Convenient Brides

by Catherine Spencer

  “You’re very good with the children, Caroline,” Lidia remarked, as they made their way downstairs after tucking Clemente and Gina into their beds. “I hope they come to realize how fortunate they are that you’re willing and able to step into Vanessa’s shoes.”

  “I don’t suppose I’ll ever really fill them, Lidia, but I promise I’ll do my very best.”

  “I know you will. But you’re giving up so much—your home in America, your profession, your friends. It’s a lot to ask, especially when you’ve worked so hard to build a successful career.”

  But architecture had never been more than a substitute for what she really wanted. She’d have given it up in a flash, if she’d been able to keep her babies.

  “For the next few years, being a mother and a wife will be my career, and I have no regrets about that,” she said. “Architecture will still be there, when I’m not needed on the homefront.”

  “Oh, you’ll always be needed, my dear,” Lidia said with a laugh. “Just because children grow up doesn’t mean they don’t still need their mothers.” Pausing at the foot of the stairs, she rested her hand on the newel post and shot a tentative glance Callie’s way. “Forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but have you and Paolo talked about having more children?”

  “Not really. Why do you ask?”

  “Because having another baby might help close old wounds.”

  What an odd thing to say, Callie thought. Yet Lidia was regarding her with such compassion that she couldn’t take offense. But the remark was enough to bring to the forefront the burden of guilt forever lurking in the back of her mind, and it left her stomach tied in knots.

  Everything she’d ever longed for, and thought she could never have—her children, Paolo, true peace of mind, real happiness—lay within her grasp. But losing her sister and brother-in-law was a terrible price to pay for such a gift, and she had all she could do right now to cope with that. Confession, she had decided, would have to wait.

  Suddenly, though, she wanted to tell this kind and gentle grandmother the truth. Wanted to ask her advice on how best to break the news to Paolo. And desperately wanted to know that whenever she did confide in him, at least one other person would be there to lend support, if she needed it.

  From the outset, she’d felt a universal connection with Lidia, the kind that existed only between women. Lidia was not one to judge another person harshly or unfairly. Also, she was a mother; she’d understand that nothing was straightforward or simple when it came to protecting one’s children.

  “Lidia,” she began hesitantly, “is there some place we can talk without being disturbed?”

  “My sitting room. We’ll be quite alone there. The men are enjoying their brandy in the library and won’t mind if we take a few minutes for ourselves, I’m sure.”

  She led the way toward the back of the villa, to a little room with a glassed-in solarium at one end. Furnished with white wicker and pastel prints, it was as pretty and welcoming as Lidia herself.

  “Have a seat, dear,” she said, closing the door and indicating a love seat upholstered with plump cushions, “and tell me what’s on your mind. Is it to do with the wedding?”

  Callie had often wondered how she’d ever broach the subject. Had been sure she’d never find the words. But in the end, there were few from which to choose. “No, it’s about the twins…about when they were born, and why I’ve stayed away from them all these years. The thing is, Lidia, the day Vanessa and Ermanno got married—”

  Astonishingly Lidia leaned forward and pressed a finger to Callie’s lips. “Hush, Caroline! There’s no need to explain, and no need at all to feel ashamed or guilty for something that happened so long ago. You were very young at the time, very inexperienced and, I daresay, very frightened.”

  Callie’s jaw sagged in shock. “You know?”

  “Yes, my dear. I saw you stumbling back here, the next morning, with your pretty dress in disarray, and guessed Paolo had kept you out all night. I was very disappointed in him, at the time. Very angry. But that’s all in the past, cara—a longforgotten mistake that doesn’t matter at all, now that you and he have found each other again.”

  “I don’t think you quite understand what I’m trying to tell you,” Callie mumbled. “The fact is, Lidia—”

  But even as she gathered her courage to finish what she’d started, a knock came at the door. A moment later, Paolo poked his head into the room.

  “So this is where you’re hiding,” he said. “Am I interrupting something important?”

  “Not at all,” Lidia said, patting Callie’s hand briskly. “We were just enjoying a little mother-daughter talk, but we’re done now.”

  “Good, because I’ve got a nice fire going in the library, and the coffee’s waiting. Also, Father seems a bit under the weather and—”

  Lidia rose hurriedly from her seat. “Then I’ll go to him at once. Are you coming, Caroline?”

  Left with little other choice, Callie followed her. When she reached the door, Paolo folded her hand firmly in his and bathed her in a smile so intimate that she went hot all over.

  Noticing, Lidia slowed down long enough to fix them both in a fond gaze and said softly, “Have I told you how happy I am that the two of you have come together as a couple like this? Knowing you’re forging a future together, and giving my grandchildren the next best thing to the parents they’ve lost, gives me the strength to accept the tragedy that has struck our family.”

  “It’s been hard for all of us, especially you, Momma,” Paolo said, pushing open the library door, “but things are going to get better from now on.”

  “Not if I have to wait much longer for my coffee,” Salvatore boomed, hauling himself out of his chair and coming to meet them. “Lidia, mia bella, I’m glad you’re here. Something I ate at dinner gave me indigestion, but seeing your smiling face makes me feel much better.”

  He wasn’t the easiest man to get along with, but his abiding love for his wife was genuine and unmistakable, and for that Callie had to admire him. She could only hope to inspire a fraction of the same devotion in Paolo.

  The library, with its paneled bookshelves, rich wine-red damask draperies and blazing fire was warm and cosy. Insisting he was quite recovered, Salvatore accepted a cup of coffee and fell to discussing business with Paolo. Reassured, Lidia resumed quizzing Callie about the wedding.

  Where did she want to be married—in Rome, in a church, or here on the island, with a makeshift chapel and the family priest? Would she invite friends from America? What about after the ceremony—a lunch, or a dinner reception? And a honeymoon—surely she wasn’t going to deny herself and Paolo the chance to be alone together for a few days, when the children had their grandparents and a nanny to look after them?

  “I suppose we do need to nail down some details,” Callie said, after Lidia had taken her husband off to bed.

  “Starting with an actual wedding date.” Blowing out an exasperated breath, Paolo joined her on the velvet couch in front of the fire. “As you’ve probably gathered, my father tends to steamroll over anyone who disagrees with his idea of how things should be done. The sooner we’re married and in a place of our own, the better.”

  “He is rather…opinionated.”

  “Very tactfully put, tesoro!” he replied, with a laugh. “What do you say we set the date for two weeks from Saturday? That should allow us enough time to meet all the legal formalities.”

  “I hadn’t thought about those. Are they very complicated?”

  “Only in that you’re a U.S. citizen. You have your passport with you, of course, but if you also happened to bring your birth certificate—”

  “I did. I always carry it with me.”

  “Then the only other requirements are for you to make a sworn declaration before the Consular Officer, at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, to the effect that you’re legally free to marry me. You’ll then have to do the same before an Italian official, and for this, you’ll need four witnesses to
verify your claim. My parents make two, so it’s a matter of finding two more, which might entail bringing a couple of your friends over from America for a couple of days.”

  “Actually not,” she said. “A friend of mine and her husband have rented a villa on the Amalfi coast for the winter. He’s a writer, researching material for his next book.”

  “Do you know where they’re staying?”

  “No. But I can phone her mother in the morning, and find out.”

  “Excellent. If they’ll help us, I’ll arrange for them to be flown to Rome as soon as possible. Once we have those notarized documents, we can then obtain a license in four days, instead of having to wait the usual three weeks.”

  “We’re not leaving ourselves much time, considering everything else that has to be done,” she murmured, settling contentedly into the curve of his arm.

  “I agree.” He stroked her hair. “So now that everything’s out in the open, I suggest we return to Rome tomorrow, begin making the necessary applications, and start looking for a place to live. And once there, you’ll find it much easier to finalize the wedding arrangements, and shop for whatever you need.”

  “What about the children? Will we leave them here?”

  “No. It’s time they were back at school. Time we all picked up the threads of our lives and moved forward.”

  “Your parents, too?”

  “Especially my parents. My father needs to busy himself with something other than interfering with our plans. And my mother…” He glanced at Callie from beneath lowered lashes that were much too long and lush to be wasted on a man. “I know she’s not your mother, Caroline, but if you were serious about letting her help you with the wedding, it would mean the world to her.”

  “She already knows I’m absolutely depending on her to help. She’s a lovely woman, Paolo, inside and out. Don’t ever worry that I’ll resent her.”

  “You won’t mind calling her Suocera?”

  “I’d call her Mother, if she’d let me!”

  “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. She misses Vanessa as much as she misses Ermanno. She and your sister were extremely close.”

  He tightened his hold, pulling her more firmly to his body. “We’re going to make this work, Caroline,” he promised, his mouth hovering over hers. “We’re going to make something good out of this tragedy that has brought so much sorrow to our family.”

  When he held her like that, and looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world for him, she’d have believed him if he said he could turn granite into gold. What had begun as a teenage infatuation based on sex, had evolved into something deeper and much more enduring.

  In the space of a few weeks, he’d established himself not just as the love of her life, but as her lodestar. Nothing was impossible, as long as she had him at her side.

  Reaching up, she traced her fingertips over the planes of his face, memorizing each feature. The dark sweep of his eyebrows, the carved cheekbones, the strong jaw. And the mouth that could flatten with displeasure, soften with amusement, or, as it did right now, curve with sensuous promise.

  “We should make an early start tomorrow, and you’re looking very sleepy, Signorina Leighton,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “As your fiancé who is most concerned that you not appear as a bride hollow-eyed with exhaustion, I consider it my duty to take you to bed.”

  “I think that’s a very good idea,” she said.

  They left for Rome the next morning, traveling by motor launch the short distance to the mainland, then the remaining two hundred and fifty miles in the private jet.

  “Will you stay with us, Caroline?” Lidia asked, as they began their descent to Rome. “You’d have your own suite of rooms and all the privacy you want.”

  “Thank you, but I think it’ll be more convenient for everyone if I book into a hotel,” she replied, having already discussed the subject with Paolo, the night before.

  “You’ll stay with me in my apartment then,” Paolo had said, when she’d expressed the fact that being under Salvatore’s suspicious eye, twenty-four hours a day for most of the next two weeks, didn’t exactly have her bursting into joyful song.

  But tempting though it was, she’d declined Paolo’s offer, too. “Bite your tongue!” she’d scolded. “Your father has enough reservations about me as it is, without my compounding the situation by openly cohabiting with his son and heir outside the bonds of matrimony.”

  Paolo had conceded her point, albeit reluctantly. “Then since I plan to spend every night with you anyway, I’ll reserve a room for you at a hotel conveniently close to my place. We’re both consenting adults, Caroline, and what we do behind closed doors is nobody else’s business.”

  “Caroline’s right, Momma,” he told his mother now. “We’re going to be on the run, taking care of the hundred odd things needing to done before the wedding. It makes more sense for her to come and go without having to disturb you.”

  “But you’ll still be seeing plenty of me, Lidia. I’m counting on you to help me with the wedding itself,” Callie was quick to add.

  “You already know I’ll be only too happy to do whatever I can. Have you decided yet where you’d like to be married?”

  Paolo shrugged. “A hotel, probably.”

  Seeing the disappointment his mother couldn’t quite hide, Callie said, “If it’s at all the same to you, Paolo, I think I’d like to be married at your parents’ home here, in Rome.”

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You would?”

  “Well, it’s quite lovely, and certainly big enough for what we have in mind. I think we could have a beautiful wedding there.” She glanced at his parents. “If it’s okay with you, of course.”

  “My family is always welcome in my home,” Salvatore declared magnanimously. “We’d be honored to host your wedding.”

  Lidia, though, fairly squealed with unabashed delight. “Oh, Caroline, we’d love it! You must come over as soon as possible, and tell me how you’d like to have things done. The salon can easily accommodate at least forty guests, and if the weather is good, as it often is at this time of year, we can open the doors to the roof garden—perhaps even have the ceremony out there. Let me know where you’re staying, so that I can keep in touch.”

  “I’m booking her into the Hassler,” Paolo said.

  “Perfect!” Lidia nodded, pleased. “You’ll love it there, Caroline, my dear. It’s right in the heart of the city, at the top of the Spanish Steps.”

  They landed shortly after, and scarcely had the jet rolled to a stop on the tarmac than the race against time began.

  Chapter Nine

  “WHAT do you think?” Twirling on the boutique’s small, carpeted dais for Lidia’s inspection, Callie showed off the last of three possible choices for her wedding dress, an exquisite creation of ivory silk chiffon cascading in a froth of creamy ruffles from the waist to the hem.

  “They’re all lovely,” Lidia sighed. “I couldn’t begin to choose just one. If it were up to me, I’d take all three.”

  “You’re not helping!” Callie scolded with a laugh. “I really need some input here.”

  “I like the blue dress best,” Gina said dreamily, clasping her hands beneath her dimpled chin. “You look beautiful in that, Zia Caroline. Just like a princess.”

  The designer, Serena, tipped her head to one side and inspected Callie as if she were a specimen under glass. “It’s your wedding, signorina, and a day to be remembered. If you can’t make up your mind about these three, why not choose the white gown you looked at earlier? It is classically elegant, and with a hat, or perhaps a wisp of veiling—”

  “Oh, no hat or veil,” Callie protested. “We’re having a very small, simple wedding.”

  Serena exchanged smiling glances with Lidia. “There is no such thing. Small, yes, but simple? Never! In any case, you dress not for the guests, but for your groom. For him, you must have what you’d call in America ‘a show stopper,’ so that when you’re grandparen
ts yourselves, he will look at you and see not a woman in her sixties, perhaps with graying hair and a waist not quite so narrow, but his beautiful bride from years before.”

  Would he ever see her in such a romantic light? Callie wondered, examining the gown from all angles in the floor-to-ceiling curved mirror to the rear of the dais. Or would she forever be the other half of an equation arrived at for the children’s sakes—because, although he acted as if he loved her, and although he called her darling and sweetheart, he’d never actually come straight out and said I love you.

  But then, neither had she. In truth, she couldn’t, not yet. She was afraid it would seem too much as if she was trying to soften him up and buy his forgiveness, if she bared her heart before she bared her conscience.

  She’d hoped to have done that by now, but somehow the right opportunity never presented itself. The days were too full of other things, other people, and the nights…oh, how could she spoil the sweet intimacy of lying naked in his arms? How survive the agony, if he pushed her away and left her to sleep alone, too angry and disappointed to stand the sight of her?

  The gown ebbed over her toes in a flurry of tiny waves. No question about its being the most spectacular of the three finalists, but although she wasn’t normally superstitious, it suddenly crossed her mind that she’d worn silk chiffon at Vanessa’s wedding, and it hadn’t turned out to be a lucky choice. Paolo had tired of her within hours. She wasn’t about to risk the same thing happening again on her own wedding day. She had enough to contend with, without tempting fate unnecessarily.

  Mirroring her thoughts, though for different reasons, the designer said, “Signora Rainero is quite right, of course. All three outfits beg to be worn by a woman of your slender shape, but with your blond hair and blue eyes, the burgundy velvet makes the most dramatic statement.”

  Callie shot a smile at her daughter, who perched on the edge of her little gilt chair, clearly enthralled with the whole procedure of outfitting the bride. “For the opera or theater, perhaps, but for my wedding, I’m leaning more toward Gina’s choice. I’d like to try the blue dress again.”