said fondly, ‘and she also made Claudia and Franca learn it, on pain of a terrible fate.’

Nikki had made instant friends with the maids, practising her Italian, which was getting better by the day, and teaching them new English words. When it was time for her to go to bed the three of them went upstairs in a companionable threesome.

The others went out onto the patio to drink coffee. It was dark now, and after a while they began to see moving lights between the trees.

‘Our friends are coming to welcome you,’ Rinaldo said.

‘You told everyone we were coming?’ Gino asked.

‘We told nobody, but you know this district.’

As he spoke he rose to his feet to greet their first guests. After that someone arrived every few minutes, until Laura reckoned there must be almost two hundred people.

They all greeted her with a kindness that didn’t disguise their curiosity. It was clear that the word had gone around the district that Gino had returned, bringing a wife with him, and nobody wanted to miss it.

But hand in hand with the curiosity was an unmistakable warmth. She was welcome. They knew nothing about her, but she was welcome.

And when Nikki, attracted by the noise, crept down the stairs and hovered in the doorway, there was a roar of greeting for her, and nobody was startled or disconcerted by her appearance. Like Gino, they seemed oblivious.

She began to understand her husband better that night. The warmth in his nature was his own, but it was also a reflection of the people from whom he came. He had said, ‘I’m an Italian, not a milky Englishman,’ and she’d thought she knew what he meant. Now she realised that it meant much more.

Smiling, she turned to look at him, wanting to tell him what she had discovered.

But he wasn’t there. After looking around for a while Laura saw him sitting in a corner with Alex, his head bent close to hear what she was saying. He looked completely absorbed, as though he’d forgotten everyone else in the world.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

NOBODY seemed to have any sense of urgency about arranging the sale. Rinaldo said that Gino must inspect the farm closely before they could make any decisions. For several days they went out together, driving across the land, coming back late.

This threw Alex and Laura together. The first time he saw them getting into the car Rinaldo detained them, anxiously enquiring of Laura whether she could drive.

‘Yes, I’ve been driving a car for years,’ she assured him.

‘Rinaldo, stop worrying Laura,’ Alex chided him. ‘I’m doing the driving.’

‘But if anything should happen-’

‘I’m not due for another three weeks.’

He scowled at his wife. It was clear to Laura that he demanded his own way, and disliked all opposition, even from the wife he was supposed to love so much.

‘You might get tired,’ he growled.

‘Then I can drive,’ Laura said.

He turned his glare on her. ‘But here we drive on the other side of the road. You’re not used to that-’

‘On the farm it doesn’t matter,’ Alex said. ‘There’s no right and left on our roads. Amor mio, please stop fretting. All is well.’

Rinaldo sighed and gave in with a poor grace. ‘You’ve got your mobile phone?’ he demanded.

‘Yes.’

‘And you know the number of mine if anything happens?’

‘I’ve known your number for a year,’ she reminded him with a touch of wifely exasperation.

‘But does Laura have my number?’

‘Give it to me,’ Laura said, whipping out a pencil and notebook, and writing it down as he recited it.

‘There now, I’ve got your number,’ she said. ‘And I’ve got Gino’s number, and he’s got my number.’

‘And I’ve got Alex’s number,’ Gino said. He’d wandered up to see what was keeping his brother. ‘And she’s got my number, and Nikki has everybody’s number.’

Everyone except Rinaldo laughed at this.

‘OK, OK,’ he said, ‘I know you think I act like a crazy man.’

Alex touched his face. ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry.’

He made a noise that sounded like a growl, and stepped back from the car, letting Alex start up. Laura smiled as she waved goodbye to Gino, trying to tell herself not to mind about what she had just heard.

What did it matter that Gino and Alex had exchanged private phone numbers, and she hadn’t known about it?

On that first day the two women and Nikki went to see the ‘haunted’ house. It was about a hundred years old, a great barn of a place, but solidly made.

‘Does it really have a ghost?’ Laura asked.

‘A woman murdered her faithless lover here years ago,’ Alex said. ‘Now she’s supposed to wander for ever, wailing. If she exists, I feel sure Nikki will find her.’

But Nikki had nothing to report, even seeming to feel cheated. She managed to convey the impression that in a well-ordered house there would have been a ghost.

‘But even without a ghost, it’s a lovely place,’ Alex pointed out. ‘Of course, it needs some work. There’s no electricity or running water, but that’s easy to arrange. And when it’s been redecorated, just think how it would look.’

Laura said nothing. A chill fear was gathering in her stomach, spreading out to encompass all of her. Alex was telling her that she and Gino could return to the farm and live here.

Obviously that was her plan. Rinaldo seemed to be a disagreeable man, and perhaps her marriage to him had