Chapter Seven #2
He was alone now, she thought, her pulse hammering in her ears.
And like her mother, she had failed to look after him, to fix him.
She had failed him in so many ways and yet other people spent their lives looking after children with care and dedication and love.
Real, undeniable love, she thought, remembering how the children had clung to Giulia as they left.
She felt suddenly split open with grief and guilt and self-loathing.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Ettore’s voice cut across her thoughts, and she glanced up at him, her body tensing, terrified that the words might spill from her mouth.
‘I was trying to remember what you put in that sauce,’ she lied. ‘It was your recipe, wasn’t it?’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘You remembered,’ he said finally.
She nodded. ‘You cooked it for me the first time you came to my flat in London. You made the pasta as well. I was very impressed.’
‘I can’t take credit for the recipe. It actually belongs to Valentina’s grandmother.’
‘I thought those recipes were handed down through the generations like family heirlooms.’
‘They are, but I took Valentina over to Lecce to visit her grandmother and we got talking.’
She thought back to the silver-framed photo she had seen of Ettore, solemn-eyed and unsmiling, tall for his age, standing between the brother who looked nothing like him and the sister who so resembled him.
They were a good-looking family with their dark eyes and patrician profiles.
But, now she had met his extended family, there was something that set Ettore apart.
Those gold eyes maybe or the intensity of his focus when he looked at you as if there were nothing in the universe that mattered except you.
No wonder Valentina’s grandmother had cast aside centuries of silence and shared the secrets of her cookbook with him.
‘And she took a shine to you. I’m guessing that must happen all the time to the Marchesi heir apparent.’
He waited a moment, and she knew that he was forming sentences in his head, editing them, maybe deleting them, but then he nodded.
‘My name has brought benefits, but since the Costituzione della Repubblica Italiana—the creation of the constitution in Italy—there has been no state recognition of my title. However, many noble families like mine continue to use their titles socially, as a matter of tradition and custom.’
She thought of Checco. Over dinner he had been charming, easy company. But there was an arrogant tilt to his chin when he spoke not just to the staff but to his girlfriend.
‘But you don’t.’
The change in him was subtle. There was no flaring of nostrils, just that slight tightening of his mouth and she knew why. It was because he had only recently become the heir apparent and under circumstances that he would rather forget.
And it hit her then that she’d found out more about Ettore in the last few days than she had during the entire time they were together two years ago.
‘That’s probably another reason why the kids all think you’re cool.’
His forehead creased. ‘I’m pretty sure the kids think I’m a fossil.’
‘Al contrario, Signor Marchesi,’ she said with a flourish, enjoying the gleam in his eye as she practised her Italian. ‘Giulia told me that they think you’re “cracked”, which is allegedly high praise from a group of teenage boys.’
He laughed then, and it was so genuine and unforced, so unlike the artificiality of the previous few days that she laughed too, and something that had been hard and frozen inside her chest softened and thawed a little. She felt loose and warm as his dark golden gaze hovered on her face.
‘It’s gamer slang for good.’ His eyes met hers. ‘Although they might have downgraded me on my performance today. I was a little off my game. Then again, maybe they gave me a pass because my wife is so beautiful.’
The skin of her face felt scorched.
‘Did they say that?’
‘No. But I was thinking it.’
His mouth crooked into a smile that made it a little hard to breathe and then he reached over and smoothed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and every single cell in her body shivered into a state of high alert.
‘Your Italian accent is excellent, by the way. You’re rolling your r’s beautifully.’
‘Grazie,’ she said, inclining her head in a perfect imitation of his uncle, and was instantly rewarded as his smile reached his eyes.
She felt a breeze and she stared round dazedly, shocked to realise that not only had they stopped moving but Silvio had managed to get out of the car and walk around it to open her door all without her even noticing.
Judging by the expression on Ettore’s face, he hadn’t noticed either. Heart juddering like the floor polisher she used to clean the parquet at the college in Cambridge, she watched him draw back his hand, flattening it against the palm of his other hand.
As if he needed that pressure to stop himself from reaching out again.
Just as he had done yesterday evening in the moonlight.
And it felt like fire under her skin, and the heat of it lingered like sunburn as she stepped out of the car and waited for Ettore to join her. She felt his hand against the small of her back as they walked inside.
‘I’m just going to check on my father.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘I might go and take a quick shower.’
His pupils dilated and she had to resist the urge to squirm beneath his gaze as she had a sudden, sharp-edged memory of his body beside hers, water trickling down his neck and shoulders as his hands moved to cup her breasts…
‘I’ll join you in a moment.’
Their eyes locked together, and she swallowed audibly.
‘I meant, I’ll join you upstairs,’ he said in a rough whisper that vibrated through her as if her body were a tubular bell, and he took a small, involuntary step towards her, then stopped.
For a few pulsing half-seconds, neither of them moved.
They stood like statues, frozen, separately bewitched by how that skin-prickling gravitational energy between them was suddenly bright and hard and undeniable. And then Valentina appeared, and the spell snapped, and Dulcie remembered how to breathe and smile and move her legs again.
She made her way upstairs, her head spinning madly.
It was hard to believe that it was still the same day as the one that had started this morning.
Waking, she had felt taut and thwarted and trapped, and, rolling out of bed, she had been on the verge of storming into the dressing room and hurling all her clothes into the suitcase and then shinning back down the wisteria outside her window.
Only the thought that she was helping Oscar had stopped her from doing so.
Oscar.
She had checked her phone obsessively every day since her brother had gone into the rehab centre even though she knew that he wasn’t allowed his phone.
Today was the first day she had forgotten to do so and, feeling horribly guilty, she pulled it out and saw instantly that there was a voice message from Oscar.
The floor yawed sideways as if she were standing on the deck of a ship in a rough sea and she clicked on the message and listened.
‘Dulcie, I can’t do this.’ Her brother’s voice was high and ragged with panic and fear, and she felt her stomach somersault. Her mouth tasted sour. She thought she was going to throw up.
‘I can’t do it. It’s too hard. You have to get me out of here, please, Dulcie, please—’
The message got cut off and her fingers moved clumsily over the screen as if she might be able to reach Oscar and pull him to safety.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’
For a moment, she didn’t understand that Ettore was even in the room, let alone talking to her. Everything around her was reduced to its most basic form. The red of the curtains, the rectangular outline of the rug beneath her feet.
‘It’s Oscar, he called me— He sounded desperate.’
‘His body is readjusting to sobriety. He will be desperate.’
Ettore’s face stilled, hardened a fraction like the first crystals of ice hardening the surface of a lake in winter and there was a dark edge of impatience to his voice that she hadn’t heard all day as he took a step towards her.
‘I thought he wasn’t supposed to have contact with anyone until the withdrawal stage was over. ’
‘He’s not but he must have got hold of his phone somehow, he’s upset…’ Her heart was suddenly a hot, slippery shape, flopping against her ribs, but the rigidity in Ettore’s face was spreading to his body. He was becoming a fortress in front of her eyes.
‘So, you spoke to him?’
His voice cut her panicky thoughts in two, and she glanced up at him, bitterness swelling inside her because this was his fault. He had made her choose again, and she had chosen wrongly.
‘No. He left a message. Not that you care.’
His expression didn’t change but his eyes stilled on her face.
‘Of course I care. Not least, because you’re obviously upset.’ She watched as he turned and closed the door softly, and she felt a rush of fury, because even now, when her brother was in despair, he was worried about someone hearing them argue and wrecking his precious pantomime.
‘All you care about is yourself. You don’t care about me, and you don’t care about Oscar. You couldn’t wait to get him shut up in that clinic and now he’s—’ Her voice broke, and she pressed her hand against her mouth.
‘Dulcie.’
He was beside her now and she stumbled backwards.
‘I need my suitcase.’
She turned and walked swiftly into the dressing room, yanking her bag from where it had been neatly stowed. Pulse thundering, she pulled clothes randomly from the shelves.
‘What are you doing?’ Ettore was blocking her exit.
‘I’m leaving. Unlock the safe. I need my passport. Give me my passport.’
‘You can’t just leave.’
‘Why not? You did. You just walked out on me.’
‘I’m not walking out now.’ His hands were suddenly holding her shoulders and maybe it was that or maybe it was his words, but she felt the bag slip from her fingers.