The Wedding Arrangement Read online

  ‘He told you-everything?’ he asked, hardly daring to believe.

  ‘Of course he did. We loved each other. He wouldn’t have deceived me. He told me everything that I needed to know,’ she added with a slightly ambiguous phrasing that he didn’t notice until later.

  He could hardly believe that he’d been let off the hook. Or at least, almost. There was still one tiny hook.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she believed Gianni had been faithful to her on those visits to Elsa. Did she know that he had boasted otherwise?

  But the next moment he knew that this was a secret he must keep. Who could tell if such boasts had been true, or even if he’d said any such thing? And, without certainty, he had no right to speak.

  And if the worst was true, and she had to learn it one day, he would prepare for that day by making her so happy in their marriage that nothing from the past could touch her.

  That was the resolve he made to himself, that he would keep in secret and never speak of to her as long as they both lived.

  ‘Would you really move to Rome, for me?’ she asked in wonder.

  ‘I can extend my business there, and become a sleeping partner in the Naples factories. I’ll enjoy the challenge of new territories. You can’t leave your practice. You’ve built it up in Rome.’

  ‘And you’re not jealous of it?’ There was an old anxiety in her voice.

  ‘I swear I’ll never be jealous. Or at least, if I am,’ he added with a touch of humour, ‘I’ll keep it decently to myself.’

  She reached up and took his head between her hands, searching his face.

  ‘When I thought I’d lost you, it was the end of the world for me. I love you so much; without you there’s nothing.’

  ‘Don’t say it unless you’re completely sure,’ he said anxiously.

  ‘Completely, totally, utterly sure. I thought I could never love any other man again, but I was only waiting for you. I didn’t want to believe it-I got so mad at you-’

  ‘Yes, I know that,’ he said with a laugh that sounded shaky because relief and happiness were making him weak. ‘I tried to get mad at you, but I could barely manage it, and I could never stay mad for five minutes. You used to look at me in that way you have, and then-I don’t know-things happened to me.’

  ‘I think it’s time something happened now,’ she murmured, tightening her hands on his head.

  In the long kiss that followed they could hear the sound of soft cheering from the shadows.

  ‘My family are just loving this,’ he murmured.

  Then he was silent, holding her fiercely against him, as though afraid to risk her slipping away, kissing her again and again.

  ‘Do I hear applause?’ she murmured.

  ‘Probably. The Rinuccis are like the Pepinos. Love and marriage concern everyone. All those things they heard me say once, about keeping control of my life, being cautious, even in love-what a laugh I’m giving them now! But I don’t care. Let them laugh, because I’m the winner. Carissima, I don’t want to keep control of my life any longer. I want you to have it. Take it, and keep me safe.’

  ‘There’s something I want you to know,’ she said earnestly.

  ‘What is it, my love?’

  ‘I said goodbye to Gianni yesterday, finally and for good. He understands.’

  It was said afterwards that the meeting of Netta Pepino and Hope Rinucci was like the meeting of monarchs. An official visit was made from Naples to Rome, and the Rinuccis were ceremonially entertained.

  Hope and Netta inspected the two flats that were being knocked into one and pronounced themselves satisfied.

  ‘You have done the right thing in choosing to live in Rome,’ Hope told him privately later. They were standing at the window in Netta’s front room, eating her delicious home-made cake. ‘Franco will be home soon, and it’s best not to risk him saying a word out of turn.’

  ‘I nearly said it myself,’ he observed.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Hope said fondly. ‘You were never going to tell her anything.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that.’

  ‘Certainly I’m sure. You love her far too much to hurt her. I always knew that. But I wasn’t sure that you knew.’

  ‘I didn’t know, until I was faced with the choice. Then I realised there was no choice. There never had been. But you-all that stuff you were handing me about calculating how to get what I wanted-’

  ‘My son, I knew you wouldn’t actually do it. I know you better than you know yourself.’

  Toni, who’d been standing behind them for the last minute, observed, ‘Even so, I think he can still surprise you.’

  ‘How do you mean, caro?’

  ‘Tell her, Luke.’

  ‘Years ago Toni offered me the chance to become a Rinucci, and I turned it down because there was still a lot about families that I didn’t understand. An hour ago I asked him if the offer was still open.’

  ‘And I told him it was,’ Toni said.

  He was right. Hope was taken utterly by surprise. Her eyes filled with tears of joy and she embraced the son who had finally decided to come in from the cold.

  The only person not pleased by this arrangement was Netta.

  ‘Better you change your name to Pepino,’ she advised him. ‘Then you’ll be descended from an emperor.’

  Laughing, Luke vetoed the idea, but Netta had her own way in everything else. Minnie wore the slim white dress and veil for her wedding in Santa Maria in Trastevere, and afterwards she and her groom went in a horse-drawn carriage through the streets to the Residenza, where the reception was to be held in the courtyard.

  The carriage took the long way round, for the sake of all her neighbours who wanted to see her, and by the time it reached home the families had contrived to get there first, climbing the stairs, hung with fresh white flowers, until they lined the inner surface of the courtyard, almost to the sky.

  Netta and Hope, two queens, led the cheers that broke out as they appeared under the arch into the courtyard, and when hundreds of white petals showered down on the bride and groom as they stood gazing upwards in wonder, it was they who threw the first and the last, and they who cheered, laughed and wept the longest.

  Lucy Gordon

  Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness, and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.

  You can visit her website at www. lucy-gordon. com and look out for The Italian’s Passionate Revenge which will be available in May!

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