‘Saved by the bell,’ he murmured resignedly.
Kate stood up hastily, smoothing down imaginary creases in her dress with hands which were suddenly clammy and she didn’t know if that was a reaction to what he had just told her or apprehension about meeting a group of people she was still convinced would dislike her.
But in that she was wrong. True, his mother scrutinised her intently when they first shook hands, as did his two aunts. His father took one look at her and murmured something softly in Sicilian to his son, who gave a small smile in response.
Kate was seated between Giovanni’s father, and his father’s sister—an absolute delight of a woman named Maria. Giovanni had told her that she was his favourite aunt and she had a very dry sense of humour. And a way of asking questions which really made you want to answer them, though some questions were just too difficult to answer…
They ate pasta alla Norma—eastern Sicily’s favourite pasta and supposedly named after Bellini’s opera, or so Giovanni told her, pouring some wine for his aunt with a smile which nearly broke Kate’s heart.
‘And I believe that you know Lady St John?’ asked Giovanni’s mother.
Swallowing a mouthful of water nervously, Kate nodded. ‘That’s right. I decorated her house for her—and her London flat last year.’
Mrs Calverri nodded. ‘She speaks very highly of you,’ she said.
So Giovanni’s mother had been talking to Lady St John, had she? Why on earth would she do that? Kate wondered. ‘She told me that she’d met you when she was travelling around Europe,’ she ventured.
‘Indeed. Her father was at the embassy in Rome and my uncle was on the local staff there.’ Mrs Calverri gave a smile that bordered on the wistful. ‘Such a summer we girls had!’
Mr Calverri muttered something in Sicilian and his wife batted her eyelashes at him. ‘Don’t be jealous, caro. It was a long time ago!’
They ate cannoli for dessert—pastry tubes filled with fresh ricotta, bits of chocolate and candied fruit—and Michelina had left them with their coffee, when Giovanni’s aunt Maria turned to her nephew.
‘Will you show me your beautiful garden, Giovanni? It is so long since I have seen it.’
Kate looked nervously at Giovanni.
‘Put some music on for Mama and Papa,’ he said softly, and another pang of guilt hit him, hard, as he noted the anxiety which clouded her green eyes. What had he ever done for Kate, other than bring her unhappiness and loss? he asked himself in despair.
His aunt slipped her arm through his and they wandered outside, where the pale sunshine was warm on their skin.
The garden of the villa was beautiful and the pride of an old man who tended to it every day except Sunday and who had known Giovanni since he had been a baby.
Blue-green cypress trees pointed elegant spires skywards and lush, fleshy shrubs contrasted with the bright blooms of the semi-tropical flowers which spilled in such abundance on the edges of a perfect green lawn.
And in February the lawn was strewn with the white petals from the almond tree. ‘Like confetti,’ Giovanni had told Kate, and she had turned away from him, and he had guessed that the memory of her baby was still with her. And always would be with her, he thought now, his heart heavy.
Aunt Maria bent and fussed over the flowers, and pointed at the trees, and when they had reached the far end of the garden she stopped and spoke to him in Sicilian.
‘Something is wrong, I think, Giovanni?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Wrong?’
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sp; ‘Something is troubling you,’ said Aunt Maria perceptively. ‘I can tell.’
His aunt was a wise and insightful woman, he thought, but he said nothing.
‘Something which is threatening your happiness,’ mused Aunt Maria, and she stooped to remove a dead flower.
‘Happiness is too precarious not to be continually threatened,’ he said quietly.
Aunt Maria straightened up, faded blue eyes, which must have once been just like his, narrowing as they regarded him.
‘You and Anna were never right for one another, you know,’ she said firmly. ‘You are far too much your own man to be constrained by tradition. I told your father so. If you send a man to America at such a tender age, I said, you must be prepared for him to break against convention when he comes back.’
‘I loved Anna,’ he said, and his voice broke into a sigh. ‘I never wanted to hurt her.’