LITMIR.BIZ

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world.’

      ‘A man who believed in the traditional ways,’ Angie observed.

      ‘Yes, and also because people were often unkind to my mother because they weren’t married. So he protected her.’

      ‘It’s incredible, how it’s hidden away,’ she marvelled. ‘From outside those shops you’d never guess that it was here, unless you knew where that passage was, and even then you might miss it.’

      ‘That’s the idea. Outside the world bustles, especially in summer, when this place is a tourist trap. Then all the shops open for the foreign visitors, and the great families from Palermo come up here to open their summer houses and escape the heat. But then summer passes, the visitors go, and only the basic population is left.’

      ‘How many would that be?’

      ‘About six hundred. It’s like a ghost town.’

      ‘How do the people live when there are no visitors?’

      ‘Many of them work in the vineyards you saw below. The Martelli family owns them and I run them.’

      Again she noticed the slight oddity in his speech, the way he spoke of ‘the Martelli family’ as though he wasn’t one of them.

      Deep in the house she heard the telephone ring. He excused himself and went to answer it. Left alone, Angie looked around the little courtyard. It wasn’t expensively tended and perfect like the garden at the Residenza, but it had an austere elegance that pleased her.

      She sat on the side of the stone fountain and looked into the water. Above her the impossibly blue sky was reflected clearly, and just behind her she saw Bernardo appear. He was looking at her, and she wondered if he’d forgotten that she could see his face in the water, because he wore an expression that made her catch her breath. It was the look of a man who’d been taken by surprise and held against his will. There was alarm, yearning, and a touch of wistfulness. Then he stepped back quickly and his face vanished. When Angie glanced up he wasn’t looking at her.

      A large woman of about fifty emerged from the kitchen. Bernardo introduced her as Stella, his house keeper. Stella greeted Angie in excellent English, informing them that wine and snacks were waiting for them, while she finished cooking the proper meal. The snacks turned out to be bean fritters, hot cheese and herbs, and stuffed baked tomatoes.

      ‘If this is only a snack, I can’t wait to see what the full meal is like,’ Angie mused.

      ‘It will be a feast,’ he said, pouring her a glass of Marsala. ‘Stella is delighted to see you. She loves displaying her cooking, and I so seldom bring guests here.’

      Glass in hand, he began showing her his home. Despite its beauty it was an austere place, with the bare minimum of dark, heavy oak furniture. The floors were covered with smooth flagstones with the occasional rag rug. The walls were plain stone or brick. There were some pictures, but they weren’t the valuable old masters of the Residenza. One was a photograph, an aerial view of Montedoro itself, touched by the sun and standing proud against the valley far below. One was a childish watercolour, showing the streets of the little town, and a man in the dark clothes Bernardo himself was wearing.

      ‘Yes, that’s meant to be me,’ he said, smiling as he saw her gaze. ‘It was done by the children of the local convent school after I paid for them to go have a day out.’

      Looking more closely, Angie saw the word Grazie along the bottom of the picture. ‘It’s charming,’ she said. ‘Do you often give them treats?’

      He shrugged. ‘A party at Christmas, a trip to the theatre. It’s a tiny school. It costs me next to nothing.’

      Stella appeared from the kitchen, anxious to speak to him, and while he turned away Angie continued looking around. One door stood ajar, and through the three-inch crack she could just see the end of a bed. After struggling with her better self for a moment she ventured to push it a little further open.

      The room was dominated by a large brass bedstead. The walls were stone, the floor made of red flagstones, with one rug beside the bed. There was one cane chair and one pine table on which Bernardo kept his few possessions. It might have been a monk’s cell, except for the old-fashioned picture of a woman by the bed. Angie had seen the portrait of Bernardo’s ancestor, but now she saw his mother, and realised how both of them were subtly blended in him.

      It was an intriguing face. The woman had been beautiful with a heavy sensual mouth that hovered on the edge of a smile. But there was something about the eyes, an ironic watchfulness, a refusal to compromise, that spoilt her for Angie. But she was being unfair, she reflected. This woman had been trapped in a situation that left her much to endure. She had coped, but Angie, a woman from a totally different culture, guessed it had twisted her nature out of true, and some of her tensions had been passed on to her son.

      The mystery about Bernardo deepened.

      She was too cautious to linger, and slipped out quickly before he returned.

      In one room the medieval atmosphere had been banished by a modern computer, a desk and filing cabinets.

      ‘This is where I do my paperwork,’ he said with a grimace. ‘Thank goodness for technology, so that I can do as little as possible.’

      On the far side were huge windows reflecting the blue of the sky, both slightly ajar. Angie strode over and threw them open to take a deep breath, and found herself looking straight down the long drop into the valley. She gasped and turned away, her head spinning.

      In a flash Bernardo was beside her, his arms about her waist, holding her steady. ‘I should have warned you that that window opens straight onto the drop,’ he said.

      ‘I’m all right. I haven’t much head for heights—it just took me by surprise. Phew!’

      ‘Come away from the window,’ he said, drawing her into the room. ‘That’s better.’

      His clasp about her waist was light, but even so, she could sense the steely power of the man, and it thrilled her. Her heart was beating in anticipation. They were so close that she could feel the heat of his body and inhale his spicy, male aroma. And surely he must sense her own reaction to him. Even a man so lacking in polish must know that he delighted her. Some things could be neither faked nor hidden.

      The next moment she met his eyes and saw in them everything she wanted. But he released her nonetheless, setting a careful distance between them and saying in a voice that wasn’t quite steady,

      ‘Stella will have lunch ready by now. We mustn’t keep her excellent food waiting.’

      The table was laid in a simple room next to the kitchen with red flagstones, white walls, and a pair of French windows that opened onto the cloisters. Through these a gentle breeze blew, and they had a view straight out onto the fountain.

      ‘It’s magic,’ she breathed, as they sat down to eat.

      ‘It is at this time of year. In winter, very few people would find it magic. At this height the cold can be dreadful. Sometimes I look out of my window and all I can see is snow and mist, cutting the valley off. It’s like floating above the clouds.’

      ‘But then you can go down and live at the Residenza?’

      ‘I could. But I don’t.’

      ‘But isn’t it equally your home?’

      ‘No,’ he said briefly. He glanced up and said, ‘I’m sure you’ve heard the story.’

      ‘Some of it,’ she admitted. ‘How could I help knowing when you’re so prickly about it?’

      ‘Am I?’

      ‘At the airport, Lorenzo introduced you as his brother, and you hurried to say, “Half-brother”. It was like you wanted everyone to know you were different.’

      ‘Not really. I just don’t like to sail under false colours.’

      ‘But isn’t

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