The Tuscan's Revenge Wedding(12)

“Possibly she is what they call in the States a teetotaler, Nico,” Aunt Filomena said, looking at Amanda with a charming smile. “This is the word, no?”

“Yes, but that isn’t it,” she answered, aware that his grandmother and Carisa had also stopped eating to watch the by-play.

“It’s an excellent vintage,” Nicholas coaxed, “made here at the villa from our own grapes.”

She could feel her resolve slip a notch. That added fire to her resentment. “My mother died from mixing drugs and alcohol. I promised myself I would never chance—”

“Ah, certo,” he interrupted, his face clearing. “Mi dispiace, I apologize.” Turning to Erminia who had emerged from the house with more bread, he ordered mineral water to be brought for her.

“I’m sorry to be extra trouble,” she murmured in her turn. Nicholas de Frenza became more Italian when moved by emotion, she thought, whether anger, desire or, as now, chagrin. It was an interesting discovery.

His grandmother leaned forward at that moment, asking a polite question that allowed the conversation to return to normal. Her English was polished yet formal, as if it had been learned at some finishing school decades ago. Aunt Filomena, by contrast, spoke with an American accent, one she had apparently gained in the States while married to her second husband — or was it her third? — who had been from California. She had apparently been unlucky in her marriages, though it was unclear whether death or divorce had ended them.

Carisa did not join the conversation but watched closely, dividing her attention between Amanda and Nicholas for the most part. Now and then a small, secret smile touched her lips, as if she might comprehend a little more of what was being said than Nicholas or the others seemed to think.

It was only as a pause came while Erminia cleared the table in preparation for dessert that the girl spoke up. Her voice was soft and engaging but carried an obvious question in its lilting syllables.

“Carisa! If you please!” Aunt Filomena exclaimed. “Per piacere!”

The girl stared at Nicholas, putting her question again in puzzled tones. After a moment, he gave a short laugh before answering in quiet reassurance, “Si, si, little one.”

Carisa sprang to her feet with sudden joy in her face. She ran to fling her arms around his neck while glancing toward Amanda and then back again, chattering happily. In that flood of Italian, Amanda caught only a single word, one which sounded like bambino.

Nicholas laughed again, returning the hug. Talking in low tones, he smoothed the girl’s shining hair as if to calm her exuberance.

Nonna, smiling with a slight tremor at the corners of her mouth, reached to pat Carisa’s arm with caressing fingertips then indicated that she should return to her seat. At the same time, Aunt Filomena signaled to Erminia that she was to serve Carisa’s desert at once. When that was done, she slipped her own dolce of cake and nuts with sweet cream onto the girl’s plate.

Obediently, Carisa seated herself once more and dug into the food in front of her. It seemed some small crisis had been averted.

Amanda could not imagine anything too unusual had been said, still she was curious. She turned to Nicholas with a smile. “What was that all about?”

“Nothing of importance.” His voice was distant, dismissive.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

He looked away, drew a controlled breath, then turned back again. “Carisa asked if you were a special lady, my fiancée.”

Amanda’s heart somersaulted in her chest, while her stomach muscles clenched. Still it took less than a moment to realize Carisa could only suspect that state of affairs if she was unaware of the accident and Amanda’s connection to it. But what, then, had that been about a bambino? Everyone recognized the word for baby.

“She doesn’t know I’m Jonathan’s sister.”

“No.” He made a staying gesture with one hand, lowering his voice as he went on. “Please. I will explain later.”

Carisa might have some small disability, but her understanding seemed more than adequate when people spoke to her directly. At least her lack of knowledge explained why no one had mentioned Carita or Jonathan since they’d sat down at the table.

Nicholas must have spoken to his grandmother and aunt earlier, and they’d agreed among themselves to avoid the subject in front of Carita’s twin. This meant no one could express sympathy for her brother’s injuries or address her natural concern for him. The knowledge eased a small ache in Amanda’s heart that she had not realized was there.

When the dessert was eaten, a young Polish woman appeared who was introduced as Carisa’s companion, Yolanda. With her flaxen hair, sky blue eyes, and rather vapid expression, she appeared the perfect model for a child’s doll. Looks were perhaps deceiving, however, as she was not only greeted with affection by Carisa, but spoke to her charge in Italian, greeted Amanda in English on being introduced and muttered an soft oath in her own language when a lizard darted across her path.

Yolanda drew the girl into the house for her afternoon rest with the promise of a chapter from the book they seemed to be reading. A short time later, Nicholas’s grandmother drifted away with a similar idea in mind, or so it seemed, and his Aunt Filomena excused herself for a hairdresser’s appointment. Left alone with Nicholas, Amanda drank the last of her mineral water as she sought an excuse for her own escape.

Nicholas sent a brooding glance her way as he leaned back in his chair, fingering the rim of his coffee cup. Abruptly, he pushed cup and saucer away and got to his feet. “Come,” he said as he offered his hand, “let me show you the garden while I tell you a thing or two about this business with Carisa.”

She might not have agreed so readily except for the riddle of Carita’s twin. As it was, she allowed him to place her hand in the bend of his arm as they left the table and descended the steps that led from one terrace level to another. It was surprisingly difficult to let go when they reached flat ground, not just of the firm, warm muscles under her fingers but of the odd sense of security it provided.

The gardens were formal, with tree-shaded alleyways that arrowed toward a sea vista in one direction and the purple line of the distant hills in the other. Geometric beds centered by statuary and edged with low evergreens lay between them. Nicholas led the way down the main path that was lined with the dark green cylinders of cypress trees and had a giant olive oil urn at its end. The urn had been turned into a fountain that flowed into the swimming pool which lay across the entire bottom of the garden, set like a great aquamarine jewel within its surround of lapis tiles.

The garden was lovely, well-kept, filled with birdsong and the drone of insects, a place designed for rest and repose. Amanda might have found those things except for the man who walked at her side.

“Carisa was of course born as you see her,” he said, breaking the silence at last. “Carita, on the other hand, was and is perfectly normal in all respects. There is no reason to think the child she carries will be like Carisa.”

“The thought had not crossed my mind.” It really hadn’t, though there’d been little time, of course, and so much else to consider.

“It would be a problem for many. My own parents—”

“What about them,” she asked as he stopped speaking, looking away toward the gray haze of olive trees.

“They separated over it,” he answered with a faint shrug,” though their marriage was strained from the beginning. It was a practical alliance rather than a love match. To cement a merger of the Florentine olive oil production of my father’s family with that of my mother’s family from near Naples was the intention.”

She gave him a quick look. “I thought that kind of thing went out ages ago.”

“There was nothing arranged about it, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was more of a business merger that both went into with their eyes open. My father lived for the land and the business, so was satisfied with the doubling of his holdings. My mother preferred life in Rome, Venice, Cannes — anywhere except the Villa de Frenza — and was happy as long as the money flowed to support her lifestyle. I was born early on, the requisite heir. The twins were the result of an effort at reconciliation when I was ten.”

“Not a successful one,” she suggested when he did not go on.

“It was a spectacular failure. My mother blamed my father for Carisa’s problem, claiming there had never been such a birth in her family. My father said she was so afraid of gaining weight during pregnancy that she starved herself, affecting the baby’s development.”

“Oh, no.”

Nicholas sent her a quick glance at that soft sound of regret. “Both were wrong, of course, but it made no difference. My father buried himself in work, spending most of his time at the office in Florence or else in London or Paris. She returned the favor by escaping to a fairly wild social set. The result was as you might expect.”

“They divorced?”

“Separated, rather, after a year or so,” he corrected. “My mother left the villa, left all of us but particularly Carisa who adored her. Carisa was so bereft that her development was set back even more than normal. She screamed for days when she realized she was really gone, failed to learn to walk at a normal age, didn’t speak until she was five years old.”