The Italian’s Rightful Bride by Lucy Gordon Page A

me. There’s something implacable about her that makes me afraid.’
    â€˜Was Renata close to Crystal?’
    â€˜She wanted to be. She longed to be pretty like her mother, and Crystal would have liked a daughter who looked like a dainty fairy, which Renata doesn’t.’
    â€˜She’s better than that,’ Joanna said at once. ‘Her looks are going to be striking when she grows up.’
    â€˜That’s what I think,’ he said eagerly. ‘But Crystal couldn’t see it. She lost interest. The poor little kid wasalways trying to get her mother’s attention, always wondering why she couldn’t have it.’
    â€˜It sounds to me as if her fantasies started right back then,’ Joanna mused.
    â€˜How do you mean?’
    â€˜We all tell each other fairy tales to cope with the pain of rejection,’ she said, not looking at him. ‘Renata invented another Crystal, one who was proud of her and wanted to be with her. In her mother’s presence she had to face the reality, but when she was alone she could believe the fairy-tale version. Now Crystal’s gone that version has taken over, but it actually began long ago.’
    â€˜Of course it did,’ Gustavo said, looking at her quickly. ‘Why didn’t I see it before?’
    â€˜You were too close, and you have that pain to cope with as well.’
    â€˜Renata’s rejection. Yes. But what can I do?’
    â€˜Be patient. She’ll choose the time. There’s no other way.’
    â€˜I know,’ he sighed. ‘I know you’re right, it’s just—’
    â€˜It’s just that you’re not the most patient man in the world,’ she said sympathetically. ‘I know.’
    She poured him some more wine, and he drank it.
    â€˜So Crystal wasn’t happy,’ Joanna said, to encourage him to continue.
    â€˜No, I think she felt fairly soon that she’d made a mistake. I think that’s my fault for marrying her in such haste. I should have brought her to Montegiano first so that she could see for herself whether the life would suit her. But I wanted her so much that I just grabbed the chance. We might both have been saved a lot of grief if I hadn’t.
    â€˜She was bored with the estate, bored with motherhood, in fact bored with everything I valued. I’ll neverforget talking to her one day, trying to tell her what Montegiano meant to me. And I caught a certain look in her eyes—sheer blankness. She was just waiting for me to shut up.
    â€˜She wanted a grandiose apartment in Rome and a high-society life. That time I held out. We had our friends and I’d take her into Rome as much as possible, but I wouldn’t move there permanently.
    â€˜When she realised I meant it, there was a bitter quarrel. That was when I discovered her real opinion of me, stuffy and dull, a man who couldn’t give her the exciting life she wanted. She packed her bags, moved to the most expensive hotel in Rome and waited for me to crack. When I didn’t, she returned after six weeks.
    â€˜I told myself she’d come back because she still loved me, but I believe she just liked the title, and still thought she could persuade me.
    â€˜It’s been like that through the years. If she was thwarted she’d move out for a while and run up vast bills to punish me. I learned not to enquire too closely into what she got up to in the city.’
    â€˜You think she was unfaithful?’
    â€˜I’m sure of it.’
    â€˜Couldn’t you have divorced her then? Or did you still love her too much?’
    â€˜No, the love died some time back, but I was reared in the tradition that said you don’t break up the home, no matter what. And there was Renata. I had to think of what divorce would do to her. And now I’ve seen what it has done to her, I still think I was right.’
    â€˜What happened in the end?’
    â€˜Crystal started attending a