To Marry a Tiger (19 page)

She lifted her chin and glared at him. “You can try!” she challenged him.

He forbore to answer, but dro
v
e the car very fast out of Palermo and along the road towards his home.

Ruth could feel the power of the car in the
small
of her back and found it a very satisfactory sensation.

“I shall want a car of my own,” she informed
him
suddenly.

“You shall have one.”

That caught her off balance. “When?” she asked cautiously.

“As soon as I can be sure that you won’t rush off again!”

She sighed. “As soon as I know my place, in fact?”

He smiled. “No, there are other rewards for being good,” he remarked.

She knew better than to ask him what they were. She thought she could imagine what he meant. Supposing, just supposing—She drew her thoughts up with a jerk. How could she actually want him to kiss her when he didn’t love her! She wasn’t the beautiful kind, such as the women he was accustomed to, so why should he look twice at her. She was his
wife
,
family, someone to grow accustomed to, but not someone to love to distraction or until it hurt. And yet she would be content with such a small piece of his love, she told herself, and knew, even then, that it wasn’t the truth. She wanted as much as she was prepared to give, and that was everything!

Lucia was waiting for them when they arrived at the house. She was so terribly relieved to see Ruth getting out of the car that Ruth wanted to laugh.

“Mario would have been sure to have blamed Roberto,” Lucia said to Ruth. “And he would have been right! Nobody should come between a man and his wife
!”

Ruth blinked. “Roberto was no more than kind to me,” she answered with dignity.

“Yes, he is kind, isn’t he?” Lucia agreed, much pleased. “I love him dearly because of it! But I’m also very glad you changed your mind and didn’t go with Pearl. Mario is not always very kind and that can be very uncomfortable to bear with, let me tell you!”

She saw the second car draw up with Roberto and Mary-Anne in it and stood stock still with sheer surprise. A second later she had rushed forward and had pulled open the car door and was lavishly hugging her sister-in-law. “How could you come and not tell me?” she demanded. “Did Roberto know? How long do you stay? We have to be back in Tunis almost immediately, so it is fortunate we are here to see you! How mean of you not to give us any warning!”

“Yes, wasn’t it?” Mary-Anne said, returning Lucia’s hug with energy. “But I had to see my new daughter
-
in-law for myself!”

Lucia frowned. “But you made Roberto come from Tunis—”

Mary-Anne gave her a guilty smile. “I know I did. You see I was worried about her. I know what it feels like to be a brand-new wife, married to a Sicilian!”

Lucia giggled. “How could it feel but very nice?” she protested. “I remember your wedding very well, Mary-Anne, and
nothing
would have dragged you away from Sicily!”

“No, but I did feel lost. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to come and make it easier for Ruth.”

Lucia, Sicilian born and bred, dismissed this as a peculiar foreign quirk. “Ruth is very well!” she said. “What could she possibly find wrong with being married to Mario?”

Mary-Anne made a face, hoping to silence her impulsive sister-in-law. “We’ll have a nice gossip in a minute,” she said. “But first I want to get to know my new daughter!”

Ruth, who had been standing tongue-tied while this conversation had been going on, found herself suddenly being grasped by her mother-in-law’s hand and whisked into the house.

“You don’t have to tell me, you have my old room!” Mary-Anne said gaily, running lightly up the stairs.

“D-do you mind?” Ruth answered, embarrassed. “I can easily move. I can use the room Pearl had—”

“Mario would be furious if you did!” Mary-Anne answered frankly. “No, my dear, any room will do for me tonight. I’ll fix it up with Giulia if you don’t mind,
when we go downstairs again. I’m not sure that I want to live in this house anyway. I think I’ll have a house of my own close by.”

Ruth looked concerned. “I don’t think Mario would like—” she began.

“I don’t suppose he will,” his mother agreed. “All Sicilians take their family responsibilities very seriously indeed. Still, I think if he sees that it’s what I really want, he’ll let me have it. He always does!”

Ruth had no confidence that Mario would prove so obliging about anything.

“It—it isn’t because of me, is it?” she asked.

Mary-Anne looked at her with warm affection. “Not entirely. It’s mostly because although I was married to a Sicilian, I still have American ideas about privacy and so on. I don’t want to have people on top of me all day long, and I don’t want to be on top of them either!”

“I’d love to have you here!” Ruth burst out.

Mary-Anne gave her a curious look. “To please Mario? Ruth honey, are you afraid of Mario in any way?”

Ruth shook her head. “Of course not!” she denied.

Mary-Anne was far from being convinced. “You can tell me, you know,” she said, “because I shan’t tell Mario—”

“I wouldn’t care if you did!” Ruth assured her defiantly.

Mary-Anne giggled. “I expect it’s your courage that made Mario want to marry you in the first place! Nothing appeals to him more!”

Ruth allowed her mother-in-law to precede her into her bedroom. Her defences had been sadly undermined by Mary-Anne’s charming interest in her and she was in two minds as to whether she wouldn’t be wise to tell her the whole story.

“It was a matter of honour,” she said obscurely.

Mary-Anne looked at her with expectant interest. “I thought it might be when Lucia told me that it was a dark secret why you had got married. She seemed to think she had had quite a lot to do with bringing the two of you together.”

“Only because she never came when she said she would
!
” Ruth remembered with a deep feeling of injury.

“Leaving you alone with Mario?”

Ruth nodded. “Only he wasn’t here either—not really!”

Mary-Anne gave her a sympathetic look. “But I don’t see what
you
were doing here?” she said gently.

Ruth blushed. “I came instead of Pearl—”

“Oh, I see!” Mary-Anne exclaimed.

“Do you?” Ruth said dubiously.

Mary-Anne pursed up her lips, her eyes laughing. “Of course! If Mario walked in and found
you
when he was expecting to find your sister,
of course
he wasn’t going to let you go!”

Ruth was completely shaken by such an idea. She gave her mother-in-law a look of mute appeal and stuttered out something about it not having been quite like that!

Happily for Ruth’s peace of mind, Lucia came upstairs carrying one of Mary-Anne’s suitcases. “Which room shall I put it in?” she asked.

Mary-Anne looked at Ruth with perfect dignity. “Did you say I could have the one your sister had
?
”

“Yes—no—but—” Ruth gave the two older women a helpless look. “I th-think you should have the best room!” she managed finally to get out.

“Yes,” Lucia agreed with a bounce that betrayed her sheer good spirits. “The one next to ours! I shall put your suitcase in there.”

“And I’ll tell Giulia to make up the bed,” Ruth added quickly, taking her cue from them. It gave her a very good excuse to make her escape from the questioning eyes of Mary-Anne before she was forced to admit a great deal more than she wanted to.

“Shall' I help you?” she offered, when she had given Giulia the necessary information. “I’m afraid there is rather a lot for you to do with so many people here.”

If Giulia was surprised at this new air of command in Ruth, she took pains to hide it. With care, she corrected Ruth’s Italian and made her repeat what she had to say several times over until she was word-perfect.

“If you permit, I shall get my sister to come in and help me until the Signor and Signora Roberto go back to Tunis,” she suggested at some length. “She is accustomed to the ways of the house.”

Ruth agreed that this would be an admirable arrangement, and then, having nothing else to delay her, she braced herself to go into the
salotta
to join the others. She could hear Mario and his mother laughing about something and wondered what it was. It was difficult not to feel excluded in a way by her presence, though s
h
e knew she was being ridiculous. Mary-Anne was the last person to be possessive over her son. But then it wasn’t Mary-Anne’s possessiveness that was the trouble, Ruth told herself wryly, it was her own!

“I have been telling Mario about my plan to have my own house,” Mary-Anne told Ruth as she entered the room.

Ruth gave Mario a nervous look and dropped her eyes again. “If it were very near—” she began vaguely.

“Nonsense!” Mario exploded. “And you’re not to encourage her, Ruth,” he added angrily. “My mother will live in my house for as long as She stays in Sicily!”

“Then I shall go back to New York,” Mary-Anne
s
ighed.

“But how can you be any less lonely in a house by yourself?” Mario shot at her. “Ruth would make you very welcome here.”

His mother gave him an unblinking look. “She already has,” she said.

Ruth had a sudden inspiration. “Why don’t you turn one wing of the house into a place of your own?” she suggested with a spurt of enthusiasm. “Then you wouldn’t be far away, but you could be quite private whenever you liked
!
”

“There!” said Mary-Anne. “I told Mario you’d think of something!”

Mario looked at his wife and smiled. “You have found yourself an ally!” he observed dryly. “My mother thinks I am unkind to you—”

“Not
unkind
,” Mary-Anne protested anxiously. “Just that you ask too much!”

“Do I?” Mario asked Ruth directly. She made a flustered movement,
q
uite unable to answer.

“You know you do!” Mary-Anne rushed to Ruth’s defence. “You haven’t been at all gentle! Why, you’ve scared the girl half to death!”

Mario’s eyes flashed with amusement. “Rubbish, Mamma! Ruth knows very well what I am about. She finds our customs a little strange at first, but then so did you when you first married my father!”

Mary-Anne looked severe. “But then I was in love with your father!” she pointed out delicately.

Mario smiled straight into his mother’s startled eyes. “As Ruth is with me!” he said with complete certainty. “If you don’t believe me, ask her!”