Marco stared at her. “Do you think so?”
“I know so. Seen it lots of times. You don’t make friends by heaping them with material things. I know your family’s intentions were good, but the grateful orphan only exists in novels.”
“You’ve a hard heart.”
“No, just a practical one.” She touched his hand. “But I also understand how it hurts when someone is ungrateful.”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. “Are you speaking from experience?”
Some of the juice from the grapes had clung to her hands and he placed each finger in his mouth, sucking the sweetness. She tried to ignore the desire tugging at her and gently withdrew her fingers.
“Yes. I know someone just like that.” She pulled a cover around her. “They leave poison behind them.”
He looked at her. The weight of his unspoken question hung between them. He reached up and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “After all we’ve shared, I would like you to tell me who hurt you,” he said, his husky voice betraying the depth of his feeling. “We’ll have no chance together unless we’re honest with each other.”
He was right. This was the moment of truth. She had known in her heart that it would come as soon as he’d said, “I love you”. This was the revelation she had thought she might not have to make if she had been able to leave tomorrow with no questions. The last few days were not a case of “Thank you for a wonderful experience Signor Marco. If ever you’re in England look me up.” This hadn’t been a simple fling, nights and days of wonderful sex. Oh, the sex had been extraordinary, but there was more. They both knew they were on the brink of something life-changing, and the realization had already dawned that she’d moved too close to the edge to avoid disaster.
She would have liked him to believe she had no past, that she had come to him like Venus rising from the waves, all pure and unsullied. On the other hand, he knew for a fact she wasn’t a virgin, must have understood that there had been lovers.
She took a deep breath.
“When I was eighteen I was in love. You have to understand that where I come from a girl’s whole life is a preamble to getting married to the right man, living in the right house, and in the right county, like something out of a Jane Austen novel. He was a poor relation, but we’d grown up together, and he’d been treated like a son. Daddy liked him. I thought I loved him.
“A huge wedding was planned, my grandmother’s tiara came out of the vault for a clean and a polish, the invitations were ready. I was to wear my mother’s lace veil.” She swallowed, blinking back tears that she still couldn’t hold back. “Then he ditched me. Wrote me a twenty word note and took off for some job in India, left the country. He didn’t even have the guts to tell me to my face. I still don’t know if he planned it or if was an unconscious revolt against everything my family stood for, but I was devastated. Imagine the humiliation-eighteen years old and jilted by someone I’d known forever. I vowed I’d never put myself in that position again. I swore I would marry if and when I had to, but only to secure my inheritance, never for love. Love makes you too vulnerable.”
Marco handed her some more wine and she took a deep draught. He made as if to speak but she held up a hand. “No, let me finish. Almost out of revenge, I set out to break hearts. I was what is known as a ‘goer’. If there was a riotous party I’d be there. I was choosy about my partners, but there were more than I care to admit. Men fell for me, declared their love, but I soon tired of them. When it was finished I never answered their letters or their pleading. I enjoyed the power. I associated with people who didn’t want any commitment and I found myself turning from a jilted, eighteen-year-old deb with a broken heart into a worldly wise woman of twenty-seven.”
She continued to look down, not daring to lift her eyes to see his reaction.
“Is that how you thought of me? An instrument of revenge?” His voice seemed to come from far away.
“Oh God, no! You were so different.” She felt his fingers on her face, wiping away the tears. He gathered her into his arms and rocked her as she cried.
“Now you can take back what you said,” she murmured against his chest. “I understand if you want nothing more to do with me.”
“Cara, bellissima,” he whispered. “I don’t care what men you’ve tortured in the past. Just tell me it’s over.”
“Yes, it’s over. It’s been over for a while, until I met you.” She lifted her face for his kiss.
Soon after, Marco snuffed the candles and lay beside her in the big, soft bed. The sweetly scented night air wafted in through the open windows, stirring the pale curtains.
They lay quietly for a while, with his arms around her. And then he found her mouth and kissed her, not just with his lips but with his whole being, surrounding her and engulfing her in a consuming embrace. She resisted the call of his body for no more than a heartbeat before pressing herself against him and returning his kiss with all the heat and depth of feeling that she knew now had been missing from her life.
Somewhere in the distance frogs croaked and a dog barked. Emma drifted to sleep in Marco’s arms.
The next morning, Marco found her some clothes and a strong walking stick, and she hobbled downstairs to an early breakfast. As soon as she had finished, he brought a couple of horses and they rode into the nearest village. It seemed as if every inhabitant was outside, going about some urgent business. She supposed they were catching up on their lives, bringing back old habits and order after the long interruption.
There was one telephone in the village and it was working. She breathed a sigh of relief as the operator motioned her to pick up the receiver.
“How will I pay for this?” she whispered to Marco as she waited for the connection.
“I’ll pay.”
The static on the line surged and crackled and she closed her eyes, willing the call to go through. It was ten o’clock and her father would have finished his paperwork for the estate, ready for a cup of coffee before he began his rounds.
Suddenly the line cleared, and she heard the voice of the butler.
“Matthews? Is that you? Let me speak to my father. Yes, yes, it’s me, Lady Emma.” She should have thought more carefully about how she would introduce herself. Poor Matthews had sounded as if he’d heard a ghost, which he had, in a way.
At home the telephone was in a poky little cubbyhole under the stairs because her father refused to have it in his office and she waited, tapping her foot, until she heard her father’s steps echoing on the flagstones of the big hall.
“Who is this?” He sounded angry, upset. “Is this some kind of joke?’
“Daddy? Daddy, it’s me, Emma. I’m alive…Yes, really…no, I’m not hurt. It was Catherine, my maid…” Through the blur of her tears she saw Marco move to stand a short distance away, giving her some privacy.
It took three days for money to come through in a wire, and for the British Ambassador in Rome to issue her travel documents. During the three days, Marco took her around the estate, letting her meet his workers, explaining the techniques of wine making, storing and shipping. She’d always had a good head for the business side of things and enjoyed comparing how things were done here with the traditions of her father’s estates.
They found the owner of the dog. Mickey’s real name turned out to be Grande, unoriginal but eloquent. His owner had been in the caves with Marco. They figured the dog must have seen Emma and recognized her when he found her trying to climb the slope. He’d learned the trick with his tail with small children.