again.’
Jenny couldn’t let that pass. ‘I’m all right. I don’t need anything from you,’ she declared, shooting a frown at both Dante and Marco. ‘I didn’t come to get your family support. I can look after myself.’
The old man eyed her quizzically. ‘Why did you come, Isabella?’
‘Because …’ He forced me to, but she couldn’t say that. ‘Because I wanted to know where my father had come from. Dante told me why you banished him, but you know, it must have been terrible for him, too, knowing he caused his mother’s death. I think now he punished himself, taking on the hardships of living and working in the Outback. It’s a very isolated life. But he was a good man, a good husband, a good father. You could have been proud of what he made of himself.’
She barely knew where the words came from—stories Bella had told about her growing-up years on the cattle station in far west Queensland, her own instinctive spin on the tragedy that had led to Antonio Rossini’s exile, a need to resolve the bad feelings that Dante wanted resolved because that would free her in the end.
Her earnest outburst seemed to drive Marco back inside himself. He closed his eyes. His face sagged. His skin took on a greyish tinge.
Dante leaned forward, anxiously touching his arm. ‘Nonno, Isabella didn’t mean to be accusing.’
The heavy lids slowly lifted. ‘My boy, I’ve been saying the very same things to myself, ever since I read the investigator’s report.’ He turned deeply regretful eyes to Jenny. ‘What was done was done in anger and grief. I loved my wife very much. And I believe what you tell me. Antonio loved his mother very much. He gave you her name.’
Dante hadn’t mentioned that to her. It made more poignant sense of Marco’s disappointment. ‘You wanted to see her in me.’
‘Yes. Antonio looked very like her. I thought …’ He made an apologetic grimace.
‘It’s Isabella on my birth certificate but I’ve always been called Bella,’ Jenny said defensively, shying from being linked to the woman whom Marco had loved and lost. It made her feel even more of a fraud.
‘Bella …’ he repeated softly. ‘A fitting name. You’re a beautiful young woman. Your mother must have been beautiful, too.’
Jenny flushed at the compliment, knowing it wasn’t really deserved since her ‘beauty’ had been engineered by Dante. ‘I thought so,’ she answered stiffly, judging it to be the safest reply.
‘Do you have photographs of your parents you can show me?’
Jenny shook her head, answering with Bella’s own words explaining why she had none of the usual mementoes of her family. ‘The old homestead on the station burnt down when I was eighteen and in my last year at boarding school. My parents were away at the cattle sales. Nothing was saved.’
‘Another loss for you,’ Marco murmured sympathetically.
‘And you.’ Her eyes flashed understanding of his desire to see a pictorial record of the son who had lived out his life on the other side of the world.
‘Yes. But I chose to bring my loss upon myself. You didn’t.’
It was fair comment and she nodded her appreciation of it. She was beginning to like Marco Rossini. He didn’t come over as a cruel tyrant, ruthlessly wielding his wealth and power to punish or reward, more a man in the winter of his life, regretting mistakes he could not re-write.
She picked up the drink Dante had poured for her and sipped the fruit-juice, grateful for the cool moisture sliding down her throat. It tasted of pineapple and oranges. She needed the refreshment for the next round of questions.
A glance at Dante showed him watching her with an air of curious respect, as though she’d met more than his expectation in her performance so far. Which was a huge relief, since she’d been winging it with a mish-mash of her own feelings and what she’d imagined Bella’s would be.
‘Since you chose to live at the Venetian Forum, I thought Antonio must have told you some of his family history,’ Marco put to her. ‘Yet you said you knew nothing of us.’
‘He never spoke of you,’ she answered, though she had no idea of whether that was true or not. The question of why Bella had bought an apartment at the Venetian Forum had been tormenting her ever since Dante had brought it up. She had to produce a logical reason for it.
‘We had an Italian name. I asked my father where it had come from. He told me it was an old Venetian name. His family had lived there but when he’d lost them he’d emigrated to Australia, and Venice was a place in the past for him. He said I should only think about being an Australian.’ She lifted her chin proudly. ‘Which is what I am.’
The old man nodded. ‘It’s a fine country. I spent some time in Sydney, purchasing suitable property for our hotel and the forum. It’s a beautiful city.’
‘Yes. I love it,’ Jenny said strongly, wanting him to know she had no desire to leave her life for anything he could offer. Bella might have made that change but Jenny Kent couldn’t.
‘A big change for you from life in The Outback,’ he remarked, possibly thinking if she could adapt to that, she could adapt to moving to another country.
‘I had no heart for trying to run the cattle station after my parents died. There was a large mortgage on it because of the drought and …’
‘Too difficult for you in every respect,’ Marco murmured sympathetically.
‘Yes.’ She sighed over the immediate difficulty of trying to relive Bella’s life. ‘After everything was settled up, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so I went on what you might call a journey of discovery, travelling around until I found a place that appealed to me. When I came to Sydney, I found the Venetian Forum and …’
‘And you remembered your father was originally from Venice,’ Marco supplied helpfully.
‘It felt right. Like a sense of belonging. I loved the artiness of it, the colours of the apartments, the markets around the canal. I’ve always loved drawing and I thought about signing up for an art course but I had to wait until the beginning of the new year to do that. I made a good friend who was also into art and asked her to share my apartment so I wasn’t alone. She didn’t have any family, either. We were like sisters.’
Jenny desperately hoped that covered everything. ‘But then I lost her, too,’ she finished off, her voice losing traction under the dampening weight of sorrow that Bella’s death always evoked in her.
She closed her eyes and ducked her head, fighting another rush of tears. Bella should be here, not her. Jenny Kent had no one to care if she was dead or not. And Bella had been so kind to her, so generous in her sharing, so good to be with. She had deserved more from life, and maybe she had secretly yearned for this reunion with the Rossini family.
Jenny wept for her in her mind …. I can’t do this for you. I’m not you. Yet to survive she had to take Bella’s place for Marco Rossini. Dante would not let her go until the performance was no longer needed for his grandfather.
‘You have us now, Bella,’ the old man assured her quietly.
She shook her head
