And she let out a sob and a laugh, because he was being too painfully honest now.
'But then I stopped,' Raul reminded her. 'And by morning I could not let you leave.'
'You should have told me you knew Bastiano.'
'I know that,' Raul admitted. 'But I knew that if I did you'd leave. And you did.'
'Had you told me...' Lydia said, and then halted. He was right. Whichever way she might have found out, she'd have gone.
'I missed you so much.' Raul said.
Now she knew he was lying.
'So much that you did nothing to try to contact me until I called and told you I was pregnant?'
'Lydia, I didn't even know your surname. I've had Allegra scouring all the castles in England.
She didn't believe him and he knew it.
'Ask her.'
'She'll say what you tell her to.'
'I think,' Raul said, 'that I've finally found someone as mistrusting as me.'
'You had three months to find me, and yet on the same day I call you to say I'm pregnant suddenly you appear.'
'I was already on my way when I heard your message,' Raul told her. 'Here...'
He placed the now naked statue on the bedside table and then went to his drawer and took out a piece of paper with her name and address written on it.
'That's Bastiano's handwriting. I went to Casta to ask him.'
He handed it to her and Lydia looked at the paper. And she thought she would keep it for ever, because it told her that she had been missed.
'You went to Bastiano just for this?'
'Well, it wasn't for his company.'
'Did the two of you fight?'
'No,' Raul said. 'Nearly. He said he wanted a ring that had been left to me by my mother.'
'The ring you were looking at before?'
Raul nodded and got into bed, patted the space beside him for her to lie down with him.
'Hasn't he had enough from you?' Lydia asked as she climbed in. She really could not fathom his mother leaving half her legacy to a very young lover rather than leaving it all to her only son.
'It was a ring that he gave to her, apparently.'
'Oh.'
'He wanted it back in return for your address. I think it might have belonged to his mother. He's an orphan.' He made himself say it. 'He wasn't my mother's first affair.'
'How do you know?'
'Because I had been lying to my father to save her since I was a small child.'
And he had been lying to himself to save her memory since she'd died.
'Bastiano was just seventeen-half her age. Back then I thought we were men, and I hated him as such, but now...'
It felt very different, looking back.
'We were good friends growing up.'
'Could you be again?'
Raul was about to give a derisive laugh, but then he thought for a moment. 'I don't know...'
And it was nice to lie in bed talking with another person, rather than trying to make sense of things by himself.
'I think that my mother had problems for a very long time. Perhaps even before she was married. I don't even know if I'm my father's son.'
'Does it matter?'
'I think it did to him.'
'Is that why he beat you?'
He had never told her that Gino had given him those scars on his back, but it was clear now and Raul nodded.
And when he examined those times without hate and with her by his side things were easier to see.
His hand was on her stomach, and he could feel the little bump. It was starting to sink in properly that he would be a father.
She felt his hand there and wondered at his thoughts. 'I'm not a gold-digger, Raul.'
'I know. I had to put that statue in your case, remember?' He had gone over and over that time.
'I don't think I took the Pill every day, even though my mother had insisted I should be on it. I had no intention of sleeping with Bastiano, and maybe I should have known I wasn't covered. I didn't think.'
'Lydia, you could have been wearing a chastity belt that night and I'd have rung for wire cutters. I could have insisted we use a condom. Have you told your mother about the baby?' he added.
'No.'
'When will you?'
'When I'm ready to.'
'I'm glad you told me first,' Raul said.
'She was a mess when I got back. I think losing my father finally caught up with her. She kicked Maurice out. She's staying at her sister's now. She's agreed the castle should go on the market.'
'Lydia. I'll look after your mother, but not him.'
Maurice he could never forgive.
Lydia lay in his arms and gave a soft laugh at the way he'd spoken of Maurice, but then she thought about what he'd just said about her mother.
'You don't have to do that.'
'Of course I do.'
'No, Raul, you don't.'
'We're going to be a family, Lydia. Marry me?'
She lay silent. She could feel his hand on her stomach and put her hand over his. Lydia knew how she felt about Raul. But she also meant what she'd said-a baby wouldn't save them.
'You don't even like children.'
'No, I don't,' Raul agreed. 'I'll like ours, though. Please believe that I'm not asking you to marry me because of the baby.'
'I know that.'
She almost did.
But by his own admission Raul was a manipulative liar, and there was still the tiniest niggle that he was simply saying the right things to appease her.
But then she thought of his look of horror when she had exposed him. So unlike Arabella, who hadn't even flinched at being caught.
He seemed so loath to hurt her.
She was scared, though, to believe.
And as her mind flicked around, trying to find fault with this love, Raul lay sinking into his first glimpse of peace.
That feeling-not quite foreboding, but almost-was fading. His constant wondering as to how she was had been answered. He thought of that first surge of jealousy when he'd thought that she and Bastiano might be lovers.
And now they lay there together and he looked at her. 'Were you jealous at the thought of Allegra and me?'
'Of course I was.'
'Are you now?'
'No.' She shook her head.
'She really was looking for you for weeks. And,' he added, 'I've just found out she's pregnant too.'
And then she knew she wasn't jealous any more, or suspicious of Allegra, because he answered a question she wasn't even thinking.
'It's not mine.'
'I would really hope not.'
And he smiled, and when he did, for Lydia it was easy to smile too, but he could see the little sparkle of tears in her eyes on what should be their happiest night.
'Marry me?' he said again.
'Raul...'
Oh, she knew he cared-and deeply. And she knew how she felt. But there was still a tiny part of her that was scared that he'd asked in haste.
That without a baby there wouldn't be any 'them'.
She would just have to deal with it, Lydia knew. She would just have to accept never quite fully knowing if they were only together for the sake of their child. Because in every other way it felt perfect.
Stiff upper lip and all that.
'I hated being without you,' Raul said.
'And me.'
'No,' Raul said, 'I mean it. I felt as if there was something wrong. The sky seemed hung too low.'
He had been trying to work out what was wrong for months, and now suddenly, just like that, he knew exactly what had been wrong.
Raul had never felt it before.
Lydia lay looking at the chandelier struck by moonlight. The shutters were open and there was the sound of a gondolier singing beneath them on the canal.
And then she heard something.
Not a bell.
But something as clear as one.
And it struck right at her soul and she turned her face to the sound.
'I love you,' Raul told her.
It can be said many ways, but when it is said right it strikes so clear and so pure. And the sound and the feeling vibrates and lingers and lasts even when it must surely be gone.
It's never gone.
She had heard his truth.
This really was love.
EPILOGUE
THERE HAD BEEN one more lie that Raul had told her.
Raul did get up at night for his baby.
And he fed and changed her.
Serena had come into their lives four weeks ago, and so far it had proved the perfect name.
Yes, she was from Venice-or La Serenissima-but it was more for her nature that the name had been chosen.
They had been rewarded with such a calm baby.
Of course she cried-but she calmed easily when held.
And they loved her so much.
From her one blonde tufty curl to her ten perfect toes.
It was seven on a Sunday-Lydia knew that without opening her eyes because her favourite bell rang its occasional deep note and the others would join in soon.
Raul was speaking to Serena as they stood on the balcony, telling her she should go back to sleep.
It made Lydia's heart melt to watch the gentle way he held his daughter.
He was naked from the waist up and she could see his scars. She was grateful for them.
Sometimes she needed their reminder, because life felt perfect and the scars told her how far they had come.
Lydia closed her eyes as he turned around, pretending to be asleep.
'Shh...' Raul said as Serena let out a protest when he returned her to her crib.
Serena hushed, and after a moment of watching her sleep Raul got dressed.
Lydia wanted to protest and insist that he come back to bed.
Sunday was her favourite day.
Raul would go out from their room and return with the breakfast Loretta had prepared. They loved Sunday breakfast in bed.
Where was he going?
Lydia heard the elevator taking him down and then the engine of his speedboat.
Perhaps he had gone for coffee?
Raul did that now and then.
She had hoped he would not this morning.