An Inheritance of Shame(49)

Just like he’d told Lucia, he couldn’t escape that old feeling. Here he was once again that foolish boy, ragged and angry, whom everybody had ignored or dismissed. He felt the frustration boil up inside him along with the determination to not be that boy again. Lucia didn’t seem to want him to be different, but he needed to be. Needed to be someone who would stand up to the Correttis, who would count—

‘Stop here,’ Lucia said softly, and he glanced at her in surprise for they were still at the top end of the village’s main street, at least a quarter of a mile from her house. Then he saw they were outside the church, and realisation slammed into his chest, rocked him to the core.

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded, and he parked the car on the kerb. The air was dry and still as they climbed out of the car, and although he couldn’t see a single person on the narrow, winding street, he could feel the prying eyes, the pursed lips. How many people were peering out at them from behind latticed shutters, recognising him as the Corretti bastard they’d once ignored and reviled?

And how many people recognised Lucia as the woman who had borne his child, people who would never see her as anything else?

Dio, he wanted so much more for her. He wanted to give it to her. Why couldn’t she understand that? Accept it?

He turned to her now, saw her face was pale and set. Before last night he’d never considered what life must have been like for her after he’d left. She would have been pregnant, unwed, alone. In a tiny place like Caltarione life must have been intolerable. His throat thickened and at first words wouldn’t come.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she turned to stare at him.

‘What for?’

He saw the wariness enter her eyes, her body tensing in expectation. Afraid—of what? That he would let her down now, already? ‘For not being here when you were pregnant. And, I suppose, for not even thinking about how hard it must have been for you in a place like this. Not until you told me.’ She shrugged and he asked quietly, ‘Was it very hard?’

‘It was worth it.’

‘Even though—’

‘Yes,’ she cut him off with a quiet certainty. ‘Even though.’

He felt the thickness in his throat again, the moisture in his eyes. What was happening to him? How had he become this weak wreck of a man, devastated by emotion?

‘Let’s go,’ Lucia said, and she took his hand, her own hand cold in his. Silently she led him around the side of the church and into the cemetery behind, past the older headstones now weathered and worn, some toppled over, to a small garden in the back built into the hillside with just a few small headstones. And there, in the corner, a small rectangle of white marble commemorated his child.

Angelo stared at the few, heartbreakingly simple words. Angelica. Molto amata. Much loved.

He reached out and laid one hand on the marble headstone; it was warm from the sun. He felt tears again, harder this time to ignore. He couldn’t speak; he was slain by weakness. He should have been here. He should have been here for Angelica, for Lucia.

Then he felt her arm slide around his waist and she laid her head on his shoulder, her touch like a healing balm. He took a shuddering breath.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.

‘I know,’ Lucia answered softly. ‘But I didn’t bring you here to open up the wounds of the past, Angelo. I brought you here to heal them. To look towards the future.’ She spoke tremulously; he felt her uncertainty.

The future. The future scared him, and he suspected it scared her too. What could a future with Lucia look like? A future with love in it, a life he was afraid of because he didn’t really believe it could ever be his? It never had been before.

The sun had started to sink behind the church and the cemetery was lost in shadows. Angelo turned away from his daughter’s grave.

‘We should go,’ he said, and silently Lucia followed him back to the car.

An hour later, having dropped her off at her apartment, Angelo strode into his office above the Corretti Hotel. He felt restless, edgy, unfulfilled. The afternoon with Lucia had opened up old wounds, new doubts. He craved being with her, even as he hated the weakness of that craving. The need it showed in him, a need that could surely never be filled.

All you were meant to be was a stain on the sheets.

His father’s sneering voice.

You were a mistake, Angelo. It would have been better if you’d never lived.

His grandparents, sighing with weary defeat.