A Veil of Vines

by Tillie Cole

  It was done.

  I had to move on.

  I stayed in that spot, just gathering my composure, for several minutes. Eventually, I got to my feet, left my house and walked toward the barn. The sound of Nico and Rosa in their stables greeted me. I went in to them, both of them immediately coming to see me. I patted them both, seeing that they had been cared for in my absence. I’d hoped Sebastian would have stopped by—it looked as if he had. I had no idea how I would explain my absence to him.

  After staying with the horses for a while, I made my way to the barn. I had bottling to do. I was a week overdue. I threw the doors back and flicked on the light . . .

  . . . and then I froze. Completely froze.

  I cast my eyes along all of the freshly sanitized barrels, stacked and ready for the next harvest. To the right were shelves and shelves of bottled wine, this year’s vintage. I moved closer; the labels had been placed perfectly on each bottle. They were corked and they were done.

  I stood back, wondering who had done this.

  “She has been here every day since you left.”

  My back tensed as Zeno’s rough timbre met my ears. I tried to control my breathing, readying for another fight. And then I spun around to see my . . . my . . . brother, resting against the doorframe. He was wrapped up in a long, thick coat, a scarf around his neck and gloves on his hands. The snow fell in small flakes behind him.

  He looked tired. His hair was in disarray, and he was pale.

  Yet as I studied his expression, he didn’t seem angry or upset that I had returned. In fact, if I had judged his features correctly, he appeared . . . relieved.

  “Where is she?” I asked, my voice just as rough as his.

  Zeno stepped closer and ran a hand down his face. “She is in Parma. Her parents arrived early for the wedding, and her mother took her home to try and make things better. They know everything. When it all came out, Caresa fell apart. She’s . . .” He paused, making my heart slam in my chest. “Not doing so well.” Zeno stopped in front of me. I allowed myself to truly look at him. Look at his eyes, his nose, his height. And it was there. Our fraternal truth that had been hiding in plain sight.

  I could see he was doing the same. When our eyes met again, he broke from my gaze and gestured to the seats in front of the unlit fire. “Do you mind if we sit?”

  “You’re not throwing me off the land?” I asked, waiting for this too-timid reunion to fall apart.

  He shook his head and laughed a humorless laugh. “No. Now, shall we?”

  He walked to the seats and sat down. I cautiously made my way over and took my seat beside him. I wondered if I should start the fire, but I was too worked up. I didn’t know what he wanted, or . . . “How did you know I was here?”

  “I had security on alert for your return. I knew you’d come through the rear private entrance,” he said.

  “How did you know I would return?”

  Zeno looked me square in the eye. “Because she is here.”

  “Yet now I find she’s in Parma,” I said.

  “She is only there for a few days with her mother. Her father is here, at the mansion.” His face betrayed the stress he was feeling. “He is here to try and help with Savona Wines too. To see how we can gain back what buyers and business we have lost.”

  “It is bad?”

  Zeno laughed, but it was forced. “I don’t know wine. It is my own fault, I know, but I find myself lost. I . . . it is incredibly hard doing this alone.”

  I glanced up at Zeno and saw him already watching me. His expression made a strange feeling burst in my chest. Something akin to fondness. Something I imagined siblings shared, something reminiscent of the closeness he and I had once had, many moons ago.

  “It is not easy doing anything alone,” I said, averting my gaze to stare into the unlit fire. “I didn’t realize how alone I was until Caresa came bursting into my life.” I smiled, remembering the day she appeared in my vineyard, all flustered and fresh from her run. “She made me want more from my life.” I sighed. “She made me want her. And only her, forever.” I risked a glance at Zeno. His eyes were wide. “I don’t imagine you know what that feels like. I have heard you don’t want for female attention.” Something flashed across his face, something I couldn’t recognize.

  “Just because one is always surrounded, it doesn’t mean one is not alone.”

  “You’re rich, and always have people at your beck and call. What would you know of being lonely?”

  Zeno turned to me this time and truly looked into my eyes. “Wealth is no protection from loneliness. It is very easy to be surrounded by many people yet feel like you are caught alone in the rain. I—” He stopped himself from whatever he was about to say and sat back in his chair. When he had composed himself, he said, “I think the only time I never felt alone in this world was when we were friends.” He smiled, and this time it was genuine. “Do you remember when you fell into the fishing lake? I ended up jumping in after you when I thought you had drowned.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory.

  “Your father was so mad at you for snapping his fishing rod when you ended up having to help me out. Do you remember?” Zeno asked.

  “I do,” I said. “He banned me from that lake for a month.”

  Zeno wiped his eyes and then shook his head. The levity drifted away, replaced by a heavy silence once again. I had a million questions floating around my head, but I struggled to speak even one. Then Zeno spoke for me, and answered about a dozen.

  “I spoke to my Zio Roberto this week. I went to Florence. I kept to myself for a week, and thought of nothing else but your father’s letter and our fight. I . . .” He took in a deep breath. “I kept replaying that night in my head. I was so angry. I was hurt, but then” —he leaned forward and rubbed his forehead— “Zio Roberto confirmed everything. He tried to lie to me at first, but I saw through his deception.” His eyes met mine. They looked sad. “It was him, Achille. Zio Roberto. He was the one who persuaded my father not to publicly acknowledge you. My father wanted you. Even when my mother left because she found out, he wanted you. But it was Roberto who told him what was at stake. Your mother was not of noble birth. He . . . he thought you a bastard and claimed you would sully the Savona name.”

  Pain hit me with the force of a thunderbolt. He thought you a bastard . . . sully the Savona name.

  “I hit him too,” Zeno said, and my face whipped to his. He shrugged. “I have never fought in my life, yet I hit two people in the space of a week.” He smirked, but it quickly fell. “My father wanted you, Achille. Roberto confessed to me that my father never forgave him for persuading him otherwise, but as you grew older, he thought it was too late.

  “He confirmed that the king would come and see you when you were a child, just so he could know you in some way. He asked your father not to tell you the truth so the risk of gossip was squashed.” Zeno sagged in his seat. “But you see, it’s not even about my father’s pain. He was a grown man who should have fought harder for you. It . . . it was that they kept the fact you were my brother from me. They kept it secret, that my best friend shared my blood. And when they sent me away and I protested, they told me that you were not good enough to be in my life any longer. They took you away, my . . . brother . . . to protect their reputations.”

  I listened to every word he said, quietly breaking further and further apart. But the only word my head picked out was “brother”. Brother, brother, brother . . .

  He had called me his brother.

  He would have wanted me as his brother.

  “I . . .” My whisper was barely audible. “I would have . . . liked you as a brother too.”

  I kept my eyes facing the ground, but I knew Zeno was staring at me. I could feel his eyes burning through me. Eventually, I lifted my head and saw the glint of happiness in his expression. He coughed to clear his throat. When neither of us rushed to speak, he eventually said, “I have never seen anyone in my life pine for s
omeone like I saw Caresa pine for you this week.”

  At the mention of Caresa, all the pain I had momentarily staved off came back with vengeance. I fought to breathe as my lungs constricted. “I . . . I missed her too. More than I can explain.”

  Zeno sighed. “You love her too?”

  This time there was no hesitation in my reply. “More than you could know.” I squared my shoulders. “I won’t be without her. I came back for her. Even if you renounce me and take away my land, I won’t be leaving without her. Never again.”

  I braced for an argument, for Zeno to tell me their marriage was set and there was nothing he could do. But instead he nodded his head. “I know. And don’t worry, Caresa and I won’t be walking down the aisle. Her father only had to watch her fall apart and witness my personal hurt to see that this marriage would never work. So I told him everything.”

  “You told him about me?” I felt fear, real fear at the thought of Caresa’s father disliking me. I knew how much she cherished their relationship.

  “And so did Caresa. He never knew. He was one of my father’s closest friends, yet he never knew about you. He was angry.”

  I felt my face blanch. “He doesn’t want his daughter with me?”

  “No,” Zeno said vehemently. “He was angry that you were never acknowledged. He was livid with Roberto. And then, when he thought back to those days, he blamed himself for being a bad friend. He said he knew that something was wrong with my” —Zeno cast me a wary glance— “our father. He never knew why my mother left. And he never pushed him for answers.”

  I didn’t know what to do with that. Caresa’s father thought I should have been acknowledged as Santo’s son. Did that mean . . . would he mind if . . . ?

  “Society expects a marriage between the Savonas and Acardis on New Year’s Eve.” I stilled. “That can still happen. Only the Savona groom would be different.” My pulse raced and my eyes widened.

  Zeno shrugged. “I would have to publicly announce you as a Savona, of course. And I would have to do that soon.” Zeno lifted his hand and, after some hesitation, laid it on my shoulder. “I would acknowledge you as a prince of Italy. I would acknowledge you as my brother. Achille, I would announce you as part of House Savona.”

  My heart was racing out of control as I stared at Zeno. I wasn’t prepared for this. I knew nothing of being a prince. All I knew was wine. All I knew was . . . “Then you must also announce me as the maker of the Bella Collina merlot.”

  Zeno’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.

  “I know wine, Zeno. I may not know the business side yet, but . . .” I felt full with pride, confident that what I was about to say was the truth. “But I can learn. I have been working on my reading and writing. And I am . . . I am getting better. You said the buyers and shareholders wanted the Savona-Acardi marriage to happen to secure the business. Well, we can also tell them that I am the winemaker of your most sought-after merlot. Tell them that the houses will still unite, and I am going to help with the business too.”

  “You would do that?” Zeno asked, his voice thick with emotion. “You would help me with the wines? The business? You would partner with me?”

  “Yes.” I inhaled deeply. “I have hidden away for too long. But . . .” I pulled a stern expression onto my face. “I want to continue making the wine. I want to stay at this estate. To keep Caresa I will do what is required of me, but I will have this. The wine is my life. I need to keep it.”

  “Done,” Zeno said and blinked as though he were in shock.

  His hand slipped from my shoulder. He got to his feet. He appeared nervous, an emotion I had not seen from him before. Then he cautiously held out his hand. I stared at his outstretched fingers, knowing that if I got to my feet, my old life would be in the past. But then I thought of Caresa, thought of taking her hand in mine in a church, before God, and it was easy. I held out my hand and allowed Zeno to pull me to my feet.

  He hesitated for a second, then awkwardly brought me in to his chest. He embraced me for but a moment, then inched back. He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Who would have thought we would be here one day? Brothers. And you, a winemaker turned prince.”

  Prince . . . the word circled my head, but it was too big for me to even fathom. “Not me.”

  “But you’re ready to take it on, yes?” Zeno asked.

  I stilled, looking around the barn that was once my entire life. I sighed in relief. After tonight I would no longer be alone.

  I would no longer be alone . . . I had to hold onto that with both hands.

  “Achille?” Zeno pressed. “You are ready, aren’t you?”

  “I will be,” I said on a steady, fortifying breath. “For her, I will be.”

  Zeno smiled widely, every inch an Italian prince. “Good. Because you’re coming with me. There’s a man in the mansion that you need to meet. And you’ll need to ask his permission to marry his daughter.” He slapped my back. “No pressure, brother.”

  Brother, I thought again, and this time allowed its sound to fill my heart. Brother, brother, brother . . .

  “I feel no pressure,” I said confidently. “I love his daughter with all my heart.” I nudged him like I would do when we were kids. “And I have you by my side pleading my case . . . don’t I?” I asked hesitantly.

  “That you do,” Zeno said softly, and we walked in companionable silence from the barn.

  As we stepped onto the path that led to the mansion, I tipped my head back and stared at the stars above, knowing they were finally, after all these years, aligning in my favor. “Thank you,” I whispered aloud to them and whoever was watching from above. Then, heart slamming, and without turning to Zeno, I added, “Thank you too . . . brother.”

  Zeno held his breath, then let out a long, soul-freeing exhale. And we followed our footsteps to our new life, en route to ask the Duca di Parma for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

  And my heart felt full . . .

  . . . because I was no longer doing it alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Three days later . . .

  Achille

  “She is back?” I whispered as I walked into Zeno’s study.

  Signor Acardi rose from his chair and nodded his head. “Late last night.” He slowly walked to the window and gazed out at the still-dark sky. “Take a look for yourself.”

  I stood beside him and squinted at the distant track. My chest tightened. I couldn’t see her properly, but, in the light of the fading moon, I could make out her silhouette walking down the track to my cottage.

  “She goes to look for me?”

  Signor Acardi nodded again. “When we arrived she was not the girl I knew.” He sighed. “On my second day here, I couldn’t sleep. I came down to the study to catch on up on some work, and that’s when I saw her. I watched my daughter sneak from her room and follow that track. I had no idea what she was doing, so I followed her. I followed her all the way to your cottage, and then again as she tacked up a horse and set off into the dark. She ended up sitting on a high hill, watching the sunrise with tears running down her face.”

  He looked straight at me. “It . . . it broke my heart.”

  I closed my eyes as Caresa’s silhouette faded behind a set of trees. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I said hoarsely.

  A hand landed on my shoulder. Then it gently squeezed. “No one has been saved from hurt in the mess Santo has caused. She just wants you, son. There’s no stronger truth than that.”

  He let out a small huff of laughter. “You know, Achille, when my daughter first tried your merlot, she was sixteen. We allowed her a drink with her evening meal. Our American friends disapproved, but we are Italian. The minute she tasted it, her eyes widened, and she told me that it was the best wine she had ever tasted. She turned to me and said, ‘Have you met him, Papa? The winemaker?’ I hadn’t, of course. When I told her so, she smiled and said, ‘One day I should like to meet him. I need to meet the man who can create such perfection.’�
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  I had no words.

  “Go.” His hand slipped from my shoulder. “You know you have my blessing.”

  I rushed through the mansion to the rooms I had been staying in for the last three days. I retrieved my coat, pushed out of the main door of the house and headed for the track. I slipped my hand in my pocket and ran my fingers over the smooth velvet of the box. Swallowing back my nerves, I pushed forward until I arrived at my cottage. I glanced inside the windows; Caresa wasn’t there. But she had lit the fire—it was like a beacon calling me home.

  I ran through my vineyard and jumped the perimeter fence, landing on the path that led the way to the hill. I walked slowly, seeing the sky beginning to lighten, and thought about what I would say. I didn’t know if she would be angry or upset. I didn’t know if I had broken her heart beyond repair.

  But I had to try.

  As I passed the botanical gardens, a small smile pulled on my lips. I climbed the fence, and as I had been doing for weeks, sneaked into one of the greenhouses and cut a single white rose from its bush. A thorn stuck into my finger, drawing blood. It was apt, I thought. A blood penance for the fact that I had broken Caresa’s heart.

  By the time I arrived at the bottom of the hill, I was wrought with nerves. I turned at the sound of a familiar huff and saw Rosa tied up to a tree. Passing the Andalusian with a gentle pat on her neck, I climbed the steep hill, taking a longer route so I would see Caresa before she saw me.

  And then I did, and, like a miracle, the constricting, hollow chasm I had felt in my heart for the past week soothed.

  For the first time in days, I could actually breathe.

  She looked so small as she sat on the cold ground. She looked paler, and she appeared to have lost weight. But it was the sadness that radiated from her huddled form that was truly my undoing. Because I knew she had been devastated by my absence, just as I had been by hers. And I knew that everything my father had done for my mother—his forgiveness of her affair, his acceptance of me—was because he felt this for her. His love was this deep.