hurt dreadfully, compounded by the fact that she had had no means of contacting Jilly and having her come home for the funeral to give her support and to pay her respects to the mother who had doted on her.
A beat of silence followed the statement, then, ‘Oh my dear! How sad for you. What a terrible shock.’ Filomena leant forward and took both her hands again, her eyes full of sympathy. ‘You make me so very ashamed of my grumbles. Of course you would have been too distraught—and harried with all the arrangements to even think about me, let alone phoning or writing to let me know what was happening. I understand perfectly. Forgive me for doubting your intention to return.’
Choking back a sob, it was all Milly could do to manage a husky, ‘Of course.’
The pressure of the frail fingers increased as Filomena angled a sharp look in her grandson’s direction. ‘I trust Cesare didn’t pressure you into returning before you were ready?’
There was no honest disclaimer Milly could give to that and, thankfully, the need to reply was obviated by the elderly lady saying, ‘I know you said your little sister is very practical and dull, without a sensitive or imaginative thought in her head, but will she be all right on her own? She must be feeling lonely without you, especially during this time of family mourning.’
‘She’s fine,’ Milly said hollowly and felt her cheeks flame with discomfiture. That Jilly should describe her as being her little sister she could just about understand. To Jilly it must have felt that way. Her twin had always been the leader, she the follower. But practical and dull with no imagination or sensitivity—was that how Jilly really saw her? It hurt.
Cesare had moved to stand behind his grandmother’s chair and the look he glued on her was definitely speculative. Which somehow made everything ten times worse.
The old lady turned her head briefly towards him then turned back again to smile at Milly. ‘We will invite your sister for a holiday. Next month? Before the weather gets too hot—May here is such a lovely month. A holiday will be good for you both and I shall enjoy having two young things to keep me company.’
Mistaking the unwitting look of horror on Milly’s face for something else entirely her mouth curved impishly. ‘I won’t expect you both to dance attendance on me all the time, of course. You will have the use of one of the cars to take her sightseeing and shopping. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall take my usual rest before dinner so why don’t you phone home and let your sister know you have arrived safely, and mention the offer of a holiday—do your best to persuade her? Then you must also rest after your journey and we’ll see each other again at dinner.’
Filomena got stiffly to her feet and Cesare handed her a walking cane. Then Milly noted sinkingly that his strong lean face was turned to her, those dark penetrating eyes burning into her apprehensive green ones as he addressed her in a torrent of Italian.
Feeling sick with nerves, Milly bit into the soft underside of her bottom lip, her brain turning dizzily as it scrambled to recall what Jilly had written on one of those postcards.
That she was picking up the language!
Was the deception to be uncovered so soon, so easily? There was a thumping silence as she failed to respond to what it was he’d been saying to her.
‘Now, Cesare.’ Unwittingly Filomena came to her rescue. ‘You know the rules. English only!’
‘Of course, Nonna. I apologise.’ Cesare dipped his dark head and Milly was sure a hard smile tugged at the corners of his handsome mouth. ‘I shall reframe my question in perfect English,’ he delivered silkily, eyes as cold as the Arctic winter holding hers. ‘Would Jilly like to give me her home number? I can dial it for her as I know the correct international code.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Milly returned thinly, and smiled for Filomena. ‘I’ll see you to your room before I phone home.’ She shot Cesare a challenging glance. ‘Milly won’t have left work yet. And I expect she’ll need to do some grocery shopping before she heads home.’
She had no intention of making that pointless call and with the feeling that she had survived somehow, had avoided quite a few pitfalls—even if the survival had relied more on luck than judgement—she accompanied the elderly lady to her ground floor suite, saw her settled and finally left with the promise that, yes, she would herself rest before dinner.
Thanks to her earlier foresight she found the room that had been Jilly’s with no trouble at all and sat on the edge of the huge, opulent bed and lowered her bright head to her hands.
Back in England, anxious to save her twin from being treated like a criminal, hauled before a judge to answer to charges she was surely innocent of, she had blithely believed that this deception was necessary if only to give her the time to try and trace her missing sister, put her in the picture and get her to clear everything up.
She hadn’t wanted the cold-hearted Cesare to find her first, refuse to listen to anything she said in her own defence and have her clapped in irons before she could draw breath.
She still didn’t. Of course she didn’t! But the deception was making her feel ill and desperately ashamed of herself. Not on Cesare’s account, that was for sure! He was the brute who had broken her sister’s heart, bedded her, led her to believe he would marry her. Then dumped her. At least everything pointed that way. Why else would Jilly have disappeared?
But deceiving a lovely, kindly old lady was despicable. It was pricking her conscience like a red-hot poker! She couldn’t do it.
She was going to have to come clean.
Cesare ended the second call and swivelled his chair away from the leather-topped desk so that he could face the bank of tall windows that overlooked the expanse of emerald-green lawns that swept uninterrupted to the stone perimeter wall.
Shadows were lengthening as the sun sank towards the horizon and beyond the wall he could see the misty amethyst of distant hills, the nearest terraced and surrounded by clusters of ochre-walled houses and farmsteads.
His strongly angled brows drew down darkly as he dragged in a huff of breath and swooped back from the view that always calmed him and faced his desk again, one lean tanned hand reaching for an address book.
The enigma he was tussling with was his grandmother’s wretched thieving companion. Lots of things about Jilly Lee didn’t sit right.
Her demeanour was quiet, almost subdued. Instead of in-your-face bright and bubbly. Short, unvarnished fingernails, the lack of beauty-salon-glossy make-up.
All of which could be put down to the fact that the bounce had been knocked out of her when he’d caught up with her and forced her to come back and work without remuneration until the amount she had stolen had been repaid. Plus, she would be on a low following the death of her mother. No puzzle there. Her grief had been genuine, the emotion real and raw.
Yet he had always been an astute judge of character and early on he had decided that Jilly Lee was completely shallow, incapable of an emotion that wasn’t entirely self-centred.
And then again—he had instant recall of her look of mystification when he’d addressed her in Italian. Jilly Lee was pretty near fluent.
True, English only was Nonna’s strict rule and it had paid off because she was now conversing with ease and the challenge to brush up on the language had been good for her, had given her a real interest.
But
