Under a Siena Sun (Escape to Tuscany #1) - T.A. Williams Page 0,89
Bruno’s plate, she had reached a decision. She filled her glass with ice-cold mineral water, took a big mouthful, and made a start.
‘It’s a decision only you can make, Bruno, but if you really want my advice, here goes. You just told me the two of you got on really well when you were on the Island of Elba and you were about to ask Virginia to marry you. That’s a huge step, so surely you can be in no doubt that you love her, or at least you did then. Do you want to throw all that away because of her one moment of madness?’
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that Virginia deserved the benefit of the doubt. She reached across the table to give his hand a little squeeze.
‘We all do stupid things, Bruno, but the main thing is that she owned up, apologised, and meant it. Let’s face it, she could have said nothing to you, married you, and taken her secret with her to the grave. All right, we all know it would have been better if she hadn’t done it, but having the courage and the integrity to own up indicates to me that she’s serious about her remorse and about wanting to stick with you. Like I say, it’s your decision, but if it were up to me, I’d give her another chance.’
‘You would?’ He looked up from his plate. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ She squeezed his hand once more before releasing it. ‘Now eat up. You look as though you could do with a square meal. When’s the last time you ate?’
‘Um, not sure. Yesterday, I suppose.’
‘Then eat.’ She gave him a smile. ‘Go on. Doctor’s orders.’
Chapter 26
The next few days were wonderful as far as Lucy was concerned. She spent almost all her free time with David and he even started giving her some tennis lessons in the evenings. Although she was very rusty, she managed to get the ball back over the net to him most of the time and he gallantly told her she had talent. Best of all, she saw he managed to move around the court without too much obvious difficulty, although her shots didn’t exactly put him under any stress. They ate together, swam together, walked the dog together and spent their nights together. The last paparazzi finally packed up and left, and peace descended upon the villa once again.
One evening, David insisted upon inviting Guido and his Labrador for dinner at the villa and this time Guido brought something much better than a bottle of grappa. Upon arrival, David and Lucy led him round to the side of the villa to show him the vestiges of the castle, and as he stood there, surveying the ruins, he turned towards them and revealed what he had brought: information, fascinating information.
‘I have some interesting news. We now know all about the Castelnuovo.’
Lucy gawped at him. ‘You do? You know who built it, who owned it? What’s the story?’
He leant against a bit of ancient stonework and smiled as he broke the news to them. ‘It was started, but never finished.’
David looked as astounded as Lucy felt. ‘What? The castle? I don’t get it. I mean, the foundations are still here.’
Guido was still smiling. ‘Ah, yes, the foundations – but not a lot more. We were right in our guess about William Thornton, the treasurer. My researcher found a reference in the Siena archives to a bill of sale for a plot of land on the hill here. It was bought by a W. Thornton in 1399, five years after the death of John Hawkwood. So it really was an Englishman who intended to build the castle here.’
‘Intended to…?’
‘As far as we can ascertain, building started almost immediately after the sale, but it all stopped barely a few months later. A contemporary chronicler reports the death of William Thornton in the summer of 1400 and it emerges that the building work finished with his demise. The White Company either disbanded or moved away from this area shortly after that and gradually disappeared from the annals of history.’
‘But why call it a castle if it never was one?’ Lucy was hanging on his every word and felt sure David was similarly enthralled.
‘That’s the interesting part and it was Giulia, my postgraduate research student, who hit upon the answer. She thinks it was called Castelnuovo because that’s where William Thornton came from. You’re English, think about it.’