What Happens in Tuscany... (29 page)

‘Hi, Martin, how're you doing?'

‘Oh, Katie, I'm so glad to see you looking well again.' He had a bag of what looked like grapes in his hands. From the tormented way he was twisting his hands and the way the bag had crumpled up under the onslaught, she rather feared the contents would now be more useful to a wine maker. Still, it's the thought that counts. She smiled as he dumped them unceremoniously on the last bit of space on the bedside table. He stared down at her, anxious to see that she was all right. ‘You had us really worried last night.'

‘
I
had
me
really worried last night! Hey, come over here and give me a kiss. Maybe not a full-on passionate, tongue down the throat job just yet. Just something restrained, rather like my stitches are doing to me.' She held out her arms to him and he came over to sit beside her. He leant towards the bed, took her hand in his and deposited a tender kiss on her forehead.

‘Restrained enough?'

‘Mr Darcy himself couldn't have done better.' She gave his hand a squeeze. ‘So, what's new?'

‘What's new is that I slept in the villa last night. Did Victoria tell you? She's asked me to take over from you as her guardian angel until you're better.' He looked up. ‘Any idea how long you're going to be staying in here?'

‘I should know in an hour or two when the great man himself comes along. Hopefully not too long. I feel a bit tired, and my tummy feels a bit tender, but that's about it.' She smiled at him. ‘The nurse was explaining that it was all done by keyhole surgery, so she said I'd just have a couple of tiny little sexy scars. Trust an Italian to call any scar, sexy.'

‘I can imagine a scar being sexy on you.'

‘I'm not feeling very sexy at the moment.' She gave him another smile. ‘So how are you and Vicky getting on together?'

‘Very well. She's been telling me a bit about her upbringing all alone in that huge house. You always think of rich people as living a wonderful life, but she's had it tough.' He was shaking his head. ‘I tell you this, though. She thinks the world of you and she's been terribly worried about you. I had to talk her out of having some big name surgeon flown out from the UK to do your operation.'

‘As it is, I gather from the nurse that Professor Luigi Whatsisname who did the op last night is the bee's knees over here. No, Vicky's been amazing. You make sure you look after her, now, won't you?'

‘You can trust me.' He nodded. ‘I'll take good care of her…promise.'

Martin sat with Katie for about twenty minutes before the conversation began to lag. After he had told her for the second time that Dante the dog had come looking for his morning walking partner, she gave him a smile and put both of them out of their misery. She knew how awkward it can be to come up with conversation in such circumstances.

‘You go off now. I've got the specialist coming, and there was talk of something happening to my hair. I must look a right mess. Anyway, it was sweet of you to come and I'm sure that I'll soon be fit and well again.'

He gave her an encouraging smile and squeezed her hand. ‘I'm sure you will. You look fantastic already.' He kissed her again, this time on the lips. ‘I'm so, so pleased you're all right.' She kissed him back.

The day passed quite quickly. She slept quite a lot of the time and spent the rest either reading on her Kindle or refusing food. The menu of snacks and meals would not have looked out of place in a good hotel. The heading on the leather-bound booklet was even
Room Service
. It was clear to her that in sickness as in health, money talks. She received a regular supply of text messages from Martin and Vicky from which she learnt that the move had taken place. Her bedroom at the Chalker-Pyne villa once more awaited her.

Just after six o'clock another handsome man arrived to see her. The timing was pretty good, as the nurse had by then given her a much-needed bed bath. Her hair was brushed, her teeth cleaned and she was even offered make-up, although she refused. There was a gentle tap on the door and Paul Taylor came in, a smile on his face and a bunch of flowers in his hand. He registered the massive array of flowers brought by Vicky and shook his head ruefully.

‘I knew I should have gone with the box of chocolates.'

‘Paul, how great to see you.' She was genuinely happy he'd come. She held out her arms towards him. ‘Come over here and say hello properly.'

He came over rather hesitantly and leant down towards her. She caught him by the shoulders and pulled him down so she could kiss him softly, first on one cheek and then on the other. She could feel his warm skin beneath his shirt and it felt good. ‘Thank you for all your help and thank you for coming to see me.'

‘I'm sorry it's taken me so long.' He was looking a bit uncomfortable and glanced at his watch. ‘I had to go back down to that place at the seaside to supervise the work today. It's a pretty big job, I'm afraid. I'm sorry but I couldn't avoid it. I would have been here earlier if I could.' He gave her a searching stare. ‘Well, are you fixed? Good as new?'

‘It's an extreme form of weight loss. They chop a hole in you and remove bits from inside where it doesn't show.' She waved towards the chair. ‘Thanks for the flowers, but you shouldn't have. It's pleasure enough just to see you.' And it was. She felt really, really happy that he'd come. As happy as she had been to see Martin? She shook herself mentally and dismissed the question as unanswerable in her present state. ‘But I'm fine now, thanks. I'm a bit achy at the moment, but no real pain. The specialist says I might even go home tomorrow afternoon, but more probably the morning after.'

‘Well, you gave us all a scare yesterday.' He managed a smile this time. ‘I'm really glad you're OK.' He glanced around the room appreciatively. ‘Nice place you've got here. Nothing but the best for the Chalker-Pynes.' Some people might have missed the edge to his voice. She didn't.

‘The power of money. I tell you one thing, Paul. Since I've been with Victoria, I've learnt a thing or two about being filthy rich. Yes, you get to stay in the best hotels. Yes, you can buy every material comfort you're ever likely to want or need.' She gave him a smile. ‘Like a room in an expensive private hospital for a friend for instance. But there are all the downsides too. Take Vicky for example. If her dad had been a normal middle class guy with a little house in suburbia, there's no way, short of locking her in the basement, he could have so completely fucked up her life for twenty-five years. People would have spoken out, the authorities would have stepped in. It couldn't have happened. There would have been none of this nonsense with the media and the paparazzi and slimy toads like the count of Monte Cristo, or wherever it was, wouldn't have tried to drug, maul and rape her.' She looked up at him. ‘It cuts both ways.'

He gave her a weak smile. ‘I know. I'm sorry if that sounded bitter. I know it's not Victoria's fault. It's just that her father fucked my family up as much as he did his own.'

Katie reached out and took his hand. For a moment it looked as if he were going to pull it away from her, but then he surrendered it. ‘It must have been just awful for her, for you and, I suppose, for old Sir Algernon. If you needed proof that money doesn't buy happiness, or indeed sanity, he's the one.' She squeezed his hand. ‘I'm really sorry about your mum and what happened. Sir Algernon must have been a strange, strange man. Was he?'

‘I only met him a few times.' His eyes were looking down, trained on his hand in hers. ‘I think he was somehow frightened of me, or maybe just guilty, even when I was still a little kid, for his relationship with my mother. I was away at school most of the year and I never saw him in the UK. And when I came home for the holidays, he usually made a point of not being there. In fact, I saw a whole lot more of Nando than I did of him.' His voice warmed. ‘Nando taught me so much, you know. He left school at fifteen, still has trouble reading and writing even now, although that's between you and me. And yet, so much of what I know about agriculture, and olive trees in particular, I got from him. All right, the technical, scientific stuff was Cambridge, but the practical stuff came from him. In many ways, Nando was like a father to me.'

Katie injected a brighter note into her voice, but she didn't release her hold on his hand. ‘So have you forgiven Vicky for what her father did? It's not her fault, you know. And she really likes you a lot. I can see that.'

Paul looked her straight in the eye. ‘Vicky's a sweetie. God knows, she suffered enough at the hands of her father. And of course you're right; there's nothing to forgive. OK, I'll admit that the first time I saw her, it wasn't easy. You never met her father, but, if you had, you would have recognised that she's the spitting image of him. For a moment, it was as if the old man himself was standing in front of me. It was a creepy sensation.' She felt his muscles compress through the touch of his hand, then they relaxed. ‘Anyway, I like her a lot.'

Katie smiled back at him. ‘I'm so glad you and she are going to get on.'

He nodded. ‘I never had a sister, or a brother for that matter. Suddenly I find that I've sort of got one after all, and it's a great feeling having a sister, a rather sweet little sister. The fact that she's a bit naïve, a bit unworldly, makes her appear more like a little girl than a grown woman in my eyes. Like I say, just like a little sister. That's how I see her.' He caught Katie's eye. ‘When all's said and done, her father and my mother were an item for many years. All right, I'd be the first to admit that it was a weird sort of relationship. He would appear for a few weeks and then disappear again, there was nothing you could really define as family life, but the fact remains that in a practical sense, even if not in a legal sense, I have a family bond with her.'

Katie found she was enjoying the feel of having her hand on his, although his expression was still troubled. She thought back to the story he had told just before her attack of appendicitis. He had been consoling a grieving Loretta when she had seen them in Florence, not passionately embracing her. Did this mean he and she were not back together again? Was he a free man? And, even if he were, what was it to her? She strained her tired brain, desperately trying to work out what she felt for him, for Martin, whether she wanted to get involved with either or neither of them. Taking a deep breath, she decided to ask him.

‘So you and Loretta aren't back together?'

He looked up in surprise. ‘You know we used to go out together?' Light dawned on his face. ‘Marco. Of course, he told you. He's Monte a Signa's chief gossip.' He caught her eye and held it. ‘That was a long time ago. Anyway, whatever made you think we were back together?'

She noted he didn't answer the question directly. She was feeling very sleepy, otherwise she might have thought twice about what she said next. ‘I saw you with her in Florence, the day her mum died. I followed you from Borgo Ognissanti to the Lungarno. I stayed back so you wouldn't see me, but I saw she was all over you. Then you disappeared into her flat and I assumed the worst.'

He pulled his hand away from hers. ‘You followed me?'

She nodded, missing his touch, and beginning to realise that she would have done better not to mention her trailing them.

‘That's a bit creepy, Katie. I'm not sure I like that.'

Too late she realised her mistake. ‘I was just interested.'

‘Interested? Why were you interested?' He was sounding annoyed now. ‘You certainly weren't interested in me. That's pretty clear now. That was only a matter of days before your lawyer boyfriend came over from England.' He was on his feet now, his face drawn. ‘You could have told me about him, you know. That evening at my house, I really felt there was something between us. To be honest, I felt it that very first time I saw you outside the opera singer's villa. I was stupid enough to think you might have the same sort of feelings about me. And all the time you were just toying with me.' She started to explain, but he held up his hand.

‘I'm not a teenager, Katie. I'm not a kid who wants to play silly games. I'm thirty-six, not sixteen. I'm not looking for a bit of casual flirting, even if you are.' His voice was heavy with emotion. He looked down at her for a moment. ‘Goodbye, Katie. I hope you get well soon.'

He turned on his heel and left before she could utter a word.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘Why won't Paul answer my calls or even my texts? It's as if he's just disappeared off the face of the earth.' Vicky glanced across at Katie and wiped her brow. They were sunbathing in the rose garden and it was still very hot, even though it was close to six o'clock. ‘But I know he hasn't gone away. Martin's seen him, and Nando told me he saw him this morning, driving round in his Land Rover just the same as ever.' Her voice became more plaintive. ‘Do you think it's something I've said?'

Katie had thought a lot about Paul Taylor since that evening at the hospital. She had no doubt what it was that was keeping Paul away from them, but hadn't mentioned it to a soul. She had picked up the phone to call him more than once, but each time she hadn't gone through with it. She knew she needed to speak to him face to face. Her problem was that she didn't really know what to say. Martin was here now, and she enjoyed his company. He was kind, dependable and what Victoria on one of her 19th-century days had referred to as a “good catch”. Paul Taylor was still very much an unknown proposition, a very handsome unknown proposition. And underneath it all, Katie knew that she had set out on this new stage of her life convinced that things would be better without any relationship complications. Ruefully, she realised that she had been right, but it was too late now. She raised her eyes from her Kindle, met Vicky's gaze and tried obfuscation. ‘No, I'm sure it's not you. I haven't seen or heard from him either. Maybe he's terribly busy or something's happened.'