Convenient Brides Page 11

  “I’ll do it,” Clemente said solemnly, “but first I have a question. Everything you say makes Gina and me feel happy, Zio Paolo, but how can that be right when our parents just died?”

  Callie’s heart constricted. “Oh, honey,” she said softly, drawing him to her, “don’t ever feel you don’t have the right to be happy.Your mommy and daddy wouldn’t want that, at all.”

  “But won’t they think we’ll forget them, if we come to live with you?”

  “No,” she assured him. “Because they know we’ll never be able to take their place. We’re just standing in for them.”

  “Will they know we’ll still miss them?”

  How sensitive he was, this young son of hers. Moved, she said, “Of course they will. We’ll all miss them. But I think they’ll feel better knowing your uncle and I are there to look after you.”

  “They have their grandmother and me,” Salvatore reminded her sourly.

  “Yes.” She spared him a passing glance. “But even you must agree that children can never have too many people who care about them, and whether or not you believe it, Signor Rainero, your grandchildren’s welfare is something I hold very dear to my heart.”

  If he wasn’t impressed by her remarks, Clemente was. His mouth curving in a tiny smile, he said, “You’re nice, Zia Caroline.”

  “Nice enough to be given a hug?”

  He screwed up his face, debating the question. “Okay,” he said finally, and came into her embrace.

  It was the first time she’d ever felt his arms close around her as if he meant it, instead of as if it was a duty he was compelled to perform. Struggling to hang on to her composure, she looked to Paolo for help.

  “Enough of trying to strangle my future wife, young man,” he decreed, all mock indignation mixed with laughter. “And no tears from you, Caroline, or you, Momma! Tonight is for celebrating.”

  “So that’s why there’s champagne chilling,” Salvatore said, drumming up a token smile. “Well, since you’ve both made up your minds, I suppose I should propose a toast.”

  Chapter Eight

  DINNER that night was almost festive. Almost.

  “We’ll have to find a dress for your big day, Caroline, and also one for Gina,” Lidia said. “I would so love to go shopping with you and introduce you to my favorite designer.”

  “You’re welcome to come shopping with me, but I hadn’t thought of buying anything too extravagant,” Callie said, only to be shot down, surprisingly, by Salvatore.

  “If you’re worried about money,” he pronounced bluntly, between sips of the very excellent champagne served with the meal, “do not be. A suitable wedding outfit will be our gift to you.”

  Was he deliberately condescending to her, as if he feared she might appear at the altar wearing red sequins and feathers, Callie wondered, bristling, or was this his heavy-handed way of welcoming her into the family?

  “That’s very generous of you, Signor Rainero,” she replied coolly, “but it’s not the money I’m concerned about. I’m well able to buy my own dress, and Gina’s, too. But the kind of wedding Paolo and I want doesn’t call for a designer gown. I’m certain I can find something suitable in any good department store, of which I’m sure there are many in Rome.”

  Ever mindful of his aristocratic heritage, Salvatore covered his contempt at such a suggestion with a strenuously benign smile—the kind, Callie was willing to bet, that would leave his face aching for the next half hour. “My dear lady, the Raineros do not shop in department stores! You’ll find plenty of other opportunities to wear a designer gown, once the wedding is a fait accompli.”

  He paused, long enough to take another sip of champagne and fastidiously dab his linen napkin to the corner of his mouth, then concluded, “Indeed, one such item of haute couture will not begin to fill your needs. As my son’s wife, you will attend many formal functions, and frequently find your photograph dominating the society pages of Italian newspapers, not to mention the more respectable international magazines. You might as well accept that fact, and start out the way you’ll be obliged to carry on.”

  At her side, Paolo stiffened and covered her suddenly clenched fist warmly with his hand. “Caroline’s role as my wife is something she and I will determine together, Father, without input from you, or anyone else,” he said evenly.

  “I’minterfering, am I?” Salvatore’s amusement showed as ingular lack of remorse. “Very well, I’ll keep my opinions to myself, provided you allow me one concession.” He directed another too-amiable smile Callie’s way, this one even more fixed than its predecessor. “That, as the newest member of my family, Caroline, you call me Suocero, which in Italian means—”

  “Father-in-law,” she finished for him. “Yes, Signor Rainero, I’m aware of that. I took several university courses in Italian, and am quite fluent in the language.”

  He regarded her with sly triumph, as if he’d just caught her red-handed in a lie. “I don’t understand. Didn’t you say you studied architecture?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then why such an interest in learning Italian?”

  Because I wanted to be able to communicate with my children, in the event that they didn’t learn English.

  “The influence of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque period on modern architecture is huge. I spent one summer session studying in Florence, Milan and Venice. A working knowledge of the language was essential.”

  “One summer, hmm.” Continuing to regard her narrowly, he plucked at his lower lip with one finger. “Was that the same year you visited your sister and her children?”

  “Yes. At the end of the semester, I came to Rome and spent a few days with Vanessa and her family.”

  “They were an afterthought, were they?”

  “Hardly!”

  “I don’t remember you coming to see us,” Gina chimed in.

  Silently blessing the child for causing a distraction before she lost her temper with the mistrustful old fool destined to be her father-in-law, Callie explained, “That’s because you were very little then, Gina. Still babies, really, not even two years old. You probably only remember coming to see me in San Francisco, when you were older.”

  Clemente nodded enthusiastically. “I remember doing that! You live in a town house, at the top of a hill, and you have a fireplace in your salon, and if you stand at the window and look down the hill, you can see an island with an old prison on it.”

  “That’s right,” she said, pathetically grateful that he’d kept a little part of her life locked away in his memory. “It’s called Alcatraz. I’ll take you to visit it some time, if you like.”

  “How can you do that? It’s a long way away, and I don’t want to live in America.” Gina turned accusing eyes on her uncle. “You said we’re going to live here, Zio Paolo.”

  “We are,” he said soothingly. “But we might take a holi-day in San Francisco, once in a while. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

  “Not as long as I don’t have to stay there. I’d miss Nonna and Nonno, and all my friends.”

  “Just as we’d miss you,” her grandfather said, his glance again settling on Callie with brief and telling intent. “Far too much to allow you to live so far away.”

  Allow? she fume dinwardly. Who did he think he was? God?

  She had to bite her lip to keep the lid on her annoyance. Why didn’t he just come out and say he didn’t trust her, and the whole idea of her marrying into his illustrious family turned his stomach? she thought, defiantly returning his stare.

  Most young wives, if they had any problems at all with their husbands’ parents, seemed more often to be at logger-heads with the mother-in-law. Clearly, in her case, Salvatore was going to be the difficult one.

  Hard-pressed to conceal the acid in her tone, she said, “In case you missed it the first time around, Signor Rainero, the whole purpose of our making a home for the children is to create as little disruption to their lives as possible. Relocating to San Fra
ncisco, or anywhere other than Rome, for that matter, would be counterproductive, don’t you think?”

  He inclined his head in regal assent, and the meal ended shortly after. And not a moment too soon, as far as Callie was concerned. She’d had about as much of Salvatore’s overbearing attitude as she could take for one day, and when Lidia asked if she’d like to help get the children settled for the night, she leaped at the chance.

  Perching on Clemente’sbed, with him leaning affectionately against her on one side, and Gina cuddled up next to her on the other, and watching the telltale expressions sweeping over their adorable little face as Lidia read, in English, another chapter from Sarah Plain and Tall, Callieknewadeepthankfulnessfor the changes that had come so unexpectedly into her life.

  This was what she’d missed with her children—the small, everyday rituals they’d cherish the rest of their lives—and to be given the chance to take part in them at last was nothing short of a miracle.

  “Sarah’s like you, Zia Caroline,” Gina decided, when Lidia finally closed the book.

  Callie laughed. “You mean, plain and tall?”

  “No,” Gina said, shocked. “You’re pretty. You look a lot like Mommy. But you’ve come to look after us because she can’t anymore, and that’s what Sarah did in the story, as well.”

  “Yes.” Stabbed by one of those sudden pangs of loss that crept up on her so frequently, Callie dropped a kiss on her daughter’s head. “And just like Sarah in the story, I’ll never leave you.”

  Clemente tugged on her sleeve. “Or me?”

  “Or you, sweetheart.”

  His father closed the library door, went directly to the antique carved butler table where coffee and liqueurs waited, and poured two glasses of grappa. “All right, there’s no one here now but the two of us,” he said, handing one glass to Paolo. “So tell me, my son, what’s really behind this preposterous idea of marrying Caroline Leighton?”

  “I already told you. I want to put the pieces of the twins’ lives back together, the best way I know how.”

  His father curled his lip scornfully. “And we both know you don’t need to marry that woman, to do it. Or, if you feel you must take a wife in order to provide a mother figure, that there are a dozen other women more suited—possibly a hundred!—who’d jump at the chance to take on the job.”

  “But none as dedicated as Caroline to your grandchildren’s welfare. Even you can’t deny that she loves Gina and Clemente.” His gaze clashed with his father’s. “I expect you to find that reason enough to give us your blessing, even if you disapprove of my choice.”

  For a long moment, their gazes remained locked in silent combat—two men used to getting their own way, Paolo thought grimly, the difference being that the elder had years more experience in winning.

  This time, however, his father was the first to break eye contact. “At least you don’t insult my intelligence by claiming to be in love with her,” he growled.

  To ward off the chill of evening, Paolo knelt and put a match to the fire laid in the marble hearth. “How I feel about Caroline is irrelevant to this discussion.”

  A clever, smooth answer, delivered with enough dispassion that even his own father couldn’t detect the lie. But there was no deceiving himself. His feelings for Caroline had undergone a huge change. He’d been falling more in love with her every day, and hadn’t hit bottom yet. Probably never would.

  Strange how things work out sometimes, he thought, poking at a log. Who’d have expected that what began with a funeral, would end with a wedding? That mutual sorrow would provide the breeding ground for love? Certainly not he!

  The day he’d met her in Paris, he’d viewed Caroline as his family’s self-declared enemy, one he was prepared to defeat by any means available. He’d been fooled by her aloof reserve, her icy control, seeing both as symptoms of a woman too self-involved to be touched by anyone’s tragedy but her own. There’d been nothing left of the sweet innocent he’d once seduced.

  Or so he’d believed at the time. Little by little, though, her brittle facade had cracked, beginning as early as that same afternoon when the twins’ nanny, Tullia, brought them back to his parents’ apartment from the park. At the sight of them, Caroline, who’d been taking tea with his mother in the salon, jumped up so abruptly from her chair that her cup overturned in its saucer.

  “Oh!” she’d whispered brokenly, flying across the room to where the children hovered in the doorway, and folding them in a fierce hug.

  He’d heard a world of love in that single syllable; a lifetime of something that, if he hadn’t known better, he’d have identified as a regret painful beyond bearing. The twins, though, still frozen with a grief too large for any child to comprehend, had remained unmoved, not caring about her enough either to reject or accept her.

  “Can you not say ciao to your aunt?” he’d asked them, surprised and not a little chagrined at how sorry he felt for her.

  “Ciao,” they’d recited obediently, and tried to wriggle free.

  After that, for him, it had been downhill all the way. The cracks in her composure had grown increasingly more noticeable, try as she might to hide them. At any other time, his mother would have noticed, and done her best to console their guest. But his mother was drowning in her own sorrow, and able to offer limited comfort at best.

  As for his father, so deeply ingrained was his antipathy for her that, if Caroline had collapsed in a broken heap at his feet, he’d have stepped over her without a second glance, and sent for the maid to clean up the mess.

  Paolo, though, grew more enamored by the hour,even if he’d been slow to realize it at the time. How else to explain why he couldn’t keep his hands off her, or stay away from her at night, or bear not being within touching distance during the day?

  Why else had he proposed to her?

  Oh, he might fool everyone else with his altruistic motives, and yes, his niece and nephew had figured hugely in his decision, but no use fooling himself. He wanted Caroline despite all the practical reasons for marrying her, not because of them. He was hooked, plain and simple. And loving every minute of it!

  Unable to keep the smile off his face, he dusted off his hands and picked up his glass again, aware that his father watched him closely.

  “You say your feelings for Caroline are irrelevant, Paolo?” he said scornfully. “Then I say, either you’re lying to me, or worse, you’re lying to yourself.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinion, Father.”

  His father responded with a derisive snort. “Opinion, nothing! Admit it, man: you’re besotted with her! She’s sbewitched you with her smiles. Undone you with her tears. And that is why, for your protection and that of my grandchildren, I intend to have my team of lawyers draw up a watertight prenuptial agreement. That the wretched woman’s all sweet compliance now is no guarantee she’ll remain so in the future.”

  Stopping dead in his tracks, Paolo struggled to contain the surge of anger scalding his throat. When he at last trusted himself to speak, he did so with feral intent. “Listen well to what I’m about to say, Father, and take it to heart,” he snarled, turning slowly to face him. “First, you will do no such thing. And second, you will never again refer to my future wife with such contempt. I will not tolerate a repeat of it, for any reason.”

  “Bravely spoken, Paolo,” his father returned, “but I’m afraid you can’t control my feelings anymore, it would seem, than you can control your own.”

  “But you can control your tongue. You can and will treat Caroline cordially and with civility. And if you defy me on this, then prepare to be deprived of the pleasure of my family’s company.”

  His father sank back in his chair, his color hectic, his breathing labored. “You would not dare deny me access to my own grandchildren!”

  “Try me,” Paolo said, refusing to show his alarm at the symptoms his father presented.

  “Let me remind you that I am the head of this household, Paolo,” he blustered, fumbling ben
eath the lapel of his dinner jacket.

  “As I will be head of mine. You’d do well to remember that.”

  His father’s color receded, leaving his skin an unhealthy gray. “You accuse me of not showing proper esteem for your fiancée, yet dare to address me with such disrespect?”

  “I honor you as my father, but I would be less than you expected of a son if I were to let you ride roughshod over my wife. What, after all, has Caroline done to offend you? Is it the fact that it took a tragedy of monumental proportions for her to make the effort to come to Italy? The belief that, if it weren’t for her connection to our family by marriage, she wouldn’t register on your social scale? Your perceived notion that she poses a threat to your grandchildren? Or is it that she has carved out a successful life for herself, without once having to appeal to you for help, and refuses to be cowed by your attempts to put her in her place?”

  “She shows no regard for our family’s rich ancestry,” Salvatore sputtered. “No understanding of my grandchildren’s fine heritage. She is too American in her outlook and demeanor.”

  Frustrated, for this was an old and tired argument brought out and dusted off whenever someone veered too far from revered tradition, Paolo tried one last line of reasoning. “You once said the same about Vanessa, Father, and later admitted you’d misjudged her.”

  “She was different. She showed regard for our way of doing things. She embraced our values and our customs.”

  “And Caroline will do the same. Why else would she have so readily agreed to live here? Please, Father, put your doubts aside. Our family has been sadly depleted in recent weeks, and there are precious few of us left to carry on the name. We need to stand together now, not engage in pointless disputes that can do nothing but tear us apart.”

  For a moment, his father glowered at the suggestion, clearly ready to stand toe to toe with him on the idea. Then, abruptly, he leaned his head against the high back of his chair and closed his eyes. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said grudgingly. “Perhaps we need to make the best of what we have left. For that reason, and for the sake of my grandchildren, I will try to overcome my misgivings and welcome Caroline, as I welcomed her sister before her.”