Giancarlo’s mouth thinned and he stared down pointedly at her hand before looking down at her, his dark eyes as cold and frozen as the lake in winter.
‘Don’t presume to tell me what I know or don’t know,’ he said with ice in his voice, and Caroline removed her hand quickly as though she had been burnt suddenly. ‘I’ve come here for a purpose and, whether you like it or not, I will ensure that things are wrapped up before I leave.’
‘And how long are you intending to stay? I never asked, but you really haven’t come with very much luggage, have you? I mean, one small bag.’
‘Put it this way, there will be no need to go shopping for food on my account. I plan on being here no longer than two days. Three at the very most.’
Caroline’s heart sank further. This was a business visit, however you dressed it up and tried to call it something else. Two days? Just long enough for Giancarlo to levy his charge for Alberto’s past wrongdoings, whatever those might have been, with interest.
She didn’t think that he was even prepared to get to know his father. The only thing that interested him, his only motivation for coming to the villa, was to dole out his version of revenge, whether he chose to call it that or not.
‘Now, any more questions?’ Giancarlo drawled and Caroline shook her head miserably, not trusting herself to speak. Once again, he felt a twinge of uninvited and unwelcome doubt. ‘I’m surprised at your level of attachment to Alberto,’ he commented brusquely, annoyed at himself, because would her answer change anything? No.
‘Why?’ Her eyes were wide and clear when she looked at him. ‘I didn’t have a load of prejudices when I came here. I came with an open mind. I found a lonely old man with a kind heart and a generous nature. Yes, he might be prickly, but it’s what’s inside that counts. At least, that’s how it works for me.’
He really shouldn’t have been diverted into encouraging her opinion. He should have known that whatever chirpy, homespun answer she came out with would get on his nerves. He was very tempted to inform her that he was the least prejudiced person on the face of the earth, that if on this single occasion he was prey to a very natural inclination towards one or two preconceived ideas about Alberto, then no one could lay the blame for that at his door. He cut short the infuriating desire to be sidetracked.
‘Well, I’m very pleased that he has you around,’ Giancarlo said neutrally. Caroline bristled because she could just sense that he was being patronising.
‘No, you aren’t. You’re still so mad at him that you probably would much rather have preferred it if he was still on his own in this big, rambling house with no one to talk to. And, if there was someone around, then I’m sure you’d rather it wasn’t me, because you don’t like me at all!’
‘What gives you that idea?’
Caroline ignored that question. The promise of what was to come felt like a hangman’s noose around her neck. She was fit to explode. ‘Well, I don’t like you either,’ she declared with vehemence. ‘And I hope you choke on your plans to ruin Alberto’s life.’ She spun away from him so that he couldn’t witness the tears stinging her eyes. ‘He’s waiting for you,’ she muttered in a driven voice. ‘Why don’t you go in now and get it over with?’
CHAPTER FOUR
GIANCARLO entered a room that was familiar to him. The smallest of the sitting-rooms at the back of the house had always been the least ornate and hence the cosiest. Out of nowhere came the memory of doing his homework in this very room, always resisting the urge to sneak outside, down to the lake. French doors led out to the sprawling garden that descended to the lake via a series of landscaped staircases. Alberto sat in a chair by one of the bay windows with a plaid rug over his legs even though it was warm in the room.
‘So, my boy, you’ve come.’
Giancarlo looked at his father with a shuttered expression. He wondered if his memory was playing tricks on him, because Alberto looked diminished. In his head, he realised that he had held on to a memory that was nearly two decades old and clearly out of date.
‘Father …’
‘Caroline. You’re gaping. Why don’t you offer a drink to our guest? And I will have a whisky while you’re about it.’
‘You’ll have no such thing.’ Back on familiar ground, Caroline moved past Giancarlo to adopt a protective stance by her employer, who made feeble attempts to flap her away. Looking at their interaction, Giancarlo could see that it was a game with which they were both comfortable and familiar.
Just for a few seconds, he was the outsider looking in, then that peculiar feeling was gone as the tableau shifted. Caroline walked across to a cupboard which had been reconfigured to house a small fridge, various snacks and cartons of juice.
He was aware of her chattering nervously, something about it being time efficient to have stuff at hand for Alberto because this was his favourite room in the house and he just wasn’t as yet strong enough to continually make long trips to the kitchen if he needed something to drink.
‘Of course, it’s all supervised,’ she babbled away, while the tension stretched silent and invisible in the room. ‘No whisky here. Tessa and I know that that’s Alberto’s Achilles’ heel so we have wine. I put some in earlier, would that be okay?’ She kept her eyes firmly averted from the uncomfortable sight of father and son, but in her head she was picturing them circling one another, making their individual, quiet assessments.
Given half a chance, she would have run for cover to another part of the house, but her instinct to protect Alberto kept her rooted to the spot.
When she finally turned around, with drinks and snacks on a little tray, it was to find that Giancarlo had taken up position on one of the chairs. If he was in any way uncomfortable, he wasn’t showing it.
‘Well, Father, I have been told that you’ve suffered a heart attack—’
‘How was the drive here, Giancarlo? Still too many cars in the villages?’
They both broke into speech at the same time. Caroline drank too much far too quickly to calm her nerves and lapsed into an awkward silence as ultra-polite questions were fielded with ultra-polite answers. She wondered if they were aware that many of their mannerisms were identical—the way they both shifted and leaned forward when a remark was made; the way they idly held their glasses, slightly stroking the rim with their fingers. They should have bonded without question. Instead, Giancarlo’s cool, courteous conversation was the equivalent of a door being shut.
He was here. He was talking. But he was not conversing.
At least he had kept his word and nothing, so far, had been mentioned about the state of Alberto’s finances, although she knew that her employer must surely be curious to know why his son had bothered to make the trip out to Lake Como when he displayed so little enthusiasm for the end result.
Dinner was a light soup, followed by fish. One of the local girls had been brought in, along with the two regular housekeepers, to take care of the cooking and the clearing away. So, instead of eating in the kitchen, they dined in the formal dining-room, which proved to be a mistake.
The long table and the austere surroundings were not conducive to light-hearted conversation. Tessa had volunteered to have her meal in the small sitting-room adjoining her bedroom, in order to give them all some space to chat without her hovering over Alberto, checking to make sure he stuck to his diet. Caroline heartily wished she could have joined her, because the atmosphere was thick with tension.
By the time they had finished their starters and made adequately polite noises about it, several topics of conversation had been started and quickly abandoned. The changes in the weather patterns had been discussed, as had the number of tourists at the lakes, the lack of snow the previous winter and, of course, Alberto asked Giancarlo about his work, to which he received such brief replies that that too was a subject quickly shelved.
By the time the main course was brought to them—and Alberto had bemoaned the fact that they were to dine on fish rather than something altogether heartier
like a slab of red meat—Caroline had frankly had enough of the painfully stilted conversation.
If they didn’t want to have any kind of meaningful conversation together, then she would fill in the gaps. She talked about her childhood, growing up in Devon. Her parents were both teachers, very much into being ‘green’. She laughed at memories of the chickens they had kept that laid so many eggs at times that her mother would bake cakes a family of three had no possibility of eating just to get rid of some of them. She would contribute them to the church every Sunday and one year was actually awarded a special prize for her efforts.
She talked about exchange students, some of whom had been most peculiar, and joked about her mother’s experiments in the kitchen with home-grown produce from their small garden. In the end, she and her father had staged a low-level rebellion until normal food was reintroduced. Alberto chuckled but he was not relaxed. It was there in the nervous flickering of his eyes and his subdued, down-turned mouth. The son he had desperately wanted to see didn’t want to see him and he wasn’t even bothering to try to hide the fact.
All the while she could feel Giancarlo’s dark eyes restively looking at her and she found that she just couldn’t look at him. What was it about him that brought her out in goose bumps and made her feel as though she just wasn’t comfortable in her own skin? The timbre of his low, husky voice sent shivers down her spine, and when he turned to look at her she was aware of her body in such miniscule detail that she burned with discomfort.
By the time they adjourned for coffee back in the small sitting-room, Caroline was exhausted and she could see that Alberto was flagging. Giancarlo, on the other hand, was as coldly composed as he had been at the start of the evening.
‘How long do you plan on staying, my boy? You should get yourself out on the lake. Beautiful weather. And you were always fond of your sailing. Of course, we no longer have the sailboat. What was the point? After, well, after.’
‘After what, Father?’
‘I think it’s time you went to bed, Alberto,’ Caroline interjected desperately as the conversation finally threatened to explode. ‘You’re flagging and you know the doctor said that you really need to take it easy. I’ll get hold of Tessa and—’
‘After you and your mother left.’
‘Ah, so finally you’ve decided to acknowledge that you ever had a wife. One could be forgiven for thinking that you had erased her from your memory completely.’ No mention had been made of Adriana. Not one single word. They had tiptoed around all mention of the past, as though it had never existed. Alberto had been on his best behaviour. Now Giancarlo expected to see his real father, the cold, unforgiving one, the one who, from memory, had never shied away from arguing.
‘I’ve done no such thing, my son,’ Alberto surprised Giancarlo by saying quietly.
‘It’s time you went to bed, Alberto.’ Caroline stood up and looked pointedly at Giancarlo. ‘I will not allow you to tire your father out any longer,’ she said, and in truth Alberto was showing signs of strain around his eyes. ‘He’s been very ill and this conversation is not going to help anything at all.’
‘Oh, do stop fussing, Caroline.’ But his pocket handkerchief was in his hand and he was patting his forehead wearily.
‘You—’ she jabbed a finger at Giancarlo ‘—are going to wait right here for me while I go to fetch Tessa because I intend to have a little chat with you.’
‘The boy wants to talk about his past, Caroline. It’s why he’s come.’
Caroline snorted without taking her eyes away from Giancarlo’s beautiful face. If only Alberto knew!
She spun back around to look at her employer. ‘I’m going to fetch Tessa and tomorrow you won’t have your routine disrupted. Your son is going to be here for a few days. There will be time enough to take a trip down memory lane.’
‘A few days?’ They both said the same thing at the same time. Giancarlo was appalled and enraged while Alberto was hesitantly hopeful. Caroline decided to favour Giancarlo with a confirming nod.
‘Maybe even as long as a week,’ she threw at him, because wasn’t it better to be hanged for a sheep than a lamb? ‘I believe that’s what you said to me?’ She wondered where on earth this fierce determination was coming from. She always shied away from confrontation!
‘So tomorrow,’ she continued to both men, ‘there will be no need for you to worry about entertaining your son, Alberto. He will be sailing on the lake.’
‘I’ll be sailing on the lake?’
‘Correct. With me.’ This in case he decided to argue the rules she was confidently laying down, with a silent prayer in her head that he wasn’t going to launch into an outraged argument which would devastate Alberto, especially after the gruesome evening they had just spent together.
‘I thought you couldn’t sail, Caroline,’ Alberto murmured and she drew herself up to her unimpressive height of a little over five-three.
‘But I’ve been counting down the days I could start learning.’
‘You told me that you had a morbid fear of open water.’
‘It’s something I’ve been told I can only overcome by facing it … on open water. It’s a well-known fact that, er, that you have to confront your fears to overcome them …’
She backed out of the room before Alberto could pin her down and flew to Tessa’s room. She could picture the awkward conversation taking place between Giancarlo and Alberto in her absence, and that was a best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario involved them both taking that trip down memory lane, the one she had temporarily managed to divert. It was a trip that could only lead to the sort of heated argument that would do no good to Alberto’s fragile recovery. With that in mind, she ran back to the sitting-room like a bat out of hell and was breathless by the time she reappeared ten minutes later.
It was to discover that Giancarlo had disappeared.
‘The boy has work to do,’ Alberto told her.
‘At this hour?’
‘I remember when I was a young man, I used to work all the hours God made. Boy’s built like me, which might not be such a good thing. Hard work is fine but the important thing is to know when to stop. He’s a fine-looking lad, don’t you think?’
‘I suppose there might be some who like that sort of look,’ Caroline said dismissively. With relief, she heard Tessa approaching. Alberto drew no limits when it came to asking whatever difficult questions he had in his head. It was, he had proclaimed, one of the benefits of being an old bore. The last thing she wanted was to have an in-depth question-and-answer session on what she thought of his son.
‘Bright, too.’
Caroline wondered how he could be so clearly generous in his praise for someone who had made scant effort to meet him halfway. She made an inarticulate noise under her breath and tried not to scowl.
‘Said he’d meet you by his car at nine tomorrow morning,’ Alberto told her, while simultaneously trying to convince Tessa, who had entered the room at a brisk pace, that he didn’t need to be treated like a child all the time. ‘Think he’ll enjoy a spot of sailing. It’ll relax him. He seems tense. Of course, I totally understand that, given the circumstances. So don’t you mind me, my dear. Think I’ll rise and shine, but not with the larks, and the old bat here can take me for my constitutional walk.’
Tessa winked at Caroline and grinned behind Alberto’s back as she helped him up.
‘Anyone would think he wasn’t a complete poppet when I settle him at night,’ she said, unfazed.
Having issued her dictate to Giancarlo for ‘a chat’, Caroline realised that chatting was the last thing she wanted to do with him. All her bravado had seeped out of her. The prospect of a morning in his company now seemed like an uphill climb. Would he listen to her? He hadn’t as yet revealed to Alberto the real reason for his visit but he would the following day; she knew it. Just as he would declare that his visit was not going to last beyond forty-eight hours, despite what she had optimistically announced to Alberto.
&n
bsp; There was no way that she would be able to persuade Giancarlo into doing anything he didn’t want to do and the past few hours had shown her that grasping the olive branch was definitely not on his agenda.
She had a restless night. The villa was beautiful but no modernisation had taken place for a very long time. Air-conditioning was unheard of and the air was still and sluggish.
She barely felt rested when she opened her eyes the following morning at eight-thirty. It took her a few seconds to remember that her normal routine was out of sync. She wouldn’t be having a leisurely breakfast with Alberto before taking him for a walk, then after lunch settling into sifting through some of his first-edition books which, in addition to his memoirs, was one of her jobs for him: sorting them into order so that he could decide which ones might be left to the local museum and which would be kept. He had all manner of historical information about the district, a great deal of which was contained in the various letters and journals of his ancestors. It was a laborious but enjoyable task which she would be missing in favour of a sailing trip with Giancarlo.
She dressed quickly: a pair of trousers, a striped tee shirt and, of course, her cardigan, a blue one this time; covered shoes. She didn’t know anything at all about being on a boat, but she knew enough to suspect that a skirt and sandals would not be the required get-up. Impatiently, she tied her hair back in a long braid for the purpose of practicality.
There was no time for breakfast and she walked from one wing of the villa to the other, emerging outside into a blissfully sunny day with cloudless skies, bright turquoise shot through with milk. Giancarlo was standing by his car, sunglasses on, talking into his mobile phone. For a few seconds she stared at him, her heart thudding. He might have severed all ties with his aristocratic background, but he couldn’t erase it from the contours of his face. Even in tattered clothes and barefoot he would still look the ultimate sophisticate.
The Truth Behind his Touch Page 6