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Even his wife’s suspicions, expressed at the top of her voice, hadn’t been sufficient to deter him.
And when he’d found Clare by herself in the dining room that morning, he’d not only tried to kiss her, but slide a hand up her skirt as well. So Clare, outraged, had poured her coffee over him just as the Signora had entered the room.
Which was why she now found herself free as a bird and driving towards Umbria.
That hadn’t been her original plan, of course. Common sense had dictated that she should return to Britain, bank her windfall, and ask the agency to find her another post.
And this she would do—eventually. After she’d been to see Violetta.
A smile curved her lips as she thought of her godmother, all fluttering hands, scented silks and discreet jewellery. A wealthy widow, who had never been tempted to remarry.
‘Why confine yourself to one course, cara, when there is a whole banquet to enjoy?’ she had once remarked airily.
Violetta, Clare mused, had always had the air of a woman who enjoyed the world, and was treated well by it in return. And, in the heat of the summer, she liked to retire to her charming house in the foothills near Urbino and recuperate from the relentless socialising she embarked on for the rest of the year.
And she was constantly pressing Clare to come and stay with her.
‘Come at any time,’ she’d told her. ‘I so love to see you.’ She had wiped away a genuine tear with a lace handkerchief. ‘The image of my dearest Laura. My cousin and my greatest friend. How I miss her. And how could your father have put that terrible woman in her place?’
But that was a well-worn path that Clare, wisely, had not chosen to follow.
Laura Marriot had been dead for five years now, and, whatever Clare’s private opinion of her stepmother, or the undoubted difficulties of their relationship, Bernice seemed to be making her father happy again, and that was what really counted. Or so she assured herself.
But John Marriot’s remarriage had put paid to their cherished plan of Clare joining him as a partner in the successful language school he ran in Cambridge. Bernice had made it clear from the first that this was no longer an option. She wanted no inconvenient reminders of his previous marriage in the shape of a grown-up daughter living close at hand.
Perhaps the physical resemblance to her mother, which was such a joy to Violetta, had been one of the main factors of her resentment.
Every time Bernice had looked at Clare, she’d have seen the creamy skin, the pale blonde hair, the eyes, dark and velvety as pansies, flecked with gold, and the wide mouth that always looked about to break into a smile that Laura had bequeathed to her daughter.
And her possessive streak had been equally unable to handle the closeness between John and Clare. The fact that they were friends as well as father and child.
It had not been easy for Clare to swallow her disappointment and hurt and strike out for herself as a freelance language teacher, but she’d been fortunate in finding, almost at once, her present agency.
Resolutely putting the past behind her, she’d worked with total commitment, accepting each job she was offered without comment or complaint, establishing a track record for reliability and enthusiasm.
The Dorellis had been her first real failure, she acknowledged with a faint sigh.
Now, she felt she deserved a short break before plunging into another assignment. It was nearly two years since she’d had a holiday, and at her godmother’s house she’d be petted and cherished in a way she hadn’t known for years. It was a beguiling thought.
A more ominous rumble of thunder made her glance skywards, grimacing slightly. She was still miles from Cenacchio, where Violetta lived, and there was little chance of outrunning the storm. She knew how fierce and unpredictable the weather could suddenly become in this region.
Even as the thought formed, the first raindrops hurled themselves against her windscreen. Seconds later, they’d become a deluge with which the Fiat’s wipers were clearly reluctant or unable to cope.
Not conditions for driving on unfamiliar roads with severe gradients, Clare decided, prudently pulling over on to a gravelled verge. She couldn’t beat the storm, but she could sit it out.
She’d bought some cartons of fruit juice at the service station where she’d stopped for lunch, and petrol. Thankfully, she opened one of the drinks, and felt its chill refresh her dry mouth.
The rain was like a curtain, sweeping in great swathes across her vision. She watched the lightning splitting the sky apart, then zig-zagging down to lose itself in the great hills which marched down the spine of Italy. The thunder seemed to echo from peak to peak.
Son et lumière at its ultimate, thought Clare, finishing her drink. She leaned forward to get a tissue to wipe her fingers, and paused, frowning. Impossible as it might seem, she would swear she had just seen signs of movement straight ahead through the barrage of rain.
Surely not, she thought incredulously. No one in their right mind would choose to walk around in weather like this.
She peered intently through the windscreen, realising she hadn’t been mistaken. Someone was coming towards her along the road. A girl’s figure, she realised in astonishment, weighed down by a heavy suitcase, and limping badly too.
Clare wound down her window. As the hobbling figure drew level, she said in Italian, ‘Are you in trouble? May I help?’
The girl hesitated. She was barely out of adolescence, and stunningly pretty in spite of the dark hair which hung in drowned rats’ tails round her face, and an understandably peevish expression.
She said, ‘Please do not concern yourself, signora. I can manage very well.’
‘That’s not how it seems to me,’ Clare returned levelly. ‘Have you hurt your ankle?’
‘No.’ The sulky look deepened. ‘It’s the heel of this stupid shoe—see? It broke off.’
Clare said crisply, ‘If you plan to continue your stroll, I suggest you snap the other one off, and even things up a little.’
‘I am not taking a stroll,’ the younger girl said haughtily. ‘I was driving a car until it ran out of petrol.’
Clare’s brows lifted. ‘Are you old enough to drive?’ she asked, mindful that Italian licences were only issued to over-eighteen-year-olds.
There was a betraying pause, then, ‘Of course I am.’ The girl made a face like an aggravated kitten. ‘It is just that the car never has a full tank in case I run away.’
Clare gave the suitcase a thoughtful glance. ‘And isn’t that precisely what you’re doing?’
The girl tried to look dignified as well as drenched. ‘That, signora, is none of your business.’
‘Then I’m going to make it my business.’ Clare opened the passenger door invitingly. ‘At least shelter with me until it stops raining, otherwise you’re going to catch pneumonia.’
‘But I do not know you,’ the other objected. ‘You could be—anybody.’
‘I can assure you that I’m nobody. Nobody that matters, anyway.’ Clare’s voice was gentle. ‘And I think you’d be safer in this car than out on the open road.’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘You think I could be struck by lightning?’
‘I think that’s the least that could happen to you,’ Clare told her quietly. ‘Now, put your case in the back of the car and get in before you drown.’
As the newcomer slid into the passenger seat, Clare could see she was shivering. Her pale pink dress, which undoubtedly bore the label of some leading designer, was pasted to her body, and the narrow strappy shoes that matched it were discoloured and leaking as well as lop-sided.
Clare reached into the back of the car and retrieved the raincoat she’d thrown there a few hours before. She’d left the Dorellis in such a hurry that she’d almost forgotten it, and their maid had chased after her waving it.
She said, ‘You need to get out of that wet dress. If you put this on and button it right up, no one will notice anything.’ She paused. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything hot to drink, but there’s some fruit juice if you’d like it.’
There was an uncertain silence. Then, ‘You are kind.’
Clare busied herself opening the carton, tactfully ignoring the wriggling and muttered curses going on beside her.
‘My dress it ruined,’ the girl announced after a moment or two. ‘It will have to be thrown away.’
Clare swallowed. ‘Isn’t that rather extravagant?’ she asked mildly.
‘It does not matter.’ The girl shrugged, pushing the pile of crumpled pink linen away with a bare foot.
‘What about your car?’ Clare handed over the drink. ‘Where did you leave that?’
Another shrug. ‘Somewhere.’ A swift, sideways glance. ‘I do not remember.’
‘What a shame,’ Clare said drily. ‘Perhaps we’d better introduce ourselves. ‘I’m Clare Marriot.’
The girl stared at her. ‘You are English? But your Italian is good. I was deceived.’
Clare smiled. ‘My mother was Italian, and it’s one of the languages I teach.’
‘Truly? What are the others?’
‘Oh, French, Spanish—a little German. And English itself, of course.’
‘Is that why you are here—to teach English?’
Clare shook her head. ‘No, I’m on holiday.’ She paused. ‘What’s your name?’
‘It is Paola—Morisone.’
Again, the brief hesitation wasn’t lost on Clare.
But she didn’t query it. Instead, she said, ‘It looks as if the storm could be passing. If you’ll tell me where you live, I’ll take you home.’
‘No.’ The denial was snapped at her. ‘I do not go home—not now, not ever.’
Clare groaned inwardly. She said quietly, ‘Be reasonable. You’re soaked to the skin, and your shoe is broken. Besides, I’m sure people will be worried about you.’
Paola tossed her head. ‘Let them. I do not care. And if Guido thinks I am dead, then it is good, because he will not try to make me marry him any more.’
Clare stared at her, trying to unravel the strands of this pronouncement and absorb its implications at the same time.
She said ‘Guido?’
‘My brother. He is a pig.’
Clare felt dazed. ‘Your brother?’ Her voice rose. ‘But that’s absurd. You can’t…’
‘Oh, he is not a real brother.’ Paola wrinkled her nose dismissively. ‘My father and his were in business together, and when my father died, Zio Carlo said I must live with him.’ Her face darkened. ‘Although I did not want to. I wished to stay with my matrigna, and she wished it too, but the lawyers would not permit it.’
At least Paola seems to have had more luck with her stepmother than I did, Clare thought, wryly. Bernice couldn’t wait to get me out of the house. But she had other problems.
She said, feeling her way. ‘And is it Zio Carlo’s wish that you should marry this Guido?’
‘Dio, no. He is also dead.’ Paola heaved a sigh. ‘But he said in his will that Guido should be my guardian until I am twenty-five, which is when my money comes to me. Unless I am married before that, of course. Which I mean to be. Although not to Guido, whom I hate.’
Clare felt as if she was wading through linguine. She took a deep breath. ‘Aren’t you rather young to be thinking about marriage—to anyone?’
‘I am eighteen—or I shall be very soon,’ she added, returning Clare’s sceptical glance with a mutinous glare. ‘And my own mother was my age when she met my father and fell in love.’ She made a sweeping, impassioned gesture, nearly spilling the remains of her drink. ‘When you meet the one man in the world who is for you, nothing else matters.’
‘I see,’ Clare said drily, taking the carton and putting it out of harm’s way. ‘And have you met such a man?’
‘Of course. His name is Fabio.’ Paola’s eyes shone. ‘And he is wonderful. He is going to save me from Guido.’
It was all delicious nonsense, Clare thought, half-amused, half-exasperated. But it was also full time to introduce a note of reality.
She said, ‘Paola—it’s nearly the twenty-first century. People stopped forcing others into marriage a long time ago. If Guido knows how you really feel…’
‘He does not care. It is the money—only the money. My father’s share in the business belongs to me. If I marry someone else, it will be lost to him. He will not permit that. For three years he has kept me in prison.’
‘Prison?’ Clare echoed faintly. ‘What are you talking about?’
Paola’s delicate mouth was set sullenly. ‘He made me go to this school. The nuns were like jailers. He did this so I could not meet anyone else and be happy.’
It occurred to Clare that the unknown Guido might have a point. Paola clearly had all the common sense of a butterfly.
But that didn’t mean he should be allowed to pressure such an immature girl into matrimony for mercenary reasons, she reminded herself. If that was what he was actually doing.
She said gently, ‘Perhaps he really loves you, Paola, and wants to take care of you.’
Paola made a contemptuous noise. ‘I do not believe that. He is concerned for his business—for losing control of my share. That is all.’
‘Oh.’ Clare digested this, then started on a different tack. ‘How did you meet Fabio?’
‘I was on holiday,’ Paola said dreamily. ‘At Portofino with my friend Carlotta and her family. Guido let me go there because Carlotta’s mother is just as strict as the nuns.’ She giggled. ‘But Carlotta and I used to climb out of the window at the villa, and go into the town at night. One time, we were at a disco, when some men tried to get fresh with us, so Fabio and his friend came to help us.’ She sighed ecstatically. ‘I looked at him—and I knew. And it was the same for him.’
‘How fortunate,’ Clare said slowly. ‘And you’ve—kept in touch ever since?’
Paola nodded eagerly. ‘He writes to me, and I pretend the letters are from Carlotta.’
‘You haven’t told Guido about this boy?’
‘Are you crazy?’ Paola cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Do you know what he would do? Send me to another prison—in Switzerland—so that I learn to cook, and arrange flowers, and be a hostess. For him,’ she added venomously.
She paused. ‘And Fabio is not a boy. He is a man, although not as old as Guido, naturally. And far more handsome.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Bello, bello.’
An image of Guido as an ageing lecher, on the lines of the loathsome Signor Dorelli, lodged in Clare’s mind. She could well understand Fabio’s appeal, yet, at the same time, she was aware of all kinds of nameless worries.
She said, probing gently, ‘And is that where you’re going now? To meet Fabio somewhere?’
Paola nodded vigorously. ‘Si—and to be married.’
Don’t get involved, said a small voice of sanity in the back of Clare’s brain. Just take her to the nearest service station, and then get on with your own life. This has nothing to do with you.
She said, ‘Where is the wedding taking place?’
