Epilogue
‘Oh!’ Eleanora was opening the post after breakfast as they sat in the spring sunshine bathing the Palazzo. ‘How lovely! An invitation from Madame la Marquise!’
‘What?’ Sanzio’s expression did not denote pleasure at her announcement.
Eleanora gave a laugh. ‘Don’t panic—it’s Edouard’s maman, not my un-darling sister.’ Her expression changed. ‘I know it must have hurt poor Edouard to hear Tonia speak of him as she did that ghastly day, but it did give him the resolve to face the bleak truth about his marriage.’
‘And promptly divorce her!’ Sanzio added with satisfaction. ‘He deserved to escape her clutches.’
‘I can’t see Tonia marrying again though,’ Eleanora mused. ‘She’d lose her title and she wouldn’t like that. Not unless she can snap up someone of even higher rank—a duke or a prince even! Providing he’s loaded, of course.’
‘Well, hanging out on the French Riviera as the mistress of a shady oligarch is hardly likely to endear her to any bona fide aristo!’ came Sanzio’s scathing retort.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Eleanora replied. ‘My father has bestowed his title on Oleg’s sister after all. Of course, it’s she who’s got the money.’
‘Plus, Oleg wanted his sister to become a contessa,’ Sanzio added.
‘Well, thanks to you, he didn’t get the Palazzo he wanted!’ Eleanora said feelingly. She leant across the table to kiss him. ‘And now it’s safe for ever!’
They’d made the Palazzo their main base, with visits to Rome and Milan both for business and socialising.
They entertained at the Palazzo too, and their very first party had been for all the workers who had laboured to restore it to its former beauty and grandeur.
Then Sanzio had invited his PA, Gina, and his top team, and after that their friends from Rome—Adrietta and her husband, and the Falcones, and Carla and Cesare.
Nicolò Falcone had cased the Palazzo appreciatively as they’d all arrived, telling Sanzio and Eleanora that if they ever fancied selling up, he’d readily add it to his portfolio of hotels.
Francesca had tapped his arm reprovingly and said it would be the Palazzo Verano for generations to come, which sentiment Cesare had strongly endorsed.
‘Indeed,’ he’d said approvingly in his austere fashion. ‘Places like this will never be built again—we must preserve the heritage of those who built them.’
Eleanora’s eyes had gone to Sanzio. ‘That’s both our families, Sanzio’s as well as mine. My ancestors might have paid for it, but it was his ancestors who built it—laid bricks and plastered walls and tiled the roof.’
The illustrious Conte had looked as though this was an aspect he had never previously given consideration to. Nic Falcone slapped Sanzio on the back with a laugh.
‘Aristos, huh! Who’d have them? Well, except you and me both—for our wives and our friends we make exceptions! Come on, Cesare, let’s find where Sanzio has stashed the beer!’
‘Champagne,’ emphasised Donna Eleanora da Verano Bastoni, sparing the Conte’s sensibilities, ‘is being served in the gold salone. Cesare—’ she started to usher them all towards the designated salone ‘—I would so much like to show you the portrait by Caradino that we’ve managed to reacquire.
I believe you have a diptych, have you not, by the same artist?
Oh, and, too, to get your advice on how best to make the Palazzo more accessible to the public.
Sanzio and I were thinking of chamber concerts, perhaps a garden open day—what do you think? ’
As the champagne was served by the waiting staff Eleanora and Sanzio always hired in locally for such occasions, Adrietta sailed up to Eleanora.
‘How wonderfully, wonderfully happy you and Sanzio are!’ she exclaimed warmly. ‘I’ve never seen a happier couple. I’m so, so glad for you! It’s all worked out perfectly!’
It had, Eleanora knew with total thankfulness. Now, as she sat at breakfast in the spring sunshine, her gaze rested on her beloved husband with devotion and absolute love, her heart turning over with the most precious emotion in the world.
‘So, what is this invitation from the dowager Marquise?’ Sanzio prompted.
‘A wedding invitation.’ Eleanora smiled.
‘Edouard is, so she’s added on the card, marrying his childhood sweetheart, just as his mother had always hoped he would—before, though of course she hasn’t written that, my un-darling sister got him in her sights!
It can only be a civil wedding because of the divorce, but we are both invited, and to the reception at the chateau afterwards.
She says,’ Eleanora added, ‘she’s so grateful to you for making it possible. ’
Sanzio gave a rueful laugh. ‘To help Edouard lose a wife from hell, I very nearly lost my own precious and beloved wife!’
Eleanora reached her hand across the table to his. ‘But you didn’t, my darling, darling husband. You didn’t, and you never, never will! Especially—’ she took a breath, laying aside the gilt-edged wedding invitation, her expression changing ‘—because…’
She paused, and suddenly Sanzio’s eyes were focused on her like lasers.
‘Because,’ Eleanora went on with a rush, ‘I tested positive this morning.’
He launched to his feet, swept around the table to her, drawing her up to crush her to him—then hurriedly released her.
‘Dio, I mustn’t squeeze you tight!’
She laughed affectionately. ‘They’re still the size of a bean! You can hug me all you like!’ She looped her arms around his neck. ‘And what I like, Sanzio Bastoni, is to be hugged early and often and every, every day!’
He let his hands rest at her waist. ‘And by night, Donna Eleanora da Verano, my very own Signora Bastoni?’ he rejoined.
‘Oh, even more by night,’ she assured him, her eyes glinting with promise.
The glint in her eye was echoed in his. ‘And how, I wonder, would after breakfast do?’
His mouth dropped to graze hers suggestively. Her hands tightened around the back of his neck.
‘It would do,’ she told him, as her own lips answered his, her eyes glowing with all the love she would always, always feel for him, and he for her, ‘just perfectly.’
Thus encouraged, Sanzio wasted no time. He swept her up into his arms and strode inside and up the stairs.
‘To celebrate,’ he assured her, eyes still glinting. ‘Size of a bean or not,’ he told her firmly, ‘from now on, I’m carrying you!’
A laugh broke from Eleanora as she clung on to him. ‘You won’t be saying that in eight months when I’m the size of an elephant!’
But Sanzio was laying her down upon their bed. And then carefully and passionately he made love—everlasting love—to the woman he loved everlastingly. As everlastingly as she did him.
And always, always would…
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