by Lucy Gillen
Alison had forgotten about the matter of her learning to drive, until Stefano mentioned it, and then she looked at him a little dubiously, wishing she had some good reason for turning down the offer. He had caught her just as she was leaving the house for a walk and she wished now that she had been a bit quicker leaving her room and so avoided him.
‘You do want to learn, do you not?’ he asked when he saw her expression, and she did not answer for a moment.
‘I—I suppose so,’ she allowed at last, and looked up to see him smiling.
`You suppose so,’ he echoed. ‘Does that really mean no, piccola?’
`Well—I don’t really mind whether I drive or not,’ she admitted. ‘As you said yourself, Stefano, I’m lazy and I’d much rather that somebody else drove while I rode.’
He laughed, shaking his head. ‘You are lazy. You do not even ride a horse, do you?’
‘No.’ She stuck out her chin defensively. ‘But I walk a lot, and that’s good exercise. That’s something you never do,’ she added, and he regarded her for a moment in silence.
Then he took one of her hands in his and drew her across the hall to the door. ‘Then I shall walk with you,’ he said, and Alison looked at him in disbelief.
‘You will?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘I will.’ He smiled down at her as he opened the
door. ‘I do not perhaps walk as often as I should, so—’ He shrugged expressive shoulders. ‘You will encourage me to walk more often and I will teach you to drive in return, yes ?’
‘If you want to.’
Her answer was not exactly encouraging, she realised, and he pulled a face at her. ‘If you want to, piccola. You do not encourage me, but I will persevere.’
They walked down the steps and round the house to where the garden sloped away down the headland towards the sea, and she smiled, almost unconsciously, so that he squeezed her fingers and cocked a brow at her.
‘You find that amusing?’
She laughed, shaking her head. ‘No, not amusing, not really.’
‘I wish I knew why it is that you go to such pains to avoid me,’ he told her softly, and she looked at him, unsure whether or not she really did avoid him, as he said.
‘I—I don’t think I do try and avoid you, do I?’ she asked.
‘It seems to me that you do.’
‘It could be your imagination.’
He looked down at her and laughed softly, still holding her hand in his. ‘I hope it is,’ he said. ‘I would not like to think that you disliked me:
She was silent for a moment, considering just what she did feel about him. It was difficult to know exactly how she felt, especially when she considered him in the light of his possible connection with Aunt Celia.
‘I don’t dislike you,’ she said at last.
But also you are not very sure that you like me either, huh?’
She did not answer at all this time, but smiled as she lifted her face to the sun and the breeze, her spirits lighter than when they had set out, and doing nothing about the hand that still held hers. It was a beautiful day and she was young enough to be able to dismiss everything but the immediate pleasure of enjoying it.
From the garden they walked down the steeply inclined path towards the beach, some distance below them at the moment, where the sea ruffled in the light wind and gleamed in the sun, the rolling green of Creggan Head behind them and to their right, with the occasional cluster of gorse and broom standing guard on the few scattered dwellings.
They said nothing, either of them, as they went down the path, but Alison had the feeling, instinctively, that Stefano was as delighted with what he saw as she was herself, and she cast him a brief, curious glance from under her lashes. ‘Have you ever walked down here before?’ she asked, and he smiled.
‘No,’ he confessed, ‘I never have.’
‘And you call me lazy ! ‘
‘You come down here very often?’ he asked. ‘Sometimes, not always.’
‘With Danny, perhaps?’
She glanced at him again, curious to know why he should have asked her that. ‘No,’ she said, ‘not very often with Danny. We usually meet down in the village and we don’t come this side at all much.’
‘Does he like walking?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I don’t really know whether he does or not. Not having a car he either has to walk or use a bus.’
`I see. Does he not mind that you are going to learn to drive?’
She laughed, wondering why he should display such a sudden interest in Danny. ‘I don’t know that I am going to learn,’ she told him. ‘You’d probably give me up as a bad job, anyway, before very long. I can be incredibly dense at some things.°
‘Then I shall take a big stick to you, not give you up as a bad job.’
She levelled a steady, discouraging look at him, because her heart was thudding heavily and rather erratically at her side and she did not like feeling so close and intimate with him. It sounded ridiculous, but it frightened her.
‘You wouldn’t do that,’ she told him, and he laughed, setting her pulses racing again, faster than ever.
`No?’ he said softly.
It was much hotter down on the sand than it had been on the higher ground and the sun on the water was dazzling, so that Alison wished she had brought sunglasses with her. In fact she had meant to fetch them from her room before she came out, but meeting with Stefano like that had put it quite out of her mind.
‘Whew l ‘ she said as they walked along the edge of the surf, ‘it’s even hotter than I thought.’
He smiled, rather condescendingly, she thought. ‘You do not know what real heat is here,’ he told her, and she pulled a face.
‘Well, maybe not by your standards,’ she retorted. ‘But it’s quite hot enough for me, I can assure you.’ ‘You do not like it hot?’
‘Not too hot.’ She looked at the fluffy, frilled ripple of the water on the sand and glanced at him enquiringly. ‘I usually take off my shoes,’ she told him. `Do you mind?’
He smiled and shrugged. ‘Of course not, why should I?’
She made a face as she bent to unfasten her sandals. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But you’re pretty hot on the social graces usually. I wondered if it was quite the done thing to take off one’s shoes and paddle.’
He reached across and took the sandals from her as she straightened up, a smile on his face that glittered in his black eyes. ‘Am I as bad as that, piccola?’ he asked softly. ‘You make me sound such an—
Ogre?’ she suggested with a mischievous smile, and ducked hastily out of reach into the water when he aimed one of her own shoes at her.
‘Am I an ogre?’ he asked, a few minutes later, and she turned and looked at him, wondering how much it really mattered to him if she thought he was.
‘Not really,’ she told him with a smile, at last. ‘But then you don’t really have the right to be one, do you?’
‘Please?’ He raised one black brow and was looking at her part amused, she thought, and part curious.
`Well, you’re not really in charge of me,’ Alison
explained. ‘Only of my money.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Well, you’re not, are you?’
He shook his head, slowly, looking not at her but at the sandals he was carrying. `No, I am not,’ he agreed quietly.
`And seeing the way you go on with the money,’ she ventured, chancing his disapproval in a challenge she could not resist, ‘I’m glad you’re not in charge of me as well, or I’d be very cowed and subdued.’
He said nothing for a moment and she wondered if it was anger or hurt that kept him silent, almost wishing it was the former. Then he looked at her with his black eyes steady and quite serious. `Do you really have such a bad opinion of me, piccola?’ he asked softly, and Alison bit her lip, shaking her head almost before he had finished speaking.
`No. No, of course not, Stefano. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have s
aid that.’
‘But you are impulsive,’ he said, and smiled, rather ruefully. ‘That is what makes me think you do mean it, Alison, because you speak without thinking and it is then that people so often say what they mean.’
`Well, I didn’t mean it, I promise I didn’t.’
He shook his head, and said something in Italian which she did not understand but which sounded vaguely uncomplimentary, and she looked at him suspiciously. ‘Now you’re being Unflattering,’ she accused, and he shook his head in denial.
‘Not really,’ he told her. Just passing an opinion.’
‘What did it mean?’ she asked, and smiled at him
in such a way that it was obvious she expected him to tell her.
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes glowing with a deep, deep laughter and with something she could not quite recognise at the moment, then he laughed softly, and shook his head. ‘It means that you would be very good, I think, at making people forgive you for almost anything you said. Especially if the offended one happened to be a man.’
Alison held his gaze for a moment, then turned suddenly and ran further out into the water until the creamy ripple of tide flowed about her ankles, suddenly and inexplicably nervous of him. After a moment or two she turned her head and looked across at him, his black eyes narrowed against the sun, but watching her steadily, then he held out a hand to her, like an invitation she found very hard to resist. But she did resist it and instead shook her head and raced on again through the cool, swirling water that showered about her in a spray, sparkling and glittering in the sun, until she was quite a distance in front of him.
Her thoughts were as busy and aimless as the swirling water and she stopped running suddenly and held her hands in front of her, almost like a prayer, while she told herself not to be such a little fool. She stood there until a long, dark shadow fell across the sand just above the tide line and she turned her head to look at him.
Without a word, he held out his hand again, and this time she hesitated only briefly, then walked up on to the dry sand and put her own hand in to his. They walked in silence and Alison could feel
some strange, stirring sense of excitement that disturbed her more than anything she ever remembered. It made her feel that she had reached a moment of great meaning to her, and that at any moment—
It was then that she cried out. There was very little that marred the smooth surface of Creggan’s beach, but very occasionally picnickers found their way there and sometimes left untidy and dangerous souvenirs of their visit behind them. It was a section of broken glass bottle, just visible in the sand, that Alison had failed to notice now, and the sharp jab of it in her foot as much frightened as hurt her.
`Alison! ‘
Stefano turned and looked at her in stunned surprise, his eyes searching her face for reason for the outburst. ‘My foot!’ she said, gazing down at the injured member and seeing much more blood than the size of the cut warranted. `I’ve cut my foot ! ‘
He too looked down then, and in a second had lifted her off both her feet and carried her up on to a less sloping part of the beach, setting her down gently. ‘Let me see ‘
‘It—it isn’t much,’ she told him, wincing when he turned her foot to examine it, ‘but it hurts a lot.’
He gave his whole attention to it for a moment, then glanced up at her and smiled reassuringly. `You are right,’ he told her, ‘it is not too badly cut, but it is not good to neglect a cut foot, especially from treading on glass. We must take you to see a doctor, and he will give you an injection,’
Alison herself peered curiously at the small but
messy cut. ‘It’s not worth all that fuss,’ she decided, although it was hurting rather. ‘It’s not worth bothering Doctor Fison with.’
‘It most certainly is,’ he argued determinedly. ‘As the doctor will tell you. You could be very ill unless you have an anti-tetanus injection very soon.’
‘Just for a little cut?’ She looked at him disbelievingly.
‘Just for a little cut,’ he told her, and pulled a dazzlingly white handkerchief from his shirt pocket and folded it deftly into a bandage for her foot. ‘There—now I will take you home and we will see about that doctor.’
He helped her to stand and then bent and lifted her into his arms, smiling when she gave a little squeak of surprise. ‘I can at least walk back,’ she said, far more worried about the way her pulse was racing, than about the damage to her foot. ‘Give me my sandals, Stefano, I can walk.’
‘You will not walk,’ he decided quietly. ‘Now please sit still or I shall probably drop you.’
He made his way back along the beach, where they had walked only minutes before, and she was increasingly aware as they went of how strong his arms were, and how close his face was to her own. It was a disturbing realisation and she did not look at him, but ahead to the steep sloping path up from the beach.
‘You’ll have to let me walk up the path.’ she told him as they came towards it across the sand, but he merely smiled.
‘Not at all.’ he said. ‘You do not imagine that I cannot carry a bambina like you, do you?’
Alison knew he was trying to make her look at him, but she firmly refused to turn her head, instead she stuck out her chin defiantly and hung on a little more tightly as he started up the path. ‘All right,’ she told him, ‘show off if you insist.’
He laughed, a soft deep sound that she felt as vibration through her own body. ‘Is that what you think?’ he said.
She did not answer, but merely held on tightly with an arm around his neck, until he reached the top of the climb where he set her down on the grass. Alison smiled knowingly at him, as he sat down beside her and he laughed.
‘So you think you have been proved right, huh?’ ‘Haven’t I?’
He merely smiled, reaching for her foot to check the temporary bandage, nodding his satisfaction over it. The wound felt a lot less painful now, but it was throbbing rather and she realised that seeing the doctor with it was probably, after all, the best thing.
After a moment or two he got to his feet and lifted her into his arms again, and this time she made no protest, although when they got nearer the house she did have some rather uneasy thoughts about Aunt Celia seeing them. ‘I think you’d better put me down now,’ she told him as they came up the sloping garden to the house. ‘Aunt Celia might see us.’
He raised a brow, obviously at a loss to know why it should matter one way or the other. `So?’ he said.
‘Well, I’d hate her to get the wrong idea,’ Alison told him, and saw from the way he smiled that he was much less disturbed by the possibility than she was.
‘The wrong idea?’ he echoed, and Alison bit her lip, frowning at his manner.
‘I mean,’ she explained, slowly and carefully, ‘that she’ll probably think I’ve broken my leg at least, if she sees you carrying me.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He laughed and lifted her higher in his arms, obviously having no intention of letting her walk, no matter what arguments she produced.
‘Then please put me down.’
‘I think not.’
‘Please, Stefano ‘
He shook his head, and she turned to see his eyes glinting wickedly at her, so disturbingly close she could see her own reflection in them. `No, piccola mia,’ he said.
°Will you
He silenced her very effectively and so unexpectedly that she could only stare at him when he smiled down at her again. ‘Now will you please stop arguing with me?’ he said softly. ‘You should know me well enough by now to know that you cannot win.’
Alison said nothing, for she had just realised that Aunt Celia was standing in the doorway and watching them come, and Alison could have sworn that she was frowning.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT was all very well saying that she should rest her foot for a day or two, and not walk about on it, Alison thought ruefully, but it was not much fun for her being more or less a prisoner in the house.
For one thing it meant that she could not go down and meet Danny, and he was not on the telephone, so she was obliged to ask for help in contacting him.
It was doubtful if he would have a great deal of sympathy with her, and would probably tell her she should have looked where she was going, especially when he knew she had been with Stefano when it happened. In fact, she thought, it might be a better idea not to tell him the latter part of the story, in case he made more of it than need be.
Aunt Celia promised to be her messenger and suggested that she should ask Danny to come up to Creggan Bar and see her—a proposal that Alison heard with doubt. ‘I doubt very much if he’ll do that,’ she told her aunt, pulling a wry face.
‘But surely if you’re hurt, he’ll come and see you,’ Aunt Celia insisted. ‘I’ll suggest it to him, anyway, and he’ll be a sad disappointment, to me anyway, if he doesn’t come.’
‘Well, he won’t,’ Alison assured her.
Aunt Celia squeezed her hand reassuringly. ‘Oh, I’m sure he will, darling. Don’t you worry—I’m going down to the village, anyway, to see Mrs. Renshaw about a dress she’s making for me, and I’ll see
Danny while I’m clown there, or if he’s not home, I’ll leave a message for him.’
‘Thank you, Aunt Celia.’
‘You’ll be all right until I get back?’
Alison smiled. ‘Yes, of course I will. There’s nothing mg really wrong with me at all. I’d simply have put a plaster on the cut and not bothered any more if Stefano hadn’t made so much fuss about it.’
‘Well, it seems he knew best,’ her aunt told her. `Doctor Fison said you did the right thing in calling him, and having that injection.’
‘Well, anyway, injection or not, I refuse to be an invalid,’ Alison insisted. `I’m going to sit out in the garden and read, since there’s nothing more energetic I can do.’
Aunt Celia dropped a light kiss on the top of her head, and smiled. ‘Good idea, darling. I’ll send Danny up to join you, if I can find him.’
‘Thank you, Aunt Celia. ‘Bye.’
She heard the car drive off and sat for a moment in the still coolness of the big room, then sighed mightily as she got to her feet and hobbled over to the bookshelves. It was more difficult than she would have thought, and quite painful too, trying to walk, although she would not have admitted it, and she hung on to the furniture as she crossed the room, using the side of her foot instead of the sole.
