Wedded, Bedded, Betrayed

by Michelle Smart

  ‘What was that like for you? Was it hard moving to a new country?’ The gravelled pathway crunched beneath her leather Roman-style sandals.

  ‘It was fun.’ He grinned but the apprehension that had lined his face on the long car journey was still there. ‘My parents made it into a big adventure for me.’

  They’d reached the steps to the front porch. Gabriele paused before climbing them. ‘You remember I told you my mother has dementia?’

  She nodded warily. She hadn’t broached the subject on the drive over because she still smarted that he held her partly responsible for his mother’s condition.

  There was no way to prove a negative and, with his opinion of her so deeply entrenched, she knew that mere words would never convince him of her innocence.

  In Gabriele’s eyes, his father was Snow White to her father’s Evil Queen.

  ‘Just...’ He sighed, shook his head and opened the door. ‘Hello?’ he called out, walking through a large reception room.

  A large woman wearing jeans and a plain white top came out of a door. She beamed to see him.

  ‘Gabriele, how lovely to see you,’ she said in Italian. She looked at Elena, who was trying to hide behind him. ‘And this must be your wife.’

  There was a quizzical expression on her face that told Elena this woman knew exactly who she was.

  ‘She is,’ he said, stepping aside and taking Elena’s hand. ‘This is Elena. Elena, this is Loretta, my mother’s nurse. How is she today?’

  ‘Not too bad. I’d say this is a medium day.’ Loretta opened a door for them and walked up a wide corridor with stained-wood flooring.

  They were taken into a spacious and airy living room. Sitting in a reclining chair by the window watching television sat a frail-looking woman with white hair.

  Loretta went to her and crouched down. ‘Silvia, look, you have guests.’

  The white hair turned slowly and a pale wrinkled face stared at them blankly.

  Elena swallowed back her shock. She knew Gabriele’s mother could be no older than mid-sixties but she looked decades older.

  Then a spark of recognition flashed on the too-old face and Silvia got to her feet.

  Loretta was there to take her arm and assist as she shuffled over to them.

  To Elena’s alarm, the recognition on Silvia’s face wasn’t directed at Gabriele but at herself.

  ‘Hilde,’ she cried. ‘I knew you would come.’

  Hilde?

  Elena’s blood stopped flowing.

  Dimly she was aware of Gabriele and Loretta exchanging glances.

  ‘I’ve made a room up for you,’ Silvia continued. ‘And Ginny... Jenny... Oh, what’s her name? She has made us meatballs. Italian, not Swedish,’ she added with a cackle.

  With a start Elena understood.

  Hadn’t Gabriele said their mothers had been good friends?

  Silvia thought she was her mother.

  Having only photographs to go on, Elena knew she had a strong resemblance to her mother. She hadn’t realised how stark the resemblance actually was.

  Silvia now seemed to notice Gabriele. ‘Hilde, you’ve brought a friend.’

  What did she do? Did she tell this elderly woman who thought she was living in a time over two decades before that she was wrong?

  But looking in those large brown eyes, so like her son’s, and the happiness emanating from them, she knew to tell the truth would be a cruelty she couldn’t inflict.

  Elena swallowed before reaching out to take Silvia’s hand.

  ‘This is Gabriele,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you remember him?’

  Silvia scrunched her eyes to peer closely at him. ‘No.’ Something clouded in her eyes and she dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Does Ignazio know you’ve brought a man here?’

  Something in her tone set Elena’s heart thumping. ‘He knows.’

  ‘Good.’ Silvia’s fingers closed around her hand. She could feel the tremors in them.

  ‘Shall we sit down?’ Elena suggested. ‘I’m very tired from the drive here.’

  ‘I’ll get us refreshments. Wine? I’ve got a bottle of that...oh, what’s it called?...that red wine you like?’

  ‘Coffee will be fine.’

  ‘I’ll sort refreshments out,’ Loretta cut in with a smile.

  Silvia peered at the nurse. ‘Do I know you?’

  Between them, they got Silvia back in her seat and pulled an armchair close to her for Elena to sit on.

  Gabriele sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees, watching them.

  ‘Alfredo never said you were coming,’ Silvia now said, leaning towards Elena.

  ‘It must have slipped his mind.’

  Somehow they managed to talk, not an easy task what with Elena pretending to be her long-dead mother and Silvia forgetting words and losing threads of the conversation.

  Loretta had brought coffee and biscuits in to them and then disappeared.

  Gabriele made no attempt to join in their muddled talk but she could feel him sitting there, observing them.

  She could only imagine how he must feel, his mother talking animatedly to a complete stranger while failing to recognise her own son.

  The only moment when Elena thought she might crack was when Silvia suddenly said, ‘They told me you were dead.’

  She swallowed back the shock and answered weakly, ‘I was ill.’

  ‘What was it again? Not the breast thing?’

  ‘No. Not cancer. Septicaemia.’ Her mother had cut her finger while gardening. The wound had become infected. After five days in hospital being pumped with every antibiotic known to man, her organs had failed and she’d died.

  ‘I told Alfredo; Hilde would never be dead. She wouldn’t leave her boys and that little girl. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Elena.’

  ‘That’s it. Elena. Such a pretty name. Did you get the dress we sent to her?’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said by way of an answer.

  ‘Oh, yes. You sent a picture.’ She craned her neck around the room before fixing on Gabriele. ‘Alfredo, can you get the book for me? Hilde wants to see the pictures.’

  Not by a word or expression did he react to being addressed by his dead father’s name, quietly leaving the room as she’d asked.

  When he returned it was with a thick, old-fashioned leather-bound photo album.

  ‘Here’s the book you wanted,’ he said gently, placing it on the small table beside her.

  ‘Did I? We wanted wine, didn’t we, Hilde? That nice red wine you like.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can find a bottle.’ He threw a quick wink at Elena that was tinged with sadness.

  Elena gave him a sympathetic smile, then looked at the album. Her heart thumped. ‘May I?’

  He nodded.

  With Silvia now off on a tangent discussing swimming pools, Elena opened the album.

  It looked as if the photos had been taken shortly after the Mantegnas emigrated. Gabriele couldn’t have been much older than ten in them. There he was, sitting on an old sofa with his father in this very room. Identical grins beamed for the camera.

  She went through it all discreetly, still keeping up the conversation with Silvia, who had now moved on to talking about a programme Elena had never heard of but which she tried her hardest to pretend was a favourite.

  More pictures. A summer barbecue. Gabriele’s eleventh birthday.

  And then she turned the page and her heart stopped.

  That was her father, sitting next to Alfredo, arms around each other, at a large dining table strewn with empty wine bottles.

  There were her three older brothers, all sitting under a Christmas tree opening presents. Gabriele was sitting with them. All four were wearing oversized San
ta hats.

  And there was her mother, laughing. A white-blonde toddler sat upon her lap with her own oversized Santa hat covering half her face.

  Another of her mother, this time with a woman who had to be Silvia. They were in the kitchen, glasses of wine in hand.

  A group picture of the five Mantegna and Ricci children huddled together on the sofa. She peered even harder. That was Gabriele whose lap she had been sat upon...

  Elena thought she might faint.

  She had been in this house before. She had eaten and slept under this roof.

  When she could finally tear her eyes away from the pictures, Gabriele was watching her, his brow knotted in a question.

  All she could do was shake her head.

  Gabriele took control and got to his knees before his mother. He took her hands in his. ‘Hilde and I need to leave now.’

  ‘Are you taking her home?’

  ‘Yes. I will bring her back soon.’

  ‘Does Ignazio know?’ This time, as Silvia said the name, something clouded on her face. Her voice was confused as she asked, ‘Is he in prison?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But soon,’ she said decisively. She placed a shaking hand to her son’s cheek. ‘He will go there soon, Gabriele. You promised me.’

  He kissed the hand then kissed her on both cheeks and her forehead. ‘I promise you, Ignazio Ricci is paying for his sins.’

  Silvia insisted on seeing them out. Leaning heavily on her nurse’s arm, she waved and said, ‘Goodbye, Veronica.’

  She didn’t say goodbye to Gabriele.

  Shaken to her core and feeling as if she’d just spent two hours on an emotional roller coaster with no brakes, Elena walked like a zombie with Gabriele back to his car, where his driver was waiting for them, leaning against the car smoking a cigarette.

  Nothing was said until they crossed the county line and she quietly asked, ‘Who’s Veronica?’

  ‘My mother’s sister. She died ten years ago.’

  ‘Is she always like this?’

  ‘Yes. Some days are better than others but she rarely knows who I am any more.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘She’s lost to me now. Sometimes I struggle to remember how she was before.’

  Impulse made her take his hand and squeeze it. However difficult she’d found it, she could only imagine how hard it had been for him. This was his mother regarding the man she’d given birth to as a stranger. It had only been at the end of their visit that she’d been able to grasp who he was for a few fleeting moments. And their talk of prison...that had been about her father. Silvia, in her one lucid moment, had asked if Ignazio was in prison.

  Gabriele’s eyes were dull but his lips curved a little as he said a quiet, ‘Thank you for being so kind to her.’

  A lump formed in her throat. ‘I’m just so sorry that she is the way she is.’

  His smile was rueful. ‘Until the dementia set in she was the liveliest woman you could meet. She had an opinion about everything.’

  ‘Do you see her much?’

  ‘As much as I can. When I was released from prison I wanted to bring her back to Italy to live with me there but the doctors said it would be too distressing for her.’ He shrugged a massive shoulder. ‘I visit every couple of weeks and make sure to stay a weekend every month.’

  ‘Don’t feel guilty,’ she said, picking up on his tone. ‘You’ve got a global business to run. It can’t be easy juggling it all.’

  ‘It would be easier if I had siblings—there would be more of us to pitch in and spend time with her. But she has Loretta who lives in during the week and a weekend nurse. And she has many friends who take it in turns to visit and keep her company. I’m lucky that I can afford to bring the help to her rather than put her in a home.’

  ‘And she’s very lucky to have you.’

  Feeling a growing tightness in her chest, she carefully moved her hand away and placed it on her lap.

  She didn’t want to feel empathy for him but how could she not? When all was said and done, Gabriele was human and this was his mother trapped in a past that had long gone.

  But she shouldn’t feel that she wanted to wrap him in her arms and hold him close, to smooth his hair and stroke his skin.

  ‘It was good of you to pretend to be your mother. That couldn’t have been easy.’

  She gave a jerk of her head. ‘When you said they’d been close friends... I hadn’t realised how close they were. And I had no idea I’d been to your family home—I didn’t know I’d even been to America. I thought the first time I came here was a few years ago.’

  ‘Before we moved to America our mothers were inseparable. Our two families were incredibly close.’ A smile tugged at his lips. ‘I remember your christening.’

  ‘You were there?’

  ‘I think I was nine or ten. It was shortly before we emigrated, which is probably why I remember it. Did you know your father is my godfather?’

  ‘No!’ The word came out as a gasp.

  ‘And my father is Marco’s godfather, and my mother godmother to Franco,’ he said, referring to Elena’s two eldest brothers. His eyes were curious. ‘Did you really not know this?’

  She bit into her lip. ‘It seems there’s a lot I don’t know.’

  Gabriele stared closely, certain he could see tears brimming in her eyes. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  She nodded then shook her head. ‘Your mother...her mistaking me for my mother... That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to my mother as anything but an angel in heaven. In the Ricci world a woman is either a whore or a Madonna. To my father and my brothers, she’s a Madonna without flaws but she liked red wine!’

  A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away.

  ‘I didn’t know she liked red wine. I knew our fathers were friends but I didn’t know our families were such good friends too. We spent Christmas with you.’

  Now it was his turn to take her hand and hold it tight. It felt cold. ‘Our two families were like a real family from before even I was born, but everything changed when your mother died.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘It all stopped. When we first moved to America you and your family made plenty of visits. Your father was establishing his business here and I know your parents seriously considered emigrating too. But then your mother died and all the closeness was lost. All talk of emigrating stopped. Your father still visited us when he was in the country but the coming together of the two families...it just didn’t happen anymore.’

  ‘You visited us,’ she said dully, shaking her head. ‘I remember you and your dad staying at our house a couple of times. But that was so long ago.’

  ‘Elena?’ he asked when she drifted into silence.

  She blinked. ‘What you just said, I didn’t know any of it.’

  He reached out to finger a lock of her hair. ‘Do you see why I loathe your father so much? We were family. I loved him. He didn’t just set up my father, his oldest and closest friend, but he set up the man who had been like a brother to him. He let me, his own godson, go to prison. He knew my father had a heart condition but he didn’t care. He let my father die.’

  Her head shook slowly from side to side. ‘He didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘He did. And you know he did. You’ve seen for yourself the consequences of your father’s actions—your father’s betrayal, the shock of my imprisonment and the death of my father accelerated my mother’s dementia.’

  Quickly she wiped another fallen tear away and screwed her face, her lips trembling. Then she took an unsteady breath and sniffed lightly, swallowing as she visibly controlled herself.

  ‘I’m sorry about your family and what you’ve all been through,’ she said steadily, ‘but I swear to you my family had nothing to do with
it. My father is not that kind of man.’

  She was lying. He could smell the lie falling from her tongue.

  Was she lying to him or to herself? Because for the first time he truly considered whether Elena had been involved in her father’s money-laundering racket and the cover-up that had led to Gabriele’s father’s door. Everything pointed to her having been purposefully kept aside by Ignazio.

  But he knew better than anyone how Ignazio could form the most believable of trails.

  ‘You said yourself that there were things about your life you didn’t know; things your father and brothers kept from you. Is it not then conceivable that they would keep other things from you too?’

  ‘No.’ An obstinate look came on her face.

  ‘Either you’re in on it with them or you’re in denial. Open your eyes. The truth is there waiting for you to find it.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  WAKING ALONE IN Gabriele’s Florence home, a penthouse apartment spread over two floors overlooking Palazzo Tornabuoni, Elena wandered from the bedroom in search of coffee.

  Even larger than his Manhattan apartment, it managed to be lavishly decorated and adorned yet remain homely. It had touched her to find he’d hung a Giuseppe Arcimboldo painting in the room he’d designated as her office.

  Since their visit to his mother there had been a definite shift in their attitudes to each other. Family was a word no longer uttered between them. But it was constantly on Elena’s mind.

  How had her father been able to denounce Alfredo in such a way? And Gabriele, his own godson too. Why hadn’t he helped their defence? Of course he hadn’t been involved himself, but loyalty should have counted for something. Family loyalty was the crux of her father’s personal philosophy and the Mantegnas had been family to him. She’d seen the photographic evidence with her own eyes.

  And how could she not have known the full extent of their families’ ties?

  These were all questions she could not bring herself to ask him.

  She had just settled on the balcony with a caffè e latte and fresh pastries made for her by Gabriele’s housekeeper when he walked through the open French doors.

  Her heart did that familiar little skip to see him.