Читать книгу A Worthy Gentleman - Anne Herries - Страница 10

The man bent to lay a single yellow rose on the freshly turned soil. For a moment he stared at the inscription on the simple wooden cross, reading the words aloud, as if he wanted to hear them. As if only by saying them out loud could he believe that it was true.

‘Here lies Andrea, wife of John and mother of Nathaniel. May God keep and love her for all time.’

Tears trickled unashamedly down his cheeks so that he tasted their salt on his lips. He was weeping for the waste of it, for the loss of a young life and the bitterness of despair.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I failed you. You asked me to save you and I couldn’t. I am sorry…so sorry. I should have done more…I am so sorry, Andrea.’

His mind was tortured with regret, with the sense of failure and guilt. He thought of the empty house awaiting him, the shadows that gathered in its dark corners and taunted him in the watching hours.

Turning away at last after a long, cold vigil, his heart heavy with regret, he did not notice that hostile eyes had been watching him from a distance. Because he did not look back as he walked away, he did not witness the figure that took his place by the side of the lonely grave—lonely because it had not been permitted on sacred ground. Andrea Elworthy had taken her own life and was therefore buried outside the churchyard, on a hillside and sheltered beneath the protective arms of an ancient oak tree. It was the best John Elworthy could do for his late wife, but it did not please the one who now wept bitter, angry tears at her grave.

Perhaps it was as well for his peace of mind that John did not know his rose had been snatched from the grave and torn to pieces. He was unaware that he had an enemy…an enemy bent on revenge.

‘I am sorry that you are leaving, Signorina,’ the man said, giving the lovely girl at his side a soulful look. He was tall, dark haired and his smile was very attractive. ‘Is there nothing I can do to persuade you to stay here in Italy?’

Sarah Hunter smiled. It was so warm and peaceful here in this beautiful garden that she was tempted to stay. Conte Vittorio Vincenzo di Ceasares had been a constant friend to them since they had first taken this villa in the hills of Tuscany. He had asked her to marry him twice and she had refused in such a way that she had kept him her friend. Her gentle dignity and her smile had enchanted him, bringing him back to her again and again like a moth to the flame.

‘We must return, sir,’ she said. ‘Mama wishes to see her grandson. She misses her friends in England, even though we have made so many new ones here. It will be hard to part with them, of course, but Mama longs to be home by the summer.’

‘I shall miss you,’ he said, his dark eyes intense as they dwelled on her lovely face. There was something unforgettable about her, something that made him want to cherish her and keep her safe. ‘But perhaps you will return to us one day?’

‘Perhaps.’

Sarah stopped to pick a rose, holding it to her nose to inhale its fragrance. The sunshine of Italy had healed her spirit. She was no longer the sad, nervous girl she had been when they arrived. She was a woman, much admired and sought after. Vittorio had not been the only gentleman to offer her marriage during her stay in Italy.

Sarah believed that her fear of marriage had gone. The nightmares caused by her abduction from the gardens of her home over three years ago were a distant memory. Yet she had never felt any inclination to marry any of the wealthy, titled and, in Vittorio’s case, handsome men who had proposed to her. Perhaps if one particular English gentleman had travelled to Italy as she had hoped he might…if John had asked her to marry him or written to her…but she knew that he had taken a wife six months after she’d left England.

It was more than two years now since they had come to Italy. Sarah had forgotten most of the things that had hurt her—but she could not forget John Elworthy. She had believed that he loved her, but he had married so soon after they parted. If his feelings for her had been real, he would not have done that, and it was foolish to think of him. She had tried to put the memory of his smile from her mind, and sometimes she thought that she had succeeded.

She smiled and handed her rose to the handsome man hovering attentively at her side. ‘Perhaps we shall meet again one day,’ she said. ‘Keep that in memory of me, Vittorio.’

He took the rose, placing it inside his coat, next to his heart. ‘I shall never forget you,’ he told her with a wistful look. ‘But I think that you will soon forget me when you are home.’