Luca threw down his napkin and got up, crouching beside her to put his arms around her. ‘Hey, come on,’ he said gently, rubbing her arms. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s just a stupid chicken. There are some frozen pizzas in the freezer. I just thought?—’
She sniffed, shaking her head. ‘It’s not that, Luca, honestly. It’s gorgeous.’
‘Really? You’re not crying because it’s horrible?’
‘No. I’m really not. It’s perfect.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘It’s just that it’s so… beautiful.’
‘Really? My cooking is so good it made you weep?’
She laughed softly, brushing away her tears. ‘It’s… so thoughtful. It’s such a lovely thing to do. I’m touched, that’s all.’
‘Oh. Well, if there’s nothing wrong with it, you’d better eat it before it goes cold.’ He gave her a soft kiss on her forehead and got up, returning to his seat.
‘Better?’ he asked, as Claire resumed eating. She nodded, smiling at him.
‘Oh my God, thisisgood,’ Luca said. There had been a lot more bother involved in making roast potatoes than he’d anticipated, but it had paid off. They were crunchy on the outside and meltingly soft on the inside. Good enough to make angels weep, he thought – literally.
‘Are you okay?’ Luca asked Claire later, as they lay in bed together like the previous night.
‘Mm. I just can’t get to sleep.’
‘Do you want to read for a while? I don’t mind if you want to turn the light back on.’
‘I wish I could, but I don’t think I could keep my eyes open. I’m too tired to read and too awake to sleep.’
‘I’ll read to you, if you like.’
She turned to him. ‘Would you?’
‘Sure.’ He shrugged.
Claire turned on the bedside light. There were a couple of books on the nightstand, but she ignored them, getting out of bed and going to the bookcase on the far wall. She wanted the comfort of something familiar – the book equivalent of a roast-chicken dinner – and she knew what she was looking for. She found it quickly and got back into bed, handing it to Luca.
‘Pride and Prejudice?’ he read the cover. ‘I’ve never read this.’ He leant back against the headboard, opening the book. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Ready,’ she murmured, snuggling down beside him and closing her eyes.
‘“It is a truth universally acknowledged”,’ Luca began, ‘“that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife…”’
Claire relaxed to the deep, soothing tone of Luca’s voice as he read the familiar story.
31
‘I brought this over last night,’ Luca said, in the morning, handing Claire a large square parcel wrapped in brown paper, ‘but I wasn’t sure… I was going to give it to Espie for her birthday. I thought you might like to have it.’
‘I told you she said not to get her a present,’ Claire said, sitting at the table to open it.
‘She said not tobuyher a present.’ Luca smiled. ‘And I didn’t.’
‘Oh.’ Claire tore at the paper, guessing what it was. Her eyes welled when she uncovered the painting and recognised her mother and her friends grouped around a table playing cards. Even Luca was there at the bottom of the picture, his back to the viewer, and Claire was opposite him, her head bent as she studied her cards, frowning in concentration. But Espie was at the centre, all the light in the painting falling on her as she pulled a card from her hand, her eyes alight with triumph.
‘Oh, Luca!’ Tears spilt from Claire’s eyes. He had captured her mother so perfectly – not just her physicallikeness but her essence. It was almost as if she was alive again, here in the room with them. She flipped the canvas around, where Luca had scrawled the date and title on the back. ‘The Trick,’ she read.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have given it to you,’ he said, his eyes full of concern. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
