'No. You just did.'
She glared at him, resenting the fact that he had tricked her more than the fact that he had found her out. 'Well, you needn't worry,' she informed him angrily. 'She didn't tell me anything. '
He leaned back in his seat and looked at her through lowered lids. 'I wasn't worried. Emma is one woman whose loyalty I have no doubts about. But it's funny, isn't it, how the guilty almost always give themselves away?'
Tanya didn't think it was funny at all.
He threw her a sarcastic smile. 'One of the drawbacks of having a conscience, you see.'
She glowered at her coffee-cup and refused to look at him. Maybe if she just ignored him he would go away. But he seemed to be in the mood for baiting her today.
'So much for your claim that you have no interest in my affairs. But then, I suppose one of the drawbacks of being a woman is your insatiable curiosity.' In one smooth movement he lowered the zipper of his tracksuit top, so that the front fell open to reveal his broad, sun-darkened chest. 'You can never bear just to leave well alone.'
'It strikes me that the biggest drawback any woman could have would be an association with you.' Instantly she rebuked herself. Why did she keep bringing their conversation on to a personal level? And, before he could trip her up again, she hurried on, 'What have you got against women, anyway?'
'Oh, I have nothing against women, believe me.' Amusement twinkled in his eyes. 'In spite of all their faults, I'm extremely partial to the fairer sex. In fact, I spend as much time as possible in their company.'
'No doubt.'
'But the trouble is I understand them far too well. They don't like that. Women like to believe that they're mysterious.'
'Maybe you spend time with the wrong sort of woman,' she replied as an image of the blonde in the restaurant flashed unsummoned across her mind. Then she added very pointedly, 'Of course, I suppose I shouldn't really judge. After all, I've observed only a very limited sample of the type of woman you prefer.'
She could see that he understood her perfectly. 'Fishing, Tanya?' he admonished—and she flushed at her own transparency. Then, 'What exactly is it that you wish to know?' he asked. 'My relationship with the lady I so rudely failed to introduce you to last night? Or just my sexual proclivities in a more general sense?'
'Neither.' She bit out the word, half wishing she'd had the sense just to drop the subject when she'd had the chance. But she couldn't resist adding, with a hint of almost prudish condemnation in her voice, 'She is your mistress, isn't she?'
A flash of something in his eyes: a mixture of amusement and surprise, she thought. 'That's a very old-fashioned word. What makes you think I have a mistress anyway?' he asked.
Lover, mistress, it was really all the same, though she slightly preferred the tag 'mistress' in this particular case. It seemed to suit the brash yet somehow furtive impression that the blonde countess had made. 'You probably have several,' she answered, staring with sudden intentness into his face. It seemed unlikely that Fausto Cabrini could be satisfied with one woman. His appetites in that direction, she guessed, would be as voracious as all his other appetites. In sex, he would be as tireless and demanding as he seemed to be in everything else. The notion provoked a warm sensation in her lower abdomen. Instantly she chased it away. 'Not that I'm really in the least bit interested, of course,' she said.
He laughed. 'You could have fooled me.' But he refrained from revealing whether the woman was his mistress or not, leaving her wondering, guessing, but somehow sure in the back of her mind that the answer was yes. 'To my ears,' he went on, 'you sounded like a typically curious representative of your sex. Why is it that women can never control their curiosity, especially with men? It seems to be in your genes. Somehow a woman can never resist the temptation to invite a man to bare his soul to her.'
'Don't flatter yourself. I can think of nothing more appalling than that you should bare your soul to me. Always supposing you have one, of course.'
He leaned towards her suddenly, taking her slightly by surprise, and folded his forearms on the table edge. The dark eyes observed her closely as he said, 'OK, I'll tell you what you want to know.'
Tell her what? About his mistresses, and all the other women in his life? She recoiled at the thought, was on the verge of protesting when he went on, 'The reason why my secretary left. I thought that was what all the fuss was about?'
'Of course.' What an idiot he must take her for.
'However, please keep what I'm about to tell you to yourself.' He leaned back in his chair again and folded his arms across his chest. 'When I told you that my secretary left of her own accord, that was absolutely true. Of course, if I'd known then what I know now, I'd have forced her to leave anyway. You see, this poor young innocent you're so concerned about was stealing from me, left, right and centre—and I might never have cottoned on if Emma hadn't caught her red-handed in my bedroom one day helping herself to a pair of my gold cuff-links.'
Tanya blinked at the figure in the blue tracksuit. She hadn't been expecting anything like this.
'She'd been working for me for about five years, and throughout that time, it transpired, she'd been lining her pockets pretty heavily.' A shadow crossed the lean, dark face, lending his features a harsh, almost satanic quality. 'They were small sums to start with, but they added up. Claims for expenses that were never used, a few thousand lire here and there from petty cash. If she'd stuck to that sort of thing, she would probably never have been found out. But, like all thieves, she became ambitious. Once when Renata was staying here a pair of her sapphire ear-rings disappeared. Renata assumed she had simply mislaid them and we thought no more about it. Then Emma reported that some of the silver from the kitchen had walked. She was worried that suspicion might fall on her.' His features softened for a moment as he smiled. 'Of course I know Emma and her family far too well to let such an idea even cross my mind.'
He sighed. 'Anyway, the pilfering continued. A little jade ornament here, a tie-pin there—until that fateful day when Emma caught her with the cuff-links. I was on business in Frankfurt at the time, but she wrote me a note, begging me not to go to the police, before packing her bags and catching the first train back to her family in Calabria.'
'Did you go to the police?'
'No, I didn't—for the same reason that I don't want the story spread around. When I got back, I did follow her down to Calabria, though, and forced her to return the few bits and pieces that she hadn't actually sold. She comes from a very poor family—and that, of course, was her excuse. They needed the money.' His mouth was set in a hard and unforgiving line as he went on, 'Hell, I can sympathise with poverty. I have a background not so many generations past, of the very direst poverty. But I can never have any sympathy with someone who steals. If she'd come to me and told me her family were in such desperate financial straits, I'd have given her the money she needed.'
'For a price, no doubt.' Tanya regretted the words almost before she had spoken them.
The expression in the dark eyes clouded. 'You're entitled to your opinion, of course.' The words came twisting contemptuously from his lips.
'I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.'
'As I said, you're entitled to your opinion.' He brushed her apology aside. 'I didn't go to the police, largely for her family's sake. And for the sake of her brother. She has a brother—an honest, hard-working boy—who runs his own small business in Varese, not far from here. It probably wouldn't have done his reputation much good if word had got around. But I put the fear of God into that sister of his. She'll never steal so much as a stalk of grass as long as she lives. Nor will she ever work in this part of Italy again.'
A cold shiver prickled down Tanya's spine. It didn't take much imagination to believe that part of his story anyway. Aroused to righteous anger, Fausto Cabrini would undoubtedly be a formidable and absolutely terrifying sight. It was a side of him that she had only glimpsed—and had no particular desire to see again.
A silenc
e fell between them as he came to the end of his story. Then he added in a tone of pure malevolence, 'I don't like people who try to cheat me, you see.'
It was as though he had struck her a physical blow— and Tanya knew instinctively that he was retaliating against her own cruel remark. Perhaps she deserved it, but she winced all the same. 'My father didn't cheat you deliberately,' she defended bitterly, somehow knowing in her heart that it was true, yet totally unable to explain the reason why. 'I told you already he wouldn't do a thing like that.'
'Except that that is exactly what he appears to have done.'
'There must be some explanation. I'm absolutely sure of it.'
'In that case, he will have the opportunity to enlighten us personally on the matter in a week or so's time.' Fausto Cabrini rose abruptly to his feet and glanced down at her with a totally unreadable expression in his eyes. 'When you and I will be taking a little trip to Switzerland.'
The days went by with almost disconcerting speed. They were long days and they were full—and Fausto had not been joking when he'd told her how hard he would make her work. In all honesty, Tanya had never worked so hard in all her life. But the work, to her amazement, was enjoyable, and she was soon taking secret pride in the fact that she managed to keep up with the demanding pace that Fausto set.
He taught her the basics of how to use the computer and proved himself a patient and perceptive teacher—as well as the sort of boss who knew exactly when and how to delegate. By the time the three months were up, Tanya felt certain, she would know how to run a business standing on her head.
Frequently Fausto worked over lunch or late into the night, and then Tanya took the opportunity to get out the sketch-pad she had driven into the local village one afternoon to buy, and do some work on her designs for the old wash-house. Bearing in mind the story that Fausto had told her about his great-great-grandmother who had once worked as a washerwoman on the estate, she had decided on a distinctly olde worlde approach.
Chintz and chenille for the draperies, simple, rustic-looking furniture, and maybe a couple of tapestries on the walls. The sort of ambience, in fact, in which the old lady herself might possibly have felt at home.
As she secretly beavered away on her designs, her enthusiasm for the project grew. Her ideas, she knew, might possibly fail to coincide with what Fausto had in mind, but that was a risk she would have to take. She hadn't even mentioned to him that she had started on the job—and he had never raised the subject again. When she presented him with her preliminary sketches, she thought to herself with a smug little smile, he would be totally taken by surprise.
For the trip to Switzerland she had picked out one of the few stylish dresses she had brought with her, one of her favourites, in crisp white lawn which she wore with a broad tan leather belt and matching tan and white sandals. That morning, she brushed her shoulder-length gold hair into a shining billow of curls and applied a minimum of make-up. With the light tan she had acquired over the past few days it was all she needed. Then, after a quick breakfast—just a cup of Emma's deliciously frothy cappuccino and a slice of toast—she hurried outside, anxious to get started with the day. A portentous day, she felt instinctively, one that was destined to leave its mark.
Fausto was waiting for her out in the forecourt by the car, dressed in a cool white jacket that emphasised his muscular shape, light grey trousers encasing the long, athletic legs. The soft white shirt was open at the neck, revealing the strong, tanned column of his throat. He smiled at her. 'Buon giorno. You're looking very beautiful today.' The dark eyes travelled over her quite openly, taking in the tiny waist, lingering over the full, voluptuous swell of her breasts, admiring the slim lines of her shapely legs.
To her annoyance, the compliment brought a faint blush to Tanya's cheeks, but she managed to sweep past him with a show of indifference as he held the door of the Lamborghini open for her.
'Good morning,' she replied. Then she settled herself with composure in the low-slung bucket seat, adjusting the skirt of her dress over her knees.
He slid into the driver's seat beside her and glanced at his watch. 'We should be in Lugano by nine o'clock. It's just about an hour's drive.'
She nodded, knowing what was coming next. They had already been over all this a dozen times the night before.
'I'll drop you off at the clinic, then go back into town myself. I have some business there. You talk to your father and tell him I know about the icon.' The dark eyes glanced across at her. 'When I get back to pick you up I shall expect a full and convincing explanation. Tell him that. I shall try to get back to the clinic before twelve o'clock. That should give him ample time to think something up.'
Tanya flashed him an irritated look. 'He won't have any need to think something up. I'm sure all he has to do is tell the truth.' Then her eyes narrowed in cautious reproof. 'He's a sick man, remember. Try not to be too hard on him.'
'Rest assured that I shall treat him as he deserves.' He gave her a look that warned that wheedling would be a waste of time. He wouldn't even listen if she tried that.
Tanya said nothing, but crossed her fingers mentally. If her father had ever needed to talk his way out of a corner in the past, he certainly needed to talk his way out of a pretty tight one now. The man at her side was still capable of breaking him financially. And financial ruin at this stage, she knew, would break him totally.
For the most part, the road to Lugano was a winding, country road, twisting and turning its way through breathtaking scenery as it carried them up to Bellinzona and the border and through the foothills of the Alps. But Tanya's mind was not on the scenery as she watched the kilometres flash by. The figure at her side seemed blissfully unaware of it as he negotiated the dips and bends of the road with his customary faultless skill—if at somewhat less than his customary speed—but Tanya was dreading this meeting with her father more than she had ever dreaded anything.
At just before nine, they were skimming round the outskirts of Lugano, heading the few kilometres east to where her father's clinic was situated. And what seemed like only moments later, the Lamborghini gritted to a halt on the gravel driveway outside the main door. 'I'll see you some time before twelve,' Fausto told her, his eyes expressionless as she climbed out. Then, with a deep, throaty growl, the big car moved away.
A trim receptionist with a neat chignon greeted Tanya as she walked nervously into the airy, sunlit entrance hall. 'Miss Sinclair, how lovely to see you! Your father is expecting you. He's out in the garden. If you would just like to follow me?'
The Heinrich Castelli Clinic had more the luxurious air of a five-star hotel than of an institution designed to care for the sick, Tanya reflected wryly as she followed the brisk, efficient figure down deeply carpeted corridors lined with velvet-upholstered sofas and potted plants. Fausto Cabrini had obviously been feeling generous when he picked this place.
They were approaching a wide, glass-fronted veranda that led to the garden and Tanya felt the knot of apprehension tighten in her breast. It was almost four weeks since she had last seen her father, and though she had spoken briefly to him on the telephone he had no idea of the upheaval that had occurred in his daughter's life since he had left for Switzerland, and even less idea of the cause of it.
Just before they stepped outside, she touched the receptionist diffidently on the arm. 'How is my father? Is he well?'
The woman responded with a warm, compassionate nod of her well groomed head. 'He's just fine, Miss Sinclair. Improving a little every day. Come,' she added with a reassuring smile, 'see for yourself.'
Devlin saw her before she saw him. By the time she was half-way across the grass to the garden seat where he had been sitting leafing idly through a copy of the Herald Tribune, he was on his feet and waving to her. 'Tanya, darling!'
She ran the last few yards and threw herself with sudden delight into his arms. Oh, it was wonderful to see him! And he was looking well, she noted with relief. In neat dark slacks and short-sleeved cotton
shirt, he had acquired a healthy bit of colour and the blue eyes seemed less sunken, more alive. Tanya kissed him warmly on the cheek and pulled him down beside her on the garden seat. 'Father, you look terrific!'
Even his smile was brighter than it had been for a long, long time. 'I feel terrific, Tanya. Like a new man. And, if I may say so, you're looking pretty terrific yourself. Life at the Villa Cabrini obviously agrees with you.'
She smiled a light, ambiguous smile. 'I'm being kept busy.' And she hugged his arm. 'At a guess, I'd even say you've put on a pound or two.'
'I have. Two and a half kilos, to be precise. And no wonder. The food they serve you here would tempt a supplicant!' He laughed, and the very sound of that laughter warmed the depths of Tanya's heart. It seemed like years since she had heard him laugh like that. 'Good food, good wine, good sunshine and really excellent medical care.' He winked at her, but there was an unmistakable note of seriousness as he went on, 'You can stop worrying about me, Tanya. I've a bit to go before I'm back to full strength yet, but I'm getting there. I'll be on my feet again before the summer's out, I promise you.'
Looking at him, it wasn't too difficult to believe. A month ago he had seemed like a man on the brink of death; now he was clearly on the mend. And as he regaled her cheerfully with details of the last few weeks, she was only too happy to postpone the evil moment when she would have to shatter his almost carefree mood by bringing up the subject of the fake icon. There was no saying what that—and the inevitable confrontation with Fausto Cabrini—would do to him.
It was later, as they enjoyed coffee and biscuits in the clinic's exquisitely coverted orangery, that Tanya finally forced herself to take the plunge. And, ironically, the opportunity presented itself when Devlin began singing Fausto Cabrini's praises to her.
'I was so glad when I heard you'd gone to work for him,' he told her, helping himself to his second langue de chat. 'Much more agreeable than a summer in Vienna, I'm sure. Dull place, Vienna.' Then he went on, on an earnest note, 'I owe that young man my life, you know. The doctors may have saved me from dying, but it was Fausto Cabrini who gave me back my will to live.'
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