‘It’s impossible. It can’t be true. It mustn’t be true.’

‘But she’s dead. You’re free now.’

‘Free?’ The word was like a knife. ‘I’ll never be free, and do you know why? Because she’s dead. Because I killed her. There’s no escape from that prison, and nor should there be. Why should I escape? I killed her.’

The words shocked her to silence. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.

‘But that can’t be true,’ she choked at last. ‘She died in childbirth.’

‘She died bearing a child, a child she should never have been asked to bear. She wasn’t strong enough, but she pretended that she was, and I pretended to believe her. I wanted that child. The terrible truth is that I wanted it more than I wanted her, and she knew it.

‘She never considered herself for a moment. Everything was for me. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done to please me, because she knew-’ He paused and shuddered so violently that Ruth could feel it. ‘She knew that I didn’t love her.’

His voice was full of bleak despair as he said the final words, and then a deadly silence fell, as though the end of the world had come, and there was nothing left.

‘Surely you must have loved her a little,’ she said. ‘You married her.’

‘I had a kind of fondness for her. She was sweet and gentle and I’d known her most of my life. I showed you the pictures of us as children.’

‘The dice game,’ she said. ‘Yes, I remember.’

‘When she grew up I danced with her, always feeling like her brother because I’d known her for so long. It never occurred to me that she-’

He broke off awkwardly.

Ruth didn’t need to hear him say all the words to be able to follow the progress. It had started with childish hero-worship, turned into a teenage crush, and then into womanly love. And he, with fairly typical male blindness, had been aware of it only distantly without seeing the implications or the danger.

‘When I started to notice girls in a big way, I went a little mad,’ Pietro resumed. ‘I was the son of Count Bagnelli. I could indulge myself with any girl I liked. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that aristocracy doesn’t matter in the modern world. It counts as much as it ever did.’

Ruth thought of Franco and Serafina, and knew he was right.

‘A title, or just the prospect of one, gives you a freedom no other man has,’ Pietro continued. ‘I won’t go into details about how badly I behaved. Let’s just say that I took what was offered, accepting it as my right. I’m not proud of that.’

She remembered Jessica saying, ‘He only slept with the best, very stylish ladies. But they had to be outstanding, not just beautiful, but with a certain “something extra”, to make him proud.’

And even Mario had wistfully implied that Pietro could take his pick.

But while Pietro connected his sexual success with his title she knew that his personal attractions must have played a big part. The title was a bonus, but it was the man himself who would make a woman’s heart beat faster.

‘So you had a colourful life,’ she said gently. ‘So do millions of young men with no money or title. You must have slowed down in the end.’

‘My father had a heart attack. I was away at the time and it was Lisetta who called me. Against all the odds he survived and returned home, and she volunteered to come and look after him. He was fond of her and she seemed able to make him relax. I was grateful to her.

‘But although he made a sort of recovery, we knew he didn’t have very long. He said that before he died he wanted to see me “decently married”, as he put it. He wanted to be at my wedding, and to know that at least there was a child on the way. He thought it was time I “chose a suitable bride”, as though we were still in the nineteenth century.

‘It didn’t seem so strange to me. His own marriage to my mother had been arranged this way. They were civil, but not madly in love, and to me that was normal.

‘He was dying, and I couldn’t bear to deny him his last wish, so I agreed. It was he who suggested Lisetta. We knew each other well, I liked her, and thought she liked me. At that time I had no idea that her feelings went deeper.’

‘Didn’t it come out when you asked her to marry you?’

‘No. I spoke of our friendship, our affection, but I didn’t pretend to a love I didn’t feel because it would have been dishonest, and that would have insulted her. She’d have seen through every word and despised me as a liar. And it seemed the best way because she was very cheerful, agreed with me about our marriage.’

‘Poor Lisetta,’ Ruth mused. ‘I suppose she concealed her feelings, afraid of frightening you off. She must have thought, when you were married, she could win your love.’

‘Yes, I finally realised that,’ he groaned. ‘I don’t know how I could have been so blind.’

‘Because she meant you to be. She was fighting for something she wanted, and she knew the way to do it. Good for her.’

He looked at her strangely.

‘You’re forgetting how badly it ended for her.’

‘No, I’m not. The future is always a mystery. You can only take the step you see ahead, and deal with the consequences as they happen. She sounds like a lady with a lot of courage.’

‘Courage?’

‘Think of the risk she took. How old was she then?’

‘About twenty-five.’

‘Then she’d waited for you, played high stakes to win the only prize she cared about because nothing less would do. That took real courage.’

In his mind he saw Lisetta again, docile, yielding, eager to please, but sadly without the magic that could have caught his attention. It took an effort to see her through Ruth’s eyes, daring, ready to risk everything and smile if she lost.

And she had lost, he thought remorsefully. She’d gained nothing from her marriage but two dead children and the dutiful affection of a man carrying an increasing burden of guilt. But the guilt had been his own fault. She’d never tried to lay that burden on him.

‘You’re right,’ he said suddenly. ‘She was a brave woman. I meant to be a good husband, and at first things went well. She became pregnant almost at once, and we were happy. I was grateful to her for giving my father hope, and also on my own account.

‘I found that I loved the idea of being a father. That took me by surprise. I’d never thought of it before, but suddenly I wanted it so much, and Lisetta was the woman who was going to give me my heart’s desire. Yes, I think I gave her some happiness then. I hope so, anyway.’

The heavy note in his voice made her ask, ‘What happened?’

‘She lost the child in the sixth month. That would have been bad enough but my father also died. His health had been on a knife edge while he held on to see his grandchild, and the shock of seeing that hope collapse brought on his last heart attack.

‘Lisetta was devastated by what she considered her failure. I tried to reassure her but what could I say? She knew I’d married her for my father’s sake and my child’s, and now they were both dead. That was when I wished I’d told her some polite lies when I proposed. If I’d said then that I loved her, I might have been able to give her some hope when she was in despair. But I was useless-useless.’

He dropped his head into his hands.

When Pietro spoke again his voice was husky.

‘I did my best to console her, but it was a pretty useless best. She kept saying that she was sorry she’d let me down, and she’d have another child soon. With every word I felt like a monster, a man who’d destroyed a woman who loved him for his own convenience.

‘The worst thing was that she was pinning all her hopes on another baby. She didn’t know that the doctor had said she mustn’t try again. She wasn’t strong enough. I delayed telling her because I knew what it would do to her, but in the end I had to.’

‘Poor woman,’ Ruth murmured.

‘Yes, poor woman,’ Pietro said bitterly. ‘She had nothing then. Whatever I could give her wasn’t enough. She turned to her husband for help, and he failed her.’

‘How did she cope?’

‘She wouldn’t accept it. She said she just needed time to regain her strength, and everything would be fine. I didn’t argue because at least it left her some hope, but I had no intention of risking her life with another child. She began taking the pill-’

He broke off and made a helpless gesture, full of despair.

‘She swore that she was taking it-that there was no danger of-I shouldn’t have believed her. I should have taken better care of her.’

‘What happened?’

‘She came off the pill, and I only found out when she told me she was pregnant again. I can still see her face, how delighted she was, looking at me for approval.

‘I tried to make her understand how dangerous it was, but she wouldn’t listen to me or the doctor. He begged her not to go through with it. I told her I’d agree to that, but she wouldn’t listen to either of us.’

‘Of course not,’ Ruth murmured.

‘Of course not,’ he echoed with a bitterness that was aimed at himself. ‘She gave me a love I didn’t deserve, and all she cared about was pleasing me. All through her pregnancy she grew weaker, but she was actually happy. There was a time when we thought she might have a chance to come through, and the baby. But then she collapsed.

‘Our child was born alive, and she held him in her arms just once before she died. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me then, with such joy in her eyes, and such triumph. She’d given me a living child, and that was all she cared about, although she knew her own life was slipping away.

‘But then our baby died too, only a few hours after his mother. Her sacrifice had been for nothing. When she was in her coffin I kissed her and told her how sorry I was. Then I put him in her arms again, and now they’ll lie together always. Now and then I go back to see them, and always I ask for her forgiveness, but it’s too late. I’d give anything to reach her, but I never can.

‘Now do you understand why I feel little better than a murderer? I took her life-for nothing.’

Ruth didn’t answer at first. Pietro’s agony of self-reproach seemed imprinted on the air. She would literally have done anything to heal this wound, and it was dawning on her that, incredibly, she had the power to bring him out of this nightmare. But every step must be taken with care, using her mysterious understanding of Lisetta that had come with her own confusions. One wrong move-she shivered.

It could be done, but only if the dice were thrown exactly right.

Taking a deep breath and sending up a prayer, she tossed them into the unknown.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘BUT you didn’t take her life,’ Ruth said softly.

Pietro stared at her, puzzled. ‘What did you say?’

‘You didn’t take her life. She gave it up.’

‘There’s no difference.’

‘There’s every difference. You talk about your father’s nineteenth-century attitudes, but then you speak as though Lisetta was a helpless little female caught up in the machinations of the men, with no chance to stand up for herself, and that’s nineteenth century, if you like.’

‘I understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t change the fact that I married her for my convenience, and my father’s-’

‘And she married you because she wanted to be your wife more than anything in the world. More than her pride. More than her safety. More, even, than her life.’

‘Am I supposed to feel flattered by that? I might if I thought I was worth it, but no man is,’ Pietro replied.

‘That was for her to decide. You were worth it to her and you should respect her right to make her own decision. You said your father chose her. There must have been other well-born girls he could have picked. Why her? Maybe because she was already in the house, looking after him?’

‘Among other things. I told you he had old-fashioned ideas about suitability, and her father was a visconte as well as being a family friend.’

‘And this college professor just happened to be there, caring for him? What about her career? Did she put that on hold?’ Ruth questioned, hoping she was getting through to him.

‘It was the summer vacation. What are you saying?’

‘That she guessed the way your father’s thoughts were drifting and she made sure his choice lighted on her. She knew you didn’t love her, but it didn’t matter because anything was better than life without you.’

‘You make her sound like a schemer.’

‘No, I don’t. I make her sound like a woman in love who focussed on the man she wanted because the thought of living without him was unbearable. Millions of women do that every day. Men too. It makes the world go around. That’s what I think she did, and good for her! She had a purpose, and she followed it through to the end.’