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'And then she discovered that in order to have a child she would need an operation.' He looked at Claire then, his eyes black and bottomless. 'And the sickness really took over. She was frightened to have surgery, and she directed her own fear and hate and resentment at any young woman of childbearing age. Life became a living hell for us both.'
'But Grace must have come into the family about then?' Claire asked hesitantly. 'Bianca didn't…?'
'All that you can imagine and much more besides,' Romano said grimly. 'Of course I did not know about it at the time—Bianca was cunning and Grace kept quiet for the sake of family harmony—but she was the means of separating Donato and Grace after Paolo's death with a pack of lies which continued right up to the day she died.'
'Oh, Romano…' She did touch him then, with light, tentative fingers on his muscled arm, and he gazed down at her small hand on his skin for some moments before he spoke again.
'After her death I found out she had indulged in numerous affairs. I suspected it when she was alive but she was clever and I could never obtain proof. Her obsession with me had long since turned to hate, especially after I made her seek medical help for her instability. Her doctor felt that her condition might well be a heredita
ry weakness, but as she was adopted it could not be proved one way or the other.'
Claire could hardly take in what he was saying, the bustle and noise all around them distant and unreal as her heart and mind and will focused on the tortured man at her side. And he was tortured; she had never seen it so clearly. She wanted to gather him into her arms, to smother his face with kisses, to tell him that it was all right, that she would make it all right, but she didn't. She sat quietly, with her hand still on his arm, as his words burnt into her brain.
'She was killed when her car went off the road because she was driving too fast in an effort to get away from being found out at last,' he continued quietly. 'She had arranged a confrontation with Grace that went badly wrong, for Bianca at least. Donato turned up and overheard her admit she had conspired to break up their marriage. I have always been very grateful that Benito sent Donato there. Bianca could be physically violent at times, and who can know what she might have done that day in her rage and fury?'
'Benito?' Claire asked faintly. She knew Grace was overly fond of the parrot and now, for the first time, she understood why.
'Sì, Benito. He overheard a telephone conversation and repeated enough for Donato to understand where Grace was and that something was badly wrong,' Romano said grimly.
'I see.' Her mind was buzzing, leaping from one fact to another as it tried to sort out all it needed to absorb. But one thing was paramount, crystal-clear: he hadn't loved Bianca. His marriage had been a nightmare from beginning to end, he had said so, but then why wasn't her heart leaping for joy? Intuition, born of her love for him, knew what was coming next, that was why.
'I do not want emotional commitment, Claire.' He turned fully to face her now, his handsome face white except for a streak of dark colour across the hard cheekbones. 'When Bianca died…it was almost worse than when she had been alive. I felt such guilt, such terrifying guilt, that I could be relieved she had gone. She was young, she had her whole life ahead of her, but the feeling of release from the horror was so intense all I could feel for a long time was a tangle of emotions that woke me in the night in a cold sweat and made me fear for my own sanity.'
'But she was sick.' Claire wasn't aware she had clutched hold of him in her urgency. 'She was ill, Romano, you said so yourself.'
'And I was her husband and responsible for her,' he ground out bitterly. 'For months, years, since the first weeks of our marriage, I had looked into the future and seen a long, dark road that was hell on earth stretching before me. It made the loneliness, the rejection I had endured in my childhood seem like paradise in comparison. But I was her husband. I had made vows to care for her in sickness and health before God and man. There could be no escape.'
'But…but that was different.' She was out of her depth, struggling to put her heart's cry into words, to reach out to him, to help him. 'With Bianca it was different. You would never have that situation again. When you meet someone you can love—'
'I have met someone I can love, Claire.' It was said gently, but with a terrible remoteness that made her flesh go cold. 'I loved you from the first moment I saw you at the airport, with your face lifted up to the sunlight and your hair a blaze of colour in the midst of all the bustle and rush. Oh, I fought the knowledge, of course, every step of the way. Love is an illusion, remember? A mythical prop, propagated by others for their own ends. But all the time I knew I loved you, and then you told me you loved me, so bravely, so courageously…' The black eyes were bitter, his voice flat.
'I wanted to believe what we had was merely a physical attraction, something I have felt for other women and which, once sated, has ceased to be of importance. But when you confessed your love it made me face up to what I have been running away from for months. I love you.'
'Romano…Romano, we can make it work—'
He cut off her feverish entreaties by rising abruptly, the smouldering emotion evident in his glittering eyes and chiselled features immediately banked down at her pleading. 'No—no, we cannot, Claire. I am a coward, you understand this? You look at me and you see a big, strong man, sì? Someone who is brave, who will fight the dragons? But the last two weeks have made me face that I am a coward. I love you, but I cannot take on the responsibility for another human soul again.'
'You wouldn't have to,' she babbled desperately, rising too and clutching hold of his arms, frightened he would turn and leave before she could make him see. 'It's not like that. I love you and you love me. Everything will work out—'
'No.' He shook his head slowly. 'I cannot bring you into my hell, Claire, the hell that still exists in here.' He tapped the side of his head angrily. 'I was not lying to you when I said I believed love did not exist. Until I met you I felt that way. I had never experienced it, you see, with my parents, with my wife—'
'But Donato and Grace—they love you. And Lorenzo—'
'That is different. They do not really know me—not the Romano deep inside who is not all he should be.' His voice was heartbreakingly sad. 'They see what I present to them.'
'No, no, they don't. You're wrong,' she said urgently. 'We all have secret fears and insecurities, things that wake us in the night sometimes, failings that dog our footsteps. That's why it's so important to have someone to stand in the gap with us, for us at times, to love us in spite of ourselves. Your childhood, the terrible time with Bianca—of course they are going to affect you—'
'But I want you to have someone who is strong,' he said, with a flat grimness that frightened her still more. 'You deserve the best.'
'You're strong—don't you see that you're strong?' she said helplessly, knowing she wasn't getting through to him. 'All that you've gone through has given you an insight, a depth of understanding that is far beyond what the average person could have. Oh…' She gazed at him as the handsome face remained stony. 'Stop being so…so Italian! I love you—I love you. Doesn't that count for anything?' She flung herself on him, her face awash with tears, beyond caring about anything but the need to make him see. 'You don't have to be macho man all the time.'
He hesitated for one moment, as she pressed herself into him, before crushing her against him so fiercely she felt as though her bones would crack. For a second, a stunningly sweet second, she thought it was going to be all right—and then he pushed her away, holding her gently as he gazed into her swimming eyes, his own wet too. 'I love you too much to let you do this. One day you will see it is for the best,' he said brokenly. 'You want someone young and fresh and wholesome, without any darkness and shadows to mar and destroy. I am old—far, far too old in my head.'
'You don't mean that—you don't' She twisted in his hold to get closer to him, but his arms tightened to steel and he continued to hold her at arm's length. 'What about Attilio? He was young and fresh and wholesome, wasn't he? And you didn't want me to have him.'
'I did not say I could stand being around to see it,' he said grimly. 'If I saw another man touch you, hold you…' He shook his head slowly. 'Let us just say that is not possible.'
'Romano, I love you.' She became quiet in his hold, still, her eyes great luminous pools of pain and her face lint-white. 'I can't bear this.'
