The Accidental Accardi Heir by Caitlin Crews

Author:Caitlin Crews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-10-06T11:55:18+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

AGO DID NOT have particularly fond recollections of Christmas. Like most things in his family, there were usually command performance appearances, duties to acquit and responsibilities to meet.

The traditional meatless dinner on Christmas Eve, a pageant of seafood that his family had always made longer and more trying by filling the table with local dignitaries and the odd overawed peasant—the better to extol the virtues of the restrained and elegant Tuscan character while feasting. Christmas Day had meant the local church, endless masses, and then stilted formal meals that had been tedious and awkward until he’d come of age and could retreat into the good whiskey like everyone else.

But that wasn’t the end of it, for the 26th was il giorno di Santo Stefano, when his family would ostentatiously parade from one nativity scene in a local church to the next, giving donations to all, then hitting up the hospitals for more opportunities to display their benevolence. Only to return to the villa for yet another too-long meal, which usually devolved into recriminations and histrionics that everyone pretended not to remember for the rest of the Christmas season, which in Italy stretched on until the Epiphany in January. There would be visits from La Befana, the strega from folklore who delivered stockings filled with sweets in the night, and yet another family meal during the day—a national holiday—during which his mother and grandmother would murmur things like L’Epifania, tutte le feste porta via to each other and into their wine, as if the Epiphany not only took the holidays away for the year but all of their hope and happiness too.

Buon Natale, one and all.

But despite his aversion to the spectacle, Ago had made an effort this year. He had told himself it was all part and parcel of giving Victoria what she wanted, and thus to continue lulling her into a false sense of security. Because it was clear to him that Victoria, having lost her mother at a young age, was certain to throw herself full tilt into the mothering of their child.

He knew this by the way she crooned to her bump when she thought she was alone. The way she talked to their child on their walks, pointing out items of interest as if the baby inside her could see what she saw.

No matter how much help she might have on hand, as befit the mother of his heir, he was certain that she would insist on being as hands-on as possible. Unlike his grandmother, who been far more concerned with appearances and what she thought was owed to the community as the reigning Accardi matriarch. Or his mother, who had been distant and medicated and under constant supervision on the few occasions per year she actually interacted with her sons.

Your mother had a responsibility to produce the two of you, his father had said whenever Ago or Tiziano dared complain. Whatever you may think of her, she did her duty. You can do her the simple courtesy of appreciating what she did without forever expecting more.

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