Summer at the Lake (41 page)

OK, Little Miss Snidey, that’s enough, get back into your box!

Warning herself to behave, Floriana felt horribly under-dressed in her cheap Zara gypsy skirt and vest top. They’d got back from Bellagio only a short while before she had to be here, so there had been no time to shower or wash her hair. So here she was, hot and sweaty and feeling like a grubby social misfit.

Not having a clue where the bar was, she caught the attention of a member of staff hurrying by in a cream jacket. She knew that places like this were notorious for snooty staff and after explaining that she was meeting a guest for a drink and half expecting to be led towards the back entrance where the bins were kept, she was relieved when the waiter gave her a friendly smile and offered to escort her to the bar himself.

But there was no sign of Imogen; the bar was empty. ‘Perhaps you would like to go outside on the terrace?’ the friendly waiter suggested in faultless English.

‘Thank you,’ she said, following him once again.

Clearly this was where the smart set hung out with their pre-dinner drinks and nibbles waiting for that perfect sunset moment, and after Floriana had established there was no sign of Imogen here either, she was shown to a table. She ordered a glass of Prosecco. Heaven only knew how much it would cost, but she would worry about that later. Right now she needed a drink.

Waiting for it to arrive, and surrounded by so many elegantly dressed guests – all of them couples – she couldn’t have felt more conspicuous. Moving her seat so she could look out across the lake, she wished Adam and Esme were with her.

They had both agreed with her that it did seem a little odd that Imogen wanted to meet her alone – why not with Seb? ‘Perhaps she now recognises how important your friendship with Seb is to him and feels she wants to clear the air between the two of you with a private one-to-one chat,’ Esme had suggested when they were on the boat coming back from Bellagio.

‘It’s feasible, I suppose,’ Floriana had said doubtfully. But Esme didn’t know the full story. No one did, apart from Floriana and Seb, and Imogen.

However, the real basis of her doubt was the growing suspicion that Imogen now knew that Seb had come to Oxford when she’d been in Paris on her hen weekend and wanted to know exactly what had gone on. Most brides-to-be probably would. She had felt extremely uneasy at the time that Seb hadn’t been honest with Imogen; his keeping quiet about his visit only made things look worse.

The trouble was, things did end up having the potential to appear a lot worse because Seb had stayed the night with her. She hadn’t mentioned this to anyone, not even Adam or Esme; she hadn’t wanted them to point out the obvious, that she’d been playing with fire by letting Seb stay.

And now she was terrified Imogen had got wind of it and had spent the afternoon in the hotel spa having her nails sharpened in readiness for a pre-wedding showdown. Moreover, she genuinely had no idea how to respond. For the simple reason she didn’t know how much Imogen knew. If she knew anything at all. But if she did, what would Seb have told her? With that worry uppermost in her mind, she had tried ringing Seb when they’d been waiting to catch the boat back from Bellagio, but had got no reply. She had left a message on his voicemail – a carefully worded message in case Imogen listened to it – but he hadn’t replied. With hindsight the sensible thing to have done would have been to call Imogen and cancel their get-together.

Her drink arrived and she practically pounced on it before the waiter had scarcely arranged the segmented dish of olives and nuts and paper napkins on the table.

With two gulps of nerve-settling fizz down the hatch, she glanced at her watch.

Imogen was now twenty minutes late.

How tempting it was to down her drink in one and make a dash for it and later claim that Imogen had been a no-show.

But no such luck, for there, at last, was Imogen coming towards her.

If it were possible she looked even more beautiful than the last time Floriana had set eyes on her. She was utterly perfect, from the top of her naturally blond hair to the tips of her varnished toenails. She was simply dressed in vertiginous high-heeled sandals, white jeans and a peach-coloured off-the-shoulder top – one of those asymmetrical tops that whenever Floriana saw one, she felt the urge to straighten it like she would a crooked painting on the wall. Judging from the glances of the other guests, Imogen’s wattage was burning so brightly all that was missing from her ensemble was a diamond crown upon her head so that people could freely bow down and worship her. Dear God, if she looked this stunning for a girly drink, how amazing was she going to look on her wedding day?

‘Floriana!’ she called out, weaving her way through the tables and dropped jaws. ‘How lovely to see you. No, don’t get up. Stay there.’ Bending down, and making Floriana feel even more awkward, Imogen air-kissed her cheeks. ‘You look so well,’ she gushed, her perfume washing over Floriana. ‘You’re positively glowing. You’ve caught the sun, haven’t you?’

No, thought Floriana, that’s just fear and guilt scorching my skin. ‘You look pretty well yourself,’ she managed to say when Imogen had finally brought the floorshow to an end and had parked her size zero bum on the chair opposite. ‘You don’t look at all stressed by the approaching big day. What’s your secret?’ An unfortunate choice of words, she thought with a further reddening of her face, at the same time noting the big sparkly ring on Imogen’s finger.

‘Three hours in the most divine spa,’ Imogen cooed, ‘that’s my secret weapon for de-stressing. I’m determined not to let it get to me. I’m also determined to stay out of the sun until the honeymoon. No strap marks on my shoulders for the wedding photographs! Seriously, though, you do look a little pink. What sun cream are you using? You might want to consider a higher factor.’

Before she could reply Floriana’s friendly waiter appeared. ‘
Signora
?’ he said to Imogen. ‘What can I get for you to drink?’ From now on Floriana guessed she would be as good as invisible to him.

‘If that’s Prosecco my friend is drinking,’ Imogen said – with the kind of wide-eyed enchanting smile that would have the man tearing out his heart and serving it on a platter for her – ‘I’ll have the same.’

He nodded and disappeared, leaving Floriana wishing she could go with him. Oh, how she wished she was enjoying a relaxing drink with Adam and Esme.

At an open-air bar overlooking the lake, Esme tapped her glass of Prosecco lightly against Adam’s glass of water – as their driver for the night he was saving himself for wine later when they would return to Grand Hotel Tremezzo to collect Floriana and then go for dinner.

‘
Salute
,’ she said, ‘and apologies for being stuck with me. As I said before in the car after we’d dropped Floriana off, it’s a shame you have to make do with the company of an old woman instead of a lively attractive girl.’

He leant back in his chair, stretched his legs out in front of him. ‘If it makes you feel any better, I promise to do my best to make do with you. How’s that?’ He gave her one of his delightfully sardonic looks and nudged the dish of crisps that had come with their drinks towards her.

Smiling, she helped herself to a couple of crisps. Glad that the intense heat of the day had given way to a more bearable warmth, she watched a
traghetto
passing across the lake en route for Bellagio; in the low evening sun, the picturesque town glowed with a roseate radiance.

She thought of Maria, who had gone to live on that side of the lake ever since her marriage. It had been a strange encounter today between them. Maria had been neither hostile nor particularly friendly, but she had been of help and for that Esme was enormously grateful.

The nature of Angelo’s death didn’t surprise her. All in all, he had been the epitome of a man who needed to sail dangerously close to the wind just to feel alive, the sort of man who would either survive on guile and cunning, or come to a less than honourable end. It seemed that his moral connection with humanity had been an extremely fine thread. The opposite to his cousin, Marco.

As if picking up on her thoughts, Adam said, ‘Have you decided what we do next regarding Marco?’

During their journey back from Bellagio, Esme’s initial reaction had been to accept they’d come as far as they could. Wasn’t it enough to know that Marco had fulfilled his wish to be a priest? Coming here hadn’t been about meeting him, that would have been a wholly implausible expectation; it had been about revisiting the past, to walk where she had once walked, to see things she had once seen and maybe experience a new perspective on that past.

‘I honestly think we’ve done as much as we can,’ she said in answer to Adam’s question, ‘and I’m quite content with what we’ve learnt. Though I doubt Floriana will be happy to hear that. Bless the dear girl, I know she had a hopelessly romantic picture in her mind of Marco and I having a marvellously poignant reunion. I never once thought that would happen.’

‘Actually,’ Adam said, leaning over to help himself to some crisps, ‘she’s no longer of that opinion. After what we heard today, in particular about the Bassani family bringing bad luck on anyone who comes in contact with them, she’s anxious that you’re not hurt all over again.’

Touched by Floriana’s concern, even if it was somewhat misguided, Esme shook her head. ‘As if that could happen at my age.’

‘Does age really make one invincible to emotional hurt?’ Adam asked.

‘Less sensitive, perhaps. One toughens up with experience.’

While he seemed to consider this and turned to stare out at the lake, Esme decided to be brave. Who knew when she might have the chance to be alone with him again? ‘Adam,’ she said, ‘can I ask you something of a personal nature?’

He turned to face her. He was still looking his affable self, but she knew him well enough to see there was now wariness in his expression; his guard was up. ‘That would rather depend just how personal,’ he replied, reaching for a paper napkin and wiping his hands, slowly and with care.

She took a fortifying sip of her Prosecco, then leapt in with both feet. ‘How exactly do you view Floriana?’

His eyes narrowed fractionally. ‘She’s one of the nicest people I know.’

‘Oh, come on, you can do better than that.’

‘I didn’t realise there was a right or a wrong answer. What’s the answer you’re hoping for?’

She fixed him with a hard stare. ‘I believe you know exactly what I’m asking.’

He laughed abruptly. ‘What a marvellously uncompromising woman you are, Esme.’

‘That’s as may be, but are you going to answer my question?’

He stared back at her unblinkingly. ‘All right,’ he said with a deep sigh, ‘I can see that the path of least resistance would be simply to give in, so I’ll tell you what you want to know and then that will be an end to the matter. Yes? No more interrogating questions. Deal?’

‘Certainly not!’

He tipped his head back and let out another laugh. A couple at a nearby table glanced their way. Shifting his chair, he moved in closer to her. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you what you want to know and then you can give me the benefit of your immense wisdom.’

Time was getting on and still Floriana didn’t know why she was here.

For nearly an hour she had been forced to listen to Imogen bemoaning the tiresome business of organising a long-distance wedding via a wedding planner, and then prattling on about the guests flying in from all over the world, many of whom were school and university friends who had not met Seb before. Apparently they were just dying to check him out – how Seb must be looking forward to that, Floriana thought. And all the while, she kept waiting for Imogen to lower the wattage of her dazzling charm and get to the point. To lean across the table and hiss a litany of venomous accusations at Floriana.

Or was Seb’s bride-to-be being genuinely right-from-the-bottom-of-her-heart nice? Had she changed? And had Floriana’s view of Imogen been coloured by toxic jealousy to the point of blindness? After all, what was there to dislike about her?

Hmm . . . how about too beautiful?

Or too frivolous?

And let’s not forget too controlling and a blatant liar.

Oh, it was no good, Floriana couldn’t pretend that this girl was anything but just too wrong for Seb. He needed someone with more depth and sincerity. He needed someone who really cared about him. Someone who understood him to his very troubled core and would anchor him. Imogen simply wasn’t that person; she was too self-absorbed. The truth was, they were two highly strung, high-maintenance people and their coming together could only ever be an explosive disaster.

Wanting this meaningless charade of a let’s-get-together-for-a-girly-chat to be over, Floriana looked pointedly at her watch.

Fair play to Imogen, she picked up on it. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, ‘I mustn’t keep you. But there’s just one thing I wanted to ask you.’

Relieved that the end was in sight and she could give Adam and Esme a call so they could come and get her, Floriana said, ‘Sure, ask away.’

‘I want to know why Seb stayed the night with you the weekend I was away in Paris.’

There it was!
The words
How do you know he did?
leapt to Floriana’s lips, but she clamped her mouth shut.

‘You can see how it looks from my perspective, can’t you?’ Imogen went on. ‘First time I go away for a weekend without him and he’s off to Oxford to see you. Why was that?’

‘We’re friends,’ Floriana said, doing her damnedest to sound calm and with nothing to hide. ‘We go way back. You know that.’

Up until this point, Imogen had looked and sounded perfectly good-natured and unruffled, but now the act was showing signs of cracking. ‘You just can’t let go of him, can you?’ she said heatedly.

‘It’s not like that. I didn’t know he was coming; he turned up out of the blue. You know what he’s like, he’s always doing things like that, he hates to be predictable.’

‘That may have been how he used to be, but he’s changed.’

‘Has he?’

‘Yes he has!’ Imogen snapped. There was steel in her voice now. In her eyes too. ‘But I think you’re deliberately missing the point.’