LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Even Humphrey?’

      ‘Especially Humphrey,’ she said firmly. The little mongrel was already her favourite. ‘He’s a perfect angel once you understand him.’

      She thought she heard a slight groan before he said, ‘I feel like I’m talking to my mother.’

      Well, that wasn’t very nice. ‘Goodnight, Blaine,’ she said evenly.

       ‘Goodnight, mia piccola.’

      His voice had been very soft and Maisie hesitated a moment before she replaced the receiver. She glanced at Liliana, who had stopped crying long enough to wipe her eyes with her apron. ‘Come on,’ she said quietly. ‘Blaine says you’ve got to have a cup of coffee with a kick in it.’

      ‘Scusi? A kick?’

      ‘A spot of brandy,’ Maisie clarified. ‘And, before you say no, I’m going to make one for myself too.’

      Somehow, though, she felt it was going to take more than the odd measure of brandy to help her deal with her increasingly disturbing feelings about life in general and Blaine in particular over the next weeks.

      The fact that Liliana allowed her to make the coffee told Maisie the little elderly woman was even more shaken up than she appeared. It had only taken Maisie an hour or two to understand that the kitchen was utterly and totally Liliana’s domain; even Blaine’s mother had tiptoed about in it that morning before she had left the house. But Liliana was a softie under her capable and somewhat gruff exterior, Maisie thought, as she handed the older woman her coffee, which had a double shot of brandy in it. She had obviously been worried to death about Guiseppe and had been hiding her concern most of the time; hence the reaction when she’d learnt he was going to be all right.

      Liliana said much the same as they sipped their coffee together on the veranda, Maisie digging into a batch of the wonderful sticky sugary pastries Liliana had made earlier that day. ‘I needed to be strong for Jennifer,’ Liliana explained as they looked out over the warm summer evening, the heady smell of honeysuckle and jasmine and climbing roses heavy in the slumbering air. ‘You understand? To be her, how do you say it, her rock?’

      Maisie nodded. ‘Yes, I understand,’ she said, wondering what magic Liliana used to make such incredible melting pastry.

      ‘She is a good woman, and brave, but she has had so much to contend with.’

      Maisie nodded again. It was clear Liliana needed to talk and to have her listen, and with the plate of pastries within reach she had no argument with that. The dogs were all spread out around their feet, Humphrey in prime position on her foot as usual, waiting for any crumbs that might fall. Like the cats, they knew enough to keep very quiet and still around Liliana unless they wanted to be shooed off.

      ‘It hit both of them very hard, the trouble with Blaine. He tried to shield his mother, of course, but …’ Liliana shrugged, her thin black-clad shoulders eloquent.

      Maisie pricked up her ears. Liliana obviously thought that as a friend of the family—as she had been described, apparently—she knew more than she did. She wondered if she ought to warn Liliana that she didn’t know anything about Blaine—it would be the right thing to do. Morality warred with curiosity. No contest. Maisie bit into another pastry and looked sympathetic.

      ‘Not that I thought Francesca was right for him.’ Liliana had lowered her voice as though she thought if she spoke too loudly it would reach Blaine’s ears umpteen miles away. ‘She was a sweet girl, of course, well brought up, but just because the pair were childhood sweethearts it does not follow that all will be well. But Jennifer and Guiseppe being Francesca’s godparents, and the two families such friends …’ She sighed. ‘My poor Blaine. Tragic.’

      She took another sip of coffee, her face contemplative, and Maisie wanted to snatch the cup away from Liliana’s lips. Don’t stop. Go on. But it appeared Liliana had finished. She drained her coffee and stood up, her manner suddenly brisk. ‘I shall go to early mass tomorrow and give thanks to the Holy Mother,’ she announced with dramatic intensity. ‘She has spared my family more pain.’ And with that she disappeared into the house.

      Maisie licked her fingers. She was tempted to follow Liliana and see if she would say more; the brandy had obviously loosened the old woman’s tongue. But then that would be somewhat sly and underhand, she admitted, refusing to acknowledge the little voice that said she had been less than honest in letting Liliana rattle on in the first place.

      She had just listened, she told herself. Had provided a sympathetic ear at a time when Liliana needed one. That was all. She frowned to herself. And really she knew little more than she had initially, except that Blaine’s old love had been Italian and dearly loved by his parents by all accounts.

      Francesca. Beautiful name. Probably beautiful woman. Long black hair, hauntingly lovely face, stunning figure. Model-thin.

      There were two pastries left on the plate and Maisie divided them between the ecstatic dogs, the three she had already eaten now screaming their calories in her head. As Humphrey stood guard over the last of the crumbs on the floor, fur bristling as he almost choked trying to lick up every morsel before any of the others nosed in, she smoothed her hands over her rounded hips. OK, so she wasn’t grossly fat but she would never be a supermodel. She was, as boyfriends in the past had described her, cuddly.

      She sighed, staring across the lawned garden directly in front of her to where the two horses were standing in the paddock in the distance under the shade of a big old green oak tree. The sunlight was already dappled; within an hour or two the vivid blue of the sky would begin to mellow and her first full day at the villa would come to an end. She wasn’t going to like it when she had to return to England.

      The thought brought her out of the doldrums with a jolt. What was the matter with her? she asked herself crossly. She had weeks and weeks to look forward to in this glorious place; why on earth was she whining about having to go back home now?

      It was the emotion of the last hour, she decided, rising to her feet and then smiling as the dogs rose expectantly, tails wagging and tongues lolling. ‘Just a walk down to see your slightly bigger friends then,’ she told them, picking up a couple of apples for the two horses from a bowl on one of the small tables on the veranda.

      As she stepped out of the shade into the blaze of late afternoon sunshine she lifted her head to the heat. The foreign brightness to the quality of the light and the overall intensity of colour about her made her feel alive from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She was going to stop analysing everything, she told herself firmly. From now on she would just take each day as it came. No more heart-searching. No more regrets. Blaine was right. Jeff would never have suited her in the long run, nor she him. But she was free, free and footloose and independent. Mistress of her own destiny and answerable to no one. Anticipation and excitement flooded her blood.

      This wonderful crazy feeling might not last, she thought as she walked down towards the paddock, the dogs sniffing and bounding and tumbling each other over. But it was enough that she had felt it today because now she knew she would feel it again. Her life wasn’t over because Jeff didn’t want her—far from it. She had got herself into a tangle of maudlin self-pity in England; she had needed a complete change of scene to break the cycle.

      As the two horses came ambling over to her when she reached the fence of the paddock, their large expressive eyes fixed on the apples in her hands, she laughed out loud. ‘Cupboard loves.’ She let their velvet nuzzles nose the food out of her hands.

      She would thank Blaine when she saw him next, she decided as the horses crunched their titbits. She would tell him it had been the right decision for her to come here, that she was grateful to him for suggesting it.

      She pictured the long lean length of him in her mind as she stood on the bottom rung of the fence, her hair wafting about her face in the hot breeze. The striking, almost luminescent black-lashed eyes, the firm hard mouth, chiselled cheekbones, strong jaw. His body was superb but aggressively masculine, virile, unyielding. He would make love

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