A Perfect Stranger by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

the summers. She only went for two weeks now, instead of four. But John Henry absolutely insisted that she go. It tortured him to realize that the girl he had married was as much a prisoner of his infirmities as he was himself. It was one thing to keep her from the prying eyes of the world while amusing her himself night and day. It was quite another to lock her in the house with him, as his body decayed slowly around his soul. If he could have found the means, he would have killed himself, he said often to his doctor, if only to set bothof them free. He had mentioned it once to Antoine, who had been outraged at the very idea.
    “The girl adores you!” he thundered and his voice reverberated against the walls of his friend’s sick room. “You owe it to her not to do anything crazy like that!”
    “Not like this.” The words had been garbled but comprehensible. “It’s a crime to do this to her. I have no right.” He had choked on his own tears.
    “You have no right to deprive her of you. She loves you. She loved you for seven years before this happened. That doesn’t change overnight. It doesn’t change because you are ill. What if she were ill? Would you love her any less?”
    John Henry painfully shook his head. “She should be married to a young man, she should have children.”
    “She needs you, John. She belongs with you. She has grown up with you. She’ll be lost without you. How can you think of leaving her a moment sooner than you must? You could have years left!” He had meant to be encouraging, but John Henry had faced him with despair. Years … and by then how old would Raphaella be? Thirty-five? Forty? Forty-two? She would be so totally unprepared to start looking for a new life. These were the thoughts that rambled agonizingly through his mind, that left him filled with silence and his eyes glazed with anguish and grief, not so much for himself, but for her. He insisted that she go away as often as possible, but she felt guilty for leaving him, and going away wasn’t even a relief. Always John Henry was on her mind.
    But John Henry repeatedly urged her to break out of her prison. Whenever he learned from Raphaellathat her mother was going to New York for a few days, on her way to Buenos Aires or Mexico City, or wherever else, with the usual crowd of sisters and cousins, he was quick to urge Raphaella to join them. Whether it was for two days or ten, he always wanted her to join them, to get out into the world if only for a moment, and he knew that in that crowd she would always be safe, well protected, heavily escorted. The only moments in which she was alone were on the flights to Europe or New York. His chauffeur always put her on the plane in San Francisco, and there was always a rented limousine waiting for her at the other end. The life of a princess was still Raphaella’s, but the fairy tale had considerably changed. Her eyes were larger and quieter than ever now, she would sit silent and pensive for hours, looking into the fire, or staring out at the bay. The sound of her laughter was barely more than a memory, and when it rang out for a moment, it somehow seemed like a mistake.
    Even when she joined her family for their few-day visits to New York or wherever, it was as though she weren’t really there. In the years since John Henry’s illness Raphaella had increasingly withdrawn, until she was scarcely different from John Henry. Her life seemed as much over as his. The only difference was that hers had never really begun. It was only in Santa Eugenia that she seemed to come alive again, with a child on her lap, and another teetering on her knees, three or four more clustered around, as she told them wonderful tales that kept them staring at her in rapture and awe. It was with the children that she forgot the pain of what had happened, and her own loneliness, and her overwhelming sense of loss. With the grown-ups she was always reticent and quiet, asthough there were nothing left to say