Second Chances in Chianti (Escape to Tuscany Book 2) by T.A. Williams (online e reader .TXT) 📕

restaurant. As she was walking across the piazza on her way there, her phone bleeped and she saw that it was a message from Claudio. He was offering to drive over to see her. When she got to the restaurant, she checked whether they were open at lunchtimes and sent him a message telling him any day was good for her and suggesting they meet here at the restaurant at noon on the day of his choice. That way he wouldn’t actually be coming into her house and this would help to keep things a bit less intimate, just in case he was still keen on her.

That evening, to her relief, there was no sign of Conrad Chesterfield or his family in the restaurant and she enjoyed a fine dinner of grilled trout accompanied by a wonderful mixed salad. At the end of the meal, even though she had had a sorbet in Arezzo, she allowed herself a silky-smooth panna cotta, topped with fresh strawberries and blueberries. By the time she walked back home across the square, she was feeling happy and relaxed. Matt was beginning to thaw and David and Richie were gradually receding into distant memories, and she felt an increasing sense of calm. As she watched the antics of the bats wheeling around the orange streetlights, she reflected yet again that her decision not to head back to Hollywood had probably been the right one. Why trade this sort of peace and quiet for the bright lights? It didn’t get much better than this.

Or rather, the only way it could get better than this would be if a certain someone were to show a bit more interest. And whether that would happen or not was still anybody’s guess.

Chapter 17

She met Claudio a few days later. He was already waiting outside the restaurant when she got there and he beamed as he caught sight of her.

‘Ciao, Alice. It’s great to see you again.’

She went up to him and kissed him on the cheeks, then stepped back and studied him more closely. He now had a close-cropped beard and different glasses, but he still looked very much the same as the last time she had seen him three years earlier.

‘Ciao, Claudio. It was lovely to hear from you. Thanks for coming to see me.’

They went into Giovanni’s restaurant and sat down outside, in the garden. It was another hot day, but the sky was overcast and she wondered if bad weather might be on the way. Not that she could complain – she had only had a couple of wet days in over two weeks. They chatted about her life and his and he congratulated her warmly on getting her doctorate before giving her his big news.

‘I’m getting married in September.’

Alice looked up with interest. ‘Congratulations. And who’s the lucky girl?’

He went on to tell her all about his bride-to-be and Alice told him how happy she was for him – not least as this now removed any fear that he might have been harbouring amorous intentions. As a result, it was a lovely relaxing lunch and at the end of it she invited him back to her house for coffee and a chat. They sat on the bench in the garden and spent a happy hour or more talking about medieval history, and she mentioned the enigma of the shield with the wasps on it. To her delight, she spotted a flicker of recognition on his face.

‘On a diagonal stripe, you say?’

‘Yes, on a field of deep red. The wasps are a gold colour and the stripe blue.’

‘Give me a moment.’ Claudio pulled out his phone and busied himself for a few moments before giving a grunt of satisfaction and passing it across to her. ‘Look familiar?’

It certainly did. There could be no doubt about it – the red background, the stripe, the insects – yes, this was the same one. She nodded emphatically.

‘That’s it, I’m sure.’

‘I thought it sounded familiar.’ Claudio took the phone back from her and explained. ‘I knew I’d seen it before. It belonged to the Vespucci family. The wasps are a play on the word vespa, wasp in English. Does the name Amerigo Vespucci ring a bell?’

Alice’s eyes opened wide and she nodded. ‘The man who gave his name to America?’ She hesitated. ‘I never did know whether he discovered it or whether that was down to Christopher Columbus.’

Claudio laughed. ‘Academics have been arguing about that for hundreds of years – or at least the naming part of it. Forgetting for a moment that it’s pretty certain the Vikings, cod fishermen from Europe and maybe even the Chinese got there first, it’s generally accepted that Columbus discovered what he thought was the Spice Islands in 1492, even though what he had in fact found was the Bahamas. Subsequently, he made it as far as Cuba, but he only actually reached mainland America in 1498 – and that was Venezuela. Although there’s a public holiday in his name in the USA, the fact is that Columbus never set foot in North America.’

‘And Amerigo Vespucci?’

‘There’s just as much myth and mystery surrounding him. He was born in Florence, and went off to work in Portugal and then Spain as an explorer and cartographer. Nobody knows for sure how many times he went to the Americas, or if he ever reached North America, although that looks highly unlikely. But he was the first to speculate that what had been discovered might be a whole new continent. His maps were used by a German cartographer called Martin Waldseemüller, who published his definitive world map in 1507 and was the first person to coin the name America. He did this out of respect for Amerigo Vespucci, and it stuck.’

‘And do you think Vespucci might have lived in the Chianti region?’

Claudio shook his head. ‘I doubt it. I’d have to check, but I’m almost certain he spent most of his life in Spain and he died there. Maybe some