A Heart Most Worthy (21 page)

She whirled around, pushed open the door, and took to the steps with great strides, pounding up the stairs. Four flights of them. By the time she reached the top, he was lagging three flights behind. “Wait! Stop!”

“You wanted to see? Well, then, look!”

Her neighbors, hearing the shouts, had come to their doors. They stood there, clad in dirtied aprons, children on their hips and behind their skirts. Nothing much ever happened up on the fifth floor, and this Signorina? She hardly ever spoke, though they’d assumed she was Italian. So to hear her yelling? In some strange language? Well, that was just too good to miss!

Luciana turned her key with a violent wrench and threw the door open, disappearing within. But still she shouted, though only Billy could understand. “Here. This. This is where I live. This is where I am from!”

By then he’d jogged up to the fifth floor, leaving a trail of slack-jawed immigrant women in his wake. By then she’d realized he wasn’t behind her and so she’d gone back out into the hall for him. He wanted to see? Then she’d drag him in by the ear if she had to! “You wanted to see where I live? Then come in and look!”

He’d stopped, not so certain now what he wanted. He’d thought – he’d hoped! – to see pleasure, delight even, in her eyes. Not anger. But he was here now. There was no point in turning around.

“This,” Luciana said, walking to the sideboard, gesturing toward it with a sweep of her hand. “This is where I make our meals.” She spun to the table. “And this is where we eat them. And there is where the c – my grandmother sits all day while I work. And in there” – she pointed to the door – “is where we sleep.”

“Stop that racket, ragazza! Can’t an old woman sit in peace?”

“And that is my grandmother.”

“Who is it, ragazza?”

“It’s a gentleman. Herr Quinn.”

Upon hearing his name, Billy stepped forward, bowed, took up the contessa’s hand, and kissed it.

She smiled slightly, her eyes suspiciously clear. And then she gave him a wink!

Hiding an answering smile, he straightened, looking back at Luciana. He might have laughed, but his mirth died the instant he looked into her eyes.

If she’d had the luxury of privacy, she might have sunk to the floor and wept. She would have wept for herself. For her father and her grandmother and for all that had been lost. She would have wept for her future as well. A future that could never include a man like the one who now stood before her. But you see, her breeding did not allow for such selfish displays of emotion, and certainly not in front of a man like Billy Quinn. So she stood by her bare sideboard and stared straight into his eyes, and she dared him to say what she had known all along: She was not worthy of him. Not any longer.

She was filthy, dirty, and shiftless. She was scum.

But Billy didn’t know any of that. And he would never have imagined those words in conjunction with her. He only knew that she was distressed. So he violated every rule known to polite society. In both his world and in hers. He stepped around the table and took her into his arms.

Bent on maintaining control, she clenched her hands against the emotions that raged inside of her. But it was useless. She burst into tears anyway. And then she lifted her arms and clasped them about his waist.

“It’s all right.” He murmured the words into her hair and then pulled her closer. “Everything will be all right.” As he spoke the words, he discovered that they were a promise. It was both exhilarating and terrifying to find that he cared so much for her. He pressed a kiss to her temple and then laid his cheek against her hair. “It will be all right.”

She knew it wouldn’t. Nothing would ever be right again. But she stayed there in his arms for a while, pretending that it was true. And the contessa continued staring out the window, the faintest of smiles upon her lips and the tiniest of twinkles in her eyes.

31

That evening, as Mama was cooking, Annamaria dropped first one and then two apples off the fire escape and watched as they tumbled into the alley below. They weren’t rotten. No. They were nearly as fresh as they had been when she’d bought them at Zanfini’s. But she yearned to see Rafaello again. And she couldn’t think of any other way to be able to do it.

“Annamaria!”

“Mama?”

“Where are my apples?”

“What apples, Mama?”

“I thought I had four apples.”

Annamaria shrugged.

“Didn’t I have four apples?” She sighed. Put a wrist up to her forehead and pushed a few gray wisps of hair aside. “You’ll have to go get me two more.”

It was difficult to keep from smiling. Surely God would forgive her the deception. She wanted to see Rafaello. She needed to see him. She had to know that somewhere there was someone in the world who liked her for who she was and not for what she did. And she still had the money for the cherries, wrapped in a handkerchief, pinned into her pocket.

She felt like dancing as she crossed the street, but she didn’t. And she felt like running into Rafaello’s arms when she saw him, standing behind the counter, but she didn’t do that either.

Another girl had reached him first.

He had stretched out his hand to push a tear-soaked lock of hair from her face. And then he picked her up and set her on the counter. She was sobbing as if her heart were breaking. Or at the very least, her pride.

Rafaello pulled her close against his chest. “Hush now, Eva.

What’s happened?”

Only eight years old, she put a grubby fist up to her face to rub away the tears, but only succeeded in smearing dirt across her cheek.

Rafaello lifted the hem of his apron and wiped the dirt away.

“What happened, cara mia?”

She held out a tattered ribbon. “He ripped it out of my hair.”

“He who?”

“Beppe Bertolino.”

He scowled. “Beppe Bertolino is nothing but a troublemaker.”

“Why does he always do that?”

Rafaello looked into her tear-soaked eyes. Sighed. Looked over the girl’s shoulder at Annamaria. “Because he thinks you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, but he doesn’t have the words to say it.”

A blush crept up Annamaria’s cheeks.

“So he takes my hair ribbon?”

“Hush. Give it to me. I’ll put it back in.” He fumbled with it for a few moments before finally tying it in a loose, if lopsided, bow.

Annamaria tried not to smile.

He hefted Eva beneath the arms and set her back on the floor.

“I’d steal Beppe Bertolino’s ribbons if he ever wore any!”

“It’s not very nice to steal from people.”

“Then what am I supposed to do? To get even?”

“I’ll take care of everything. I’ll put his name on my list.”

“What list?”

“The list of all the little boys who have stolen your hair ribbons. Then, in six or seven years, when they come around wanting to court you, I’ll say, ‘I’m very sorry, but you’re one of those wicked little boys who stole Eva’s ribbons. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.’ ”

“Could you maybe kick him while you say it? In the kneecaps?

Because that really hurts.”

He leveled a look at her.

“I wish you weren’t so nice all the time.” She grabbed a peach from a basket. “But I’m glad you’re my brother!” She smiled at him and then skipped out the door.

He shook his head as he watched her go. And then he stepped out from behind the counter. Noticed Annamaria smiling. Smiled in return. “So. You are . . . happy?”

She blushed at the memory of the last time she had seen him. At the tears that had coursed down her face. As he stared into her eyes, she didn’t know what to say. She was more than happy to be standing there. With him. She might have stayed there forever! But she was more than sad to know that he could never be hers.

She wasn’t truly happy. He could see it in her eyes. But he didn’t know what to do about it, so he asked the only other question he had a right to. “What do I get for you?”

What did . . . ? She blinked. Remembered. “Apples. Two.”

“Two apples.”

He walked back behind the counter and picked out two apples.

“I have something. For you . . .” She drew the handkerchief from her pocket, fumbled with the pin, and held out the money to him.

“What is this?”

“For the cherries.”

For a moment, he was mystified, but then his face cleared.

“They are my gift to you. I don’t want money.”

She shook her head.

“But, sì. A gift. From me. To you.”

She’d been showered with gifts ever since she’d first met him. With his glances. With his smiles. With his . . . concern.

“Grazie.”

“I just wish . . . I wish you were happy.”

She didn’t dare to meet his eyes after that, but she left Zanfini’s with a smile on her face. Which was tempered as she crossed the street by the knowledge that some wishes weren’t meant to come true.

As Billy walked into the Quinn mansion that evening, the butler told him that he was wanted by his mother. As he walked into the understatedly elegant world of her sitting room, he observed her pacing in front of the window.

That was unusual.

Mrs. Quinn took to her sitting room each day in order to undertake the enormous volume of correspondence that was her work. Unless she was out attending a rally, making visits to charities – or visiting her gown maker – she sat at her desk, writing letters, dictating notes, and holding conferences with her associates until that work was done.

A cough from the other corner of the room made him turn his head.

Father! Since when had he ever come home so early in the evening?

Mrs. Quinn gave a cry when she saw him. Hurried forward to place a letter in his hand.

He noted the return address. Raised a brow. Borrowed a letter opener from his mother’s desk and slit the envelope. A single thin piece of parchment slid out into his hand.

He read it not once but three times. Each time served to dissipate the memory of his visit to Luciana’s and the memory of holding her in his arms. Three times he read it, and then he held it out toward his mother. “I’ve been drafted.”

Mrs. Quinn reached for the letter with a trembling hand, not wanting to believe him. Not willing to accept what she already knew to be true; what she had been told in a personal telephone call by the head of the draft board. She began to read it aloud.

“ ‘Notice of Call and To Appear for Physical Examination To: William Patrick Quinn Boston, Massachusetts You are hereby notified that pursuant to the act of Congress approved May 18, 1917, you are called for military service – ’ ”

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t read any further.

Patrick Quinn came to her side and placed an arm around her shoulders.

She wanted, more than anything, to turn in toward his warmth. To accept his comfort. But she couldn’t. There was too much that had to be done. “There’s a physical examination first.

That’s what it says.”

Billy nodded. “On September tenth.”

“You’ve always been a bit knock-kneed, haven’t you?”

“Mother, I hardly think that – ”

“And you’re terribly hard of hearing. Ever since you were a child.” She glanced up toward her husband, looking for support.

“Don’t you remember? He always has been. He was.”

“I am not!”

“Then why did you never come when I called?”

Mr. Quinn attempted to take her by the elbow, to steer her toward a chair.

She shook him off. “Stop! Just stop. There must be something we can do. You’ll just tell them that – ”

“Mother. I’ve been drafted. There’s nothing to be done. I’ve been called upon to do my duty.”

“Duty? Duty! To send you to some foreign country to die in some godforsaken place? For no good reason at all?”

“I’m not planning on dying.”

“No one plans on dying!”

Billy laid a hand on her arm.

She clutched at it. Couldn’t imagine what would happen if – no. She couldn’t think it. She wouldn’t think it. She could do anything,
would
do anything, but send her son off to war.

“We’ll send you to Mexico! We can do that, Patrick, can’t we?

I’ll have the butler pack you up right now, and we’ll put you on the train. Or maybe we can hire an aeroplane.” The sooner out of the country, the better.

“I’m not going to Mexico.”

“But you can take a . . . what do they call them? A villa! You can take a villa there. And stay for as long as you want. Until the war ends.”

“Mother.”

“The butler can have you packed. I’ll have the cook send you with a hamper of food. And – and we can send you money, can’t we do that, Patrick? There must be some way to have it wired.”

“I’m going to keep the appointment for the examination on the tenth and if I pass – and there’s no reason I won’t – I’ll be joining the army.”

“Fine. Fine.” He could join the army if he wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Patrick.” She laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “You can get him a job in the War Office, can’t you? Ring up the secretary and tell him you need a favor. You’ve done plenty of them for him. It’s past time they were reciprocated.”

Billy wished he could take his mother by the shoulders and shake her, but she’d already retreated to her desk. “I’ll have no one in this house making me out to be a coward. I’m an American.

It’s my duty. And it’s my right. If they ask me to fight, then I will.

Don’t ask me to do anything less.”

“But – ”

Billy stalked from the room. He couldn’t stay and watch his mother cry. I’m sure you’ll understand that he had too many fears of his own to be able to stay and listen to hers. What did he know about guns and wars and fighting? Some of his friends had gone down to Mexico. He always wondered what would happen if his draft number were picked. If he would join them too. Now that it had happened, he had discovered something about himself that both fascinated and appalled him.

He wanted to fight.

Billy spent that night awake, thinking. Planning. Dreaming. There were things that had to be done before he left. And he intended that not one of them be left undone. He started to work accomplishing them the next morning when he greeted Madame Fortier at the shop’s door.

“Mr. Quinn!” She assumed that he must be there about the jewels. Somehow the strega must have found out! In her fear she released the shop key back into her bag, and had to fish for it all over again.

He grabbed her by the arm, interrupting her efforts once more. She looked up into those wide green eyes, which had always seemed so familiar.

“I need your help!”

What was – ? Help? He needed
her
help?

“I need you to send Luciana up to the house again.”

Then he wasn’t there about the jewels? And he wanted Luciana? “Why?” There was suspicion in her eyes.

“I’m being drafted. And she’s become . . . very dear to me.”

Dear? She’d become the entire world to him.

To his great surprise, tears had softened Madame’s eyes. She grabbed at his arm. “Not you!”

He was moved by her emotion. And slightly embarrassed.

“Yes. Me along with many others.”

She swallowed the lump that had swelled in her throat.

Blinked back those foolish tears. “Of course, of course. So. You want to see Luciana.”

He nodded.

“And your intentions?”

“They’re the most honorable of kinds.”