A Veil of Vines

by Tillie Cole

  “The king owned a dressage team, did you know that? They were frequently the national champions. King Santo was horse-mad,” Pia informed us; my interest was piqued.

  “How quaint. But I’m not sure watching the harvest constitutes fun, Duchessa,” Baronessa Russo said, pulling my attention from Pia.

  “On the contrary,” I replied. “This is the jewel in Savona Wines’ crown. My family is tied into the business, as well you all know. I have been a part of this industry my whole life.” I hid a smile as I added, “Zeno has been extremely happy with my interest. He will soon have a wife who understands his entire world—both his status and his business. I can share in all his victories.”

  A collective sigh came from all but Baronessa Russo and Pia. Baronessa Russo because she had meant what she said as a slight. And Pia because she knew the game I played.

  “Did you work with your father in Manhattan, Duchessa? With Savona Wines?” Viscontessa Lori asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I was at college. I had just finished my master’s degree when I came here.”

  “In what?” Pia asked.

  “Educational psychology. I would have loved to have pursued a career in education. Working with children and adults to overcome learning difficulties.”

  “There are many charities under the king’s name that promote work such as that. I’m sure now he has passed, the chairs of those charities would appreciate the future queen taking his place,” Viscontessa Lori told me. Excitement lit up my heart. I hadn’t known about that side of the king’s business.

  “Thank you, Viscontessa,” I said sincerely. “I will look into the possibilities immediately.”

  The entrée of tortelli di zucca was placed before us, and I inhaled the scent of the Bella Collina olive oil drizzled over the fresh pumpkin-filled pasta, curls of Parmigiano-Reggiano lying gently on top. “A treat from my home,” I said, pointing to the dish. “I know we are in Umbria, but I wanted to bring a little of Parma to the table. Please, eat.”

  I ate my meal, listening to the ladies talk about the charities they were involved in or about their husbands and betrotheds. Contessa Bianchi had the table enraptured with a tale of a “commoner” she had once had a fling with.

  “Caresa?” Pia said in a low voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know methods of helping those who struggle to read or write? Those with learning difficulties?”

  Her comment took me by surprise. “Yes,” I replied. “I worked for many charities and schools during my studies, and assisted some of the best educational psychologists in Manhattan. I didn’t get as far as I would have liked in the field, but I am proficient.”

  Pia glanced around to check no one was listening. She looked into my eyes. “My nephew.” She cleared her throat. “He doesn’t always do well in school. My sister married well, and her husband is ashamed that their son struggles to read and write. I love my nephew—when I talk to him he is bright and knowledgeable. But academically, he is weak. Very weak. He struggles with such simple tasks as holding a pen. He can barely write, and worse, he confided to my sister and me that when he reads, the words jump around the page. He can never focus enough to make out a single sentence.”

  My heart broke for Pia and her sister. “It sounds like he is dyslexic and maybe has dyspraxia. It is scary for the person at first, as they see everyone else doing these things with ease, but there are methods to help overcome the challenges.”

  Pia’s eyes filled with tears. “Really?” I nodded. “His father, he won’t help. He won’t have his reputation damaged by his son being regarded as slow. He is threatening to send him away to a Swiss boarding school.”

  I covered Pia’s hand. “If you want my help, Pia, it’s yours. No one need know.”

  “You would do that?”

  “Of course,” I assured her. She squeezed my fingers in appreciation. She didn’t speak for a while after that. I could see she was still teary.

  As the dessert of limoncello gelato was placed before us, Pia said, “It was just little things at first. He would make up the stories for the books he was assigned to read as homework for school. He would get angry when we questioned him on silly mistakes in his class work. It wasn’t until my sister gave him a book she knew by heart and asked him to read it and tell her about it that she realized he was fabricating stories about what he was supposed to be reading. He broke down after that and explained his troubles. It’s . . .” Pia sighed. “It’s been quite a challenge. But the worst part is seeing the frustration he bears. He is a kind, shy boy, but can explode with bouts of aggression when his pride is threatened.”

  I knew Pia kept talking to me. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard her voice telling me more of her nephew’s plight. But I couldn’t make out what she had said. Because I was too busy feeling my face pale as a cold realization began to hit.

  The newspaper story . . . the labels . . . the illegible tick . . . the holding of the pen . . . the shaking . . . asking me to circle the mistakes . . . asking me to leave . . . the pain and fear in his beautiful eyes . . .

  He struggled to read and write. Or . . . maybe he couldn’t read or write at all.

  Achille, I thought, a stab of sympathy hitting me like a knife in my stomach. How did I not see it? Caresa, you stupid, stupid girl.

  “Caresa?” Pia’s questioning voice called me from my inner turmoil. I faked a smile and, somehow, for the next two hours, managed to make small talk as the ladies and I made our way to the grand reception room for drinks. I was sure I agreed to more dinner and charity functions than I could truly commit to, but I couldn’t remember a single one.

  Pia was the last to leave, taking with her my promise to see her nephew very soon. The minute she left, I told Maria I needed to lie down—a sudden headache, I explained. I just needed to rest after such a long function.

  I didn’t even bother changing from my white cap-sleeved Roland Mouret dress or my matching Prada heels. I didn’t take off the Harry Winston diamond chandelier earrings that hung in my ears, or tie back my hair that had been curled into 1940s pin curls and left in flowing waves to my shoulders. Instead, the minute my bedroom door was locked, I fled through my balcony exit and hurried toward Achille’s home.

  The pace of my furiously beating heart kept time with my rushing feet. A crack of thunder roared above and spots of fat raindrops came sailing down from the sky. I ran into the barn to find Achille standing in the center of the floor, placing a bucket of freshly picked grapes beside the crushing barrel.

  He started when I came rushing in, as a curtain of torrential rain dropped from the dark clouds outside. His blue eyes were surprised at my intrusion, but then heat exploded in my stomach as Achille, completely frozen to the spot, raked his gaze over me in my dress. And there was nothing innocent or timid about the sudden flare of passion in his eyes. The need and want was there, as plain as day. The muscles on his bare torso bunched and tensed; his hands clenched at his sides. Spatters of dirt and grape juice lay on his bronzed skin, his black hair unkempt and in disarray.

  I imagined the picture we made. Me, a duchessa, styled and dressed to the nines and him, a winemaker, dirtied and roughened from an honest day’s work.

  I averted my gaze when I could no longer take the hunger in his eyes. I strived to find my composure, to find the courage to speak. But when my eyes landed on the trash can in the corner of the room, on the wrinkled newspaper that was still its only occupant, I rushed forward. I took out the paper and read the article, no longer caring if the story about me was good or bad. I just had to know. I read every word, and with every sentence, my heart broke a little more.

  How long had he kept up this charade? How long had he kept this secret? Then my soul cracked completely. He had been without his father for months. A man who would have helped him. A man who read to him when Achille couldn’t read for himself.

  Achille . . . he was so alone.

  So completely lost.

  I felt him behin
d me. Still on the same spot across the room. I looked up; his distraught eyes were focused on the paper in my hands. “Achille,” I whispered, feeling tears build in my eyes. “It made no mention of my staying here in Umbria. Or anything about the prince, like you said. It was a piece about my life in New York, about my family and the business.”

  Achille’s skin became ashen. He looked away at the sheet of rain dancing beyond the open barn door.

  “The labels.” I dropped the newspaper on the floor. “The missed mistakes, the incorrect sample . . . you didn’t know, did you?”

  “Don’t,” Achille bit out when I was a mere three feet from him. “Don’t talk of things you don’t know, Duchessa.”

  “Achille—”

  I expected him to shout, to display the aggression I knew he harbored so deeply inside, the aggression he had shown me twice before. The aggression born from frustration.

  But instead Achille tiredly hung his head, his body losing its will to fight. “Please . . . don’t . . .” He took a deep breath. “Not you . . . not from you . . .”

  My bottom lip shook at the defeat in his voice, in his stature. My soul screamed in sympathy for the torment afflicting his. Because this reaction, this lack of willingness to argue, told me everything I needed to know.

  He truly couldn’t read or write. He could make the world’s finest wine, could be such a kind and gentle man, yet he could not read the labels of the award-winning merlot he made with his talented bare hands.

  It was the cruelest of God’s jokes.

  “Don’t pity me.” My breath paused at the softly spoken request. “I don’t want your pity.”

  “I don’t pity you,” I said, my voice shaking with the tension of the moment. “I am angry for you. I am so angry that you were never given the help you should have been.”

  Achille flinched, as if my words had physically wounded him. An expression of pain disfigured his beautiful features.

  Achille avoided my eyes, instead searching the barn. His hands shook at his sides, but not with anger. There was no anger left in this hollowed-out space. I could feel only Achille’s despondency, his lack of understanding about what to do now that his greatest secret had been exposed to the harsh light of day.

  I saw the empty buckets spread around his feet, only one still full. I saw the rest of the grapes in the barrel ready to be crushed. Achille’s eyes shone like the most beautiful stained glass as helplessness gathered in their depths.

  I had never wanted to hurt him, to shame him. I only wanted to help. My pained soul wanted nothing more than to see him healed of this injustice.

  I needed to make him feel comfortable.

  I needed this lost boy found.

  The old cassette player was sitting on the countertop. Skirting around the motionless Achille, I pressed play . . . and my eyes closed as a wave of emotion washed over me. The opening bars of “Sogno”, my dressage music, graced the humid stormy air with their perfect sound.

  Achille had been listening to this music today. The old speakers of the player were still warm. He had been listening to this song. As Andrea Bocelli sang of sleep and of dreams, I turned and saw a bead of sweat travel the length of Achille’s back. His skin shivered in its wake and his muscles danced.

  I approached him slowly, like one would approach a wild animal. I stood before him, and his nostrils flared. His eyes were still focused outside. “Were you about to crush the grapes?”

  My diversion tactic worked; Achille’s eyebrows pulled down in confusion and his eyes fell to mine. “Yes,” he said.

  “Then let’s crush them.” I bent down to take off my shoes. Achille watched me as I kicked my heels aside. He looked dubiously at my dress, but I didn’t let that stop me. It was only fabric, and replaceable. Achille was a fellow human in pain. There was no comparison.

  “Do we wash our feet?” I asked, looking around the barn for cleaning supplies. Achille took a while to move. He led me to a metal trough filled with an astringent-smelling solution. As I stepped into the cold liquid, Achille bent down to rid himself of his boots and roll his jeans up to his knees.

  I stepped out of the bucket. Achille washed his own feet, then he poured the final buckets of grapes into the barrel. Lifting the hem of my dress, I hitched the material up to my thighs and tried to climb in, but the sides were too high. Just as I was about to ask for Achille’s help, he slipped his hands around my waist, and as if I weighed no more than a feather, he placed me in the barrel. The top layer of grapes exploded under me, the juices slipping between my toes and flowing over my feet and ankles.

  Achille watched me in fascination. The final note of “Sogno” sounded from the cassette player. A clicking noise sounded though the speakers, and then another song began to play.

  “Are you getting in?” I asked.

  I was rewarded with a timid smile. Then Achille stepped in, his tall, broad frame crowding me in the barrel. I yelped as I was thrown off balance by a shift in the mass of grapes beneath us. Achille reached out and steadied me. His hands wrapped around my own, causing the hem of my dress to fall back to my knees. His gaze drifted downward, and mine followed. The bottom of my dress was covered in red juice.

  “You are ruining your dress.”

  “Yes, I suspect I am,” I replied. A husky sliver of a laugh escaped his lips. It was the most heavenly sound. “So,” I asked, ignoring his concern for my attire. “How do we do this?”

  “We stomp.” He began lifting his feet, slowly crushing the grapes under them. Holding onto him more tightly, I copied his movements, the sticky juice flowing faster the more we stomped.

  “It feels bizarre,” I said, looking down at the grape juice rising up the sides of the barrel. “The juice is sticky, the grape flesh soft, but the stems are hard. They keep stabbing the soles of my feet.”

  “We leave the stems on to strengthen the tannins and deepen the color of the wine.” The more Achille talked of the wine, the more his confidence returned to his voice. Wine, he knew. He could never be caught off guard when it came to his beloved merlot. It followed a system at which he excelled. A routine that he knew as well as he knew himself. There was no threat, no feeling of inferiority.

  “How long do we do this?” I asked as we circled the barrel, ensuring each grape was paid equal attention.

  “As long as it takes,” he replied. “I can be here for an hour on my own. With you, it will be less.” As the minutes passed and the juice rose, the splashes came higher, reaching my chest and his stomach.

  “I believe your dress is beyond saving,” Achille said, a slight breathiness to his deep voice. I checked out my dress, and, sure enough, it was now sodden with red grape juice up to my waist. The once-white material had become transparent due to the wetness of the juice.

  As I flicked my head up in embarrassment, a drop of grape juice splashed from the barrel to spray the side of my neck. And then everything happened at once. I cried out in surprise. Achille’s hands released mine, moving to my waist. And he lowered his mouth to my neck, his soft lips stilling on my skin as they kissed away the sweet, rolling drop of juice.

  I felt as though I was in a dream, a surreal out-of-body experience where Achille’s mouth was on me. I could feel his breath ghosting down my skin and his hard chest pressed flush against mine. I wanted this dream to be real. I wanted to be in Achille’s warm embrace. I wanted him to want me enough to drop his guard and let me in.

  I wanted him to want me, period.

  Then when a low groan sailed into my ears, and I felt the soft swipe of a tongue lapping at the spilled juice, I knew I wasn’t lost in a fantasy. I was here. In the barn . . . wrapped tightly in Achille’s arms.

  His mouth was on my neck.

  He was against me, body against body . . . feeling exactly like I knew it would: perfect, like we had always been.

  Achille’s lips suddenly stilled against my skin. His hands tightened on my waist, then he slowly withdrew his head, stopping just inches in front of my face.
His pupils were dilated, the black nearly eclipsing the blue, as his wary, shocked eyes fixed upon my face. Heat filled his cheeks, and his mouth worked as if he wanted to speak but could find no words to say. His breathing was heavy; mine had stopped altogether.

  I stared.

  He stared.

  The air between us crackled with tension.

  I wasn’t sure who moved first. Like the last time we had been this close, something pulled us together, an unexplainable attraction that seized our minds and our hearts and our souls. One moment I was transfixed by his eyes, the next, Achille’s mouth was fused with my own, his soft lips against mine, his large hands in my hair.

  My hands landed on his back, my fingers clawing at his naked skin, trying to pull him even closer. I needed him closer than he was, needed to feel him against me, within me, taking me. It was irrational and wrong, but I couldn’t persuade myself to stop.

  My fingernails scraped along the flesh of his back, and Achille hissed into my mouth, followed by a deep groan. His hands tightened in my hair, and he plunged his tongue forward to meet mine. The taste of him exploded on my taste buds—fruity and sweet with just the faintest hint of wine.

  This time it was me who moaned, heat surging through my veins and muscles and bones. I felt on fire, dancing on the precipice of something I wasn’t sure I could come back from. But, like anything addictive, I took and I took until my lips were bruised and my desire was raw.

  I broke away to recapture my lost breath. Achille’s lips didn’t stop, traveling over my cheeks, down my neck and along the top of my chest. My head tipped back, eyes rolling shut as he seared me with his touch, setting fire to my blood.

  My hands traveled to his arms, then up into his hair. Achille’s nose ran up my neck until his forehead pressed against my own. “Caresa,” he murmured in a slow, graveled tone. “I feel you inside me. Here and here and here.” His hands moved to his head, his mouth, his heart.