‘Nothing fancy, darling,’ said Grace. ‘I offered several menu suggestions to celebrate your return from foreign parts, but cottage pie won the majority vote. So come on, Bea. Let’s put the cakes away in the tin so we can lay the table, and we all need to wash before we eat.’
‘Bea and I will lay the table,’ said Tom, ‘and let Mummy wash first.’
‘Hurry up, Mummy,’ ordered Bea. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘I need another kiss,’ said Rose huskily, and picked her daughter up to hug her.
Bea obliged her with a smacking kiss. ‘I cried for you last night, so Gramma cuddled me.’
Rose blinked hard. ‘Then you were a lucky girl. Gramma’s the best at cuddling.’
Tom nodded in vigorous agreement over the curly fair head, winning a flushed, sparkling look from Grace as he took Bea from her mother. ‘Come on, Honey Bea. Let’s wash those paws.’
Rose hurried upstairs to her room and took a depressed look in the mirror as she hung up her clothes. Far from benefiting from her little holiday, she looked as weary and wan as she felt.
Lunch was a lively affair with much input from Bea about her activities in her mother’s absence. ‘I went to school all day yesterday, then to the park with Gramma and Tom.’
‘I bet they enjoyed that!’ said Rose, grinning.
‘We did,’ agreed Grace, and relieved her granddaughter of her plate. ‘What a star—you ate the vegetables, too. You liked that, darling?’
‘Yummy!’ said Bea, and gave Rose a smile exactly like her father’s. ‘Cake now?’
Rose waited expectantly, eyebrows raised.
‘Please!’ Bea beamed in triumph.
‘Good girl.’
After cakes had been devoured, Rose said casually, ‘I’d better find some things I bought in Florence.’
‘Where’s that?’ demanded Bea.
‘It’s a town near where Auntie Charlotte lives in Italy. I had to fly there on a plane. You can help me carry the parcels.’
Later that evening, after a rapturous Bea had tried on her new jeans and T-shirts, and the exquisite little dress that Rose hadn’t been able to resist, the child was finally tucked up in bed with her new cuddly Pinocchio before Rose could finally relax over supper with her mother and Tom and give details of her trip. She told Charlotte’s tale with care, not sure how much she was supposed to divulge to Tom.
‘Good God!’ He eyed Rose in disbelief as she finished. ‘Charlotte finally got you there, only to take off somewhere else?’
Grace put a hand on his arm. ‘No harm done, love. Rose had her first real break since Bea was born, and hopefully she was able to enjoy it, knowing that her baby girl was safe with us.’
He frowned. ‘But the fact remains that Charlotte stranded Rose alone in a strange country while she went swanning off to New York with Fabio. How did you manage, pet?’
Rose braced herself. ‘Charlotte asked Dante Fortinari to deliver a letter to the hotel to brief me. You remember him from the wedding, Tom?’