The Sicilian's Wife by Kate Walker Page B

be grateful that the others in the vestry—the registrar, the celebrant, her father and the other witnesses—had tactfully moved away for a moment, clearly thinking that the newlyweds needed a little time and space to themselves.
    Heaven alone knew what they thought she and Cesare had been talking about! But perhaps, being too distant to be able to hear what had been said, she supposed they might just have thought that their intent concentration on each other, the way they had looked nowhere but into each other’s eyes, was the result of deep and loving devotion rather than the angry spat that was the real truth.
    But now the priest moved forward, his smile encompassing the two of them equally.
    â€˜It’s time we went back,’ he said easily. If he had suspected anything about the content of their conversation, there was no hint of it in his tone. ‘Are you ready?’
    â€˜Perfectly,’ Cesare assured him, turning to follow and holding out his arm to Megan so that she had no option but to rest her hand on it again, an electric tingle running along every nerve as she felt the strength of bone, the bunch and play of muscle under the fine material of his elegant jacket.
    Her mind seemed to split in two, one half of it wanting exactly this. Wanting to hold on tight to Cesare’s strength and never let go, to clench her fingers around his arm, feel it support her as it had done moments before. That part begged to allow herself to dream of the way it would feel to have that strength reach out to enclose her, hold her tight. The other, weaker, side of her thoughts only wanted to snatch her hand away and turn and run, away from here, away from the emotional distress she knew she was laying herself open to, the bitter pain of living with and loving a man who didn’t feel the same way about her.
    Somehow she managed to get through what remained of the ceremony. She went back out into the church, walked by Cesare’s side down the long, stone-flagged aisle and out into the bright sunlight of a late July day. She even managed to switch on a smile at the right moment, direct it at the right people. She could only pray that no one saw the emptiness behind the gesture, the way no lightness touched or warmed her eyes but left them cold and dead as the feeling in her soul.
    The only time her careful mask faltered was when they were outside the church, every movement accompanied by a chorus of congratulations and a hail of brightly coloured confetti. It was as they were making their way to the car that was to take them to the reception, that someone spoke behind her, their voice carrying loud and clear in a moment of unexpected silence.
    â€˜It’s been lovely! Really lovely.’
    Megan recognised the tones of her father’s secretary, a stout, middle-aged lady with an incurably romantic streak.
    â€˜If you ask me, it’s been a dream wedding.’
    A dream wedding. The words fixed themselves inside Megan’s head as the car moved, began to pull away from the crowd gathered by the kerb. The sight of Annie Patrick’s broad, handsome face half hidden behind a flowery handkerchief as the older woman dabbed at her tearful eyes with obvious enjoyment, only added to and aggravated her feeling of isolation and loss.
    In some ways it was true: this was her dream wedding. It was the wedding she had fantasised about as an adolescent, the images clear in her mind as she fell asleep in the narrow single bed in her father’s house. The setting was the same, the groom at her side was the man she had always pictured as her husband in those long-ago daydreams. But the details of the circumstances in which they were getting married, the reasons for the wedding at all, were such a bitter irony that they turned her dream wedding into a black, dark nightmare.
    â€˜If you’re going to wear that expression all day long, then no one is going to believe in the image of this as a whirlwind