From Venice With Love. Alison Roberts
I should not have spoken of such things. Good night.’ And with that she was gone.
What things?
She prowled the room, wanting to shriek at the closed door, at the walls, the bed and the rich, dark drapes. She wanted to shriek with the insanity of it all. This was her wedding night. Her wedding night! And yet here she was, tucked away in a lonely room in a castle on some godforsaken stretch of coastline shrouded in mist.
And where the hell was her husband?
She threw off her sandals and flung them across the room, where they smacked into the wall and it was still nowhere near satisfying enough.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
Nobody worked on their wedding night. Nobody!
Thunder boomed in the distance, a low, rumbling growl that went on and on and echoed her own rumbling discontent. A flash of lightning painted the room with the curtains’ vivid red.
Damn it! Natania would know where he was. She should just have asked her. Barefoot, she rushed to the door and pulled it open to the darkened hallway. She could see nothing and nobody, until another clap of thunder that seemed to shake the very walls was followed by a light so bright it transformed night into day.
And there, at the end of the long passageway, she saw a shadowy figure—Natania?—disappearing into a room.
She called out to her but the sound was lost in the sudden crash of rain on the windows and the doors as the castle descended once again into blackness, only a thin, ghostly glow through a window at the end of the passageway providing any illumination.
She wanted to follow the woman, but right now she was probably already in the arms, if not the bed, of Marco. Did she really need to interrupt them in the act of love-making? Did she really need to remind herself of what she herself would have been doing—should have been doing—if only her husband had not decided to abandon her on their wedding night?
What would they think of her? The lonely bride, still in her wedding gown, searching desperately for her husband.
She had seen the pity in Natania’s eyes. Did she really need to see more?
The rain pelted down on the roof and walls until the pounding itself sounded like thunder. She shivered. It was freezing out here in the dark passageway; her head was thumping and she was tired beyond measure. Bone weary. Across the room the fire crackled in the hearth; the bed looked cosy and inviting. And down the end of the passage the thin, grey light was just a shade lighter. It was later than she thought. It would be dawn soon.
No wonder she was so tired. She would lie down for a while to get warm. And maybe Raoul would come to her when he had finished his work like she had asked him to. She would wait up for him.
And tomorrow—today—things would make more sense. They had to.
He stood at the rain-streaked windows, looking out into the bleak nothingness of the storm, wishing bleak nothingness for his mind to erase all thoughts of the woman lying upstairs waiting for him.
Right now she would be confused and angry. He could deal with those things, he expected them. It was the hurt he could not deal with; the hurt he knew she must be feeling.
But she was tired, she would sleep. And soon she would understand that this was the way it had to be.
‘It is done, Umberto,’ he said, gazing unseeingly into the night through the rain-streaked windows. ‘And I hope you are satisfied.’
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