Flirting with Italian
Spending so much on clothes had come as a bit of a shock to the system but her savings account was no longer burdened with the price of her dream wedding dress. And handing over her credit card to pay for her spending spree had slammed the door on any lingering hope that Tom might come back. Or that her sacrifice in giving up her job so that he could return to Maybridge High would bring him to his senses.
It was too late for him to be having regrets.
There is also a rule that no one should come to Italy without buying at least one pair of shoes. I bought these. And these. And these.
She stretched out her foot to admire the sandal she was wearing. Well, she wasn’t on holiday. One pair was never going to be enough and, just to make the point, she picked up her phone and took a photograph of it.
As you can see, there is a lot more to Rome than a load of old ruins, but since you’re expecting churches and I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, this is Santa Maria del Popolo. You’ll probably recognise it from one of the gorier bits in the film Angels & Demons.
Rome, boring? I think not.
The blog was probably not quite what the Head had in mind, Sarah thought, smiling to herself. With luck he’d remove the link from the school website sooner rather than later. Then, as she loaded up the pictures, she wondered if Tom would bother to read it. Whether Louise could resist taking a look.
Those shoes would provoke envy in the heart of any woman. Especially one whose ankles were swelling …
Several of her ex-colleagues had made a point of texting Sarah to let her know that Louise was pregnant, but not before Tom had told her himself. Wanting her to know before she heard it from anyone else. As if it would hurt any less.
She gave herself a mental bad-girl slap as she clicked ‘post’, but there were limits to her nobility.
Finally, she checked her email. There was one from her mother, attaching a photograph of her dad being presented with an award from work for twenty-five years service. Another from Lex, who wanted to know how she was progressing in her search for a dark-eyed Italian lover.
Short answer; she’d had no time.
Faced with a slightly different syllabus to the one she’d been teaching, getting to know her students and finding her way around a strange city, she didn’t have a spare moment. She’d even taken a rain check on Pippa’s offer to go clubbing with her and her boyfriend, and she replied to Lex, telling him so.
Or perhaps she was just being cowardly. Getting back into dating was hard. She couldn’t imagine being with someone else. Kissing, touching, being touched by anyone else.
There were a couple of emails from colleagues at Maybridge High, asking how she was coping. One wanting to know when she could come and stay. The other wanting to know when she’d be home for the weekend.
She wrote cheery replies saying, ‘any time’ to the first, ‘no idea’ to the second, telling them both about the shopping, sightseeing and her new colleagues, several of whom had invited her to spend her weekends with their families.
It was kind of them but the last thing she wanted was for her social life to revolve around work.
Been there. Done that. Using the T-shirt as a duster.
It wasn’t as if there was any shortage of things to see and do.
Her degree might be in History but the Romans, beyond Julius Caesar, Hadrian’s Wall and Antony and Cleopatra, were pretty much a blank page and her spare time had been spent being a total tourist, sucking up the sights, taking pictures.
But Lucia had been on her mind a lot and on Saturday she was going to visit the village of Isola del Serrone.
Sarah had no intention of revealing her identity. She just wanted to know what had happened to Lucia. If she had a good life. And, if she was still alive, that she was well cared for. Her family owed her that.
CHAPTER TWO
ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS
This weekend, dear readers, I abandoned culture, history, the familiarity of the city and took a train ride out into the Italian countryside.
It’s a bit unnerving, buying a ticket in a foreign language. I’m working on my Italian and I can ask the right questions. ‘Un’andata e ritorno, per favore …’
Unfortunately, I don’t understand the answers. It’s like listening to a radio that’s slipped off the station. My ear isn’t tuned in to the sounds, the inflections of the language. I have to listen ten times as hard and even then I’m only catching one word in five.
Somehow, though, I caught the right train and made it safely to my destination.
MATTEO DI SERRONE was furious. Isabella di Serrrone might be the darling of the Italian cinema, but right at that moment she was no favourite of his.
He’d planned an early escape from Rome, but had instead become embroiled in his cousin’s latest indiscretions when she’d arrived on his doorstep with an army of paparazzi in her wake.
She knew how he loathed the media. They’d all but destroyed his mother and they would do the same to her if she gave them half a chance.
Now, instead of a quiet early morning drive to Isola del Serrone, a day in the vineyards checking that everything was ready for the harvest, he was in her limousine, playing Pied Piper to her escort, with his sulky teenage brother for company.
‘Cheer up, Stephano. You, at least, are getting something out of this,’ Matteo said.
‘Stop acting the hard man. You know you’d do anything for Bella,’ came the swift reply.
He glanced at the boy. Made-up, in wig and dark glasses, with his cousin’s coat thrown around his shoulders, he was pretty enough to be mistaken for her. Pretty enough to have fooled the following pack of photographers.
‘Not quite anything,’ Matteo said and, as he grinned, the tension leached out of him. ‘I promise you that, not even for Bella, would I be prepared to wear lipstick.’
The mountains towered, clear and sharp, rising dramatically from the valley floor. Sarah looked up at them, peaceful, unthreatening in the sunlight, and tried to imagine them in the middle of winter. Covered in snow. The haunt of wolves and bears.
Unless, of course, Lex had made it up about the wolves and bears. Which was entirely possible.
Early in October, the sun was still strong enough for her to be glad of the straw hat she wore to keep it off her face. She paused by the bridge to look down at the river, trickling over stones, very low after the long hot summer. Took her time as she walked up the hill towards the village, looking around her for a glimpse of a familiar wall. The ruins of a once grand house.
Steps led up to a piazza, golden in the sunlight, shaded with trees. There were small shops, a café where the aproned proprietor was setting out tables and a church that seemed far too large for such a small place.
It was pretty enough to be a film set and she stood in the centre of the square, turning in a slow circle, taking photographs with her phone, making sure that she missed nothing.
As she came to a standstill she realised that she was being stared at by the man wearing the apron.
‘Buon giorno,’ she called.
He stared at her for a moment, then nodded briefly before retreating inside.
She shrugged. Not exactly an arms-wide welcome and, instead of crossing the square to have a coffee, ask him about the village, she walked towards the church. It was possible that the priest would be her best bet. She’d scanned a copy of Lucia’s photograph onto her netbook before framing one for Lex, but she didn’t have it with her. She wasn’t planning on flashing it around. But she could at least describe the house.
It was dark inside after the glare of the sun, but she could see that several people were waiting in the pews by the confessional boxes. Clearly the priest was going to be busy for a while.
It was a pretty church, beautifully painted, with a number of memorial plaques on the walls. Maybe one of them would bear the name Lucia? It would be a starting place.
As she looked around, a woman arranging flowers in a niche by a statue of the Madonna stared at her over the glasses perched on the end of her nose. Clearly the village wasn’t used to strangers and, feeling like an intruder, she decided to come back later when the church was quiet. Once outside, she followed a path that continued up the hill.
High ground.
That was what she needed. Somewhere she could look down on the village, see everything.
She continued upwards, passed houses tucked away behind high walls that offered only the occasional glimpse of a tiny courtyard, a pot of bright flowers, through wrought-iron gates. Above her there were trees, the promise of open vistas and she pressed on until she found the way unexpectedly blocked by a wall that looked a lot newer than the path.
There was a gate set into it but, as she reached for the handle, assuming that it was to keep goats from wandering into the village, it was flung open by a young man with a coat bundled under his arm.
It was hard to say which of them was most startled but he recovered first and, with a slightly theatrical bow, said, ‘Il mio piacese, signora!’
‘No problem …’ Then, as he held the gate wide for her. ‘Thank you.’ No … ‘Grazie.’
‘My pleasure, signora Inglese. Have a good day,’ he said, grinning broadly, clearly delighted with life.
She watched him bound down the steps. By the time he’d reached the square he was talking twenty to the dozen into his phone.
Smiling at such youthful energy, she looked around her. There was nothing beyond the wall except a rough path which led upwards through thick, scrubby woods to the top of the hill. With luck, there would be a clearing at the top, a viewpoint from which she could survey the surrounding countryside.
She closed the gate and carried on, catching the occasional glimpse of a vast vineyard sloping away into the distance on her right. Then, as she neared the top of the hill, the thicket thinned out and her heart stopped.
Ahead of her, the path edged towards a tumbledown stretch of wall. Part of it had fallen away so long ago that weeds had colonised it, growing out of cracks in the stone.
Patches of dry yellow lichens spread themselves out in the sun where Lucia had sat, smiling one last time for a man who was going away. Who she must have known she’d never see again.
Only a dusty footprint suggested that anyone had been this way since.
She took a step nearer. Reached out to lay her hand on the warm stone.
Here. Lucia had sat here. And as she looked up she saw a house. The house. No longer a grey, blurry ruin in an old photograph, but restored and far larger, grander than she’d realised.
It wasn’t the front, but the side view of the house and what had been rubble in her picture was now a square tower, the stucco a soft, faded umber in the strong sunlight.
There were vines, heavy with fruit, trailing over a large pergola at the rear. A rustic table set beneath it where generations of a family could eat beneath its shade.
The garden was full of colour. And above the distant sound of a tractor, the humming of insects in the midday heat, she could hear water running.
The spring that had been their only water supply all through that harsh winter.
Her hands were shaking as she used her phone to take a photograph of the restored scene. Only the wall—Lucia’s wall—had not been rebuilt. But why would it be? There was no one up here to keep out. On the contrary, it appeared to be a shortcut into the village and she glanced back down the path, wondering who the rather beautiful young man could have been. Family? A friend. Or an illicit lover, maybe, from the smear of lipstick on his lower lip, making his escape via the back way.
She took off her hat, fanned herself with it, turned again to look at the house. Wondering who lived there. Could it be the same family who’d owned the house when it had sheltered Lex?
Unlikely.
According to the website she’d found, the Isola del Serrone vineyard had long ago become a co-operative run by the villagers.
And the glimpse of a swimming pool suggested that the house had been bought by some wealthy businessman who used it as a weekend retreat from Rome.
Whatever, there were no answers here. Only the wall was as it had been and on a sudden whim she turned, put her hat down and hitched herself up, spreading her arms wide to support herself as Lucia had done. Closing her eyes, imagining how she’d felt, the sun warm on her face, danger passed. A last moment of happiness before Lex was repatriated, sent back to his rejoicing family, and she was left alone.
‘Well, don’t you look comfortable?’
Sarah started, blinked. The man standing on the path had appeared from nowhere. His face was in shadow, his eyes masked by dark glasses so that she couldn’t read his expression but, while his tone was neutral, it was not friendly.
‘Am I trespassing?’ she asked, doing her best to remain calm despite the frisson of nerves that riffled through her. He didn’t look dangerous, but she was on her own. No one knew where she was.
‘This is private land, signora.’
‘But there’s a footpath—’
‘There is also a gate. Hint enough, I’d have thought.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘It was locked.’
‘Someone held it open for me. A young man in a hurry.’ Then, ‘Hold on.’ He was speaking in English. Sexily accented as only an Italian could do it, but English nonetheless. ‘How did you know?’
‘That you were here?’
‘That I’m English.’
‘Actually,’ he said, mocking her, ‘the young man, having made his escape, spared a moment of his precious time to warn me that I had an intruder.’
‘Warn you?’ She remembered him reaching for his mobile phone as he’d walked away, how she’d imagined him talking to some girl … ‘What on earth did he think I was going to do?’ she demanded. ‘Shin up the drainpipe and pinch the family silver?’
Torn between annoyance and amusement, she had hoped he’d realise how ridiculous he was being. Maybe laugh. She couldn’t see his eyes, but his generous mouth seemed made for laughter.
He did neither.
She’d left her bag at the foot of the wall and, without so much as a by-your-leave, he picked it up and began to go through it.
‘Hey!’ she protested as he took out her phone. The nerve of the man! ‘Didn’t your mother tell you that you must never, ever, under any circumstances look in a lady’s handbag?’
‘First we have to establish that you are a lady,’ he replied, glancing up from his perusal of her messages, regarding her for a moment as if he was considering whether to search her, too.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned.
Maybe the silky scoop-necked designer T-shirt she’d teamed with cropped Maybridge market jeans convinced him that there wasn’t room to hide as much as a teaspoon about her person. Or maybe he was saving that pleasure for later.
It was a thought that should have made her feel a lot more nervous than it did.
Whatever the reason, he returned his attention to her phone, going through her messages, then her emails. Pausing at one, he looked over the top of his glasses at her with a pair of ink-dark eyes.
‘Have you found him yet, Sarah Gratton?’
For a moment she was mesmerized by the way he said her name. The vowels long and slow, like thick cream being poured from a jug. The man exuded sensuality. Every movement, every syllable seemed to stroke her …
‘Him?’ she repeated, before she began to purr. No … That wasn’t right. She was looking for Lucia …
‘The “dark-eyed Italian lover”?’ he prompted.
Oh, great. He’d found Lex’s email. But no one who taught a mixed class of teenagers could afford to betray the slightest sign of embarrassment. The first hint of a blush and you were toast.
You had to look them in the eye, stand your ground, come back with a swift riposte that would make the class laugh with you, not at you.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you interested in the job?’
It would have been spot on if it had come out sharp and snappy as intended, but something had gone seriously wrong between her brain and her mouth. Between concept and delivery.
It was his eyes. Dark as night but with the crackle of lightning in their depths …
Under that gaze, sharp had lost its edge, snap had turned to a soft, gooey fudge and, apparently taking it as an invitation, he reached out, slid his fingers through her hair, cradling her head in the palm of his hand. There was a seemingly endless pause while she frantically tried to redial her brain. Send out a call for the cavalry.
Her brain was apparently engaged, busy dealing with a bombardment of signals. The sun hot on her arms, her throat, her breasts. The sensuous sweep of the mouth hovering above her own. The scent of warm skin, leather …
The world seemed to have slowed down and it took forever for his lips to reach hers. Somewhere, deep inside her brain the word no was teetering on the brink. All she had to do was move her lips, say it, but her butter-soft mouth seemed to belong to someone else.
When it parted, it was not to protest and as his mouth found hers a tingle of something like recognition raced like wildfire through her blood, blotting out reason. Her body, with nothing to guide it, softened, melted against him, murmured, ‘Yes …’
It wasn’t enough and she clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging into hard flesh as she began to fall back, leaving gravity to take them down into the soft thick grass on the shady side of the wall.
For a moment she could feel it, was breathing in the green, sweet scent of grass, herbs crushed beneath them. The weight of his body, the sweep of his hand beneath the silk, lighting up her skin as it moved over her ribs. Her nipple, achingly hard in anticipation of his touch.
There was a sickening jolt, like that moment when you were on the point of falling asleep and something dragged you back.
‘Lucia …’
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
Sarah opened her eyes. She was still sitting on the wall, not clinging to this stranger but being supported by him, as if he thought that she was about to fall.
‘Are you all right?’ His voice seemed to be coming from under water.
‘What? Yes …’
She was back from wherever she’d been, whoever she’d been—because she wasn’t the kind of woman who invited total strangers to kiss her.
‘This was where they said goodbye …’ she whispered.
Lex had taken her photograph and kissed her and they’d made love there in the soft thick grass of early summer one last time before he’d taken the path down into the village. Flown away.
She turned and looked behind her to where her hat was lying in the grass. Not the sweet and green grass of early summer—
‘Sarah!’ the man said, rather more urgently.
‘It’s dry,’ she said. And a little shiver ran through her. ‘The grass.’
‘It’s autumn.’
‘Autumn?’ She shook her head, forced herself to concentrate.
‘Are you all right?’ he repeated, eyes narrowed.
‘Yes.’ Pull yourself together … ‘Yes, of course I am.’
He touched a thumb to her cheek, his hand cradling her face as he wiped away a tear. ‘Then why the tears?’
Tears? She swiped her palm across her cheek. ‘Hay fever,’ she said, grabbing for the first answer that came into her head.
‘In autumn?’
Had he actually kissed her?
Her lips still tingled with a lingering taste of the perfect kiss but had it been a fleeting fantasy? A phantom conjured up by the place, by old memories, by her own loss?
She blinked, saw a tiny smear of lipstick on the corner of his mouth. Of course he’d kissed her. She’d practically begged him to. What on earth had possessed her?
There were no answers, but her brain finally picked up, answered her call for help. Speak. Move. Get out of here …
‘I’m allergic to chrysanthemums,’ she said, sliding down from the wall, forcing him to step back. ‘It’s hereditary.’ Her knees buckled slightly as she hit the ground, her legs unexpectedly shaky beneath her and he caught her elbow to steady her. ‘Great interview, by the way.’ She took a breath, reached for her bag. She really needed to get out of here, but he was blocking her way. And he still had her phone. ‘Leave your number with my secretary and I’ll let you know.’
She’d made a stab for crispness but her voice could have done with longer in the salad drawer.
He continued to look at her for a moment, as if half expecting her to crumple at his feet.
She lifted a brow. The one guaranteed to bring a sassy fifth year into line.
Apparently reassured that she wasn’t about to collapse, he said, ‘Don’t wait too long. I’m not short of offers.’ But his voice, too, had lost its edge and the accent seemed more pronounced, as if he was having a chocolate fudge moment of his own.
‘My phone.’ She held out her hand, praying that it wouldn’t shake. ‘If you please.’
‘When I’m done.’ Then, ignoring her huff of outrage, he turned away, propped his elbows on the wall beside her and began to flip through her photographs.
They were mostly typical tourist shots. A few pictures of the school, her apartment. The kind of things she’d taken to send home or for her blog.
‘You’ve come from Rome?’ he asked.
She didn’t bother to answer, instead leaned back against the wall to give her wobbly knees a break. Vowed to have more than an espresso and pastry for breakfast in future.
‘You’ve been busy sightseeing.’
He glanced at her when she didn’t bother to answer.
‘I’m new in town. I’ll soon run out of things to photograph.’
‘Don’t count on it.’ Then, as he continued, found the photographs she’d taken of the wall, the house, ‘What’s your interest in my house? It’s not an ancient monument.’
It was his house?
He didn’t fit the image she had of a middle-aged businessman setting himself up in a weekend retreat. At all.
‘It’s a lovely house. A lovely view. Have I done something wrong?’ As he glanced at her, the sleeve of his shirt brushed against her bare arm and the soft linen raised goosebumps on her flesh. ‘I thought taking photographs from a public footpath was okay.’
‘And I thought I’d made it clear that this isn’t a public footpath. It’s part of the Serrone estate.’
‘You need a sign,’ she advised him. ‘“Trespassers will be Prosecuted” is usual. Not that I’d have understood it. Maybe a “No Entry” symbol, the kind they use on roads would be better, or a picture of a slavering dog.’ She should stop babbling right now. ‘Give it to me. I’ll delete them.’
‘No need. I’ll do it for you.’ Beep, beep, beep. He still didn’t return the phone. ‘We don’t get many visitors to Isola del Serrone. Especially not from England.’
‘No? I can’t say I’m surprised.’ It was quite possible that she was the first English person to visit the village since her great-grandfather left. ‘Maybe you’d do better if you were a little more welcoming.’
His eyes were now safely hidden behind those dark lenses, but the corner of his mouth tucked up in what might, at a stretch, have been a smile.
‘How much more friendly do you want?’
And she discovered that, classroom hardened as she was, she could still, given sufficient provocation, blush.
‘I’m good, thanks.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s your call.’ Then, clearly unconvinced by her ‘walk in the country’ story, ‘We’re not on the tourist map.’
‘That’s okay. I’m not a tourist.’
‘No?’ He didn’t sound entirely surprised. Which was surprising. Italy was, after all, chock-full of tourists and some of them must occasionally wander off the beaten track. Take photographs of views that hadn’t made it into the guidebooks. ‘So what are you really doing here?’ he asked.