The Knotty Bride (17 page)

Chapter
22

I am sure the picture we take on the bench outside the chapel will prove to very colorful, what with the local cat that joined us, my clown bouquet, my green shoes and Brandon’s bright yellow socks. But none of that matters, what matters is that we are finally man and wife.

After the picture, Brandon announces that there will be a celebratory dinner at Ca’ Buschi and everyone drifts towards their cars. Rupa and Dario drive Brandon’s Maserati and Brandon and I pile into my Punto with all the tin cans tied to the bumper.

“Live it up, Lil,” he says as he takes the wheel of my car. “This is the first and last time I’m ever driving this hideous Fiat. I have a new car for you, a wedding gift, waiting at home.”

I’m still feeling so over the moon, I can’t even register what he’s saying. I stare out as the wedding guests begin backing out their tiny European cars from the castle carpark. Ada is still in the middle of the courtyard, hollering something about being quite put out and having to endure two weddings.

“I only came for the twelve course lunch! Why aren’t we eating here at the castle? It’s restaurant is five stars,” she hollers as Anna tries to take her by the arm and stuff her into the passenger seat of her Mercedes.

“That went quite well, in the end!” Brandon sounds chipper as he drives the Punto slowly down the hill, the tin cans making a huge racket.

“So Rupa and Dario are really together? They’ve patched things up? What happens when the wedding glow wears off?” I ask.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t wear off, either for them or for us.” Brandon beams. “But yes, they are still seeing a therapist, and they were very enthusiastic about their ‘secret wedding.’ Especially when they knew they would be helping me get you to the church on time.”

“Unbelievable,” I mutter and stare down at the blue gem in my wedding ring. “Is…is this a blue diamond?”

“It is.” He smiles smugly. “It is the largest of the remnants that were found.”

“Then it’s one of the remnants of the French Blue?”

Brandon laughs. “I don’t know, all those blue diamonds were examined by experts. They all reported that from a geological point of view, the diamonds formed about the same time as the French Blue, but many diamonds formed in that period. So, nobody can say if these tiny stones are related to the Hope. Buschi may have been fooled into buying them. Anyway, I thought it only fitting to have one put into a setting for my forever bride.”

Oh my. His forever bride. Brandon’s being so sappy again. I am truly the luckiest person in the world.

An hour later at Ca’ Buschi, the party is in full swing. In the main salon, the furniture has been cleared away and a five-piece band is playing jazz tunes. Everybody’s here, all the staff, Jason, Anna, my parents, my boys and all of Rupa’s relatives. There are several more people who I don’t recognize. When I ask Brandon who they are, he whispers back, “They’re Rupa’s biggest donors. I invited them if they made a large donation to her rescue. I promised when I got Dario and Rupa back together that I would help them make their rescue more financially viable.”

Gaa, he’s such a perfect man! And to think I almost ran away from him. I head over to give my parents a giant hug.

“I can’t believe how big the boys have gotten,” my mother sniffles. “But we’ll be seeing them more often. Brandon says he’ll fly us here to visit whenever we want. But you go dear, you should mingle. After all, you are the bride.”

I am, aren’t I? Yes, I should visit with my guests. I head off to the dining room where extra help has been hired to serve the lunch. Ada is here, sneering at the buffet and making disparaging remarks. No matter how beautiful Villa Buschi’s dining room is –-and it is resplendent with ornate centerpieces of cascading white flowers running down the huge mahogany table-- it will never live up to the dream of the twelve course lunch that Ada Brunetti was looking forward to at Castello di Roppollo. I stare at her and wonder if anything could ever change the sour expression on her face. Then, as if by magic, something does change the expression on Ada’s face. From afar, she spies him and her sour expression changes to a look of lust. The object of her affection is none other than Signor Tacchini, who inches his way across the dining room.

Is it just me or is there a twinkle in Ada’s eye when Signor Tacchini takes a seat at the table next to her?

“Why, Filippo Tacchini, you old so-an-so, I haven’t seen you in ages,” she gushes.

“Not since you used to run around the village in your stocking feet,” Signor Tacchini banters happily.

I almost drop my plate of antipasti on the floor.

After the lavish lunch, which many people eat standing up due to the lack of space at the table, the crowd moves into the main salon. Dancing breaks out as twilight engulfs the villa. Brandon whirls me around the dance floor with expertise. He doesn’t seem to mind my two left feet. Jason and Anna join us, and Dario and Rupa sort of sway with the beat. Uncle Tomasso takes his bride of forty-five years into his arms, and the newest couple of the evening, Ada and Signor Tacchini surprise everyone by doing an ethereal waltz, gliding about the floor.

It’s as we’re all applauding Ada and the gardener that I hear footsteps running down the main hall and turn to see Luca and Matteo practically mowing people down in an effort to get to Brandon. When they reach him they fling their arms around his knees.

“Look who came.” Luca points to the archway of the main salon. I crane my neck to see Signora Casetti enter in a daring red dress that ties over the shoulder.

“You invited
her
?” I ask Brandon.

“Well,” he shrugs, “I’m starting to get use to her. She’s around all the time.”

I catch a flash of leg as she crosses the room, the slit on her dress is cut very high. Who would have thought she would make such an elegant figure in those pince-nez glasses of hers? Just then, the band stops to take a small break and Signora Cassetti heads our way. She’s about to kiss us on the cheeks and tell us, “complimenti”, when she sees something across the room and her head swivels sharply.

“Why, I don’t believe it!” she cries, “Is that you, La Zafferana?”

Several eyes, including mine, anxiously follow her gaze. From across the room, Ada Brunetti throws up her hands and comes striding over shouting, “La Scarletina!”

I swear I’ve entered the twilight zone, or the Bermuda Triangle, or Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Or something! This can’t be happening, I must have misunderstood. I am about to fall on the floor as the women stride to each other and embrace in the middle of the main salon.

“How long has it been since we were in boarding school together?”

“Where have you been all these years?”

They are yelling and hugging as I feel my knees buckle.

“Party over, party over,” I snap a second later and begin running around the main salon in a most animated fashion. I snatch drinks out of people’s hands and begin to push them towards the door.

“Hold on, folks,” Brandon commands. “Party’s still going, she’s just joking.” To me he whispers, “Calm down.”

How can I stay calm? How can I?

“Please go on with the party. Signora Casetti, Signora Brunetti, Rupa and Dario, oh and you too, Francesca di Campo, will you please join Lily and me in the library,” he says in such a way as to put on the façade that nothing is wrong. His words are expressed in the lightest, airiest of tones as if what just happened isn’t about the strangest thing that I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

After the six of us file into the library, Brandon closes the door.

“I’m so sorry, ladies,” Brandon begins in really stilted Italian, “But did I hear you right? Did you Signora Casetti call Signora Brunetti ‘La Zafferana?’”

“Yes, she did, so what’s it to you?” Ada pipes up rudely. Wow, even talking to one of the biggest stars in the world she is still incredibly unfriendly.

“Yes, yes, they are old, silly, made up school names. I haven’t seen Ada in so long. When we were younger we were in the orphanage together in Turin. We all had different colored dresses that were made by the headmistress. Such a sweet woman, do you remember Ada?”

“I hated her,” croaks Ada.

Signora Casetti laughs as if it’s a good joke. “Surely you jest, Ada, she was the warmest woman.”

“But Mother,” interrupts Dario, who looks faint from having put two and two together, “I thought you were raised by your aunt.”

“Aunts, plural,” she spits out. “I was in and out of the orphanage depending on who had the money to take care of me. My mother left me there when I was two. And my father died when I was a baby. At least, that’s what mother told her sisters who eventually raised me.”

She looks around for sympathy but nobody breathes. All I am thinking is: DNA test. DNA test!

I look around the room to see if everyone is thinking the same thing. Poor Rupa has shut down completely, her face is paler than mine.

Dario must be quickly adding up all of Carlo Buschi’s money in his head and Brandon must be freaking out. Freaking out! It would be just like Ada to want Villa Buschi for herself.

“Well, you had it better than me, Ada, at least you had aunts who came for you now and then.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmur in a moment of clarity and then my inner Matlock takes over, “And you say you went to boarding school together as well?”

Dario, Rupa and Brandon glance at me as if to say,
is that the most important question you have at the moment?

I give them a strained look.
Yes it is.

“Yes, at age eight, there is no more orphanage, so they shipped us off to a boarding school near Verona. It was run by nuns. It wasn’t so bad.”

Ada makes a sour face. It’s clear she thinks the boarding school was worse than hemorrhagic fever, or toxic fumes or something equally as bad,

“I see, and you haven’t seen each other since?”

“Bah,” Ada spits, “I never get out of the countryside much. I should come to Arona more often. So no, to answer your question, Lily Bilbury, if it’s any of your business, I haven’t seen Elena Casetti in probably forty years.”

“Ah yes,” Signora Casetti murmurs. “But I knew you by the sparkle in your eye.”

Incredible. This is so incredible. I think my head will explode. And to think Ada has no idea who she is.

I lean in to scrutinize Dario’s mother’s face. Come to think of it, she does kind of resemble that long line of Buschi ancestors depicted in the paintings that hang in the hallway above us. She has the same round nose.

“What’s wrong with all of you? Why are you staring at me like that?” Ada snaps.

“Mother,” Dario says gently, “How many people knew about your childhood nicknames at the orphanage?”

“Nobody knows. Only people connected to the orphanage in Turin knew our nicknames,” Ada exhales crossly.

“Yes,” Signora Casetti sighs, “We would go filing out on walks right in downtown Turin and headmistress would call us all by the colors of our dresses.”

“That old bat was too lazy to even learn our proper names.”

Signor Casetti laughs as if Ada has just said the darndest thing.

The rest of us, however, are silent. In my head I am thinking Carlo Buschi must have kept tabs on his daughter. He knew she was at the orphanage, and he knew what her nickname was.

Oh my, it’s all a little sad, isn’t it? To think that Buschi never went and claimed Ada. She had to be raised first in an orphanage and then by different aunts. But things were different back then, and if Carlo Buschi and Ada’s mother weren’t married, having a child out of wedlock was probably a heavy burden.

“I’m so sorry, Mother. About the orphanage, that is. I never knew,” Dario exhales.

“Bah.” Ada bats at the air with a fist. “My parents were poor. A baby girl wasn’t of much importance.”

“Mother,” Dario explains, “I don’t think you have any idea just how important you are. You have always been so to me. But there’s something we need to tell you.” He glances at Rupa, Francesca and I and we all give him an encouraging nod.

“I believe your parents may not have been poor… at least your father wasn’t. What I am trying to say is that you may be the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Arona’s history,” Dario utters in one big breath.

“Are you an idiot?” is all Ada replies before she gives her son a cold, hard stare.