From Venice With Love

by Alison Roberts

  A gift that no one else could have given him.

  Like the one he’d given her by showing her that it wasn’t true? Being the man who’d had the privilege of holding her as she’d come apart in someone’s arms for the first time?

  They were even. Equals.

  And, as long as he didn’t do something stupid and make a fool of himself, they could keep this respect for each other. Part as friends. They would get back to reality and their own lives soon enough.

  It was time to lighten the atmosphere.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Nico announced. ‘Would you care for breakfast in the dining car?’

  ‘Gran’s ordered cabin service. I need to stay with her and see if she actually eats anything. You go.’

  So the separation was to begin already. The countdown was on.

  Fine. Nico knew that was sensible. What they both wanted. There would be plenty to distract them for the rest of the day because it was unlikely that they would be alone again together. They would probably never be alone together again. This was it. The last intimate moment he would have with Charlotte Highton.

  He had to kiss her. Just a soft farewell.

  ‘I won’t forget.’ It was a promise. A deliberately ambiguous one. Charlotte could assume he was talking about her wise words regarding his future. She didn’t have to know that he meant her.

  Her quiet words followed him like an echo that seemed to be picked up by the train wheels as he made his way to the dining car.

  ‘I won’t either.’

  The rest of the journey seemed interminable.

  Lady Geraldine was keeping up a brave face but she ate virtually nothing of her brunch and didn’t touch the champagne or afternoon tea on the English leg of the trip. The weather was cold enough to make her look pinched and it was clearly a struggle to join the excited conversations around them that were predicting a genuine white Christmas as fat snowflakes began to fall more and more heavily.

  ‘I’m just tired, love,’ she told Charlotte. ‘But I wouldn’t have changed anything about the last couple of days. Not a thing.’

  And Charlotte had been able to smile back and tell her grandmother that she felt exactly the same.

  Victoria was heaving with people desperate to get to where they wanted to be for Christmas Day. It was Nico who helped collect their luggage and carve a pathway through the crowd to where Lady Geraldine’s chauffeur had arranged to meet them.

  They offered Nico a lift but he declined with palpable regret.

  ‘I’ve made an appointment with a colleague at the Hammersmith,’ he told them. ‘You need to go in the opposite direction and it’ll be bad enough already. I hope you don’t get caught in a traffic jam or the snow. If I can’t find a cab, I’ll take the tube.’

  He took Charlotte in his arms to say goodbye. For her grandmother’s sake? Was that why he said that he was going to miss her and that seeing her again couldn’t be too soon for him?

  It wasn’t why Charlotte returned his kiss and agreed that it couldn’t be too soon for her either.

  She meant every word.

  The bleak feeling of watching the crowd swallow Nico only got stronger as they inched their way out of London.

  Lady Geraldine took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘I know it’s hard, darling. It’s such a shame that Nico’s going to be so busy for a while.’

  ‘Mmm…’

  ‘You’re lucky, though.’

  ‘Oh?’ Thank goodness her grandmother couldn’t possibly have any idea of just how lucky her granddaughter had been.

  ‘Yes. Much luckier than back in my day. You’ve got your mobile phones and…and Scope.’

  Charlotte smiled despite herself as she sighed. ‘Skype, Gran.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Her hand got another squeeze. ‘It’s not quite the same as the real thing, though, is it?’

  ‘No. It’s not.’ There was an odd pain in Charlotte’s chest as she tried to draw in a new breath.

  Her heart starting to break perhaps?

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHARLOTTE’S FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS ever had been the one she’d told Nico about when they’d been snowed in and Gran had cooked sausages on sticks over the open fire in the drawing room.

  Maybe, some time in the future, somebody would ask her about her least favourite Christmas and she knew that, coincidentally, it would also be one of the rare, truly white ones.

  This one.

  She stared out of the V-shaped gap in the snow piled on the sill of her latticed window and there was the eerie, early morning light that only a thick blanket of snow could create. There was nothing to disturb the perfection of the Christmas-card scene in the gardens of Highton Hall. The footprints on the lawn below had probably been made by a fox but if her grandmother had seen them in years gone by, she would have told a small Charlotte that they were the tracks left by Santa’s reindeer.

  The thought should have brought a poignant smile to her face but instead Charlotte felt the lump in her throat get bigger.

  She had never felt this…bleak.

  This lonely.

  This…empty.

  As if she’d lost something huge that she would never have back again. Like her heart? Or maybe it was part of her soul. The part that she’d shared with Nico. Yes. That’s what it felt like. He had brought light into the darkest part of her being and, by touching it, it had somehow become his, even if he didn’t want it.

  Was that what love was? Giving away the most important part of yourself?

  No…Charlotte found her picture-perfect view becoming blurry. It was finding someone who recognised that part. Accepted it. Made it better than it had been before simply by being there.

  And it wasn’t one-sided, that had been the clincher. Nico had shared that part of himself with her. The lonely little boy who was still there deep inside. The one who’d been hurt and had seen people he loved get hurt, and was determined to never be the cause of such hurt himself.

  Nico thought he didn’t know what he needed. That he couldn’t possibly make the right choice of a person to be with for the rest of his life. He thought he was incapable of falling in love.

  And maybe he had the kind of strength to hold himself back from that kind of surrender but it was blindingly obvious what he needed.

  A tiny robin, its bright red breast a decoration in itself, fluttered into view and landed on the windowsill, tilting its head and to give Charlotte a cheeky glance.

  ‘He just needs what we all need,’ she informed the robin. ‘To be loved.’

  The robin fluttered off like an echo of laughter.

  As if it was that simple…

  It was. Charlotte had found that person, hadn’t she? She had given him that part of herself she could never give to anyone else.

  But it was that impossibly difficult at the same time.

  Because finding someone that you connected with at a soul-deep level wasn’t enough. They had to feel the same way or it could never begin to work.

  And Nico didn’t feel the same way. How could he when they’d only known each other for a couple of days?

  But he didn’t even want to see her again. Good grief, he’d told her that she could leave the ring with his secretary, if he wasn’t around.

  It had meant nothing. A bit of harmless pretence to make an old lady happy before she died. Repayment for the imagined debt of losing her laptop. A bonus of a one-night stand as well?

  Charlotte forced herself to move. She couldn’t stand here dwelling on how miserable she felt. It was Christmas Day after all. And her toes were freezing. Dressing quickly, she chose clothes for warmth, donning black woollen leggings and an oversized crimson pullover on top of a black bodysuit. No doubt her grandmother would expect her to change for dinner but that was a few hours away yet and it would be warmer downstairs when the open fires were stoked up.

  Maybe Christmas dinner wasn’t so far away after all. The rich aroma of roasting meat caught Charlotte’s nostrils as she went downs
tairs. Betty, the cook, must be busy in the kitchen, probably under Gran’s strict supervision. Charlotte would probably be given a laden plate of bacon and eggs and an admonishment about the perils of laziness and sleeping in.

  The Christmas tree in the huge foyer of this grand old house had coloured lights twinkling merrily and there were gifts beneath, enticingly wrapped in pretty paper and tied with bows of satin ribbon.

  It looked like one of the festive pictures that had played against the wall of that Venetian restaurant…good grief, only three days ago? On the evening when she’d given in to the temptation of pretending that Nico was her lover. When she’d accidentally become ‘engaged’ to him.

  The ring was still on her finger. Touching it, Charlotte found she could twist it more easily now. Because she was away from the efficient central heating of the Orient Express and in a huge, chilly ancestral home?

  Or was it because she felt so cold inside? So bleak…

  Whatever. She couldn’t take it off yet, could she? Not on Christmas Day, when it would be the first thing Gran would notice. She would have to find a solution to this situation but not today.

  And she couldn’t let Gran see how miserable she was either. Pasting what she hoped was a bright smile on her face, Charlotte walked past the Christmas tree and went down the long hallway to the kitchen.

  Betty was basting an enormous turkey. Her husband, John, was polishing silver serviette rings over newspaper spread on one end of the kitchen table. Her daughter was peeling Brussels sprouts and scoring an X into the stalks.

  ‘I was just about to put some breakfast on trays and bring it up,’ Betty said after Christmas greetings had been exchanged. ‘I was getting worried.’

  ‘Has Gran not been down yet?’

  ‘Not a peep from her. And she’s always the first up on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I’ll take her up a cup of tea,’ Charlotte said. She was worried herself now. ‘I expect she’s just tired out after her big adventure.’

  ‘You look a bit peaky yourself, pet.’ Betty and her family had been a part of Highton Hall for as long as Charlotte could remember. They were more like relatives than staff. Family. Charlotte’s smile was genuine this time.

  ‘I’m fine, Betty. I just need a cup of tea, too.’

  Betty had been patting her hand. Her jaw dropped.

  ‘Oh…my… . Is that what I think it is?’

  Charlotte held up her hand and the diamond flashed as it caught the light. Her heart sank. The game had to go on a little longer no matter how much worse it was going to make her feel.

  ‘I guess I had a bit of an adventure myself, Betty. You’ll hear all about it as soon as Gran’s up, I’m sure.’

  ‘I’d better.’ Betty busied herself with a teapot and a china cup and saucer. She added a couple of tiny gingerbread stars to the saucer. ‘Go on…tell Lady G that we’re waiting to hear all about it.’

  Her grandmother’s bedroom was still dark.

  ‘You awake, Gran? I’ve got a cup of tea for you.’ Charlotte balanced the cup in one hand as she drew back the heavy drapes to let the bright, mid-morning light into the room.

  And then she turned, and didn’t notice how much tea she was spilling on the Persian carpet as she raced to her grandmother’s bedside and dropped the cup and saucer on the bedside table. Gingerbread stars floated in a saucer full of tea.

  ‘Gran…’

  Lady Geraldine was lying with her knees pulled up and the bedcover gripped between clenched fists. Her face was white with a sheen of perspiration on her forehead. Her pulse was racing. And weak. Her abdomen was swollen and hard to the touch. And it only took the lightest touch to make her cry out in agony.

  ‘Oh…God…’ Charlotte picked up the phone beside the half-empty cup of tea. She dialled only three numbers.

  ‘I need an ambulance,’ she said crisply as soon as her call was answered. ‘It’s urgent.’

  Emergencies like heart attacks and strokes were no respecters of what day it happened to be.

  Extreme weather was more of a problem on days when people simply had to be somewhere else for an important occasion and the number of accidents rose.

  And there were plenty of people like him who had no family to be with and no desire to celebrate Christmas and carried on with stupid behaviour like getting into fights and getting beaten up or stabbed.

  Worst of all, there were the people who found the season too much of a reminder of what they didn’t have so the rate of attempted suicides always went up, too.

  It was not a good day to be in charge of an emergency department but the staff always did their absolute best to make it as cheerful as possible, and Nico had always managed to join in and encourage them.

  Why was it so hard this year?

  Why did he feel so…bleak?

  So…empty?

  It was ridicolo. Ridiculous.

  He had his life back the way he wanted it to be. Needed it to be.

  So why did he feel so off-kilter? So perduto, almost?

  And why was it always Italian words that came into his head when something stirred him deeply? The past was behind him and best forgotten. Even dredging up happy memories, such as the favourite Christmas he’d shared with Charlotte, was not a good thing to do. No wonder he couldn’t settle into doing what he most loved to do and lose himself in the demands of his work.

  He would go and do another thorough neurological check on the elderly gentleman in cubicle three who had fallen when he’d gone outside to sweep snow off the steps in preparation for his family arriving. He’d hit his head hard enough to need a period of observation before they could consider letting him go home to his Christmas dinner. Maybe it hadn’t just been the slippery steps and the fall responsible for him losing consciousness either. Perhaps a more thorough cardiovascular work-up would be justified.

  Imagine what would have happened in Venice if Charlotte hadn’t been there to see beyond what others had seen?

  ‘Incoming, Dr Moretti,’ a nurse told him as she hurried past. ‘Eighty-something-year-old female with an abdominal mass and acute bowel obstruction. She’s tachycardic, short of breath and vomiting. GCS of thirteen.’

  Dio… An elderly woman with a bowel obstruction that could potentially be due to a tumour? Was everything today going to remind him of either Charlotte or her nonna? They were probably sitting in front of an open fire right now. Drinking mulled wine Or eggnog, perhaps and listening to Christmas carols. Maybe there was a piano and Charlotte would be playing carols. Or maybe they were opening their gifts to each other.

  Or…maybe something terrible had happened. Nico could see the ambulance team coming through the doors of his department now. He couldn’t see much of the figure on the stretcher because she was bundled up in warm blankets and her face was covered by an oxygen mask. The person holding the bag of IV fluids aloft wasn’t part of the paramedic crew, however.

  It was Charlotte.

  No. Could this be the beginning of the end for Jendi? Surely not today, of all days…

  ‘Resus One,’ Nico ordered, before the triage nurse had a chance to consider priority. ‘And get a surgical consult down here stat.’

  He ushered the entourage into the resus area reserved for major cases. There was no time for any more than brief eye contact with Charlotte as Nico listened to the handover from the paramedics and prepared to launch an investigative and stabilisation protocol that could deal with this emergency. There was no way he was going to let Lady Geraldine Highton die in his department on Christmas Day.

  As awful as it was, this was just the kind of challenge he’d needed. That disturbing, empty feeling had completely vanished and Nico had never felt more in control. Or more determined to do his absolute best for his patient. And her family.

  The waiting was the worst.

  At least all the tension and drama and fear since the moment she’d found Gran in such a dreadful state had been balanced by the swiftness of action and the company of others. The parame
dics had been brilliant, using a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get to the estate and then transferring Gran to a faster ambulance to get her into the city. The roads had been appalling with all the snow and traffic jams from a big accident on the M1. They’d had to stick to routes that had been cleared in the city and get to an emergency department that was not only open on Christmas Day but prepared to accept a major case.

  It had taken too much time and all the while Lady Geraldine’s condition had been deteriorating. It was becoming hard for her to breathe and her level of consciousness was slipping. By the time they’d arrived at the totally unexpected destination of the Hammer-smith—Nico’s hospital—she was unconscious and the situation was looking bad enough for Charlotte to be unaware of anything except the relief of getting to a place where they might be able to help her grandmother.

  And then there’d been the drama of trying to get Gran stable enough for the surgeon to consider that operating might be an option on an eighty-two-year-old woman. There’d been fluid resuscitation and ventilation assistance, blood tests and scans and ECGs. People rushing in and out with the kind of controlled chaos Charlotte was all too familiar with, but this was her gran being treated and she’d never felt less like a doctor.

  Waiting like this in an area set aside for the families of patients undergoing surgery was a new experience too. It was nerve-racking and felt interminable. There were only one or two theatres being used for absolute emergencies today and just a skeleton staff on duty so it felt like she was completely alone and she’d been here for what felt like hours. Surely the surgery was over by now? Why hadn’t someone come to tell her what was going on?

  Had they forgotten she was even here?

  No…Charlotte could hear footsteps echoing in the wide, empty hallway outside. Coming closer. Someone was coming to see her and what they had to say could possibly be devastating news.