‘Sounds fun.’
Matteo took Charlie on a circuitous route through Ravello. He wanted to show her everything. It had been several years since he’d spent more than a couple of days here, but with every step he felt more and more as if he had come home. Every alleyway, every ancient villa, every peep of a courtyard garden, every hidden restaurant and café was as familiar to him as his Kensington square. He exclaimed over several changes of ownership as they walked past shops and restaurants, insisting on buying Charlie gelato from his favourite ice-cream maker, even though she protested that she was too full from breakfast to manage more than a few bites.
‘The cathedral is definitely worth taking a look at,’ he told her as they wandered down another alleyway. ‘And there’s a little museum with some rare Roman finds in it as well, but the main attraction in Ravello is the villa and the botanical gardens. They’re on every Amalfi coast must-see tour.’
‘It all sounds amazing,’ she said, taking another lick of the ice cream she managed to almost finish despite her earlier protestations. ‘Ravello may be small, but it’s definitely not sleepy.’
‘That’s its charm,’ he said. ‘Being here feels like living in the perfect Italian hillside village, only you get spectacular views, five-star food, concerts with world-renowned artists and high-end shops as well. But, of course, there’s so much to do all round here; you can get a boat from Amalfi over to Ischia and Capri, travel up the coast to Positano or to Sorrento, further afield to Naples or Pompeii or Herculaneum…’
‘You’ve missed your calling as a tourism expert.’ Charlie grinned up at him. ‘If you ever get bored of being a business tycoon you could turn the villa into a B&B and take people all over the coast. I’d sign up. Hang on.’ She looked down at her hands in surprise. ‘Where did that ice cream go? I could have sworn I wasn’t going to manage more than a couple of bites.’
Matteo laughed, taking her hand in his, and her fingers closed round his as they fell into step together. He’d been an idiot, seeing things that weren’t there. Those concerns, the imagined silences were just because she was worried about his concussion. Everything was perfect between them, just as it should be. As he had known it would be. His grandfather had told him he was a fool to marry a girl he hardly knew, a girl with no connections, without a family name to use or a business to utilise. But Matteo had known what he wanted, what he needed. And, for once, his views weren’t the same as his grandfather’s. He owed the old man a lot, everything. The only stability he’d ever known for a start. But that didn’t mean he could dictate who Matteo fell in love with.
They continued wandering along, looking in the shop windows and reading the menus of every café and restaurant they passed, planning what they’d have in each one until, turning a corner, Matteo heard his name called and, stopping, saw a slim dark-haired woman pushing a buggy, with children either side, hurrying towards him, her face wreathed in smiles.
‘Lucia, how lovely to see you. What are you doing here?’
‘Matteo, I wondered when I’d see you. Maria told me you were in town. This must be your beautiful wife…’ She held out a hand to Charlie and, when Charlie took it, embraced her with a quick triple kiss. ‘I am Lucia, Matteo’s cousin, not that you’d know it, for all the communication I have with him.’
‘Hi, Lucia, I’m Charlie,’ Charlie said, smiling back, although her smile seemed a little forced. ‘It’s lovely to see you. I’ve not met any of Matteo’s Italian family so far. In fact Maria is the only person I’ve met since I’ve been here.’
‘In all the ways that count, Maria is family. We were all terrified of crossing her when we were younger but we wouldn’t be without her now. I moved here several years ago, Matteo. Giuseppe, my husband, is a wine merchant and specialises in the region. And these…’ she waved her hand at the buggy and the children standing by it ‘…these are my children, not that you probably remember them.’
‘I do,’ he protested and she grinned.
‘Go on, name them.’
Matteo held up his hands in surrender. ‘I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the pleasure of introducing your children.’ He knew he’d sent gifts for each birth—or, rather, Jo had; gifts for christenings and Christmas and all his cousins’ children’s birthdays were programmed into his work calendar so Jo could send a generous cheque in their direction, but that was as far as his knowledge of the younger generation went. His lack of engagement didn’t bother him, usually. But today he felt a slight inkling of something that felt a little like guilt, and possibly an acknowledgement that in some ways he had missed out. They had all been so close as children and he hadn’t even attended a single wedding or birthday party, hadn’t contacted them when he was over on a duty visit to his mother. If he and Charlie had children, this would be their family. He would want them to grow up as surrounded by love and laughter as he had—during the summer holidays at least. Not the lonely austerity of the rest of his childhood, the many months he’d spent in England at school or rattling alone around his grandfather’s country estate or the cold, forbidding house on Richmond Hill.
‘This is Elena.’ Lucia indicated the small girl sleeping in the
