The Wedding Arrangement Read online

  And at once he felt her response to that ruthlessness. She was no green girl but a woman who’d experienced passionate love, but had then lived celibate while desire built in her, waiting to be triggered by the right man. It was all there in the heated movements of her mouth, the sensuality that made her press closer to him, the hot breath that mingled with his.

  She offered no resistance when his lips trailed down her neck to the base of her throat, then further to the swell of her breasts. He could feel the pounding of her heart, hear the soft groan that broke from her and everything in him urged him on to what could be a blissful conclusion.

  Or disaster.

  ‘Minnie-’ He seemed to hear himself say her name as if from a distance. ‘Minnie-wait-’

  Using all the strength he could find, he drew away and held her at arm’s length.

  ‘Wait-’ he said again. ‘Not like this.’

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Look at me,’ he said urgently. ‘Look at me.’

  Her face was upturned to him but he saw with alarm that her eyes were unfocused.

  ‘Where are you, Minnie? You’re not here with me. Where are you?’ And who’s there with you? he wanted to add.

  ‘Why do you worry about things now?’ she whispered.

  ‘Because I want you too much to risk what we could have,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Or maybe I’m fooling myself and we could never have it-’

  ‘No, you’re not fooling yourself but… So much has happened. Luke-if you want me-’

  ‘I do. I want you as much as any man has ever wanted any woman, but not like this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Where is Gianni? Can you tell me that?’

  There was a stunned look in her eyes, as though she were pulling herself together with an effort.

  ‘He’s here, isn’t he?’ Luke raged. ‘He’s here because he’s always here, but that’s not good enough. I want you to come to me, me, not some fantasy figure that’s half me and half the man you really love.’

  He gave a little shake. ‘Get rid him,’ he growled. ‘Or tell me how to get rid of him.’

  ‘I don’t know how.’ It was a cry of pain.

  ‘You must, if there’s ever to be anything for us. I want to make love to you. God knows how much I want that, but only when I come first with you. Until then-’

  A tremor shook him, made up of thwarted desire and rage.

  ‘Until then there’s nothing between us,’ he managed to say before thrusting her from him and walking away.

  It felt brutal, but he had to do it while he still had the strength.

  He got as far away from her as possible, but then turned back. He wanted to tire himself, even though he knew it was no cure for what was raging through him. There was only one cure for that, and he began to think he would never find it.

  Looking up, he saw a light in Minnie’s window. He longed to go up to her room, beg her to forget what had passed tonight, say he would accept anything if only he could find a home in her bed, in her heart.

  But this was the most dangerous temptation of all. He ran from it, turning into a path that led away from the house, into the trees, then out again to where he knew there was a garden seat, overlooking the bay. There he could be safely alone.

  But someone was there before him.

  ‘Come and sit with me, my son,’ Hope invited, patting the space beside her.

  He did so, seating himself with a sigh, and running a hand through his hair. Hope watched him, silent but understanding.

  ‘So now I’ve met your “chambermaid”?’ she said at last, with a twinkle.

  ‘Chambermaid?’

  ‘The one who answered the phone that morning. There now, don’t I have a marvellous memory for an old woman?’

  ‘You’ll never be old, and I’ve sometimes wished that your memory was a little less marvellous.’

  ‘I know that. It’s quite disconcerting how well I remember certain things. You said she was the chambermaid.’

  ‘Mamma, I didn’t actually say that. You suggested it and I-’

  ‘Saw a useful way out,’ Hope teased. ‘Admit it.’

  She was laughing, and after a moment he joined in. ‘All right, I’m a coward. No question about it.’

  ‘You may also recall,’ Hope said, ‘that I heard in her voice that she had a passionate nature. Now I’ve heard that voice again, and I know I was right.’

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured, still trying to calm himself. ‘Yes. But Mamma, it’s not like that.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s time you told me what it is like.’ Hope came to the point of real importance. ‘Am I going to have another daughter-in-law, or not?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Then why not tell me about it?’

  ‘What is this? The Inquisition?’

  ‘Just a mother’s curiosity.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  ‘Not much,’ Hope admitted, patting his hand. ‘So, give in and tell me everything without making me work harder.’

  ‘Yes, that was always the easiest way,’ he recalled. ‘All right, she was in my hotel room, but I wasn’t there with her.’

  ‘Then where were you? Tell me.’

  ‘Yes, tell us,’ said a voice from the shadows, and they both looked up to see Olympia standing there with a glass of champagne in her hand. She strolled forward and settled herself on a fallen tree trunk that lay nearby, and looked at their faces.

  ‘I’m all ears to hear where you were,’ she said.

  ‘The trouble with acquiring a sister,’ Luke said with careful restraint, ‘is that it’s just one more female to put her nose into a man’s private affairs.’

  ‘Good, then I’m doing the right thing,’ Olympia said gleefully. ‘Come on, tell. Where were you?’

  Luke took a deep breath. There was no putting this off any longer.

  ‘I was in a police cell,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  If this disconcerted his mother she gave no sign of it, merely nodding her head as if to say that sooner or later every young man saw the inside of a police cell. Which was probably what she did actually believe. Olympia contented herself with a little choke of laughter.

  ‘What were you doing there?’ she asked mildly.

  ‘I got involved in a brawl and was arrested. Charlie was brawling too-he’s Minnie’s brother-in-law.’

  ‘And his name’s Charlie?’ Olympia asked.

  ‘It short for Charlemagne, because the family name is Pepino, which was the name of Charlemagne’s father-’

  ‘And they’re descended from him?’ Hope said.

  Luke grinned. ‘You’d never get them to admit that they weren’t. And one of the neighbours has a cat called Tiberius-’

  ‘After the Emperor Tiberius?’ Hope asked, her lips twitching.

  ‘Of course. It’s that sort of place.’

  He began to laugh at the memory, unaware that his mother was looking at him with fascination.

  ‘So you and Charlemagne were brawling,’ she reminded him.

  ‘And Minnie came to bail him out, and that’s how we met. She ended up defending me in court as well.’

  The two women burst into laughter.

  ‘How I wish I’d been there to see,’ Hope said at last. ‘My sensible, businesslike son, in a drunken brawl!’

  ‘I didn’t say drunken-’

  ‘Nonsense, of course it was!’ Olympia said firmly. ‘Oh, dear-’

  They went off into more gales of laughter while Luke gritted his teeth. But after a moment he relaxed and grinned.

  ‘I remember the day you left here,’ Hope said, ‘full of plans to confront her in a businesslike fashion, not standing for any nonsense-’

  ‘And I did confront her, in a police cell, with my clothes torn. I didn’t have my ID card so she had to go to the hotel to collect it, and my phone. That’s how she came to answer it.’

  ‘You’ve been keeping a lot to
yourself. You told me that you’d moved into the Residenza, but you left out the best things.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to boast about my criminal record to my mother,’ he said defensively, but he was grinning again.

  ‘But the two of you have made friends now, since she was the one you went to when Toni called.’

  He hesitated. ‘I didn’t have to go to her, Mamma. She was right there with me-’

  ‘In your bed?’

  ‘Her bed. I’ve been staying with her so that she could nurse me, but it wasn’t-as you think.’

  ‘I think nothing, my son, since nothing in your relationship with this young woman seems to follow a normal course. Where do you stand with each other?’

  ‘I only wish I knew. I feel closer to her than any other woman I’ve ever known, and I know that she needs me. But I’m not the man she loves.’

  Hope’s eyebrows rose. ‘Loving another man, she shares your bed?’

  ‘Not in the sense you mean. For the last week she’s cuddled up to me at night as she might have cuddled up to an old dog. The man she loves is her late husband, Gianni Pepino. He’s been dead for four years but it might be yesterday, she’s still so tied to his memory. No, he’s more than a memory, he’s a ghost that she can’t escape. He’s in her thoughts, he’s there with us all the time. At night I’ve held her in my arms while she spoke of him.’

  ‘And that’s really all?’ Hope asked, incredulous and slightly scandalised at the same time.

  ‘Yes, it makes me sound like a wimp, doesn’t it? All right, I am a wimp, but it’s what she needs. She must talk of him or go mad, and she can’t tell the others, so it has to be me.’

  ‘And that is all the use she has for you, my son?’

  Luke gave a wry laugh. ‘That is all the use she has for me. Tonight, I did briefly hope-but it wasn’t me. Not really.’

  ‘But why do you put up with it? There are many other women in the world.’

  He said nothing for a moment, but at last he spoke as though with the words he had finally discovered the truth.

  ‘No, Mamma, there aren’t. There isn’t another woman whose smile can wring my heart as hers can, or make me want to throw aside everything else if only I can make her happy.’

  Hope regarded him quizzically. ‘This is you talking-my son, whose life has been lived balancing the accounts, calculating what everyone and everything was worth to him, and taking the long view?’

  He winced. ‘I’m not as bad as that, am I?’

  ‘You were. But not now, I think.’ Then, as though there were some connection, which perhaps there was, she added, ‘I passed on your message of thanks to Olympia, by the way.’

  ‘And I’m beginning to understand it now,’ Olympia said. ‘At one time you’d never have said the things you’re saying now.’

  He nodded. ‘At one time, if a woman didn’t go my way, I went off in another direction,’ he mused. ‘You were the first one I stuck around for, although I knew I might be knocked back-and I was. So, when Minnie knocks me back, I’ll have some experience to help me cope.’

  Olympia’s answer to this was to lean forward and kiss him lightly on the mouth.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll knock you back,’ she said. ‘Although you may have to come to your big sister for some advice.’

  ‘Now go on with the story,’ Hope commanded. ‘Tell us some more about this man she married.’

  ‘She feels guilty about his death because they were quarrelling, he chased after her and was run over in the road. He died in her arms. As a man-’ Luke shrugged. ‘He seems to have been a good-natured fellow, kind and affectionate. He was a truck driver, so I doubt if he’d ever have set the world alight, but he made her feel loved.’

  ‘Oh-ho!’ Hope exclaimed, regarding him with slightly scornful irony. ‘So a truck driver has thrown you into the shade! You, of course, know all about setting the world alight, but have you ever made a woman feel so deeply loved that she never recovered from your loss?’

  ‘Never,’ he growled. ‘There’s no need to labour the point, Mamma.’

  ‘No, because you’ve seen it for yourself, haven’t you? You spoke lightly of throwing everything else aside for her sake, but were they only words, or could you live up to them if you had to? You might make her love you in a way, but suppose you can’t also drive his ghost away? Can you live with him there, too, for her sake?’

  ‘That’s the thought that torments me. Does she love me, or does she merely cling to me from need?’

  ‘And, if it’s the second, can you love her anyway? Love isn’t like a book-keeping ledger, my son. You don’t always get equal repayment in return for what you give. Do you love her enough to settle for less, as long as she is happy?’

  ‘I wish I knew myself better. Tonight we were together out here, and there was a moment when I thought I could make love to her. But I didn’t. Something stopped me, something in here-’ He laid a hand over his heart.

  ‘What was it that stopped you, my son?’

  ‘He was there and I couldn’t get rid of him, and if I can’t, how can she? I told her I’d never make love to her until I came first, but-’

  ‘But suppose you never do?’ Olympia asked gently. ‘What then?’

  He was silent for a long moment, before saying wretchedly, ‘I don’t know. Heaven help me, I don’t know!’

  Minnie was packed and ready to go next morning.

  ‘Of course you must attend to your work,’ Hope told her kindly, ‘but you must return to us soon. Luke, I rely on you to arrange it.’

  The others came to bid her goodbye, including Franco, who said, ‘You must forgive me for not remembering your name. I was jet lagged out of my mind last night.’

  ‘This is Signora Minerva Pepino,’ Luke said.

  Only the most astute observer would have noticed the sudden frisson that went through Franco. Minnie was too occupied with her troubled thoughts to sense anything.

  Luke walked her to the car. ‘I’ll be in Rome in a day or two,’ he said.

  ‘Your mother may want you to stay longer.’

  ‘I can’t risk it,’ he said lightly. ‘Who knows what legal mischief you’ll get up to in my absence? I’ll be there soon. Count on it.’

  ‘Let’s hope they’ve finished renovating your flat,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Are you that anxious to throw me out?’

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said, extending her hand and giving him a smile. It contained no warmth, only finality.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said, taking her hand, not knowing what else to say or do.

  He watched as she drove away, then walked slowly back to the house.

  Franco was on the steps, staring at the road down which Minnie had driven away. He looked puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Nothing, I-did you say her name was Pepino?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Minerva Pepino?’

  ‘That’s right. Have you heard of her?’

  ‘I might have. And her husband’s name was-?’

  ‘Gianni.’

  Franco drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Luke asked. ‘Did you know Gianni?’

  ‘Not well, but yes, I met him a few times.’

  ‘In Rome?’

  ‘No, here in Naples. He used to come here often.’

  ‘That’s right, he collected things in his truck.’

  ‘So he may have done, but he also came to see a woman.’

  Luke’s head jerked up. ‘That’s impossible. He was happily married until he died four years ago.’

  Franco shrugged. ‘Maybe he was, but I’m telling you that he had a woman here, and a son.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘A ND I tell you, you’ve got it wrong. You’re confusing him with someone else.’

  ‘The man I knew was called Gianni Pepino, he had a wife called Minerva and she was a lawyer in Rome.’

  Luke poured himself a glass of brandy, and drain
ed it in one gulp. Somewhere inside him an earthquake was taking place.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ he murmured. ‘She adored him. She still does.’

  ‘Well, he certainly managed to pull the wool over her eyes,’ Franco said. ‘The girl is called Elsa Alessio, and the child is called Sandro. He got her pregnant when he was down here one summer, fooling around. He was only eighteen, and there was never any talk of marriage. She was older, a divorcee, and she had some money of her own.

  ‘From the way he talked, they weren’t in love or anything. They just had a fling and stayed friends. He used to come here to see her and the boy, then go back to Rome. After he got married he just kept on visiting her, chiefly to see his son and give her money-’

  ‘I thought you said she didn’t need money.’

  ‘She didn’t need to marry him, but a decent man supports his child, and maybe a little extra as a present for her.’

  ‘Bastardo!’ Luke said softly.

  ‘Why? Gianni loved his wife, and what happened before they married didn’t concern her.’

  ‘But he never told her.’

  ‘Of course he didn’t. Why hurt her for nothing?’

  It was a point of view, Luke realised, with which a lot of men would sympathise. But he was conscious of a burning anger for Minnie’s sake.

  ‘How often did he visit her?’ he demanded.

  Franco shrugged. ‘How do I know? But I had a friend who knew him better, and he said Gianni used to boast of those visits.’

  ‘Boast? How?’

  Franco shrugged. ‘How do you think?’

  ‘Perhaps you should tell us, my son,’ Hope said quietly from the shadows.

  Franco jumped. ‘Mamma. I didn’t know you were there.’

  ‘Evidently, or you wouldn’t be indulging in foolish, loose talk. Minnie was a guest under our roof. How dare you spread such stories?’

  ‘I didn’t invent it, Mamma. It’s true.’

  ‘How much is true? About the child? Perhaps.’

  ‘And he boasted that he could have Elsa whenever he wanted,’ Franco said.

  ‘And do you know that he was telling the truth? Does one believe every word that a boastful young man says? I don’t think so. Listen, my son, you are not to say another word of this matter. Rumours can hurt people, even when they are unfounded, and I would not have Minnie hurt for all the world. Please promise me that you’ll forget this and never repeat it.’