Harriet’s grasp tightened. ‘Rosa, I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?’
Rosa’s imploring black eyes locked with Harriet’s. ‘Will you go to Italy in my place? Pretend to be me for a weekend?’
‘What?’ Harriet pulled her hand away, staring at Rosa incredulously. ‘You’re joking!’
‘You’re the only one who could do it,’ said Rosa rapidly. ‘You look like me, you speak Italian fluently. And no one there has seen me for years, except at the funeral earlier this year. And that day my face was so blotched and swollen with crying I was unrecognizable anyway.’ She leaned forward urgently. ‘If you’ll do this for me, Harriet, I’ll pay for Claire’s operation, get the repairs done on your house, and get someone in on a permanent daily basis to help with your grandmother.’
‘Not on your life!’ Harriet jumped up, her face rigid with offence. ‘Some things you just can’t buy, Rosa.’
Outside in the street Rosa caught Harriet by the arm. ‘Please don’t be angry. I can’t bear it.’ She sighed heavily ‘Look, for weeks I’ve been trying to find a way to help you and Claire, but I knew you wouldn’t accept money from me. I hate to see your mother so unwell and exhausted. You, too, working by day, and helping with your grandmother at night. So look on this as a simple equation. You need money. I’ve got a lot of it. All I ask from you is two or three days spent at the Villa Castiglione as Rosa Mostyn. I’ll provide the clothes and everything else you’ll need. In return I’ll ask my brother to send the Chesterton Hotel maintenance people over to your place, and I’ll get your mother into hospital right away.’
Harriet, incensed, had refused point-blank. But later on Rosa found an unexpected ally in Claire Foster. After listening to Rosa’s sad little story, instead of supporting her daughter in her indignation, Claire reminded Harriet that it wasn’t so long since she’d complained about the uneventfulness of life back in Pennington.
‘Sounds like fun,’ she said wistfully. ‘In your place, darling, I’d do it like a shot. What an adventure!’
‘And a profitable one for the Fosters, of course,’ said Harriet tardy.
Claire winced, and Rosa rushed to put her arms around her, glaring at Harriet. ‘How can you say such a hurtful thing to your mother? But even if it’s true, why not? You’re lucky you’ve still got a mother. You should jump at the chance to do this for her—’ And to Harriet’s dismay Rosa began to sob bitterly, burying her head on Claire’s shoulder.
Harriet felt like a criminal as her mother comforted Rosa, and let her cry. But after a while Rosa sat up, scrubbed at her eyes, and apologized, sniffing hard.
‘Sorry for the drama, folks. Hormones in a twist. Anyway it was a damn fool idea, Harriet. Forget it,’ She turned to Claire. ‘Look, you know I’ve become very fond of you both. So let me pay for the operation and the repairs anyway, Claire. Please. No strings. Except to let me come here now and then.’
‘Wouldn’t your brother object to a spot of moonlighting by his maintenance people?’ said Harriet dryly.
Rosa scrubbed at her mascara stains. ‘Not in the least, as long as I keep on making my Mostyn presence felt at both hotels while his attention’s on Allegra. Tony owes me.’
On her return home in disgrace from Italy Rosa’s penance had been a job at the Hermitage, the lavish Mostyn hotel in the country. Outraged by his mother-in-law’s letter, which caused a rift never to be healed, Huw Mostyn put Rosa to work as kitchen help at first, and from there she worked her way upwards through various jobs until her father finally sent her on a management course she took to like a duck to water.
‘Rosa,’ said Claire gently, ‘why has it taken so long for your grandmother to want you back?’
‘Because I flatly refused to repent and apologize,’ said Rosa, biting her lip. ‘Besides, after being packed off home like that I just couldn’t face going back again. I did repent in time, but by then it was far too late to apologize, stubborn fool that I am.’
Harriet jumped up as her grandmother’s bell rang. ‘You stay there, Mother.’
Enid Morris, as usual, wanted Claire, but Harriet explained that her mother was tired, saw to her grandmother’s most intimate needs, settled her back in bed with her book and her spectacles, doled out her pills, placed a drink in exactly the right place, found the right channel on the television, then rearranged the pillows several times until the invalid was grudgingly satisfied. Harriet went downstairs afterwards deep in thought. Her mother, in poor health herself, performed these same tasks dozens of times a day, and not only coped with a querulous invalid, but with the laundry, shopping, and cooking that went with the job. Harriet felt sudden shame. All that was needed, to make life a little easier all round, was a trip to the Italy she adored, pretending to be Rosa Mostyn for a couple of days. As only Harriet Foster was equipped to do.
Harriet paused at the foot of the stairs, looking into the hall mirror. She stared hard and long at her reflection, which, she couldn’t deny, was a mirror image of Rosa’s. She lingered outside the sitting room door, listening to Rosa talking to Claire, and even to her own hypercritical ear, she could have been listening to herself. Both of them had husky voices, with a distinctive little catch that Guy Warren, in a fit of frustrated rage, had once termed misleading because it was so sexy.
Harriet waited a minute longer, then thrust open the door, and before she could change her mind, said, ‘All right, Rosa, I’ll do it. I’m probably mad, and I’m sure to regret it, but as Mother said, it’s an adventure. As long as your grandmother isn’t harmed in any way by the switch, I’ll pretend to be her loving granddaughter for a day or two. But this is a one-off, Rosa. Afterward you’ll just have to tell her about the baby.’
CHAPTER TWO
HARRIET’S TENSION INCREASED as the purring Maserati turned off on a narrow road which wound up a hill in dizzying curves. Leonardo Fortinari drove his petrified passenger through an entrance flanked by stone pillars into the steep, tiered gardens of the Villa Castiglione, and stopped at the foot of well-worn steps leading to a balustraded terrace adorned with small, time-worn statues and stone urns spilling flowers. After a glance at her taut face he touched a hand fleetingly to her denim-clad knee.
‘Courage, Rosa.’
To her secret consternation his touch seared through the denim like a brand. Harriet sat very still to disguise her reaction, her eyes fixed on the two-story building. The house was as familiar from a photograph as Leo Fortinari, but unlike the man beside her it was smaller than expected, old and very beautiful, built of venerable gold stone, with an arcaded loggia on three sides.
‘Before we go in,’ said Leo curtly, ‘do nothing this time, Rosa, to upset Nonna in any way. She is valiant, as always, but she has not been in good health lately. She was insistent you came back to see her again because she believes her time is short. Do nothing to shorten it. Understood?’
Annoyed by his dictatorial tone Harriet gave him a disdainful look. ‘Nothing’s changed, then. You still believe the worst of me.’ This was Rosa’s firm belief, and so far Leo Fortinari was doing nothing to contradict it.
He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Do you blame me?’
Harriet said nothing. If in doubt, say nothing and look mysterious, had been Rosa’s instructions. Sensible ones, probably. If anything about this entire situation could be described as remotely sensible. Harriet got out of the car before Leo could touch her again in assistance, slung the strap of Rosa’s expensive leather bag over her shoulder and followed him inside.
A small, beaming woman came bustling towards them across the cool, marble-floored hall, greeting Leo in a flood of whispered Italian in a strong local accent Harriet had to concentrate hard to understand.
‘Welcome, Miss Rosa,’ she added in an undertone. ‘You