‘But you discovered one,’ she said in wonder. ‘If you hadn’t looked for Franco this would have hung over us all our lives.’
‘It was the only thing I could do for you to atone for what I did in the beginning. You weren’t the only one carrying a load of guilt, but in my case it was deserved. I knew that while you were wretched I could never be happy. I can’t think of myself as separate from you. We have to be one person, or we’re nothing. My life is yours, Elise. Do with it as you will.’
She didn’t answer in words, but she put her arms about him, not passionately but resting her head against his shoulder, knowing she had finally taken the right road and come home. He held her in silence, sensing her thoughts, sharing them.
‘Do you mind very much about Angelo?’ he asked at last, fearful of the answer.
She drew away so that she could look him in the face, shaking her head.
‘But for Angelo we wouldn’t have met,’ she said. ‘And that would have been a tragedy, because you are the only man I shall ever want in my heart. If I hadn’t discovered what I did today, I should still have loved you, but in pain. But today frees me from the burden.’
Now she could say the words that had waited so long. ‘I love you, Vincente, and I shall always love you.’
‘Always,’ he echoed. ‘Promise me that.’
‘Always.’
‘Stay with me and love me for ever. I won’t let you go. I’ll fight to my last breath to keep you mine, and woe betide anyone who challenges me.’
She laughed fondly. ‘What became of the new man? That sounds just like the old Vincente.’
‘I never said I was going to be different to the rest of the world. Only in here-’ he laid his hand over his heart ‘- just for you, and Olivia.’
Suddenly he gave a brilliant smile, full of joy. ‘We haven’t said goodnight to her yet.’
The nursery was next door to her room. As they went in the nursemaid rose and slipped through the door to her own room, leaving them alone with the baby.
‘She’s fast asleep,’ Vincente murmured, sitting beside the cot and looking down on his daughter with the tender smile that Elise loved. To her and to his child he would offer that vulnerable face. But not to anybody else.
He leaned down to bestow a gentle kiss on the little forehead. Olivia gurgled but didn’t awaken.
‘Goodnight,’ Elise whispered, kissing her.
‘She’s so peaceful,’ Vincente said as they returned to Elise’s room. ‘I envy her that peace. I once thought that you and I would never know it. Can we find it now? Can we put the past behind us and forget what happened?’
But she was wiser and she shook her head. ‘I don’t want to forget everything,’ she said. ‘There’s too much that was beautiful, and in the bad times we learned to understand each other. We’ll need that in the years to come, because they aren’t going to be dull years.’
‘Not with us,’ he agreed wryly. ‘But we don’t have to fight, do we?’
‘I think perhaps we do,’ she said, considering. ‘Fighting can be-very interesting.’ She gave the last words a special meaning.
‘Yes,’ he said, understanding, ‘I’ve missed our battles-and the aftermath.’
She gave him a wicked smile. ‘You haven’t entirely gone without, have you?’ she teased. ‘I heard a rumour about some shameless hussy who flitted through here recently-but perhaps that didn’t really happen.’
‘I’m not quite sure whether it happened or not,’ he mused, catching her tone. ‘She didn’t leave a name.’
‘So you wouldn’t know her again?’
‘I’d know her anywhere,’ he murmured. ‘She was unforgettable.’
‘Should I be jealous?’
‘Not for a moment.’
‘Did she look anything like me?’
He considered, but shook his head. ‘No, she wasn’t wearing as much as you.’
Her fingers were already working on her dress. A moment later it was tossed aside.
‘More like that?’
‘Better,’ he agreed.
He removed the rest for her. There was a light in his eyes that she hadn’t seen for a long while, and it made her heart beat faster.
‘Tell me what happened,’ she whispered.
‘I was lying on my bed…’
‘Fully dressed?’
‘I don’t…think so.’
Her hands were busy. ‘Tell me when to stop.’
He helped her, and when the last of his clothes was on the floor he said solemnly, ‘You can stop now.’
‘So you were lying on the bed-like this?’
‘Just like this,’ he agreed, letting her press him back against the pillows. ‘She slipped in quietly through the door and lay beside me.’
‘The hussy!’
‘Yes, she was a hussy,’ he recalled with a reminiscent smile. ‘She knew every trick to excite a man, plus a few that I think she invented, and she used them without mercy.’
‘Shameless!’
‘Totally shameless. That was the best thing about her.’
‘What exactly did she do?’
He laughed softly. ‘Why don’t you experiment a little, and I’ll tell you when you get it right?’
She joined in his laughter, and they shared the joy that welled up in them both, until at last the moment came when she silenced him by laying her mouth over his, sending him a new message, one she’d never felt able to offer before, but which would sustain them for the rest of their lives.
Lucy Gordon
Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness, and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.
You can visit her website at www. lucy-gordon. com and look out for
