Bartering Her Innocence (13 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

L
UCA
had figured a chartered jet should give him a fighting chance of catching her given a commercial flight’s connections along the route. A chartered jet, a fast car and a GPS set for somewhere called Junee, New South Wales—with any luck he’d be right behind her.

So when he arrived at the gate marked ‘Magpie Springs’ and rattled the car across the cattle grid, he thought he’d done it, that soon he would see her. That soon he would have a chance to make up for it all.

He followed the bumpy dirt track, sheep scattering in his path and increasingly wondering where the hell any house might be and if he’d taken a wrong turn, when he rounded a bend and there was the house, nestled under a stand of old shade trees.

He pulled the BMW to a stop, sending up a cloud of dust that floated on the air. He climbed from the car, never more acutely aware of the expanse of blue sky than at this far-flung end of the world, and an October that felt more like April to him, with its promise of coming heat rather than a final farewell in the sun’s rays.

A screen door opened and a man emerged, letting the door slam shut behind him. Tall, rangy and sun-drenched, he stopped to assess the new arrival, his eyes missing nothing.
Her father
, he guessed, and felt himself stand taller under his scrutiny.

‘
Signore
—Mr Henderson?’

‘Are you that Luca fella my Tina’s been talking about?’

He felt an unfamiliar stab of insecurity.
What had she told him?

‘I am he,’ he said, introducing himself properly as he held out his hand.

The other man regarded it solemnly for just a moment longer than Luca would have liked, before taking it in his, a work-callused hand, the skin of his forearm darker even than Luca’s, but with a distinct line where his tan ended where his shirt sleeve ended between shoulder and elbow.

‘I’m here to see Valentina.’

The older man regarded him levelly, giving him the opportunity to find the resemblance, finding it in a place that made the connection unmistakable—in his amber eyes—darker than Valentina’s, almost caramel, but her eyes nonetheless.

‘Even if I wanted to let you see her,’ he started in his lazy drawl, and Luca felt a mental,
male
!, ‘she’s not here. You’ve missed her.’

Panic squeezed Luca’s lungs. He’d been so desperate to track her home to Australia, he’d never thought for a moment she’d take off for somewhere else. ‘Where has she gone?’

Her father thought about that for a moment and Luca felt as if he were being slowly tortured. ‘Sydney,’ he finally said. ‘A couple of hours ago. But she wouldn’t tell me where or why. Only that it was important.’

Luca knew where and he had a pretty good idea why.

‘I have to find her,’ he said, already turning for the car. If she was two hours ahead he could still miss her...

‘Before you go...’ he heard behind him.

‘Yes?’

‘Tina was bloody miserable when she came home. I only let her get on that bus because she insisted.’ He hesitated a moment there, letting the tension draw out. ‘Just don’t send her home any more miserable, all right?’

Luca nodded, understanding. There was an implicit threat in his words, a threat that told him that this time was for keeps. ‘I can’t guarantee anything, but I will do my best.’ And then, because he owed it to the man who had been prepared to put his own property on the line to bail out a sinking Lily, even when there was no way he could, ‘I love your daughter, Signore Henderson,’ he said, astounding himself by the truth of it. ‘I want to marry her.’

‘Is that so?’ her father said, scratching his whiskered chin. ‘Then let’s hope, if you find her, that that’s what she wants too.’

* * *

The cemetery sat high on a hill leading down to a cliff top overlooking a cerulean sea that stretched from the horizon and crashed to foaming white on the cliff face below. The waves were wild today, smashing against the rocks and turning to spray that flew high on a wind that gusted and whipped at her hair and clothes.

Tina turned her face into the spray as another wave boomed onto the rocks below, and drank in the scent of air and sea and salt. She’d always loved it here, ever since her father had brought her here as a child for their seaside holiday and he’d wondered at the endless sea while they’d wandered along the cliff-top path.

They’d come across the cemetery back then, wandering its endless pathways and reading the history of the region in its gravestones. Then it had been a fascination, now it was something more than just a cemetery with a view, she thought, reminded of another time, another cemetery, that one with a stunning view of Venice through its tall iron gates.

She wandered along a pathway between old graves with stones leaning at an angle or covered in lichen towards a newer section of the cemetery, where stones were brighter, the flowers fresher.

She found it there and felt the same tug of disbelief—the same pang of pain—she felt whenever she saw it, the simple heart-shaped stone beneath which her tiny child was buried, the simple iron lace-work around the perimeter.

She knelt down to the sound of the cry of gulls and the crash of waves against the cliffs. ‘Hello, Leo,’ she said softly. ‘It’s Mummy.’ Her voice cracked on the word and she had to stop and take a deep breath before she could continue. ‘I’ve brought you a present.’

Bubble wrap gave way to tissue paper as she carefully unwrapped the tiny gift. ‘It’s a horse,’ she said, holding the glass up to the sunlight to check it for fingerprints. ‘All the way from Venice. I saw a man make one from a fistful of sand.’

She placed it softly in the lawn at the base of the simple stone. ‘Oh, you should have seen it, Leo, it was magical, the way he turned the rod and shaped the glass. It was so clever, and I thought how much you would have enjoyed it. And I thought how you should have such a horse yourself.’

* * *

He watched her from a distance, wanting to call out to her with relief before she disappeared again, but he saw her kneel down and he knew why.

His son’s grave.

Something yawned open inside him, a chasm so big and empty he could not contemplate how it could ever be filled.

From his vantage point, he saw her lips move, saw her work something in her hands, saw the glint of sunlight on glass and felt the hiss of his breath through his teeth—heard the crunch of gravel underfoot as his feet moved forward of their own accord.

She heard it too, ignored it for a second and then glanced his way, glanced again, her eyes widening in shock, her face bleaching white when she realised who it was.

‘Hello, Valentina,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I’ve come to meet my son.’

She didn’t reply, whether from the shock of his sudden appearance or because there was nothing to say. He looked down at the stone, at its simple words.

Leo Henderson Barbarigo
, it read, together with a date and, beneath it, the words:
Another angel in heaven.

And even though he’d known, even though it had made his job easier to find the grave, it still staggered him. ‘You gave him my name.’

‘He’s your son too.’

His son.

And he fell to his knees and felt the tears fall for all that had been lost.

She let him cry. She said nothing, did nothing, but when finally he looked up, he saw the tracks of her own tears down her cheeks.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ The words were anguished, wrenched from a place deep inside him, but still loaded with accusation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

She didn’t flinch from his charges. ‘I was going to,’ she said, her voice tight, ‘when our child was born. I was going to let you know you were a father.’ Sadly she shook her head. ‘Then there didn’t seem any point.’ She shrugged helplessly and he could see her pain in the awkward movement. And in this moment, under the weight of his guilt, he felt just as awkward.

‘In Venice,’ he started, ‘I said some dreadful things. I accused you of dreadful deeds.’

‘It was a shock. You didn’t know.’

‘Please, Valentina, do not feel you must make excuses for me. I didn’t listen. You tried to tell me and I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to listen. It was unforgivable of me.’ He shook his head. ‘But now, knowing that he was stolen from us before his time, can you tell me the rest? Can you tell me what happened?’

She blinked and looked heavenwards, swiping at her cheek with the fingers of one hand. ‘There’s not a lot to tell. Everything was going to plan. Everything was as it should be. But at twenty weeks, the pains started. I thought that it must have been something I’d eaten, some kind of food poisoning, that it would go away. But it got worse and worse and then I started to bleed and I was so afraid. The doctors did everything they could, but our baby was coming and they couldn’t stop it.’ She squeezed her hands into balls in her lap, squeezed her eyes shut so hard he could feel her pain. ‘Nothing they did could stop it.’

‘Valentina...’

‘And it hurt so much, so much more than it should, for the doctors and midwives there too, because everyone knew there was nothing they could do to save him. He was too early. Too tiny, even though his heart was beating and he was breathing and his eyes blinked open and looked up at me.’

She smiled up at him then, her eyes spilling over with tears. ‘He was beautiful, Luca, you should have seen him. His skin was almost translucent, and his tiny hand wrapped around my little finger, trying to hold on.’

Her smile faded. ‘But he couldn’t hold on. Not for long. And all I could do was cuddle our baby while his breathing slowed and slowed until he took one final, brave little breath...’

Oh God, he thought. Their baby had died in her arms after he had been born.

Oh God.

‘Who was with you?’ he whispered, thinking it should have been him. ‘Your father? Lily? A friend?’

She shook her head and whispered, ‘No one.’

And through the rising bubble of injustice he felt at the thought that she had been alone, he thought of the man on the farm who had no idea why his daughter had suddenly rushed off to Sydney barely a moment after she’d arrived. ‘Your father didn’t know?’

‘I couldn’t bear to tell him. I was so ashamed when I found out I was pregnant. I couldn’t bear to admit that I, the product of a one-night stand, had turned around and made the same mistake my parents had. So I went back to university and hid and pretended it wasn’t happening. And afterwards...well, afterwards...I couldn’t bear to think about it, let alone tell anyone else.’ She looked up at him with plaintive eyes. ‘Do you understand? Can you try to understand?’

‘You should have told me. I should have been there. You should not have been alone.’

She gave a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. ‘Because you would have so welcomed that call, to tell you I was pregnant, that you would have rushed to be by my side.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

And he hated her words but he knew what she said was true.

‘No,’ she continued, ‘I would have told you. Once the baby was born. But my parents married because of me, and look how that turned out, and I didn’t want to be forced into something I didn’t want, and I didn’t want you to think you were being forced into something you didn’t want.’

‘You said that,’ he said, remembering that night in Venice when she had so vehemently stated that a baby was no reason for marriage. ‘So you waited.’

She nodded and swallowed, her chin kicking high into the stiff wind. ‘Well, maybe...maybe also in part because I was in no hurry to see you again anyway after the way we had parted. But I knew I would have to tell you once he was born.’ She stopped and breathed deep as she looked down at the tiny grave framed in iron lace. ‘But when he came too early...when Leo died...I thought that would be the end of it. That there was no point...’

She shook her head, the ends of her hair whipped like a halo around her head as she looked across at him, the pain of loss etched deep in her amber eyes. ‘But it wasn’t. And I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m so sorry. Everything I’ve done seems to have turned out badly.’

‘No,’ he said with a sigh, gazing down at her while another set of waves crashed into the rocks behind, almost drowning his voice in the roar. ‘I believe that’s my territory.’

She blinked over watery eyes, confusion warring with the pain of loss.

‘Come,’ he said, tugging her by her hand to her feet. ‘Come and walk with me a while. I need to talk to you and I’m not sure Leo would want to hear it.’

With the merest nod of her head, she let him lead her down through the cemetery, to where the cliff walk widened into a viewing platform that clung to the edge of the world and where the teeming surf smashed against the rocks with a booming roar.

She blinked into the wind, half wondering if she was dreaming, if she’d imagined him here with the power of her grief, but no, just a glance sideways confirmed it was no dream. He stood solid alongside her, his face so stern as he gazed over the edge of the continent, it could have been carved out of the stone wall of the cliffs.

It was good to see him again.

It was good he’d come to meet his son.

It hurt that he hadn’t said he’d come to see her but it was good he had come. One final chance to clear the air surrounding their baby’s brief existence.

Maybe now they could both move on.

Maybe.

They stood together in a silence of their own thoughts all framed by the roar and crash of water while Luca wondered where to begin. There was so much he had to explain, so much to make up for. The spray was refreshing against his skin, salty like his tears, but cleansing too. Strange he should think that, when he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.

And with a crunching of gears inside his boarded up heart, he did.

When the news had come of his parents’ deaths that foggy night when their water taxi had crashed into a craft with a broken light.

So many years ago and yet the pain felt so raw, unleashed by whatever had unlocked his heart.