The Italian Matchmaker(66)

‘Your children are enjoying themselves here,’ said Alba. ‘How long are they staying?’

‘Until Friday,’ Luca replied.

‘By the end of the week they will have made friends with all the children in Incantellaria,’ said Cosima. ‘They won’t want to leave.’

‘Where is their mother?’ Alba asked.

‘Taking a holiday with her boyfriend.’

‘Is he nice?’

‘Nice enough.’ Luca tried not to sound bitter.

‘Do you think they’ll marry?’

‘I hope so. She deserves to be happy.’

‘That’s very gracious of you.’

‘There’s no point harbouring grudges.’ He shrugged. ‘We have our daughters to think about. Their happiness is worth more than ours.’

‘I have a stepmother,’ said Alba. ‘I hated her while I was growing up. She wasn’t my sort. Far too strident and hearty. But in the end I accepted her. She wasn’t so bad. She gave me the best advice anyone had ever given me. On the strength of it I returned here. I’ve never regretted it.’

Luca remembered Fitzroy and his curiosity was aroused. ‘Was there anything to keep you in England?’ he asked carefully.

‘Oh, yes. I was on the brink of marrying a darling man. He was adorable, but sadly not enough for me.’ She took Cosima’s hand. ‘You see, I was in love with a little Italian girl who didn’t have a mother. We had grown very close. When I left her I missed her so much she burned a hole in my heart. A hole that no one else could fill because it was her shape alone.’ Cosima laughed at the familiar tale. Luca was beginning to see why Rosa was so jealous of her cousin. ‘So, I left him for you, Cosima. And I’ve never looked back.’

The ice-creams arrived and the girls ran back to eat them. Rosa appeared with Alessandro, who had been to the doctor with a stomach complaint. His eyes lit up when he saw the girls and his stomach-ache miraculously disappeared at the prospect of a bowl of ice-cream. Rosa was not pleased to see Cosima sitting at the table with Luca as if she were part of his family, but she recovered a little when Luca gave her a smile and asked after her son.

‘Children,’ she shrugged. ‘There’s always something.’

Cosima got up. ‘I’d better be going. Enjoy your ice-creams,’ she said to the children. She didn’t look at Luca for fear of provoking Rosa. He watched her walk off, admiring the gentle swing of her hips.

Francesco appeared from nowhere, skipping off after her, a bounce in his step that he hadn’t had before. They were so close they were almost touching, separated only by a fine wall of vibration, but she was unaware that the child she mourned was right beside her. As if he read his thoughts, Francesco turned, grinned at Luca, then waved.

Rosa frowned as Luca laughed. ‘What are you laughing at?’

‘Nothing. Just a thought that popped into my head.’

‘Aren’t you going to share it?’ She felt better now that her cousin had gone.

‘I don’t think you’d find it as funny as I do.’

‘Try me?’

‘Another time,’ he said, looking at his watch. ‘We’d better get going. It’ll soon be time for the girls’ bath.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Sammy. ‘It’s holiday. They can stay up a little later if you like.’

‘No. I need to get back too,’ he said, not noticing Rosa’s disappointment. All he could think about was Cosima and Francesco.

Cosima went into the church. She needed time alone to think, somewhere to clear her head of the conflicting thoughts that filled it. The guilt didn’t go away, but now she had something else to feel guilty about: her growing feelings for Luca.

She walked down the aisle, crossed herself in front of the altar, and took a seat. There were a few people walking around, looking at the glittering icons and frescoes, enjoying the serenity of the place. Cosima knelt and prayed for her son. She questioned Luca’s credibility in seeing Francesco. Not that she thought he was making it up: she trusted him to be honest. But she worried that he might have imagined him, or mistaken someone else’s child for hers. In spite of the evidence of the feather and the butterfly, and her own desire to believe, she feared some terrible disappointment would set her back to where she was before, alone and in despair.

She liked Luca. Love wasn’t a word she felt comfortable using. Love was a word for Francesco. If she admitted she was falling in love with Luca, she felt she would somehow be subtracting love from her son. Luca had transformed her life in such a short time. One moment she was in the sea, wanting to end it all; the next she was wearing pretty dresses and blushing under his sympathetic gaze. It made her feel uneasy, as if she were a schoolgirl again, playing truant. If she didn’t continue to mourn Francesco she was being a bad mother; she had taken her eye off him in life, and look what had happened. If she took her eye off him in death, then what? Did she deserve to be happy after her negligence? Would her guilt allow her to be happy?