So I was reinstated as persona grata and this was presumably all the apology I, or James, was ever going to get. I really didn’t know whether to laugh or weep with frustration.
Stefano looked with displeasure at Horatio who was comfortably curled up with one paw, rather sweetly I thought, tucked into the sleeve of the coat, and removed him at arm’s length as if he were something particularly noxious. He shook the coat out vigorously before he put it on and picked up the suitcase. ‘This is everything?’
I was about to say yes, go, and good riddance when I remembered that the faun was still wrapped up in its bag under my bed. I opened my mouth to say so when Horatio, quite unperturbed by being dropped on to the floor again, sidled up to Stefano and began to rub himself against his trouser leg. Impatiently Stefano pushed him away with his foot, not hard but roughly enough to make me see red. Nobody kicks my cat. Stefano stared at my open mouth coldly and repeated in the tone of a potentate addressing a particularly stupid shoe shine boy, ‘Is that all?’
‘No,’ I said finally. ‘It isn’t. You owe us, Stefano. What are you going to do about it?’
I stopped, appalled by my own daring as his face set in forbidding lines. ‘What do you mean?’ he hissed. ‘Do you wish me to repay you your money now?’
He said it with such contempt I got annoyed again. ‘I said I’d give you an account and I will. I’d like to be repaid by the end of the week. It’s James I’m talking about, not me.’
‘What?’ asked Stefano in bewilderment.
‘For the last two weeks you’ve been harassing him with private detectives, trying to pin crimes on him, sending stinking so-called tramps to sit outside his shop and bogus former buyers to put off customers inside. And I daresay you’ve been passing round the word that what he sells is complete junk too.’ Stefano’s eyelids flickered so I reckoned I wasn’t far wrong there. ‘Generally making his life hell for no good reason. You need to make it up to him.’
Stefano’s eyes narrowed. ‘And if I don’t?’
I took a deep breath. ‘You don’t get the faun back,’ I said in a rush before I could wimp out.
In the long silence that followed I almost did several times. It was only the thought of the odious satisfaction Stefano would feel when I obediently presented him with the bronze that stopped me from scuttling into my bedroom and digging it out. He looked at me incredulously. ‘Laura, are you trying to blackmail me?’
I shrugged weakly. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
To my immense surprise he began to laugh. ‘Do you have any idea what a - as you English say - can of worms you are opening?’
‘Probably,’ I admitted.
‘So what do you want?’
I didn’t know precisely. I hadn’t got that far. ‘Do what he was hoping for in the first place,’ I said at last. ‘Give him a commission to find the furniture for your new hotel.’ Stefano’s eyebrows went up. ‘It’s not as if it’s going to be a hardship for you. You know yourself that he has a good eye. Once word gets around that you’ve employed him it’ll offset all that bad-mouthing you’ve been doing.’
‘That is all?’
‘I think so.’ I tried to work out from Stefano’s impassive expression whether I’d asked for too much or too little. I began to quail under his considering look and was inwardly pleased when I heard the muffled sounds of someone trying to insert a key and open the door while not bothering to put down what they’re holding. I smiled apologetically at Stefano and sidled over to open the door before James’s curses became audible to the old lady down the corridor.
‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ he said putting down three carrier bags and clasping me around the waist. ‘Mmm, nice skirt. Did I tell you what good legs you’ve got?’
‘Several times,’ I muttered in acute embarrassment. From where he was standing Stefano had a direct view to the front door. 'James! Stop that!’ I hissed as he showed signs of investigating to see if there were tights or stockings under the skirt. ‘We’ve got a visitor.’
James looked up, let me go and stalked stiff-legged like a bristling dog into the sitting room. ‘Good morning, Stefano,’ he said with a marked lack of enthusiasm. ‘How’s Cressy?’
‘Very well,’ Stefano said with equal warmth.
‘I suppose you’ve come to collect her luggage,’ said James. ‘Don’t let me delay you.’
‘I will not, I promise,’ Stefano assured him, ‘but I have some business to finish with Laura first.’
James moved swiftly to my side, putting his arm around my shoulders. ‘I won’t have you bullying her, Stefano. Do you hear?’
His eyes glinted with amusement. ‘Perfectly, but I think you have it wrong. I have not the chance, it is she who is bullying me.’
I squirmed uneasily under James’s questioning look. I didn’t think he’d approve of my amateurish blackmail attempts.
Stefano smiled and said, ‘Laura tells me she will not give me back the faun unless I do as she wishes.’
I was right. 'Laura!' James exclaimed in an appalled voice.
‘She wants me to give you a contract to supply furniture for the hotel.’ Stefano’s dark eyes flicked to James’s arm, still draped possessively around me. ‘I cannot see that my partners will object. After all, it is not your professional expertise I have ever objected to.’ Their eyes met in complete accord. ‘And what else, Laura?’ Stefano continued, still looking amused.
I couldn’t think. ‘You could call the detectives off.’
‘I have already done that. I got bored of reading about you kissing on doorsteps.’ I felt myself begin to blush. James chuckled. ‘Besides they were not efficient. Only fools would have allowed themselves to be shaken off as they were yesterday. And you, Laura, what do you want for yourself? A new job? With the hotel?’
‘No,’ I said without hesitation, unable to think of anything worse than working for Stefano. Actually I didn’t want to lose the job I’d already got. I enjoyed it. I’d miss it, even Darian. ‘But if someone from the hotel were to contact the agency, saying they’d like to talk about us doing your PR and insisting I was involved, they wouldn’t dare sack me in case they lost a potential big client. And by the time they discover they aren’t going to get it all the fuss about Cressida going to the conference will have died down.’
Stefano nodded in agreement, then waved his hand imperiously. ‘No. It is better you have the account. One agency is much like another, I find.’ I choked, imagining Darian’s horrified reaction to this piece of heresy. He smiled evilly. ‘I shall, of course, insist you are our account executive. I look forward to working with you.’
I was speechless, envisaging a future where Stefano would be going over my press releases with a fine-toothed comb. What had I got myself into? Maybe the dole queue had its attractions after all. Then I realised that Darian, as my director, would have to be involved on an account this big and began to think of client meetings with both her and Stefano present. They had got on so well before... Maybe my prospects for a happy working life weren’t so dark after all.
Stefano pushed up his sleeve to look at his watch and said, ‘I do not like to hurry you, Laura, but I must leave. May I have my bronze now?’ I hesitated for just a moment and a faint shadow crossed his face. ‘I assure you, I will keep my word. You have heard the expression “Honour amongst thieves”?’
It wouldn’t have occurred to me to call Stefano anything so straightforward as a thief, but I got his point. Anyway, there wasn’t going to be much I could do if he decided not to keep his word, so I went and fished amongst the dustballs for a masterpiece of Florentine bronze sculpture.
Stefano turned the package over and over in his hands as if he didn’t dare open it and look inside. ‘How badly is it damaged?’
‘Less badly than the Carvello bronze,’ James said, referring to a statue of Mercury that had been attacked by a lunatic with a hammer the year before, ‘but it’s bad enough. Your problem is going to be finding someone sufficiently discreet with
the skill to do the restoration.’
A long look passed between the two of them. ‘You know someone?’ asked Stefano.
‘Possibly,’ James said guardedly.
He did? I thought in surprise. How come? There seemed to be a lot I needed to find out about James. Was it normal for antiques dealers to know who the dodgy restorers were?
Stefano finally left after flamboyantly kissing my hand and telling me he was particularly looking forward to our future association, something that made James put one arm pointedly around my waist. Stefano kissed my hand again. To stop James doing something provocative like telling Stefano to give his clearest love to Cressida I handed him the carrier bags and told him to go and unpack them in the kitchen while I saw our visitor to the door.
Stefano stopped by the open door and said quietly, ‘My partner will ring James tomorrow. But do not expect me to become friends with him. That is too much. He was with my wife before me, and I am old-fashioned and jealous enough to mind about that very much.’
‘Fair enough. I’m not sure James really wants to be your friend either,’ I said. ‘Business acquaintance will do him fine.’
‘And Cressida would be sorry to lose touch with you.’
‘Yes, I’d miss her too,’ I replied. ‘I look forward to lots of long, gossipy girls’ lunches.’
Stefano’s eyes met mine. ‘I think we understand each other,’ he said with one of his sudden charming smiles. ‘I do have a soul, Laura, and I think these should be where they are most appreciated. I am not ungrateful for what you did. Thank you.’ He placed the parcels containing the cherubs in my hands, kissed me on both cheeks and was off down the corridor before I could find the voice to thank him.
James was standing in prime viewing position, arms folded. ‘And what was all that about?’ he asked severely after I had shut the door.
I grinned at him. ‘Nothing important. Stefano’s just given me a present.’
‘You know what they say about Greeks bearing gifts? The same applies to certain Italians.’ He looked at me suspiciously then sighed. ‘Honestly, Laura, I don’t know what came over you. You must have been mad!’
‘You’d have done the same, given the chance.’
‘Yes, but it’s all right for me to take risks,’ he said with that weird male logic so prevalent in the species. ‘I don’t know whether to throttle you for being so stupid and foolhardy, or kiss you for being so clever.’
I tilted my face towards him. ‘May I suggest the latter?’
‘Good idea,’ he said, taking the cherubs away and putting them on the table.
‘What about breakfast?’ I asked a few minutes later.
‘Bother breakfast,’ said James. ‘This is much more important.’
Something Stupid Page 33
