‘Rosa, how elegant!’ she exclaimed.
Harriet bent to kiss the cheek held up for the caress. ‘So are you, Nonna.’
‘Come, pour yourself a glass of wine, and sit beside me while we wait. Tell me about Tony and his new wife. Do you like her?’
Harriet told everything she’d learned about the unknown Tony and Allegra, and their excitement over their first baby, then broke off to nibble hungrily on a bread stick wound with prosciutto. But she chose sparkling water to drink. Having come this far without mishap it seemed best to avoid the tongue-loosening properties of Fortinari wine.
‘You are hungry, child. You should have asked Silvia for something to eat,’ scolded Vittoria.
‘I just wanted coffee when I arrived,’ said Harriet, taking another bread stick. ‘And I can never eat on the plane. I hate flying.’
‘Do you, dearest?’ Vittoria Fortinari looked surprised. ‘You used to love it when you were a child.’
Oops, thought Harriet. Careful. ‘I’m not so keen these days—’ she halted abruptly as the other woman’s eyes filled with sudden tears.
‘Of course you are not, Rosa,’ said Vittoria huskily, and dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘Forgive me.’
Harriet’s arms went out involuntarily, and Vittoria clasped her close. They stayed immobile for several seconds, both of them deeply contrite, for different reasons, for bringing up the subject of flying.
‘Good evening.’
Harriet drew away swiftly from the scented, comforting embrace of Rosa’s grandmother to see Leonardo Fortinari approaching across the faded, beautiful carpet. Less formal, but equally impressive in an open-necked shirt under a linen jacket a shade or two paler than his perfectly cut fawn trousers, he gave Harriet a slow, all-encompassing look which travelled up to her eyes at last and stayed there.
‘I agree that Rosa looks beautiful this evening, but stop staring at her,’ said his grandmother severely. ‘You are late—and where is Dante?’
Leo removed his gaze with visible effort, and turned to his grandmother. ‘Forgive me, Nonna. Dante makes his apologies,’ he said, stooping to kiss her. ‘He is detained in Arezzo, and will not be home until late. But he promised to be first here tomorrow night.’ He turned to Harriet. ‘Your rest has transformed you, Rosa.’
‘Thank you,’ she returned with composure.
‘But she is hungry,’ said Vittoria, and rang a small silver bell. ‘Let us go straight to the table.’
Harriet made appreciative murmurs as she was served with pasta in savoury meat sauce for the first course of the meal Vittoria Fortinari had warned would be simple, due to the industry still raging in the kitchen as they dined.
‘It was always your favourite,’ she said affectionately, as Harriet made short work of her pasta.
‘With such appetite it is a wonder you stay so slender,’ observed Leo, watching her. ‘You were much rounder once.’
‘I work hard,’ said Harriet. So did Rosa, despite her money.
‘Is Tony so relentless in keeping you tied to the Hermitage?’ queried Leo, leaning nearer to fill her water glass.
Aware that Vittoria Fortinari was awaiting her answer with deep interest Harriet met his black-lashed eyes serenely. ‘Not at all. I answer to no one but myself. Now. When my parents died I inherited a substantial sum of money, as I’m sure you know. I work in the family business because I want to, not because I’m forced to. And at the moment, while Tony is so anxious about Allegra, I divide myself between the Hermitage out in the country, and the Chesterton in Pennington, to give him more time with her.’
Signora Fortinari nodded approvingly. ‘In his letter Tony told me he is very grateful for this.’
Leo Fortinari shook his head in mocking admiration. ‘It is hard to believe that reckless little Rosa has changed into such a responsible adult.’
His grandmother eyed him coldly. ‘It is time, Leonardo, that we put the past behind us, and enjoy the present What little I have left of it,’ she added, laying a dramatic hand on her heart.
‘Nonna, you will live to be a hundred,’ he assured her, but from then on his manner became noticeably less hostile to the prodigal granddaughter.
Rosa’s teenage episode obviously rankles with him even now, thought Harriet, as the plates were removed. Leo, apparently taking his grandmother’s words to heart, helped both women to thin slices of spiced ham, and to the accompanying salad of cheese and ripe red tomato slices dressed with olive oil and basil. Harriet accepted his attentions politely, but listened with genuine interest as he talked of the latest Fortinari Chianti Classico.
‘Is that what we’re drinking?’ asked Harriet.
Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘No, little savage. This is from the 1997 vintage—the best for fifty years. Nonna has opened it in honour of your return.’
‘Instead of the fatted calf?’ said Harriet, smiling, and willed Leo to change the subject. One of the many differences between herself and Rosa Mostyn, was her very un-Italian ignorance of wine.
‘A fondness for wine was never one of your failings, darling,’ said Vittoria, startling Harriet by her insight. ‘At least,’ she added, eyes twinkling, ‘not when you were seventeen.’
Nor was it for Harriet now she was nine years older than that. Wine was an unaffordable luxury in the Foster household.
‘So, Rosa,’ said Leo, leaning back in his chair, ‘you are an important aid to the running of the Mostyn empire.’
Harriet was getting tired, and finding it hard to concentrate. She spoke Italian fluently enough, but an entire evening of conversation in a foreign tongue, while simultaneously trying to maintain a faultless impersonation of Rosa, was beginning to tell. ‘Two hotels can hardly be called an empire,’ she pointed out.
‘True,’ he allowed. ‘But they are successful, and well known to foreign visitors for their luxury and comfort. Perhaps I shall come and stay at your Hermitage, and sample the Mostyn hospitality myself one day.’
‘By all means,’ said Harriet, secure in the knowledge that if he did the real Rosa Mostyn would have the pleasure of entertaining him. A thought which gave her a sudden, unaccountable pang she put down to indigestion.
Signora Fortinari instructed Silvia to serve coffee in the salon. ‘Rosa has brought something beautiful to wear to my party,’ she informed Leo, as he helped her up from the table.
‘She could scarcely look more ravishing than she does tonight,’ he said, giving Harriet a smouldering look which clenched secret muscles in response under the clinging gossamer wool.
‘True,’ agreed his grandmother, ‘but tomorrow is a special occasion.’
Harriet detached her gaze from Leo’s with effort. ‘And because of it, I’ve actually brought two dresses. Tomorrow Nonna can choose which one she prefers.’
After
