The House in Amalfi (32 page)

She drained the glass and set it firmly on the small table next to her. Her mouth had left a scarlet stain on the rim, and she dabbed at her lipstick with a tissue.

I hunched forward, hands tightly clasped over my knees, willing her to go on.

“So, Jon-Boy’s daughter,” she said, “now you know all I can tell you. There is nothing more to say.”

“Oh, but there is,” I cried. “You were there that night; you were part of what happened. . . .”

She rose to her feet, calm and collected again.
“Understand this,”
she said, and now her low voice was full of menace.
“I was not there the night Jon-Boy died. And none of the so-called ‘witnesses’ you claim saw me will ever testify that I was. I will not allow you to drag me and my family name into a long-ago death in which I had no part. Are you quite clear about that, Signora Harrington?”

“Contessa . . . ,” I began, but she was already striding toward the door.

“My man will show you out,” she said, dismissing me. “Good-bye, Signora Harrington.” She turned at the door. Her eyes searched my face and I knew she was seeing Jon-Boy again in me. “It was nice meeting you—for old times’ sake,” she said. Then she closed the door behind her.

I retreated to the hotel D’Inghilterra and immediately picked up the phone and called Jammy.

“Well?” she said as soon as she heard my voice.

“She’s still just as gorgeous as Jon-Boy described her,” I said, sounding as dispirited as I looked. “But there’s something inhuman about that kind of beauty. Y’know what I mean, Jam? It’s like she’s frozen inside and all her efforts go into preserving that beautiful facade.”

“Well, after all, it’s her stock-in-trade,” Jammy said. “It’s what got her where she is. She loses that, she’s in trouble. The good old count will be on to the next, and Cassandra’ll be hoping she never signed a prenup.”

“I don’t think they had them in those days,” I said. “But anyhow, her pearls alone would keep us comfortably for a good few years.”

“Maybe I’ll have Matt buy me some,” Jammy said thoughtfully, “sounds like a good investment. Ah, but then there goes the mortgage and the vet bills, to say nothing of the college fund,” she added, making me laugh. “So then what happened?”

I described the palazzo and the security guard and the houseman and the room where the
contessa
and I had our “meeting.”

“I felt as though I’d stepped back in time,” I said. “I should have been wearing a powdered wig and hoopskirt and flirting
with a silk fan instead of sitting on that stiff brocade sofa asking the
contessa
if she murdered my father.”

“And did she?” Jammy’s voice was tense.

“She told me she did not.”

“And . . . ?”

“I believed her.”

One of Jammy’s familiar gusty sighs blasted down the phone line, and I added hurriedly, “She didn’t kill him, Jam, but she did finally admit she had an affair with him.”

I told her the details and she listened until I got to the part with the
contessa
’s veiled threat about me not harming her family name, and the witnesses who wouldn’t testify.

“She called my bluff,” I said, “because although I’m sure Mifune knows, his lips seem to be sealed. As are Lorenzo’s. And anyhow, I’m never going to see Lorenzo again.”

“Wait a minute;
wait just a minute!
” Jammy yelled. “Why are you not going to see Lorenzo again? What’s the
contessa
got to do with him?”

“The two families are old friends; they go back centuries, I guess. Of course the
contessa
will tell Lorenzo I went to see her. I believe Lorenzo thinks she killed Jon-Boy and he’s protecting the count’s family name. Knowing that, how can I possibly see him again, Jammy? Even if he wanted to see me, which of course he won’t because I went behind his back and accused the
contessa
of murder.”

“So where does
love
figure in all this?”

“Love?”

“Yeah, you know, that good old emotion you and Lorenzo were feeling for each other. All that heady, winey soul-mate stuff, the kisses and the touching and . . . ohh, you know,
sex. . . .
All the
good
things. What about all that, Lamour?”

“I don’t know,” I said sadly. “I think I’ve burned my bridges,
Jammy, and now there’s no going back. And the awful thing is, I still don’t know what happened to Jon-Boy.”

“Lamour.” She said my name gently. “Don’t you ever ask yourself if it’s worthwhile? It’s all so long ago. Is it worth unraveling the tangled strands of time to find the answer when in doing so you lose the chance of real true happiness?
Please
, Lamour, I’m
begging
you . . . think about it. Go to Lorenzo; apologize for stirring things up; tell him you love him and that nothing else matters. Then go live with him, marry him . . . whatever. . . . Just get
on
with your life.
Please
, honey, tell me you’ll do that.”

Suddenly Matt’s voice came down the line. “I hate to admit it,” he said, “but she’s right. Put yourself first for once, Lamour. Grab that happiness while you can. Trust me, it’s the best way—the
only
way—to go.”

I promised to think about it, then said good-bye. I sat on the edge of the bed looking defeat in the face, and not for the first time in my life. They were right, of course, but it wasn’t so easy to let Jon-Boy’s death go like that. I
owed
that to him, in return for my happy childhood memories. And besides, I loved him.

The phone trilled and I picked it up.
“Pronto,”
I said listlessly.

“Lamour.”

My numb heart did a little revived blip at the sound of Lorenzo’s voice. “I’m downstairs in the bar,” he said. “Could you please meet me there?”

I couldn’t decide whether it was an order or a question, but I said yes. I combed my hair and put on some lipstick. I wondered how he knew I was here, then realized Mifune must have told him I’d gone to Rome and he knew I always stayed at the Inghilterra.

I took the tiny elevator down, thinking that a bar was hardly
an appropriate place to seal one’s fate. But then I hadn’t expected to be doing that quite so soon.

Lorenzo was sitting alone at a table by the window. He got up when he saw me. With a catch in my throat, I thought how handsome he was, how strong he looked. An invincible man . . . a man who because I had exposed his secrets I was sure was here to say “Good-bye; it’s not been so nice knowing you. . . .”

“Lamour,” he said, taking my hand and brushing it with his lips.

A kiss on the hand wasn’t exactly the way a man passionately in love usually greeted his woman, and I knew that he knew.

“This is a surprise,” I said, taking the seat he held out for me. “What are you doing here?”

He signaled the barman and ordered two glasses of champagne. It had always been our celebratory drink, but I knew not today.

He turned to look at me. “I’m here for you,” he said simply, and this time I swear my heart gave an extra little thump. “I’ve already spoken with Cassandra,” he added, and this time my stupid heart, working overtime, sank. I could actually
feel
it somewhere in my stomach, which now began to churn with fear.

The champagne arrived. He picked up his glass and to my absolute astonishment said, “Here’s to Jon-Boy, Lamour. May his memory live with you forever.”

“I had to confront Cassandra,” I said. “She said she didn’t kill him. And I believe her.”

He nodded. “I know. And I’m sorry you had to go through that.” He smiled for the first time. “Cassandra Biratta is not an
easy
woman.”

“She told me about her affair with Jon-Boy,” I said, “and
then she gave me a sort of veiled threat about not demeaning her family name. I got the feeling she could pull strings and have me out of this country and no questions asked before I could even turn around.”

“And I have no doubt she could,” Lorenzo agreed calmly. “But you are not going after her, or her family. You are not going to pursue the matter any further, Lamour.”

“Oh? And why not?” Anger made my voice rise.

“Because I am going to tell you exactly what happened,” he said. “I’m going to tell you the truth.”

I stared at him, sitting so calmly next to me.
“Really? Truly?”
I sounded like a little kid promised some great treat.

“Truly. But not here.” He got to his feet and took my hand. “Come, Lamour,” he said. “We need privacy. I’m taking you to my apartment.”

Still holding his hand, I walked meekly to the waiting car. The driver held the door for me to get in. Lorenzo sat next to me and we were whisked through the crowded street to the home I had never seen.

Though it, too, was an old Palazzo, Lorenzo’s coolly modernistic home came as a culture shock after the excesses of the Palazzo Biratta. He had not let go of my hand since we left the hotel, and still clutching it tightly, he led me into an airy, almost loftlike space. I sat on a black leather sofa, smiling as I remembered Jammy’s disparaging comments about Italian leather sofas. I believe she would have approved of this one’s deep comfort, though. I was aware of soft neutral colors, of beautiful hand-loomed modern rugs, the spare simplicity of the furnishings, and the muted lighting, and I immediately felt at home. But I wasn’t here to comment on Lorenzo’s interior décor.

Sitting opposite me, he looked very serious. He leaned forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees. I was suddenly afraid of what he was going to tell me. Could
he
have killed Jon-Boy? I felt the blood drain from my face.

“I’m breaking a solemn promise by telling you what I’m about to tell you,” he said, “but there is no other way, and I must hope that the person to whom I gave the promise will be able to forgive me. You are a determined woman, Lamour, and I can’t blame you. In your place I would probably feel the same.”

“I owe it to Jon-Boy,” I said, feeling a sudden icy calm
overcome me. Whatever Lorenzo had to say, I was ready for it. Good or bad.

“Seven people knew what really happened that night,” Lorenzo began, “and three of those are now dead. Jon-Boy, my wife, Marella, and one other woman. As you might have guessed, those still living—myself, Nico, Mifune, and the
contessa
—will never testify to what they saw. There is a reason for that, as you will see as the story evolves.

“Let me first tell you that Jon-Boy was loved by everybody. He was the kind of man who brought joy to daily life; just to sit with him talking of books and writers, of wine and music and travel, was a pleasure. Somehow you went home with a smile on your face and a lighter heart for having been in his company. Of course women flocked to him; how could they not? He treated them like rare treasures, even though he might know them only a few days or weeks. There was, however, one special woman in his life. Her name was Isabella.”

“The ‘I’ in my father’s diary,” I interrupted. “I think he must have loved her very much.”

Lorenzo nodded. “Indeed he did. The trouble was, he loved another woman more.”

“Cassandra.”

“Of course. Cassandra.”

“She told me he loved her
too
much. She said she was smothered by his love.”

“She lied,” he said. “Cassandra was obsessed with Jon-Boy. She took over his life. He became a changed man; he didn’t even attempt to write—and to me this was the greatest tragedy of all. I’ve never forgiven Cassandra Biratta for dissipating your father’s talent. He’d already written one great novel, but he counted that in his past. He talked to me about his ideas for the next, about his philosophy of life, about children—and believe me, Lamour, when I tell you he loved
you probably more than you’ll ever know. Sometimes it’s easier for a man to talk to another man about his love for his child than to talk to the child herself. And I admit, when I heard that you were at the Mistress’s House, I was curious to meet this paragon. But I had my own world to protect. And that was the cause of all the trouble.”

I waited for him to tell me what he meant by “my own world to protect.” Could he mean Nico had something to do with the murder and he had to protect his son?