‘He won’t,’ Polly said hastily. ‘Yes, I’ll come back for a while.’
Hope cast her a strange look, but said nothing. Wasting no time, she picked up Polly’s bedside phone, called the airport, and found a flight to London that afternoon.
By now the light was growing, and the house was waking up around them. Hope bustled away to tell everyone of the plan for today.
‘I’m afraid you got taken over again,’ Ruggiero said wryly.
‘That’s all right. I’m glad about this. Hope will love him-’
‘Even if I don’t? Is that what you mean?’
‘You will-in the end. Perhaps you should go now.’
It was a relief when he left. She needed time to work out more details of her ‘fiance’.
He’s a doctor called Brian, she decided. And I met him at the hospital where I used to work. And he’s doing a lot of night shifts, so he’s hard to get hold of.
She’d invented a fiance on the spur of the moment, solely to silence Ruggiero in their argument. If she’d stopped to consider first she might not have done it.
But that’s me, she thought ruefully. Speak first, think afterwards. I might have come up with something else if I’d had time, or if Ruggiero couldn’t annoy me so much that-ah, well. I’m stuck with a ‘fiance’ now, so I may as well make use of him.
Today Ruggiero went downstairs for breakfast. Polly found herself sitting next to Toni, who seemed eager to talk to her. She’d seen little of him before, but now she found him a gentle, soft-spoken man, full of joy about his new grandson.
‘You won’t stay away too long, will you?’ he asked anxiously.
‘That’s up to Hope,’ she said. ‘She’s arranging everything.’
For a moment his eyes rested fondly on his wife.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She knows just how to make everything right.’
After breakfast she called the friends caring for Matthew to say she was on her way. Then she went looking for Ruggiero, and found him in the garden, sitting on a fallen log, looking at his clasped hands.
‘I’ve left you some of those pills, but use them sparingly,’ she said.
‘I probably won’t need them. I feel better now I’m up.’
‘Good. But don’t overdo it.’ A sudden suspicion made her add, ‘Don’t go back to work.’
‘I’ll just drop in to talk to my partner. No racing, I promise.’
‘Your partner can visit you here.’
‘And let him see me looking like an invalid? Forget it.’
‘Is there any way to get some sense into you?’
‘Nope, so stop wasting your time.’
There was a sulphurous silence. Then he grinned reluctantly.
‘Sorry if I give you a hard time.’
But she had his measure by now. ‘You’re not sorry. That ritual apology is just to shut me up.’
‘Well, it’s failed, hasn’t it? As a matter of interest, has anyone ever actually managed to shut you up?’
‘Would I tell you?’
‘Not if you were wise.’ He grinned again, more warmly this time. ‘I promise to be good while you’re gone.’
He brightened suddenly.
‘You and my mother have a lot in common. The way you took your fiance’s consent for granted was very like her. What’s his name, by the way?’
‘Brian,’ she said quickly. ‘And he’ll understand about my coming back here. After all, it won’t be for long.’
‘What did he say when you called to tell him?’
‘I haven’t done that yet.’
‘You’d better hurry if you want him to meet you at the airport.’
‘He can’t. He’s a hospital doctor and he’s on night duty at the moment,’ she said, repeating the story she’d mapped out. ‘I’d better go and get ready.’
Before she could move he reached out and took her hand.
‘A moment,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you a favour.’
But he stopped there, as though it was hard for him to go on.
‘What can I do for you?’ she asked gently.
His hand tightened on hers.
‘When you get home-do you have any more pictures of her?’
‘Yes, I have plenty. I’ll bring some of them to you.’
‘Bring them all. Everything-please.’
‘There are a lot of blanks to be filled in, aren’t there?’
‘I used to think I’d have the chance to fill them in one day. I never thought it would be like this, when it’s too late to make any difference.’
But it could still make a difference, she thought. It would help him learn to relate to his son, and she would do everything in her power to help that happen.
‘You’d better let me go,’ she said, wincing slightly.
He seemed to return from a distance, to realise that he was gripping her hand hard. He made an exclamation as he released it and began to rub it between his two hands.
‘I think the circulation’s started again now,’ she said lightly.
‘I’m sorry-again. Hell! Why don’t I just give you a big apology now, and hopefully it’ll cover everything in the future?’
‘Well, I’m leaving in a couple of hours,’ she said lightly. ‘You won’t have time to annoy me before then.’
‘You underestimate me. Let’s go in.’
He helped her to her feet and they walked indoors, briefly in accord.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY were to spend two nights in England-the first in Polly’s home and the second with Justin and Evie, who were eager to see the new arrival.
During the flight Hope asked about Polly’s fiance, assuming, as Ruggiero had done, that he would meet them. Polly repeated the excuse about ‘Brian’s’ night duty, and Hope seemed to accept it.
Although the matriarch of an Italian family, Hope was English, and she knew the country well.
‘How do you come to live in London if you come from Yorkshire?’ she asked.
‘I was engaged several years ago, but we broke up. I wanted to get away so I came south. Freda joined me when she became ill.’
‘And the baby is-how old?’
‘Eighteen months.’
‘Is he walking?’
‘Oh, yes, he’s well grown. He took his first tentative step at nine months.’
‘So did Ruggiero,’ Hope said with satisfaction. ‘He and Carlo competed to see who could walk first, and they’ve been vying with each other ever since.’
They were to collect Matthew the next morning, as it would be too late to do it that day. The light was fading when they arrived in the evening. When they had sent out for a take-away meal, and were sitting together in the tiny kitchen, Hope said gently, ‘Why don’t you tell me the things you couldn’t say in front of Ruggiero?’
Faced with this kindly understanding, Polly explained everything. At the end Hope nodded sadly.
‘He said very little when he got home-something about a “holiday romance”, but so casually that it seemed to mean nothing. I should have seen through that, but there had been so many-’ She made a sad gesture.
‘I imagine he was very determined to keep his secrets?’ Polly suggested. ‘Freda summed him up as “love ’em and leave ’em,” and maybe for a man like that…’ She hesitated, but Hope understood.
‘It would be very difficult to find that he was the one left,’ she filled in. ‘That must have made it harder for him
