She looked at Toby, and once again, her most radiant smile broke across her face. “But then Papa came, and it was all right, and now Domi and me are safe.”
Smiling, too, Domi reached out a hand to Toby and, in a soft voice, murmured,“Grazie, signor. Grazie mille.”
Diana noticed that Domi’s utterance utterly shocked not just her parents but several other islanders as well.
Focused on Domi, Toby didn’t notice. In a light grip, he took the hand the little girl offered and, with his customary elegant dignity, half bowed over it. “Prego, signorina.You are very welcome.”
Everyone was now relaxed, visibly glad, relieved, and reassured, and after being thanked by Toby, Giovanni, and Barbero, the searchers drifted away.
Meanwhile, Evelyn and Domi, now in her mother’s arms, were continuing their stilted but apparently effective communication.
Under cover of the exchange, in a hushed, rather awed voice, Signora Barbero confided to Diana, “Our Dominica does not normally speak much to anyone but Eduardo and me. She is very, very shy.” The signora glanced approvingly at Toby. “But she spoke to him, even without us trying to push her. It is, how you say, amazing.”
Her gaze resting on Toby—the hero of the hour—Diana smiled. “He’s very good with children.”
Signora Barbero nodded emphatically. “That must be so. Children, they recognize something, no?”
Still gazing at Toby, who was speaking with Giovanni and Barbero, Diana nodded. There was, indeed, something inherently trustworthy in Toby Cynster that children—all children—seemed to instinctively see.
Finally, all still smiling, they turned to start back up the narrow alley.
“Wait, signore.”
They turned back to see the lad, who had reclaimed his rowboat, climbing out with Rupert the Bear in one hand. He held out the bear. “I think this must belong to one of the signorine.”
“Rupert!” Evelyn held out both hands, and grinning widely, the lad gave her the bear. She clutched the stuffed bear close and rocked him. “I nearly forgot you! I’m sorry!”
Diana looked at Toby, and he looked at her.
Then both of them smiled.
Toby called a thanks to the lad, then stood back and waved Diana and Signora Barbero, both carrying their respective girls, up the alley to the path.
Once on the path, they parted from the Barberos, who headed northward to their home, while their party turned south to the villa, which was only a few yards farther on.
While traversing the short distance, Diana inwardly marveled that both Toby and she had entirely forgotten the dispatches hidden inside the bear. Or more correctly, they’d dismissed Rupert as, relatively speaking, of little importance to them. Evelyn—her safety and getting her back unharmed—had dominated their minds, effortlessly trumping even the reason that had brought them there.
A powerful reason—critical dispatches—yet not more important than a little girl and her welfare. Not more powerful than the responsibility—the care—both she and Toby felt they owed Evelyn.
Duty to one’s country triumphed over many things, but not family.
Not for her, not for Toby.
For him—and, she now realized, for her—family ranked higher than everything.
Still smiling, she carried Evelyn in through the villa’s gate. After handing her to a hugely relieved Helga to smother with hugs and exclamations, Diana shot a glance at Toby. Seeing more, understanding more.
He wasn’t just a man on a mission. Regardless of that—indeed, in spite of that—he was a caring, protective, meant-to-be-family man.
A man who definitely should have a family of his own.
CHAPTER13
Later that evening, in the wake of a festive dinner crowning the eventful day, after the rest of the household had retired, Toby sought refuge on the patio.
In the shadowed silence, he sat in one of the chairs beneath the loggia, gazed out at the moonlit lake, and finally allowed his mind to turn to the revelations of the day.
To the personal truths exposed and laid bare by what he had felt—by the substance and intensity of his reactions.
