HOPE RINUCCI came home that afternoon. Toni went to collect her, insisting that nobody should come with him, as he wanted to be alone with his wife. When he handed her out of the car she looked well, smiling with pleasure at her family’s attention. It was obvious now that it really had been a false alarm.
Watching from the sidelines, Minnie saw an elegant, beautiful woman in her fifties, a woman who would attract admiring attention wherever she went, no matter what her age. She couldn’t help smiling as Hope’s sons converged on her. It was like watching vassals do homage. She almost expected them to kiss her hand.
One by one she hugged everyone-Justin, her eldest son, Evie, his new wife, and Mark, his son by his first marriage. Then Primo and Olympia.
‘We can really get down to planning your marriage,’ she told them.
When she’d kissed her twins, Carlo and Ruggiero, she looked around hopefully.
‘Franco?’
‘Later today, Mamma,’ Carlo said. ‘It’s a long way from Los Angeles.’
At last Hope’s eyes sought out the young woman who held back, watching and silent.
‘And you are Minnie?’ she said.
‘Yes, I’m Minnie.’
She came forward to be enveloped in a scented embrace. Hope gave her a genuinely warm hug, then drew back and looked at her.
‘Luke has told me how you brought him here,’ she said. ‘And I thank you with all my heart.’
Minnie, normally so assured, found herself suddenly awkward.
‘It was nothing-just a short drive.’
A sudden tension seemed to come over Hope. It was almost indefinable, an extra edge of alertness, a slight turn of her head so that her ear was closer to Minnie, the better to catch a familiar tone.
‘Three hours is not a short drive,’ she replied, ‘especially when you’ve been torn from sleep. I don’t think it was “nothing”. Also, Luke has told me how you’ve been looking after him since the explosion. We must speak more of this later.’
‘I’m glad you turned out to be all right, anyway,’ Minnie said.
Hope smiled and said something gracious, then gave her attention to Luke, who had been standing by.
Hope refused their suggestion that she should go to bed, insisting that she felt well and wanted only to be among them. Half an hour later a car drew up outside and the missing son appeared. Franco had been in Los Angeles for the last few weeks and had just stepped off the plane after a thirteen hour flight. He and Hope ran straight into each other’s arms.
‘I always thought he was her favourite,’ said Olympia, who was close to Minnie. ‘Of course, she’d deny that she has any favourites, but with Franco there’s just a little something extra-I think.’ Seeing Minnie looking at her, she added, ‘With Hope it’s never wise to be sure.’
‘I can see that she’s a very unusual woman,’ Minnie agreed.
‘She sees everything, she hears everything, she knows everything,’ Olympia said. ‘And she plots in secret.’
‘Plots?’
‘She thinks it’s time she had more daughters-in-law, and she’s not the type to just sit back and cross her fingers. Justin and Evie actually broke up, but she went to England and got them on track again.’
‘And you and Primo?’
Olympia chuckled. ‘I must admit that it was Luke who played Cupid that time. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?’
‘He doesn’t look like Cupid, no,’ Minnie said, regarding Luke with her head on one side, and considering the matter seriously. ‘But then, Cupid comes in many shapes. Sometimes he can look like a good friend, until you’re ready for more.’
‘There’s got to be a whole fascinating history behind that remark,’ Olympia said.
‘There is,’ Minnie assured her.
There were more introductions, but Franco was clearly too full of jet lag to take in many details, and he wanted to talk to his mother.
Minnie found an unexpected ally in young Mark, Justin’s thirteen year old son, who turned out to come from the same part of London where she’d once lived with her mother. They had a good time saying, ‘Do you know that place where-?’ until Evie, his step-mother, came to join in.
As soon as dinner was over Minnie said quietly to Luke, ‘I’ll say goodnight now.’
‘So soon?’
‘I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’m really in the way here. Your mother wants to be with her family, and I should catch up with my emails. I brought my laptop.’
‘Do you take work everywhere you go?’ he asked, appalled.
‘It’s always useful.’
She said goodnight to Hope, excusing herself on the grounds of catching up on her lost sleep of the night before.
In her room she connected the laptop and tried to concentrate on work, but it was strangely hard. From below she could heard the hum of a happy family, and it increased the sense of isolation that had swept over her.
Then she wondered at herself for feeling this way. Since Gianni’s death she’d taught herself to be self- sufficient, as content alone as in a crowd, and it was natural that she should be an outsider here. But she felt as though she’d been separated from Luke at the very moment that her heart wanted to draw nearer to him.
Jealousy, she thought, mocking herself. Jealousy at this late date.
And fear lest she lose him, a feeling she’d known so little that it had taken her time to recognise it.
She worked for a couple of hours, subconsciously listening to the house grow quiet about her. Then she shut down the computer, showered and got ready for bed. When the light was out she went to the window and stood looking out over the garden, where coloured lights hung between the trees.
A few yards along from her she could see a staircase leading down to the garden, and suddenly she needed to be down there. There was nobody in the corridor when she looked out, and she hurried along to where a door led out on to a balcony, from where the stairs descended. In a moment she’d run down on to the lawn, hurrying to get between the trees.
Here there was fresh sea air to be breathed in, and a sense of release. She stood looking down at the bay, taking deep breaths, feeling herself relax after the nervous strains of the last two days. Passionately she longed for Luke to be here with her, but strangely she also longed to get away from here, back to Rome, back to the life she knew and where she belonged, back to the time before she’d met Luke.
She wanted him, yet he threatened something in her, and part of her wanted to flee, all the more because she sensed that he was as wary of her as she was of him.
‘Are you there?’
She whirled around to see him coming towards her between the trees, and her own flash of happiness was like a warning.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ she called back softly.
He reached out and drew her into the shadows with him.
‘I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again tonight. Did you come out to find me?’
‘No, I just-well, maybe I did-’
Hadn’t that been in her mind all the time? she wondered.
‘I wanted to talk to you all evening,’ he murmured, ‘but I couldn’t get close to you. This place is too crowded. I wish I could come back to Rome with you, but I can’t leave just yet.’
She made a wry grimace. ‘The flat is going to feel awfully empty without you.’
‘Yes, you won’t have anyone to tell you the answers in the game shows,’ he agreed.
‘Or help me with the crossword puzzles.’
‘You’ve got to admit, I have my uses,’ he said with a wry attempt at humour.
‘Oh, yes-Luke-Luke-’
