Will He Ask Her to be His Bride?: The Millionaire's Convenient Bride / The Millionaire's Proposal / Texas Ranger Takes a Bride

‘Grazie.’ He eyed her with open appreciation. ‘And how do you like my homeland, Miss Hester? You have travelled here before?’

‘Not here exactly. I’ve been to Venice, but this is my first time in Tuscany, which is so beautiful, how could I not like it? Please, have one of Flavia’s cakes.’

He took one from the plate Lowri was offering, smiling fondly at the child. ‘And how old are you, carina?’

‘Ten,’ she said quietly, shy in the presence of this exotic visitor.

‘You are a tall lady for ten,’ he said with admiration.

‘Is Sophia with you?’ asked Connah.

‘No. My wife is in Rome. Where else? She does not care for the campagna! Luigi shrugged. ‘But from time to time I experience la nostalgia for the tranquillity of my old home. When I heard that Casa Girasole was occupied I assumed that the Andersons were here and came to invite them to dinner tonight. But I would count it a great privilege, Connah, if you and your ladies would honour me with your company instead.’

Connah shook his head decisively. ‘Sorry, Luigi. We keep early hours here to suit my daughter. Another time, perhaps.’

‘Of course.’ Luigi drained his cup and stood up. ‘It was a great pleasure to meet you, Miss Hester, also you, Miss Lowri. A charming name,’ he added. ‘I have never heard it before.’

‘It’s Welsh for Laura,’ she volunteered shyly.

He startled the child by bowing gracefully over her hand before bidding the others goodbye. ‘I hope to see you again soon. Ciao.’

Luigi Martinelli strolled off the way he’d come, knowing—and probably enjoying the fact—that three pairs of eyes watched him go.

‘What a nice man,’ said Lowri, taking the chair next to Hester. ‘Can I have some limonata, please?’

Connah raised an eyebrow at Hester as she poured it. ‘What did you think of our local sprig of nobility? I should have introduced him as Count Pierluigi Martinelli. The local Castello has been in his family for centuries.’

‘Flavia mentioned the title as she rushed to make coffee for him.’ Hester smiled. ‘You note that the Andersons’ best china was produced for Il Conte.’

‘Flavia has lived here all her life. In her mind, she numbers God, the local priest and Luigi as most important in the local pecking order—though not necessarily in that order. As a girl she was a maid up at the Castello, and Nico, her husband, is Luigi’s gardener.’

‘Is it a real castle with turrets and things?’ asked Lowri, fascinated. ‘I would have liked to see it, Daddy.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Sorry, cariad, I should have consulted you before turning Luigi down.’

‘We couldn’t have gone tonight anyway,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ve got Flavia’s special chicken dinner.’

‘So we have.’ Connah picked up the tray. ‘I’ll leave the lemonade, but I’ll take the rest in for Flavia, then I think I’ll change and have a swim.’

‘Me too,’ said Lowri promptly, stripping off her shirt. ‘Are you going to change back into your bikini, Hester?’

‘I don’t think so. You can have your swim with your father,’ said Hester, avoiding Connah’s eye.

‘Spoilsport,’ he murmured as his daughter jumped into the pool.

Hester was happy to sit where she was, watching as father and daughter played in the pool. Connah’s muscular body was broad in the shoulder and slim-hipped, also deeply tanned, probably, thought Hester, by some other foreign sun, in striking contrast to his daughter, whose fair skin was already acquiring a glow, courtesy of the Tuscan sun, but it was a different tone from her father’s. Lowri’s eyes and skin obviously came from her mother and, as she often did, Hester wondered about the woman Connah had cared for so deeply. After the one startling incident when he’d showed his emotions on the subject, he hadn’t mentioned her again. And why should he? Theirs was a professional, working relationship, she reminded herself. On Connah’s side, anyway.

Eventually, after much splashing and laughter, father and daughter went in the house to shower and dress. When Connah announced that he was going to do some work before dinner Lowri asked him if she could walk to the village with Hester.

‘Flavia says they have good gelato in the shop there,’ she said eagerly.

‘How you do love your ice cream,’ he mocked. ‘But I’d rather you didn’t go without me, and I can’t come right now. We’ll all walk there another time.’

Lowri pouted a little, but brightened when Hester suggested that instead they ask Flavia for instructions about heating her pollo cacciatore. ‘We’ll ask her to teach us the Italian words for things in the kitchen.’

This programme met with warm approval and a lively hour was spent in the kitchen with a delighted Flavia, who enjoyed the impromptu Italian lesson as much as her students. Afterwards she said her farewells, wished them a happy time in Greve the next day and set off down the road on her bicycle with all the panache of a competitor in the Tour de France.

‘She’s so jolly and nice,’ said Lowri, and gave Hester an impish grin. ‘A lot different from Grandma’s Mrs Powell.’

Since Flavia had already laid the table on the loggia and the pot of chicken merely needed heating when they were ready to eat, Hester suggested it might be a good idea to sit quietly in the salone with a book until it was time for supper.

‘Will you sit with me?’ said Lowri quickly.

‘Of course.’ But as they settled down together Hester felt troubled. Lowri was becoming far too dependent on her. Which was delightful in one way, because Hester was very fond of the child. But when the day came to say goodbye, as it always did, the parting would be even more painful than in the past. The other children she’d cared for had cried bitterly when she’d left, but unlike Lowri they’d had their mothers to comfort them. Although Lowri had Connah and her grandmother, Hester consoled herself. Children were resilient. She would soon recover once she was back in school with Chloe and all her friends.

The supper was a great success. On instruction from Flavia, Hester served a first course of Parma ham with ripe figs bursting with juice. The savoury cacciatore that followed tasted as delicious as its aroma, but it was so substantial that when Hester offered the depleted selection of cakes for dessert not even Lowri had room for one.

‘Gosh, I’m full,’ she said, yawning.

‘In that case, to let your supper go down you’d better stroll round the garden for a while with Daddy while I clear away,’ said Hester, collecting plates. ‘You can watch the moon rise over the pool.’

‘I’ll make coffee when you come down after Lowri’s in bed, Hester,’ said Connah. ‘Come on then, cariad,’ he said, holding out his hand to his daughter. ‘Quick march.’

Later, when the kitchen was tidy and Lowri seen safely to bed, Hester went down to join Connah. The scent of freshly made coffee mingled deliciously with the garden scents of the night and she resumed her chair with a sigh of pleasure.

‘How beautiful it is here.’

‘But it gets cold in the winter when the tramontana blows,’ said Connah, pouring coffee. ‘I was here once with the Andersons for New Year’s Eve. By the way, that was a very meaningful look you gave me regarding the stroll in the garden with Lowri.’

‘Yes.’ Hester braced herself. ‘Forgive me if I’m overstepping the mark, but I think you should spend more time with her on your own. Not,’ she added hastily, ‘because I want time off or because I don’t enjoy her company. I do. So much that Lowri won’t be the only one to feel sad when we say goodbye. But instead of always having me around I think, or at least I’m suggesting, that you should take her out now and again on your own, just the two of you. Maybe take her to visit the Castello, or walk with her into the village.’

‘Is that why you seemed abstracted over our wonderful dinner?’

‘Yes. She wouldn’t sit and read earlier unless I did too.’ Hester raised worried eyes to his. ‘If she’s with me all the time, it will be even more painful when I leave. As I know from bitter experience. The Herrick twins sobbed so much when I left it tore me in pieces. Julia had chickened out of telling them I wasn’t going with them to America, so when they found out at the very last minute it was rough on all of us.’

Connah sat in silence for a while, sipping his coffee. ‘If,’ he said at last, ‘you find this part of your job so painful, isn’t it time you found some other way to earn a living?’

‘I’ve been thinking of it quite a lot lately, but though I’m top of the tree at what I do, I’m not qualified for anything else. Besides,’ she added with a sigh, ‘it was always a vocation for me rather than just a way of earning my living.’

‘So that’s the reason for your sober mood tonight? I thought it was something quite different,’ said Connah casually. ‘Like being addressed as “darling” this afternoon, maybe.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE silence which followed this statement grew too long for comfort. Hester drained her coffee cup and set it down, then refilled it. ‘More for you?’ she asked politely.

‘Thank you. So tell me. Were you annoyed?’ Connah said bluntly.

‘Surprised, not annoyed.’ She shrugged as she poured his coffee. ‘You don’t strike me as someone who bandies meaningless endearments about, so I assumed you had a practical reason.’