didn’t speak a word on the drive to the airport but Zac was too preoccupied to notice. He followed his bodyguards out of the car while she hung back with the children and they were rushed through VIP channels out to the da Rocha private jet. Zac boarded, sent her a careless glance and murmured, ‘I’m going to lie down for a while.’ And off he went, leaving Freddie to deal with Isabel, the young smiling nanny, waiting to help her with the children, the nanny Zac hadn’t even thought to mention he had engaged.
Mercifully it was a large jet and there was a second sleeping compartment already prepared for the children’s occupancy. Jack was already asleep but Eloise was very reluctant to go to bed at the same time as her little brother, and the nanny entertained her at the rear of the main cabin while Freddie took the time to eat a light evening meal and flip through the glossy magazines provided for her. She was absolutely enraged with Zac and holding it in was like trying to contain a screeching storm.
Zac emerged shortly before they landed and lifted Eloise, who, like Jack, was fast asleep. They would have been wiser to stay in London the first night and travel by day, Freddie acknowledged ruefully, but Zac had not consulted her. Having landed, they transferred to a helicopter, which took off with a lurch that sent Freddie’s stomach plummeting. The racket of the rotors woke Jack up and he burst into frightened sobs. Finding himself with a stranger, he was inconsolable and Freddie reclaimed him with relief as soon as the helicopter landed again.
A weathered stone building loomed ahead of them, every tall window brilliantly lit up in welcome. Zac removed Jack from Freddie’s arms. ‘I’ll take him. You look exhausted.’
Zac had returned to planet earth again, she registered irritably, feeling that she could have done without being told that she looked so tired. She wasn’t vain but she had lived through a disastrous wedding day polished up to her very best and had received not a single compliment from her uninterested bridegroom. She said nothing as they trudged up the path towards the brightly lit frontage of the massive house.
The house reminded her of a postcard of a fantasy Provencal retreat, replete as it was with regimented lines of painted smoky blue shutters and flowers and terracotta vases ornamenting every window and door. But even with the light fading fast she could see the bulk of the house stretching back, recognising that it far outstripped in size any normal house. The number of staff waiting to greet them in the marble-floored hall was another reminder that she had married a man who was unaccustomed to looking after himself in any way. He handed Jack straight over to a young woman. ‘This is Jennifer, Freddie. She will be helping Isabel with the kids.’
Jack screeched at physical contact with yet another stranger and almost threw himself out of the unfortunate Jennifer’s arms. Freddie grabbed him back. ‘It’s all right. I’ll see to settling the children down tonight. They’re overtired and nervous of strangers,’ she said apologetically.
Jennifer showed the way upstairs to the rooms readied for the children and Freddie heaved a sigh of relief at the freedom to do something familiar even if it was in an unfamiliar place. Two nannies? Was he crazy? Was he expecting Eloise and Jack to be kept out of sight by staff as children had been for centuries in well-off families? Who did he think he was to make such arrangements without involving her?
She wanted to strangle Zac and scream at him and it was an effort to smile gratefully at the nannies as she sat down to rock Jack back to sleep in what was undoubtedly the nursery of a little boy’s dreams, with a cot shaped like a race car. By the time she got Jack ensconced in his cot and went into the bedroom next door, Eloise was already sleeping peacefully in a miniature four-poster bed draped in pink. All the luxury surrounding her, all the fancy toys piled up waiting to be played with, felt surreal and foreign and alienating to Freddie, and for a moment she wanted desperately to be back in the safe confines of the tiny bedroom she had shared with her niece and nephew.
Instead she had a housekeeper introducing herself as Mariette in broken English and offering to show her to the master bedroom suite. Once again, Zac was nowhere to be seen and at that moment, feeling totally isolated, Freddie didn’t care. She wanted normal and for her that meant a shower and a bed and the renewed strength that would come from a good night’s sleep. She had barely slept at all the previous night, lying awake dreamily thinking about Zac, her first sexual experience and their future together. Now the chances of them achieving some rosy perfect state of coupledom struck her as both pathetic and unlikely.
Zac walked into the master suite at one in the morning, the need to make amends having finally overcome his fierce pride, but he was too late. Freddie was already dead to the world, curled up in a tight little ball hugging a pillow on the far side of the bed. He studied her, the flush of sleep on her delicate features, the tousled dark blonde hair playing across the pillow, the relaxed line of her lush pink mouth. So lovely and so fragile, he acknowledged reluctantly, and he had hurt her. Getting married was fast proving to be a learning experience and the first lesson was that his behaviour affected her as well. Pretty basic one that, he acknowledged grimly, but then Zac had never had another person’s needs and wishes to consider before.
In the morning, he would make everything right, he assured himself. Quite how to go about achieving that objective escaped him, but he was fairly sure that some serious thought would give him the answer. But why the hell had he brought her to the Villa Antonella, a place haunted by his earliest bad memories? The place where his short-lived but once normal family life had disintegrated into messy broken shards overnight?
He couldn’t answer that question either.
FEELING ALMOST REJUVENATED by a night of unbroken rest, Freddie bounced out of bed and then looked at the time and almost laid an egg. What about the children? She should have been up two hours earlier to look after them! And then she remembered the nannies and the guilt ebbed, but only very slowly because feeding Eloise and Jack still felt like her job.
After another shower, she applied the lightest possible make-up from the new stash that had been part of her makeover and selected a cool cotton sundress from the new wardrobe of summer clothing Zac had ordered on her behalf. Only then did she feel ready to greet the sunshine blazing through the tall windows.
Zac was always giving her stuff. He was very generous, she acknowledged ruefully, but it didn’t cancel out his stubborn go-it-alone attitude. She headed to the children’s bedrooms first but both were empty. Jennifer was coming upstairs as Freddie went down and informed her that Eloise and Jack were with Zac out on the terrace. She was disconcerted by that news, for she had uncharitably assumed that the hiring of two nannies indicated that Zac wanted the kids kept out of his hair as much as possible. Mariette showed her out to the wide stone terrace that ran along the rear of the house to take advantage of the truly spectacular panoramic view across the rural valley behind it.
Freddie came to a sudden halt to appreciate the landscape. Olive trees with silvery foliage crowded terraces ringed by ancient stone walls and lavender fields stretched over the furthest hill, the brilliant purple furrows of blooms seeming to perfume the fresh air. The terrace was shaded by an ornate ironwork pergola lushly wrapped in grape vines and wisteria.
‘Auntie Freddie... Auntie Freddie!’ Eloise came running down the terrace to show her a picture of a dragon, or was it two dragons? ‘See...they getting married.’
‘Very nice,’ Freddie assured her niece, trying not to notice that the larger dragon shape was adorned with what looked very like a tattoo. Eloise was already demonstrating a natural artistic ability that far outstripped her age group.
Tension laced Freddie’s slight frame when she saw Zac rising from the table at the
