Beneath an Italian Sky

by Stacy Henrie

  Resentment tightened his jaw, making it ache. He’d been a fool to think one kiss, however amazing, could change things. Clare still didn’t trust him, even if she had brought his portrait with her. And without trust, how would things ever be different between them?

  Emmett informed the rest of the workers that the other chap would be fine. Then he shouldered his shovel again. There was still work to be done before it was time to return to the villa. But now the thought of seeing Clare no longer held the excitement and appeal it had earlier.

  He’d deceived himself into believing there was still hope for them. That this time, this effort, would prove differently. It was a pattern he knew well. After all, Emmett had been chasing his father’s approval for more than two decades, and yet it was still out of grasp. It was time to add reconnecting with his wife to his list of continued disappointments.

  *

  The members of the sewing group had left, and dinner was ready. But Emmett and Mr. Sharpe still hadn’t returned to the villa. Clare set aside the pair of boy’s trousers she’d been working on. Antonina lay on the rug at her feet, looking at a book.

  What was keeping her husband? Clare hadn’t felt this eager to see and talk with him in ages. She stood and went to the drawing-room window, where she parted the curtains. Two figures were striding up the drive. “They’re home!” Dropping the curtains into place, she hurried into the foyer.

  The front door opened a few seconds later, but it was Mr. Sharpe who entered first. Clare fell back a step. “Lady Linwood.” The young man sounded tired, though not unhappy, in spite of his clothes being splattered with dirt.

  Emmett came inside next, looking every bit as dirt-covered as Mr. Sharpe. But the sight of his handsome face still made Clare’s pulse quicken.

  “Did you two did get into a scrape?” she teased.

  Instead of chuckling, her husband frowned. “We were short one worker this morning, so I volunteered to help. Mr. Sharpe joined in later, after one of the refugees was injured.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He will be.” Emmett turned his attention to Antonina, who ran up to him and put her hand in his. “How was your day, Nina?”

  “It was good.”

  Clare moved closer to them and tussled the girl’s hair. “Antonina helped Signora Russo bake bread, and we finished enough clothing for three families.” She placed her hand on Emmett’s sleeve. “It’s good to have you home, darling.”

  He fell back a step, out of Clare’s reach. “Antonina, will you tell Signora Russo we will be ready for dinner in half an hour?”

  The child nodded and headed toward the back stairs. Clare studied Emmett in confusion. Where was the affection and tenderness they’d shared that morning? Did he not realize her eagerness to see him was genuine? She wasn’t pretending for Mr. Sharpe’s sake.

  “Is there something—” she started to ask.

  “I need to speak with you in private, Clare.” His cool tone belied the heat of anger in his eyes.

  She threw a glance at Mr. Sharpe, who looked away. “I’ll wash and change for dinner,” the young man said before heading up the stairs.

  “We can talk in the drawing room.” Clare kept her chin up as she led the way, but panic was rapidly turning her insides cold. What did Emmett wish to discuss?

  He shut the door behind them, but it was still a long moment before he spoke. “I believe congratulations are in order,” he said as he turned to face her. “You’re with child again.”

  “Y-yes. I am.” Her dread congealed into a knot of ice. He knew her secret! “How did you find out?”

  Emmett moved past her to stand in front of the fireplace, his back to her. “The doctor who treated the injured man recognized my name. Apparently he had met you.”

  She flinched at his emotionless tone. “I went to see him to make certain I was still pregnant.”

  “What advice did that doctor in England give you?”

  Clare frowned. “What?”

  “Dr. Muller said his colleague’s advice was sound. What advice was that?”

  Clasping her hands together, she directed her answer toward the rug. “He thought a warmer climate would prevent me from miscarrying a third time.”

  “Is that why you came here?”

  The anguish behind his question stabbed her more deeply than his anger. “That was one of the reasons.” She took a step forward. This was the same spot where she’d stood this morning when Emmett had kissed her. How cruel that life and relationships could change so drastically in so short a time.

  “I couldn’t bear to miscarry again.” Clare swallowed the emotion crawling up her throat. “If coming here could prevent that, then I felt I had to try.”

  He turned around, lines of hurt and bewilderment creasing his brow. “You couldn’t share that with me? Had I known you needed to be somewhere warmer this time, I would have come with you, Clare.”

  “I know,” she half whispered. “And that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

  Emmett reared back as if she’d slapped him. “You didn’t want me here?”

  “Yes and no.” Clare folded her arms protectively over her middle as threads of grief twisted around her heart. “I couldn’t bear to endure another loss like that in front of you.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Emmett?” She desperately wanted him to understand, but would he? “I . . . we . . . lost something precious, twice. But I was the only one grieving and feeling and aching.” There were tears on her cheeks now. “Aching for these babies I would never hold.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That isn’t fair. I was as devastated and disappointed as you.”

  “Then why didn’t you show it?” she countered, her frustration adding volume to her voice. “Why didn’t you cry with me? Mourn with me?”

  Emmett looked away. “I didn’t want to upset you anymore than you already were.”

  It was the same line of thinking he’d used regarding Antonina’s grief, but it still made no sense to her. What had happened in her husband’s past to convince him it wasn’t right to feel sadness or grief? That he was helping people by concealing his emotions from them?

  “Your refusal to talk about any of it was far more upsetting than any expression of grief could have been.”

  “I can’t change that now.”

  The words were hardly more than a murmur, but the ache in them cooled her ire. “Maybe not for me, but you can for Antonina.” Before he could protest again, Clare hurried on. “I felt so alone, Emmett. I had no idea if you felt as heartbroken as I did. I longed to be held by you, to cry with you. But you weren’t there, not really.”

  Silence was his only response, and it stung. Still, Clare was grateful she’d finally laid bare the feelings she had harbored for months.

  “I should have told you right away that I was pregnant again,” she said as she came to stand beside him, “and why I had to come to Sicily. Keeping it from you was wrong, and I’m sorry.” Her tears were falling faster than she could brush them away. “It doesn’t make it right, but I wasn’t sure I could bear your indifference if it all fell apart a third time.”

  His broad shoulders were no longer rigid with fury but hunched with self-preservation. “Is that what you meant this morning about my feeling indifferent toward you?”

  She resisted the urge to offer consolation and instead nodded. If they were ever to be together in every sense of the word, she couldn’t hold back portions of her worries and emotions and thoughts from him. She needed to share it all, just as she hoped he would with her.

  “Do you really believe Antonina needs someone to . . . mourn . . . with her?”

  Was he changing his mind? “Yes, and you are the very best person to do so.”

  Emmett met her gaze directly. “If I wasn’t able to do that with you, how can you be certain I can help Nina?”

  “Because you care about her,” Clare said with confidence. “And because yo
u already rescued her once. All you need is to find that same courage to do it again.”

  *

  Dinner was a quiet affair. Emmett tried to contribute to the conversation led by his wife and Mr. Sharpe, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Clare’s parting words about courage. He hadn’t ever looked at grieving with someone as courageous. But the thought of talking to Antonina about her brother and what had happened that day in Messina tightened his collar and made his heart thump harder. So perhaps doing that would be an act of bravery.

  He was no longer angry with Clare for not telling him that she was pregnant again. Was he happy with what had happened? No, of course not. However, he’d been unable to cling to his ire after she’d explained her true reason for coming to Sicily without him. How could Emmett remain frustrated when he now saw that the very thing he’d done to avoid upsetting her further had only deepened her sorrow?

  Instead of heading into the drawing room with the others after dinner, he wandered upstairs to his room. There he dragged his chair onto the balcony and sat, staring at the garden below.

  Had his father been wrong all those years ago when he’d accused Emmett of upsetting his mother and sisters with his continual tears over his grandfather’s death? It hadn’t occurred to Emmett to question the marquess’s conclusions. Surely his father understood such things better than a ten-year-old boy. And yet what about Clare’s declaration that she’d needed her husband to grieve with her? If she was right, then Emmett had been holding back from more than her for years now. The thought filled him with deep sadness.

  Did he have the courage to test Clare’s theory? He didn’t want to hurt Antonina any more than she’d already been. On the other hand, his wife believed talking through everything might be the best way to help the child. If he cared about Antonina—which he did, very much—then wasn’t it worth trying to speak with her?

  As if conjured up by his thoughts, Antonina knocked at his door and entered the room, Clare right behind her. “Good night, Emmett,” the little girl said.

  She gave him a hug, and the loving gesture squeezed as much at his heart as her little arms did his neck. When she pulled back, he studied her. The smudges under her dark eyes attested to her own fatigue. Seeing them, he made up his mind.

  “What do you say to sitting out here with me for a bit, Nina?” he asked. She cast a look over her shoulder at Clare, then shrugged. He interpreted the action to mean she didn’t mind. “Why don’t you grab a blanket first, so you don’t catch cold?”

  The little girl disappeared out the door, leaving him and Clare alone. “I’ll see that she gets in bed.” He ventured a look at his wife. “If that’s agreeable with you.”

  “Of course.” She searched his face. “Will you be all right?”

  Emmett matched her gaze. “I’ll be brave. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

  Her eyes widened with understanding. “I have confidence in you.”

  “Thank you, Clare.”

  She smiled briefly. “Good night then.”

  “Good night,” he echoed.

  Antonina returned as Clare exited the room. After wrapping the blanket around her, he settled her on his knee. “Tell me about Angelo.”

  The child looked up at him in surprise. “Angelo? He is . . .”

  “In Italian,” Emmett said. “Tell me in Italian.”

  She leaned against his chest and began to talk. The garden slowly transformed into shadows as Antonina told him story after story about her brother. Would Emmett have talked the same way about Alder if his brother had lived? He let her talk, only interjecting here and there with a question, a chuckle, or a word of sympathy. He knew where the stories would eventually lead, and that knowledge had his stomach twisting with apprehension long before Antonina’s retellings reached the day of the earthquake.

  “What happened that morning?” he forced himself to ask.

  The little girl recounted waking to the house shaking, the screams of her mother downstairs, the horrible crashing noises, and Angelo crawling into her room on hands and knees. Emmett held her tight when she reached the part about them fleeing onto the balcony.

  “He told me God would send us help,” Antonina whispered as she gazed up at Emmett. “And then you came.”

  Emmett dropped his head onto her hair. His eyes stung with the tears he tried to hold back. “I thought I could save him, Nina. I wanted to so badly. But I couldn’t reach him in time.”

  She started to cry. “I want him to come back, Emmett. I miss him so much.”

  “I know.”

  He’d once ached the same way for his grandfather, and like this little girl, Emmett hadn’t been able to say a proper goodbye either. As thoughts of his grandfather filled his mind, he could no longer suppress the tears. It had been nearly twenty years since he’d last cried. And yet he felt no shame as his shoulders began to shake with sobs. Not when the sound of Antonina’s weeping mingled with his own.

  Every loss, every disappointment that he’d failed to mourn seemed to burst forth from some place deep inside him. His grandfather’s death, his futile attempts to please his father, his hidden pain over each of Clare’s miscarriages. All of it spilled out of him on a purging tide of heartache.

  He didn’t know how long the two of them sat there grieving. The moon was shining down on the balcony when Emmett realized Antonina had fallen asleep. Only this time, her expression held nothing but peace. Clare had been right—talking about the grief had helped the little girl. It had helped them both.

  Emmett hoisted her in his arms and carried her to her room. After settling an extra blanket over her, he watched her for a long moment. Angelo had told his sister that God would send them help. And He had. It hadn’t just been help for Antonina, though. God had helped Emmett too. He’d seen the way Emmett was struggling, unsure how to make things right with his wife or if he even had the strength to make another effort. Yet in His infinite mercy, God had guided Emmett—both in coming to Sicily and in finding Antonina—and in doing so had reminded him that the only title God cared about was that of being His child.

  “Thank you,” Emmett murmured heavenward.

  He bent down and kissed Antonina on the forehead. He loved her as much as if she’d been his daughter from the beginning. And he never wanted her to doubt that love, as he’d doubted his father’s or as Clare had doubted Emmett’s.

  Did his wife still doubt? If so, then it was up to him to convince her that he loved her, even now. It no longer seemed relevant or important to him whether she’d married him for his title or not. He would still choose her, every time. Could she possibly feel the same way?

  Emmett returned to his room to put away the chair and close the balcony door, his mind awhirl with ideas. Clare hadn’t come to Sicily to live apart from him; she’d come because she was hurt and afraid, and because she’d been desperate to protect their child. That alone gave him reason to believe her feelings might still match his own. He would need to find a way, though, to prove that the things that were important to her were important to him too. Somehow he had to show her that he wanted to know and feel and understand her every loss, triumph, fear, and belief.

  He’d been given another chance to make things right with her. And this time, Emmett would not take such an opportunity for granted.

  A niggling memory slipped into his consciousness as Emmett climbed into bed. It was a long shot, a likely impossibility of a task. But hadn’t he once read that with God nothing was impossible? Not even the healing of a marriage. With that thought, he shut his eyes, and for the first time in days, he wasn’t afraid to fall asleep.

  Chapter 13

  Two small hands nudged Clare awake the next morning. She opened one eye, then the other, to find Antonina smiling at her from the side of the bed. “Morning, Clare.”

  “Good morning,” she said as she smiled back. “Did you sleep well?”

  The little girl nodded. “I had no bad dream.”

  “That’s wonderful, Nina.” Emmett
hadn’t woken Clare up with his nightmares either. Did that mean his conversation with Antonina had gone well? Now that she was awake, she was eager to ask him.

  Miriam appeared beside the bed. “I hope it’s all right I let her wake you, my lady. She couldn’t wait any longer to see you.”

  “Of course.” Clare slowly sat up. Only then did she notice the sunlight streaming through the curtains at the balcony. “What time is it?”

  “After ten,” Miriam answered.

  No wonder Clare felt so well rested. She hadn’t had such a long bout of uninterrupted sleep since before the earthquake. “Has Emmett already had breakfast?”

  “He has, my lady. He and Mr. Sharpe both.” Miriam pulled one of Clare’s day dresses from the wardrobe. “They left as soon as they finished eating.”

  Clare looked at the maid in alarm. “Left where?” Had Emmett gone back to England without saying goodbye? Without her and Antonina?

  “Rushford said they went to Palermo.”

  Though she felt a prick of disappointment that Emmett had gone to the capital city without talking to her first, Clare was greatly relieved to hear he hadn’t left the country without her. Like I did to him. Regret washed through her.

  Had her husband been confused, disappointed, and possibly even hurt by her choice to leave England without talking to him face to face? Clare had been afraid to tell him her plans in person, afraid he would try to talk her out of going. But maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe if she’d been truthful with him about the real reason for her leaving, he might have agreed with her plans. Of course, there still would have been the issue of possibly grieving another miscarriage in his presence. And yet yesterday had shown her that Emmett was not opposed to listening to her if she was brave enough to be open and honest about how she felt.