Making no bones about it, she examined Stephanie from head to toe. All at once dismally conscious of the grains of sand in her hair, the damp aftermath of lovemaking and—dear heaven, the scent of passion, of sex!—clinging to her skin, Stephanie almost cringed under that penetrating inspection.
“Finalmente, you are here!” Matteo’s mother exclaimed, reaching up to kiss him, then stepping aside to allow his grandmother to fold him in a long, exuberant hug.
He accepted it all with good grace before disentangling himself and, placing his arm around Stephanie’s waist, drew her into their tight little circle of affection. “Madre, Nonna, posso presentami Stephanie Leyland-Owen? Stephanie, this is my mother, Signora De Luca, and my grandmother, Signora Berlusconi.”
His mother raised her hands—both with a full complement of fingers flawlessly manicured, Stephanie noticed—framed Stephanie’s face, and kissed her on each cheek. “We are very delighted to welcome you to our home,” she cooed warmly, in accented but perfect English. “Are we not, Madre?”
“Sì,” the spritely grandmother agreed, kissing Stephanie also. Though slightly wrinkled with age and from many summers of hot Tuscan sunshine, her face bore not a trace of a mustache, and although her black eyes snapped with lively interest, they showed no inclination to cast evil on anyone. If anything, the lines fanning from their corners indicated she’d done a lot of laughing in her time. “And you will call me Nonna. Signora Berlusconi is a full mouth, is it not?”
“You mean, a mouthful, Nonna,” Matteo said, playing the jovial innocent to the hilt. “You have to be careful what you say to Stephanie. She might misunderstand and jump to all the wrong conclusions.”
I will throttle him, the first chance I get! Stephanie promised herself, shooting him a malignant glare.
He answered with a disarming grin, and grasped the foil-covered neck of a bottle of wine cooling in the silver ice bucket on a nearby library table. “Champagne, everyone?”
“But of course!” Ushering her mother and guest to the couches, Signora De Luca sat down next to Stephanie. “We must make the most of this evening to get to know one another, cara,” she confided. “I fear it’s the only time we’ll have you to ourselves. Others in our family are anxious to meet you and will be arriving tomorrow.”
Matteo scowled. “Not all the cousins, I hope!” he said, serving the wine in wafer thin champagne flutes delicately etched with what Stephanie suspected was the family coat of arms. “I want to show Stephanie around, not show her off.”
“You will have time,” his mother promised. “We have arranged a small dinner party for tomorrow night, and a simple luncheon for Sunday, that is all. I will entertain the rest of the family while you take Stephanie on a tour of our countryside.”
But words like “small” and “simple” took on quite a different meaning in that opulently elegant world, Stephanie soon realized. When she was shown to her bedroom in the east wing, to freshen up before dinner, it turned out to be a suite with an adjoining sitting room, and a private bathroom so luxurious that she’d have been happy to spend the entire evening soaking in the deep, marble tub, instead of settling for a quick scrub in the glass-enclosed shower stall. The furnishings throughout, from the delicate four-poster bed hung with silk, to the carved writing desk and charming little slipper chair, were fit for a princess.
Dinner for four involved six courses, prepared by the resident cook and presented by the butler Emmanuel. It meant fine Tuscan wines served in cut crystal stemware, heavy sterling silver, monogrammed hand-stitched linens, and gorgeous antique china rimmed in royal blue and bearing the family crest in twenty-four carat gold. It meant Matteo put on a dark suit with a starched white shirt and silk tie, and his mother and grandmother changed into dinner dresses and wore diamonds.
Thank heavens he’d forewarned her to bring something dressy for the evenings, Stephanie thought, unobtrusively tugging her ivory beaded top over the waist of her long black taffeta skirt. He’d already set her at enough of a disadvantage with his high jinks. She’d never have forgiven him if he’d let her walk any more unprepared into his home than he already had.
And yet, she was forced to admit later, when the evening was over and she was at last free to soak up to her neck in scented water in her wonderful marble tub, wasn’t it just as much her fault that he’d managed to bamboozle her so thoroughly? That she’d been hoodwinked at nineteen was, perhaps excusable. But to be so easily duped at twenty-nine?
Hardly! The evidence that he was much more than she’d supposed he was had been there from the outset, if only she’d cared to recognize it.
The way he conducted himself—his self-possession and sophistication, not to mention his membership in an obviously exclusive supper club on Ischia, and his relationship with Corinna who, by her own admission, regarded him not only as a friend of long-standing, but also as a social equal—all pointed to a man of privileged upbringing. Reduced to its most crass level, Matteo De Luca’s claim to gentility far exceeded anything Stephanie’s father and brother aspired to, and rendered her little more than a superficial fool.
Groaning, she slid down in the tub until she was fully submerged. She had never been so mortified in her life. And the worst was yet to come because she still had to tell him about Simon. How much sympathetic understanding had she a right to expect, given her own lack of sensitivity?
It was a question which hounded her mercilessly throughout Friday and most of Saturday. It spoiled the pleasure she’d have taken in learning the history of the villa, which had been designed by the famous sixteenth century architect Andrea Palladio. She was barely able to drum up a word of appreciation for the Veronese frescoes decorating the interior of the residence, or the marble statuary scattered throughout the formal gardens.
By the time she was shown the beautiful little private chapel behind the main house, “where our matrimonios take place, and our bambinos are baptized,” Nonna informed her with a sly wink, Stephanie was hard-pressed to contain her wretchedness. There were, she learned, many churches worldwide, endowed with altars and statues created from marble hewn from De Luca and Berlusconi quarries in Carrara. But none, she was sure, were as exquisitely depicted as the altar and touchingly serene figure of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus, that graced the Villa Valenti’s cappella.
How differently might her and Matteo’s lives have played out, had they both been more open with each other from the beginning; if she’d told him she was pregnant and he’d admitted that he cared! Simon might then have been born into this close-knit, loving family, instead of one torn apart by silly pretension.
There would have been no running away, no disastrous marriage to Charles, no deception, no shame. Even at nineteen, and after years of being the dutiful, obedient daughter, with Matteo by her side she’d have found the strength to stand up to her overbearing father. Been able to dismiss Victor’s mocking scorn for what it truly was: totally irrelevant to anything of importance in her life.
She could have provided stauncher support for her long-suffering mother. Caused her grandparents less worry. Because they had always known she harbored a deep unhappiness. They just hadn’t known why.
Instead, she had caved in to pressure, and now faced the daunting task of admitting openly how much she had stolen from Matteo, his family, and from Simon himself.
They had missed his babyhood—his first smile, his first tooth, his first step. Missed his first stage appearance, as a toadstool in his preschool’s Easter play. Missed his first piano recital, when he’d been so delighted with the applause following his performance that he’d played Jingle Bells three more times before his teacher had persuaded him enough was enough.
They hadn’t been there when he’d scored his first soccer goal, or shot his first basketball three-pointer. They hadn’t shared the magic of his first Christmas. They had no idea he hated peanut butter and loved calamari. Or that she’d given him the middle name of Matthew in honor of his biological father.
/> They knew nothing about him, nor he about them, and it was all her fault.
“You look sad, cara,” Matteo’s mother remarked, cornering her during the cocktail hour on Saturday evening. She inclined her head to the mob of relatives chattering noisily on the terrace. “We are too much to take in all at once, is that it?”
They were, but not in the way Signora De Luca supposed. It might have helped if they’d been so immersed in visiting one another that they had no time for the foreigner in their midst! But they’d welcomed her without a moment’s hesitation, and their warm generosity of spirit did nothing to soothe the raw hurt festering inside her. Rather, such undeserved acceptance added to Stephanie’s already onerous burden of guilt.
Somehow she managed to control her quivering chin. This woman’s gentle compassion was hard to take, when it might well turn to disgust before the weekend was out. “I was thinking about my son,” she said.
“Simon, isn’t it? Matteo speaks very fondly of him. You miss your little boy?”
“Oh, Signora De Luca!” Stephanie fought the lump in her throat and blinked rapidly. “I wish that’s all there was to it.”
“You worry that, if you pursue a relationship with my son, he might not accept yours?” Matteo’s mother touched her arm kindly. “Don’t concern yourself about that, Stephanie. Matteo will be a very good father to your boy, and we will take him to our hearts, just as we’ve taken you.”
“I’m afraid,” she quavered, perilously close to breaking down, “you might not feel the same if you knew….”
“Knew what, cara mia?”
“About Simon—about who his real father is!” Stephanie cried, the whole guilty weight of her secret becoming more than she could bear a second longer.
Matteo’s mother glanced out to the terrace, seemed satisfied that her guests were managing very well without her, and quickly led Stephanie from the salon and down the hall to the library. Once there, she pressed her into a chair, poured her an inch of brandy from the decanter on the desk, and waited until she’d downed it, before saying, “Then Simon is not your late husband’s son?”
Oozing shame from every pore, Stephanie cast down her eyes and shook her head. “No.”
“And Matteo does not know this?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Her voice sank until it was barely audible. “Because I’m afraid to tell him…who is.”
The following silence swelled until she thought she would suffocate on it. It stretched and swirled around her, thick and heavy, robbing her of the ability to breathe. The blood pounded in her head. Her heart bounced erratically behind her ribs. Perspiration prickled down her spine and left her hands damp.
At last, Signora De Luca asked, “Is it Matteo, Stephanie?”
A sob burst from her lips—a great, ugly wrenching sound that tore her apart. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t need to. Matteo’s mother knew, without her having to say a word.
“Per carita!” she exclaimed in soft wonder. “After all these years of praying for just such a gift, God has given me a grandson.”
She walked to the window. Stared out at the moon rising above the cypresses. At the hills etched clear against the night sky. At length she said, “Are you ever going to share this with Matteo?”
“Yes. I planned to tell him this weekend. But I didn’t know until we arrived that we were staying here. I didn’t know how much more difficult it would make it, to tell him such a thing once I’d met his family.” Stephanie drew in a painful breath. “You’ve been so kind, so welcoming, and I’m sure, now that you know the terrible lie I’ve perpetrated, that you wish you’d never met me.”
Signora De Luca considered the matter for several long, tense moments before replying, “On the contrary, you are my grandson’s mother, Stephanie, and for that reason alone will always be welcome in my home. Non piangere, cara. I can’t speak for Matteo—how he will take this news, what it will do to your relationship—but I can promise you he will not walk away from his son. And lest you continue punishing yourself so harshly for your mistake, let me remind you that you did not conceive this child alone. Whatever the reason you didn’t feel able to tell Matteo sooner, it in no way changes the fact that he must bear half the responsibility for the situation now facing the two of you.”
Shockingly, there came a knock at the door just then. Sure it must be Matteo and that the hour of reckoning was at hand, Stephanie leaped out of the chair in a panic. But it was Nonna who came into the room.
“So this is where you have hidden yourselves,” she said, her wise old gaze swinging from her daughter’s face to Stephanie’s, and missing nothing. “There is trouble, sì?”
“Sì,” Signora De Luca replied, and waited until her mother had closed the door before stating the facts without preface or mitigation. “Matteo is the father of Stephanie’s son.”
“I’m not surprised,” Nonna replied calmly. “They met many years ago and one has only to see how they look at one another to know that a great passion burns between them, one much too fierce to have sprung up in the short time that Stephanie has been in Italia.”
“The point is, Madre mia, Matteo has no idea that the child is his.”
Nonna shrugged. “Men are always the last to see what is staring them in the face. I was five months along before your father knew I carried you in my belly. More significant at this moment is that Matteo is now looking for Stephanie and will probably discover her here very soon. It would best, la mia figlia, that we leave before he arrives. This is not a business to be sorted out in front of others.”
She approached Stephanie and pressed a warm kiss to her cheeks. “Non piangere, bambina! We are here if you need us.”
“Sì,” Matteo’s mother hastened to add. “Whatever the outcome, you may count on our support, Stephanie.”
A moment later, she found herself alone, but the respite lasted only a short while. As predicted, Matteo showed up soon after and one look at her face was all it took for him to recognize that something was sadly amiss.
“You’ve been crying,” he said, coming to where she stood and wrapping her in his arms. “What is it, cara? What’s happened?”
Just for a second, she allowed herself to lean into his strength. To savor the feel of his arms around her, the beat of his heart next to hers, the scent of him.
He smelled like no other man she’d ever met—of masculine cologne, and fine cotton shirts dried in the sweet, clean air of Tuscany and stored with a sachet of dried herbs tucked between them, to keep them fresh for when he next came home and wore them. For the rest of her life, the sharp scent of rosemary would bring him alive in her memory.
He stepped back and gazed at her in consternation. “Per favore, non piangere, sweetheart!” he begged.
Non piangere—don’t cry! The words were carved forever in her heart, and to her dying day she’d never forget them. She’d heard them from his mother, his grandmother, and most of all, from him—uttered with concern, with compassion, with kindness, with love. And soon, he wouldn’t care if she cried for the rest of her life.
“I’m trying not to!” she hiccuped, her reply so riddled with sobs as to be barely distinguishable.
He frowned and caught her chin with his thumb, forcing her face up to meet his. “I passed my mother and grandmother on the way here. Surely they’re not the reason you’re so upset?”
She scrubbed at the tears streaming down her face. “No! Your mother and grandmother are two of the finest people in the world and have shown me more kindness than I will ever deserve.”
“Nonsense!” he said. “What kind of thing is that to say?”
She pulled away from him, knowing she could put matters off no longer, and drew in a long, shuddering breath. “Matteo, there is something I’ve been keeping from you.”
“I know. I’ve known it all along.” He turned suddenly pale under his tan. “Are you ill, cara? Is that it?”
“No. Sick, perhaps, but not in the way y
ou suppose.”
He grew very still and it seemed to her that a shutter came down over his face, shielding his emotions. “Then what are you trying to say, Stephanie?”
“I have something to confess and I’m afraid, once you hear, that you’ll never look at me the same way again.”
“Perhaps you should let me be the judge of that.”
“You might want to sit down.”
“I do not wish to sit down. I wish you to state what is on your mind, and I wish you to do so now.”
She swallowed. Suddenly he was very much the aristocratic Italian, very proud, very distant. His eyes were cool, his expression remote. “Is there someone else?” he inquired coldly.
“No!” she cried, appalled that he’d even think such a thing. “I love you and only you!”
He spread out his hands, palms upturned. “Then whatever it is can’t be so bad.”
No? The pent-up angst gnawing holes in her stomach made a mockery of his confidence. Struggling to couch her news in such a way that it would sound good was hopeless.
At her wit’s end, and knowing that time had finally run out on her, she condensed all the speeches she’d rehearsed into one disastrously bald statement. “Simon isn’t Charles’s son, Matteo. He’s yours,” she said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE had guts, he’d grant her that much. Guts and gall! Sitting at his left hand at dinner, she projected an air of superb poise, accepting as if it were her due the effusive compliments showered on her by his unsuspecting family.
Only he, who knew her well—though not, it appeared, nearly as well as he’d believed—saw through her act and recognized the cool blue light in her eyes for what it really was: a proud shield behind which she hid her mental disarray.
He’s not Charles’s son…he’s yours….
Just so, had she tossed the news at him, then stood back and watched the fall-out.
The Italian's Secret Child Page 14