She was lonely, and sometimes the temptation to pay a visit was overwhelming. Surely it could do no harm to meet little Nico, enjoy the farm life for a while, and be enveloped in the warmth and love that Rosemary seemed to carry with her at all times?
But then Rosemary would write, innocently ending the letter, ‘Franco sends his love’. And the words still hurt, warning her that the visit must never be made.
She’d been eighteen when she’d fallen in love with him, and it should have been one of those passing teenage infatuations, so common at that age. Her misfortune was that it wasn’t. Instead of getting over Franco she’d gone on cherishing his image with a despairing persistence that warned her never to risk seeing him.
To outward appearances Joanne was a successful woman, with a string of admirers. The chubbiness of her early years had gone, leaving her figure slender and her face delicate. There were always men eager to follow her beauty and a certain indefinable something in her air. She let them wine and dine her and some of them, blind to the remote signals she sent out without knowing it, deceived themselves that they were making progress. When they realized their mistake they called her heartless, and to a point it was true. She had no heart for them. Her heart had been stolen long ago by a man who didn’t want it.
Then Rosemary returned to England for a visit, bringing her five-year-old son. They stayed with Joanne for a week, and some of their old closeness was restored. They talked for hours into the night. Joanne was enchanted by the little boy. He looked English, but he had the open-heartedness of his Italian father, and would snuggle on her lap as happily as on his mother’s.
Rosemary watched the two of them fondly, while she talked of her life in Italy with the husband she adored. The only flaw was Sophia’s continuing hostility.
‘I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t remarried,’ she confessed. ‘She hates me.’
‘But she was always nagging Franco to get married,’ Joanne recalled.
‘Yes, but she wanted to choose his wife. She’d have picked a local girl who wouldn’t have competed with her for his heart, and given him lots and lots of children. Franco really wants them. Sophia never lets me forget that I’ve only managed to give him one.
‘I’ve tried and tried to make her my friend, but it’s useless. She hates me because Franco loves me so much, and I couldn’t change that—even if I wanted to.’
Her words made Joanne recall how Sophia’s manner to herself had altered without warning. She’d been friendly enough, in her sharp manner, until one day she’d caught Joanne regarding Franco with yearning in her eyes. After that she’d grown cool, as though nobody but herself was allowed to love him.
Rosemary’s face was radiant as she talked of her husband. ‘I never knew such happiness could exist,’ she said in a voice full of wonder. ‘Oh, darling, if only it could happen for you too.’
‘I’m a career woman,’ Joanne protested, hiding her face against Nico’s hair lest it reveal some forbidden consciousness. ‘I’ll probably never marry.’
She was the first to learn Rosemary’s thrilling secret.
‘I haven’t even told Franco yet, because I don’t want to raise false hopes,’ she admitted. ‘But he wants another child so badly, and I want to give him one.’
A week after her return to Italy she telephoned to say she was certain at last, and Franco was over the moon.
But the child was never born. In the fifth month of her pregnancy Rosemary collapsed with a heart attack, and died.
Joanne was in Australia at the time, working against a deadline. It would have been impractical to go to Italy for the funeral, but the truth was she was glad of the excuse to stay away. Her love for Rosemary’s husband tormented her with guilt now that Rosemary was dead.
The year that followed was the most miserable of her life. Despite their long parting, Rosemary had stayed in touch so determinedly that she had remained a vital part of her life. Joanne only truly understood that now that she was gone, and the empty space yawned.
She had several requests to work in Italy, but she turned them all down on one pretext or another. Then a debilitating bout of flu left her too weak to work for some time, and her bank balance grew dangerously low. When the offer came from Vito Antonini she was glad of the chance to make some money.
He lived only sixty miles away from Franco. But she could shut herself up to work, and never venture into the outside world. There was no need to see him if she didn’t want to. So, despite her misgivings, she accepted the job and flew to Italy, telling herself that she was in no danger, and trying to believe it.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHY you never take the car?’ Maria demanded one day. ‘When you arrive I say, ‘We don’t need the second car. You use it.’ But you never do. Is very unkind.’
‘Don’t be offended, Maria, please,’ Joanne begged. ‘It’s just that I’ve been so busy.’
‘Don’t you have any friends from when you were here before?’
‘Well—my cousin’s family lives near Asti—’
‘And you haven’t visited?’ Maria shrieked in horror, for like all Italians she was family-minded. ‘You go now.’
Vito backed his wife up, and the two of them virtually ordered her out of the house.
‘You stay away tonight,’ Maria ordered. ‘You won’t have time to drive back.’
‘I’ll have plenty of time,’ Joanne insisted. ‘I’m only going for a couple of hours.’
They argued about this until the last minute, Maria demanding that she pack a bag, Joanne firmly refusing. She was going to make this visit as brief as possible, just to prove to herself that she could cope with meeting Franco. Then she would leave and never go back.
She was dressed for the country, in trousers and sweater. But both had come from one of Turin’s most expensive shops, and she added a gold chain about her waist and dainty gold studs in her ears. She didn’t realize that she was making a point, but the costly elegance of her attire marked her out as a different person from the gauche girl of eight years ago.
As soon as she got out onto the road and felt the beauty of the day, and the sun streaming in through the open window, Joanne was glad. She’d been shut up too long with the smell of oil paint and turpentine, and she needed to breathe fresh air.
She took the route through the little medieval town of Asti. Already there were posters up advertising the palio, the bareback race that was run every year around the piazza. The jockeys were all local lads, and Joanne’s mind went back to the time Franco had taken part.
She’d been nervous as she’d taken her place in the stands with the family and almost every worker from the Farelli vineyard. The palio was so fierce that mattresses were fixed to the walls of all the surrounding buildings to save the riders and horses who crashed into them. Even so, injuries were common.
After the first lap it had been clear that the race was between Franco and another rider.
‘That’s
