Silvia, the elder by almost a year, was silvery fair, with green eyes that looked at the world from the shadow of extravagant lashes, a small straight nose and a frankly sexy full-lipped mouth. Her chief ambition from childhood had been to marry a rich man and she’d achieved it effortlessly, although Nonna Vittoria had frowned and tutted over her choice, murmuring that cara Silvia needed to be held in check, and that her fidanzato, though estimable, might not be the man to do it.
Ellie, on the other hand, had often thought, without rancour, that she resembled the negative of a dramatically coloured photograph. Her own hair was the shade generally known as dirty blonde, and she was pale-skinned and slender. Nonna Vittoria always told her she had unusual eyes, but the rest of her features were nothing to admire. Nose too long, she thought. Mouth too serious.
However, on the plus side, she enjoyed her work, liked most of her colleagues and had a small group of friends of both sexes with whom she ate out and attended films and concerts.
She supposed it was a relatively sedate existence, but it suited her. Yet so did her own company, and the times when she could escape to the coast and the waiting Casa Bianca were among her happiest.
She couldn’t let the opportunity to spend the weekend there pass. Could she?
Yet, as she drank her coffee, she sent a covert glance at her cousin. Something was wrong. She knew it. The shining brightness of a few weeks ago had become restive—even edgy.
She said quietly, ‘Silvia, I don’t want us to fall out but I need you to be honest with me. Why do you want me to accept Madrina’s invitation?’
Her cousin looked sulky. ‘It is nothing. An absurdity. A man Ernesto feels has paid me too much attention. He has even started to think that I am meeting this man and not going to
Largossa at all. But if he knows that you and I will be at the Villa Rosa together, his mind will be at rest.’
Ellie frowned. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if he accompanied you himself?’
Silvia spread her hands. ‘He cannot. There is a client—an important man—with tax difficulties which must be settled pronto. So Ernesto must handle the case personally, even if he has to use the weekend.’
Ellie could sympathise with the client’s needs. Italy’s labyrinthine tax laws were not for the inexperienced or the fainthearted.
And yet—and yet …
She recalled suddenly that she’d thought she heard the name of Alberoni mentioned in a low-pitched conversation by the water cooler at work a few weeks ago, only to find when she joined the group that they were talking about something completely different.
Now she found herself wondering uneasily if the subject had been deliberately changed at her approach and just what they’d been discussing.
If the stolid Ernesto had been stirred to a seething mass of jealousy, might he have reason? Whatever, he seemed to be taking steps to keep Silvia in check at last, and maybe, as her cousin was all the family she had left, she should help, besides having no wish to hurt her godmother’s feelings by a refusal to attend her house party.
‘Who else will be there?’ she asked cautiously.
Silvia shrugged. ‘Oh, Fulvio Ciprianto and his wife.’ She added casually. ‘Plus one of Madrina’s elderly cronies, the Contessa Manzini.’
Manzini, thought Ellie. The name was vaguely familiar, but in what context? Then her mind went back to that wretched dinner party, and she remembered. A man, she thought, tall, very dark, and lethally attractive even to her untutored gaze, who’d been pointed out to her as Count Angelo Manzini. Not, she’d reflected at the time, that he looked even remotely like an angel. The lean saturnine face, amused dark eyes and mobile, sensuous mouth suggested far more sin than sanctity.
However, no playboy apparently, but the successful chairman of the Galantana fashion group, or so she’d been informed by her neighbour during a brief lull between courses.
Which, considering what she’d been wearing, was probably why the Count had totally ignored her.
‘A few others, perhaps,’ Silvia went on, twisting the emerald on her finger again. ‘I am not sure. But if you get bored,’ she added with renewed buoyancy, ‘you can always ask Zio Cesare to show you his roses. You like such things.’
Ellie had never addressed her godmother’s august husband as ‘uncle’ in her life, and Silvia knew it. Another reminder of the wide gap in their circumstances.
‘Thank you,’ she returned ironically.
‘So I can tell Madrina that you will be coming with me, Ella-Bella?’ Silvia was watching her almost eagerly.
But, thought Ellie, there was another element in her expression that was not so easy to fathom, and which sparked a faint frisson of concern.
‘Only if you swear never to call me that stupid name again, Silly-Billy. We’re no longer children,’ she retorted crisply. ‘And I’ll telephone her myself.’ She paused. ‘Shall we go in my car?’
Silvia looked as horrified as if Ellie had suggested they trudge to Largossa, pushing their luggage in a wheelbarrow. ‘You mean that little Fiat? No, I will arrange for Ernesto to lend us the Maserati with Beppo to drive us.’
Ellie frowned. ‘He won’t want them himself?’
‘He has the Lamborghini.’ Silvia pursed her lips. ‘Or he could walk. The exercise would do him good, I think.’
‘Poor Ernesto,’ said Ellie.
And poor me, she thought when her cousin had departed, leaving a delicate aroma of Patou’s ‘Joy’ in the air. Although that, she admitted, was rank ingratitude when she would be staying in a superbly comfortable house, with magnificent food and wine, and being thoroughly indulged with her godmother’s unfailing affection.
But it was simply not the kind of visit she was accustomed to. Usually she was invited to keep Lucrezia Damiano company while her husband was away attending meetings with other European bankers. Sometimes, but not always, Silvia came too.
But Ellie could not imagine why her cousin was so keen for them both to attend what seemed to be a distinctly middle-aged party.
Oh for heaven’s sake, she adjured herself impatiently, as she carried the coffee pot and used cups into her tiny kitchen. Stop worrying about nothing. It’s not a major conspiracy. It’s simply a couple of days out of your life, that’s all.
And when they’re over, you’ll be straight back to the old routine again, just as if you’d never been away.
Then she paused, as she began to run water into the sink, staring into space as she wondered exactly what it was that Silvia wasn’t telling her. And why she should suddenly feel so worried.
‘CARISSIMA!’ Lucrezia Damiano embraced Ellie fondly. ‘Such a joy.’
Ellie, partaker of a largely silent drive from Rome in the back of the Maserati, with Silvia, face set, staring moodily through the window, had yet to be convinced of the joyousness of the occasion, but her godmother’s welcome alleviated some of the chill inside her.
The Villa Rosa had begun its life at the time of the Renaissance, and, with additions over the centuries, including a small square tower at one end, now had the look of a house that had simply grown up organically from the rich earth that surrounded it. The Damianos possessed a much grander house in Rome, but Largossa was the country retreat they loved and regularly used at weekends.
The salotto where the Principessa