of something which for a moment had been anything but. ‘Miss Hunt, have you met my husband—Count di Falcone?’
‘We’ve met,’ retorted Mazzaro coolly, his curiously green eyes flickering over Suzanne’s flushed face before shifting to Signora Vitale. ‘Dinner is waiting, Zia Tommasa, and Lucia insists that she will not be held responsible if it spoils.’
SUZANNE’S FINGERS trembled as she silently released the catch on the balcony door. The last thing she wanted to do was to arouse anyone else to the awareness that she could not sleep, but she had lain sleepless for hours now and she needed some air.
The door swung open on oiled hinges, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The cool air was chilling, but refreshing, and her heated body responded eagerly. Closing her eyes for a moment, she lifted a hand to brush her hair back from her face. Oh, that was good, after the tormenting confusion of troubled impressions stirring her into consciousness.
She glanced back at the shadowy room behind her. Certainly the room was comfortable enough, and the bed quite luxuriously soft, but still she was restless. There were too many things to keep her awake, and not even the exhaustion of the journey was sufficient to banish the memories of the evening she had just spent.
She stepped out on to the balcony and moved to the rail, looking down on to the courtyard below. Even the fountain was silent now and only the breeze blowing down from the mountains made music through the columns of the loggia. She shivered. The negligee she had pulled on over her chiffon nightgown was scarcely a barrier to temperatures dipping in the hours before dawn, but still she lingered, loath to return to the turmoil she had found on her pillow. Somehow she had to come to terms with the situation here, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
Her eyes lifted to the mountains, their bulk a rugged landmass on the skyline. How could anyone live in such surroundings without being affected by a feeling of immortality? she wondered. But did that give one the right to treat someone else with contempt? Her brows drew together in a troubled frown. There were four adults and one child living at the villa, and between them they represented the whole gamut of human relationships. No wonder Pietro had been loath to discuss his family. How could anyone accurately describe the situation at the Villa Falcone?
Yet there seemed no reason for the tension she could feel just below that surface veneer of civility. Pietro’s mother was not the easiest person to get along with, she conceded, but she was old, and that excused a lot. Pietro’s attitude was a little less easy to understand. He obviously loved his mother and Elena, and he appeared to hold a great affection for Sophia. But he and his cousin seemed totally opposed to one another. Sophia, on the face of it, had the rawest deal. She seemed a perfectly normal friendly young woman, interested in Suzanne’s work, in her life in England and the places she had visited. She discussed the advantages of working in different countries with real enthusiasm, and was the only person at the dinner table to make Suzanne feel at ease. But it was her husband who acted as a catalyst on all of them, and Suzanne shivered again as she recalled her own disturbing reactions to Mazzaro di Falcone.
Dressed in black, which accentuated his brooding malevolence, he sat at the head of the long, polished dining table with the cool despotism of a Medici. The magnificent room matched his mood for period. Subdued lights, and scented candles burning in a bronze holder, cast shadows up to the carved ceiling, disguising the ugly weals that began below the Count di Falcone’s right eye, spreading across his cheek and running down the side of his neck. The collar of his silk shirt was open, and Suzanne had had to force herself not to stare at the spot where the scars disappeared beneath the fine material.
But it was not just his appearance that disturbed her. His scarred face did not repel her, rather the reverse, and she was made increasingly conscious of the penetration of green eyes when she gave in to the temptation to look at him. It was his behaviour towards his wife, however, which seemed so illogical, that aroused the most distracting emotions inside her. And it was this, more than anything, that she found hardest to assimilate.
Throughout the meal, Sophia had made repeated attempts to draw her husband into the conversation, and on each occasion he had repulsed her efforts with some mocking or scathing retort. He seemed to take pleasure in being rude to her, but she merely dismissed his insolence with a reluctant smile, continuing to talk to Suzanne as if nothing untoward had happened. But Suzanne knew it had happened, and so did Pietro, sitting across from her, judging by the way his hands were clenched where they rested on the table.
It was obvious that Pietro resented his cousin’s behaviour towards his wife. And why not? It was a perfectly natural reaction. And yet the courtesy which Mazzaro showed to his aunt negated his dismissal as a boor. So why did he treat Sophia in that way? And why didn’t she retaliate? If he spoke to her like that, Suzanne knew she would. But in Sophia di Falcone’s position, would she want to …?
She looked down at her fingers gripping the wrought iron, and as she did so a shadow moved in the courtyard below. She started violently, stepping back from the rail, her mouth suddenly dry. Someone was down there. But who? And why? And had they seen her?
Even as she stood, transfixed, the shadow moved again and materialised into the tall, lean figure of a man, a man who moved stiffly, as if unused to such movements.
Suzanne pressed her hand to her lips to prevent the involuntary ejaculation that hovered there. It was Mazzaro di Falcone. She could see him now, the darkness of his head, the muscular width of his body. But Mazzaro di Falcone walking without his sticks, unevenly to be sure, limping a little, but definitely upright.
For a few moments longer she stood motionless, and then realising she ought not to be seeing this, she stepped silently back towards her balcony door. It didn’t make sense. Mazzaro walking the courtyard in the early hours of the morning—walking alone and unaided. Did anyone know? Had he confided in anybody? Or was this his secret, the reason he treated his wife with such contempt? Obviously, Sophia could not know about this, or she might be a little less patient with him. But what possible motive could he have for keeping it a secret, for denying his family the joy of knowing he was getting so much better?
Shedding her negligee, Suzanne tumbled back into bed, feeling more confused now than she had done before. And yet, for all that, she fell asleep almost immediately.
She awakened to the sound of someone knocking at her door. For a moment, it was difficult to get her bearings, but the sunlight shafting through the still-open door to the balcony brought awareness into sharp perspective. Struggling up against the cream silk-cased pillows, she called: ‘Avanti!’ and the elderly housekeeper, Lucia, came into the room carrying a silver tray. For all the brilliant sunshine outside, Lucia clung to dark clothes and voluminous skirts which almost touched her ankles, but her lined face was not unfriendly.
‘Buon giorno, signorina,’ she greeted the girl politely, as she approached the bed across the rug-strewn tiled floor.
‘Buon giorno, Lucia. Che ora sono?’
Lucia looked pleased that Suzanne could understand her own language. ‘Sono le dieci e mezzo, signorina,’ she told her smilingly, setting the tray across her knees. ‘Ha dormito bene?’
But Suzanne was scarcely listening to her now. Was it really half past ten? Had she slept so long? Perhaps it was not so surprising, though, considering her disturbed night and the hour at which she finally fell asleep.
Still conversing in Italian, she said: ‘There was no need for you to go to all this trouble, Lucia. I’m afraid I’ve overslept.’
Lucia
