“And were you?” Carly asked. “Dreary, I mean?”
H ER GRANDMOTHER laughed. “Oh, no! The minute we boarded the ship, excitement replaced homesickness. We’d heard about the kind of comfort the Cunard Line offered its first-class passengers, but nothing could have prepared us for the luxury. It was said that no two staterooms were alike, and I well believe it. Ours was fitted with inlaid wood paneling and the most wonderful art-deco furnishings. Next door, Aunt Patricia was surrounded by such a wealth of elegance that she hardly ever ventured from her quarters except for meals—which fell in perfectly with Genevieve’s plans.”
“Genevieve must’ve been fun. I wish I’d known her.”
“My cousin was a hellion!” Anna said with fond nostalgia. “You won’t remember her, Carly. She died twenty-one years and three husbands ago, when you were only three, but even all these years later, I smile when I think of her on that ship. Half the crew and most of the male passengers were in love with her before we sailed out of New York. Before we reached Southampton, she’d turned down five marriage proposals and broken more hearts than all the other women onboard put together.”
“And what about you, Gran? How many proposals did you receive?”
Anna laughed again. “Oh, Carly, no one noticed me! I was merely the quiet cousin, pleasant enough in my way, but not nearly as vivacious or memorable as Genevieve.”
“How unfair!”
“Not at all. I didn’t lack for escorts by day or for dance partners in the evening. I just didn’t inspire grand passion, that’s all—at least, not until we arrived in Florence and I met Marco.”
“What made him different?” Carly wondered aloud. “Was it that he noticed you and not her?”
“For a start, she wasn’t with me that day. I spent the morning roaming the halls of the Pitti Palace, but she had no interest in art galleries and wanted to go shopping. By then, Aunt Patricia realized that, left to her own devices, Genevieve was likely to run off with the first handsome Italian who caught her eye. I, on the other hand, was comme il faut, and could be relied upon to behave appropriately without being chaperoned every minute of the day. So, as much to preserve her own sanity as to protect her daughter’s reputation, wherever Genevieve went, Aunt Patricia went, too.”
The irony of the situation did not escape Carly, and she couldn’t resist a grin. “Leaving you, the good girl, free to have an illicit affair right under your aunt’s nose. Did she never suspect what you were up to?”
“Never. As far as she knew, I spent my days absorbing the history of the city and improving my Italian. I was always back at the hotel in time to change for dinner and always spent the evening with her and Genevieve.”
“And the nights?”
“Well…” A delicate flush tinted her grandmother’s cheeks.
Amused despite herself, Carly said, “Don’t tell me you snuck out every night as soon as poor old Aunt Patricia hit the sack, and Genevieve covered for you?”
“Not quite every night.”
But often enough for an unprincipled rat to put the moves on her naive and trusting grandmother! “So how did you meet this Marco? Was he trolling the halls of the Pitti Palace, looking for innocent young American girls to seduce?”
“He was doing nothing of the sort,” Anna said sharply. “I met him over lunch at an outdoor trattoria. He was at the table next to mine. I had trouble explaining to the waiter what I wanted to order, Marco overheard and stepped in to translate….”
T HE MENU overwhelmed me. Too much to choose from, and the plate of linguine covered with herb sauce the waiter set before me wasn’t what I thought I’d asked for. I hadn’t acquired a taste for pasta at that point. We never ate it at home. “No, grazie,” I told him, searching my little phrase book. “Voglio qualcosa…luce.”
“Luce?” He eyed me doubtfully.
“L…i…g…h…t,” I enunciated, slowly and very distinctly, the way English-speaking tourists tend to do when abroad and confronted by a foreign language. “I…want…something…light.”
“Ah, si! Capisco!” He reached into his vest pocket and produced a small box of matches. “Sigarette.”
“No!” I exclaimed, shocked by the very idea. “ Non sigarette. No fumo— I don’t smoke.”
The waiter threw up his hands, completely at a loss.
To my right, a chair scraped over the piazza’s ornately patterned paving stones, and another voice, deep and confident, joined the conversation. “ Per favore, signorina, may I help?”
I looked up and there he was—tall, dark, handsome and able to speak English. “Yes, please!” I replied fervently. “All I want is a light meal. But not a salad,” I was quick to add. I’d been warned to avoid any uncooked foods that had been washed in local water. “Just something…small.” I gestured at the linguine. “It’s too hot for a heavy meal like this.”
“I understand perfectly.” He engaged the waiter in discussion, and with nothing better to do, I simply stared at my gallant rescuer. He was perhaps five feet ten or eleven, with a slim, but powerful build, thick black hair that gleamed under the sun, and a face that left me dry-mouthed and reaching for my glass of acqua minerale ….
“A ND THE NEXT MOMENT , he asked if he could join you,” Carly observed dryly.
“Actually I asked him. It seemed the mannerly thing to do, considering how helpful he’d been. My Italian was obviously minimal, but his English was excellent. We struck up a conversation and when he discovered my interest in the historical buildings and churches of Florence, he offered to introduce me to his city.”
Carly rolled her eyes. “How original!”
“I thought he was very kind—not to mention knowledgeable. He was an architect, you see, and well qualified to give me a guided tour.”
“Right! And show you his etchings while he was at it.”
“Carly!”
“Well, you can’t blame me for wondering! So how long before you decided you were in love with him?”
“About five minutes.”
“Oh, come on, Gran! You don’t mean that.”
“I do. It really was love at first sight, for both of us. Parafulmine, Marco called it. A lightning bolt without the thunder. Fate’s way of letting us know we were meant to be.”
Unprincipled and smooth-talking, as well. Carly couldn’t repress the cynical thought. “Did he try to kiss you that first day?”
“He did better than that,” her grandmother said, fondling her gold heart pendant. “He proposed.”
“He did not!”
“He did. ‘Will you marry me, Anna?’ he said. And I said I would.”
Carly glanced again at the photograph. “Well, he was definitely attractive. I can see how you might’ve fallen for his good looks.”
“Oh, he was so much more than just a handsome face. He was beautiful on the inside, and he brought out the very best in me. That’s why I need to see him again, Carly. I need to tell him that, despite all the things that went wrong and all the tears we’ve both shed, I have never for a moment regretted loving him.”
“So it wasn’t all moonlight and roses, then?”
Her grandmother gazed off into the distance, seeming pursued by memories. “No,” she said slowly. “Sometimes it was pure hell, and I don’t know how we survived. But nothing could put a dent in my certainty that he was my other half and we would have our happy-ever-after ending.”