The Baby Gambit

‘What is it you English say?’ he asked, dark humour evident in the depths of his lazy eyes. ‘As if you care, no?’ he suggested wryly. Then, as if regretting his own irony, he added, ‘But to answer your question, no. I was simply exchanging a few words with a colleague, when I saw you sitting here, alone.’

Grace’s lips tightened at the implied vote of sympathy, and before she could stop herself she said, ‘I enjoy my own company, as it happens.’

‘I am sure you do,’ he answered smoothly, but despite the courtesy of his words Grace felt a hot wave of colour envelop her cheeks. For God’s sake, she thought crossly, he would think she was a complete idiot. Not only shrewish, but gauche as well.

‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,’ she found herself protesting hurriedly, but she saw at once that her efforts to excuse herself had fallen on stony ground.

‘Oh, I’m sure you did, Miss Horton,’ he countered flatly. ‘Once again, please accept my good wishes.’ He glanced up at the awning. ‘You’ve chosen well. The food here is some of the best in town.’

CHAPTER TWO

GRACE was stir-frying a pan of vegetables when Julia arrived home.

After lunch at the quayside café, she’d spent some time looking round the little town that crowded the harbour, and she hadn’t been able to resist buying some of the fresh fruit and other produce she’d found displayed in the small shops. There had been so many varieties of peaches and plums and apricots, as well as the more familiar things such as beans and peas, sweet corn and peppers, which gave off such an appetising aroma as they simmered in the pan.

If she’d wondered whether she might run into Matteo di Falco again, that was something she preferred not to think about. But she couldn’t deny that her eyes had been drawn to every tall dark man she’d seen. Still, whatever he’d been doing before he’d spoken to her at the café, he was apparently no longer in Portofalco, and she’d decided she was lucky not to have to deal with him again.

But it was good to see Julia, and Grace removed the pan from the heat before going to meet her friend. They hugged and exchanged greetings, before Julia subsided somewhat gratefully onto one of the stools that flanked the breakfast bar. ‘I’m beat!’ she exclaimed, pulling a wry face. She nodded towards the stove. ‘But I’m glad to see you’re making yourself at home.’

Grace grimaced. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t mind. I didn’t know if you’d be coming home, or what time, but I thought if you did you wouldn’t want to go out for a meal. So I’ve made enough for two.’

‘Great,’ said Julia, putting her elbow on the bar and resting her head on her hand. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be here when you arrived.’ She pulled a face. ‘I had my weekend all planned.’

‘But you had to cut it short,’ murmured Grace sympathetically, taking the bottle of wine she’d opened earlier from the fridge. She poured a glass and pushed it towards Julia. ‘Well, you can relax now. Supper’s almost ready.’

‘Thanks.’

Julia sipped the wine with evident enjoyment, and as she did so Grace took a moment to glance at her friend. Was it only the fact that she’d had to put in these extra hours that had made her look so weary? Or was there some other problem troubling her? If she waited long enough, she guessed Julia would tell her what it was.

‘So, how are you?’ Julia enquired now, straightening her back and resting both arms on the counter. ‘I must say you look pretty good, considering.’

Grace glanced with mock indignation over her shoulder. ‘Talk about being damned with faint praise,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.

‘You know what I mean,’ insisted Julia. ‘I expected you to look all wan and haggard-eyed. Instead of which, it’s me who looks as if I’ve been on a bender for a week.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’ Despite her obvious weariness, Julia still possessed the gamine charm she’d had when they were students. Smaller than her friend, Julia had always been excessively slender, with short blonde hair that was presently shaped to curl confidingly in towards her pointed chin. ‘It was a shame the hotel knew where to contact you. If they hadn’t, I suppose they’d have had to call on someone else.’

‘Yeah.’ Julia grimaced. ‘That was my fault. If I hadn’t been bragging about going to Valle di Falco for the weekend, they wouldn’t have known where I was. But it’s not every day that you get to meet a real marchesa, and I couldn’t resist telling everyone that I was going to stay at the di Falco villa.’

‘Ah.’ Grace could feel a certain tightness in her throat. ‘Does that mean that—that Signor di Falco is really a marchese?’

‘Matteo?’ Julia took a sip of her wine, but Grace could see that her blue eyes had become a little dreamy. ‘Well, yes, he is. But these days, like lots of other Italian aristocrats, he doesn’t use his title.’

Grace was glad of the excuse of attending to the vegetables to turn back to the stove. So, Matteo di Falco was really the Marchese di Falco. Her tongue circled her upper lip. Things just seemed to get worse and worse. What must he have thought of her? She just hoped he didn’t tell Julia what she’d said.

‘Anyway,’ Julia went on now, and Grace could hear the animation in her voice, ‘you haven’t told me what you thought of him. Matt, I mean. He did fetch my suitcase, didn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. He brought it.’ Grace judged herself capable of speaking casually, and turned to take a plate of fresh shrimp out of the fridge. If Julia thought she was flushed, she would probably put it down to the heat emanating from the vegetables. ‘He arrived about mid-morning. He explained you’d been summoned back to the hotel.’

Julia nodded. ‘So what did you think?’ she persisted eagerly. ‘Come on, Grace; don’t you think he’s something else?’ She shook her head. ‘I still can’t get over the fact that he’s interested in me. It’s the real thing this time, girl. I’m sure of it.’

Grace expelled a breath. ‘He seemed—very nice.’

‘Very nice!’ Julia snorted, her weariness apparently forgotten. ‘Can’t you do better than that? When I look at him, “nice” is not an epithet that instantly springs to mind!’

‘All right, he’s everything you said he was,’ conceded Grace unwillingly, tipping the uncooked shrimp into the pan and giving them a rather energetic stir. ‘The food’s almost ready. Shall we eat in here? Or would you rather I set the table in the living room?’

Julia looked as if she would have preferred to continue their discussion of Matteo di Falco, but after swallowing the remainder of the wine in her glass she seemed to think better of it. ‘Let’s just eat here,’ she said, helping herself to more wine. ‘Mmm, it smells delicious. I could get used to this.’

Happily, the conversation became more general as they consumed the meal, but Julia wanted to know how her friend had come to neglect her health. She expressed her own outrage that Grace’s sisters should have had to be prevailed upon to help, showing little sympathy for their responsibilities towards their own families.

‘She’s their mother, too,’ she reminded Grace sagely, getting up to help her friend with the dishes. ‘And they don’t work, remember? They probably have far more free time than you.’

Grace admitted that that was a possibility, but she had grown so used to being regarded as the fall girl that it was hard to blame anyone else. Besides, she had never considered what she did as a burden before. It was only when she was taken ill herself that she’d begun to realise that she might be doing too much.

‘Anyway, you’re here now, and I don’t want you to feel that I expect you to look after me while you’re convalescing,’ declared Julia, putting their clean plates back into the cupboard. ‘I mean, this has been quite a treat, having a meal prepared for me and all, but I’m used to picking up something on my way home if I haven’t eaten, and, of course, I am out several nights a week.’

‘That’s okay.’ Grace dried her hands and watched her friend spooning coffee into the filter before retiring to the living area beyond the screen of climbing plants. ‘I’m looking forward to relaxing: reading some books, catching up on my correspondence, that sort of thing. Even a little sunbathing,’ she added as Julia carried the tray containing the coffee into the room. ‘As I said when you invited me here, I don’t want to interfere in your life.’

‘As if.’ Julia pulled a face and subsided onto the sofa with a grateful sigh. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ she said, kicking off her shoes and curling her toes into the rug. Then she added, ‘Your being here is not a problem, Grace. Not to me, anyway. I’ve wanted you to come out here for ages; you know that. Only you’ve always had an excuse before.’

Grace took the armchair opposite her friend, and lifted her shoulders in an apologetic shrug. ‘It hasn’t always been easy—’ she began, and Julia nodded as she pulled herself upright again and reached for the coffee pot.

‘Your mother,’ she agreed. ‘I know. But I’m glad I can be of help now. And it makes a change to have an English person to talk to.’

Grace hesitated and then, conceding to herself that she had been a little offhand about Julia’s boyfriend before, she made an effort to make amends. ‘Um—Matteo—’ she grimaced at her pronunciation ‘—speaks very good English, doesn’t he? Or does he only speak his own language with you?’

Julia waited until she’d handed her friend a cup of coffee and had got comfortable again on the sofa before replying. ‘As a matter of fact, Matt is partly English,’ she explained, propping her feet on the brass-topped table between them. ‘The marchesa I spoke of—she’s English, you see. She married Matt’s grandfather—oh, it must be over sixty years ago now. Of course—’ she pulled a wry face ‘—she’s more Italian than he is. Do you know, she never once addressed me in English while I was staying at the villa? Matt says she hardly ever uses her native language any more.’

Grace frowned. ‘You met his grandmother?’ she asked in surprise. ‘Not his parents?’

‘His parents are dead.’ Julia gazed somewhat consideringly into space before going on. ‘Matt’s father was a keen skier, and he and his wife were killed in an avalanche near Courmayeur when Matt was just a baby.’ She pulled her gaze back to her friend. ‘His grandparents brought him up.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Grace spoke sincerely, and Julia gave her a rueful look. ‘Yes, so am I. Matt’s grandfather is dead now, but the old lady’s quite a tartar. I don’t think her attitudes have altered since the Second World War!’

Grace smiled. ‘Aren’t you being a little unkind? Just because she chooses to speak the language she’s most accustomed to, you’re accusing her of being out of date.’

‘Well, it wasn’t just that.’ Julia spoke defensively. ‘She made me feel as if I wasn’t welcome there.’ She grimaced. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t exactly disappointed when I got that call from the Continental. I think she needs a little more time to get used to the idea that Matt and I are a couple. It’ll be easier next time. I’ll make sure I’ve genned up on wine-growing and Italian history before I go.’

Grace’s eyes widened. ‘They own a vineyard?’ She shook her head. She’d put Matteo di Falco down as a wealthy playboy and nothing more.

‘They own the valley,’ said Julia repressively. ‘And I don’t think the marchesa really approved of Matt getting involved in a commercial enterprise like making wine. As I said before, she’s an anachronism, Grace. Without Matt’s efforts, they’d have had to sell out years ago.’

Grace absorbed what Julia had said. ‘So—this is Matteo’s vineyard?’

‘Vineyards,’ Julia corrected her firmly. ‘They’ve always grown grapes in the Valle di Falco, of course, but it was his idea to turn it into a real business.’

‘I see.’ Grace was impressed.

‘Anyway, that’s enough about boring things like making money,’ said Julia, looking more cheerful. ‘Let’s talk about what you really thought of Matt. Don’t you think we’ll make a stunning couple?’

‘Stunning,’ echoed Grace obediently, but she couldn’t help wondering if Julia wasn’t being a little premature with her plans. Even if Matteo di Falco worked for his living, he was an aristocrat first and foremost, and Grace hoped her friend wouldn’t be too disappointed if their relationship didn’t work out.

‘You’re very cagey,’ said Julia now, sensing that Grace wasn’t being entirely honest, and Grace decided quickly that it was really nothing to do with her.

‘Not at all,’ she protested, reaching for her coffee to avoid Julia’s knowing stare. ‘Um—how long have you known him? How did you meet?’

Julia still looked doubtful, but she accepted the evasion, much to Grace’s relief. ‘We met at a reception in Florence,’ she replied. ‘One of the guests who was staying at the hotel had tickets for a special evening exhibition of Renaissance art. Of course, we’re not supposed to fraternise with the guests, but he wasn’t able to attend the reception, so he offered his tickets to me.’ She shook her head. ‘Not that I’m mad about art or anything like that, but there was going to be wine and canapés, stuff like that, and Maria and I—Maria’s another of the receptionists at the hotel, like me—we thought it might be worth a look.’

‘And it was,’ commented Grace drily, and Julia gave a rueful grin.

‘Wasn’t it just?’ she agreed eagerly. ‘I saw Matt the minute I walked in.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘It turned out that it was his cousin who owned the gallery, and he’d only agreed to come along to show some support.’

Grace nodded. ‘So how did you wangle an introduction?’

‘I didn’t.’ Julia looked smug. ‘I introduced myself. I had the ideal opportunity, you see. Signor Massina—he was the guest who gave me the tickets—asked me to offer Carlo—that’s the name of Matt’s cousin—his apologies, and I made sure that when I spoke to him Matt was there.’

‘Ah.’ Grace remembered from their college days how manipulative Julia could be when she chose. ‘And I suppose he was bowled over by your charm and beauty,’ she remarked teasingly. ‘How long did it take you to get him to ask you out?’

‘Oh, a long time.’ Julia dimpled. ‘It must have been twenty-four hours, at least. It might have been sooner if we hadn’t been staying the night with Maria’s sister. As it was, he took my phone number and called the next day.’

Grace arched a silvery brow. ‘He must have been keen.’

‘He was.’ Julia was complacent. ‘We’ve been going out together ever since.’ She put down her coffee and stretched luxuriously. ‘It’s our anniversary next week.’

Grace was surprised. ‘You’ve been going out together for a year?’

‘Six months,’ protested Julia impatiently. ‘You don’t think I’d be so happy if we’d been going out together for a year without any commitment, do you?’

Grace shrugged. ‘People do do it. Marriage isn’t always the first thing on a person’s mind these days.’

‘It is if your name’s di Falco,’ declared Julia grimly, suddenly losing her ready smile. ‘You don’t think that old harridan of a grandmother would agree to her beloved Matteo setting up house with his girlfriend, do you? Believe me, Grace, it wouldn’t happen. She doesn’t want any of her great-grandchildren to have someone else’s name.’

‘Well, I suppose she has a point.’ Grace tried to be objective. ‘But I do know couples who’ve lived together and when the children have come along the father has arranged for them to legally take his name—’

‘I’m telling you, it wouldn’t happen,’ insisted Julia doggedly. ‘Honestly, Grace, you don’t understand the situation here. Well, the situation with the di Falcos, anyway. Apart from any other objections she might have, the old lady is a staunch Roman Catholic. There’s just no way she’d countenance her great-granddaughter’s father living—“in sin”.’

Julia made quotation marks with her fingers around the last two words, and then reached rather clumsily for her coffee. It was obvious that this subject was one with which she wasn’t at all happy, but it was only when she spilled some of her coffee onto her sleeve that Grace actually absorbed what else she had said.

‘Her—great-granddaughter’s father?’ she said somewhat blankly. ‘Is this some hypothetical offspring, or what?’

‘No.’ Julia hunched her shoulders grumpily. ‘I forgot to tell you: Matt’s been married before.’

‘And he has a child?’

‘Well, she’s hardly a child,’ muttered Julia unwillingly. ‘She’s nineteen, I think. I’ve only met her once. She’s at college in Milan.’

Grace was stunned. ‘So he’s married!’

‘No, he’s a widower.’ Julia was growing increasingly irritable. ‘Do you think I’d be wasting my time if he was married to someone else?’

Grace shrugged. That point was moot. She had no wish to remind her friend that she had had a relationship with one of their married tutors in college. But she had the feeling that there was more to this relationship than Julia was telling her. Not least, how his daughter felt about her.

‘Well,’ she said now, trying to be positive, ‘that’s not a problem then. And if you and Matteo—Matt—are in love—’

‘If we are,’ said Julia, putting down her coffee again, and Grace wondered what she’d said to resurrect these doubts. ‘Okay, I know he cares about me. He wouldn’t want to go on seeing me otherwise. But as for us getting married—well, that’s a whole different ball game.’

Grace hesitated. ‘But it is what you want?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Julia blew out a breath. ‘Of course it’s what I want. But that doesn’t mean that Matt—well, it doesn’t mean that he’d be willing to fight his grandmother for the privilege.’

‘And you suspect he might have to?’

‘If this weekend was anything to go by, definitely.’ Julia snorted. ‘I think she made it blatantly clear that I’m not the woman she wants for Matt.’

Grace sighed. ‘Because she didn’t speak any English?’ She shook her head. ‘Isn’t that a tiny bit negative? Perhaps she was trying to find out how committed you are to becoming an Italian yourself.’

‘It wasn’t just the fact that she didn’t speak any English,’ insisted Julia impatiently. ‘For God’s sake, she hardly spoke to me at all. And she made sure that I was given a room about half a mile away from Matt’s apartments. The di Falco villa is huge, you see. I even had a problem finding my way back to the drawing room before dinner.’

‘Even so—’

‘Even so, nothing.’ Julia shook her head. ‘She knew very well that I’d expected to share Matt’s apartments. I don’t know what century she’s living in, but she behaved as if our relationship didn’t mean a thing.’

Grace sighed. ‘You know what old people are like—’

‘I know what she’s like,’ agreed Julia bitterly. ‘She’ll do anything she can to split us up.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Don’t I?’ Julia regarded her with accusing eyes. ‘What if I tell you that I wasn’t the only guest at the villa this weekend?’

‘Well...’

‘It was the first time I’d had the opportunity to visit Matt’s home,’ went on Julia resentfully. ‘I thought it was just going to be a family occasion, but when we arrived all these other people were there.’

‘Well,’ began Grace again, ‘perhaps she thought it would make things easier for you. Did you ask Matteo about it? Perhaps it was his idea.’

‘It wasn’t.’ Julia spoke flatly. ‘He knew nothing about it until we got there. But the real sickener was that the old lady had invited this woman, Caterina Vincenzi. A contessa, no less, and fairly obviously the woman the marchesa would like to see as the next Signora di Falco.’

‘Oh, Julia, did she honestly tell you that?’

‘She didn’t have to.’ Julia’s lips twisted. ‘There must have been more than a dozen guests at dinner yesterday evening and she was the one who was seated beside Matt. I was tucked away at the end of the table with some old uncle. God, he was disgusting! He slobbered all over his food.’

‘Julia!’

‘He did.’ Julia was indignant. But then, when Grace continued to look at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, she gave a shrug. ‘Well, he made plenty of noise,’ she said defensively. ‘You don’t know what it was like, Grace. You weren’t there.’

‘No.’

Grace conceded that point, and as if realising she was becoming far too agitated Julia took a breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘It’s not your fault that the old witch lives in the past. Anyway—’ Julia’s eyes glittersed ‘—I intend to drag her—kicking and screaming, if necessary—into the present. We’ll see who has the last laugh when I spring my surprise on her.’

Grace stared at her friend. ‘Your surprise?’ she echoed, wondering why she felt such a sense of apprehension suddenly, and Julia flung herself back against the cushions of the sofa.

‘When she finds out I’m having Matt’s baby, of course,’ she declared triumphantly. ‘She won’t be able to dismiss me so offhandedly when she discovers I’m having her precious grandson’s child.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE phone rang as Grace was going out of the apartment.

She was tempted to leave it. She was fairly sure the call wouldn’t be for her, and she’d made arrangements to go to Viareggio that morning. In the last couple of days, she’d become quite familiar with the buses that ran from Portofalco to the other resorts along the coast, and instead of going to the hassle of hiring a car she’d left the driving to someone else.

But the possibility that it could be one of her sisters calling about her mother compelled her to pick up the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she said, not yet used to using the Italian ciao, and then sank down somewhat weakly onto the arm of the sofa when Matteo di Falco’s disturbing voice spoke in her ear.

‘Miss Horton.’ He paused. ‘Grace.’ Her name had an unfamiliar resonance on his tongue. ‘I was hoping I might catch you.’

‘Were you?’

Grace knew she didn’t sound particularly friendly, but since Julia had dropped her bombshell about the baby she had found it even more difficult to think of Matteo di Falco without a feeling of distaste. She didn’t know how he could allow his grandmother to treat Julia so indifferently. But then, he didn’t know that in a few short months she was going to have his child.

‘Yes.’ Clearly, he had no such reservations. ‘I am coming to Portofalco this morning and I wondered if you’d allow me to buy you lunch?’

The gall of the man!

Grace was incensed, her own opinion of his sex reinforced by his behaviour. ‘I’m afraid I have other plans, signore,’ she informed him coldly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a bus to catch.’

She would happily have put the receiver down there and then, but his sardonic, ‘A bus!’ had her fairly trembling with indignation.

‘Yes, a bus,’ she repeated crisply. ‘Or autobus, if you will. It’s a large motor vehicle with a wheel at each corner that delivers its passengers to various points along the coast!’

The breath he sucked in was plainly audible. ‘Yes, I know what an autobus is,’ he declared tautly, and Grace had the uneasy feeling that Julia was unlikely to approve of her insolence. ‘In that case, please do not let me detain you any longer.’

‘I won’t,’ muttered Grace resentfully, but it was under her breath, and by the time she had thought of a suitable rejoinder the line had gone dead.

He’d hung up on her, she realised, slamming down her own receiver with some force, but although she stood there for several more seconds, justifying what she’d said to herself, she couldn’t deny a certain feeling of remorse at her behaviour. After all, as she’d told herself before, Julia’s affairs were nothing to do with her, and she doubted her friend would have defended her with such enthusiasm if their positions had been reversed.

Still, it was too late now to be having second thoughts, and she could only hope that he wouldn’t complain about her ignorance to Julia. It would be hard to explain why she felt so strongly about it. It wasn’t as if she and Julia were that close.

Taking a deep breath, she slipped on her sunglasses, collected the bag and hat she’d bought in Livorno the day before, and left the apartment. She was determined not to let what had happened spoil her day, and she made a special point of smiling at the unctuous old caretaker just to prove to herself that she could be as sociable as anyone else.