Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (47 page)

“Do you indeed? Now why?” Lara Camors said.

“Pride, tradition, the challenge of it,” she answered.

“Oh, those,” the older woman said with a knowing smile.

“You do realize that we’re talking millions here, don’t you?” Natalie asked as she looked at Joletta with an arched brow.

“I realize.”

“If you are sitting on that journal, keeping it and everything we need to know from it to yourself, I — I’ll kill you, cousin or no cousin.” The other girl turned to Lara Camors with caustic amusement in her face. “Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea, since Mother is Joletta’s next of kin under Louisiana’s lovely inheritance laws. It would make matters so much easier, don’t you think?”

The older woman looked blank for an instant before she got the joke. She didn’t laugh, however, nor did anyone else.

I WAIT
.

I have waited through the last days of the fall, through the grape harvest and the grain harvest, and the faded, dreary days when the earth itself seems worn-out and ready for rest. I cannot believe that my dear Allain will not return for me. I will not believe that he can stay away.

This autumn, men have been dying in the Crimea at places that are mere names on a map as the allied sovereigns of England, France, Prussia, and Austria join battle at last to try to curb the ambitions of Czar Nicholas. I pity the poor soldiers of both sides, sent to die so far from home and family, but it is a surface sympathy only. I pity myself more. Yet, wishing to have faith in my love, I despise the weakness.

Sometimes Violet grew angry with Allain. What was he thinking of, to go away and leave her here alone among strangers? Had he no idea of the fears and fancies that beset a woman in her condition?

He had said he would never leave her. Yet he had. He had.

She told herself every day that he must return soon, that he did not intend to stay away forever. Every day the sun went down and night smothered the villa in shadows, and Allain did not come.

She was sure he must have had a good reason for going. There was someone he intended to see, something he meant to do to put an end to the surveillance of his movements. Or perhaps he planned to bring to justice whoever had terrorized Signora de Allori enough to cause her death.

But to leave her there alone in the villa after what had been done to the elderly woman who had taken them in seemed callous in the extreme. What would she do if the men returned, if they demanded to know where Allain had gone, and she could not tell them.

She felt so clumsy as the child grew, so unlike her usual self. Where once she had been quick and agile, she was forced now to move with care. And she felt vulnerable, not so much for herself as for the child she carried. If anything happened to her, it could not survive. To protect it, she must keep herself safe.

She was not really alone, of course. Giovanni was there.

He was always near, pruning, raking, or sweeping the tiles, when she was in the garden. Often he brought a bouquet for her, to place on her table at breakfast or luncheon. If she dropped her sewing, he was there to retrieve it. If she walked in the lanes around the house, he was ready to offer his arm for her support.

Since the night Allain had left, Giovanni had been sleeping in the house. He came every evening just after twilight and stayed until dawn. He took up a post outside her door, where he made himself a pallet. When he slept, however, she did not know. If she got up in the night, he was there, asking if she had need of him. If she rose early, he was up before her. In the long evenings of late autumn, Giovanni came and sat with her in the salon. He enjoyed having her read to him. He was not uneducated, having gone to the local priest for schooling, but his long workday left him little time for books or study. He liked hearing what was happening in the world from the news sheets, but was especially fond of Italian translations of Sir Walter Scott’s tales of gallant men and fair ladies. When she caught him grinning quietly to himself at her mispronunciation one day, he began to help her with her Italian.

He always served her dinner when his mother had cooked it. He would not allow Violet to eat in the kitchen, however, but moved in and out of the dining room with the different dishes in the correct form. He made her laugh with his droll comments on his day or the life in the village, and he was always urging her to eat more, insisting she try this tidbit or that, offering food as if it were a substitute for love.

At first she had been disturbed.

“You must not neglect your work for me, Giovanni,” she said, “or your family.”

“No, madonna,” he answered, his black eyes tender, “but I must be near in case you call.”

“Yes, but you needn’t watch my every breath.”

His smile faded, replaced by concern. “It troubles you, having me near you?”

“Of course not, but you must have a life of your own.”

“No, madonna; it is yours.”

He had changed the subject then with so much firmness it was not possible to persist. She was left to wonder whether Allain had indeed left instructions for so much attention to her comfort, or whether Giovanni was stretching his instructions more than a little for his own reasons. She suspected it was some of both.

Another time she said to him, “Do you have someone special, a sweetheart, Giovanni?”

“No, madonna. If I had, I would not be here.”

She absorbed that a moment. “Perhaps you should find a nice young girl and settle down?”

He met her gaze with a soft glint in his eyes and a meaningful tilt to his head. “It’s very easy to find a nice young girl, madonna; it’s much harder to find a beautiful woman.”

Such devotion was pleasant to a woman growing larger every passing week with child. Violet felt some guilt for allowing it to continue when she had nothing to offer in return, but at the same time she was grateful for whatever prompted it. It soothed the feelings of desertion that sometimes crept in upon her and helped make the days pass.

Then came the winter rains.

The ocher and rust of the Tuscan hills turned gray, as gray as Violet’s spirits. She stood one morning at the window of a small back bedchamber that she intended as a nursery, one that overlooked the path leading alongside the outside wall of the garden and down to the kitchen garden and stables. The rain had stopped, though the eaves of the house still dripped and the wind whipped fat drops from the tree limbs. Below her, Giovanni left the stable with a wheelbarrow loaded with stable straw that he was spreading under the roses in the garden. She lifted a hand to wave as he inclined his head in greeting. He turned to push open the gate in the garden wall and disappeared inside.

Behind her, Giovanni’s mother, who was helping clean out the room, said, “He’s a good boy, a hard worker, but he has a head full of nonsense and big ideas.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without him these last weeks.”

Maria fluffed the feather pillow she was holding with more violence than seemed necessary. “Yes, you have much need. But I beg of you, take care. My Giovanni knows with his head that you belong to the Signor Massari, but not, perhaps, with his heart.”

“Maria,” Violet said in surprise, turning to face the other woman, “only look at me. I’m in no shape to appeal to a man.”

“You have not grown ugly just because you are with child, my lady, and you are much alone and in need of protection. Giovanni sees these things.”

Her voice low, Violet said, “I don’t mean to encourage him.”

“You do that by remaining here without your man.”

“I would rather not be here alone, but I have no place else to go.” Violet hesitated before she went on. “What am I going to do, Maria, if he doesn’t return?”

“I don’t know, my lady. There is money, that is — you have means to live?”

“Oh, yes,” Violet said tightly, “only nothing to live for.”

“Don’t say that!” Maria put her hands on her ample hips. “You have the bambino, and that is something very great. You must not make noises about not living, about death, or your baby will be marked by these terrible thoughts. You must be serene so the little one will be well and content.”

“That’s easy to say. Suppose — suppose Allain hasn’t come back because he’s hurt? Or worse? Suppose he has been dead for weeks, but there is no one to tell me, no one who knows I am waiting here?”

“There’s time enough to think of such things if they happen, and no need to waste your strength fretting over them if they don’t.”

“I have to think of them. I have to decide what I’ll do.”

“You will do nothing until the bambino comes; that much is only wise. The signor was so excited, so proud to be a father; surely he will return for the birth if he has breath in his body.”

“And if he doesn’t, what will I do? Where will I go for help?”

“You will go nowhere, my lady, for I will come to you. You will send Giovanni for me; that is why he is here. And you are not to worry, I have had six children of my own and brought many more into the world. All will be well.”

The autumn wore on. Reports from the Battle of Alma in the far-off Crimea claimed an allied victory. As more news trickled in, however, it became plain that it had been a costly and bungled fight.

The allies began a bombardment of Sevastopol, Russia’s main port on the Black Sea, in mid-October. However, the French magazine blew up, and a final assault was postponed. This allowed time for increased defenses by the Russians. As a result the allies settled in for the prolonged siege that appeared necessary to take the city.

The Russians counterattacked at the main supply depot of the allies at Balaklava. During this engagement confusion in the relaying of orders given by the English high command resulted in a suicide charge led by Lord Cardigan’s Light Brigade. The carnage was horrendous, but the incredible display of courage, aided by reinforcements of French cavalry, carried the day.

Some ten days later, in the midst of morning fog and rain, the Russians attacked the Anglo-French forces besieging Sevastopol. When the retreat was finally sounded, thirteen thousand men were dead.

Shortly afterward, the British supply ships, bringing not only arms and ammunition but food and medicine and winter uniforms, foundered in a storm in the Black Sea. The allied army went into winter quarters, waiting for springtime to resume active hostilities.

In the midst of the early Pyrrhic victories, a dispatch was sent by the war correspondent of the
London Times
detailing the horrible conditions prevailing in the British military hospitals. A woman named Nightingale was sent, along with thirty-eight female nurses and a commission from the secretary of war, to improve matters. She arrived in the Crimea just in time to set to work receiving the accumulated wounded from the fall battle, and to become a heroine in the press for her efforts toward saving lives.

So it went, bad news and good, as the season advanced and the long gray chill of winter closed in. The villa took on the smoke smell of wood fires, also the scent of drying herbs and curing garlic from the loose bundles and strings hanging from the kitchen rafters. These scents combined with the rich aroma of meat broth and pasta from Maria’s huge iron stove. Maria taught Violet to knit, and together they made dainty little blankets and booties that Violet embroidered with tiny flowers. And she and Giovanni also made perfume.

He came across the formula one day where it was lying in Violet’s chair in the salon. Violet had used the back of the piece of paper to write down the pattern for the baby blanket she was making. Giovanni picked it up and began to read it aloud.

“This is the perfume you wear?” he asked after a moment, glancing at her from under his curling lashes.

“The one I had been wearing. There are only a few drops left, and I’m saving them.”

He nodded in perfect understanding. “For when the signor returns. But it would not be hard to make more.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

“The rose oil, I have. The others can be found at the shop of the apothecary in Florence, most of them. One, perhaps two, may have to come from Rome, but that would not take long.”

“You are sure?” she said, an arrested expression on her face.