The Reluctant Husband. Lynne Graham
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to be a hotel. Without further waste of time, Frankie pulled on loden-green cotton trousers and a toning waistcoat-style top with half-sleeves before she plaited her fiery hair. She discovered two new freckles on the bridge of her classic nose and scowled as she closed her case again, ready for her departure. A knock sounded on the door. A uniformed chambermaid entered with a breakfast tray and then shyly removed herself again. There was no hovering for a tip either.
While she ate with appetite, Frankie found her eyes returning again and again to that silver-framed photo sitting on the dressing table. Finally she leapt up and placed it face-down. Why had Santino kissed her yesterday? she suddenly asked herself. Curiosity now that she had grown up? Or had he actually started fancying her five years too late? Had her cold and businesslike attitude to him stung that all-male ego of his? Had he expected her still to blush and simper and gush over him the way she had as a teenager?
Frankie shuddered with retrospective chagrin, only wishing she had found some of that defensive distance in Santino’s arms. But, as for what she had imagined she felt, hadn’t she once been hopelessly infatuated with Santino? Doubtless that adolescent memory had heavily influenced her response. For a few dangerous seconds, the years had slipped back and she had felt like that lovelorn teenager again, a helpless victim of emotions and longings too powerful for her to control.
And if Frankie went back in time she could easily remember a much younger Santino, a tall, graceful, golden-skinned youth, who had looked startlingly akin to some pagan god of myth and legend. He had only been twenty then, still a student. While he was visiting his great-uncle, Father Vassari, the elderly priest had brought him to her grandfather’s house purely because Santino spoke English and nobody else in the village did.
In those early days Frankie had picked up little of the ancient Latin-based dialect her grandfather and his sisters, Maddalena and Teresa, had spoken within their tiny home. After months of isolation, the sound of her own language had released a flood of tears and frantic, over-emotional speech from her. She had begged Santino to find out where her father was and when he was returning to take her back to England.
He had suggested that they go for a walk. ‘I am not going to talk to you as if you are a little girl,’ Santino had told her wryly. ‘I will be frank. Father Vassari believes that you will be happier if you learn to accept that this village is now your home, for the foreseeable future at least.’
Scanning her shocked face, he had emitted a rueful sigh. ‘He understands that this life is not what you have been accustomed to and that you find your lack of freedom stifling, but you too must understand that your grandfather is unlikely to change his attitudes—’
‘I hate him!’ Frankie had gasped helplessly. ‘I hate everyone here!’
‘But you have your father’s blood in your veins, and therefore your grandfather’s too,’ Santino had reminded her, endeavouring to reason her out of her passionate bitterness and homesickness. ‘Gino acknowledges that bond. If he did not, he would not have accepted you into his home. You are part of his family—’
‘They’re not my family!’ she had sobbed wretchedly.
‘Maddalena would be very hurt to hear you say that. She seems to be very fond of you.’
Her shy great-aunt, who was wholly dominated by her sharp-tongued elder sister and her quick-tempered brother, had been the only member of the household to make any effort to ease Frankie’s misery. She had never shouted at Frankie when she heard her crying in the night. She had quietly attempted to offer what comfort she could.
‘I promise that I will try to locate your father, but in return you must make a promise to me,’ Santino had informed her gravely. ‘A promise you must study to keep for your own sake.’
‘What kind of promise?’
‘Stop running away. It only makes your grandfather angrier, only convinces him that you have been very badly brought up and cannot be trusted out of the house. He is a strict man, and your continued defiance makes him much nastier than he would normally be—’
‘Did Father Vassari say Grandfather was nasty?’ Frankie had prompted, wide-eyed.
‘Of course not.’ Santino had flushed slightly. ‘But Gino Caparelli has the reputation of being a stubborn, unyielding man. What you must do is bite your tongue in his presence and appear willing to do as you’re told, even if you don’t feel willing—’
‘I bet the priest never told you to tell me to act like a hypocrite!’
‘You’re smart for a twelve-year-old!’ Santino had burst out laughing when she’d caught him out. ‘My great-uncle is very devout, but he is sincerely concerned by your unhappiness. He wanted me to tell you to respect and obey your grandfather in all things—’
‘But you didn’t say that—’
‘Where there is as yet no affection, I think it would be too much to ask of you.’
‘I just want to go back to London,’ she had mumbled, the tears threatening again. ‘To my mum... my friends, my school—’
‘But for now you must learn to live with the Sardinian half of your family, piccola mia,’ Santino had told her ruefully.
He had been so straight with her and, after long, frightening months of being treated like an impertinent child whose needs and wishes were of no account, she had been heartened by Santino’s level approach. But then he had been clever. He had known how to win a respectful hearing, and the bait he had dangled in reward for improved behaviour had convinced her that he was on her side. She had trusted him to find out where her father was.
When he had brought instead the news of her father’s death in a car crash, she had been devastated. But, in the years which had followed, Santino had become Frankie’s lifeline. He had visited his great-uncle every couple of months, more often as the old man’s health had begun to fail, and Frankie had learnt to live for Santino’s visits for he always made time for her as well.
She had had nothing in common with her father’s family. It had been an unimaginable joy and relief to talk without fear of censure to Santino and just be herself. He had sent her English books and newspapers to read and she had started writing to him. His brief letters had kept her going between visits. Learning to love and rely on Santino had come so naturally to her.
As she dredged herself out of the past, Frankie found poignant memories of Gino, Maddalena and Teresa threatening to creep up out of her subconscious. Stiffening, she closed her Sard relatives out of her mind again. Her grandfather had ignored her letters in the last five years and that hadn’t been a surprise. He could neither have understood nor condoned the actions of a granddaughter who had deserted her husband. Her father’s family had thought the sun rose and set on Santino. In their ignorance of the true state of his marriage, they would have been angry and bitterly ashamed of her behaviour.
Frankie left her room. She emerged into a panelled corridor, lined with dark medieval paintings and beautiful rugs that glowed with the dull richness of age. When she saw a stone spiral staircase twisting up out of sight at the foot of the passageway, she was tempted to explore. Well, why not? If the villas on the Costa Smeralda were not to be made available to the agency, she was now technically on holiday. She really ought to give Matt a call, she conceded absently. He might be wondering why he hadn’t heard from her in three days.
Through the studded oak door at the top of the spiral flight of steps, Frankie stepped out onto the roof...or was it the ramparts? With astonished eyes, she scanned the big square towers rising at either end and then, walking over to the parapet, she gazed down in dizzy horror at the sheerness of the drop, where ancient stone met cliff-face far below her, and then she looked up and around, drinking in the magnificent views of the snowcapped mountains that surrounded the fertile wooded valley.
‘You seem to have made a good recovery.’
Frankie very nearly jumped out of her skin. Breathlessly she spun round. Santino was strolling towards her and this time he looked disturbingly familiar. Faded blue jeans sheathed his lean hips and long,