The Wedding Arrangement

CHAPTER ONE

I’M CRAZY to leave.

The words pounded in Luke Cayman’s head as he packed his bags on the day after his brother Primo’s engagement.

I should stay and fight for her.

Yet he got into his brand new state-of-the-art sports car and headed out of Naples ‘like a bat out of hell’, as he put it.

It was a relief to get on to the autostrada, where he could let it rip, driving the two hundred miles to Rome at the top of the legal limit and making it in two and a half hours.

Once there, he checked into a five-star hotel in Parioli, the wealthiest and most elegant part of the city, and indulged himself with the best of Roman cuisine and wine, which he drank in brooding silence.

I should have stayed.

But there was Olympia’s face in his mind, as he’d last seen it, her eyes fixed blissfully on Primo, her fiancé, soon to be her husband. Who was he trying to kid? He’d never stood a chance.

He was just thinking of an early night when a hand clapped him on the shoulder and a hearty voice said, ‘You should have told me you were coming.’

Bernardo was the hotel manager, a plump, hearty man in his mid-forties. Luke had stayed here before on business trips to Rome, and they had always been on good terms.

‘It was a last-minute decision,’ Luke said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I find myself the owner of a building in Rome and it needs my attention.’

‘Property? I thought you were in manufacturing.’

‘I am. This place was given to me in repayment of a debt.’

‘Round here?’

‘No, Trastevere.’

Bernardo raised his eyebrows. If Parioli was Rome’s most elegant area, Trastevere was its most colourful.

‘I gather it’s in a poor state of repair,’ Luke said. ‘When I’ve put it right, I’ll sell it.’

‘Why not just sell it now? Let someone else bother with the repairs.’

‘Signora Pepino would never let me get away with that,’ Luke said with a grin. ‘She’s a lawyer who lives and works there, and has already bombarded me with letters saying what she expects me to do.’

‘And you’ll do what this woman tells you?’

‘She isn’t a woman, she’s a dragon. That’s why I didn’t tell her I was coming. I can get a look at the place before she starts breathing fire at me.’

‘Is that the only reason?’ Bernardo asked, regarding him shrewdly.

Luke shrugged.

‘Ah, a lovely lady broke your heart and now-’

‘No woman has ever broken my heart,’ Luke said sharply. ‘I don’t allow that to happen.’

‘Very wise.’

‘I let myself get a little too close to a woman, although I knew she was in love with another man. It was a mistake, but mistakes can be put right. A wise man sees the danger and takes action.’

‘And you managed that with your customary efficiency?’

‘My what?’

‘You’re known as a man who believes in good order, keeps things in proportion, and stays invulnerable. I envy you. It must make life simple. But now you need to get blissfully roaring drunk, with good companions who will put you safely to bed afterwards.’

‘For pity’s sake, Bernardo, how often have you seen me like that?’

‘Not often enough. It’s unnatural.’

Luke gave a reluctant laugh. ‘Maybe, but it helps a man stay in charge of his life, and that’s what matters. Goodnight.’

He went to his room quickly, suddenly uneasy in Bernardo’s company. For a moment he’d seen himself through his friend’s eyes, a man who prized good order and self-control above all else: a cold, hard man, who gave little and counted it out carefully first.

It wasn’t so far from the truth, he thought. But it had never troubled him before.

He checked the messages on his cellphone and the words, Call your mother, appeared on the screen. Grinning, he called Hope Rinucci, his adoptive mother, and the only one he had known.

‘Hi, Mamma. Yes, I got here safely. Everything’s fine.’

‘Have you met Signora Pepino yet?’

‘I’ve barely arrived. I’ve had a meal, that’s all. Let me settle in before I confront her. I need all my courage.’

His mother’s exasperated voice reached him down the line. ‘Don’t pretend you’re afraid of her.’

‘I am. I’m shaking in my shoes, I swear it.’

‘You’ll go to hell for telling lies, and serve you right.’

He chuckled. She always made him feel better.

In his mind he could see her in the Villa Rinucci, high up on the hill. She liked to take phone calls on the terrace, looking out over the Bay of Naples, the most glorious view in the world, according to her. It would be dark now, with only the twinkling lights breaking through the black velvet, but the beauty was still there.

‘Are you exhausted after all the festivities?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no time for that. I’m planning the party for Primo and Olympia’s engagement.’

‘I thought we had that last night.’

‘No, that was just the tail end of Justin’s wedding,’ she said, naming her first son. ‘One wedding begets another, and naturally we toasted Primo and Olympia, but they’ll want a proper engagement celebration of their own.’

‘And if they don’t they’re going to get it anyway,’ he said with wry fondness.

‘Well, you can’t expect me to pass up the chance of a party,’ she said reasonably.

‘It would never occur to me that you’d pass up the chance of a party,’ he said truthfully. ‘And after that, there’s the wedding, unless Olympia’s mother has some mad idea of organising it herself.’

‘Oh, no, we discussed that last night, and she quite agrees with me.’

‘You mean she can’t stand up to you any more than the rest of us,’ he said with a laugh.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Hope said, affronted. And she really didn’t.

‘I look forward to it. I won’t miss the chance to gloat over brother Primo’s downfall.’

‘You’ll meet the right one for you,’ Hope said, like all mothers.

‘Maybe not. I might just settle for being a curmudgeonly old bachelor.’

Hope crowed with laughter. ‘A handsome boy like you?’

‘Boy? I’m thirty-eight.’

‘You’ll always be a boy to me. Your wife is next on my list, and don’t you forget it. Now, go and have a good time.’

‘Mamma, it’s eleven o’clock.’

‘So? The perfect time for-anything you want.’

Luke grinned. His mother had never been a prude-one reason why her sons adored her. Toni, her husband, was far more strait-laced.

‘I need to be clear-headed to deal with Signora Pepino.’

‘Nonsense! Just turn your charm on her, and that’ll do the trick.’

Hope Rinucci was convinced that all her sons had the charm of the devil and no woman could resist them. With the younger ones it was possibly true, but Luke knew that charm wasn’t his strong suit. He was a tall, muscular, well-made man with features that were regular enough to pass for good looks. But his face fell naturally into stern lines and he smiled little.

It had been different with Olympia. In the few weeks he’d shared his apartment with her he’d forced himself to behave like a gentleman, knowing that her heart was already given to his brother, Primo. It hadn’t been easy keeping his infatuation under control, and the strain had almost propelled it into outright love.

He knew that under Olympia’s influence his nature had thawed, almost to the point of charm. But he was on his guard against it happening for a second time. Authority, no-nonsense, stubbornness: these he did well. Not charm.

But since there was no arguing with a mother’s partiality he didn’t try. They finished the conversation affectionately and he hung up, feeling strangely uneasy again. Something was wrong. He didn’t know what, but he had an uncomfortable sense that the trouble lay with himself.

As always, when something disturbed him, he took refuge in work, pulling out the folder that contained the details of his newly acquired, if unwanted, property.

It was called the Residenza Gallini, a grandiose name that presumably promised more than it delivered, and, from the plan, seemed to be a five-storey building, built around four sides of a courtyard. The heart of the folder was the correspondence with Signora Minerva Pepino, a severe and ferocious lady whose very name was beginning to worry him.

It was easy fighting a man. You could go in with fists flailing. With a woman subtlety was needed, and Luke, who didn’t ‘do’ subtlety any more than he ‘did’ charm, felt at a disadvantage.

She had opened hostilities with a reasonably restrained letter enquiring when he intended to come to Rome and set in motion the vast amount of work that was necessary to bring the property up to the standard essential to her clients, who lived there in conditions that were a disgrace.

He had replied assuring her that he would arrive ‘as soon as was convenient’ and venturing, in the mildest possible way, to suggest that she exaggerated the conditions.

She had treated his mildness with the contempt it deserved, blasting him with a list of necessary repairs and including the probable prices, whose total made him gulp.

But now he felt he was getting her measure. The tradesmen who’d given these estimates were probably friends or relatives, and she was on commission. He began to be offended at the way she clearly thought she could bully him, and repeated his assurance that he would come to Rome when it was convenient.

And so it had gone on, each growing more quellingly polite as their annoyance rose. Luke imagined her as a woman carved out of granite, probably in her fifties, ruling her world with grim efficiency, crushing all disagreement. Even her name was alarming. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom, known for her brilliant intellect but also for being born wearing armour and wielding a spear.

He would visit Rome and act like a responsible landlord. What he would not do was let himself be ordered around.

He put the folder away. Suddenly his room felt too quiet, its very luxury pressing in on him like a stifling blanket. Coming to a sudden decision, he took the cash out of his wallet and put it in his pocket along with the plastic card that was the key to his room. Then he locked the wallet in the wall safe, and headed downstairs.

It was a balmy night and he was warm enough in his shirtsleeves as he walked away from the hotel and hailed a taxi to take him the length of the Via del Corso, with its late-night cafés and glittering shops. At the bottom they swung right, heading for the Garibaldi Bridge over the River Tiber.

‘Here will do,’ he called to the driver when they had crossed the river.

He knew now that he must have reached the part of Rome known as Trastevere, a name which literally meant ‘on the other side of the Tiber’. It was the oldest part of the city, and still the most colourful. The light streamed on to the streets, accompanied by song, laughter and appetising smells of cooking.

He plunged into the nearest bar and was soon enveloped in conviviality. From there he drifted to another bar, relaxed by some of the best local wine he had ever tasted. Three bars later he was beginning to think that this was the way to live.

He wandered out into the cobbled street and stood there, gazing up at the full moon. Then he studied the street, realising that he had no idea where he was.

‘Looking for something?’

Turning, he saw a young man sitting at one of the outside tables. He was little more than a boy, with a charming, mobile face and dark, vivid eyes. When he grinned his teeth flashed with almost startling brilliance.

‘Ciao!’ he said, raising his glass in tipsy fellowship.

‘Ciao!’ Luke answered, coming to sit at the table beside him. ‘I was just realising that I’m lost.’

‘New here?’

‘Just arrived today.’

‘Well, now you’re here, you should stay. Nice place. Nice people.’

Luke signalled to a waiter, who brought two fresh glasses and a full bottle, accepted Luke’s money and departed.

‘Very nice people,’ the boy repeated.

‘I probably shouldn’t have done that,’ Luke said, suddenly conscience-stricken. ‘I think you’ve already had enough.’

‘If the wine is good, there’s no such thing as enough.’ He filled both glasses. ‘Soon I shall have had too much, and it still won’t be enough.’ A thought struck him. ‘I’m a very wise man. At least, I sound like one.’

‘Well, I guess it makes a kind of sense,’ Luke agreed, tasting the wine and finding it good. ‘I’m Luke, by the way.’

The young man frowned. ‘Luke? Lucio?’

‘Sure, Lucio if you want.’

‘I’m Charlie.’

It was Luke’s turn to frown. An Italian called Charlie?

‘You mean Carlo?’ he asked at last.

‘No, Charlie. It’s short for Charlemagne.’ The boy added confidentially, ‘I don’t tell many people that, only my very best friends.’

‘Thank you,’ Luke said, accepting the honour with a grin. ‘So tell your friend why you were named after the Emperor Charlemagne.’

‘Because I’m descended from him, of course.’

‘But he lived twelve hundred years ago. How can you be sure?’

Charlie looked surprised. ‘My mother told me.’

‘And you believe everything your mother tells you?’

‘What Mamma says, you’d better believe, or you’ll be sorry.’

‘Yes, mine’s that way too,’ Luke said, grinning.

They clinked glasses, and Charlie drained his, then quickly refilled it.

‘I drink to forget,’ he announced gleefully.

‘Forget what?’

‘Something or other. Who cares? Why do you drink?’

‘I’m trying to nerve myself to confront a dragon. Otherwise she might eat me.’

‘Ah, a female dragon. They’re the worst. But you’ll slay her.’

‘I don’t think this lady is easily intimidated.’

‘You just tell her you’re not standing for any nonsense,’ Charlie advised. ‘That’s the way to deal with women.’

So now he had two pieces of advice for dealing with the situation-use his non-existent charm, or try to impose what this naïve boy fondly imagined to be ‘masculine authority’.

They passed on to the next bar, and then the next, until it began to feel like time to go home.

Suddenly they heard a shout from the next street, then the sound of a child crying and an animal squealing and suddenly a crowd of young men came stumbling out of the shadows. The one in front was carrying a puppy that was squirming to escape. With them was a boy of about twelve, who continually tried to rescue his pet, but was thwarted as the lout tossed the puppy to one of the others.

‘Bastardi!’ Charlie exclaimed violently.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Luke said.

They moved forward together.

The sight of them made the louts pause just long enough for Charlie to seize the puppy. Two of them tried to snatch it back, but Luke occupied them long enough for Charlie to give the animal to the child, who grabbed it and vanished, leaving him free to concentrate on the fight.

Two against four might seem an unequal conquest, but Charlie was furious and Luke was powerful and they managed to stop them chasing the fleeing child until there were further sounds from the narrow alleys, shouts, sirens, and all six were surrounded and carted off to the nearest police station.

The knock on the door could only be Mamma Netta Pepino. Nobody else knocked in exactly that pattern and Minnie was smiling as she went to answer it.

‘It isn’t too late?’ Netta asked at once.

‘No, I hadn’t gone to bed.’

‘Every night you stay up late, working too hard. So I brought you some shopping because I know you don’t have time to do your own.’

This was a fiction that they had shared for years. Minnie had an expensive law practice on the Via Veneto, and a secretary who could have done her shopping. But the habit of relying on Netta had started years ago, when she had been eighteen, the bride of Gianni Pepino, and this warm, laughing woman had embraced her.

It had been that way through the years when Minnie studied law, and had continued as her practice built up to its present success. Gianni had been dead for four years now, but Minnie had neither moved to a more luxurious home, nor weakened her links to Netta, whom she loved as a mother.

‘Proscuitto, Parmesan, pasta-your favourite kind,’ Netta intoned, dumping bags on the table. ‘You check.’

‘No need, you always get it right,’ Minnie said with a smile. ‘Sit down and have a drink. Coffee? Whisky?’

‘Whisky,’ Netta said with a chuckle, heaving her huge person into a chair.

‘I’ll have some tea.’

‘You’re still English,’ Netta said. ‘Fourteen years you live in Italy and you still drink English tea.’

Minnie began putting the shopping away, pausing as she came to a small bunch of flowers.

‘I thought you’d like them,’ Netta said, elaborately casual.

‘I love them,’ Minnie said, dropping a kiss on her cheek. ‘Let’s put them with Gianni.’

Filling a small vase with water, she added the flowers and set it beside a photograph of Gianni that stood on a shelf. It had been taken a week before his death and showed a young man with a wide, humorous mouth and brilliant eyes that seemed to have a gleam deep in their depths. His naturally curly hair was too long, falling over his forehead and down his neck, and increasing the charm that glowed from the picture.

Next to him stood another picture, of a young girl. Once she had been the eighteen-year-old Minnie, her face soft, slightly unfinished, still full of hope. She hadn’t known grief and despair. That came later.

Her face was finer now, elegant, more withdrawn, but still open to humour. Her fair hair, worn long in the first picture, now just brushed her shoulders, a length chosen for efficient management.

She changed the position of the flowers twice before she was satisfied.

‘He will like that,’ Netta said. ‘Always he loves flowers. Remember how often he brought them to you? Flowers for your wedding, flowers for your birthday, your anniversary-’

‘Yes, he never forgot.’

Neither woman thought it strange to speak of him both in the present and the past, changing from sentence to sentence. It came so naturally that they barely noticed.

‘How’s Poppa?’ Minnie asked.

‘Always he complains.’

‘No change there, then.’ They laughed together.

‘And Charlie?’

Netta groaned at the mention of her younger son. ‘He’s a bad boy. He thinks he’s a big man because he stays out late and drinks too much and sees too many girls.’

‘So he’s a normal eighteen-year-old,’ Minnie said gently.

In fact she, too, had been growing a little uneasy at her young brother-in-law’s exuberant habits, but she played it down for Netta’s sake.

‘It was better when he was in love with you,’ Netta mourned.

‘Mamma, he wasn’t in love with me. He’s eighteen, I’m thirty-two. He had a boyish crush, which I defused. At least, I hope I did. Charlie’s of no interest to me.’

‘No man interests you. It’s not natural. You’re a beautiful woman.’

‘I’m a widow.’

‘For too long. Now it’s time.’

‘This is my mother-in-law talking?’ Minnie asked of nobody in particular.

‘This is a woman talking to a woman. Four years you are a widow, yet no man. Scandoloso!’

‘It’s not quite true to say there have been no men in my life,’ Minnie said cautiously. ‘And, since you live right opposite me, you know that.’

‘Sure. I see them come and I see them go. But I don’t see them stay.’

‘I don’t invite them to stay,’ Minnie said quietly.

Netta’s answer to this was to give her a crushing hug.

‘No man ever had a better wife than my Gianni,’ she said. ‘Now it’s time you think of yourself. You need a man in your life, in your bed.’

‘Netta, please-’

‘When I was your age I had-’

‘A husband and five children,’ Minnie reminded her.

‘That’s true, but-ah, well, it was a long time ago.’

Netta had a generous nature. In all things.

‘I’m quite happy without a man,’ Minnie insisted.

‘Nonsense. No woman is happy without a man.’

‘And, even if I wanted one, it wouldn’t be Charlie. I’m not a cradle-robber.’

‘Of course not. But you could make him listen. Where is he tonight? I don’t know. But I’m sure he’s with bad people.’

‘And I’m sure that when you get home you’ll find him there looking sheepish,’ Minnie assured her.

‘Then I go home now. And I tell him he should be ashamed for worrying his mother.’

‘I’ll tell him, too. Come on, I’ll walk home with you.’

Minnie’s home was on the third floor, overlooking the courtyard. Some of the other homes were also occupied by Pepinos, since the family had always liked to live within hailing distance of each other. As they went out on to the iron staircase that ran around the inside of the courtyard, they could see lights in the other windows and shadows passing across them.

Then, up the stairs to the fourth floor on the other side, to the front door of the home Netta shared with her husband, her brother and her youngest son, when he was at home. There was still no sign of Charlie.

‘He’ll be home soon,’ Minnie said soothingly. ‘He’s just trying his wings.’

She kissed her mother-in-law and wandered back to her own little apartment. As always, it felt very quiet when she let herself in. It had been that way since the day her young husband had died in her arms.

She was suddenly very tired. Netta’s conversation had steered her close to things she normally tried not to think of.

From his place on the shelf Gianni seemed to follow her around the apartment with his eyes. She smiled at him, trying to find reassurance in his presence as she had so often before. But this time she couldn’t sense him smiling back.

The kitchen table was scattered with papers. Reluctantly she sat down to finish her work, but her mind couldn’t concentrate. It was a relief when her cellphone rang.

‘Charlie! Mamma’s been worrying about you. Where have you got to? You’re where?’