Louise shivered inwardly. How could her grandfather have done this to her? How could he have betrayed her like that? Shock, disbelief, pain, fear, and anger—Louise felt them all. And yet at the same time part of her could understand what might have motivated him.
She could so vividly remember that night—beaten down by the insistence of both her parents that she should have her pregnancy terminated, weeping in her grandmother’s arms, feeling abandoned and afraid. She had finally told her grandparents what she had previously kept a secret: namely that, far from there being any number of young men to have potentially fathered her child, as the headman of the village had insinuated, there was only one who could have done so. And that one was no other than Caesar Falconari, Duca di Falconari, overlord of the vast wealth and estates on Sicily that had been her grandparents’ birthplace.
Her grandparents had promised her that they would never betray that secret—but then they must have recognized, as she had known herself, that no one would ever believe her if she were to make such a claim. Especially not when Caesar himself … But, no. She was not going to go down that road. Not now and not ever. The bitterness of her past was best left buried beneath the new flesh she had grown over her old wounds. And besides she had Oliver to think of now.
She lifted her head and confronted Caesar. ‘All you need to know about Oliver is that he is my son and only my son.’
He had been afraid of this, Caesar admitted. His mouth compressing, he reached into his jacket pocket and produced the envelope containing her grandfather’s letter, which he removed and placed on the table. As he did so the photographs her grandfather had enclosed with the letter fell onto the table.
Louise saw them immediately, her breath catching in a sharp drawn-in sound of rejection.
How different she looked in that old photograph taken that summer … They had all come here to Sicily, supposedly for a family holiday that would establish the new family dynamics that were being put in place following her parents’ divorce. It had been Melinda’s idea that she and her girls and Louise’s father should join Louise and her grandparents on their visit to their original home, whilst Louise’s mother was spending the summer with her ‘friend’ in Palm Springs.
Right from the start Louise had been in no doubt about Melinda’s motives for suggesting the holiday. Melinda had wanted to reinforce yet again how unimportant she was to her father, and in contrast how important she and her own children were. That had been made obvious right from the start. And she had stupidly reacted exactly as Melinda had no doubt hoped she would, by doing everything she could to focus her father’s attention on herself by the only means she knew—behaving so badly that he was forced to take notice of her.
Looking at herself in that photograph, it was hard for her not to cringe. She remembered that she had been attempting not just to emulate what she had naively perceived as Melinda’s ‘sexy’ dressing, she had also attempted to outdo it. So she had translated the smooth sleekness of Melinda’s dark brown hair into a black-dyed stringy mess that had clung to her scalp stiff with product. Melinda’s favourite clingy short white jersey dress she had translated into a far too short, tight black jersey number, which she’d worn with stiletto heels instead of the pretty sandals of Melinda’s choice. The tongue stud she had had put in in a mood of defiance at fifteen, long-gone now, had still been in place then, and black kohl surrounded her eyes. Her face was caked in far too much make-up.
On the face of it the photograph might depict an eighteen-year-old who looked far too sexually available, but the image looking back at her stabbed at Louise’s heart. It wasn’t just because she was looking at herself that she could see the vulnerability behind the overt sexuality. Anyone with her training and experience would be able to see the same thing. A caring father should surely also have seen it.
Louise looked again at the photograph. All that holiday she had deliberately worn clothes so provocative that it was hardly surprising she’d had virtually every boy in the village looking for easy sex, hanging around the villa they’d been renting. She’d looked cheap and available, and that was how she had been treated. Of course her grandparents had tried to suggest she wore something more discreet, and of course she had ignored them. She’d been very young for her age, despite her appearance—sent to an all-girls school, and just desperate to fit in and be accepted by the coterie of girls who mattered there. By changing her appearance she’d wanted to provoke her father, to force him to notice her. Of course he had not wanted anything to do with her, preferring instead to be with Melinda and her two pretty little girls.
What a fool she had been. And more than a fool.
‘Quite a change,’ Caesar couldn’t help saying wryly when he saw her looking at the photograph her grandfather had included in his letter to jog his own memory about the identity of the young woman who had conceived what the dying man had claimed was his son. ‘I wouldn’t have recognised you.’
‘I was eighteen and I wanted …’
‘Male attention. Yes, I remember.’
Louise could feel her face beginning to burn.
‘My father’s attention …’ she corrected him in a cool voice.
Was it the way she was looking at him or his own memories that stung with such unpalatable force? He had been twenty-two to her eighteen, newly in full control of his inheritance and free of the advisers who had previously guided him, and very much aware that his people were judging his ability to be the Duke they wanted—one who would preserve their traditions and way of life.
At the same time he’d been searching for a way to discreetly pursue his own plans for modernisation in the face of hostility to any kind of change amongst the older generation of headmen in charge of the villages. In particular the leader of the largest village, where Louise had been staying, had vetoed any idea of new developments—especially when it came to the role of women who, as far as he was concerned, must always be subservient to their menfolk and their family. That headman, Aldo Barado, had been able to marshal the support of many of the leaders from the other villages, which had led to Caesar feeling he had to tread very carefully and even make some concessions if he was to achieve his goals.
Whilst time and the growing insistence of the younger members of the community on modernising had helped to bring in many of Ceasar’s plans, Aldo Barado remained unconvinced and still insisted on the old ways.
Louise’s modern views, and her determination to be herself, had immediately caused Aldo Barado to be antagonistic towards her. He had come up to the castello within two days of Louise’s arrival in the village to complain about the effect she was having on the young people, especially the young men, and even more especially on his only son who, despite the fact that he was engaged to be married in a match arranged and sanctioned by his father, had been openly pursuing Louise.
Of course Caesar had had no option other than to listen to the headman’s demands that he do something about the situation and the girl who was openly flouting the rules of their society, and that was the reason and the only reason he had gone down to the village to introduce himself to her family—so that he could observe her behaviour and if necessary have a word with her father.
Only the minute he had set eyes on Louise any thought of remaining detached and ducal had been swept away, and he had known instantly, with gut-wrenching certainty, just why the village youths found her so compellingly attractive. Not even her atrocious hairstyle and choice of clothes had been able to dim the light of her extraordinary natural beauty. Those eyes, that skin, that softly pouting mouth that promised so much …
Caesar had been shocked by the force of his own response to her, and even more shocked by his inability to control that response. From the day he had been told of his parents’ death, at six years old, he had developed emotional strategies to protect himself from the bewildering and often frightening aloneness he felt. He must be brave, he had been told. He must be strong. He must remember