CHAPTER 26
"There are weddings made with flowers. There are others made with the flower the enemy sends first."
VALENTINA ROSSI
I woke up in his lap.
Not in the bed, but in the armchair in the study, where we'd fallen asleep after my mother's letter.
The first thing I saw was the yellow morning light hitting the mahogany paneling. The second was Luca's jaw, still unshaven, rough against my forehead. The third was his hand. Open, still on my back, as if it had spent the whole night there without moving a millimeter.
"Bella mia."
His voice came out rough, low. It wasn't a question or a greeting. It was a statement of fact.
I took a deep breath. The smell of him rushed through me.
"What time is it?"
"Six twenty."
"Madonna," I murmured. "I slept the whole night in an armchair."
"You slept the whole night on me."
I felt the heat rise from my neck to my face.
Five weeks, I thought. Five weeks until I'm his wife on paper. And I'm already becoming it a little more every day.
He held my left foot under the hem of the robe. Big hand, small foot, and that silence of his that didn't ask for an answer.
"Five weeks," I said, out loud, to hear how it sounded.
"Five," he confirmed.
"Is it a long time?"
"It's short." His jaw locked a little, the way it locked when he was thinking about something. "But it's what we have."
Donna Beatrice served breakfast on the small terrace, the one that looked out over the lemon grove. Steel bun, black apron, eyes that missed nothing.
"Buongiorno, signora Moretti."
She'd already called me signora twice since the attack. The first time I froze. The second time I still froze, but less. This third time, I only tipped my head.
"Buongiorno, Beatrice."
She poured the cappuccino, cut the bread in front of me, spread fresh ricotta with honey on a single piece, and pushed the little plate close to my hand.
"Signorina Lina has arrived. She's in the blue room, with the dress."
"Already?"
"Signora, it's five weeks away. She should have come yesterday."
I swallowed hard.
Five weeks, again. Apparently the phrase was the house's currency now.
"And the padrone?"
"He went up to the study with Signor Acquaviva." She wiped the edge of the tray with the cloth folded in three, the way she always did. "He won't be down anytime soon."
Lina was small and bony, white hair pulled into a tight ponytail, pins fastened to the front of her dress like medals. When she saw me, she clapped quietly, the way you'd applaud something sacred.
"Signora, Madonna santa. Lift your arms, please."
I obeyed. The dress was ivory, without sheen, with old lace on the sleeve down to the elbow. It weighed more than I remembered from the first fitting.
"Eleven kilos of fabric," Lina said, kneeling, her mouth full of pins. "Nonna Moretti made the list of what had to be embroidered by hand. Don't ask me to take any of it out."
"Nonna made the list?"
"Nonna Adelina, signora. She's coming from Capri in two weeks, did you know?" Lina smiled out of the corner of her mouth, dangerous. "So signora Moretti won't reach the altar with just any cloth on her body."
"Two weeks," I repeated.
Two weeks until the nonna arrived. Five until the man who calls himself my father was dead.
"Nonna Adelina will sleep in the…" Donna Beatrice appeared in the doorway with a folded towel over her arm. "In the room that used to be yours, signora. Signora Marta's room."
"Sì."
"The signora knows things," Donna Beatrice went on quietly, not looking at Lina, who was fussing with the hem, "that not even the padrone knows."
My heart skipped a beat.
"Things?"
Donna Beatrice didn't answer. She just set the towel on the arm of the chair, smoothed the front of her apron with her palm, and left.
I went down to the garden after lunch, alone. I needed to breathe.
And yet, even the garden was different now.
Before the attack, there were two soldiers visible at the gate and four hidden in the trees. I knew, because I'd counted, on my second day in the house, when I was still planning to run.
Now I counted nine just from where I stood. Three at the gate, two among the lemon trees, two on the south wall, two on the steps of the house. All in black suits, with the eyes of men who hadn't slept.
"Signora."
Tonio. Luca's driver, tall, broad-shouldered, always with a folded white towel in the inside pocket of his jacket, because Luca couldn't stand a fingerprint on the car windows.
He was holding a bouquet. White lilies.
"This came for the signora," he said, and his voice was controlled the way a soldier's voice gets when the man inside is waiting for the order to tear someone apart. "Through the service gate. Ordinary courier. Unsigned card."
I swallowed hard.
"Can I see the card?"
He held out the envelope. White card stock, thick, with a single sentence written by hand in Italian.
Per la sposa che sposerà un morto.
I went cold.
"Tonio."
"Sì, signora."
"Take it to the padrone now."
"Sì, signora." He hesitated half a second. "Is the signora all right?"
I looked at him. I looked at the nine armed men I could see from there, looked at Luca's great-grandfather's lemon trees, looked at the trellis down at the far end, where a man had once almost kissed me and I'd turned my face away.
Five weeks.
"I am," I said. And that's a lie the size of Vesuvius, I thought. "I'm just fine. Go."
I went up to the study.
Acquaviva was on his way out. Bald, round glasses, brown leather briefcase under his arm. He stopped to let me pass and gave a minimal nod of his head.
"Signora Moretti."
"Signor Acquaviva."
His eyes met Luca's, inside the room. It was quick, the kind of look two men exchange when they're closing a net around someone.
Acquaviva went down the stairs with the briefcase, and I went in.
Luca was standing by the window. The lilies were on his desk, still in the cellophane. He hadn't had them taken away.
"You saw it," I said.
"I saw it."
"Was it him?"
"It was."
I took a deep breath. That man was going to destroy me and I was going to let him—no, that man was going to protect me and I was going to let him.
The confusion was new. The confusion was the new bride.
"Five more weeks," he said, low, without turning his face from the window. "Five, bella mia. Hold on for five weeks."
"And Matteo?"
"After the nonna."
"Why?"
"Because the nonna can read a man before the man opens his mouth. And I want her to read your brother before I decide what to do with him."
I bit my lower lip.
"Luca. Give me the key to the cellar." He didn't say no, but he didn't say yes. "Think about it."
"Bella mia, I haven't thought about anything but you since I found you asleep in that armchair right there."
I felt a flutter in my stomach, and then I went down the stairs slowly.
Donna Beatrice was in the music room. She'd taken the black silk cloth off the piano, the piano that had belonged to Luca's mother. The white keys gleamed in the afternoon light.
"The signora will need this," she said, without turning. "Nonna Adelina will want to hear it."
I sat down on the bench. I rested my fingers on a key without pressing it. C. Just C.
Op. 9 No. 2. Mamma's nocturne.
I closed my eyes.
Five weeks until I'd play his mother's piano for his grandmother, in the dress his grandmother had ordered embroidered, over the corpse of the man who calls himself my father.