‘You are a very wealthy young woman.’
Grace dragged herself back to the very surreal present. ‘Wealthy? I think you’ve made a mistake. I’m going home today. I have a week’s holiday before I start my next—’ She stopped and dragged in a gulping breath. ‘Thatcan’tbe right. Why would Salvatore leave me anything? I was only his nurse. I only knew him for a couple of months.’
What will people think or say?
Grace didn’t voice the last thought out loud. There was no point asking a question when you already knew the answer.
They would think the worst possible thing. They would say there was no smoke without fire—just as they had the last time.
Her heart took a sickening lurch as those memories escaped the box she had locked them in, markedI have moved on.
It had been her second job for the nursing agency. A lovely, grateful family with whom she had been on the best of terms—until an extremely valuable necklace and a pile of cash had vanished.
It had been a nightmare.
Grace had been suspended, because the family who had days earlier been thanking her had suddenly been accusing her of being a thief. The truth had come out almost immediately, and she had been proved totally innocent, but the event had left scars.
This is not the same!
‘This is... It feels surreal.’
‘I can see this has been a shock...but a pleasant one?’ The balding figure smiled benignly at her.
‘No...yes... But I only knew him—This just isn’t right. Can I give it back?’
‘Give what back?’
‘Everything... The staff can have it. Marta and...’
A hand was lifted to still halt her spill of anxious words. ‘The staff have all been remembered very generously in the will, and tenants have been given lifetime tenure. Let me assure you that no one has been forgotten. I think you should take some time to get used to the idea, and then...’
‘No. I was his nurse. I can’t benefit financially from someone’s death. People will think that I took advantage...’
‘Not at all,’ the lawyer soothed. But he was avoiding her eyes. Because obviously, human nature being what it was, some people would. He considered her for a moment and then, seeming to some to a decision, said, ‘Look, if you do feel that way there is an option—though I advise you not to make any decisions yet...’
‘What option?’
An hour later Grace walked into the massive kitchen, with its modern state-of-the-art equipment sitting comfortably on the original flagstone floor, among heavy beams and the original kitchen fireplace. No one would have described it as cosy, but it was the most informal room in the palazzo, which boasted too many bedrooms to count and was, unsurprisingly, designed on a palatial scale.
Marta, the housekeeper, wearing her usual crisp white blouse and tailored trousers, was sitting at the table, tapping into the spreadsheets on her laptop, as she sipped a cup of coffee. She looked up when Grace appeared.
‘I know that computers are meant to make life easier, but honestly... This—’ She stopped, the smile fading from her narrow face as she took in Grace’s expression. ‘Oh, my, you look pale.’ The older woman tutted. ‘It’s been a hard few days. I wish you’d let me rearrange your flight for later in the week.’
Grace managed a distracted smile. When she’d arrived ten weeks ago the housekeeper, who had been very protective of her employer, had initially been suspicious of the English nurse suddenly living in the palazzo. She had openly questioned why an agency specialising in palliative end-of-life care had not sent an Italian-speaking nurse.
Grace herself had asked the same thing, and had been told that her patient, who was fluent in several languages, did not have a problem with her not speaking Italian.
‘We have an army of nurses on rota here already. What are you? A miracle-worker?’ Marta had asked scornfully. ‘Are you going to make him live?’
Grace, who had heard grief talking before, had been gentle. ‘I hope I’ll be able to make him a little more comfortable.’
Marta’s attitude had changed when she’d seen the difference the new regime of pain relief that Grace had introduced had made to her employer. And how she’d worked in conjunction with Salvatore’s own physician, who was universally adored by the staff at the palazzo.
Grace had seen tears in her eyes the day she’d walked into the kitchen and found the previously bedbound Salvatore sitting at the table they were seated at now.
‘He was just surviving,’ Marta had said in the emotional aftermath of the funeral. ‘Thanks to you, helivedhis last weeks.’
Grace’s protests that she’d just been doing her job had been ignored as she was enfolded in a crushing hug.