Hands clasped to her chest, Giulia positively glowed with welcome. She looked at the children and gently asked, “And what are your names?”
Diana was hugely relieved that the Giordanos spoke excellent English. She quickly introduced the children and herself and Helga.
Toby, meanwhile, had been speaking to Giovanni, and now Giovanni turned and, with an expansive gesture, urged everyone into the house. “Come! Come! It is wonderful that all of you can stay for a time.”
The welcome was patently sincere. Glancing at the children and Helga, Diana saw she wasn’t the only one relaxing.
Giovanni and Giulia herded them inside, into a large, comfortable space that served as a drawing room.
“Come, sit,” Giulia insisted, “and our maid will get the rooms aired and beds made.”
Once they’d obediently subsided into the well-padded chairs, Giulia rushed off to confer with her staff, leaving Giovanni to beam at them all.
He clasped his hands together in obvious delight, then looked at the children. “If you’ve been traveling all day, perhaps a little gelati, yes?”
The children had learned what gelati was. Their eyes lit, they sat up straight and chorused, “Yes, please!”
Beyond delighted, Giovanni waved them up. “Come to the kitchen, and we will see what we can find.”
The three rushed out in Giovanni’s wake with not the slightest hint of shyness or reserve. Diana observed the phenomenon, then transferred her gaze to Toby. “They’re going to be spoilt while we’re here, aren’t they?”
His grin was unrepentant. “Very possibly beyond all sense.”
* * *
For Diana,the rest of the waning afternoon and early evening went in settling into the comfortable airy rooms to which they were assigned. Her room and Toby’s possessed balconies that looked out over the lake to Orta, while the boys’ room and the one Evelyn and Helga would share overlooked the front garden.
All the rooms had large windows, and after the heat of the day, the breeze coming off the lake was refreshing, and the gentle lap of the waves against the stones below was hypnotically soothing.
At Giulia’s encouragement, Diana explored the rooms downstairs. This was a family home, not any sort of inn or hotel. The large drawing room downstairs connected to a dining room via a wide archway. The kitchen was off one end of the dining room but was much larger and boasted more open space than Diana was accustomed to finding in houses farther north. The stairs rose from a small foyer between the kitchen and the front hall, and the kitchen itself housed wide benches, a large deal table, and a massive cooking range built into one side wall. Walk-in pantries lay beyond, but the most unusual feature was the wall of glassed doors that gave onto a paved patio, shielded from the sun by a loggia heavy with grapevines. The patio ran the length of the dining room, quite half the width of the house.
Helga had come down and offered Giulia her services in preparing the evening meal.
Diana inquired if there was anything she could do, but Giulia assured her all was in hand. She waved to the patio. “Go. Sit. Relax!”
Smiling, Diana went.
On the patio, she found Toby and Giovanni lounging at the table under the loggia and sharing a decanter of wine.
Giovanni waved at her. “Miss Locke. Come join us!”
Toby rose and pulled out a chair for her.
She accepted it with a smile. To Giovanni, she said, “Please, just Diana.”
With a hand over his heart, he half bowed. “It is an honor to have you visit us, Diana.” He shot a glance at Toby. “Although it seems if Tobias and your family hadn’t been chased, he wouldn’t have brought you to meet us here.”
Accepting the glass of wine Toby handed her, she smiled. “Regardless of what brought us here, it’s a glorious place, and I’m delighted to be visiting.”
“There! See?” Giovanni gestured in a very Italian way at Toby. “She is delighted. The children are happy. All is well.”
From where they were sitting, they could see the children peering out over the lakeside wall.
Diana sipped and felt the last vestige of tension fade. One thing this journey was teaching her was to embrace the beauty of every moment.
Eventually, Giovanni picked up the empty decanter, rose, and went into the house.
Diana breathed in deeply, then looked at Toby. “You were right.” When he glanced at her and met her eyes, she smiled. “This truly is the perfect place in which to hide away.”
