by Teresa Crane
His face had hardened. ‘Signora, I think perhaps you need time—’
‘No, Signor. I need no time.’ Carrie had turned and walked to the door.
‘Signora Stowe!’ His voice cracked like a whip behind her.
She turned.
‘It would be – unfortunate – for any word of this discussion to become public. You do see what I mean? We have our interests to protect. I can assure you that any false allegations laid against us would not proceed far, and might only rebound upon those who made them. The Lasales have friends in very high places.’ The long fingers flicked again. ‘Remember. This is Italy. And you, Signora Stowe, are an outsider.’
‘Keep your sleazy little secrets, Signor Lasale,’ Carrie said calmly. ‘But stay away from me. I want nothing of your schemes.’
He sighed a little, and raised pained brows. ‘A pity,’ he said. ‘A very great pity.’
*
On the long, hot train journey back to Bagni she stared unseeing at the rolling hills dotted with the dark fingers of cypress trees, the tiny villages that dozed beneath the sunny sky and looked back, with eyes now clear and open, over the past months. How Leo must have cursed her untimely arrival. To have been so close to a fortune and then to have been frustrated; how it must have angered him. And then – slow uncomfortable colour lifted in her checks at the thought – and then he had sensed how attracted she was to him, and another plot had hatched in his fertile brain. He must have known that she would never have agreed voluntarily to the export of the statues. And even if he had simply helped her to clear the house and sent her packing back to England, by then too much attention had been drawn to the Villa Castellini. Signor Bellini had become involved. Mary Webber had her inquisitive nose in the business. Half of Bagni and all of San Marco were watching. Leo had needed time. And he had needed to own the statues.
So he had manufactured the quarrel, gone to England, killed Arthur, and then been ready, if Angelique were to be believed, bigamously to marry Carrie; until it had dawned on him that as her only living relative he would, on her death, inherit the house and its contents anyway.
A brutally simple way to a fortune; except that, for Leo, something had gone wrong.
‘To find yourself so tainted, so fatally flawed, that you know you will inevitably destroy the very thing you most love?’
He had loved her. Despite himself and against his will, he had truly loved her. She knew it with a certainty that could not be shaken. The contradictions, the complexities of his character – the dark side of the man – notwithstanding, he had loved her. And in the end he had proved it: he had chosen his own death over hers; and in doing so had surely gone some way towards atoning for those other deaths, that had so haunted him.
She turned her mind from the deceits, the betrayals; remembered the touch of his hands, the blaze in his eyes when he had looked at her. Remembered the laughter and the lovemaking, the quarrels and the tears.
He had loved her. No one and nothing could take that from her.
Carrie tilted her head back against the straight, hard-backed seat, closed her eyes, and surprisingly, lulled by the movement of the train and the steady, hypnotic clicking of the wheels, she slept.
*
The first thing she did, the following morning, was to visit the arbour. It was a wonderful morning, clear and bright and with the first hint of autumn in the mountain air; the great acacia – Beatrice’s acacia – that sheltered the grove was tinged with gold. In wonder Carrie stroked the smooth, almost translucent marble of the statues, as she had done so often before. She knew, of course, that she must have someone come to see them, to evaluate and authenticate them. That this might mean that she would have to give them up she regretted but well understood; the Italian government jealously guarded its heritage, and in truth these precious things had no real place in a Tuscan garden — though in a small corner of her heart she found herself harbouring a hope that in the circumstances she might be allowed to keep them in situ and restore the garden around them.
But all of that was for tomorrow. For today, calming and beautiful in the dappled shade, the lovely, ancient things were still hers.
She stretched a little to ease the nagging ache in her back and then sat on the rock beside the fountain, as she had on that first morning with Leo. A dragonfly swooped upon gauzy wings, its body the green of emeralds and the blue of sapphires.
The child within her stirred.
Carrie laid her spread hand gently upon her belly, feeling the movement.
Maria, in the way of wise women, had guessed. And had, apparently, relented. ‘It would help me, Maria,’ Carrie had said, ‘to have someone to care for.’ And ‘You will have, cara,’ Maria had said, ‘(you will have*.’
‘It has started, my love,’ Carrie said, softly, aloud, her eyes distant. ‘My dearest love. Our child is alive, and growing, and will come in his own good time. And yes, I do know now – I am not Beatrice, and our son will not be as Henry was. The punishment is done. It won’t fall on him. And though you are gone, and I shall miss you for ever, I – I shall have at least a part of my heart’s desire, my darling, and will no longer be alone.’
ALSO OUT NOW
Siena Summer
A gripping tale of love and revenge in the Tuscan sun
First published in United Kingdom in 1995 by Little, Brown and Company
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 1995 by Teresa Crane
The moral right of Teresa Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859490
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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