Excerpt of The Italian's Secret Child by Catherine Spencer

THE man emerged from a clump of trees about twenty yards away, at the junction of a paved walkway leading to the villa next door, and the gravel path coiling down the cliff to the beach. Even at that distance, and with the late sun dazzling her vision enough to distort his image, something about him — the proud tilt of his head, perhaps, or the lean and stealthy elegance of his stride — stirred such a sense of familiarity in Stephanie that she gasped aloud. Then, fearful that he might have heard, she pressed a hand to her mouth, darted behind a tall plant hung with huge trumpet-shaped flowers, and peered cautiously between its broad leaves.

Of course, it couldn't be him. It was her imagination playing fast and loose with her common sense because she was in Italy. His country, his language, his culture. Which was pretty absurd, she decided, when her thumping heart slowed enough to allow her to think rationally. He"d been from Tuscany, from a small town on the Ligurian coast, and spent his days in the mountains, quarrying the world-famous Carrara marble. A plain working man who, even during his brief summer sojourn in Canada, wore dusty blue jeans and sweat-streaked T-shirts.

But she was on Ischia, an island in the Bay of Naples, over three hundred miles south, as the crow flies, from Carrara, and a lifetime removed from when she spent summers at her grandparents' house at Bramley-On-The-Lake. And the man in the wheat-colored slacks and white shirt, profiled against the indigo sea and standing with one long leg braced against an outcropping of rock, looked nothing like a laborer. Rather, he resembled one of the rich Italians who'd shunned tourist-infested Capri, and chosen instead this small and lovely island for his summer retreat.

True. Definitely all true. But that hardly entitled him to trespass on the private property leased by her grandparents. So why was she lurking behind a protective screen of lush vegetation, when she'd have been entirely within her rights to accost him openly and demand an explanation for his presence?

Because he'd sent a kaleidoscope of pictures from her past spinning through her mind, that's why! Memories so staggering in their clarity of color and scent and taste that her skin prickled. They flooded her senses, conjuring up the hot Ontario summer she'd turned nineteen when, day after day, the temperature hovered close to forty degrees Celsius, and the nights were so humid and airless, a person couldn't sleep.

In her mind's eye, she saw again the dust motes twirling idly in the finger beams of sunlight slanting through the open door of her grandparents' stables, and him, stripped to the waist, his bronzed torso gleaming. As if it had happened just yesterday, she recalled the terrified thrill of sneaking from the house in the dead of night, and climbing the ladder to the hayloft. Felt again the horse blanket against her bare back as she lay beneath him, with only a sprinkling of stars to see how willingly she gave herself to a man six years older, and a lifetime more experienced.

Echoes of a voice deeply seductive, intriguingly foreign, floated hauntingly across the mists of time. She heard his murmured entreaties, her own broken, inarticu-late sighs of acquiescence. For a brief moment of insanity, she relived the stolen hours of passion, the pulsing strength of his body, the puckering anticipation of hers. And then, before she could wrestle herself free of it, the memory of his rejection burst over her in a great bubble of pain that bruised her heart all over again.

Weak and shaking, she sank to her knees. Spreading her palms flat on the sun-baked earth, she forced herself to take long, steadying breaths. Willed her pulse to stop racing. And slowly…slowly…the present swam back into focus. The sharp scent of lemons snuffed out the smell of hay, and horses, and…sex. The glowing peach-colored blossoms swaying before her face blotted out the pale wash of moonlight on naked limbs.

What a fool, to allow the most painful period of her life to rise up and take hold after so many years, all because, on the day she arrived in Italy, a man with black hair and broad shoulders happened to cross her line of vision! If so insignificant an occurrence could reduce her to a heap of cowering flesh, she'd likely be a raving idiot by month's end. And that, most certainly, was not the reason she'd flown, with her son, from Canada's west coast to this volcanic speck of land in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Consider it less a request than an order, her Grandmother Leyland's letter had stated with rare asperity. Brandon and I will have been married sixty-five years on July 12th, which is a long time by anyone's standards and surely deserving of extraordinary recognition. However, we absolutely forbid your marking the occasion with any material token, and ask instead for something you perhaps will find more difficult to give. We want our family to join us in Italy for the entire month of July. The various estrangements between our son and grandchildren have lasted long enough. My beloved husband's health is failing and I'm determined that he enjoy whatever time remains to him, knowing that you've made a serious attempt at reconciling your differences. In light of his unconditional love toward every one of you, from the moment you drew your first breath, satisfying this one demand, as he grows closer to his last, is the very least you can offer him now, and if that smacks of emotional blackmail, then so be it. At my age, a woman does what she has to do, without apology or embarrassment.

She should possess one tenth of her grandmother's grit! Mortified by her weakness, Stephanie got to her feet and peeped again through the leaves of the plant. The man had disappeared; had either climbed down the cliff to the beach, or passed under the pergola covered with brilliant pink and red flowers, which connected the villa's gardens with the neighboring grounds.

Cautiously, she emerged from her hiding place and stole forward. Ventured a glance to the left, where the walkway began, and saw nothing. Inched toward the top of the cliff and scanned the path snaking down to the pristine curve of sand at its base, and found it uninhabited. Indeed, the landscape was so palpably deserted, she half wondered if he'd been nothing but a figment of her imagination.

Yet the sense that, all the evidence to the contrary, she was not as alone as it seemed, left her looking back uneasily toward the villa. Its creamy stucco walls, rising up the hillside in a series of graceful arches topped by a blue tiled roof, drowsed in the late afternoon sun. But although the exterior of the house shimmered in the heat, in the room where Simon napped, exhaustion having at last overcome his excitement, the air conditioner kept him cool and comfortable.

"Let him rest now, then he'll be refreshed enough to stay up later than usual tonight," her grandmother had urged, when Stephanie had questioned the wisdom of letting him sleep so long. "It's never too soon to introduce a child to the finer points of gracious living. We'll dine al fresco at eight, and dress gloriously for the occasion.

Go explore the gardens, darling girl, and leave me to keep an eye on your boy."

Stephanie had been glad to escape — not from Simon or her grandparents, nor even her mother and second brother, Andrew, but from her father and eldest brother, Victor. Their incessant and overt disapproval never stopped. It had been nearly seven years since she'd spent any time with them, yet they'd barely paused long enough to say "Hello" before they started in with the criticism.

"Tragic that Charles passed away so young," her father observed, referring to her ex-husband's untimely demise, five years earlier, "but at least something good came out of it insofar as you now possess a smattering of respectability."

"Respectability?" Sincerely puzzled, she'd stared at him. "How does Charles' dying make me more respectable?"

"You can now claim to be a widow," Victor had supplied, adopting the kind of tone one might use in trying to housebreak a backward puppy. "In case you weren't aware, we don't divorce in this family, Stephanie. It simply isn't done."

"Really?" She'd sucked in an affronted breath. "Well, how convenient of Charles to shuffle off and spare you the stigma of having to call a spade a spade!"

"We're hardly glad the man's dead," her father said loftily, his reproving gaze following Simon as he charged excitedly across the terrace to the garden. "But that boy of yours needs a man's firm hand, a proper role model. If Charles had lived, he'd have remained a positive influence in his son's life. Instead, he chose to work in India and was dead of some obscure disease within six months. What did you do, that he went to such extreme lengths to get away from you?"

Admitted I'd made a mistake in thinking we could make a go of marriage, she could have replied, whereas you'd stay miserably shackled to someone throughout eternity if you had to, because maintaining appearances matters to you above all else. As for Charles, he actually isn't Simon's father, which is why he found it so easy to walk away from him.

But she didn't say any of it, even though part of her would have loved seeing the expression on their faces, had she dared be so outspoken. She'd been brought up to understand that people…women…didn't question the wise dictates of the almighty Professors Leyland Senior and Junior, and they certainly didn't blurt out information guaranteed to spatter the family name with scandal.

So she'd kept her mouth shut and in doing so, perpetuated the deceit she'd started almost ten years earlier. At least that way, she could continue to give Simon some sense of family, even though he seldom saw his relatives, because if her father had suspected for a minute that his only grandson was the illegitimate result of a summer affair, he'd have refused to acknowledge him.

Even Stephanie's mother didn't know the truth. Not that Vivienne wouldn't have been sympathetic, but the burden of keeping such a secret from a husband who'd dominated her life from the day she'd said "I do," would have weighed too heavily on her conscience.

Better by far for Stephanie to preserve the status quo, and on the surface at least, to act the compliant, respectful daughter. They were all together as a family for only one month, and for her to speak her mind would create precisely the kind of strife her grandparents specifically wanted to avoid. They neither needed nor deserved to have her upset the apple cart. It was balanced precariously enough already.

Still, the undercurrents of that earlier confrontation lingered, making Stephanie reluctant to return to the villa a moment sooner than she had to. Instead, since the inter-loper she'd seen was long gone, she searched for a spot where she might sit and simply soak in the peaceful ambience of the garden, with its glorious riot of flowers and spectacular view.

She found just the place, a stone bench tucked in a nook, against a backdrop of trailing vines. It offered a perfect look out over the Bay of St. Angelo to the Isle of Capri. Brushing aside a drift of fallen petals, she sat down, blew at the tendrils of hair sticking damply to her forehead, and let the sheer beauty of the setting soak into her consciousness.

Despite her reservations and the unresolved issues with her father, she was glad she'd agreed to come here. It was good for Simon to see something of the world, and it had been years since she'd taken a whole month away from work to be with him. He was growing up so fast; had turned nine on May 28th and was already showing signs of independence. It wouldn't be long before he didn't want to spend so much time with his mother.

Movement to her right had her swinging around nervously, but it was only a butterfly, a gorgeous creature, fluttering to land on the rim of a stone urn crammed with some fragrant yellow flower. "You startled me," she said softly. "I thought I was quite alone."

A shadow fell across the path, and an unmistakable, unforgettable voice announced, "Then before arriving at such a conclusion, you should have conducted a more thorough search, instead of assuming that because you could not see me, I could not see you. How are you, Stephanie?"

Waves of nausea swept over her, leaving her light-headed with shock. How else to explain that the only word to escape her was a wheezy, agonized, "Simon!"

""Dio, but you know how to deflate a man's pride!" he exclaimed, amusement layering his voice like melted chocolate. "Did I make so fleeting an impression on you, all those years ago, that you don't even remember my name?"

If only! "Matteo De Luca," she stammered faintly, staring at her feet because to look him in the eye would have undone her completely. "What in heaven's name are you doing here?"

"I live here…some of the time." Her glance flickered sideways, to the villa whose stucco walls had turned apricot in the rays of the setting sun.

"Not there."

"Next door, then," he said. "In the gardener's cottage."

That, at least, made some sort of sense in a world gone suddenly crazy. "You're no longer in the quarry business?"