Having Luca side with her threw Nell for a moment. She was torn between holding firm and being reasonable. Just because her weekend had finished so very badly was no reason to ruin Molly’s.
She sighed. ‘If the contessa doesn’t mind you staying over—’ She hardly got the words out before Molly whooped with joy, threw her arms around her neck and kissed her roundly on the cheek and then skipped off.
Before her mother had a chance to change her mind, Nell thought wryly, watching her.
‘The boat’s right outside,’ Luca said coolly.
‘Oh, no, thank you. But if you’d like to call a taxi—’
‘That will take longer.’
And he couldn’t bear her there a moment longer than necessary. ‘If you’re sure it’s no trouble?’
‘None at all.’
Luca dropped Nell off at the landing stage outside her hotel. In the time it took them to cross the canal neither of them spoke a word. As she disembarked outside the hotel, Nell thanked him and then paused only to confirm their plans.
‘There’s no reason to change the time of our meeting, is there?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Well, no, of course not, but—’
‘Then goodnight.’
He was already turning the boat around, watching the sides didn’t scrape against the wharf, visually measuring the space in which he had to turn the prow without banging into any of the mooring posts. Dismissing her.
‘Goodnight, Luca,’ she whispered. ‘And thank you again.’
For the weekend? For the boat trip back to her hotel? He didn’t know, and right now he didn’t care. He had fallen in love with a woman who was still in love with her dead husband, even if Nell might not know it herself. Better to face up to the truth now than to run away from it, as she had been. Firming his jaw, Luca opened up the throttle and turned the boat for home.
The next day Nell found herself staring at Luca’s empty chair and thinking it a symbol for their relationship. She had arrived early for their meeting after a sleepless night, and had begun by making a few phone calls. The rest of the time she had spent sorting through the things she would take with her without actually seeing any of them. She was still numb after Luca’s accusation that she loved Jake. The dismay she felt was not just at the inaccuracy of his assertion but at the discovery that Luca was as vulnerable as she was. And she hadn’t reached out to him once.
They’d had one night untainted by the past, and that, ironically, had been the night of the carnival, when they had each taken refuge in the past. Hiding behind masks had allowed them to meet and fall in love as if they were strangers. It was all so clear now. But the moment reality had broken through again, neither of them had been able to change who they were…at least, not enough.
But still they’d stumbled on, adding one building block at a time to the knowledge and understanding they’d gained of each other, and it hurt to think that they had parted so bitterly at a time when they had never been closer. But then the only thing that had always eluded them was trust…
And now it was too late to mend the rift.
Hearing footsteps, Nell pulled herself together. She had the volunteers to think about. She had to make sure that everything was in order for them before she left.
Luca swept in with the briefest of greetings, sat down, pulled out a sheaf of documents from his briefcase, and scanned them briefly. ‘There’s not much left for you to do here, is there?’
‘That’s right.’ Was he relieved? Her leaving would certainly put an end to the disruption she had brought to his perfectly ordered life.
‘So, you’ll be moving on again?’
‘I’ll be returning home with Molly and Marianna.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘As soon as I can confirm the flights.’ That wasn’t true. She had already confirmed the flights while she had been waiting for him. They would be leaving tomorrow, since there was no reason for her to stay in Venice. She dreaded telling Molly, but it would only get harder the longer they stayed.
‘Do you need any help with that? I know people at the airport.’
And have him know what her plans were? Better to make a clean break. ‘No, thank you. It’s all in hand.’
‘So it’s all over?’
‘All over?’ Nell repeated, following Molly’s gaze out of the aircraft window. They were a few minutes into the flight and the plane was banking steeply as it made a turn to climb above the mountains she had visited with Luca.
‘You know what I mean.’ Molly’s voice was tight, and she wouldn’t meet her gaze.
Nell glanced round at Marianna, but she was fast asleep. ‘Darling, I’m—’
‘What?’ Molly’s brows drew together fiercely as she rounded on Nell. ‘Sorry? No, you’re not.’
‘We always knew Venice wasn’t forever—’
‘I’m not talking about Venice!’
‘What, then?’
But Molly had already turned away. Anyway, Nell knew very well what she meant. She had tried to protect her, but you couldn’t protect your child from life however hard you tried. Luca had come into their lives and now he was gone again, and Molly was grieving for him.
‘Molly, please. Can’t we talk about this?’
Molly snatched her arm away as Nell went to comfort her and kept staring fixedly out of the window. Nell didn’t have to see her face to know that she was crying.
Chapter Fourteen
THE house was a flatter, duller place. Even his nephews and nieces were subdued for once, and his mother was hardly speaking to him.
No, that was wrong: she had managed one tirade over breakfast. He was a hard, unfeeling brute, apparently, without an ounce of tenderness in him. His glib answer that she was probably right had stayed with him throughout the day, nagging at him like a toothache. Was it his fault Nell had left Venice without warning, taking Molly with her? Did he suggest she leave his mother a note at some unearthly hour to say that she was leaving, the same note that had been flung at him across the breakfast table?
He had done the right thing. No man could live with the ghost of another man standing at his shoulder.
The house seemed cold when she opened it up, cold and unwelcoming. Molly went straight to her room and Nell heard her throw herself onto the bed.
‘I’ll go up, shall I?’ Marianna suggested.
‘No, leave her for a while. She’ll have a sleep, and then she’ll get over it.’
Nell pretended not to see Marianna’s raised brow. She had to protect Molly, but she couldn’t have her dictating which path she should take through life. She had enough trouble getting that one right without outside interference.
‘I’m going to make a coffee.’ She smiled hopefully at Marianna. ‘Would you like one?’
‘No, you go right ahead. Coffee always keeps me awake, and I think Molly’s got the right idea.’
Maybe Marianna was right, but there was no way she could follow her example, Nell realised as she walked into the kitchen.
And since when had the kitchen been so big, so empty, and the house so lonely?
Luca arrived home after the most strenuous workout at the gym he could remember. It was then he had one of the stranger telephone conversations of his life.
It concerned an unfinished game of Doom Merchant Seven, a little-known computer game, familiar only to aficionados of highly competitive techno-sport.
‘So, you chickened out?’
Molly’s voice was cold and hostile, and for a moment he couldn’t work out what she was talking about.
‘Molly?’
‘Oh, so you do remember who I am?’
‘Of course I remember.’ He thought quickly, glancing at his watch. It was eleven o’clock at night. ‘You got home safely?’ He was playing for time, trying to think how best to handle the situation from his slim set of resources marked fledgling personal relationships: care of.
‘Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t be talking to you if we hadn’t.’
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‘How’s your mother?’ It was out before he could check himself.
‘As if you care.’
That hurt.
‘So…’ Molly picked up where she had left off. ‘You let me beat you that time, didn’t you?’
She’d guessed. He got the picture now. Luca smiled wryly. Molly was smart.
‘And now you’re too chicken to play me for real, finish that game we started.’
‘No—it’s not that.’
‘What, then?’
‘You’re in London, I’m in Venice.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
He wasn’t about to answer that one.
‘I thought you cared about us…’
There was a long, ragged silence, during which he was sure he could hear Molly trying to stifle tears. The hard front, the cover story that had given her an excuse to call him, everything had dissolved into the shattered hopes of one small child. And he was just as guilty as Nell…thinking they could hide the way they felt about each other, when every glance, every accidental touch, even the charge in the air when they were in the same room gave the game away.
And he did care for Molly, more than she realised, more than he knew how to handle.
There was a loud sniff.
‘So are you going to finish that game or not?’
He smiled, hearing the steel had returned to Molly’s voice. It was the same steel her mother had.
They shouldn’t have to be so brave. And he didn’t have to be such a coward. What was really at risk here—his pride?
‘Well?’ Molly demanded.
He could picture the small face, pale brows drawn together, eyes fierce, lips firm, as Molly waited for his answer.
‘I don’t suppose you’re going to let me off?’
‘You got that right.’
‘It’s nice of you to go to so much trouble, Molly.’
Nice? It was a miracle, Nell thought, feeling a rush of relief as she surveyed the dining-room table. Molly had been surly and unresponsive on the flight home and had slept in until lunchtime the following day. The rest of Saturday had been spent in what Nell could only describe as a state of tension. She had waited for an explosion, which strangely didn’t come. By Sunday morning the atmosphere in the house had reached crisis point, and the very last thing she had been expecting was that Molly would take it upon herself to lay the lunch table, cutting fresh flowers from the garden for a centrepiece and even rummaging in the dresser drawers to find the candles that only ever came out at Christmas. She took it as a sign that they were over the worst. Molly had decided to be brave about her break with Venice—and if Molly was happy then Nell was happy. She would just have to find a way to live with the ache in her heart.
Nell took particular care with the meal, and was just going to freshen up when she heard muffled giggles and bustling around in the hallway. ‘Molly, who’s there?’ Thinking someone had arrived, she quickly tugged off her apron and blew the hair out of her eyes. Checking the roast wouldn’t burn, she opened the kitchen door to find it wasn’t someone arriving. It was two people leaving.
‘Molly? Marianna? Where are you going? Lunch is almost ready.’
‘Wish we could stay, Mum. Places to go…’
Nell’s heart began to race. ‘Oh, no. You wouldn’t.’ Her face froze. ‘You have!’
Molly was avoiding her gaze, and Marianna had adopted her ‘I haven’t a clue what’s going on’ expression.
‘Marianna, tell me what’s happening. Molly!’ Nell’s voice sharpened as Molly hurriedly opened the front door. ‘I insist you tell me what you’ve done! It isn’t funny—’
‘Please don’t be angry with her.’
They all looked up at the same time to see Luca, tall and tanned and immaculately dressed as ever, sheltering beneath the protective cover of Nell’s storm porch with the rain sheeting down behind him.
Nell recovered first. Drawing on every reserve of strength she had, she said, ‘Luca—what are you doing here?’
‘I felt sure I would receive a warm welcome.’ He slanted an ironic smile at her, and then turned to Molly. ‘I brought you something.’
Molly had been hanging back, unsure of her mother’s reaction to what might turn out to be the biggest mistake of her life. ‘Really?’ she said hesitantly.
Luca exchanged a brief glance with Nell to check he wasn’t barred from bringing presents. At her small nod, he smiled. ‘Doom Merchant Eight.’
‘Wicked!’
‘Leave her,’ he murmured to Nell when Molly seized the package with indecent haste. ‘Give me an hour with your mother, Molly, and then it’s game on.’
‘This time,’ Nell interrupted, barring Molly and Marianna’s path to the door, ‘why don’t we all eat together, and then you can go out with Marianna later, Molly?’
‘I think we should give you some space, Mum.’
Nell wasn’t sure she wanted to think too deeply about all the things she could see in Molly’s eyes. ‘All right, then. One hour.’ She moved away from the door. ‘I’ll keep dinner warm for you.’
‘Why did you walk out like that?’ Luca asked. They were sitting in the kitchen nursing mugs of coffee while his jacket dried out.
‘I thought it was best. For me, for Molly.’
‘You could have said goodbye, Nell.’
‘I didn’t want to…’
‘You didn’t want to what?’ he pressed when she fell silent.
‘I didn’t want to go over the past. I didn’t want to dredge it all up again. I didn’t know what I could say to convince you that I don’t love Jake.’
Luca dipped his head in acknowledgement.
‘You have no idea…’ Her voice broke, and she had to wait a minute until she felt steady enough to speak. ‘You can’t imagine what was happening in my head when I walked into that hospital room…prepared for the worst, yes, but prepared to say goodbye to the man I loved, the man I thought loved me, the man I thought I could trust. My whole world stopped turning on that day. Everything I had believed in was a lie. Every decision I made, every thought I had was influenced by the fact that I wasn’t one person, I was half of a couple. Now suddenly all that was snatched away. I didn’t know who I was any more, and it took a long time to recover a sense of self-worth. It was only when Molly was born that I felt I had something to live for again.’
‘It’s not enough for anyone to be half of a couple,’ Luca observed softly. ‘But there’s no reason why you can’t be half of a couple and an individual as well. You have to retain your own identity. If half of a couple always leans and the other always props, that’s not a real partnership.’ He made a steeple with his fingers. ‘Sometimes we all have to lean, and that’s when you need to know there’s someone there for you.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Nell’s gaze brightened as she stared at him, ‘I didn’t have anyone to lean on. So I built a wall around myself.’
‘And when Molly was born you took her into the stockade.’
‘Until Marianna came along and injected some normality into our lives.’
‘Marianna helped you as much as Molly, I think.’
‘Oh, yes, she did. But…’
‘There were certain things Marianna couldn’t help you with?’ Luca prompted wryly.
‘I couldn’t tell her that I felt—I felt a failure as a woman.’
Taking her hands, Luca drew them away from her face. ‘Will you stop that? You’re not a failure. You’re a wonderful woman. Beautiful, desirable, kind…a wonderful mother, and a caring human being, which is perhaps the most important quality of all. Your husband was weak, and sometimes weak people can do more damage than we know.’
‘I don’t love him,’ she said quietly.
‘I know that. I’m sorry. Sometimes things seem to get so heated between us…so many frustrated hopes, desires, they erupt in a great storm like the lava in a volcano that can’t be contained any longer. I know you’re not that weak.’
She sighed. ‘All I f
eel is pity for him now, because he lost his life, and regret because he ruined so many other lives.’
‘He was just a coward. And he can’t ruin your life unless you let him.’
‘It’s me that’s the coward. I should never have run away from you.’
‘You’re not a coward. You’re the most courageous woman I know. Look at how much good you’ve done in Venice. And bringing Molly up, making a life for yourself—how can you call yourself a coward?’
‘I couldn’t face you…’
‘But everyone has a secret fear they’d rather not confront. For you that means risking your heart again. And this time you’ve got Molly to consider. Don’t you think I understand that? Don’t you know that’s why I’m here? To make you believe you can trust me?’
As he drew her hands into his and held them tight, Nell began to smile. ‘So you’re not here because you’ve heard about my roast beef and Yorkshire pudding?’
‘English food?’ Luca flashed her an ironic smile, relieved to see her eyes were clear and bright. Cocking his head to one side, he observed wryly, ‘It’s safe to assume it wasn’t the cooking that brought me here.’
‘That was delicious, Nell.’ Luca put down his napkin. ‘You have changed my mind completely about English food in a single meal.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’ Nell smiled. They had just finished eating and for once she hadn’t burnt the carrots. ‘But something tells me you didn’t come all this way to talk about my cooking.’
‘No. I wanted to talk to you, about you. About us.’
‘Us?’
‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said with a smile.
‘Everything hinges on trust, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, it does,’ he agreed. ‘But you can’t expect trust to spring fully formed into a relationship. It takes time to build, to take root and twine around the person you care about. It’s what binds you together, makes you feel safe, warm, confident.’
‘You’re an expert now?’ Nell said wryly.
‘No, and I don’t pretend to be. I have trust issues too. I’ve had to learn to trust feelings, to interpret them as accurately as I interpret scientific information. I use gut instinct in my work as an adjunct to everything I learn from scientific testing, but I have a problem trusting that same instinct when it comes to human relationships. I didn’t want to risk it either, Nell.’
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