Catherine Spencer – The Man from Tuscany (страница 4)

Annoyed, Carly said in an aside, “You know she can’t keep up with you, Mom. If you’re worried about having to stand in line, you and Dad go ahead, and I’ll bring Gran in my car when she’s ready.”

Anna waited until they were alone again, then smiled gratefully at Carly. “Convincing your mother I don’t have one foot in the grave tends to sap my energy,” she said. “Thank you for buying me a reprieve, precious.”

“I figured we need it. We have to decide how we’re going to handle this, Gran. If Mom gets an inkling of what’s really going on here—”

Anna nodded. “I’ve stirred up quite the hornet’s nest as it is.”

“Exactly. Let’s not make matters any worse.” Carly sent her a glance. “Does she have any idea that you’ve been in love for years with a man who wasn’t your husband?”

“Good heavens, no! Marco and I maintained the utmost discretion. I doubt she even remembers who he is.”

But that wasn’t necessarily accurate, as Carly discovered when they reached the restaurant and Anna stopped to chat with a friend at another table, leaving Carly a few minutes alone with her parents.

“I checked with our travel agent,” her father began as soon as she joined them. “It’s just as we thought. There are no direct flights from Boston to Florence. At the very least, your grandmother would have to fly to Washington, then change planes again in Munich or Milan, and I’m afraid your mom might be right, Carly. That’s more than Anna can handle. Is there any chance you can talk her into settling for somewhere closer, like Bermuda or the Bahamas?”

“I doubt it, Dad. She’s pretty set on Italy.”

“I’ll bet she is,” Grace said with some bitterness. “She probably hopes that if she returns to the scene of her youth, it’ll give her a new lease on life.”

Taylor nodded thoughtfully. “Nostalgia can be a powerful thing for someone your mother’s age, honey.”

“Some memories are better left untouched, Taylor. If she goes ahead with this, we’ll never see her again.”

“I don’t agree. Despite everything she’s gone through, Anna’s never once cracked under pressure. And realistically, if she’s determined to take this trip, you can’t very well forbid her to go. The best we can do is insist one of us goes with her.”

Appalled at what that might lead to, Carly said, “She’ll never agree to that.”

“She might, if you were to volunteer,” her father said reasonably. “After all, you’re her beloved only grandchild. You’re a nurse, so you’re qualified to monitor her health. You recently resigned your hospital position, which means you have the summer free before going back to university in the fall. And as far as I know, you’re unattached.” He held up five fingers. “Have I missed anything?”

“Yes, Dad,” she said, seeing her grandmother coming toward them, and fully aware that where this proposed trip was concerned, three would definitely be a crowd. “Gran might not want me along for the ride.”

“Now that is something I’ll talk her into. In fact, I’ll insist on it,” Grace announced. She barely waited until her mother was seated before wading in. “This whole idea of traipsing halfway around the world all by yourself simply isn’t feasible, Mother. Travel is confusing at the best of times, especially for someone your age.”

“Well, I’m not dead yet, dear,” Anna replied. “I’m able to ask for help, if I need it.”

“What Grace is saying,” Taylor explained, “is that she— we— would feel a lot more comfortable if you didn’t go alone. So we’re wondering how you’d feel about Carly joining you.”

“Carly?” Her face lit up with pleasure. “I’d be delighted to have her as my traveling companion, provided she doesn’t mind being saddled with me.”

“I don’t mind, if you don’t,” Carly said, sliding her a conspiratorial glance. “I’ve never been to Italy.”

“That settles it, then.” Taylor lifted his water glass in a toast. “Here’s to a safe, successful trip!”

They all seconded that, Carly’s mother with markedly less enthusiasm than the rest of them.

“Cheer up, dear,” Anna urged. “Think of it as an adventure, one last glorious fling before I reconcile myself to terminal old age and day trips to Newport.”

She would’ve been wiser to keep quiet, because Grace rounded on her fretfully. “Day trips I can understand. But Italy, Mother? And why now, for heaven’s sake?”

Carly the nurse understood why, whether or not Carly the granddaughter wanted to acknowledge it. Her grandmother rightly sensed her time was running out but realized that to say so would’ve been as cruel as revealing the part Marco had played in her life.

“Because I’d like to go to Florence and see the Duomo and Michelangelo’s David one more time. And because I’d love to be the one to introduce them to my granddaughter,” she said instead.

“But where will you stay?” Grace asked. “You’ve never liked big hotels, Mother.”

“With the son of an old friend who lives not far from the city. He has plenty of room and I have a standing invitation to visit anytime. Carly, I know, will be welcome, too.”

Defeated, Grace sighed. “And when is this visit to take place?”

“As soon as possible, dear,” Anna said.

C ARLY SECURED reservations for the following Tuesday, flying via Boston to Washington, and from there to England, where they’d spend the night before embarking on the last leg of the journey to Florence. In the five days before their departure, she took care of all the details, and worried that her grandmother had taken on more than she’d bargained for.

“Even with a night in London, you’re going to find the journey tiring,” she warned, as they boarded the Boeing 777 for the transatlantic flight. “This part alone lasts nearly seven and a half hours.”

But nothing could diminish Anna’s enthusiasm. Adding a thick folder to the items to be included in her carry-on bag, she said blithely, “The good news is, I can spend it telling you the rest of my story.”

Which would have been fine, Carly reflected morosely—except she was no longer sure she wanted to hear it.

CHAPTER THREE

F INALLY , we’re on our way. The seat belt sign is off, the aircraft is headed east, and it’s time for me to pick up my story from where I left it last week. I only have until tomorrow to convince Carly that I’m not some foolish old woman pinning all her hopes on yesterday, and Marco wasn’t a home-wrecker who came between me and her beloved grandpa.

“I phoned Marco again on Sunday, to tell him you’re coming with me,” I begin. “He’s a little concerned that you might not understand the part he’s played in my life.”

“I’m not sure I do, Gran,” she says.

“I know, darling.” I pat her hand. “But you will by the time we get to Florence.”

“And how does he feel about having me underfoot all summer?”

“He can’t wait for us to arrive.” In fact, his last words before we hung up were, Please hurry. I don’t want to be apart from you a day longer than necessary.

“I wonder if he remembers saying almost the exact same words to me, the first time we said goodbye,” I murmur. “Probably not. Men don’t usually recall such things, and so much has happened since then. But I remember the moment so vividly that I’m breaking out in goose bumps.”

“Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Gran,” Carly says.

“But I do,” I tell her. “How else can I make you understand?”

She shrugs, and I know she won’t easily forgive what she sees as a betrayal of her family. Steeling myself, I begin….

O N MY LAST NIGHT in Florence, he was waiting for me at our usual place, near the main door to Santa Maria Novella. A high summer moon glimmered over the black-and-white marble facade of the old church, and laid patterns of light on the deserted flagstones of the piazza.

Hearing my footsteps, he stepped out of the shadows and without a word took me in his arms. I sank against him, imprinting in my mind the solid feel of his body, the scent of his skin, the taste of his mouth on mine, because they were all I’d have to sustain me during the months we’d be apart.

In the morning, my aunt, cousin and I would board the train for Paris, on the first part of the long trip to Southampton, where the Queen Mary was scheduled to cross the Atlantic on August 30. “And not a moment too soon,” my aunt had fussed as she supervised the packing of our travel trunks. “The sooner we’re away from this benighted continent and all its troubles, the better.”

“How do I let you go, amore mio? ” Marco murmured, burying his face in my hair.

The tears I’d sworn I wouldn’t let fall clogged my voice. “It’s only for a little while.” For as long as it takes me to overcome my parents’ objections, I added silently, knowing they’d resist any idea of my marrying a foreigner, let alone one I’d known so briefly, but resolved that nothing would dissuade me from returning to Florence before year’s end. “I’ll write to you every day.”

“And I to you,” he promised. “Not an hour will pass that I won’t be thinking of you and preparing for our life together.”

After that, we wasted no more time talking. Clasping hands, we hurried along the darkened streets to our special place, the room he’d taken above a bookshop not far from the Ponte Vecchio. Although I’d done my best to brighten it with fresh flowers and candles, I suppose, to anyone else’s eyes, it didn’t have much to recommend it. But to us, living as we did for the hours when we could close the door on the rest of the world, it had the only things that really mattered—privacy and a bed intended for one, but shared by two.