It didn’t take them long to reach their destination, and Julie gave a small exclamation
of pleasure as she saw the ancient walls of the town rising from the rocks on which it was built, the grilled windows of the houses which had obviously been built into the walls over the years looking down at them.
‘The present-day town was built on the site of an Arab fort,’ Rocco explained, deciding that it would be wiser and safer for him to talk about the history of the town than to let his thoughts travel in the direction in which they seemed rebelliously determined to travel.
‘As one of the conquering Normans who fought for and won the island, our ancestor was given land and this town—which he in turn fortified. It was only later that our family moved out of their fortified home here in the town to the castle—although of course we still retain strong links with the town. In fact, you will see signs of that everywhere—in the names of streets, in the Leopardi coat of arms on walls here and there, and some say in the faces of some of the townspeople as well, from the days when it was considered a matter of honour for the daughter of a family to be selected by her lord to warm his bed for a season.’
Julie winced. Small wonder, with a family history such as the one Rocco was so casually outlining, that he should think nothing of taking her to bed.
Rocco parked the car on a piece of flat ground which was obviously serving as a temporary car park. ‘The streets of the town are very narrow, and whilst traffic is not prohibited it is not encouraged. In the summer as well as now, during the festival, it attracts a good many visitors—all the more so since Falcon persuaded our father to allow work to begin on the restoration of the ancient steam and mud baths. Legend has it that the Greek architect Daedalus designed the building which surrounds them after he fled here from Crete. The restoration work is due to be completed this year.’
‘It sounds fascinating,’ Julie told him truthfully, holding Josh whilst Rocco dealt with the buggy.
As they joined the stream of people walking towards the main gated entrance to the town, Julie reflected that they could have been any small family on a day out—except for the fact that it was plain to her from the looks Rocco was attracting that most people knew who he was and were slightly in awe of him. And of course she was nothing to him other than someone who might have been the mother of his half-brother’s illegitimate child.
What was it, she wondered, about a certain kind of man that automatically set him apart and elevated him from other men, causing his own sex to view him with respect and her own with animated delight? Whatever it was, Rocco certainly had that quality in spades. The Leopardis might be lords of all they could survey here in this part of Sicily, but Rocco had no need of the Leopardi name to attract female interest or to prove that he was an alpha male, Julie thought ruefully. Even the way he pushed the buggy somehow reinforced and emphasised his maleness.
The place to watch the parade was in the piazza in front of the town’s main church, according to Maria, and it was there that Julie and Rocco headed, to rendezvous with the housekeeper and her family.
Their progress was held up by the number of people who came forward to pay their respects to Rocco, but finally they reached the square, guided through the crowd by two young men who had introduced themselves as Maria’s grandsons, with the information that Maria and her family had saved them a grandstand view.
A grandstand view would have been found for Rocco in any case, Julie guessed—which made it all the more touching to see the way in which he courteously thanked Maria for her trouble.
Josh had to be admired by Maria’s female relatives and passed round amongst them in a way that slightly alarmed Julie at first—until she reminded herself that this would be the custom in a large family clan, and it would be churlish to make a fuss.
By the time the parade started Josh was back in her arms, wide awake and gazing around—although of course he was far too young to be aware of what was happening.
For sheer pageantry the parade took one’s breath away, Julie admitted, wincing slightly at the noise from the trumpets of the brightly clothed heralds in their scarlet and gold tabards, followed by ‘men at arms’ dragging ‘prisoners’, and then floats filled with people in all manner of costumes.
On the other side of the square, during a small gap in the parade, Julie watched as a young couple embraced, the girl turning her face for her partner’s kiss. Their happiness, so very evident and joyous, made her feel very alone.
Someone wanting to get closer to the parade pushed past her, causing her to half stumble into Rocco. As he steadied her Julie started to apologise, but Rocco shook his head, telling her calmly as he put his arm round her waist and drew her closer to him, ‘Whilst we’re in this crowd I think it would be safer if you stood close to me.’
Since Rocco had already reached for the buggy with his free hand, whilst keeping his arm around her, Julie had no option but to stay where she was.
She would be safer, Rocco had said. Safe from being accidentally pushed by the crowd, perhaps, but certainly not safe from an even greater danger. The scent of his cologne, so barely and yet so tantalisingly discernible against all the stronger smells of hot food and sunshine, made her want to turn her head so that she could seek it out and breathe it in. But would she be able to stop at that? Wouldn’t she then be tempted to nuzzle the warm column of his throat, exploring it with her kisses and all the time moving closer to his mouth? Her heart slammed into her ribs, desire curling insidiously through her body as light as smoke and as dangerous as fire.
‘You are enjoying the parade?’ Rocco asked, his lips close to her ear so that she could hear him above the noise of the crowd.
Of course it was to hear him that she half turned into his body. His hand was a warm heavy weight against her hip, and Julie was thankful that he didn’t know that the ache in her breasts and the ache in her lower body were in competition over which was most intensely in need of the touch of his hand.
When it was time for them to go and have some lunch Julie didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that there was no longer any need for them to share such physical intimacy.
It had been a wonderful day—a special, magical day out of time—and she would treasure its memory for ever, Julie decided happily later on in the afternoon, as she and Rocco made their way back to the car. Rocco was pushing the buggy, and when he reached for her hand to help her over a patch of rocky ground, then kept on holding it, Julie felt her heart somersault with delight.
They were back at the villa when Julie’s happiness was suddenly changed to shocked fear and disbelief.
The bleep of her mobile phone warning her of a voicemail message was unusual enough to have her immediately removing the phone from her handbag, and she excused herself to Rocco when she saw that the message was from her solicitor.
It was long and complex, and the news it contained was dreadful. It drove the happy pink flush of colour from her face, and she had to hear it again to make sure she had not misunderstood it.
Her solicitor reported that, due to the fact that her parents had remortgaged their house a year before their deaths and given a very large sum of money to Judy, and also the fact that for some reason her father had omitted to pay the premiums on his life insurance, there would be very little value in their estate for Julie and Josh to inherit.
And, if that was not bad enough, he added that he also had to inform Julie that a solicitor for James’s sister and her husband had been in touch, advising that they intended to ask the courts to revoke Julie’s status as Josh’s legal guardian in their favour because they did not think that as a single young woman she could provide the same quality of care and financial security for Josh as they could.
The fact that they were a couple and were far more comfortably circumstanced than she was herself, thus better able to provide Josh with a stable and secure home, meant that in his view their challenge had to be taken very seriously indeed, her solicitor warned her, adding that the process would be a long and very expensive one, and that in the circumstances Julie might want to think seriously about where Josh’s best long-term interests lay.
In other words, her solicitor thought that she should give Josh up.