Glittering Promises

by Lisa T. Bergren

  The next morning, Will moved down the tiled outdoor hallway toward the main house, admiring the ancient fat timbers that crossed above, layered in vines. The Masoni villa was small but quintessentially Tuscan, and their hostess had put Will and Antonio in a separate small cottage, just off the southern corner of the larger, two-story villa. He thought it entirely satisfactory—and this brief respite, without any of his charges in view for once, even more so. Especially Cora. They needed some…time. Separation. Or at least he did.

  Will put his hands on his hips and took in a deep breath, looking toward the morning sky, peach-hued and full of the promise of a warm day. “Thank You, Lord,” he said.

  A hat-covered head popped up from the other side of a four-foot hedge. Signora Masoni. She flashed him a smile, her eyes curious as she looked around. “To whom do you speak, Signore McCabe?”

  “Ahh,” Will said, feeling a flush of embarrassment. “To God, actually.”

  She gave him a confused, amused smile. “And do you often speak to God, Signore—Mister McCabe?”

  “As often as possible,” he returned, locking his hands behind his back. “And in retrospect, not nearly enough on this tour.”

  She rose, and he saw she’d been cutting sprigs of lavender and laying them in a broad, flat basket hooked over her arm. With the morning sun behind her on the horizon, warming the entire landscape with an ethereal, golden light, she looked more than a bit like an Italian angel.

  “I’m surprised you look as rested as you do, Mr. McCabe,” she said.

  When he hesitated, caught, she said with a smile, “Oh, yes. I know that you prowled the grounds last night.” She came around the hedge of lavender and laid a featherlight hand on his arm, so quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it. She peeked up at him from under the brim of her hat. “I think it charming, Mr. McCabe. Most charming. You take good care of your tour group. Or is it Miss Cora that you worry most about?”

  He studied her. Clearly she missed nothing. “I am concerned about the well-being of all my charges. And the first night in a new place…” He paused and shook his head. “Well, that never is my best night of slumber.”

  “They are fortunate to have you as their guide,” she said, moving around him to his right shoulder and looking out to the valley with him.

  “It is I who am fortunate to lead them,” he said, “for I get to see lovely country like this and stay with kind hostesses like you.”

  She smiled and then paused to look out over a short wall. He stood beside her. The villa was situated on the crest of one of the highest hills around, affording a magnificent view for miles. The valley stretched before them. To the left was a massive olive grove that extended down and then up and over the next hill. To their right was a vineyard that covered five of the nearest hills in tidy rows of gnarled vines. “You have a sizable vineyard.”

  “Bigger each year is our goal,” she said. “There are restaurants in Roma that only serve our wine.”

  “Truly?” Will said, crossing his arms and gazing down at the vineyards with renewed interest. “That is impressive. Most of the Toscana vintners I know only cultivate for their own tables.”

  “Well, that is a side benefit,” she said, smiling again and giving him a wink. She turned to go and then glanced back at him. “Please find me at once if your people need anything at all.”

  “Thank you, Signora. You are most gracious.”

  “Please, call me Eleonora.”

  “Gladly. But only if you call me Will.”

  She placed a delicate hand at her neck and gave him a coy smile. “Will,” she repeated with a slight v to her pronunciation. “Have a lovely morning, Will.”

  His eyes narrowed, even as he put a hand to his chest and gave her a slight bow. “Grazie mille, Eleonora,” he said, then waited for her to turn and leave him, as was proper. When she finally did, he walked back down the stone path to his small villa, needing to get his thoughts in order before he faced the group.

  Especially Cora. His eyes cut guiltily to Eleonora’s back, almost inside now, then back to the path. What was that moment of attraction he’d felt? The easy connection to the young widow? In all of his years as an adult, that had only happened to him perhaps four or five times. One was Cora. And now…Eleonora as well? That could rapidly complicate things.

  Antonio was outside on the small flat patio, arms crossed, admiring the morning sun. He looked to the right at Will as he came around the corner of the stone building. “Ahh, buon giorno, my friend. I’d be questioning your morals if I didn’t know you’d returned to your bed off and on all night.” He gave Will a sly smile.

  “Come now,” Will said, standing beside him, crossing his arms too. He knew Antonio assumed that he’d been romancing Cora. He hadn’t told him what had transpired in Firenze. “You know very well how I must settle into a new place. No wine and long conversations for me.”

  Antonio clapped him on the shoulder. He looked out over the valley. “This is a good place, far from anywhere that Nathan Hawke might look for us.”

  “Indeed. With luck, we’ll avoid him and any reporters in the hill towns, too.”

  Antonio eyed him again from the side. “And what of our hostess? Was she truly drawn in by our generous, thoughtful Miss Cora, or by her handsome guides?” He ran his hands down the lapels of his jacket.

  Will smiled. “Perhaps both,” he admitted. “You saw us up there in the walkway?”

  Antonio gave him a smile in return. “I saw her cutting quite a bit of lavender for quite a long time. Almost as if she was waiting for you to pass by.”

  Will scowled at him. “You imagine things, Antonio.”

  “Si, si,” said his friend, slowly, pretending to agree. “I am an old man, given to fanciful ideas.”

  Wallace

  After a brief reunion with the children, Wallace Kensington settled heavily into his chair beside Sam Morgan, who was smoking a cigar on the veranda of Villa Masoni, overlooking the valley. “Mighty far piece from Montana, aren’t we, Morgan?”

  The man nodded, took a deep drag on his cigar and then slowly blew it out. “Must we really follow the children along this tour? They seem safe enough, especially here in Tuscany. Business is piling up… It’d be advantageous for us to go to Rome straightaway. Look what we got done today. They could rejoin us there.”

  “I need to stay with them,” Wallace said. “If you are so inclined, don’t let me hold you back. We can go to the city as needed to keep things from the edge of disaster, but I…” He shook his head. “No, I need to stay nearby, even if you need to go.”

  “It’s probably best,” his old business partner said, waving in the air with his cigar. “I expect Andrew and Vivian will have good news for us any day now. If I wasn’t here to witness it, Mary would have my hide.”

  “I expect she would,” Wallace said with a humorless laugh.

  The two sat in silence for a while. “Tell me the truth, Wallace,” Morgan said, taking a slow look around to make certain they were alone. “Have you seen enough to believe that Cora has what it takes to run the Kensington-Diehl Mine?”

  “She will,” Wallace said, bending forward to cup his hand around a match and drag deeply on his own freshly cut cigar. He took a couple of puffs to make certain it was well lit and then settled back in the chair. “I’ll make sure she’s the most successful woman in America.”

  But even he could hear the sigh in his own tone.

  “And are you hoping,” Morgan said, taking a drag and then letting it out slowly, “that in filling her life with newfound duties, she’ll turn away from young McCabe?”

  Wallace gave him a sharp look and then gazed out to the valley again. “Let the chips fall where they may—that’s what I say.”

  “Those chips might well cost you your daughter.” Morgan paused and returned Wallace’s frown. “Now hear me out. If you let this go…if it doesn’t turn out as you wish, it will haunt you for the remaining years of your life. And as your friend, I’d hate
to see you suffer through that.”

  Wallace let out a dismissive sound. “You make me out like a pussyfooted, tender old man, Morgan. You know me better than that.”

  “Exactly,” said his oldest friend, settling back in his chair and gazing outward. Wallace knew that he wouldn’t say more. It was precisely what he liked about Morgan. He was a man of few words, and yet when he chose to speak, each syllable was full of wisdom.

  The man’s sons had fallen about as far from the tree as possible. Perhaps it had to do with being raised as sons of wealth, but they neither appeared nor acted anything like their father—with his steady grace, his kindness. And yet it was good that Andrew was so strong and forthright, given Vivian’s stubborn spirit. While the two had been at odds of late, friction was bound to happen. In time, such friction created well-worn grooves, helping a couple fit together better. Hadn’t it happened in his own marriage?

  His mind cascaded back to those heady first days when wealth, true wealth, settled in and about him. They’d been in the house for five years, had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank, business was booming, and he and Georgina were still in that filing stage, working on their grooves, until one hardship seemed so nearly impossible to get past that they avoided each other for months.

  And then Alma had come to work at the house.

  Kind and sweet, direct in her gaze and yet respectful, she seemed to see through him from the first day onward. In her eyes, he felt known. Understood. Appreciated as a man. The very smell of her when she entered a room seemed to draw him, call him.

  What was worse, she seemed equally drawn to him.

  He ignored it for weeks, months. But after one particularly hateful argument with his wife, he’d gone to his library and settled into the chair to drink himself into oblivion. A footman came in at sunset to light a fire in the hearth, stacking the logs high as Wallace favored. And long after his bottle was empty and the fire had burned down to glowing embers, Alma came in to put away some borrowed tomes. He watched her, so intent that he lifted an empty crystal glass to his lips like an old drunkard, before he realized he’d long-since enjoyed his last sip. She didn’t see him at first, sitting in his leather chair in the corner’s shadows, and he watched her for a long, lovely minute as she quickly and efficiently shelved the books in just the right spots.

  She was clearly as intelligent as she was pretty.

  When she finally saw him, she was nearly beside him. She gasped and put a hand to her throat, then quickly bobbed a curtsy and took a respectful step backward. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Kensington. I would’ve waited had I known you were here.”

  She stepped away, intent on escape, but Wallace leaned forward and grasped her hand. “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, covering her hand with a more gentle touch. “How I’ve longed for but a moment with you.”

  “Mr. Kensington,” she’d said, pulling her hand away and shaking her head. Poor dear, she’d trembled. And he’d been a lout, pursuing her as he had. But in months, she was his. And gradually she loved him as he so desperately loved her. In many ways, she was far better suited to him than his wife had ever been. It was tortuous, knowing he loved her but could not keep her, especially when she became pregnant… It had never been fair to her. And then it had not been fair to Cora. He’d been a cad. But he’d done his best to do right by them…

  Wallace blew out a thick cloud of smoke and rubbed his temples. It would have been best to do what he knew was right from the get-go. To honor his vows to his wife. To steer clear of the winsome housemaid with the direct gaze, a look in the eyes like he had not enjoyed since his days of building his fortune… But he hadn’t had the strength to do it. He’d been weak, in the end. And for his weakness, everyone had paid a steep price. Alma. Georgina. Cora.

  Before the day he sent Alma off on the train with Alan, he’d never known the meaning of a broken heart. Ever after, he had. And now, with Cora so near, and yet still not trusting him, there were echoes of that sorrow radiating through his chest. It was different now, as an old man. It was not a lover’s love, but a far more melancholic tenderness, a father’s fear that a beloved child might slip away.

  “You are deep in thought,” Morgan grunted.

  “That I am,” Wallace said, taking another drag on his cigar. “That I am.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Cora

  “So, tell me, my friend,” Eleonora Masoni said, sitting down beside me, “how you find our Italia.”

  “I find it lovely,” I said before sipping from my sweating glass of water as she poured her own. After enduring a couple of hours of mind-numbing instruction with my father about the nuances of hydraulic drills, I’d finally escaped to sit under a wide umbrella, shaded from the hot afternoon sun. Most of the rest of the group was out enjoying a game of badminton. Only Vivian was absent, claiming a headache after breakfast and returning to her room. “Of all the countries I’ve seen along our tour, I must confess that Italia keeps delighting me at every turn.”

  “It is a fine country to call home,” Signora Masoni said with a smile.

  I let my eyes slide to Will as he hit the birdie and felt Signora Masoni’s gaze follow mine. “You’ve done a lovely job with your estate, Signora. I am impressed with how hard you work. I saw you out in the vineyard again this morning.”

  She gave me a casual shrug. “Please. Call me Eleonora. And I enjoy it. It’s far better than staying inside and seeing to accounting and whatnot,” she said, leaning forward on the table and gesturing with her chin to the main room, where she’d seen me and my father huddled over paperwork.

  “Would it surprise you to know that I once worked long hours in my own fields, back in Montana?” I asked gently.

  She sipped from her glass and studied me with her big brown eyes. Then she smiled, and her eyes lit up with recognition. “How could I have not known it?” she asked, smacking her forehead and then gesturing widely to me, then over to the group. “You…you are the grand tourists our papers follow! How could I have not known you from the start?”

  “Indeed,” I said, heaving a sigh. I’d hoped only to speak of a shared history, not my newest history.

  Excitement lit Eleonora’s eyes, and her hands moved to a staccato tempo now. “All my country… Ahh, Signorina Kensington—”

  “Cora, please.”

  “Cora, all my country speaks of you! And the awful man who tried to get you in Venezia!” She shook her head and frowned. I could see her bright eyes piecing together the facts. “Is this why the papers have been silent about your progress of late? Why your Will has brought you to the countryside? To be safe?”

  “That is one reason, yes. And why we are so grateful for your hospitality.”

  “It is my honor to be your lowborn hostess,” she said, resting a hand on her bosom. She gave me a conspiratorial grin. “Imagine me running across you in Turino! It was meant to be, our friendship.”

  I smiled and let her shock fade a bit. “But I was going to tell you, Eleonora… I grew up working in the fields in Montana. It was hard work but good work. Honest work.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, studying me now as if I were a puzzle to figure out. “There is something about cultivating the land, coaxing it, wooing it to give you what you want, that is most satisfactory.”

  “Agreed,” I said, looking out. “And on land like this…you get to see it season after season.” It was my turn to shake my head. “I’m afraid my father’s land was not so bountiful.”

  She frowned in confusion. “Did you try grapes?”

  “Grapes? No, it is not the right land for grapes.”

  Her eyes lit up. “But it was! Bountiful, no? Not on the top, perhaps,” she said, putting her hand out like a plank, then sliding another beneath. “But down below.” She cocked an eyebrow and nodded, waiting for me to see.

  I smiled. She was right, of course. The acres surrounding Dunnigan were going to produce a crop beyond anything any farmer had ever imagined. But hefting it from the d
epths was different than watching it sprout and grow and mature. It just…was.

  “Sometimes,” she said softly, “God answers our prayers in ways we did not expect. But it still is an answer to your father’s prayer, and your father’s father’s, yes?”

  My eyes met hers. “Yes,” I said.

  “There is much land here, Cora,” she said, taking a sip and waving outward, “if that is what you miss. You are an heiress!” She splayed her fingers. “You can purchase what you want and play the farmer all you wish, and all will be well, yes?”

  Her eyes slid to the group playing badminton out on the lawn. To Will. “So, my friend,” she said leaning toward me to whisper, “are the stories true? Did your handsome Will steal your heart from that French nobleman? And did you truly never know you were a Kensington until this summer?”

  My head started to slowly throb. I wondered for a moment if I’d caught Vivian’s headache. Eleonora’s smile faded. “I am sorry. Forgive me. I pry. And I know that is not the American way.” She made a little movement to indicate a lock and key on her pretty lips.

  “It is all right.” I gave her a little shrug of my shoulders. “It is natural to wonder, after all that’s been written… And you’re right. We Americans like to hold our secrets close,” I said, touching my chest.

  “But you long to share them just as we Italians do, do you not?” she asked. “It is much better to share what is on your heart. Otherwise, it grows heavy, so full is it.” She settled back in her chair and sipped from her glass, as if she were ready for me to tell all and yet cared not if I said a word. As if she was opening the door if I wished to walk through it. And suddenly I wanted to.

  For some reason I didn’t want to discuss Will with her. At all. But I longed to talk over what was happening between my father and me. I glanced over my shoulder to make certain we were still alone on the veranda. “You saw us working together, inside. But Father and I are like…oil and water.”