Charley sank down onto the floor, still holding the envelope, her diary forgotten.
This was a letter to Raphael from his mother. It had to be. And she had no right to read it, but her hand was trembling so much that somehow the letter had begun to slip free of the envelope, the thick sheets sliding into her lap.
Putting down the envelope, Charley quickly picked the paper up.
Impossible now not to be aware of the elegant handwriting, of the date written at the top of the first sheet in dark ink.
The letter was nearly twenty years old, written quite obviously when Raphael had only been a boy. An aching longing filled her, a tender smile for the boy that Raphael must have been curving her mouth.
She looked down at the letter, the words written on it springing up as though demanding that she read them.
My dearest and dearly loved son—and you are that, Raphael, MY son, the son of my heart and my love. I am writing this letter to you in English because it is the language that my English governess taught me, as your father and I have taught it to you, so that we could all speak it together—our special ‘secret’ shared language. Your father is gone now, and my life without him is so empty. One day, when you yourself know true love, you will understand all that this means.
I write this letter now, knowing that it is what your father would want me to do. It is to be given to you when you come of age. We had planned to tell you together, and I fear I shall not have the strength to tell you on my own.
I beg you not to judge me too harshly, Raphael, for being too cowardly, too afraid of losing your love, to tell you the truth myself. The truth, though, must be told—for your own dear sake.
Now you are young, a boy still, but one day you will be a man, and when that time comes there are things that you will need to know.
She mustn’t read any more, Charley told herself. She must fold up the letter and hand it to Anna to send on to Raphael. To continue to read something so obviously private was a gross invasion of the privacy of mother and son. And yet she was filled with a compulsion that she could not resist to read on.
Spreading out the heavy sheets of paper, Charley continued to read.
You know already of the terrible inheritance that has come down to me through my family. I have told you stories of lives ruined and destroyed, of the horror of the cruelty and madness that has surfaced in members of our blood, and part of the reason I have told you this is so that you will understand why your father and I chose to do what we have done.
You are my beloved son, Raphael, the greatest gift life has given me along with the love of your father. From the first moment of your conception, even before I held you in my arms for the first time, I loved you. You are my son, my child, even though the source that gave you life was not me.
I made a vow as a girl that I would not pass on to a child the burden that I had had to carry—the knowledge that whilst I had escaped the taint of our blood, my children, and their children after them might not do so. When your father and I married he knew of this vow I had made and he supported me in it. However, as the years went by I yearned increasingly to hold a child of our love in my arms. That need became a sickness in me for which I believed there could be no cure, until I learned that there was a doctor—not here in Italy but abroad—who had discovered a way to enable women who could not conceive naturally to have a child of their own. Initially your father was against such a thing, but he knew of my desperation, and so in the end he gave way, and we travelled abroad to see this doctor. He warned us that it would not be easy, nor the result guaranteed, but now I had hope—the hope of having a child from the love your father and I shared that would be free of my own blood.
So it was that your life began, with the gift of life from a childhood friend of mine of good family who had fallen on hard times. A woman with children of her own, who understood my need.
Those first early weeks when I knew that I carried you inside my body I hardly dared to believe that you actually were there. I was so afraid that I might lose you, but you yourself gave me strength, Raphael, because you were there, growing. You had not rejected me or spurned my body; instead you had made yourself part of me. I cannot tell you the joy I felt because you had accepted me as your mother, because you trusted me to protect you and provide for you. With every day that went by my strength grew because of your strength. I was so proud of you, so proud to be carrying you, your father’s child, growing within me. Even before you were born I knew you and loved you.
To me you were mine every bit as much as you would have been had you been conceived from me. When after your birth you were placed in my arms I was joyful—not just because you were the image of your father, or even because I was holding you, but because I knew your life would be free of the shadows of my family past.
Over the years I have told you over and over again about that past, hoping that when the time came for me to tell you what I have written here you would understand and not turn away from me, or accuse me of deceit, no longer thinking of me as your mother. Even if you should do that, Raphael, you will always be my child, my so beloved son, who I carried with such joy and pride and who I have watched grow with equal joy and pride.
Charley lifted her head from the letter, biting her lip in an attempt to stem the tears spilling from her eyes. Every word she had written was filled with Raphael’s mother’s love for him, and reading the letter Charley had felt her emotion.
Why, though, had she hidden the letter away? There was no signature to it. Perhaps she had put it aside to be finished at a later date, but had not had the opportunity to do so?
How selfless a mother’s love could be. Raphael’s mother’s desire to ensure that her son need not fear her past had come before her own obvious fear that the truth might come between them.
The truth!
Charley sat back on her heels. She was only just beginning to appreciate herself what the letter would mean—not only for Raphael himself, but also for them!
They could be together. Now there was nothing to keep them apart. Now they could love one another, without Raphael feeling that he was denying her anything.
She wanted to jump up and dance around the room. She was filled with energy and impatience. She would drive to Rome, take the letter herself to Raphael, so that she could be there when he read it. She knew that he would not reject his mother, that like her he would know how much and how selflessly she had loved him as her own child.
Her mind was racing ahead, making plans, but then abruptly a new thought struck her.
What if she was taking too much for granted? Raphael was a duke, the holder of an ancient title and estate, a member of a group of people who tended to marry within their own class in order to produce heirs. Raphael might have seemed to care about her when he had believed that he must never have children, but what if his mother’s revelations changed that? Just as he had put his concern for her future before his own feelings, wasn’t it only right and fair that she should step back a bit now and allow him to come to her freely?
And if he didn’t? If he should turn away from her? Charley shuddered under the misery of the pain that bit deeply into her. She had to do what was right—for Raphael.
An hour later she stood and watched as the courier drove away from the palazzo, taking with him the letter she had written to Raphael, enclosing his mother’s letter to him, to be delivered by special delivery, no later than the morning.