Widow - Anne Stuart [7]
“But surely you can wait a week? Your mother won’t even be able to come with you.”
Charlie didn’t blink. Olivia’s hectic schedule was one of her own reasons for haste. The more time she had at La Colombala without her mother’s overwhelming presence, the happier she’d be.
But of course, Henry would be horrified if she said any such thing. Olivia seemed to approve of Henry as her second son-in-law, and he was determined to keep that approval. He would never even begin to comprehend the tension that lay between mother and daughter, and Charlie had no interest in enlightening him.
“But she’ll be following soon,” she said in her calm voice. “And really, I don’t know why you think I’m such a fragile creature. I’ve been an independent woman for years now, and I’m perfectly capable of taking care of things. Lauretta is still there, and so are most of the others. They were always devoted to Pompasse, and he looked after them. He’ll have left them well-provided for. I think they’d want his estate settled quickly.”
“You’ll be selling the villa,” Henry said, only the trace of a question in his voice. “You could get a pretty penny for it, given how popular Tuscany is nowadays. And even that ruin behind the farmhouse will add to the value.”
“Of course,” she said. There was no alternative—it was hideously expensive to keep up, and her life was in New York now. With Henry. What did she need a rambling farmhouse in Tuscany for?
For the light, a tiny voice whispered inside her. For the scent of the air and cool evenings and the luscious grapes. For the first place you ever felt safe.
But she was a practical woman now, and she made practical choices. “Of course,” she said again, trying to convince herself. “As soon as the estate is settled.”
Had she imagined it, or was there a tiny sigh of relief from Henry? It didn’t matter. He smiled at her approvingly. “And I’ll do everything I can to help you, darling. We might even get married there, if you’d like.”
She’d rather eat fried tarantulas, but she wasn’t about to say so. She’d married Pompasse in the grape arbor in the hot Italian sunshine. She wasn’t going to start her life with Henry the same way.
But Henry was looking at her as if he’d offered her a great treat, and she remembered his almost childlike awe of Pompasse, combined with a lawyerly disapproval of Pompasse’s flagrant lifestyle and his own protectiveness toward Charlie. He’d like nothing better than to marry Pompasse’s wife in Pompasse’s vineyard, and it would take everything she had to convince him it was a bad idea.
“We’ll talk about it,” she said. And then she tensed.
Her mother was bearing down on her, a determined expression marring the perfect planes of her face. Her green gown flowed around her model-thin figure, but for once Olivia wasn’t concentrating on her performance. Something unpleasant had happened, and Charlie held her breath, half waiting for Olivia to make a dramatic announcement.
“Did Henry tell you?” she hissed. Only her mother could manage to hiss a sentence without any esses in it.
“Tell her what?” Henry demanded.
“That bastard Pompasse,” Olivia said bitterly, snagging a glass of wine from a passing waiter.
“He’s dead, Mother,” Charlie said calmly.
“But he’s not finished messing up my life,” Olivia said, with a blatant disregard for her own daughter’s well-being.
“What’s happened now?”
“He never divorced you,” Olivia said flatly. “He never signed the damned papers.” She drained her champagne glass and set it down hard on the marble-topped credenza. “Here’s to Charlie, the happy widow,” she muttered. “Looks like this time she hasn’t landed on her feet.”
“And this is a problem?” Charlie asked.
“You’re inheriting his debts as well, darling. Which might amount to a hell of a lot more than his meager estate, since a number of his most important paintings are missing. He always lived the high life, and now it looks like you’ll be paying for it. You’ll lose the restaurant.”
“Don’t be absurd, Olivia,” Henry said after a brief silence. “Even if they were never divorced they were legally separated.