Lydia looked up at him and searched his eyes. ‘What did she say to you?’
He gave her a fleeting smile. ‘She told me you were a good, kind girl. And she told me to be gentle with you.’
Her eyes filled, and she looked away. ‘I don’t know what I said, but I’m so, so sorry.’
His conscience pricked him. He should have warned her. He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
‘No. I should be apologising, not you. Forgive us, we aren’t normally this rude to visitors. Francesca was upset.’
‘I know that. Obviously I made it happen. What I don’t know is why,’ she said, looking up at him again with griefstricken eyes.
He reached for a mug, changed his mind and poured himself a glass of wine. ‘Can I tempt you?’
‘Is it one of yours?’
‘No. It’s a neighbour’s, but it’s good. We could take it outside. I don’t know if it’s wise, though, with your head injury.’
‘I’ll take the risk,’ she said. ‘And then will you tell me what I said?’
‘You know what you said. What you don’t know is what it meant,’ he said enigmatically, and picking up both glasses of wine, he headed for the door, glancing back over his shoulder at her. ‘Can you manage, or should I carry you?’
Carry her? With her face pressed up against that taunting aftershave, and the feel of his strong, muscled arms around her legs? ‘I can manage,’ she said hastily, and pushing back her chair, she got to her feet and limped after him out into the still, quiet night.
She could hear the soft chirr of insects, the sound of a motorbike somewhere in the valley below, and then she saw a single headlight slicing through the night, weaving and turning as it followed the snaking road along the valley bottom and disappeared.
He led her to a bench at the edge of the terrace. The ground fell away below them so it felt as if they were perched on the edge of the world, and when she was seated he handed her the glass and sat beside her, his elbows propped on his knees, his own glass dangling from his fingers as he stared out over the velvet blackness.
For a while neither of them said anything, but then the tension got to her and she broke the silence.
‘Please tell me.’
He sucked in his breath, looking down, staring into his glass as he slowly swirled the wine before lifting it to his lips.
‘Massimo?’ she prompted, and he turned his head and met her eyes. Even in the moonlight, she could see the pain etched into his face, and her heart began to thud slowly.
‘Angelina died of a brain haemorrhage following a fall,’ he began, his voice expressionless. ‘Nothing serious, nothing much at all, just a bit of a bump. She’d fallen down the stairs and hit her head on the wall. We all thought she was all right, but she had a bit of a headache later in the day, and we went to bed early. I woke in the night and she was missing, and I found her in the kitchen, slumped over the table, and one side of her face had collapsed.’
Lydia closed her eyes and swallowed hard as the nausea threatened to choke her. What had she done? Not just by saying what she had at the table—the same table? But by bringing this on all of them, on Claire, on him, on the children—most especially little Francesca, her eyes wide with pain and shock, fleeing from the table. The image would stay with her forever.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said gently. ‘You weren’t to know. I probably should have told you—warned you not to talk about it in that way, and why. I let you walk right into it.’
She turned back to him, searching his face in the shadows. She’d known something was wrong when he was bending over her on the tarmac, and again later, staring at the poster. And yet he’d said nothing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? I knew something was wrong, something else, something more. Luca seemed much more worried than my condition warranted, even I knew that, and he kept looking at you anxiously. I thought he was worried about me, but then I realised it was you he was worried about. I just didn’t know why. You should have told me.’
‘How could I? You had a head injury. How could I say to you, “I’m sorry, I’m finding this a bit hard to deal with, my wife died of the same thing and I’m a bit worried I might lose you, too.” How could I say that?’
He’d been worried he could lose her?
No. Of course he hadn’t meant that, he didn’t know her. He meant he was worried she might be about to die, too. Nothing more than that.
‘You should have left us there instead of staying and getting distressed. I had no business tangling you all up in this mess—oh, Massimo, I’m so sorry.’
She broke off, clamping her teeth hard to stop her eyes from welling over, but his warm hand on her shoulder was the last straw, and she felt the hot, wet slide of a tear down her cheek.
‘Cara, no. Don’t cry for us. It was a long time ago.’
‘But it still hurts you, and it’ll hurt you forever,’ she said unevenly.
‘No, it just brought the memories back. We’re all right, really. We’re getting there. Francesca’s the oldest, she remembers Angelina the most clearly, and she’s the one who bears the brunt of the loss, because when I’m not there the little ones turn to her. She has to be mother to them, and she’s been so strong, but she’s just a little girl herself.’
He broke off, his jaw working, and she laid her hand gently against it and sighed.
‘I’m so sorry. It must have been dreadful for you all.’
‘It was. They took her to hospital, and she died later that day—she was on life support and they tested her brain but there was nothing. No activity at all. They turned off the machine, and I came home and told the children that their mother was gone. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.’
His voice broke off again, turning away this time, and Lydia closed her eyes and swallowed the anguished response. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t be trite or meaningless, and so she stayed silent, and after a moment he let out a long, slow breath and sat back against the bench.
‘So, now you know,’ he said, his voice low and oddly flat.
Wordlessly, she reached out and touched his hand, and he turned it, his fingers threading through hers and holding on tight.
They stayed like that for an age, their hands lying linked between them as they sipped their wine, and then he turned to her in the dim light and searched her face. He’d taken comfort from her touch, felt the warmth of her generous spirit seeping into him, easing the ache which had been a part of him for so long.
How could she do that with just a touch?
No words. Words were too hard, would have been trite. Did she know that?
Yes. He could see that she did, that this woman who talked too much actually knew the value of silence.
He lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips, then smiled at her sadly. ‘Did you eat anything?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not really.’
‘Nor did I. Shall we see what we can find? It’s a very, very long time since breakfast.’
It wasn’t exactly haute cuisine, but the simple fare of olive bread and ham and cheese with sweetly scented baby plum tomatoes and a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar just hit the spot.
He poured them another glass of wine, but it didn’t seem like a good idea and so she gave him the second half and he found some sparkling water for her. She realised she’d thought nothing of handing him her glass of wine for him to finish, and he’d taken it without