wasn’t my girlfriend,’ he said curtly, and Darcey suddenly realised that his temper was on a tight leash. ‘Sharon was my daughter’s nanny. I hired her through an agency when I brought Rosa to England for surgery to fit the cochlear implants. The arrangement was that Sharon would accompany me back to Sicily and continue looking after Rosa. But she has just informed me that she has got back together with a boyfriend and is moving to Birmingham to be with him.’
‘So who is looking after Rosa now?’
‘Sharon said she had asked one of the maids to keep an eye on her.’
Darcey could imagine how confused and upset Rosa must feel at being abandoned by the nanny who was supposed to be taking care of her. ‘Poor little girl,’ she said softly.
There was no flicker of emotion in Salvatore’s dark eyes. ‘Unfortunately Luisa—the nanny who had looked after Rosa since she was a baby—left to get married shortly before we came to England. Finding someone able to use sign language at short notice was difficult, and Sharon was the only person on the agency’s books. I admit that when I took her on I was unaware of her boyfriend problems.’ He glanced at Darcey. ‘Come and meet my daughter.’
He began to walk back towards the house, and after a moment’s hesitation Darcey hurried after him. ‘Was Rosa close to her previous nanny?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose so. My daughter has no memory of her mother and had only been cared for by Luisa. I imagine she missed her at first, but she’s a resilient child.’
Darcey was chilled by his cool tone and his curiously detached air when he spoke about his little girl. She wondered if a five-year-old could really be as resilient as he seemed to think, but she made no comment as she followed him up the steps and into the house. With grey marble walls and floor, and elegant antique furniture, the entrance hall looked more like the foyer of a five-star hotel—with the same impersonal feel. It was obvious that expert interior designers had been given a limitless budget to spend, but although it was a beautiful house it was not a home, and seemed as cold and unwelcoming as its owner.
Darcey glanced at Salvatore’s hard profile as they walked up the sweeping staircase. ‘This is a stunning place,’ she commented.
‘Do you think so? There’s rather too much marble decor for my taste, but I suppose it’s impressive.’ His tone was sardonic. ‘My brother purchased the house to add to his property portfolio. When he married his English wife he considered using it as a London base, but he and Kristen have a very lively four-year-old son, and now another child on the way. They rarely visit England, so I bought the house from Sergio. Most of the time it is rented out to an Arab sheikh. I have only been staying here for the past couple of months, while Rosa had the cochlear implants fitted and adjusted.’
At the top of the stairs Salvatore led Darcey along the landing and opened a door. As she stepped into the room she noticed that a half-hearted attempt had been made to make the room child-friendly, with posters of fairies on the walls and a large dolls’ house in the corner. A movement from over by the window caught her attention, and she watched a little girl slide down from the window seat and run across the room.
Rosa was tall for her age, and even prettier than the photo Darcey had seen of her. Her curly hair was tied in a ponytail, and her dark eyes, framed by long lashes, were hauntingly beautiful. A small earpiece attached to a wire that disappeared beneath her tee shirt and was attached to a battery pack was the only sign of her hearing impairment. Darcey knew that another wire running from the earpiece to a small circle taped to Rosa’s head, was linked magnetically to the implant inside her skull, enabling her to hear.
Rosa’s face had lit up at the sight of her father, but as she came towards Salvatore her steps slowed and she gave him an uncertain smile that made Darcey’s heart ache. She expected Salvatore to sweep his daughter into his arms, but although he gave a brief smile he seemed strangely awkward and patted Rosa’s head, as if he were a distant uncle who was unused to children.
Why don’t you cuddle your daughter? Darcey wanted to ask him. He did not appear to notice the little flash of hurt in Rosa’s eyes, but Darcey saw, and she felt a pang of sympathy for the child.
She recalled instances from her own childhood when she had felt rejected by her father. Joshua had never meant to be deliberately cruel, but he’d often been self-absorbed and careless of other people’s feelings. As an adult Darcey understood his artistic temperament, but as a child she had been hurt and had believed that she had done something to upset her father.
She leaned down so that her face was level with Rosa’s. ‘Hello, Rosa. My name is Darcey,’ she said gently, speaking the words at the same time as she signed them.
Hello, Rosa signed, but made no attempt to speak. She looked up at her father and asked in sign language, Where is Sharon?
Salvatore hesitated before he signed back: She had to go and visit a friend.
When is she coming back?
Another pause, and then he signed, She isn’t.
Rosa’s lip trembled. Darcey shot Salvatore a glance, willing him to lift his daughter into his arms and reassure her that, although the nanny had gone, he would never leave her.
But instead he signed, Darcey has come to play with you.
That’s right—hand the problem over to someone else, she thought, flashing him a fulminating glare. She did not understand what was wrong with him. His determination to arrange speech therapy for Rosa suggested that he cared about the little girl, but he seemed incapable of expressing his emotions.
Perhaps he really was as hard as his granite-like features suggested and did not feel the normal range of emotions most people felt. Darcey could only guess what effect his detachment would have on his five-year-old daughter, who had to cope with deafness and was growing up without a mother. If any child needed her father’s love it was Rosa, but Salvatore seemed to have a heart of stone.
‘I will need to make a proper assessment to determine the level of speech therapy Rosa needs,’ she told him. ‘It should take an hour or so.’ She frowned when he strode over to the door. ‘I assumed you would want to be present during the assessment.’
‘I’ll leave you to get on with your job while I phone the agency and arrange a replacement for Sharon.’ Salvatore saw no reason to explain that he was in a hurry to go to his study because he had just received a text message asking him to call his brother about an urgent matter.
‘But—’
‘Rosa will probably respond better if I’m not here,’ he cut her off abruptly. He could tell from the glowering look Darcey gave him that she did not think him much of a father. Guilt clawed in his gut. She was right, he thought grimly. He was not the sort of father he wished he could be. The truth was he did not know how to act like a loving parent. When he had been growing up his father had been a remote figure. And as for his mother—well, the less said about her the better.
He had been five years old when Patti had left. He had never understood why she had forbidden him and his brother from calling her mamma. She had disappeared one day and taken Sergio with her. Salvatore had assumed she loved his twin and that was why she had taken him to America. It turned out that she had not loved Sergio either. Recently his brother had confided that Patti had been an alcoholic who had often beaten him when she’d had too much to drink.
Salvatore did not know if he felt better or worse now that his illusions about his mother had
