Wife in the Shadows Read Online Free

to find when she joined the group that they were talking about something completely different.
    Now she found herself wondering uneasily if the subject had been deliberately changed at her approach and just what they’d been discussing.
    If the stolid Ernesto had been stirred to a seething mass of jealousy, might he have reason? Whatever, he seemed to be taking steps to keep Silvia in check at last, and maybe, as her cousin was all the family she had left, she should help, besides having no wish to hurt her godmother’s feelings by a refusal to attend her house party.
    ‘Who else will be there?’ she asked cautiously.
    Silvia shrugged. ‘Oh, Fulvio Ciprianto and his wife.’ She added casually. ‘Plus one of Madrina’s elderly cronies, the Contessa Manzini.’
    Manzini, thought Ellie. The name was vaguely familiar, but in what context? Then her mind went back to that wretched dinner party, and she remembered. A man, she thought, tall, very dark, and lethally attractive even to her untutored gaze, who’d been pointed out to her as Count Angelo Manzini. Not, she’d reflected at the time, that he looked even remotely like anangel. The lean saturnine face, amused dark eyes and mobile, sensuous mouth suggested far more sin than sanctity.
    However, no playboy apparently, but the successful chairman of the Galantana fashion group, or so she’d been informed by her neighbour during a brief lull between courses.
    Which, considering what she’d been wearing, was probably why the Count had totally ignored her.
    ‘A few others, perhaps,’ Silvia went on, twisting the emerald on her finger again. ‘I am not sure. But if you get bored,’ she added with renewed buoyancy, ‘you can always ask Zio Cesare to show you his roses. You like such things.’
    Ellie had never addressed her godmother’s august husband as ‘uncle’ in her life, and Silvia knew it. Another reminder of the wide gap in their circumstances.
    ‘Thank you,’ she returned ironically.
    ‘So I can tell Madrina that you will be coming with me, Ella-Bella?’ Silvia was watching her almost eagerly.
    But, thought Ellie, there was another element in her expression that was not so easy to fathom, and which sparked a faint
frisson
of concern.
    ‘Only if you swear never to call me that stupid name again, Silly-Billy. We’re no longer children,’ she retorted crisply. ‘And I’ll telephone her myself.’ She paused. ‘Shall we go in my car?’
    Silvia looked as horrified as if Ellie had suggested they trudge to Largossa, pushing their luggage in a wheelbarrow. ‘You mean that little Fiat? No, I will arrange for Ernesto to lend us the Maserati with Beppo to drive us.’
    Ellie frowned. ‘He won’t want them himself?’
    ‘He has the Lamborghini.’ Silvia pursed her lips. ‘Or he could walk. The exercise would do him good, I think.’
    ‘Poor Ernesto,’ said Ellie.
    And poor me, she thought when her cousin had departed, leaving a delicate aroma of Patou’s ‘Joy’ in the air. Although that, she admitted, was rank ingratitude when she would be staying in a superbly comfortable house, with magnificent foodand wine, and being thoroughly indulged with her godmother’s unfailing affection.
    But it was simply not the kind of visit she was accustomed to. Usually she was invited to keep Lucrezia Damiano company while her husband was away attending meetings with other European bankers. Sometimes, but not always, Silvia came too.
    But Ellie could not imagine why her cousin was so keen for them both to attend what seemed to be a distinctly middle-aged party.
    Oh for heaven’s sake, she adjured herself impatiently, as she carried the coffee pot and used cups into her tiny kitchen. Stop worrying about nothing. It’s not a major conspiracy. It’s simply a couple of days out of your life, that’s all.
    And when they’re over, you’ll be straight back to the old routine again, just as if you’d never been away.
    Then she paused, as she began to run water