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It was only when he reached the car that Ben realised he was still carrying the razor and the shaving soap. He slipped the razor into his pocket as he opened the door.
Francesca turned the starter. “I am pleased you were not too long in there,” she said. “I was afraid we were going to miss the plane.”
Ben got into the seat. He reached across and switched off the ignition. “There’s no hurry, Francesca. I want us to have a little talk.”
“But we still have to go to the bank.”
“We’ve got three and a quarter hours.”
“The traffic is very difficult at this time of day.”
“There’s loads of time yet. I want to talk to you.”
“What about?” Suddenly she seemed quiet and submissive.
“I want us to clear up a few things before I leave. You may not know that, when you were in your room with a headache last night, I was asked to go and see your father. I didn’t understand most of what he was saying. But he talked about you. I don’t know what you had told him, but it sounded as though you had given me a good report. I want to thank you for that.”
Francesca tossed her head. “He shouldn’t have said anything.”
“He also talked quite a lot about London. If I understood him right, it seems he was giving me his blessing to continue the business as Toni and I have been running it for the last few years. And I think that must be partly thanks to you.”
“It is nothing to do with him,” she said. “He should have kept out of it.”
“I don’t see how you can say that,” said Ben. “He now owns half of my company, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about anyway. That just clears the air before I carry on to the next thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just now Donna said something to me. If she’s right – it’s fantastic. In any case I can’t leave Italy without clearing it up with you.”
“What did she say?” Francesca’s voice seemed very small
Ben looked down at his hands and swallowed. “She said several things. First she said that it was obvious that I was nuts about you.”
“I see.”
“That’s an American slang term. It means – well, never mind that now.”
“I know what it means.”
Ben glanced quickly at her. Was she smiling? He looked back at his hands.
“She also said that you – well she thought that you felt the same about me. Now,” he hurried on, “I know the things you said a couple of days ago were said at a time of stress when you needed a shoulder to cry on – when you needed to relax. I’m not taking those things seriously. But Donna also said that you were probably keeping away from me because of her – because you thought she was important to me - which she isn’t. Well – that is, I like her of course, but it’s nothing more than that. Anyway I’ve been trying to talk to you for two days now and you seem to have been avoiding me and I didn’t know why. So I wanted to clear it up with you and ask why – well, you know . . .” He tailed off miserably.
There was a long silence before Francesca spoke.
“Ben. Look at me.”
He looked. She was smiling. He had wondered whether she would be smiling.
“Ben, for God’s sake will you please kiss me?”
Like an automaton he reached out towards her. Then suddenly she was in his arms and kissing him passionately. Salty tears were wetting her cheeks. She was murmuring little endearments in Italian. Suddenly, magically he knew she really did love him. He hugged her beautiful body to him. His hands were entwined in her soft, long hair and his lungs were filled with her exquisite scent. She nibbled his ear. He buried his face into the side of her neck and she shivered delightedly. Her fingers worked their way up the knobs of his spine and set his body tingling all over. He felt her small, hard breasts and slid his hand down her body. The hem of her skirt was already nearly up to her waist.
“Not here,” she whispered. “I feel as though half of Naples is watching what we are doing.”
Ben thought that the people of Naples had seen so many provocative sights that they would not disapprove. But he took his hand away.
She drew back a little. “I have something that I must tell you,” she whispered in his ear.
He buried his face in the valley between her breasts, nuzzling into the soft silk of her blouse. “I’m listening.”
She slid her fingers through his hair, clasping his head to her chest as though she was nursing a baby. “You did not understand what Papa was telling you last night. What he was actually doing was poking his nose into my private affairs because he knew that I despaired of you ever telling me that you loved me.”
He lifted his head to gaze into her dark, troubled eyes.
“It’s true, Ben. I think he was actually saying that you had his blessing and that you could take me to London with you when you go back to run the wine importing business. He hoped that if he said that to you it would persuade you to ask me.”
“Do you mean he would give his blessing to our getting married?”
“Of course he would.” She hugged him to her. “He likes you very much. He appreciates how much you have done for the Cimbrone family. He realises I would never be happy with anyone else. He understands that old attitudes must change in the modern world.”
Ben kissed her again. Francesca’s soft lips were wet and delicious like morning dew. Her pointed, exploring tongue was provocative and thrusting. It was Ben’s turn to hold back this time.
“Francesca, in a minute you will be telling me off for not controlling my hands in the car.” He reached over and opened the door.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going into the hotel to book a double room.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “I cannot go to bed with you before we are betrothed.”
“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “How do we get betrothed?”
“First you have to ask me to marry you and we have to arrange the date.”
“Darling, will you marry me – tomorrow if there’s not enough time left today.”
“We will have to wait for at least a month for Mama to make the arrangements and invite the guests. She would not forgive me if I had a hasty wedding.”
“All right. I suppose I can wait a month.”
“And you must also know the terms of my marriage settlement.”
“What do you mean?”
“I must tell you what I bring to the marriage.” She had a prim smile on her face. “With the destruction of the Vitelli, Papa is now quite wealthy man and he will wish to see that I am well endowed.”
“I already believe that.”
She looked at him suspiciously, aware that she was the subject of a joke. But she continued, “I also found out yesterday from the lawyers that I have inherited all of Toni’s property. So I own, among other things, a flat in the centre of Naples and forty-nine percent of the shares in a certain wine company in London. I will give those to you as a wedding present.”
That silenced Ben for a moment. “Well, of course,” he said, “I only wanted to marry you for your money.”
She poked him in the chest. “That is why I kept that information to myself until after you had asked me to marry you.”
“Right,” he said. “Now we’ve sorted out the unimportant details will you please give me an answer?”
“Can you remind me of the question?”
“Have you forgotten already? Will you come to bed with me?”
Francesca pulled away from him. “I’ll race you there,” she said, swinging the car door open and pushing her skirt down.
Ben leaped out the other side of the car and the container of shaving soap, which had been lying forgotten on his lap, crashed onto the cobbles and broke into several pieces. It was then that he noticed something strange. The soap had fallen out of the broken dish. He bent down to pick it up. It was then that he saw, bedded on its underside, another of the Vitelli badg
es of the Wolf of Hades. Nobody would have guessed that it was there unless they had removed the soap completely from the dish.
Francesca was by his side. “What is it?” she breathed.
Ben picked out the badge and held it close to his eyes. There were fragments of soap still adhering to the edges and he wiped them away. A slightly rough edge attracted his attention. He looked at it more closely. Then he pushed at it with his thumb-nail. The badge slid in half remarkably easily and revealed a small chamber in its centre. In it there nestled a tiny folded slip of paper.
“I thought this emblem felt less heavy then the other one.”
He removed the piece of paper, unfolded it and smoothed it out on the car’s wing. It was covered with fine writing. The language was Italian so he handed it to Francesca.
The girl wrinkled up her nose as she inspected it. “It is very funny writing and difficult to understand. I think it is a postilla. That is the extra part of a testamento – you know – where a person leaves his belongings to his relatives.”
“Oh – you mean a will. It’s the codicil to a will.”
“That is right. It is something extra that a person thinks of when he is near to death.”
“What does it say?”
“It is very old. The Italian is strange – what you call old-fashioned. But it says something like this:
“Be it known that this is the last wish of Alfonso, head of the families of the Vitelli.
I have seen the entrance to Hades. I have come back only to do what must be done. God has shown me that the ways of my younger son Angelo are the right ways. They are the ways of peace. He is to return and is to lead the Vitelli in my place. To this end I give him three parts of all my lands and possessions. The fourth part I give to my elder son Pietro subject to his forswearance of the ways of violence. In future he is to follow the ways of his brother Angelo. If he fails to honour my wishes then I remove his immunity from the Wolf of Hades. He and his kin of the Vitelli will be destroyed and will disappear from the face of the earth. To this pronouncement I give my hand.”
She paused and looked up at him.
“Is that all?”
“Then there is his signature and the sign of the witness – a holy father somebody. I can’t read his name. And there is the date – the fourth of May, 1866.”
Ben straightened up. “You know what this means, don’t you.”
“The Cimbroni are rightful heirs to the estates of old Alfonso Vitelli?”
“Well, I don’t know if this piece of paper is legally valid. You’ll have to get your lawyers on to that. But somehow Mancino Vitelli found out about it and was afraid the truth would get out. Perhaps Toni found it somewhere and threatened Mancino with it. When the Vitelli came after him to take it back he must have hidden the emblem in the bottom of the dish of shaving soap. I guess that’s the reason why he was killed when he wouldn’t tell them where it was hidden. It’s uncanny the way that piece of paper foretells the end of the Vitelli. It all ties in with what your grandfather told us. It makes my hair stand on end when I think about it.”
Francesca linked her arm through his. “None of it is important to me. I will let Papa worry about it when he is better.”
“We’d better give it to him for safe-keeping. He may think it’s quite important.” He opened the car door again.
“Hey! What about our double bedroom?”
“I tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we go and tidy up our new flat in the centre of Naples before we go back to see your Papa. That’s got a double bed, hasn’t it?”
“That will take much too long. We’ve only got two hours before your plane leaves.”
“Oh, forget that,” said Ben. “I’ll go back to London another day. I think I owe myself a few days holiday with my betrothed.”
If you enjoyed this book you might like to try one of the other books by the same author:-
The Eighth Child
Alan Brading sees his French-born wife killed in front of him in a London street. He even sees the face of her killer. At her funeral in her home town in the Loire Valley he believes he again sees the murderer, who disappears before he can reach the man.
Unable to convince the authorities to take him seriously, he embarks on his own investigation which uncovers a web of deceit and treachery which stretches back to the German occupation of France in the last war.
Dancing with Spies
Caroline Davey and her friend are travelling down the Adriatic on a ferry which develops engine problems and limps in to Dubrovnik harbour. Unfortunately the Yugoslav Civil War is just starting and within days the city comes under siege.
Unwillingly she becomes involved in the complex manoeuvring between the various groups involved and leads a hazardous existence in the back-streets of the city and in the surrounding islands before she manages to escape.
The Secret of the Cathars
Philip Sinclair receives a strange legacy from his recently-deceased grandmother which informs him she has translated a journal in old Occitan which explains he is the descendant of one of the men who escaped from the disaster at Montségur in Southern France when the Cathar faith was annihilated. It also described what happened to the lost secret treasure of the Cathars which has never been found.
Backed by a legacy she left to fund his search for treasure, Philip sets out to try to discover the truth behind the legend. He finds much more than he had expected.
Also by Michael Hillier:-
The Gigabyte Detective
Network Virus
Bank-cor-Rupt
Riversmeet
Website: mikehillier.com
The Mafia Emblem Page 63