The House in Amalfi (11 page)

Much later, after Nico had left and Lorenzo had let Aurora beat him twice at backgammon, he and his dog went to the
tower and climbed the spiral stairs that led to his bedroom. It was spare and masculine and not at all what you might have expected a rich man’s room to be like. There was a bed with plain white linen sheets, a leather wing chair under the window, a simple Indian cotton dhurrie rug next to the bed, and a long table where he kept the books he was currently reading. The ceiling was beamed and the windows were tall and narrow.

When Lorenzo walked into his tower, he felt as though he was stepping back in time. His pirate ancestor had built it with the gold and silver that were the spoils of his trade, in the days when Amalfi was one of Italy’s greatest trading ports. When Marella died, Lorenzo couldn’t bear to stay in the room at the Castello they’d shared all their married life and instead he’d come here. The simple rustic atmosphere pleased him, and it held no sad memories. The tower became his retreat, a place of peace and quiet where, alone for once, he was able to rethink his life.

Eventually Nico and Aurora would inherit the Castello, but what worried Lorenzo now was that Nico was not worthy of it. He cared nothing for the Castello other than that it was a great party venue to bring his friends. He cared nothing for its history, nor for the people who had gone before him and who’d loved and embellished their home, each adding a part of him- or herself to its beauty. For Lorenzo, the Castello was an integral part of his family.

Lorenzo undressed and put on a robe. Affare was already curled up on her bed by the door, and he refilled her water bowl and put out a biscuit for her. Then he went to sit in his green leather wing chair, looking out through the tall windows at the half moon tipped with Venus, like a diamond brooch in the midnight blue sky. His thoughts turned to Mifune, whose trust he felt he had betrayed tonight. But he’d
had no choice. He’d made a promise, and that was the way things had to be.

Sighing, he picked up a book and tried to read, but it was no good. His mind was on Lamour Harrington and the dilemma she had put him in, one to which he saw only one, unavoidable solution.

The next morning I drove Jammy to see the house. I parked at the little flower-bedecked shrine of Saint Andrew smiling happily because it seemed to me that his hand was outstretched in welcome. Jammy got out and stood looking up the hillside at the Castello and the bright blue flag flying over the battlements.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, unbelieving, “but is that
really
a skull and crossbones? Who the hell lives there, the Marquis de Sade?”

“It’s the heraldic symbol of the Pirata family. Pirata—pirate.”

She gave me one of those you’ve-got-to-be-kidding glances, then looked at the empty green slope above us and the equally empty green cliff below. Not even a sailboat cut across the tranquil sea. Plus you couldn’t see the house from the road, only the rocky steps. “You do know you’re nuts, don’t you?” she said, worried.

I slammed the car door, sending a scuffle of rabbits up the hill. “Jam, you’re just too used to the urban mode,” I said.

“And you are not,” she retorted, but the rabbits were cute and she was smiling. “Is your cow going to live here then?” A discouraging sweep of her arm took in the empty hill.

I nodded. “Of course I’ll have to build her a little barn so she can spend the cold nights out of the rain and wind.”

“What rain and wind? I thought it was perpetual blue summer here.”

“Into each life a little rain must fall,” I said, thinking happily how a little winter rain would sprout new grass for my cow. “Of course I’ll call her Daisy,” I added. “In books, cows are always called Daisy.”

“Shouldn’t she have an Italian name? After all, she might not speak English.” Jammy was getting into the spirit of things.

“I’ll have to ask her,” I said as we began to walk down the
scalatinella
. I heard Jammy grumbling softly, stepping gingerly behind me. “You don’t mean to tell me this is the only access to the house?”

“Actually, yes, it is.” I threw her a grin over my shoulder. Memory had shifted into gear and I was prancing down those steps like the child who’d climbed them a dozen times a day.

I jumped the final few, then waited on the little pathway at the side of the house. The old cedars filtered the sun, and tiny birds danced in the blue air and crickets sang for me.

Jammy came puffing down the last few steps. “All I can say is this better be good.” She pushed the elastic back up her slipping ponytail and shoved the bangs out of her eyes. “Okay, so now—show me,” she said in a voice that sounded like a challenge.

“Close your eyes and come with me.” I took her by the hand and led her round the corner onto the patio. “Okay, now you can look.”

Her blue eyes flew open. She clapped a hand to her forehead, turning slowly round, taking in my beautiful golden house and its blue mosaic dome, the twisted barley-sugar pillars, the shady tiled patio, the tumbling gardens, the waterfall, the ancient trees, and the marble belvedere entwined with morning glory the color of the sky. Below, the sea, glittering aquamarine and silver, merged with the horizon.

She closed her eyes again and just stood there.

“Jammy?” I said, worried she didn’t like it.

“Shut up,” she said. “I’m listening to the sound of peace.”

“Then you
really
like it?” I said, relieved I wasn’t going to have a battle over living here. But of course, I was wrong about that.

“I admit it’s beautiful,” Jammy said, “but it hasn’t been lived in for decades. It’s probably in terrible shape, and I’ll bet anything the inside’s a wreck. There’s
no way
you can live here, Lam.”

“We’ll see,” I said, confidently brandishing the heavy iron key Mifune had left under the lemon pot. I pushed the key into the lock and gave it a turn, but the lock was stiff and refused to budge. I tried again, aware of Jammy hovering nervously behind me. I knew she was hoping it wouldn’t open and we would just call it a day, enjoy the rest of our holiday, then fly back to Chicago, where we would find me a new apartment and life would go on the way it always had.

I jiggled the key some more, praying for the lock to open. I wanted desperately to see my little house again. But the lock simply would not turn. Frustrated, I stamped my foot, wondering what to do next.

Clad only in red bathing shorts and still wet from a swim, Nico Pirata sat in the cockpit of his sleek Riva, idly smoking a cigarette and watching his father painting the hull of a battered old wooden fishing boat. As always, the dog was with Lorenzo, sprawled, napping in the shade. No aristocratic hound for Nico’s father—Affare was a mutt he’d found abandoned and brought home. As far as Nico knew, they had never been apart since.

To Nico’s cynical eye, the boat looked like the toy ones he used to sail on the swimming pool as a child, the kind with a fearsome-looking bearded old salt at the plastic helm. Yet Nico’s father was patting the peeling wooden planks with something that looked very like affection. In fact, Nico knew Lorenzo loved his old boat as much as Nico loved his gleaming silver Riva. Lorenzo said it was part of their history and that Pirata had been a fishing village for centuries and Nico should respect that. And right there was the difference between father and son: Nico had to have the latest, the glossiest. Lorenzo revered the old and their past.

Nico flung his cigarette over the side and lay back on the marine blue cushions. He was a beautiful young man, twenty-eight years old, lean and golden from the sun, with a mop of dark blond hair. He was also a terrible flirt. Women flocked around him, but he wasn’t about to get caught in the marriage
trap yet. At least, not unless the right eligible and beautiful girl came along.

It was early summer and there were several months of long lazy weekends like this one to look forward to, when, like everybody else that Nico knew, he would escape Rome’s heat and retreat to the cool of the shore or to the mountains. Of course, he usually brought company with him, friends and a few beautiful girls to add spice to the mixture.

When he wasn’t at the Castello, he worked as an art director at an ad agency in Rome. Of course his father wanted him to be in the family shipping and development businesses and also to help run the estates, but that simply wasn’t Nico’s style. He needed the excitement of big-city life and the flashy lifestyle his job gave him. And besides, he could always pay someone to run things.

Nico sat up and lit another cigarette, waving lazily to his father, who had finished painting and was heading for the elevator built into the cliff side where the rock had been blasted out, something quite common in this area. It would take him the hundred or so feet to the top and to the path back to the Castello. Nico thought that Lorenzo, wearing only paint-spattered shorts and carrying the paint can and brushes, with his dog bounding ahead, might have been one of his own employees instead of owner of all he surveyed. Yet, even in the old shorts, Lorenzo had an air of distinction. He carried his leonine silver head proudly, and his muscular body was tight and tanned. He looked fit and handsome, and dammit, he could still beat Nico in their weekly swim race across Pirata Bay. In fact, all his life Lorenzo had been better at most everything, and maybe that was what bugged Nico most about him. Nico’s rivalry with his father had grown from those early beginnings, and that was one of the reasons he had opted out of working in his father’s company.

The glass-fronted elevator slid smoothly up the cliff side with the dog and Lorenzo, still holding his paint can, in it. Nico thought the elevator was one of his father’s best ideas. Prior to that, they’d had to walk down endless flights of wooden stairs, clamped to the cliff face with hoops of iron. Those stairs linked with the rocky ones leading to the abandoned little house, once known as the Mistress’s House. Glancing up now at the house, Nico thought he caught a glimpse of someone through the greenery. It was probably Mifune, checking on his ruined garden again. Nico knew the old boy mourned that deserted garden. He turned his head away so he wouldn’t have to look at those stairs. He didn’t like heights. Never had.

He sat up abruptly and flung his cigarette into the sea. He hauled in the ropes, switched on the ignition, and idled the
Riva
from its mooring. Then with a roar he took off across the blue bay, heading for Pirata and the Caffè Bar Amalfitano. He’d always had the happy knack of being able to put bad thoughts behind him.

Lorenzo stopped the elevator halfway up the cliff side and stepped out onto the platform where the old wooden stairs linked with those carved from rock. He hadn’t been to the Mistress’s House in years, but now because of Jon-Boy’s daughter he needed to check on it.

Carrying his paint can and brushes, he took the stairs fast. The sun was hot on his back, and he felt the sweat spring onto his skin. Truth was, he enjoyed the stairs more than the elevator; he liked feeling his own strength.

Standing at the foot of the tangled green garden, he saw two women on the terrace. One was tall and dark, with her hair pulled severely back from her face in a tight knot, wearing large dark glasses. The other was a pretty blonde. She seemed apprehensive, as though she did not want to be where she was.