Glittering Promises

by Lisa T. Bergren

  “Pastry?”

  “Please,” I said, and he immediately slipped a croissant onto my small plate, using silver tongs.

  “Melon?”

  “No, thank you. This will be quite enough.”

  “As you wish,” he said, moving to the corner again and standing straight, with his hands at his side. I gave him a nervous glance. I hated that the servants were required to do such things—as if they were toy soldiers rather than living, breathing people who might be much more comfortable sitting or being in another room altogether. But I’d tried my hand at such suggestions—and usually neither my family nor the servants favored my ideas for change, looking at me as if I had every odd thought possible in my brain. It was as if they drew comfort from their routine, their understood roles and tasks and environments.

  I sipped at my hot coffee, mouthing the bitter brew, willing it to fully awaken me, prepare me for the day. I split open my pastry, admiring the flaky layers, even as I slid a bite into my mouth, letting it melt. Tall French doors lined the far wall on the other side of the breakfast table, and I watched as the morning sun moved across the highest windows in a palazzo across a swath of greenery. The sky was now a rosy peach, and again I longed to go out and see it without the barrier of a window. To stretch my legs, give my mind space, my heart room.

  I was eating the remainder of my croissant when Mr. Morgan arrived. I felt him pause at the doorway behind me, and instantly, without turning, I knew who had come.

  “Good morning, Cora,” he said, entering the room.

  “Mr. Morgan,” I returned.

  “You’ve risen early.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I see.” He went to the end of the table, to my direct right, and sat down. The footman immediately poured him coffee, unasked. Mr. Morgan asked for a soft-boiled egg and reached for the morning paper, which was sitting at the corner, neatly folded. La Repubblica. I sucked in a quick breath. While I knew Mr. Morgan spoke little Italian, I didn’t doubt he’d page through the whole thing. Everywhere we’d been, he and my father had read every paper they could put their hands on, just as Andrew had with the French paper yesterday.

  But not every paper had an editor who had hosted the party we’d attended last night. A party also attended by almost every reporter in Italy and beyond.

  Nervously, I sipped my coffee, taking too big a gulp as he unfolded the paper and snapped it flat, reading the front page. On the back, from top to bottom, were several pictures surrounded by three columns of copy. One was of Pierre, shaking hands and posing with some Italian businessman. Another was of me and Vivian pausing before an archway in the Forum.

  I struggled to swallow the hot brew as he lowered the paper and frowned at me. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Fine,” I choked out, nodding hurriedly.

  I couldn’t stand it. “Mr. Morgan,” I said before I’d even thought it through. “Would you fancy a morning walk?” I nodded toward the windows, the morning sun illuminating the day with a golden glow.

  “Right now?” he said, frowning.

  “If you’d rather not…”

  “No! No, I’d be delighted to take a morning constitutional. Perhaps a turn around the park below?”

  “Yes,” I said hurriedly, nodding. “I’d like that.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “I like to see how this city awakes,” I added. “Will says that if you see how a city awakes, and how she closes down for the night, you get a good sense of her personality.” Will… Never had he felt more distant, even while he was likely in this very building.

  He stared at me a moment. “Indeed.” He folded the paper again, never reaching the end, and dug into his soft-boiled egg. He cracked it open, then scooped into its soft center, rapidly reaching the bottom. The newspaper sat to one side of him, forgotten. I dared to take a breath as he swallowed his last bite. Would he pick it up again? He wiped his mouth with his cloth napkin and then finished his cup of coffee. “Well, shall we be about it then?” He didn’t wait for an answer but merely shoved back his chair, rose, and came to assist me with my chair.

  I hurriedly finished my coffee, wiped my mouth, and then rose, tentatively taking his arm. I’d wanted to distract him, as well as get out into the Roman morning. But now that I’d succeeded at both, I wondered what we’d talk about. In all our days together, never had we been alone for any length of time. He was my father’s closest friend, but he was so terribly quiet, I doubted I’d heard him speak more than three sentences at a time.

  He motioned to the footman and then waited for him to bend close to him, wishing to speak in private. After a word, he offered me his arm and led me outward. By the time we reached the front door, his directions had apparently reached a detective, because we were joined by the tall, broad-shouldered Pascal, who opened the door for us, then followed us by a few paces.

  “Which way, my dear?” Mr. Morgan asked, gesturing down the thoroughfare beside the palazzo.

  I nodded to the left, knowing there were several shops and coffee bars along the way. We walked half a block in silence, finding our pace together. We passed a coffee bar where several locals stood at the front, swallowing tiny cups of espresso, talking with their friends and neighbors. “Will would want us to step in there,” I said. “Experience Roman dawn as the Romans do.”

  Mr. Morgan smiled, even as a shadow of sorrow covered his face. He nodded. “The McCabes are good guides. I rather miss old Stuart, don’t you?”

  “I do. But I think Will has done a fine job, assuming his responsibilities.” Will…

  “Indeed.” He walked a few paces. “I thought Stuart and Wallace were both strong enough in constitution to last another good decade.” He eyed me. “It must’ve been a terrible blow, losing Wallace when you were just getting to know him.”

  “In more ways than you could know,” I said tiredly. “We were at odds…constantly at odds. And I don’t think either of us wanted that.”

  He shook his head, agreeing with me.

  “And now there’s no way to fix it,” I said.

  We passed a florist just opening her shutters and depositing her pots of fresh flowers, as if they were organically spreading out onto the street. She bent and lifted a broken bloom from the ground, offering it to me with a toothless smile, and I accepted it with a grin, twirling the white daisy in my gloved hand, admiring the flash of gold at its center as we walked on. We passed a grocer setting out a table with hard cheeses in several varieties, two of them in huge wheels, the rest in chunks as big as my head. Then we passed a produce market with baskets of zucchini, onions, and apples.

  When we reached the corner, there was another coffee bar, and Mr. Morgan asked, lifting one silvering brow, “When in Rome?”

  I blinked in surprise and then nodded. We entered just as a young couple left, opening a space at the small counter. “Espresso,” Mr. Morgan said. “Due.” He lifted two fingers.

  “Due espresso arrivano subito,” said the young man behind the counter, winking at me when Mr. Morgan fished in his pockets for his wallet.

  I smiled and looked away.

  The coffee merchant set two small cups on the counter, without even a saucer, smiling again at me.

  “Watch yourself,” Mr. Morgan growled in warning, setting several lira on the counter. His tone conveyed what his lack of Italian could not.

  The young man, clearly stunned at the reprimand, took a step back, then turned toward others who laughed at him and called to him from deeper within, eyeing me and Mr. Morgan.

  I picked up my tiny white porcelain cup, hiding a smile. The protective, fatherly stance he was taking made me feel cared for.

  “I know just enough to keep the wolves at bay, my dear,” he said, giving me a wise smile. “A wise business practice, if I may say so.” He lifted his cup. “Salute.”

  “Salute,” I said, gearing up for what was to come. I took a tentative sip and nearly gagged on the hot, intense brew. It was incredibly strong, as
thick and dark as oil, and tasting the same as it slid down my throat.

  Mr. Morgan’s eyes grew wide, and he covered his lips with a gloved hand, staring at me in shock.

  “Perhaps that’s enough,” I said, willing my tongue to unfold from its pucker, “of what the Romans do?”

  He nodded and smiled, then took my arm and ushered me out. I was still smiling several steps later, and I thought it at once both odd and wondrous to be sharing such a moment with Mr. Morgan, in Rome of all places. There was a sense of shared adventure, camaraderie, that drew me and gave me hope that we might succeed, pursuing our shared enterprise together. And it was keeping me from having to deal with Will and the drama of last night. At least for a time…

  It’d be better for him to hear it from me than to discover it on his own, I recognized. I struggled with what to say.

  We turned the corner and moved down the block, back to the wide, green park that lined the back gates of the palazzos and buildings we’d passed. Once there, surrounded by green, the morning sky now bright, I took a deep breath and thought about what I wanted to say to Mr. Morgan. And what I didn’t.

  Grace, it came to me. Trust. Honor.

  Those were the things that I had missed in my relationship with Wallace Kensington, things that my heavenly Father offered to me in spades. Things we had never worked out. Had I wanted him to give me more than what was humanly possible?

  We strolled to the very center of the garden and then walked back toward our palazzo via the central avenue. Already the morning spoke of heat and dry. Densely planted azalea bushes flowered in a riot of purple and magenta near clumps of exotic-looking grasses taller than I could reach. Artfully placed benches were surrounded by specimens of an Italian horticulturist’s dreams. Above us was Roman pine after Roman pine, each like a massive umbrella spreading its cover forty feet above us despite the lack of rain.

  “So I gather you faced some difficulty last night,” Mr. Morgan said at last.

  I looked at him in surprise, wondering how he knew. He laughed softly under his breath, paused, and looked up at the trees, then straight to me. “After all this time, Cora, do you not know that fathers see everything?”

  I stared at him. Then, “No, not really.”

  He gestured to the nearest bench, and I reluctantly sat down. He sat too, carefully, as if his knees or hips bothered him. “I believe that you were so intent in standing against Wallace,” he said wearily, “that you might have missed that he was for you.”

  “For me?” I repeated. I shook my head. “It seemed as if he was standing against me at every turn.”

  “No, no,” Mr. Morgan said softly, looking up again to the trees. He lifted a gloved hand. “Well, yes, I can see how you’d think that. But never, never had I seen him consider anyone as he did you.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.” He lifted a gray brow again. “I know that he stood between you and Will, favoring Pierre, but it was only because he could see what was coming. How your world would so radically change, for good, not just for a season. And he truly thought Pierre would be a better partner for you.”

  “I know,” I said. And in that moment, I did. Father had done his best to control me, dictate my future, but at the heart of his actions, deep down, I had glimpsed a father’s heart, his concern.

  “And the manner in which he considered your suggestions at the mines… Well, that was unprecedented. It’s one thing for a man to accept a woman’s thoughts, but Wallace? Until you came along, he only listened to two others. Me. And the Lord God Almighty.” He still looked surprised over this, but then he shrugged. “He could see you had a smart head on those slim shoulders. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  I was silent a moment, absorbing this. “You said he listened to the Lord.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding.

  “He wrote to me of his faith, but I didn’t ever hear him talk about it.”

  “Well, like most gentlemen who don’t wear a clerical collar, he didn’t wish his faith to be overbearing.”

  Overbearing? From the outside, any faith the man had seemed a cursory thing, rather than something that was at the core of who he was. But Mr. Morgan was right. It wasn’t fashionable to wear one’s faith on one’s sleeve. Not in their circles.

  “He believed it was the godly thing to do, going to fetch you in Dunnigan. To try to make right what he had done wrong.”

  Done wrong. The words stung. And yet I knew what the man meant. “He gave me little choice in that fetching. Me or my folks.”

  Mr. Morgan turned partially my way. “And if he hadn’t? What would have become of you and yours, Cora? Was it not the hand of Providence that he came to you after Alan suffered his first spell?”

  “Are you equating Wallace with God?” I asked wryly.

  Mr. Morgan huffed a quiet laugh. “The Lord knows that Wallace did try, on occasion, to give Him a run for his money.”

  I sighed, and we both sat in silence for a bit, lost in our own thoughts.

  “Do you wish to tell me what transpired last night?” he asked. When I glanced at him in surprise, he gave me a small smile. “Young people do not rise at this hour unless they are suffering the ill effects of drink or a troubled mind.”

  “I was thinking about last night,” I admitted, crossing my ankles. Speaking of Andrew and Vivian hardly seemed appropriate. But there were other things on my mind too. “Will and I had…a falling out. And Pierre de Richelieu has arrived.”

  His brown eyes seemed to pierce mine, and I looked away. “I see.” I could sense neither victory nor empathy in his tone, just a simple acknowledgment.

  “I thought such news would make you happy.”

  “Happy?” He shook his head a little. “I have no desire to see you hurt, Cora. Nor did your father.”

  His kind tone left me feeling raw, vulnerable. Why couldn’t my father and I have gotten to this sort of conversation before he died? I was suddenly teary again, and I glanced warily about the park. I wasn’t ready to break down here, not where some reporter might be lurking, nor with Mr. Morgan. We weren’t close enough for such intimacies. “Shall we?” I asked, throat tight, my eyes blinking rapidly.

  He rose and offered me his arm. We walked side by side for a time in silence. “Cora, it will ease in time, your pain.”

  I stiffened but kept on walking. “What do you mean?”

  “With your father. I understand that things between you weren’t ever quite…resolved. But then, don’t you see that some things in life never are? Try as we might to place everything in its proper box, we must accept some things as they are and move on.”

  CHAPTER 26

  William

  When Mr. Morgan and Pascal walked in with Cora, Will looked up at them in surprise. He’d thought they were all still asleep. He pulled out his watch from Cora and looked at the time. “You all are up early,” he said. He hated the nervous tinge in his voice and had to make his eyes settle on Cora.

  She looked away.

  “We went for a lovely morning walk,” Mr. Morgan said. “Nothing like a stretch of the legs and a nice conversation to begin the day right,” he said, smiling at Cora.

  She gave him a tense smile and then nodded, as if excusing herself. “Thank you, Mr. Morgan.” She turned to leave.

  “We’re gathering at eleven to go to the Coliseum,” Will called.

  “I won’t be able to go with you,” she said, glancing his way. “Regrettably, I have other things to attend to. It looks like a lovely day. Enjoy it.”

  She disappeared around the corner, and Will wiped his mouth with a napkin and hurried after her. He caught up with her just before she reached her room. The hallway was empty.

  “Cora.”

  She paused at her door and bent her head, as if the sound of her name on his tongue hurt her.

  He drew closer. “Cora,” he said miserably. “We need to talk.”

  “Do we?” she asked, looking up at him with such pain in her eyes that
it made him want to weep.

  “It was only a dance,” he said quietly. “One dance.”

  “Was it?”

  They shared a long look. Defense and anger shot through him. “I would have been dancing with you,” he said stiffly. “If you had not been…entertaining Pierre.”

  She took a deep breath, as if keeping herself from saying something she’d regret. “I was merely saying hello. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “No?” he said, his anger now quickening his pulse. He put a hand on her doorjamb and leaned closer. “Lexington showed me something of interest too. A drawing. Of you and Pierre. In a garden. In a rather…intimate scene. Any idea where he got that?”

  She looked up at him in surprise. “What?”

  “A drawing. Of you and Pierre,” he repeated, so close now that he could see the tiny beads of sweat on her forehead and upper lip, making him fear the worst. “Is it a scene of you two from somewhere here in Rome? Did you have an artist sketch it to remember some romantic moment?”

  “Where…where did he get that?” Her expression turned from confusion to anger.

  “So you admit it. It’s yours?”

  Cora shook her head. “It was mine, once. A gift from Pierre earlier in the summer. But Will, he sketched me, on a bench alone, and added himself later. It was what he wanted to be. Not what truly was.”

  “And yet you kept it.”

  She stared at him, aghast, her wide blue eyes searching his. “Will,” she said, turning fully toward him. “What is happening to us?” She reached out and took his hand. “How have we become lost in…these jealousies?”

  He stared back at her, his emotions warring within him. Part of him wanted to fight against his fears, his twisted visions of Cora with Pierre. Part of him wanted to press further, make her admit it. Admit that she still had feelings for Pierre. That she was going to leave him. Leave him as his parents had left him. Show him that risking his heart only would leave him vulnerable to the worst kind of hurt…