The Duke's Wife by Stephanie Howard

Author:Stephanie Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

SOFIA lay in bed that night staring into the darkness for a long time.

Her tears had been madness. A moment of weak folly. She had accepted long ago that Damiano would never love her, so why torment herself now with foolish, empty longings? Especially at this stage, when she had learned to live without his love.

But even after she had talked herself back to calm sanity Sofia continued to lie staring at the ceiling as another, quite different thought came to trouble her. For it was gradually beginning to dawn on her that she’d got things a little back to front.

These days, she prided herself on her new independence of mind. No longer was her every move dictated by some foolish desire to please Damiano. That way of thinking had gone out the window long ago. Yet now, if she were honest, as regards this trip to London, she had allowed herself to fall into a very similar trap. She certainly wasn’t out to please him, but it was quite beyond dispute that her reaction to the whole issue had sprung out of her feelings for Damiano. It was those threats he’d made about a second honeymoon and her fear of what such intimacy would do to her that had made her determined not to go.

The more she thought about that, the less happy it made her feel. She was behaving unprofessionally. Even a little childishly. These days, surely, she could cope with Damiano? And his threat of a second honeymoon... She was silly to let it upset her, silly to start thinking there was really any danger. It was just talk that meant nothing. He was hoping to persuade her, but he was in for a disappointment for he would never persuade her. And all she had to do to make very sure of that was keep her bedroom door firmly locked!

So what to do about London? Sofia was still not quite sure when finally, very late, she drifted off to sleep. But when she woke next morning, just before eight, her mind was clear and she knew precisely what she had to do.

She picked up her bedside phone and called Damiano’s private office, knowing he would already be at his desk. And when he answered she told him. ‘Look, don’t cancel anything. I’m coming to London with you after all. I’ll have a word with Dr Gentile this morning. I’m sure he can fix me up somehow.’

There was a silence at the other end. A silence of sheer astonishment, she imagined. Then Damiano told her, ‘I’m coming right over.’ A moment later the phone went dead.

He came sweeping through the bedroom door just five minutes later, after Angela had come in and opened the curtains and asked Sofia what she fancied for breakfast—and after Sofia had demanded a robe to slip over her nightdress and had hurriedly pulled it on, making herself decent. A strange thing to do for a visit from your husband, perhaps, but then he wasn’t really her husband these days.

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