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As if she would do any such thing, Portia thought miserably, wishing with all her heart that Lucenzo didn’t feel duty-bound to think the worst of her in every way there was.
Her eyes on the rich red carpet beneath her feet, she followed Lucenzo down a wide, door-lined corridor, trying to prepare herself mentally for the meeting ahead. But her mind kept flittering all over the place. She wondered if Assunta knew that if little Sam woke he’d go right back to sleep again if she turned him over, tucked him in and stroked his forehead for a few minutes, wondered how long dinner would last and whether the other, unknown, members of the family would treat her like an outcast.
They had passed the head of the main staircase what seemed like ages ago, and in a brave attempt to break the forbidding silence and lighten the atmosphere she said chirpily, ‘If I’m let out of my room on my own I’m going to need a ball of string to find my way back again!’
Which was probably one of her more inappropriate remarks—the sort of thing she tended to blurt out without thinking, she decided sinkingly as Lucenzo clipped, ‘I’m sure you’ll quickly get used to it.’ And that was on a par with the comment he’d made earlier about rushing to get her feet under the table, she decided, feeling well and truly quashed.
‘For the moment my father is using a suite of rooms on the ground floor,’ he explained chillingly.
They approached the head of another sweeping staircase and descended into a vast and echoey marble-paved hallway, then through an arched doorway and into a sombre room where a white-haired elderly man sat facing the door, his hands gripping the arms of his wheelchair as if he were in a state of acute anxiety.
Portia’s heart melted immediately. The poor old gentleman was just as nervous about this meeting as she had been right up to this very moment!
Sparing only the briefest glance for the woman in what she took to be a nurse’s uniform stationed behind the wheelchair, and hardly noticing Lucenzo’s dry words of introduction, Portia sped over the dark, sumptuous carpet and took Eduardo’s shakily outstretched hand in both of hers.
‘I’m so happy to meet you, and I’m so sorry you haven’t been well,’ she said warmly, inwardly anguishing over the gaunt lines of his still handsome face, the brightness of what could be tears in the dark eyes that were so like Lucenzo’s. The fingers that clasped her own seemed so very frail, Portia thought anxiously, swallowing around the emotional lump in her throat.
But there was nothing frail about Eduardo Verdi’s voice as he said, albeit slowly, ‘Welcome to Villa Fontebella, Portia. You have all you need? And my grandson? Is he settled?’
The bright, dark eyes narrowed as he attempted to penetrate the gloom of the room, as if he expected—hoped—to see the baby pop up from behind one or other of the shadowy pieces of furniture. Had he asked to see his grandson and Lucenzo had ruled it out of order? And why were the louvres almost closed over the many windows that marched down the length of the room? Wouldn’t it be kinder to allow the old gentleman to see the sky, watch the shadows lengthen over the gardens?
‘Sam’s fast asleep,’ she explained gently. ‘It’s been a long day for him. But I’ll bring him to visit you in the morning, I promise. You’ll love him; I know you will.’ How could anyone not love the little darling? ‘He’s only two months old, but he’s really alert and smiles at simply everyone! Meanwhile…’
She’d spied a tapestry-covered footstool and hooked it towards her with one sandalled foot, settling down on it, hitching it closer to the wheelchair and delving in her handbag for her photographs. She’d taken simply loads with her instamatic and she pressed them into the waiting hands.
‘Light!’ Eduardo ordered imperiously, and Lucenzo stepped forward to position a standard lamp and switch it on.
He glanced at his watch. ‘We don’t have much time, Father, if you insist on joining the family for dinner. Perhaps you could look at them later, or in the morning.’
To Portia’s secret delight Eduardo ignored him, and from the corner of her eye she watched the younger man retreat, his impressive features grim. A tiny shiver trickled down her spine. There was no doubt about who would have been giving the orders around here had his father not been ill and in need of humouring!
Turning, she gave her full attention to Eduardo, giving a running commentary as he eagerly sifted through the photographs depicting every stage of development in his grandson’s short life. When he came to one of her favourites he commented, smiling, ‘So many flowers! You must be a popular young lady!’
One of the hard-pressed nurses had obligingly taken it for her, and there she was, sitting in her hospital bed with a grin wide enough to crack her face, proudly holding the day-old Sam in her arms, surrounded by enough flowers to stock a florist’s shop.
‘People were so kind,’ she murmured, smoothing a strand of silky blond hair behind one ear, settling in for a nice long chat. For the first time she was happy to be here, if only because looking at the pictures of his grandson gave the old gentleman so much pleasure.
‘Do you see those roses?’ They could hardly be missed; great bunches of them festooned the foot of the bed. ‘Ethel Phipps, one of our neighbours, picked them for me. She must have denuded her garden. Wasn’t that sweet of her? She paid the paper boy to bring them because she hardly ever gets out, poor old soul, on account of her arthritis.’
Her small face clouded momentarily. ‘I hope she’s all right. I do her weekly shop for her,’ she explained earnestly. ‘But I made Mum promise to look in on her while I’m away.’
‘And your mother keeps her promises?’
‘Always,’ Portia acknowledged rapidly. ‘She’s a very moral person.’ Then she turned bright pink, because Lucenzo was listening to every word and she knew he thought that, unlike her mother, she didn’t have a moral worth mentioning.
But Eduardo soothed her ruffled feathers, handing back the photographs with a smile that was truly heartening, telling her, ‘Ottimo! Then you won’t have to worry about your old lady while you are with us. That is good.’ He lifted his head, still smiling. ‘Come, Lucenzo. We go to dine.’
Lucenzo, lounging elegantly against the doorframe, a look of resignation on his darkly handsome face, moved forwards just as the nurse vented a flow of rapid and indignant-sounding Italian.
Portia gave her a startled glance. She’d forgotten the woman’s presence—she’d been so wrapped up in showing Sam’s photographs to his grandfather. She shuddered. The nurse looked alarming, as if she ate bricks for breakfast.
‘My nurse is objecting,’ Eduardo translated wryly. ‘She is trying to insist that I eat here, alone, from a tray. As usual.’ He dismissed the grim-faced woman with a formal nod of his silver head. ‘I am ready, Lucenzo. Portia is about to meet the family—your aunt and your cousin,
not forgetting Vito’s widow—and we start as we mean to go on.’
Which sounded pretty disheartening to say the very least. Portia quailed. But she managed a weak smile and fell in beside Lucenzo as he carefully pushed the wheelchair through the double doors and down seemingly endless corridors. The prospect of meeting the rest of Vito’s no doubt disapproving family and, horror of horrors, his poor grieving widow didn’t exactly make her feel ecstatic.
But she’d weather it somehow. Her middle name wasn’t Chickenheart, was it?
