Property of a Noblewoman

by Danielle Steel

  “So, Valerie,” he said, curious about her. “You are married? Divorced? . . .” He was looking for another word but didn’t know it.

  “A widow,” she supplied. “My husband died three and a half years ago.” She didn’t sound pathetic, just matter-of-fact. She had made her peace with Lawrence’s death. They had had many wonderful years together. He had lived a good life and they had shared a great one.

  “You are alone?” He looked shocked, and she laughed.

  “Yes. At my age most women are, if their husbands die.” She was sensible about it. She didn’t expect to find a man or even want one. She was comfortable alone.

  “Why? You are a beautiful woman, and very exciting. Why would you be alone?” It was difficult to explain to him, and she didn’t want to, and say most men were not beating a path to your door. She hadn’t been out with anyone since Lawrence died. She’d had invitations from widowed men she knew, but didn’t want them. She accepted her solitary state and sometimes enjoyed it. And she and Lawrence had been good together. They had been so happy for so long. She didn’t want to be greedy or foolish and expect to find that again, and then be disappointed.

  “You must be alone only if you want to be,” he insisted. “Do you want to be alone?”

  “Not really. But I keep busy. I do many things I enjoy.”

  “But you do them alone?” She nodded. “That’s terrible. I am seventy years old, Valerie. I do not consider my life over as a man.” He was very definite and seemed as though he meant it. She was surprised to hear his age. She had guessed him to be in his early or mid-sixties. He was terrific-looking, and a very handsome man.

  “It’s different for men,” she said simply. “Men have more choices. You can be with a twenty-five-year-old girl if you want to. I’d look pretty silly if I did that. Men start new families with young women at your age,” she said. He shook a finger at her when she said it.

  “No babies! I like women, not babies, or young girls.” He was very clear about it, and Valerie realized with amazement that he was flirting with her. That hadn’t happened to her in years, and she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. But it was flattering, and it seemed to fit the scene. She was in Italy, and he was a charming, handsome, intelligent man. Maybe flirting with her wasn’t such a bad thing. Winnie would have keeled over at the thought, but she couldn’t imagine Saverio flirting with Winnie. The very thought of it made Valerie laugh. “I do not believe in age,” he said with determination. “It is a very small idea. Like a small box. That box is too small for you. You have no limits, you are free.” He wasn’t entirely wrong about her, and she liked what he said. He was saying that accepting a belief in age was too limiting, and apparently for him too. It was certainly an appealing idea. They talked about it for a while longer, as best they could, and she was pleased to see that he had stopped drinking champagne since he was driving, but he encouraged her to have another glass and she did. There was nothing she had to do in Florence and could sleep in the next day. “I want to show you Florence,” he said as he signed the check. She discovered as they left the bar that it was a club, and she wondered if he came here often, and if he dated a lot. He was everything people expected of Italian men, but he seemed sincere. And he confessed to her in the car about Marguerite.

  “I am in love with your mother. I was . . . la prima volta . . . the first time I saw her photograph. She is a woman of magic and mystery. The count adored her.” She wasn’t sure how he knew that, but she believed him. Their photographs, her mother’s letters, and the extravagant gifts he’d given her suggested that.

  “I wish I’d known her,” Valerie said softly.

  “You didn’t?” He looked shocked, and sad for her, as Valerie shook her head.

  “I never met her. I didn’t know she existed, as my mother, until recently. It’s a long story.” Too long to tell now, and he didn’t pry.

  “We will talk of it one day,” he said, and sounded as though he meant that too. “We have much to talk about.” And then she thought of something, and decided she wanted the answer to a question before their friendship went any further, if it did.

  “Are you married, Saverio?”

  “Why do you ask?” He turned to her with a curious expression.

  “I just wondered.”

  “You think all Italian men run after all women.” He shook his head and looked disapproving. “No, I do not run after every woman. Only the special women. Like you. And I am like you. My wife died when my children were small. She had cancer. Graziella was five, and Francesco was ten.” Like Valerie, he sounded matter-of-fact about it. It was a long time ago, longer for him. Thirty years. And he said he had never remarried. He had never met another woman he wanted to marry. Valerie was sure he had had a lot of women in his life in the past thirty years, but she liked him. He was lively and fun, and she enjoyed him. And she could sense that there was depth to him too.

  He drove her back to the hotel and kissed her chastely on the cheek, not the hand this time. “May we have lunch tomorrow?” He amused her. She wasn’t swept off her feet by him like a young girl, and there was no question he was a flirt and he loved women, but he was a delightful man.

  “I’d love it,” she said simply.

  “Will you come to the gallery?”

  “I will,” she said.

  “We will go to a restaurant with a very pretty garden,” he promised her, and she thanked him and waved as she got out of the car. He watched her go inside, and then roared off in the Ferrari. It had been a wonderful evening, for both of them.

  Chapter 24

  THE NEXT DAY Valerie turned up at the gallery at twelve-thirty, and Saverio took her to the restaurant with the garden, which was as pretty as he said. They sat and talked for three hours, and she told him the story about her mother, and he was fascinated, particularly by how she had discovered her, through the safe deposit box and the photographs of her as a child and Fiona’s confession of what she knew when Valerie went to see her.

  “That is destiny, Valerie,” he said with certainty. “Those are not accidents.” And then he startled her with what he said next. “Perhaps our meeting is destiny too.” It seemed too soon to her to say that, although it was an appealing idea, and always a possibility. She didn’t comment.

  He walked her back to the hotel then, and she spent a quiet evening, reading and making a list of what she wanted to see in Florence. And the next day they went to the Uffizi together. He had a thousand plans for what he wanted to do and show her. They drove through Tuscany on the weekend in the Ferrari with the top down. He took her to a dinner party given by his friends, many of whom spoke English. He introduced her to his son when he came to Florence. She met Isabella the Adorable. She was letting time drift by, and enjoying it thoroughly. For two weeks, she let life take its course, and then she wondered if she should move on, and travel some more. She mentioned it to him one night at dinner. He took her to a different restaurant every day.

  “Why do you want to leave Florence?” he asked her in answer to her question, and she saw that he looked hurt. “Are you unhappy?”

  “No, I’m having a wonderful time. But I can’t stay here forever. And you have things to do, Saverio. You’re a busy man, and you’re spending a lot of time with me. Don’t you want to go back to your own life?”

  “No. I love to be with you.” He spoke to her sometimes in Italian now, and she understood, if it didn’t get too complicated. “There is space for you in my life.” But she couldn’t live in a hotel in Florence, to be with him. Still, she loved having a man in her life again, talking to him, sharing ideas, doing things with him. She had never known any man like him. He made her feel like a woman again, whatever her age. And the fact that he was four years younger than she made no difference to either of them. “Why don’t we go to Rome for two days?” he suggested, and they drove to Rome two days later. He stayed at his apartment, near where her mother had lived in I Parioli, and she stayed at the Hassler again. He didn’t press her
to stay with him. He already knew her better than that. And if anything were to happen with them, she needed time to believe it was real, and he wasn’t just playing. But he seemed to be very serious about her, and his children had been very nice to her too. His daughter Graziella had even said something about it to her at the gallery one afternoon when Saverio stepped out for a meeting and left her there for an hour to wait for him.

  “You know, my father is more serious than he appears. He always seems like he’s playing, and he loves women, particularly pretty ones.” She smiled at Valerie. “He’s a man. And he’s Italian. But he has been serious about very few women in his whole life. And he has been alone now for a long time. He was in love with a woman ten years ago, and she died, like my mother. He has loved no woman since. I think he really likes you. And I promise you, he is not playing with you.” Valerie was touched by what she said, and it was an insight into him that he hadn’t given her himself. He had never mentioned the woman who died ten years before.

  They had a wonderful time in Rome, and he showed her a side of the city she’d never seen before. The real Rome that Romans knew and loved. And when he walked her back to the hotel from a restaurant nearby on the second night, he kissed her on the Spanish Steps, and she was surprised to realize that there was more tenderness to it than passion. It felt like a real kiss from a real man who had real feelings for her, and she felt something stir in herself that she thought had died years before. He kissed her again when he walked her back to her room, but she didn’t invite him in. She couldn’t yet. And she was beginning to worry about what they were going to do. She couldn’t just stay in Italy to be with him. Sooner or later she had to go back to New York. She tried explaining that to him, and he said the same thing he had said to her before. “Why?”

  “What do you mean ‘Why?’ I have a life there, and a son.”

  “Your son is a man, Valerie, with a life of his own. One day he will marry, or love a woman. You don’t have a job. You’re a painter. You’re a free woman. We could live in Rome, Paris, Florence, New York. At our age, would you give this up to be in one city, because you think you are too old to fall in love? That would be stupid and wrong. Perhaps destiny or your mother wanted us to be together, so you came to the castello, and we met. Perhaps destiny wanted me to buy the castello to meet you, to return your mother’s home to you.” The way he said it made it seem huge, and a little overwhelming. She hadn’t said anything about Saverio to Phillip. After her two weeks in Florence, Phillip had asked her if she’d visited him at his gallery yet. She didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t want to lie to him.

  “Yes, actually, I did. We had dinner together, and I met his daughter and son-in-law. They’re terrific, you’d love them. And I met his son in Rome.”

  “You did? How did you do that?” Phillip sounded a little surprised.

  “I’m back in Rome for two days.”

  “Saverio seems like a terrific guy,” he said innocently. He didn’t have the remotest idea that his mother was falling in love with him and hadn’t left his side for three weeks. It was the farthest thing from Phillip’s mind, and not the way he envisioned his mother. She wasn’t a romantic figure to him, just his mother.

  “He’s a lovely man,” Valerie said, wondering if she should tell Phillip what was going on. But she didn’t want to yet. She wanted to protect what they had. And things were heating up between them, ever since he had kissed her for the first time in Rome.

  It was different when they went back to Florence. And after they’d been together for a month, he invited her away for the weekend. She kept thinking about what his daughter had said, that he was more serious than he looked. And not in a million years had Valerie expected something like this to happen to her. But she felt as though she could no longer turn back the tide. And maybe he was right, and it was meant to be. She was no longer sure what she believed.

  He took her to Portofino for the weekend, and they stayed at the Hotel Splendido. It was a charming port town, and they felt like honeymooners as they spent long mornings in bed and made love, walked around the little town, had late dinners and came back to their room and made love again. It felt crazy and wonderful and she’d never been so happy in her life.

  They were lying in bed late one night and she looked at him in the moonlight.

  “Saverio, what are we going to do? I have to go back. I can’t just run away forever. I have to say something to my son.”

  “He’s not your father. He’s your son. You can do as you wish with your life.”

  “You wouldn’t abandon your children. I can’t do that to mine.”

  “I understand. You came here for the summer. Give us that. Then we’ll decide.” She nodded, and he made love to her again, and when he did, she almost forgot that she had a life in New York, and a world other than his.

  They went to Sardinia the following weekend, and stayed with friends of his in Porto Cervo, whom she enjoyed a lot. They had a beautiful boat, and they spent their days on it, and came back to the hotel at night.

  And Saverio took her to Venice on business with him. They flew to London for a day to see a painting he wanted to buy. They were slowly blending their lives and becoming a couple, and she felt totally at ease with him. Valerie enjoyed everything they did together. She wondered if her mother had felt that way with Umberto, when she shared his life.

  And in August, they went to the house in Naples and spent a week there, and she could easily understand why her mother had loved it.

  And when they got back to Florence, Phillip called and asked her when she was coming home.

  “I don’t know,” she said honestly, not wanting to upset him. “I love it here.”

  “I can understand why. I love Italy too. You don’t need to rush back. Jane and I are going sailing in Maine for two weeks. I just wanted to check in.” When he said it, she felt like she’d gotten a reprieve and told Saverio about it that night.

  “Would you come to New York with me, and stay for a while?” she asked him. He thought about it and nodded. He had been rethinking his life too, and trying to figure out how to make it work for both of them. And she had a good point – he didn’t want to abandon his children either. And he had galleries to run. Graziella and Francesco did a good job, but he was always close at hand, although he didn’t work every day anymore. He did what he wanted, but he was still very much involved. Valerie was freer than he was, except for Phillip. And she was concerned about Winnie too. She had told Saverio about her. “We need to find her a man,” Saverio had said, and Valerie had laughed out loud. In that respect at least, Winnie was beyond hope. She didn’t want a man. She just wanted to play bridge.

  “I could spend time with you in New York,” Saverio said thoughtfully. “Not all the time. I don’t want to live there. But we could go back and forth. We are very fortunate. We can do whatever we want.” It was going to take some managing, but she realized he was right. She could paint anywhere, and he didn’t have to be at his galleries all the time. Their children were grown. And he wasn’t suggesting they become Siamese twins. They each had a life. And together they had even more. They talked about it a lot now, and by the end of August, they thought it could work. Even Valerie was convinced. Saverio had persuaded her that they could do whatever they wanted. And she found the idea immensely appealing.

  In the last week of August, she gave up her room at the hotel, and moved in with him. It seemed foolish to keep the room, she hadn’t slept there all month, and preferred staying with him at his sunny little house. And she was going back to New York the following week when Phillip returned from Maine after the Labor Day weekend. She was planning to stay in New York for the month, and Saverio was going to join her in two weeks, and spend the last two weeks there with her. She was nervous about telling Phillip about her romance with Saverio. She had left New York a single woman, and was returning with a man, as part of a couple. It was a totally unexpected change. And all she could hope was that Phillip wouldn’t be
too shocked.

  Chapter 25

  WHEN PHILLIP AND Jane left for Maine in mid-August, Valerie had been in Italy for almost two months. He missed seeing her, but he was happy she was having a good time. And he and Jane had been busy. She had taken the bar exam in July, and she wouldn’t have the results until November, but she was hoping she had done well. And she was starting her new job in September. She had had two great offers from well-known law firms, Penny’s and another even more prestigious one, which had offered her more money and better terms, so she had accepted, and she could hardly wait to start. They had promised her a junior partnership in two years, if she worked hard, brought in clients, and did well. And Phillip was sure that she would do all three. He had never been as taken with a woman in his life. And he had never gotten along as well with anyone as he did with Jane. They had been dating for five months, and were talking about moving in together in the fall. Everything was falling into place.

  And the day before they left for Maine, Christie’s put the icing on the cake. They offered Phillip a job in the art department, with a promotion and a raise, effective October first. He would have to travel to Europe more, and there would be more perks. It was everything he had wanted, and waited for, for nearly three years. He had accepted the job immediately.

  He and Jane were talking about it one afternoon, after they threw anchor for the night in a small cove. They’d had great sailing that day.

  “It’s so weird how things work out, isn’t it?” Jane said, looking pensive. “I was so upset when I couldn’t get the clerkship I wanted, and got stuck at the surrogate’s court. But if I hadn’t been there, I would never have been assigned to handle your grandmother’s safe deposit box, and met you.” She smiled at him, as they lay in the sun on the deck, relaxing after their sail.

  “And if I hadn’t gotten sidetracked into the jewelry department, someone else would have gotten that assignment, to do the appraisal, and my mother would have never found out about her mother, and I wouldn’t have met you.” He leaned down and kissed her.