Page 9 of Dark Tides
“My title, and my married name.”
The widow saw her mother-in-law’s hand tighten on the beautiful lace trim of the white gown. “I’ll call him Matteo, like you,” was all that the older woman said.
“I hope it will comfort you, that though you have lost a son, I have brought your grandson to you?”
“I don’t think…”
“You don’t think…?” the Italian woman repeated, almost as if she were daring Alinor to finish her thought. “What don’t you think, Nonna? I shall call you dearest grandmother, you are his only grandmother!”
“I don’t think that one child can take the place of another. Nor would I wish it.”
“Oh! But to watch him grow up! An English boy in his father’s country? Won’t that joy take away the pain of your loss? Of our loss?”
Alinor said nothing, and the widow sensed that her lilting voice was somehow off key. “I must not tire you with my baby, and my sorrows.”
“You don’t tire me,” Alinor said gently, giving the baby back to her. “And I’m glad that you have come and brought your son. I’m sorry we’re not made ready for you. We only just got your letters. But you must have a home here as long as you want. Rob wrote that you have no family of your own?”
“No one,” she said swiftly. “I have no one. I am an orphan. I have no one but you!”
“Then you shall stay as long as you wish, I’m only sorry that we don’t have more to offer you.”
The widow did not allow herself to glance around the room which was obviously a workplace, a sitting room, and a bedroom in one. “I want only to be with you. Is this your only house? What about your home in the country?”
“This is all we have.”
“All I want is here,” she breathed. “All I want is to live with you and with my sister, Alys.”
Alinor nodded; but said nothing.
“Will you bless me?” her daughter-in-law prompted. “And call me Livia? And may I call you Mamma? May I call youMia Suocera,my mother-in-law?”
Alinor’s face paled as she closed her lips on a refusal. “Yes,” she said. “Of course. God bless you, daughter.”
The two young women dined alone in the parlor while the maid took a tray up the narrow stairs for Alinor. The nursemaid ate in the kitchen, sulking that there was no servants’ hall. She took the baby under one arm and her candle in her hand and went up the narrow wooden stairs, to the first-floor bedroom, opposite the big front room that Alinor seldom left.
“Your mother is ill?” Livia asked Alys. “Roberto never told me she was so very ill.”
“She had an accident,” Alys replied.
Livia shook her head. “Ah, how sad. Just recently?”
“No, it was many years ago.”
“But she will recover?”
“She can walk out in fine weather, but she gets very tired. She prefers to rest in her room.”
“Oh, so sad! And she must have been a beautiful woman! To be struck down so!”
“Yes,” said Alys shortly.
“Roberto never told me! He should have told me!”
“It was—” Alys broke off. She thought she could not answer for her brother to this exotic bride he had chosen. “It was a great shock to us all. We never spoke of it. We never speak of it at all.”
The Nobildonna considered this for a moment. “An accident too terrible to discuss?”
“Exactly.”
