Free Emerald Aisle by Ralph M. McInerny Page B

Divorce would never be proposed on his side. “He’s very Catholic,” Bianca had told Dudley, making a sour little face.
    Well, if Bianca was married and no divorce was in prospect, there was no need to say that no amount of cosmetic surgery could erase the gap between their ages. And he would appeal to her better side. She must have one. He was a young man. It was time that he married. Should he tell her the whole truth, that he was now
engaged to Dolores? I’ll play it by ear, he told himself after he had parked his car and was heading for the door of Bianca’s building.
    The meal was a triumph. Saltimbocca alla Romana, with a sauce that was so succulent Dudley sopped it all up with garlic bread. The wine was a Barolo. It amazed him that Bianca could cook so well.
    She dismissed his flattery. “Men are better cooks than women.”
    â€œNot this man and this woman.”
    â€œHave you ever tried?”
    He shook his head. He knew what he thought of men who cooked and baked. “This has been a wonderful evening.”
    â€œMy dear, the night is young.”
    â€œWe have to talk, Bianca.”
    â€œWhat have we been doing since you got here?”
    â€œAbout us.”
    He had helped her carry things into the kitchen, where she rinsed dishes and put them in the washer as if she were determined to continue in her role. This whole domestic persona was new to Dudley. She turned to him and her carefully shaped brows formed crescents above her eyes. “You sound serious.”
    â€œLet’s sit down.”
    She permitted him to lead her to the couch. She sat at the far end, facing him. “I won’t let you steal my thunder, sweetheart. The whole point of this evening was to have the proper setting for my announcement.”
    â€œAnnouncement?”
    She smiled tenderly, dipping her head and peering at him. “I have decided to ask Joseph for a divorce.”
    Dudley sat in stunned silence.
    â€œI have felt your discontent with the way things have been. And
you’re right. Oh, I confess it. At first I thought of you as a diversion. A handsome, intelligent, affectionate diversion, but nothing more. It has long since passed the point where I can deceive myself that this is the case.”
    â€œBianca …”
    She held up her hand. “I have the floor. It broke my heart when you would complain of the impermanence of our arrangement.”
    Had he ever complained of that?
    â€œI will not come between a man and his wife.”
    â€œBut, darling, you already have. The deed is done. And now I am prepared to accept the logical conclusion. Away with impermanence; I intend to be free and then …”
    â€œWill he grant you a divorce?”
    â€œHa. How can he stop me?”
    â€œBut what would be your reason?”
    â€œMarital infidelity.”
    â€œJoseph?” Had Primero been driven to a compensatory affair?
    â€œNo, my own. Ours. If he should make any trouble, I will make public our love and our intention to marry.”
    â€œIs this a proposal?” he asked, in a strangled effort to be jocular. “Bianca, you can’t just make such decisions for other people.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThat I don’t want you to get a divorce.”
    â€œYou wily thing.” She smiled a naughty smile. “Do you prefer me in the illicit mode?”
    He grasped at this as a check on her plans, if not a way out. “Why change such a good thing?”
    She was touched. She slithered toward him on the couch, and he took her in his arms as the means of preventing her from going on with her absurd plans. Did she seriously think that he would marry her?

    â€œYou want a mistress rather than a wife.”
    â€œI want you just the way you are.”
    The evening had been anything but what he had intended when he drove to Bianca’s apartment. But then it had not been what she had intended either. They remained mistress and