Chapter Nine
DULCIE FELT HER heart thud painfully as she replayed each of his words.
‘I don’t understand.’
She glanced over to where Ettore was staring across the city as if the breathtaking tapestry of light and shadow might somehow be able to help her make sense of his simple, devastating statement.
‘It’s not very complicated. My brother was her favourite,’ he said, and the matter-of-fact tone of his voice was one of the most painful things she had ever heard. ‘She adored him. He was everything to her.’
But even if that was true, she couldn’t imagine anyone saying those words out loud.
‘Maybe…’ She faltered, not lost for words but robbed of them, brutally. Her own mother had been neglectful and erratic. She was also an addict, an alcoholic, so she said things that she regretted but nothing like that, and she’d loved both Dulcie and Oscar equally.
But Ettore’s mother had been grieving, Dulcie told herself, trying somehow to rationalise the duchess’s behaviour. She had been in pain, and shock, and she had been hurting.
‘When did she say that to you?’
‘She came to the hospital with my father.’
Her head was spinning. Did he mean after the accident? But Ettore was injured. He’d been concussed and broken his arm. She had seen the scars on his body from where he’d been dragged by the bike.
‘They were away in Portofino visiting friends when the accident happened. Valentina called them but they were out for dinner, and it was noisy, and I suppose they got the wrong end of the stick. I was in bed when they arrived, doped up on painkillers but I don’t think I’ll ever forget her face when she saw me. ’
He breathed out unsteadily. ‘She looked devastated. And then she walked up to my bed, and she told me that I should have died, not Edo. She never spoke to me again.’
Dulcie felt sick, actually sick as if she might throw up.
‘She was in shock. She didn’t mean it.’ She couldn’t have meant it. It was so callous, so cruel.
‘Sometimes I think that. But she loved him so much. And she didn’t love me in the same way.’ The bruise in his voice made her breath feel jagged in her throat. ‘She blamed me for what happened. And I was to blame.’
His hands tightened around the balustrade, the knuckles whitening. ‘It was my job to take care of him. To make sure he was safe.’
‘But he was older than you.’
Ettore was shaking his head. ‘I was always the sensible one. Edo was reckless. It wasn’t just the gambling. He took risks. And he liked winning. I knew that. And I knew we were both wound up that night.’
‘By what?’
‘We’d argued. It didn’t happen often. Usually, I backed down, but Edo had asked me for some money.
Quite a lot of money and I said no. And he lost his shit.
He just kept shouting at me and getting in my face and then he got tearful.
He did that, when he couldn’t get his own way.
He had this whole routine. Shouting, crying, and if that didn’t work, he’d call my mother. ’
But Edo was in his thirties. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he knew that she’d overrule me. That she’d take his side. Which she did. And then he was all smiles. He’d forgotten all about the race. And then out of the blue he told me he didn’t want to run the estate any more. That he’d changed his mind. Just like that.’
Dulcie blinked as he snapped his fingers. ‘He could do that. It was so easy for him. He didn’t think about what it would mean. He just said it in this casual, offhand way. And I was so pissed off. That’s when I reminded him about the race.’
He breathed in, a quick hard breath.
‘We hadn’t raced in years. When we were younger, it was something we used to do with our cousins. We’d race between the rows of vines on the dirt bikes. But then Stefano caught us, and he locked the bikes in the barn.’
‘But Edo wanted to race that night.’
Dulcie phrased it as a statement not a question and he nodded. ‘I don’t know why. It was like he wanted us to be kids again. He was messing around, trying to make me laugh. Only then we argued, and he won, of course, and then he said that thing about stepping down.’
He looked suddenly exhausted. ‘That’s why I got on the bike. I knew Edo wouldn’t be able to resist.’
His voice was barely a whisper now. ‘And then he had to go and cheat. I was putting my helmet on, and I handed him his, and he rode off without taking it. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I wanted to beat him in that moment.
To be number one.’ There was so much pain and shame in his voice now that it hurt to listen.
‘I could have just walked away. I should have let it go. Let him win. But I didn’t. I chased after him. Even though I knew he wasn’t wearing a helmet.’
‘If you were riding different bikes, how did you both end up having an accident?’
‘There was a gap in one of the rows. He crossed in front of my bike. His wheel hit mine and the bike flipped, and he got thrown off into the trees.’ His words sounded slurred as if his mouth wasn’t working properly.
‘I remember my bike falling sideways, and my arm got caught in something and that’s when it got broken and then I must have banged my head. Gianni found us. He called the ambulance. When I woke up in hospital, Edo was dead.’
Dulcie’s heart seemed to hollow out inside her chest, and as she wrapped her arms around him, he leaned into her, his body shuddering.
‘If I hadn’t lost my temper, he’d still be alive. So you see, my mother was right. I am to blame. I killed my brother.’
‘No!’
She spoke so emphatically that his chin jerked up.
‘That’s not true. It was an accident. And yes, Edo died. But you could have been killed too.’
‘I should have stopped the bike.’
‘What you need to stop is blaming yourself for what happened. Remember what you said to me when I said it was my fault that Oscar was like he is? You said that I can’t change who he is on my own.
That he has to take responsibility for himself.
If that’s true for Oscar, then it was true for Edo, too.
‘He’ll never change now,’ he said quietly.
‘I know.’ She hugged him tighter. ‘But whatever your mother said, that isn’t your fault.’
‘You know, sometimes I hated him. And Sofia too. I was so angry with them for being loved so unconditionally. But now I think that Edo felt trapped. I know Sofia does. We all felt trapped in different ways. But I couldn’t see that then.
All I could think about was how what I wanted didn’t matter to Edo.
To my mother. To anyone. I didn’t matter.
I never have. I’m just there to make things run smoothly. ’
‘You do matter. They all turn to you because you’re strong and smart and because they trust you to do the right thing.’
She could feel his heartbeat slamming into her ribs. ‘But I didn’t do the right thing with you. I forced you to make an inhumane choice.’
She thought about her own father, callously discarding his son.
Maybe he had reasons too. A childhood wound that had never healed.
A wound that caused him to lash out, to hurt, to damage his own children.
And she and Oscar were both in their own ways damaged.
Like their mother, Oscar used drugs and alcohol to blunt his shame and pain.
And she had this persona, an avatar she projected full of smiles and sunshine and peace on earth as if she were a Miss World contestant.
But inside, she was just a little girl trying not to get hurt.
And Ettore was the same. More importantly he was different from her father because he had apologised, and he was trying to atone.
‘What about your father? Was Edo his favourite?’
Now he shook his head. ‘No, my sister is his favourite. Probably because they’re peas in a pod.
She’s pretty and flirty and completely irresponsible.
She’s never had a job. She’s travelling, which basically means she just drifts from country to country, spending her inheritance and trading off the title she allegedly gave up.
But if she calls my father, his face lights up like that tower. ’
His eyes flickered towards the illuminated landmark.
Dulcie felt her chest tighten, and then she understood what had happened two years ago in London. And why it had happened. ‘That’s why you asked me to choose between you and Oscar, wasn’t it?’ she said gently.
The expression of sadness and shame on his face made her feel momentarily unhinged with a sadness of her own.
He didn’t reply, but after a few seconds he reached up and loosened her arms, taking her hands in his and after another few seconds she realised that he was looking at their wedding bands.
‘It sounds stupid, but I hadn’t thought about your family.
I knew you had a brother, but you didn’t talk about him, so I thought you weren’t close.
Only then he turned up and you were so distracted, so focused on him.
I could feel you shutting me out, and I panicked.
I tried telling myself that you weren’t the same as my family.
But the more I thought about it, the more that seemed to be the point.
You can’t choose your family. You just get what you’re given. ’
His mouth twisted. It was the smallest thing and yet it wrenched at her heart.
‘But you do choose your partner, and I didn’t want to be with someone who was going to put someone else first. I couldn’t be. I couldn’t choose to live like that.’
‘And I couldn’t not choose Oscar. Not after my dad…’
‘I know that now, but I didn’t then.’
She closed her eyes, replaying that argument in her head, seeing Ettore’s face hardening in the fading London light.
She had thought he was being controlling, like her father.
That she would not just lose Oscar, again, but lose herself.
Become someone who had to curb her thoughts and feelings and dreams.