The Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife

‘In Italian cara means dear,’ he said. ‘And when you add issima it’s a kind of emphasis, the most extreme form of something that you can say.’

She was looking at him.

‘And so you see,’ he said, taking her hand, ‘when a man calls a woman carissima-’

Suddenly it was hard. In the past he’d used the word casually, almost without meaning. Now everything was different and he was left only with the old debased currency.

‘It means that she is more than dear to him,’ he said. ‘It means-’

He broke off as Gina returned for the plates.

‘Tagliatelle with pumpkin, signore,’ she said.

Smiling, Leo let it go. There would be time later to say everything he wanted to say.

They finished the meal with Tuscan honey and nut cake. By then Selena’s eyes were closing. At last Leo took her hand and led her upstairs, stopping at her door.

‘Goodnight,’ he said softly. ‘Carissima.’

‘Goodnight.’

He kissed her cheek and left her.

He lay awake most of that night. The knowledge that she was sleeping next door made him feel like a man with hoarded treasure under his roof. The treasure was his and he would keep it, fighting off the world if need be.

He awoke in the early dawn and went to the window, opening the shutters and standing out on the small balcony. He was still filled with a sense of wonder at her coming, and he wanted to look again at the road that led down to the village, a road he’d so often gazed at, longing to see her, until one day she’d been there.

A shadow in the next window made him look. She was standing there, not looking at him but down into the valley, her face quiet and absorbed, as though in another world.

As he watched, she raised her head long enough to give him a brief smile, but then became absorbed once more in watching the valley.

Now he understood.

Throwing on a robe he slipped out of his own room and into hers, coming up behind her at the window and laying his hands gently on her shoulders. When she leaned back on him he slid his arms around her so that they crossed over her chest. She raised her hands to curve over his forearms, and he held her there against him, filled with a deep contentment that was unlike anything he’d ever known in his life before.

Down below them a soft glow was creeping over the valley, faint at first, then growing in intensity. The light was magical, unearthly, for just a few blessed moments.

Then it changed, grew harsher, firmer, more prosaic, ready for the working day. Only the memory was left.

Selena gave a little sigh of satisfaction, so quiet that he sensed it through his flesh rather than heard it.

‘That’s what I wanted,’ she said. ‘Ever since you told me about that light, I’ve longed to see it.’

‘What did you think?’

‘It was just as beautiful as you promised. The most beautiful thing I ever saw.’

‘It’ll be there again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But now-’

He drew her gently back into the room and took her to bed, where they found another kind of beauty.

In his mind Leo had often imagined the moment when he introduced Selena to Peri, the mare who had been ready for him to sell for months, but whose elegance and spirit had made him keep her back, waiting for the right person.

Selena was that person. He’d always suspected it and he knew for sure when he witnessed their love at first sight. By now he reckoned he knew a bit about love at first sight.

He thought perhaps he would give Peri to her as a wedding present. He no longer shied away from that kind of thought. A man should know how to accept when it was all up with him.

They spent their days riding his fields and vineyards, and their nights in each other’s arms.

‘Stay here,’ he said one night when they had loved each other to exhaustion. ‘Don’t leave me again.’

She made the little restless movement that he always sensed at any mention of permanency, and he quickly added, ‘Take charge of the horses. Take charge of me. Either or both, as you like.’

She raised herself on one elbow and looked down into his face. The shutters were open, flooding the room with moonlight, throwing shadows between her breasts, absorbing all his attention so that he didn’t hear her question.

‘What was that?’ he murmured, tracing the swell with his finger.

‘I said it was about time you finished telling me what carissima means.’

As she spoke she was easing herself over him, moving slowly and with purpose.

‘If you are my carissima,’ he said, ‘you are dearer to me than all the world. You are my love, my beloved, the only one who exists for me.’

A week later they went to Maremma, an area in the south of Tuscany, near the coast. It was often known as ‘the Wild West of Tuscany’, since there cattle were raised in large numbers, and the traditional cowboy skills were still in everyday use.

Each year this was celebrated by a rodeo that consisted of a parade through the nearby town of Grosseto, and a show that lasted one afternoon. Leo took Selena to the town to meet the organisers, describing her achievements in glowing terms.

Then Selena produced a surprise of her own. All the way over she’d been clutching a large, flat object, refusing to let Leo see it. It turned out to be a photograph of him bull riding.

‘I know this guy who takes photographs of everything,’ she said, ‘even the people who don’t win. I looked him up, and he had this one of you. You look real good, don’t you?’

He looked magnificent. One arm was high in the air, his head was up, his face full of a wide grin of delight and triumph.

‘You’d never know that I was off the next second,’ he said.

One of the organisers regarded the picture and coughed respectfully.

‘Perhaps, signore, you could give us a demonstration of bull riding, at our rodeo.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Leo said hastily. ‘They have very special bulls in Texas. Bred for their ferocity.’

‘I don’t think we would disappoint you, signore. We have a bull here that has already gored two men to death-’

It took Leo ten minutes to talk his way out of that one, with Selena doubled up with laughter.

‘I told him that you’d demonstrate barrel racing,’ he told her as they made their escape.

‘That’s fine. But it won’t be the same without you riding that bull.’

‘Get lost!’

Leo’s family had never made the trip before. This year, however, they were coming in force, for by now they knew what everyone knew-that Leo, the all-embracing lover of ladies with voluptuous forms, had fallen ‘victim’ to an angular young woman with a figure like a rail and a head like fire. Temper, ditto.

So the bulk of the Calvani family planned to head for the farm to stay the night before going on to Grosseto. Only Marco was missing. The Count and Countess Calvani, with Guido and Dulcie, would be travelling from Venice.

Knowing these plans were afoot, Leo knew that the day of reckoning couldn’t be postponed much longer. Some time soon he must confess all to Selena-his reprehensible wealth or his shocking connection to a title. It was a moot point which one would horrify her the most.

While he was still trying to broach the subject he was overtaken by events. Selena, seeking him one morning, came to his study.

‘Leo, are you in here?’

She pushed the door further open. There was no sign of Leo but she could hear his voice coming from the passage beyond, and went further into the room to wait for him.

Then something caught her eye.

Several photographs were spread out on the desk, and curiosity drew her over to look at them. What she saw