up and she wore her years with grace and panache. Harriet gazed at her mutely, fighting to control her panic, then Vittoria Fortinari held out her arms, her huge eyes glittering with tears, and Harriet moved guiltily into her embrace.
‘Rosa,’ said the other woman unsteadily, holding Harriet at arms’ length. ‘How beautiful you are—’ She broke off to dab a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘But I must not cry. The make-up will melt.’ She smiled, looking so mischievous Harriet smiled back involuntarily.
Signora Fortinari drew Harriet down to sit beside her on the sofa, then smiled up at Leo, who was watching them with the intent, probing look Harriet was rapidly growing to dislike. ‘Thank you for bringing Rosa to me, Leo.’
In response to such sweet, but definite dismissal Leo Fortinari bowed formally. ‘I see I have served my purpose, Nonna, so I shall go back to Fortino.’
‘Now I have offended you,’ observed his grandmother placidly. ‘Come back to dinner later, Leo,’ she added, to Harriet’s dismay.
Leo, noting it, smiled sardonically. ‘If Rosa does not object, of course.’
‘I’d be delighted,’ Harriet lied.
‘Good,’ said Vittoria, smiling benignly. ‘Bring Dante with you, Leo. He will be eager to see Rosa again.’
Harriet relaxed a little. Dante had been in California when Rosa had blotted her youthful copybook.
‘Whatever you wish, Nonna,’ said Leo, and raised his grandmother’s hand to his lips with practiced grace. ‘But I think you should be resting tonight, in preparation for tomorrow’s celebrations.’
‘But then, you are not always right, Leonardo,’ she said gently.
Leo Fortinari acknowledged the hit with a raised hand, said his goodbyes in a way which encompassed Harriet without actually addressing her individually, and departed with the faintest hint of swagger in his retreat.
‘Now,’ said Signora Fortinari with satisfaction. ‘Tell me everything about yourself, my child—’
‘First, please let me make my apologies,’ said Harriet swiftly, following Rosa’s instructions. She took a deep breath. ‘Nonna, I know this is long overdue, but I’m desperately sorry for what happened.’
‘And I should have been more understanding—and forgiving,’ said Vittoria sombrely, and took Harriet’s hand. ‘Let us talk of it no more. You are here now, and that is all that matters. Pride is a terrible thing, Rosa, and I am guilty of it. I should have mended the rift with your father, and not allowed Leo to influence me so much. He was always so adamant that seeing you again would reopen old wounds and endanger my health. But he was wrong. Life is too short for such foolishness.’
Harriet nodded soberly, thinking of Rosa’s parents.
‘Who should know better than you, child?’ For a moment Vittoria Fortinari looked every moment of her age, and more, then she straightened and summoned a smile. ‘Now tell me, Rosa, have you brought a beautiful dress to wear tomorrow night?’
Harriet confessed to bringing more than one. Rosa had provided her with two stunning creations with mouth-watering labels, each of them worn only once.
After bringing the signora up to date on Rosa Mostyn’s current life and job, taking care to omit any reference to Pascal Tavernier in the process, Harriet reported on the precarious health of Allegra Mostyn.
‘Tony is driving everyone mad, Allegra included, because he’s in such a state,’ said Harriet.
‘It is a fortunate that men are not obliged to give birth,’ said Vittoria dryly. ‘Otherwise the human race would have died out long ago.’
Harriet’s appreciative chuckle turned into a yawn, and the other woman patted her hand affectionately.
‘Silvia has taken up your luggage. Go up to your room and have a bath and a rest before dinner, my child. You look tired. I shall visit the kitchen, and interfere with all the preparations for tomorrow. Because of them dinner tonight will be just a simple cold meal.’
‘I’ll enjoy that,’ Harriet assured her, and accompanied the signora across the square hall. The shallow, worn stone stairs led up to a gallery which ran round three sides of the renaissance-style colonnade of arches in the hall below.
‘You are in your old room, cara,’ said Vittoria, and kissed Harriet’s cheek. ‘Sleep, if you can. We shall eat at eight.’
Very much aware that the signora was watching with a fond smile, Harriet went upstairs slowly, praying she could find the right room. Following the diagram etched in her brain Harriet turned left at the head of the stairs, counted three doors along on the right, and sure enough, an open door revealed Rosa’s luggage standing at the foot of a carved wood bed in a room where everything, down to the last ornament, was just as Rosa had described it. Harriet closed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting out a sigh of heartfelt relief. So far so good. Two hurdles cleared. Only Dante and Mirella left. But Rosa had been certain there would be no trouble with Leo’s younger brother and sister. The most dangerous fly in the ointment, she’d warned, was Leo himself. Harriet cursed herself for failing to hide her dismay when his grandmother commanded him to dine with them. Leo had been amused by it, damn the man. Now that Signora Fortinari had accepted her without hesitation it was obvious that Rosa was right. Leo was the main danger.
Rosa had strongly advised against being friendly with Leo Fortinari. Harriet was to be as cool and distant as she liked, because that was how Rosa would have behaved if she’d come herself. If only she had! thought Harriet wearily, and blessed the industrious Silvia when she found her clohes unpacked and put away. Feeling more criminal than ever she shut herself into the bathroom and used Rosa’s cellphone to call her mother, and after a swift report on initial success, promised to ring next day and asked Claire to pass on the news.
Later, after a bath and a rest among the cool linen sheets of the bed, Harriet felt a lot better. Wrapped in a dressing gown she stood at the window for a while, able to enjoy the view to the full now there was no hostile male presence to spoil it for her. She had spent time in Siena during her language course, and had fallen in love with Italy the moment she arrived. The view from the Villa Castiglione rekindled the passion as she gazed at violet-shadowed hills rolling away into the fading light. The village in the foreground was far enough below to be a mere jumble of umber walls and cinnamon roofs clustering round a church and a slender tower where a bell began to peal as she watched. Harriet listened with delight, and relaxed at last as she breathed in the remembered scent of Tuscany.
When starlit darkness eventually hid the view Harriet turned back into the room and switched on lamps, then threw open the doors of the carved armoire and eyed the selection of clothes Rosa had provided. The borrowed jeans she’d worn with a lightweight jacket for travelling were the kind of thing she wore herself, though with less famous labels. But for more formal wear Rosa had a liking for clothes totally foreign to anything Harriet owned. Once her hair was dry she smoothed on a dress knitted from cobwebfine topaz wool, with a long skirt which curved over the hips and clung at the knees in a way which suggested a mermaid’s tail. Thankful for an inch less than Rosa above and below the waist Harriet added the matching jacket to mitigate the second-skin effect a little, then made up her face with Rosa’s cosmetics, emphasizing her eyes as patiently instructed. She slid her feet into bronze pumps with tall, slender heels, then gave her reflection a mocking salute with a hand embellished with Rosa’s heavy, pearl-studded gold ring.
When
