Читать книгу Summer At Villa Rosa Collection - Kate Hardy, Jessica Gilmore - Страница 15
ОглавлениеCLEVE LOOKED AT the bags then, as if nothing had happened, he looked back at her.
‘You don’t have to stay here,’ he said. ‘You can come back with me in the Lear.’
Andie shook her head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’
All that waited for her at home was an ending. Putting her flat on the market, saying goodbye to the people she’d worked with, to the job she loved. Saying hello to a direct-debit relationship with Cleve.
‘Have you any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a holiday?’ she demanded. ‘More to the point, how long is it since you’ve had a holiday?’
He glanced up at the roof with its missing tiles. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure that the last time I booked a holiday there wasn’t a hole in the roof.
‘It was thatch, as I recall.’
Rachel had been full of the exotic spa resort in the Far East but at the last minute some crisis had blown up that only Cleve could handle. Rather than cancel and rebook, she’d gone on her own.
How he must regret that now.
‘I wasn’t looking forward to the mud baths, steam wraps and heaven knows what other tortures were lined up for me,’ he said, his face devoid of expression. ‘Rachel had a much better time without me.’
She’d certainly come back glowing and then, just weeks later, she was dead.
‘Yes, well, all that lounging about in the sun and swilling cocktails is so yesterday,’ she said, as whatever demon had been driving her disappeared like early morning mist rising from a valley, leaving nothing but embarrassment. ‘These days smart people go to Cumbria and pay for the privilege of repairing footpaths and building dry stone walls in the pouring rain.’
‘No risk of fire, then.’
‘Forget the stupid fire. What happened was nothing more than a minor drama.’ Okay, if she hadn’t smelt the smoke the house could have burned down, but she had and it didn’t. ‘The roof didn’t collapse, no one was hurt. It will be one of those “Do you remember when...?” stories that we’ll all be laughing about years from now.’
‘Laughing?’
‘Yes.’ Laughing as they embroidered the story for a little boy who was the image of Cleve. ‘Idiot Daddy, brave Mama, comic-opera firefighters...’
For a moment she saw them all at some family gathering: her parents and her sisters, sitting around a table, the children wide-eyed, the adults laughing at stories that had grown with the telling. The image was so real that a chill whispered through her, the realisation that unless she did something, something truly brave, it was about to slip away from them, be lost for ever.
Cleve would eventually get past his grief, marry someone else, have a family...while the bundle of cells, the promise of life within her, would become an awkward adjunct to his real life. Someone they would make an effort to include but who would always be on the outside looking in.
‘Laughing?’ he repeated furiously, bringing her back to reality. ‘You could have died!’
His angry words echoed around the courtyard.
She could have died. Like Rachel.
As if a switch had tripped in her brain she was no longer playing the role. Rachel was dead but she was alive and this was for real. Her own feelings didn’t matter; this wasn’t just about her. This was for Cleve and their baby, and she’d fight tooth and nail, make a complete fool of herself if that was what it took to make him let go of the past, look to the future.
‘Could have but didn’t. I’m right here and so is our baby. What happened to your offer to be there for our child, Cleve? To make a home? A family?’
He seemed shocked by her sudden switch, her attack, and his blank expression was replaced by confusion; hardly surprising since she’d made it clear that she didn’t need his sacrifice on the altar of marriage. She had been so focused on convincing him that she could and would cope perfectly well on her own, it hadn’t occurred to her that Cleve might not.
‘Did I say that?’
‘An hour ago you asked me to marry you. Or were you just going through the motions? You must have known that I’d turn you down.’
She hadn’t known how he’d react to the news that he was about to become a father but she had anticipated his proposal, been prepared to turn him down. It had been a hundred times harder than she’d ever imagined but she’d told herself that she was doing the Right Thing.
Now she wondered if she’d just been thinking of herself, unable to cope with the fact that Rachel would always be there, between them.
Selfish...
Cleve had already lost the baby that was to be his future and she’d as good as told him the baby she was carrying didn’t need him. Of course it would need him and making a home for their baby, being a father, would give him something to get up for each morning. To live for.
‘Isn’t that what marriage is?’ she asked.
Marriage...
Cleve watched a lazy bee, drawn by the scent of the fruit he’d bought, or more likely the marmalade leaking from the broken jar, head for the bags that Matt had left by the gate.
‘Maybe we should have breakfast,’ he said.
‘Breakfast?’ He heard the catch in her throat.
‘I think better when I’m not hungry. We’d better eat in the garden. I don’t think smoke is going to improve the flavour of your banana.’ He looked up at the door behind them. ‘I’ll open this door so that the air can blow through.’
‘It’s blocked. The ceiling sagged when rain got in.’
‘I’ll take a look at it.’
‘Do you have time?’ she asked, challenging him.
Having done his duty and proposed, been given a clear pass, would he really opt out and become a chequebook father?
An hour ago, with the scent of rosemary clearing his head, he’d been full of plans for the future. Realising how close he’d come to tragedy had been the kind of reality check he would wish on no one. One that had sent him reeling back into the darkness of guilt. To stay and wallow in it would be an act of gross self-indulgence.
Miranda had reached out to him at his lowest ebb. He owed her his life; what poor specimen of mankind would walk away when she needed him? If only to save her from a spider in the bath.
‘I take it you’re not planning to include the word obey in your vows?’ he asked.
‘Vows?’
‘Love, honour...?’ There was a moment of confusion as she absorbed his meaning followed by an emotion less easy to read. Relief, no doubt, and regret that unlike her twin she hadn’t been swept off her feet by the man of her dreams.
‘And obey?’ she finished. ‘What do you think?’
Then the green-gold of her eyes softened in a smile that reached out to warm him, a smile that had always made the sun shine a little brighter, and he knew he was looking at his redemption.
He might not be the man of her dreams but he would do everything in his power to make Miranda happy. To give her, and their baby, a good life.
‘I think I’ll get the plates,’ he said, picking up the bags. He opened one to check its contents and handed it to her.
‘I’d better wash my hands.’
‘And your face,’ he said, brushing the backs of his fingers lightly over her cheek before heading for the door.
‘I’ll be out by the conservatory,’ she called into the kitchen.
‘I’ll be right there.’
Andie stood there for a moment, the bag of groceries clutched against her chest, a lump the size of a tennis ball in her throat, before following him.
She put the groceries on the hall table beside an exquisite bowl filled with little shells and pieces of sea glass that they’d found on the beach.
Above it, in a gilded rococo frame, was a drawing that Posy had made of the house. It must have been on one of their earliest visits because it was too naïve, unconscious, to have been drawn by a teenager and she took a tissue from her pocket and wiped away the dust.
If she’d thought about it, she’d have imagined that having a house full of noisy children, teens, was the price Sofia’d paid for having her oldest friend stay for a couple of weeks twice a year. But maybe the childless woman had longed for a family and they had given her that, if only briefly, and for a moment Andie lay her hand over it.
‘What’s that?’ Cleve asked.
She let her hand drop. ‘A picture Posy drew for Sofia. She couldn’t have been more than six.’
‘And this, presumably, is Sofia.’
He was looking at the black and white portrait, a head shot dominated by her huge eyes...
‘She was older than that when we knew her but her skin, her bone structure... Well, you can see. She had the kind of looks that would have still been turning heads when she was eighty, ninety. If she’d lived that long.’
‘No doubt. Put the bag on the tray.’
He was carrying a tray loaded with plates, glasses, cutlery. She picked up the groceries and added them to the tray, which he then handed to her. ‘I’ll be right with you. I just want to take a look at that door.’
‘So long as you’re not going up on the roof.’
‘Not today.’
She put the tray down in the snug, carefully checked the bathroom for any signs of eight-footed livestock, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her cheek was smeared with sooty smoke and her hair had dried in ginger corkscrews. It was no wonder that Cleve had been ready to run.
She washed her face and hands then damped down her hair and quickly plaited it.
‘I’ll be outside the conservatory,’ she called from the hall. The only response was a curse from deep within the scullery. She definitely wasn’t getting involved in whatever he was doing out there, and instead opened the door to the painted drawing room. The furniture was covered in dust sheets but there was a crack across the beautiful arched ceiling, no doubt caused in the same tremor that had brought down the roof tiles. The patchwork of stained glass in the roof of the conservatory had suffered too.
She wondered if the house was listed. Did they even have a system of listing buildings of special importance in L’Isola dei Fiori or would whoever eventually bought it simply pull it down and start again?
She opened the doors and stepped out onto a terrace where they’d sat out in evenings watching the fishing boats return to the safety of the village harbour, the lights coming on along the coast.
Last year’s weeds that had grown through the cracks were tall and dry, but bright new leaves were pushing through and if nothing was done they would soon dislodge the stones.
She put the tray on the long wooden table where they’d so often had breakfast and crossed to the wall built along the edge of the cliff. The villa might be a bit of a mess but the location was spectacular. Below them, the beach was only accessible from the villa or the sea—and even from the sea you had to know it was there to find your way in—but from here the entire Baia di Rose and the village climbing up from the harbour into the hill behind was laid out in front of her.
She didn’t turn as Cleve joined her.
‘I saw a promising café when I was down in the village,’ he said after a moment. ‘Right on the harbour.’
‘Was it painted blue, with lobster pots outside?’ She sensed rather than saw him nod. ‘We used to walk down there for lunch sometimes. Just us girls. Sofia would give us some money and tell us not to spend it all on wine...’ No doubt when she was expecting a visit from the King.
‘What did you eat?’
‘Whatever the cook had bought in the market. Deep-fried squid if we were lucky. Swordfish steaks. Pasta alla vongole.’ Sweet, sweet memories. ‘Was that my stomach rumbling or yours?’
‘I think it was a duet. So? Shall we try it later?’ he suggested. ‘Only I’m not sure if the cooker survived the double whammy of the kettle and the fire extinguisher.’
‘I don’t know about the food but I’d enjoy the walk.’
He leaned forward to look at her face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine.’ She dashed away a tear that had spilled down her cheek. ‘I was just remembering...’
‘So long as it’s not the thought of marrying me.’
‘No.’ She put out a hand and he took it, held it and for a moment they just stood there, staring at the view, neither of them knowing what to say. ‘As you said, we’ve known one another a long time.’ Reclaiming her hand, she tucked away a strand of hair that had escaped her plait. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘When are you going to tell your family?’ he asked.
‘Oh...’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Do we have to? Mum and Dad are having a whale of a time travelling across India. Portia’s in the States. Posy is desperate to become a soloist and daren’t miss a performance—’
‘And Immi is up to her eyes organising something to rival the royal wedding.’
‘That’s about it. One wedding at a time in the family is more than enough to cope with, don’t you think?’
‘So you’re going for Option A?’
‘Option A?’ She finally turned to look at him and saw the ceiling debris whitening his hair, his shirt.
‘What on earth have you been up to?’ she asked, as if she didn’t know.
He looked down, attempted to brush the mess from his shirt but it was damp and it smeared into the cloth.
‘Leave it. I’ll put it to soak.’
‘I’ll see to it.’
‘Right answer.’ He glanced up and when he saw that she was laughing, he smiled back and without warning her heart did a somersault. This was going to be so hard...
‘Tell me about the scullery ceiling,’ she said, quickly.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’
‘There’s good news?’
‘The back door is now open and there’s a good draught clearing away the smell of smoke.’
‘And the bad news is that the scullery ceiling came down on your head.’ That must have been the curse she’d heard.
‘Not all of it. Just the bit in the corner near the door. Fortunately, it was wet so there wasn’t a lot of dust.’
‘More good news.’ Although what state the bedroom above would be in was another matter. ‘Can it be fixed?’
‘There’s no point until the roof is repaired. I noticed a builders’ merchant on the outskirts of the village. We can call in on the way down and order some tiles.’ She must have looked as horrified as she felt at the thought of him on the roof attempting to fix tiles. ‘I used to work for a local builder in the holidays to earn money for flying lessons.’
‘Tiling roofs?’
‘Carrying them up the scaffold to the tiler and, because no skill is ever wasted, I asked him to teach me how to do it.’
‘In case the flying didn’t work out?’
‘The alternative was following my father into medicine. He had dreams of me one day taking over his practice. Heaven knows why. He’s always complaining about the hours, the money, the paperwork,’ he said, but he was smiling. ‘The old fraud loves it.’
‘Which is why he wanted it for you.’ Andie had met Cleve’s father. He was the kind of family doctor that they used to make heart-warming television dramas about.
‘He hoped that if I had to pay for flying lessons I’d quickly get over my obsession with my great-grandfather’s heroics in a Spitfire and fall into line.’
‘Two stubborn men.’
‘I’m better with machines than people.’ He looked across to the table. ‘Do you feel up to a glass of orange juice and a banana?’
‘I think so.’
He poured orange juice into a couple of glasses. Cut thick slices of bread and took out a pack of butter.
‘No butter for me.’ She peeled the banana and squashed it over the bread, picked up a jar of marmalade. ‘It appears to have survived.’
‘That’s not the jar I bought. Matt must have replaced it with one from his cupboard.’
‘I imagine we’ll need a witness,’ she said, as she dolloped marmalade on top of the banana, ‘and he’s been a total brick. Shall we ask him?’
‘You’re sure about not telling your family?’
‘Quite sure.’ She looked up. Cleve was piling thinly cut ham onto thickly buttered bread. Damn, it looked good. Maybe after the banana... ‘I’m sorry, I’m being selfish. You’ll want your parents here.’
‘This is about what you want, Miranda. They’ll understand.’
Would they? Would her own parents?
Probably not, but the thought of pretending that their marriage was more than it was, turning it into a celebration, was not something she could face. No doubt there would be a party of some sort when they got home but that was all it would be—a party. Not a wedding reception.
‘Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to make enquiries about the legalities. There’ll probably be all kinds of rules and regulations. A million forms—’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘It would be different in Italy. Yards of red tape, all the stuff we’d have to do at home and then a whole lot of other stuff on top.’
‘But not here?’
‘No. L’Isola dei Fiori is a small island, the communities are close-knit, relationships are well known. No one could commit bigamy or marry a cousin because everyone would know the minute they applied for a licence.’ Cleve shifted his shoulders. It wasn’t a shrug, more an expression of awkwardness. ‘The clerk in the post office was very helpful.’
‘You went into the post office to check up on the legal requirements for marriage? After I turned you down?’
‘I went into the post office to call Lucy and pick up some local currency but while I was there I thought I might as well make enquiries.’
‘It sounds as if you had quite a conversation.’
‘A lot more information than I needed. One woman in the queue told me that if you wanted to marry your cousin you’d have to fly to Las Vegas.’
‘She spoke English?’
‘The clerk was translating.’
‘Oh. Quite a party, then.’ She was struggling not to smile at the image this scene was creating. ‘Does that happen often?’ she asked. ‘Cousins marrying in Las Vegas?’
‘Apparently not because you could never come back and being exiled from L’Isola dei Fiori would be as if you were dead. Like this.’ He mimed stabbing himself through the heart. ‘What the locals lacked in language skills they made up for in gesture.’
‘Right.’ She made a valiant effort not to laugh. ‘Well, so long as you didn’t go out of your way.’
‘Why would I do that when you’d turned me down?’
‘Because you’re a pilot and you’ve been trained to anticipate every eventuality.’
She turned to him and discovered that he was smiling. One of those old-time Cleve smiles that had stolen her teenage heart and, hit by a wave of dizziness, she made a grab for the table. Before she made it his arm was around her shoulders and she was close against him breathing in a mix of smoke, old wet plaster, warm skin. It wasn’t helping...
‘Are you okay?’
‘Just a bit dizzy.’ His shoulder was just the right height for her head and she leaned against it. ‘It’s the sugar rush from all that banana, marmalade and orange juice on an empty stomach.’ Had to be. ‘I had the same training as you, Cleve, which is why I know that if you’d been here you would have done exactly what I did and I’d have been the one having kittens instead of you.’
‘Kittens? I thought we were having a baby.’
She dug him in the ribs with her elbow.
‘I’m just saying that I understand why you reacted as you did.’ Fear driving anger... ‘I’d have been the one yelling at you for being an idiot,’ she said.
‘Would have been? From where I was standing you were yelling like a fishwife.’
‘Yes. Sorry. It’s the hormones.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘Are you laughing at my hormones?’ she said into his shoulder.
‘I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Wise man.’ Cleve’s arm was around her, her head was on his shoulder and suddenly she was smiling fit to bust. Not cool. This was a marriage of convenience, an arranged marriage. She’d arranged it.
She straightened her face, cleared her throat, sat up. ‘Could you spare some of that ham?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I haven’t eaten properly for days.’
He made her a sandwich, she took a bite, groaned with pleasure. ‘So what are they? These minimal legalities?’
‘We have to swear a Declaration of No Impediment before a notary, present it in Italian and English at the local government office in any town, along with our passports and the sindaco, the mayor, will issue a licence.’
‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it. All we have to do is decide where we’re going to hold the ceremony and who we want to conduct it.’
‘Can’t the mayor do that? In the town hall?’
‘I imagine so. We can ask when we get the licence. Do you want to go into San Rocco tomorrow to make an appointment with a notary? We could have lunch, do a little shopping?’
‘Shopping?’
‘Unless you packed an emergency wedding dress?’
‘All I’ve got in my bag are jeans, leggings and tops. Even for the most basic wedding I think I’ll need something a little more elegant.’ She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. ‘Not anything—’ she made a helpless gesture with her hand, unable to bring herself to say bridal ‘—you know...’
‘Frilly?’ he offered.
‘That’s the word.’
‘But it should be special.’
‘Yes.’ She’d only be doing this once. ‘Have you got a jacket?’
‘Not one I’d want to get married in. I need a new suit.’
‘Well, that’s convenient.’
She would be in a special dress, Cleve would be wearing a suit and Matt could use her phone to video them making their vows and signing the register to send to their parents, her sisters, with the news that not only had they got married but they were going to have a baby.
And afterwards, he would take a photograph of the two of them standing on the steps of the town hall that she could print out, put in a silver frame and tuck away in her underwear drawer.
Just for her.
