Season of Storms

by Susanna Kearsley

  But then Celia the First had been famous herself, whereas I was a nobody. Hopelessly out of my league.

  My flatmate Sally said that rooms absorbed the energies of people who had lived in them. I would have liked that to be true. I would have liked to think that some of Celia the First’s poise, and her talent, might rub off on me while I stayed in her rooms, but I knew the odds on that were pretty long.

  I looked up at her portrait and studied her face, and her all-knowing eyes seemed to smile at me. “What was I thinking?” I asked her. When no answer came I sighed, gathered up my travel-wrinkled clothes and, turning, went to run my bath.

  iii

  “LEFT,” I reminded myself, “and then right.” The narrow flight of stairs had brought me down into an equally narrow passage that swallowed the light from the stained glass so high overhead. There were several doors here, but in keeping with Nicholas’s directions I turned left and followed the corridor round till it came to an end in front of yet another door, through which I glimpsed a length of polished table ringed round with tapestried chairs. Here the corridor swung to the right. I saw daylight, and felt on my face the late-afternoon breeze that was blowing unchallenged through leaded French windows that stood fully open, inviting me out to the terrace.

  I had seen it before. The most famous—or at least the most widely reproduced—photograph of Galeazzo D’Ascanio in old age showed him here on this terrace, at rest with his back to the parapet, forsaking the view of the mountains and lake while he bent his head close to the muzzle of one of his well-beloved greyhounds. It was a smashing portrait—one could read in that creased face, that smile, the curve of the shoulders, the strange combination of arrogance and vulnerability that had marked the great poet. When I’d seen it for the first time I had thought I understood what had made Celia the First chuck the stage and her family and friends and run off with a man nearly three times her age. But standing on the terrace now my only thought was: How could he have turned his back on that?

  Because the view was quite beyond belief—the sort that hit me squarely in that little hollow place behind my breastbone, made me catch my breath and wish I had a camera, even though I knew full well the camera’s lens could never capture what my own two eyes were seeing.

  So high were we above the lake, so steep the cypressed hills that plunged to meet the tiny town below, that for a moment I imagined I was standing at the summit of the world with nothing over me but eagles and the blue, blue arc of sky.

  It was Den who brought me down to earth. “At last,” he said, and raised his glass. “I thought we’d have to launch a search and rescue mission.”

  I didn’t think I’d taken that long, really, getting ready, but the others had managed to get here ahead of me. They were fairly spread out—Nicholas wandering round at the far end while Madeleine lounged in a striped chair and chatted with Rupert, who stood a short distance from Den, near the parapet. Four people—five, counting me—would have filled most spaces, but the terrace was so huge it swallowed all of us, and the walk across the paving stones to where the others were seemed endless.

  Madeleine stopped talking and turned in her chair to watch me. She’d changed clothes as well, and in place of the cream dress now wore a more casual trouser suit, her dark hair wrapped in a bright turquoise scarf. I thought it odd that she had bothered changing, she had looked so smart before. It was almost as if she’d deliberately chosen to dress to the nines for our first private meeting, as though she had needed, or felt that she’d needed, the armour that fashion provided; and that having once met me she now felt reassured of her advantage and could dress whatever way she liked.

  The less paranoid explanation, of course, was that she’d worn the dress to lunch with Nicholas—he’d told us, after all, that they’d gone out, and it was perfectly conceivable they’d eaten someplace swish. She might have only changed for comfort. But it still made me curious.

  She shaded her eyes with one hand as she watched me approach. “Hello again.”

  That caught Rupert, who’d been preparing to introduce us, off guard. “Oh, you’ve met?”

  Madeleine said, “Yes, we ran into one another upstairs. Come have a drink. We’re just helping ourselves, they’re short-staffed here today.”

  “Yeah, there’s a little bit of a mystery in that, I guess,” Den said, with the look of someone who had secret knowledge. “I heard Teresa talking on the phone when I came down. Apparently this maid who’s missing left her house this morning, same as usual, all dressed for work. Her family’s worried sick.”

  “I do hope nothing bad has happened to her,” Madeleine said, with a look of concern. “She served us at dinner last night; she’s a sweet little thing.”

  “Oh, she’ll probably turn up,” said Den.

  “Who will?” Nicholas wanted to know, as he sauntered over to join us with a cigarette in hand.

  Madeleine turned to look up at him. “The little maid who didn’t come to work today.” And she told him what Den had overheard Teresa saying on the telephone.

  Nicholas’s first reaction had nothing to do with the maid. He looked at Den in mild surprise. “You speak Italian?”

  “Half the kids on my block growing up spoke Italian. It rubbed off.”

  “Ah.” I didn’t know how well Nicholas could speak Italian himself, but I gathered he spoke it well enough to have thought it should accord him special status in our group. He’d be even less pleased, I decided, when he found out that Rupert knew Italian, too. People like Nicholas liked to be frontstage and centre—they didn’t like sharing the spotlight. “Anyhow,” he said, to Madeleine, “I wouldn’t worry about this maid of yours. I can’t imagine anything would happen to her in a place like this.” With a wicked smile he added, “Maybe she’s run off with Giancarlo. It’s rather suggestive, the two of them missing. And after all, Teresa’s not the most attractive woman.”

  “Nicky, stop. You have a nasty mind,” Madeleine accused him. But her tone was light. “Do make yourself useful. Fetch Celia a drink.”

  I saw his eyes in the instant before he smiled at her, and in my Shakespeare game I knew I would have cast him as Macbeth—he had the vanity, the shallowness, and all the self-centred ambition, and like Macbeth, I thought, he’d probably do anything to get what he’d decided he deserved. And because of that one glimpse into his nature, the smile he turned on me, although it would have weakened many women’s knees, had no effect. “What will you have? We’ve got sherry or vodka martinis, your choice.”

  I chose a martini. Then, seeking the comfort of familiar company, I joined Rupert at the parapet, loving the feel of the breeze on my face as I gazed at the lake. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Rupert nodded. “Very. It’s been a resort since the days of the Romans, you know. They built holiday villas here, and came to take the waters. There are mineral springs about, I’m told.”

  “At Sirmione, aren’t they?” Den said, trying to recall.

  I felt the small airborne ripples of Rupert’s sigh as he was once again upstaged, but Den, who hadn’t done it intentionally and at any rate hadn’t noticed the sigh, went on, “I’m sure the Romans built a spa at Sirmione, down that way.” He waved a hand to indicate the south shore, past the jagged headland jutting out to partly screen our view in that direction. “There are still some ruins there, I think, if you like that kind of thing.”

  I looked at him. “I gather you don’t?”

  He shrugged, refusing to commit himself, and Madeleine said, “Well, I love them.”

  Nicholas, who’d been getting himself a fresh drink, rejoined the conversation. “Love what?”

  “Ruins.”

  “You’ll be loving this house, then,” he said. “Half the plaster on that wall over there only wants a good rain to dissolve it.” He tapped his ash over the parapet, yawning. “Our boy hasn’t half got his work cut out for him, restoring this place.”

  I took a look round at the high, yellow walls. “But he’s got the
Forlani Trust helping him, hasn’t he?” I knew the Trust by reputation. I’d seen a television programme last year on a project they were doing near Florence, and they had looked to be a first-rate organization. Their intent seemed to be to acquire and restore as many of the great old Italian estates as they possibly could, in keeping with the wishes of their founder, the art-loving tycoon Leonardo Forlani. His widow still sat on the board of directors, and while she hadn’t actually appeared on the programme I’d watched, she apparently still took a hand in all the restoration projects, though since her husband had been well into his nineties when he died, she likely did most of her own work from a walking-frame.

  Nicholas agreed that the Trust must be a help to D’Ascanio’s grandson. “But last night at dinner he was saying there were rooms that they hadn’t so much as looked inside yet—wasn’t he, Maddy?”

  She nodded. “It must be a difficult job.”

  Den folded his arms as he lowered his glass. “So what’s your opinion of D’Ascanio?”

  Madeleine said, “He was very nice, I thought.”

  “Quiet,” said Nicholas, blowing out smoke. “Didn’t say any more than he had to at dinner. I don’t think he knew what to do with us, really.”

  Rupert nodded agreement. “No, he’s not very comfortable in social settings, I did notice that, the time we met in London.”

  Madeleine thought that it must be because of his upbringing. “Poor little rich boy, and all that.”

  “And where does he get all his money from?” Den asked. “Is it all inherited, or what?”

  Nobody knew. Nicholas admitted that he didn’t even know what D’Ascanio’s father had done for a living.

  Den grinned. “Well, you know Italians.” Adopting the hoarse, reedy voice of a Hollywood mob boss, he told us, “They probably run a respectable olive oil business.”

  “I somehow don’t think so,” said Nicholas drily. “And you won’t either, once you’ve seen him. Anyway, those Mafia types all have hard names like Guido and Vito and Tony, not Alessandro.” He drew the name out with an exaggerated roll. “No, an Alessandro could never be a hit man. He’d have to be more like an opera singer, or a magician.” Spreading his arms he announced with a music-hall flourish: “The great Alessandro D’Ascanio . . . Christ, that’s a mouthful, that, isn’t it?”

  All of us laughed except Rupert, whose mild gaze had moved past my shoulder. He coughed, a discreet little cough. I knew Rupert’s looks; I knew what this expression meant, and I could feel my face flushing before I could turn.

  Alessandro D’Ascanio was younger than I’d thought he’d be, certainly no older than thirty-five, with hair the same colour as Bryan’s, the kind that could be either dark golden blond or sandy brown, depending on the light and time of year. Unlike Bryan’s hair, though, his curled loosely. His eyes were in shadow. He stood very tall at the end of the terrace, between two long-legged greyhound dogs who held their brindled heads stone-steady, level with his knees, and waited, poised like matching statues.

  Maybe, I thought, he was too far away to have heard us poke fun at his name. Ashamed, I bit my lip and watched him, hopeful, till his hand at last went out and touched the nearer dog and stroked its ears. His voice, when he spoke, carried clearly with only a trace of an accent.

  “My mother called me Alex. She was English,” he said calmly, “if you find that any easier.”

  I felt like a child who’d been caught calling somebody names in the playground. I know my face went crimson.

  Madeleine Hedrick, by contrast, managed to strike the right balance of composure and apology. “You mustn’t take notice. We actors are horribly lacking in manners.”

  “Especially me.” Nicholas, far from being chastised, looked amused. He pitched his spent cigarette over the parapet. “Sorry, just a bit of fun, and no offence intended.”

  “Yes, of course.” D’Ascanio’s quiet voice neither forgave nor condemned, but he didn’t smile back. As he stepped now from the shadows I could see he was a most attractive man, not flashily handsome like Nicholas, nor a dyed-in-the-wool charmer like Den, but attractive in the strong-and-silent way that caught my interest. Crossing the terrace towards us he turned his attention to Rupert, holding out his hand in greeting. “I’m so glad to see you made it. I apologize for your not being met at the station. I’m told you had quite an ordeal.”

  Rupert shrugged off the experience. “Oh, it wasn’t so bad. We survived it. Well, some of us did,” he amended, as he caught Den’s wry sideways look. “Alex, you haven’t met Dennis yet, have you?”

  “No.” He had hazel eyes, as quiet as the rest of him, that travelled Den’s length as the two men shook hands. And then it was my turn.

  Rupert, still in charge of introductions, started off, “And this is—”

  “Celia.” There was something quite decided in the way he said my name. His gaze raked me once as it had done with Den, but his expression didn’t change. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  I liked that he didn’t take my hand as some men did, with that limp partial grasp of the fingers that so often passed for a feminine handshake. His touch was firm, and warm, and very sure. I only wished he would have smiled. It would have made me feel less nervous.

  Clearing my throat, I said the only thing that came to mind. “You have a lovely home.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yes,” said Rupert, stepping in to save the conversation, “we’ve all been admiring the view from your terrace.”

  Alex D’Ascanio nodded, turning from me to glance round. “This was one of my grandfather’s favourite places, I’m told. And mine.”

  Rupert smiled. “I see you share another of your grandfather’s preferences.” He nodded down at the dogs, who stayed obediently close to Alex’s side but continually shifted position with a restlessness that hinted they’d much rather be out hunting.

  One of them turned a long head and fixed me with a level gaze, assessing whether I was worth the effort to make friends, as Alex told Rupert, “Yes, these are descendants of one of his champions.”

  “Really?” Madeleine offered her hand to them. “What are their names?”

  “This is Nero.” He touched one sleek head. “And the other is Max.”

  Max, I decided, was the flirtatious one, the one who had been eyeing me. As though he knew I had him pegged, he looked away now, feigning indifference, and sniffed politely at Madeleine’s fingers.

  “I used to keep dogs,” she said. “Corgis.”

  Nicholas grinned. “Like the Queen.”

  “Well, not exactly. Mine were rather fat. But that was when we had the house in Hampstead. We couldn’t keep dogs now, not in the flat. They’d be miserable. Not that my daughter will ever stop trying to convince me otherwise.”

  I’d forgotten that she had a daughter—during the scandal with Mother the papers had made a great deal of the fact that Madeleine and her husband had only just had a baby together, but one never heard a mention of the child now. Madeleine, I thought, must keep the girl well under wraps. Not like my mother, who’d delighted in posing with me for the cameras, at least when I was very small. The practice had lost its appeal as I’d grown, mainly because Rupert had pointed out—rather cleverly, I’d always thought—that anyone looking at me with my mother was bound to start doing the maths. Mother hated revealing her age.

  I assumed Madeleine, being an actress, would have the same hang-up, which was why it surprised me, when Den asked how old her daughter was, that she answered without hesitation. “Twelve,” she said. “Going on twenty.”

  “A right little terror,” said Nicholas.

  “Yes, well, most little girls are at that age,” her mother explained with a smile. “I was horrid, myself. I’m amazed that my parents didn’t lock me in the cupboard till my eighteenth birthday, really.”

  “I’m sure the thought never occurred to them,” Rupert said, but from the faint curve of his mouth I knew he was recalling scenes from my adolescence.

 
“Well, I’ve thought about it,” said Nicholas, shaking out a cigarette and patting down his pockets for a light. “With Poppy, that is, not with Maddy.”

  “Oh, Nicky . . .”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “She’s the school’s problem now, till the end of the term.”

  “She’s at boarding-school?” Den asked.

  “Ordinarily, she doesn’t board,” said Madeleine. “She’s a day girl, and if I’m away then she stays with her father. Only this time—”

  “Only this time,” Nicholas finished for her, “the sodding selfish bastard told us no, he couldn’t take her, so we had to make arrangements with the school. Where the devil is my lighter?”

  “I’ve got it.” Madeleine quietly handed it over. I watched her and wondered why a woman so beautiful and full of class would make the choices she had made with men.

  “Thanks.” Lighting his cigarette, Nicholas glanced over at Den. “What’s wrong with you, O’Malley? What, are you afraid of dogs or something?”

  Den, who had backed away a step as one of the dogs nosed his leg, gave a shrug. “Let’s just say I have respect for anything with teeth.”

  Alex D’Ascanio had stayed silent through our conversation, so silent in fact that it would have been easy to forget he was there, if I hadn’t been so physically aware of him. I caught the small movement of his mouth—not a smile, exactly, but the closest he had come to it. “These dogs don’t bite,” he said. “They wouldn’t even if I told them to. They’re very independent, they don’t bother much with people.”

  Like their master, I suspected. He was not at all the sort of man I’d pictured. I had thought the poet Galeazzo’s grandson would be older, more flamboyant, not so damned reserved and serious. Mind you, he had told us his mother was English, and this was what came, I supposed, of blending warm Italian blood with our more chilly Anglo Saxon.