Glittering Promises (10 page)

I nodded. “I would love time in Tuscany,” I said, suddenly longing for Dunnigan, for the smell of just-turned soil and water, fresh from the well, sloshing about a metal bucket. Idyllic, rolling hills, covered in crops of wheat or grapes, might be just what I needed.

“But to see the sea again,” Lillian said dreamily. “Can we not go there first?”

Vivian nodded beside her, even as Andrew rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, as if this was all foolishness. He’d been exceedingly grumpy ever since Venice, and they’d taken a new track.

“Oh yes,” I said, nodding encouragement to my sisters. The last thing I wanted was for Andrew to squash Vivian’s desires. He could move on to Rome, as far as I was concerned, and wait for us to arrive, if it was all so tiresome. “I want to put on one simple day dress and stay in it all day long. To eat where the locals eat. To dip my toes in the sand.”

“You might get a bit more burned,” Will said, a teasing smile tipping up the corners of his lips.

“Well then, if it takes that to do as I’ve said, I hope so,” I said, smiling back at him. “A little burn never hurt a body.” I heard some defense in my own tone. “My papa said the Lord favored the echo of the sun on a man’s face after a day of toil.”

“Or a woman’s?” he asked.

“Or a woman’s.”

We smiled at each other. I let my gaze linger overly long, but I couldn’t resist him. It was so good to be openly
with
Will, without fear of others discovering our love. It felt good. Right. And I took that as God’s encouragement that this was the path He wanted us on. Right here. Right now. And that was enough.
Thank You
,
I breathed, sliding in the very last bite of risotto I could manage.

After declining dessert, my father settled our bill with the proprietor, and we rose to go. As we left, a woman at the other table caught my eye, and I immediately recognized her as the woman I’d seen at the church, the one who’d overheard my generosity with the old beggar. She had a long, straight nose and wide eyes lined with dark lashes. We exchanged a polite smile as Will and I exited, but when I glanced back, I saw that she had caught Antonio and the two were chatting.

We waited outside for a moment as the others filed out, and Will glanced back in confusion, wondering what might be keeping Antonio. He arrived at last and pulled on his gloves. “That was Signora Eleonora Masoni,” Antonio said, inclining his head back toward the door. “She saw what you did in the church in Turin, Miss Cora, and she was moved by your act of kindness.”

“What’s this?” Father said, overhearing our conversation. “What transpired in the church?”

“I only gave a poor woman in need a bit of money,” I said.

“A great deal of money,” Felix corrected.

Antonio’s smile grew even as my father’s diminished. “She’s traveling too and hoped to host you tomorrow for dinner. But I informed her that we were likely off tomorrow to the coast. She gave me her card,” he said, handing me an elegant calling card on thick cream paper. “She said that when we reach Toscana, we must stay at her villa near Montepulciano, at least for a few nights. She was most insistent.”

Signora Eleonora Masoni
, I read on the card, along with her address. “That was kind of her,” I said. I smiled and then accepted Will’s arm, walking—with a very full stomach—to our motorcar.

“One kindness begets another,” he said.

~William~

Days later, Will alternately felt gloriously victorious, as if Cora was a prize he’d won after doing battle on multiple fronts—and riddled with guilt for exactly the same reason. But as they dug their toes into the sand beside the turquoise waters between Monterosso and Vernazza, two of the five cities that clung to the cliffs high above and made up the Cinque Terre, and she smiled at him from beneath the brim of her wide hat, he gave in to the luxury of joy.

Lord, Lord, how is it that You have given me such a gift as she?
Over and over, the idea of it stunned him. That she had chosen him over Pierre. The shadow of Pierre’s threat to meet them in Rome passed over him, but he ignored it like a potential cloud threatening the future sun in the light of today’s bright orb. And then there was her fortune. He shook the thought off, not wanting to think of the complications that brought into their lives.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, pouring a handful of coarse sand on his knee. “Why so distracted?”

“Hey.” He smiled, brushing off the sand, then picking up a handful of his own and letting it drop on her hand, sprinkling each finger. “Nothing’s the matter. I’m sitting on one of the prettiest coastlines in the world, with one of the prettiest women in the world. What could be wrong?”

She smiled, but he could tell by her expression that she knew he held something back. But what could he say? Why bring up his concerns?

Cora looked out to the water, and Will studied her profile. Long lashes, blonde at the tips, a perfect nose, an adorable chin. His eyes slipped lower, along her slender neck and over her bathing costume. She was small but strong. As strong outwardly as when he’d met her. But inwardly, now even stronger. And she was growing in strength, expanding in capacity.

Over the last days, she’d negotiated long meetings with Andrew and the family patriarchs, as well as a long interview with the bothersome Mr. Grunthall. It was clearly difficult for her, but she seemed to settle within, more and more, as each day passed.
If only I could do the same, Lord. Where do I belong in all of this? Where are You? Why do You hide Your face from me? Show me, Lord. Show me how I am to navigate these roads. How I am to protect her and yet be my own man in the midst—

“Come,” she said, suddenly rising. She reached down to him as if he needed help getting up. “Let’s take a swim.”

He took her hand and rose, glancing back at Mr. Grunthall, who was sitting beneath an umbrella twenty paces away, beside Pascal and Antonio. Antonio gave him a two-finger salute, his white teeth gleaming against his olive skin. Simon Grunthall looked grumpy, peering at them beneath the brim of his sun hat. For a moment, Will wondered if he should persuade Cora to stay under the protection of the umbrella, away from curious onlookers who might spot them and identify them to the press. He knew Grunthall had been inundated with inquiries once journalists learned he was traveling with them as secretary. The man went off to the nearest telegraph office every day to collect them from his assistant. But were any of them here? Off the beaten path of tourists?

Will scanned the beach, anxiously watching for any interloper. But when he glanced back to Cora and saw that she was already thigh-deep in the water, her bathing costume’s skirt floating on the crystalline surface, he knew he didn’t have the gumption to stop her. She grinned over her shoulder at him, and his heart seemed to actually stop for a moment, so lovely was she. So free. And he was again lost to the gift of this time with her. Exploring, experiencing.

Let me accept the gift for now,
he prayed, wading in after her. In the distance, her sisters and brother splashed one another, and she was clearly angling in their direction. He caught up with her and took her hand. She paused, gasping as the cold water hit her belly and then higher, but forged onward, gradually getting accustomed to the temperature. He walked alongside her, unable to keep from grinning.

She was treading water before him, while his height afforded him more time on his feet. “Where did you learn to swim?” he asked, deciding she looked more like one of Homer’s enticing sirens than a lady. She’d thrown her hat to the sand, and now, tendrils of her hair were coiling in the water around her, clinging to her neck when she lifted higher in the water. He longed to unpin the rest of it. To see it flowing all about her. To see her totally free…

“There used to be a pond on a neighboring farmer’s land. There was a big tree and a deep hole. We played there for hours.” Then, as if in a vision, she pulled the pins from her hair, letting one coil of hair fall about her shoulders and into the water.

“Cora, what will they think?” he asked in alarm, looking to the beach.

“Who? Silly Mr. Grunthall? Who worries about strangers on the beach? For once, let us not care about
others
.” She finished her task and tucked the pins in a small pocket on her bathing costume, as if it had been made for just that. “This is what I long to do.” And with that, she laid back, floating on the surface of the water. Her hair swirled in a glorious creamy cloud about her head. She looked up at him, with more than a hint of flirtation in her pretty blue eyes, like a reflection of the water itself. It startled him, because she was usually not given to flirtation. But then it sent a surge of pleasure through him.

He couldn’t stop himself. He picked her up in his arms, cradling her close, featherlight in the water. She gasped and blinked in surprise. “Will…” she said, now glancing back to the shore in concern.

“I thought we weren’t thinking of others,” he said, smiling down at her. “Oh, Cora, how I love you. You are…” He looked up and then back down at her. “You are every kind of gift to me that I could imagine. So much more than any woman I ever imagined by my side.”

She smiled softly. “And you are just the right man for me,” she said. “Now come, float beside me, will you? Let us just be for a moment, you and I. Together.”

He reluctantly released her back to the waters like a captive mermaid set free, and she immediately closed her eyes, bobbing on the gentle waves. He did the same, the water closing in around his face and neck, and he filled his lungs and allowed himself to float too, but he didn’t feel nearly as light as she appeared. Their fingers brushed against each other as they floated, side by side, the sun beaming down on them, warming them, probably giving them new burns. But Will didn’t care. Because in that moment, for a moment, life felt absolutely, gloriously perfect.

Even if it wasn’t. He struggled to keep his mind on the moment, rather than letting it slip back to the quagmire of their future. Where could these paths possibly lead? How was he to marry a girl with such a vast fortune when he had so little? He would be an object of scorn. And what of his dreams to become an architect? Suddenly, he was free of his uncle’s debts, but how was he to attend college if she had to be in Montana, helping to manage the mine? He doubted there was yet a university in the state that offered an architectural degree…and more and more, that was where he thought God was leading him.

It was then that Felix swam beneath him and pulled him under.

Will came up sputtering, half laughing, half mad. He went after his old college mate, remembering their wrestling match the day of their reunion in Montana. Again and again the two of them went under, until Felix, desperate for air, pulled loose of Will and rose to the surface.

“I give! I give!” Felix shouted, hands splayed outward, his lips just above the bouncing waters of the sea.

“Honestly, you two,” Vivian said, shoulder-deep beside Cora. The others gathered around them. “When will you grow up?”

“I hope they never do,” Cora said, eyes shining, grinning. “At least not entirely.” She looked about. “Do you all know how I longed for siblings as I grew up? How I wished I were a part of one of the houses in my town that was brimming with children? Now, at last, I am.”

Andrew groaned and looked sick to his stomach. “Heavens, it’s all so sweet, I feel as if I’m floating on a sea of honey.”

Vivian frowned at him. “You needn’t be so nasty.”

The rest of them frowned at him too. “Don’t be such a lout, Morgan,” Felix said, splashing him. “My sister is only trying to be nice.”

“That’s the trouble,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes. “She’s always so nice.”

“I never knew that was a problem,” Cora said, clearly not feeling pleasant at all toward him. “And haven’t we been getting along the last couple of days?”

“You’ve been a gift to us too, Cora,” Lillian said, taking Cora’s hand to squeeze it.

“Yes, well,” Andrew said. “Now that you all have bonded, perhaps we should go in now before Mr. Grunthall has a fit of apoplexy.”

“He’s right,” Will said, glancing toward the beach. Sure enough, Simon was standing at the water’s edge, shielding his eyes as he peered toward them. “We’ve had enough sun, too. If we’re not careful, we’ll all look like Cora did a few days ago.”

“I resent that!” she cried indignantly.

He laughed and dived under the water when she tried to splash him, moving with long strokes a safe distance away. But as he rose, he knew he never wanted to be farther than this from Cora Diehl Kensington. Regardless of what it might cost him.

CHAPTER 8

~Cora~

I pored over the blueprints and architectural renderings of the Kensington-Diehl Mine, stifling a groan as the others in our party gathered, all merry, the girls in their peasant dresses and woven sandals, the men in plain shirts and trousers. The girls had their hair in braids, no hats in sight, and the men didn’t don any covering for their heads either. They were off to hike the trail linking each of the five villages that made up the Cinque Terre, intent on blending in with the locals as much as possible and spending the night in the farthest village. But not me. My father and Mr. Morgan had made it clear that today we must make some critical decisions about the mine and telegram the foremen in Montana to let them know. And we were as yet at odds as how to resolve a few key issues.

“I wish I could remain here with you,” Will said when we paused in a corner of the grand foyer together.

“No, you don’t,” I said with a smile. “You wish I was going with you, just as I wish.”

“Well, yes, that would be preferable. I hate it that you are missing this.”

“Perhaps we can find some time tomorrow evening together, and you can tell me the region’s tales.”

“They’re good ones,” he said, arching a brow and brushing my bare hand with his. “Of pirates and fortresses and navies…”

“Please do remember the best ones for me, all right?” I said, wishing I could stand up on tiptoe and kiss him. But I knew that more than one set of eyes lingered over us.