‘What?’ Both Nico and Charlotte uttered the horrified exclamation simultaneously.
‘It’s perfect,’ Lady Geraldine said calmly. ‘You don’t have commitments until Christmas Day, Nico, and we’ll be back in London by Christmas Eve. As you said yourself, what better way could there be to celebrate? It sounds as though you and Charlotte are going to have a lot of time apart in the near future and I’m sure we all agree that we should all make the most of every moment we can have together. Who knows how many of them there will be?’
Her voice wobbled just a little as she finished speaking. Charlotte’s jaw had been dropping but now it snapped shut.
‘You can’t do this, Gran,’ she said slowly. ‘You can’t use something like your illness to make people do what you want them to do. It’s…it’s emotional blackmail.’
‘Nonsense.’ Any hint of frailty vanished from Lady Geraldine’s demeanour. ‘It’s common sense, that’s what it is. You’re both important, busy people. You’d never make the time for something like this unless someone pushed you into it. And this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to get a booking on this train? And two cabins. If it had only been one, I would have given up my place so that you and Nico could have done the trip together.’
‘But this is your dream, Gran.’ Charlotte was shaking her head now, looking bewildered. ‘Why would Nico and I want to do it?’
‘Because it’s the most romantic journey on earth,’ Lady Geraldine said. ‘You’ve found each other in the most romantic city and by astonishing good fortune you now have the chance to build on that by travelling together to the destination you were both heading for anyway. I’m not going to take you away from Nico the day after you’ve just become engaged, Charlotte. This is my engagement gift to you both—some more time together. If he won’t come with us on the train, then you can stay here and I’ll go by myself.’
‘No…you can’t do that. I won’t let you. You’re not well enough.’
It was a stand-off. Nico didn’t need the combined effect of both women looking at him to know he was expected to say something to defuse the tension but, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything to say. For heaven’s sake, all he needed was an excuse that would keep him at least somewhere in Europe for the next twenty four hours but his mind was blank. Stunned at the way this…diversion had taken on a life of its own. Moving at a pace that appeared as unstoppable as the train he was now expected to board tomorrow.
Tables were being cleared around them and any moment now the waiters would come and interrupt this awkward silence, but clearly it wouldn’t be soon enough for Charlotte. She made an exasperated sound as she pushed back her chair and got to her feet.
‘I need some air,’ she announced. ‘I’ll leave you to talk to Gran, Nico.’
Her tone suggested that he was unlikely to get anywhere but that it was his problem. He’d got himself into this mess and now he could get himself out of it. Her body language as she headed towards the balcony suggested that she was washing her hands of the whole situation because it was clearly uncontrollable. The slump of her shoulders said that she didn’t believe he could do it without causing harm.
And maybe she was right. Maybe now he was going have to confess his part in this deception. Was there a way he could do that and convince Lady Geraldine at the same time that it had been done with the very best of intentions and that Charlotte had only gone along with his stupid idea because she loved her grandmother so much?
Nico took a deep breath and opened his mouth but Lady Geraldine got there first to fill the silence.
‘Oh, dear…’ she murmured. ‘And there I was, hoping that she’d finally got over it all…’
Nico couldn’t help himself. ‘Over what, Jendi?’
Lady Geraldine looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s the problem, Nico. I’ve never been able to find out.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me.’
‘Scusi?’ The Italian word popped out, as they often did in moments of great stress or surprise.
‘There’s only been one other occasion when I’ve thought that Charlotte might have found the right man for her. The person she was going to spend the rest of her life with. To raise her own family with. And it was years ago. Back when she was just a baby doctor and everybody could see how brilliant she was. Is,’ Lady Geraldine corrected herself but she was frowning. ‘I don’t know what went wrong,’ she continued softly, almost as if she was talking aloud to herself, ‘but Charlotte…changed.’
Yes. He was getting to the heart of the mystery now.
‘That was the time I first met her,’ he confided to Jendi. ‘When she was the star of the emergency department and nobody could sing her praises highly enough. And she was so happy. There was a sparkle about her that lit up a room. A smile that advertised such confidence…’ His voice trailed off as he realised the extent of how radically Charlotte had changed.
The confidence was still there but it was only professional. Cold. That’s what had hit him this morning—that lack of sparkle for want of a better word. It was only when he had pushed himself beyond any acceptably professional boundaries that he’d seen a hint of a woman capable of real emotion. That buttoned-up outward appearance was like a suit of armour around the old Charlotte.
Whatever had happened had killed her personal confidence. Her hopes for a future outside her work ambitions. Had she been brutally dismissed by a man she’d been deeply in love with?
How could the man have been such an idiot to pass up a woman like Charlotte?
And why did the thought of her being passionately in love with another man stir up a nasty sensation in his gut that he couldn’t identify? Was it jealousy? No. That was absurd. He had never felt jealous in his life.
‘I saw her out with that man,’ he told Jendi. ‘At a very exclusive London club. I think we were even introduced. Was he a prince?’
Lady Geraldine made a dismissive sound. ‘That’s what he called himself. He was a long way down the tree of some obscure European royal family. He was certainly a very charming young man. And very sure of himself.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Charlotte will never talk about it. I didn’t see her for a few weeks. She said she had flu and didn’t want to pass it on. And then she always had an excuse of being too busy at work to come to see me and when she finally did I was…shocked.’
‘Why?’ Nico leaned forward, unconsciously holding his breath.
‘She looked…ill. So thin. And…’ Lady Geraldine shook her head very slowly and when she raised her gaze to Nico’s he could see tears in her eyes. ‘You hit the nail right on the head, my dear. Her sparkle had gone. It was like it had been when she first arrived in my care as an orphaned child. When she was so lost and unhappy that she wouldn’t even speak. For months.’
‘She wouldn’t speak to you?’
‘Oh, no. She wasn’t a tiny child any more. She would talk but only if we didn’t talk about him. Siegfried. All she would say was that the relationship was over and it wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was her work.’
Lady Geraldine looked away. ‘I thought if I gave her enough space that she would eventually talk to me about it, but it’s been nearly six years and after the first attempt or two I had to give up. It’s the one thing that’s never discussed but is always there. The elephant in the room, you know?’
‘The elephant?’ How many odd English phrases were going to test him today?
‘The