The food he’d eaten grew heavy as gravel in the pit of his gut.
After a moment, she lifted her attention to him, her expression grave. “How did it go?”
He shrugged shoulders that were prickling from the penetrating heat of the sun, instinctively wanting to shut down a rehash of what had been a very difficult conversation. But his efforts to protect her had backfired in the past. He supposed she had a right to know what they were up against.
“My grandfather is understandably troubled. Giacomo is livid.”
She glanced back toward where Lorenzo slept, brow knitting with consternation.
“No, cara,” he reassured in a quick hush, stepping forward. He leaned down to kiss the part in her hair, surreptitiously stealing a caress and inhaling her scent, but trying to impart comfort, too. He was a physical man and found it easier to show than to tell, but he did his best to assuage her fears with words, too. “He won’t harm him. And I won’t let anyone try.”
“You’re sure?” She caught his hand.
Her fingers were cold and the tightness with which she clung was both heartening and worrisome. He liked that she was looking to him and seemed so willing to take his word. It was a first step in rebuilding her belief in him, but it made him realize how frightened she was under her composed exterior. He was learning that his wife was a woman of far more complexity than he’d given her credit for.
Which was a concern on many levels, but for now he had to alleviate her fear.
He hooked his foot around the leg of the empty chair and dragged it around so he faced her, not letting go of her hand. He spoke in an undertone that wouldn’t carry to open windows or below to the gardens.
“I am sure, but we are facing a greater battle than I anticipated. Primo wasn’t the only one playing politics or resenting my position.”
“I never thought it significant before,” she murmured. “Until we arrived today and I saw that almost everyone who lives here... They’re all Giacomo’s children. There’s your aunt, but she travels so much this isn’t really where she lives, is it? And no one from your father’s or his sister’s side.”
They’d all had seemingly valid reasons for moving in and it was his grandfather’s house. Alessandro hadn’t considered it an appropriation, especially when his grandfather was in fine health and Alessandro preferred his town house because it was closer to work. Through Octavia’s eyes, however, he saw things much differently.
Especially after today’s conversation.
“My uncle is trying to convince my grandfather to let him have control again. So I may have an opportunity to put my house in order.” Disdain curled his lip as he recalled the suggestion. “I said he has some work to do in his own. I am in control, legally, so it’s not within my grandfather’s rights to remove me, but I didn’t want to insult him by reminding Giacomo of that in front of him. Things will get uglier before they settle into place.”
The wrinkle in her brow deepened. “When I went off to school, there was a girl in her last year there. Her father had a bone to pick with mine. To this day, I don’t even know what the problem was, but she turned me into persona non grata. I feel like that’s how it’s going to be here.”
She was pale and, despite the new mettle she was showing toward him, very sensitive. He saw it now, underneath the impassive expression she’d no doubt perfected against cold shoulders.
A weight settled on his heart, an apology on his lips.
“I’m asking a lot, I know.” He massaged her hand, still bare of his rings. Even though he knew she wasn’t leaving them off to hurt him, he disliked how her empty fingers suggested their marriage had been set on a windowsill to collect dust. He wanted the statement of their commitment back where it was prominent and visible.
But the rings were the least of his problems. He forced himself to maintain a light hold on her fingers, even though a subversive sense of urgency made him want to close his grip and hang on tight. Was he harming her—them—by insisting she face this with him? When she’d already been through so much and confrontation wasn’t her strong suit?
Was it even necessary for her to be here? After his uncle’s questioning of his loyalty, he had to wonder if these final weeks of restructuring might be easier if Octavia wasn’t under everyone’s noses.
Even as he considered sending her away, he rejected the idea. He wasn’t giving her up. Not when it was exactly the result Primo had hoped for.
Octavia had been a source of tension in the family from the moment he had married her, he saw now. His taking a wife and producing an heir was the assertion of his position as overseer of the Ferrante empire. Apparently Primo hadn’t been the only one to find that threatening. From his Uncle Giacomo through that branch of the family, there was disapproval and antagonism.