Angel found a suite of rooms that would be ideal for Sam and his carers. It was downstairs, as climbing was becoming too much for him, and would give him a large, pleasant room looking out onto the garden on the landward side of the house, with his nurses nearby.
She made a mental note of the furniture she would have to buy, and how much redecorating would be needed. For the moment, she told Berta only that the rooms should be spring-cleaned. More detailed explanations could wait until she felt more able to take Berta into her confidence.
She also began to walk her estate, which was more extensive than she had realised. In addition to the lemon orchards, there was a huge garden, stretching away landward, built on several levels, connected by short flights of stone steps. Flowers of every kind grew in profusion—roses, geraniums, magnolias. There were fountains with water plants, and greenhouses with tropical plants. Rico, the only gardener left, came with her, explaining that it was arranged that something different would flower every month.
Angel had begun to understand why Rico, alone among the gardeners, had chosen to stay. He was sweet-natured and always willing to please, but his mind worked at a snail’s pace. He had been born on the estate, lived there his entire twenty-three years, and plainly knew that he wasn’t fit to venture out into the big, bad world.
Vittorio was his god. Angel began to feel that if he said, ‘Il padrone always used to…’ just one more time, she would do something desperate.
Once she caught Rico off-guard, looking about him and clearly wondering how he was going to manage all this alone. Angel felt exactly the same. There was a horrible feeling growing inside her that Vittorio Tazzini was laughing at her. With good reason.
Another day, Angel went walking alone along the cliff top, where an iron rail guarded her from the drop. After a couple of hours she stopped and lingered, enjoying the sun that bathed her and glittered on the sea below. Cautiously, she peered over the rail at the long drop. Far below she could see the beach, with sun umbrellas and boats drawn up at the water’s edge. At this distance the bathers looked no bigger than ants. Fascinated, Angel rested her hands on the rail and leaned forward.
There was no warning of what happened next. She felt the movement of earth beneath her feet and the next moment she was sliding away under the railing, going down, lashing out frantically for something to grab.
For one terrifying moment, she thought there was nothing. Then her fingers touched metal and she tightened, and held on. She managed to reach up her other hand and clench that too on the railing, but her relief lasted only a split second. She’d checked her descent, but she was hanging over a sheer drop.
‘Help!’ she screamed. ‘Help!’
But she might as well have been in the middle of a wilderness. Nobody on the estate knew that she was here, and it was unlikely that anyone could see her from so far below. Even if they could, it would take time for help to arrive, and she wasn’t sure how long she could cling on.
‘Help!’ she screamed again. It might be useless, but she couldn’t stop.
Still, there was nobody to help her.
She fought to get a foothold, but her legs scrambled uselessly in space. She was already running out of energy because, with her arms stretched above her head, it was hard to breathe. Now sheer terror attacked her, making breathing even harder.
She cried out again, but the wind whipped her words away and brought no answer. She would simply hang here for hours, unnoticed by anyone, until exhaustion overtook her and she fell.
CHAPTER THREE
ANGEL CRIED OUT AGAIN, and this time it wasn’t a word but a long scream of agony.
‘All right, I’m coming.’
At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard the words. The wind snatched them away, then returned them in an echo.
‘Help!’ she screamed again, frantic with hope and fear.
But she could hear no reply. She’d imagined it. Nobody was coming to help her, and very soon she would be dead.
‘I’m here.’
The next moment a head appeared above her. She thought she was hallucinating as she saw it was Vittorio, but he dropped to his knees, then lay flat on the ground.
‘All right,’ he called. ‘Don’t panic. Here—’
He was reaching out his hand, wrapping his fingers around her wrist where she was still gripping the iron rail. Then the other hand, so that he held both wrists.
‘You’re going to have to let go of the rail,’ he said.
‘I can’t—’
‘You must,’ he said patiently. ‘I can’t pull you up while you’re holding it. Trust me.’
But her fingers seemed frozen, defying her will to move them. While she fought to make herself do what she must, there was an ominous crumbling sound, and a little more of the cliff slipped away beneath her. Looking up, she saw that most of it had come from the ground where he was lying, leaving a big hole beneath his upper body.
‘Don’t think about that,’ he said, his face just above her.
‘How can I? You’re lying on nothing.’
‘The hole gives me more room to pull you up. Be positive and trust me. Let go of that rail.’
Gasping, she did so, and immediately felt his hands tighten on her wrists, drawing her up, into the gap that crumbled further as she went through. He was inching back slowly—slowly—until he reached a place where he could draw himself up to his knees. As he did so his forearms were forced to take more of her weight, causing his fingers to tighten on her wrists. She gasped at the sheer power of that grip, and, with her eyes fixed on his face, she could see the terrible strain it cost him.
‘One more heave,’ he gasped.
On the words he yanked back sharply, so that Angel slid swiftly through the gap beneath the rail and landed on the ground, feeling it blessedly firm beneath her body.
She was safe, but that was only a word, and it had no power against the gasping and shuddering that seized her.
‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, God!’
He put his arms right round her, pulling her hard against the length of his body and holding her there without moving or speaking. She clung to him in return, knowing that if he let her go she would start screaming. She tried to stop herself shaking but it was useless. The safety of the ground beneath her was an illusion, and only he could keep her safe.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked after a while.
‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘I think—I’m going to have hysterics. Sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said, almost impatiently. ‘Nothing wrong with hysterics. Have them if you like.’
After that nothing could have stopped her. Her gasps turned into whooping, her shaking became violent tremors, and tears poured helplessly down her face. It didn’t
