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But it wasn’t Braveheart, either!
CHAPTER FIVE
ACRES of gleaming mahogany, great swathes of silver and crystal—every piece glittering beneath the spectacular overhead chandelier, a different wine with each course and enough confusing cutlery to equip an army.
Throughout the seemingly interminable meal Portia had done her best to make herself smaller, wishing she were invisible. She had only managed to actually speak when directly, and always kindly, addressed by Signor Eduardo, merely dredging up a sickly, panicky smile when on the receiving end of an occasional barbed comment coming from Tia Donatella or her youthful son Giovanni.
The recently widowed Lorna hadn’t spoken to her at all, not one word, and Portia really couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t speak to her either, if she were in the other woman’s shoes!
Now, pushing her spoon through some gooey sweet concoction, she despondently wished she’d never agreed to come here. Kind though Signor Eduardo was, it was an impossible situation—and, as if to highlight her position as a rank outsider and quite definitely de trop, both the other women were wearing the elegant, unrelieved black of mourning, while she stuck out like a sore thumb in her bunchy, cobbled together blue and cream thing.
And the way Giovanni looked at her made her feel even worse. His mouth might be turned down disapprovingly, but his sly eyes seemed to be mentally undressing her.
Lucenzo spoke at last, with a dip of his sleek head towards the footman—or whatever he called himself—who had been hovering throughout the meal, serving them from the endless dishes sent through from the kitchens, before turning to his parent, ‘You are over-tiring yourself, Father. Ugo will take you back to your room.’
Portia stumbled clumsily to her feet, nervous tension creating a tight band of pain across her forehead. Her mouth dry, she murmured to no one in particular, ‘I’ll say goodnight, too. Thank you, it was a lovely meal.’
Though she had barely swallowed a bite—course after course of mangled food having been whisked away from in front of her only to be replaced by something else to be mindlessly pushed around her plate.
And so she wallowed—she knew she was wallowing and her eyes blurred with shame and humiliation—in the wake of the only friend she had in this country, whom the footman, Ugo, was swiftly and efficiently wheeling away.
Until the grip of firm fingers on her arms halted her and Lucenzo said, ‘Wait. You will see Father again in the morning. He’s had enough excitement for one evening. I’ll come for you and his grandson tomorrow at ten.’
Knowing he was right—of course he was right—Portia wilted as his hands dropped back to his sides. She had so wanted to say a proper goodnight to Signor Eduardo, to round the dreadful evening off with just one kindly word. But that was simply selfish. The poor old gentleman deserved his rest, and already her arrival had forced him to introduce her to his sister, his nephew and his daughter-in-law, and endure the gruesome atmosphere at dinner.
Her head bowed with misery, she turned to retrace her steps and blundered into an ornate side table which held a silver epergne full of fragrant blossoms. Automatically she apologised. Though why she should say sorry to a table and a bunch of flowers she had no idea. She giggled hysterically to herself at the very moment her eyes filled with emotional tears.
‘Are you drunk?’
Lucenzo tersely scanned her face. She was swaying on her feet, as if she could barely stand, and looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or whether to cry and so had compromised by doing both at once.
And she sounded far from sober as she wailed back at him, ‘No, I am not drunk!’
‘You ate next to nothing. I watched. And the wine was flowing.’
If she stayed here long enough he would get round to accusing her of every crime in the book! A stab of sheer rage hit Portia somewhere in the region of her ribcage. She pulled in a very deep breath and shot him an angry glance.
‘If you were watching that closely you’d have known I only drank one mouthful. I don’t like the taste. I prefer cider. Sweet cider,’ she added with an attempt at haughtiness that brought a gleam to his eyes and a twitch to his long, sensual mouth. Her small chin lifted stubbornly. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. And I want to check on Sam.’
‘Then I’ll see you to your rooms.’
‘There’s no need.’ Portia rubbed her eyes wearily. The spurt of anger had fired her up but the effects had worn off all too quickly, leaving her feeling even more drained than she had before.
But after the frightfulness of dinner with the family she didn’t have enough energy left to argue when Lucenzo cupped her elbow with one firm hand, and could only raise the palest ghost of a smile as he steered her down the hushed, softly lit corridor and commented drily, ‘There’s every need. You forgot your ball of string.’
The warmth of his hand was comforting, she reluctantly admitted, his mere physical presence a kind of solace. And she was too weary and dispirited to try to find excuses for such a lame and spineless admission.
The weak temptation to lean against him seemed to pervade every pore of her body, but she gritted her teeth and resisted it. She was a responsible, adult woman, wasn’t she? She didn’t need to lean on anyone! And she had her child to think of.
At the thought of Sam her pace quickened. What if he had missed her, had been crying his little heart out while she’d been wallowing in her own selfish misery? Her heart was beating like a drum, guilt making her feel almost physically sick as Lucenzo at last opened the door to the suite of rooms she’d been given.
Silence. A brief moment of deep relief, then the blood-freezing thought that her darling baby might have smothered himself in his sleep. She roughly jerked her arm from Lucenzo’s grasp just as Assunta emerged from the sitting room Portia hadn’t even poked her nose in yet.
‘I thought I heard you.’ The Italian woman beamed. ‘The little one has been fed and changed and sleeps peacefully again. I will come in the morning, about eight—unless you need anything more this evening?’
‘I—Oh, no, of course not.’ Portia floundered. Assunta was carrying a tray of empty dishes. The poor woman had had to eat up here, alone, she thought remorsefully. She really shouldn’t have left her babysitting for so long. ‘I’m really sorry I’ve been so long,’ she apologised contritely.
She should have been strong-minded enough to tell Signor Eduardo that, no offence intended, but she wouldn’t share dinner with the family this evening. Her place was with her baby. Hadn’t her mother often complained that her puppy-dog eagerness to please others was one of the worst of her myriad failings?
