“Look at the car!” Eduardo was saying to the doctor. “On the way home, Alessandro told me that Annabella mended it. It was great-grandpapa’s, you know.” Then his face fell and he cried in a small voice, “Where is he? Can’t I see him? It’s been so long since he came to Florence to visit me. Is he cross with me for breaking the window last summer when I stayed here?” He began to sob. “I didn’t mean to, really. It was an accident. The ball wouldn’t go where it was supposed to. He said he wasn’t angry, but perhaps he was pretending. Can’t I ask him?”
All the adults, except Claudia, exchanged worried glances over his bent head. He was sobbing into his hands, Annabella having taken the salamander and placed it back in its tank.
“Perhaps we should all go and see him,” Alessandro agreed, his voice raw. “Come on, Eduardo. He’s waiting for us, up on the hill, with mama and papa.”
“He’s putting flowers on their graves?” Eduardo asked.
“Come and see,” Alessandro urged.
“I’m not coming,” Claudia said sharply. “These shoes would be wrecked.” She lowered her voice and half-whispered huskily to Alessandro, “Perhaps I’ll see you tonight, big boy.”
Alessandro looked at her, unwilling to commit himself. “Perhaps,” was all he said.
“Let’s go!” Eduardo was insisting. He was holding one of Annabella’s hands and one of Tonia’s and pulling them towards the hill behind the villa.
They made a little procession as they climbed, going slowly for Eduardo to catch his breath, the dogs bounding excitedly around them, chasing rabbits and birds. Eduardo’s twisted legs couldn’t easily negotiate the steep incline but at last they reached the top.
Annabella had been here just before taking the Bentley out of the garage and asking Alessandro if he would like to drive it. She wanted to seek their great-grandfather’s blessing and brought great boughs of silvery olive branches mixed with tall, gold and black sunflowers and laid the big bouquet across the grave. In deference to Alessandro’s parents, she made smaller posies for their graves and now, in the late afternoon sunshine, the silver and gold shone, the furry sunflower leaves almost iridescent.
“Here he is,” Annabella said softly to Eduardo, leading him to the mound of earth with its sunny offering of plants. Orange butterflies spiralled around the yellow blooms. “He’s asleep under here, but he can hear you so you can talk to him if you want to.”
“Can he see, too?” Eduardo asked, enraptured by the butterflies. “Can he see us and all this?” He swept his arm in an arc that seemed to encompass the villa, the olive groves and vineyards, the garden, the cottage, the road, the grotto with its shrine to the Madonna, the village in its sleepy hollow in the folds of the green and gold hills. Everything was bathed in the apricot-pink light of the setting sun. From Fortezza Rosa, they heard the bells of the little church ringing out the hour.
“Of course he can,” Alessandro answered, coming close and putting his arm around his brother. The older man’s eyes were full of tears. Even he almost believed their second cousin’s story about their great-grandfather being merely asleep. He knew without having to ask that it was Annabella who had put the flowers on the graves. Flowers that brought butterflies.
“Great grand-papa fell asleep, like our parents. See, he’s near them now. So he couldn’t come and see you, Eduardo. Do you understand now?” Alessandro asked.
Eduardo nodded.
And, at that moment, a little gust of wind came from nowhere and rained a shower of golden rose petals on them all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I think we should have a special dinner tonight, to celebrate Eduardo’s visit, ” Tonia said as they walked down the hill again.
“Can’t I stay for always?” Eduardo beseeched, clutching Annabella’s hand. “Why must I go back? I like being here with you.”
“We’ll see,” Alessandro said automatically. It was his stock response whenever his brother asked that question, which he did every year when he was allowed to stay at Casa dei Fiori for a few weeks.
Eduardo sighed. He knew what “we’ll see” meant.
“Can Umberto stay and eat with us?” Annabella asked nobody in particular.
“Of course,” Tonia replied delightedly. “There’s plenty for all of us.”
They ate under the fig tree. Alessandro knew it would be churlish to disappear into his cottage tonight, although he was desperate to return to his painting. Also, he didn’t want to tear himself away from… He would not admit, even to himself, that he was touched immeasurably by the flowers on the graves. He watched as she helped Eduardo cut his veal cutlet and showed him patiently how to wind the spaghetti around his fork. She made sure everyone’s water glasses were full, that there was plenty of wine on the table, that nobody was left out of the conversation, which, no thanks to Eduardo, centred on her daring rescue of Rosa. She was particularly kind to the doctor, which irked him unreasonably. Perhaps she was just being a good hostess, he assured himself.
Zuppa inglese, or trifle, was for pudding, in honour of Eduardo, whose favourite it was. After the delicious confection of liqueur custard, fruit and fluffy sponge-cake, Tonia served espresso and chocolates.
Eduardo had only been able to eat a little, but enjoyed himself immensely. He began to yawn over the warm cocoa he had been given instead of coffee and asked if he could be put to bed. “Please, Tonia and Bella, come and tell me a story.”
“You want us both, caro?” Annabella asked.
Alessandro started at her use of the Italian endearment. She was becoming more and more Italian every day, he realized. Her strong Australian accent was almost gone, replaced by the softer Tuscan way of talking. She substituted many Italian words for English ones now.
“Si,” Eduardo said. “I love you both.”
When they left the table after Eduardo had kissed his brother and the doctor goodnight, there was an awkward silence between the two men who still sat under the tree, the dregs of the espresso cooling in the tiny cups.
“Will you be riding in the second Palio for the Ferri family?” Umberto asked him in an effort to re-establish the conversation.
“Yes,” Alessandro answered. He liked the doctor, despite the fact that he would be married to Annabella soon and not only sharing her bed but also everything that had been his. “I hope to win this time, having come so close before.”
“Good luck, then,” the doctor replied. “I hope Annabella’s friend from Australia will be here to see it. We’re expecting her any day now.”
Friend from Australia? Alessandro longed to ask. Perhaps, he thought with dread, she was arriving for the wedding.
“I…I must go,” Alessandro stuttered, getting to his feet. “It’s been a long day, with the drive to and from Florence, and all the emotion and excitement.” He took the doctor’s proffered hand and shook it, his own shaking slightly. “I’m suddenly very tired,” he explained. “Good night, Umberto.”
“Good night, Alessandro,” Umberto replied.
Alessandro stumbled down the hill to the cottage. She was to be married soon, he was sure of it! He felt ill at the very thought of her belonging to another man, even one as nice as the doctor. She was his, Alessandro’s! Yet, he reminded himself, he didn’t want her. She was wonderful, of course. He’d never known such love-making. But she was a cuckoo in the nest. His nest. He’d never be able to forgive her for that.
He pushed open the door and stepped into the darkness, redolent with the scents of oil paints, squirrel-hair brushes and turpentine.
“I thought you’d never get here,” came a woman’s voice. “And what a talent you have, caro. A talent, I’d say, for making rather a lot of money very fast, although I don’t particularly approve of your subject choice.”
A cigarette lighter was flicked on, its blue flame flaring in the shadows, illuminating Claudia’s painted face. She drew her mouth into what could have been a sneer, although she’d intended to smile. “Caro,” she purred, sliding against him, he
r black finger-nails on the top button of his shirt. “Your little country cousin has been most obliging, sitting for you all these weeks I’ve been away. What pretty pictures you have made! But I’ll wager that Antipodean parvenue cannot do this,” she whispered through gritted teeth as she slid a hand down the front of his trousers and grasped the prize she sought.
Alessandro woke feeling cold and clammy. The sweat from his workout with Claudia had dried on his naked body and, in the cool morning air, he felt chilly and unwell. Claudia, of course, had gone. She never wasted her time in bed after the deed was done, he thought wryly. She was always up and away, showering away the evidence, coiffuring her hair, reapplying her face, exercising with her dumbbells to ensure her body remained rock-firm and lean.
He could hear laughter up at the villa and painfully drew himself up from the damp pillow to look out of the window over the bed. Eduardo was on one of the old horses, Annabella driving the animal around her in a big circle on a lunging rein.
“Shorten your reins and keep your heels down,” he heard her say to his brother and watched in amazement as Eduardo did exactly as he was told.
“Good! Bene!” she called. “Now let’s trot. Squeeze the horse gently with your legs and tell him to trot. Now rise. Watch the inside leg and go down when that hoof touches the ground. Up, down, up, down. Well done! You’re a natural, Eduardo!”
Alessandro was impressed. His brother was indeed a natural. He’d always been good with animals, he remembered. Not only the salamander, but the dogs loved him, and whenever the family hadn’t been able to find him, he was in the stables, talking to the horses and stroking their velvety noses. Because of his wizened legs, nobody had thought to teach him to ride, but, as he watched, he could see that the shape of his legs was actually an advantage to him because they were naturally able to grip the animal’s flanks.
The patient old horse trotted around and around Annabella, who occasionally made a clicking sound with her tongue to keep him moving onwards. But it was actually Eduardo who was riding and doing it well.
Alessandro found himself smiling and wanted to get out of bed to shower dress and go and watch the lesson at a closer range. But, when he attempted to put his feet down on the floor, he experienced such a violent attack of dizziness and nausea that he was forced to lie back on the pillow, too weak to even pull the thin summer blanket up over himself.
It was Eduardo who found him, still asleep, at lunchtime.
“Alessandro!” he was calling, having been told that his brother now slept in the cottage. “We’re having some lunch and we want you to come too. Alessandro! Where are you?”
As Eduardo wandered from room to room, calling, his eyes were bedazzled by the scores of fabulous pictures that were propped up against the walls. All of his beautiful second cousin. There was even one of her looking much as she’d looked when she came out of the water with Rosa, wearing nothing but her knickers. But in this one, she was dry and sitting on the kitchen table with a glass of wine.
“Alessandro!” he called excitedly. “I didn’t know you could paint! Bella’s everywhere! But where are you?”
At last, he found him on the bed, tossing feverishly. Even Eduardo knew his brother wasn’t well and ran to Casa dei Fiori to find Umberto, who’d also come for lunch.
Umberto sped down the hill with his doctor’s bag, having given Eduardo strict instructions not to follow him. He too, was enchanted with the pictures and, like Claudia, immediately saw their inherent beauty and value. But, unlike Signora Silvestro, he saw something else – something that leaped out at him and made him like Alessandro de Rocco more than he’d ever liked him. The man was madly, passionately, hopelessly in love.
He, too, found Alessandro on the tousled bed and managed to wake him by gently calling his name and squeezing a shoulder.
“Have a drink of water,” he said, helping Alessandro to sit up and lifting the tumbler to his cracked, dry lips.
When Alessandro had drained it, Umberto took his temperature and listened to his chest.
“Just as I thought,” he said comfortingly. “Just a bad dose of the ‘flu. Nothing more. But, you won’t be well enough to ride, I’m afraid. I think it best if you warn the Ferris in good time so they can find someone else for Fulmine. I’ll start you on antibiotics right away and you’ll be feeling better in no time.”
“I can’t let them down again,” Alessandro groaned.
“You’ll let them down even more if you get yourself killed in a fall,” the doctor warned. “Be sensible, Alessandro. Besides, you must look after yourself. You have a great gift. You must live long enough to reap the rewards of all your hard work.”
Alessandro groaned. “You’ve seen my pictures?” he demanded. “I didn’t want to show them to anyone yet and already Claudia, too, has seen them.”
“It’s impossible to keep such beauty hidden, my friend,” Umberto said. “But, I will keep your secret, if that’s what you want. Although I think it would be good for you if Annabella were to see them.”
“No!” Alessandro almost shouted. “I don’t want her to know. Not yet. Not until I’ve gone.”
“Gone?”
But Alessandro had slipped back into a troubled sleep.
It was the sixteenth of August. The day of the second and final Palio for the year. The day before, Annabella’s friend, Sassy, had arrived by taxi from Siena, having travelled all the way from Australia. She brought some things from Annabella’s parents – a big jar of Vegemite, a home-knitted jumper made by Lucia with natural wool from their own sheep, and a brief letter which read: “Darling daughter. Thank you for the emails and pretty postcards you’ve dashed off to us from time to time. It’s good to know you’re happy in Italy although you tell us little of your second cousin. Is he well? Are you still good friends? Since our last letter, we’ve had some very good luck. Your father bought a lottery ticket recently – and to our very great joy, we won first prize. Two million dollars. So please don’t think we need you, Bella. We know you were worried about leaving us. Rest assured, we’ve employed a labourer now and can even afford to visit you whenever we like. Perhaps in a month or so? We look forward to your next email or postcard. Meanwhile, remember we love you very much. Sassy is so excited about her stay at Casa dei Fiori. As it turns out, the man she has been e-mailing all this time is none other than the doctor at Fortezza Rosa! Isn’t life wonderful? Take care, Bella, your loving Mama and Dad.”
Umberto was at Casa dei Fiori too, as well as Claudia and her husband, Tonia, a subdued Alessandro who was still pale, an ebullient Eduardo and a smiling Annabella. Umberto and Sassy were overjoyed at the coincidence of finding each other in Italy and of both being friends of Annabella’s.
They all piled into the Bentley, Alessandro driving but too full of the memories of the last occasion on which he took the wheel to be able to take part in the conversation.
He was only just beginning to feel himself again. Umberto had insisted he sleep up at the villa and Annabella had gladly given up the room she’d been using – his old one. She was particularly attentive, fetching books from their great grandfather’s library, cutting fresh flowers for his bedside table every day, helping him to the tastiest morsels at table. But he’d been wary of allowing himself to fall under her spell. She’d be Signora Esposito soon and he’d leave the place where he was born and never return. He couldn’t let her magic work on him again or he’d lose his sanity as well as his heart.
As they serenely passed through the estate lands and forests, Sassy remarked on how beautiful everything looked. “Annabella has turned it around,” Umberto said admiringly. “No offence, Alessandro, but before she came, the olive trees were almost dead, the vines sadly in need of pruning, the soil depleted. She and one of the village lads, Carlo, have worked hard here and it shows. She’ll reap a good harvest this year, I think.”
They reached Siena and the Ferris welcomed them all joyously, inviting them up to the salon on the top floor of their palazzo fro
m which, that evening, they’d watch the race.
“Have you a good jockey?” Alessandro asked.
“Oh yes,” Mario assured him. “The best there is.”
“Do I know him?” Alessandro wanted to know.
“A little, I think. But it’s to be a surprise. Now, come and sit here and let yourself be waited on, Al. You’re still not 100 per cent, you know. Annabella tells me she’s been very worried about you.”
At last, the sun sank low in the sky and the Palio began. There had been so much conversation and goings-on in the salon, with the Ferri grandchildren demanding the adults’ attention, that few of the guests had noticed one figure slip away before the start of the event.
They all crowded onto the balcony to watch the mad careering around the square, Fulmine with his scarlet and gold well up with the leaders.
Annabella, standing close to Alessandro in case he needed something, heard him ask Mario, “Who is aboard Fulmine? He’s a very competent jockey.”
“You’ll see. Keep your eyes on the race,” Mario answered enigmatically, winking at Annabella.
The crowd went wild as the black stallion surged forward to claim victory, his flanks foamy with sweat, his scarlet nostrils aflame. The guests in the Ferris’ salon dashed down the stairs and out into the square to congratulate the rider who had won back their family honour after decades. Their last victory had been thanks to Elisabetta. The thin young man slid shakily down from the big horse’s bare back and into Annabella’s waiting arms. He removed the medieval mask hewas wearing and Alessandro’s heart gave a joyous leap of pride. It was Eduardo. Eduardo de Rocco.
Alessandro drove them back to Casa dei Fiori with a smile on his lips. He’d always thought his baby brother was useless. A sweet-natured baby. But he had proved, with Annabella’s help, that he was a brave, competent man.
“I’m going to take Sassy to the little café in Fortezza Rosa tonight,” Umberto announced when Alessandro had brought the Bentley to a halt on the gravel outside the villa.
Loving Venus (Sally-Ann Jones Sexy Romance) Page 14