Count Valieri's Prisoner

by Sara Craven

  Because, there was something about his quietness which dried Maddie’s throat when he spoke to her, and made her stumble over her words. Not that she ever had too much to say to him. She’d divined fairly soon that her presence at Fallowdene was tolerated by him, rather than welcomed, and tried to keep out of his way.

  It wasn’t too difficult. She’d been given the old nursery as her room, and this contained a glass-fronted bookcase, crammed with children’s books by well-known authors in a range that appealed from tots to teens.

  At first, when she was very young, Aunt Beth had read them as bedtime stories. Later, she’d been happy to while away solitary hours in their company.

  But her happy childhood had been brought to an abrupt and tragic end one terrible winter night when an icy road and a driver who’d drunk too much at an office party had fatally combined to take both her parents from her.

  She’d been staying with Aunt Fee, her mother’s younger sister, at the time, and her aunt had immediately assumed charge of her, only to be approached after the funeral by Aunt Beth with an offer to adopt her god-daughter.

  But the offer had been refused. Instead Aunt Fee and Uncle Patrick, her big genial husband had been quietly adamant that Maddie belonged with them, and she’d been loved, allowed to grieve then eventually find healing in their comfortable untidy house.

  Her visits to Fallowdene, however, continued as before, although the question of adoption was never raised again and, in hindsight, Maddie was sure that Nigel Sylvester had probably opposed the idea from the outset.

  She realized since that, although she’d been too young to recognize it at the time, he had represented her first brush with real power.

  And she’d often wondered what had persuaded her godmother, with her quiet prettiness and sudden mischievous, enchanting smile, to marry him.

  She had been in her first year at university when Aunt Beth died very suddenly in her sleep of a heart attack. She’d attended the funeral with her aunt and uncle and haltingly attempted to express her sorrow to Mr Sylvester, who’d muttered an abrupt word of thanks, then turned away.

  And she was realistic enough to know that she would no longer be welcome at Fallowdene.

  A week or so later she was astonished to receive a letter from a law firm informing her that Aunt Beth had left her a sum of money substantial enough to get her through her degree course without having to seek a student loan, with an additional bequest of the entire book collection from the nursery, which somehow meant far more than the money.

  ‘Oh, how wonderful of her,’ she’d said softly, wiping her eyes. ‘She always knew how much I loved them.’ She paused. ‘But won’t Jeremy want them?’

  ‘It seems not,’ Aunt Fee said rather drily. ‘I gather if you’d refused the bequest they’d have gone to a charity shop.’ She pursed her lips. ‘No doubt they reminded Nigel too much of the wonderful career he’d interrupted.’

  ‘Career?’ Maddie repeated. ‘Was she a writer once?’ She frowned. ‘She never told me.’

  ‘No, that wasn’t her talent. She was a very successful editor with Penlaggan Press. She found the authors of all those books, encouraged them, and published them.

  ‘Your mother told me Penlaggan did their best to coax her back on numerous occasions, even offering to let her work from home.’ She shook her head. ‘But it never happened. Sylvester wives, it seems, do not work.’

  ‘But if she was so good at her job...’

  ‘That,’ said Aunt Fee somberly, ‘was probably the trouble.’

  It was an insight into Aunt Beth’s marriage that Maddie had never forgotten. And now it had a renewed and unpleasing resonance.

  Well, I’m good at my job too, she thought, and I’m damned if I’m giving it up whatever Jeremy or his father may say about it.

  She still felt raw when she remembered how Nigel Sylvester, having mourned for barely a year, announced his engagement to a widow called Esme Hammond and married her only a month later.

  But then, quite unexpectedly, she’d met Jeremy again at a party in London. He’d expressed delight at seeing her and asked for her phone number, but if she felt this was more out of politeness than serious intent, she soon discovered she was wrong. Because he’d not only called but invited her to dinner. After which, events had seemed to snowball, she remembered, smiling.

  Jeremy had changed a great deal from the taciturn, aloof boy who’d so consistently avoided an annoying small girl. He seemed to have inherited much of his mother’s charm, but in spite of three years at university and a spell at the Harvard Business School before joining Sylvester and Co, he still seemed under his father’s thumb.

  But while Maddie did not delude herself she would have been his daughter-in-law of choice, at least Nigel Sylvester had not openly opposed the engagement.

  But she still didn’t call him ‘Uncle Nigel’, she thought, pausing at the office’s street entrance to punch in her entry code. Nor, after the wedding, would he ever morph into ‘Dad’, ‘Pa’ or ‘Pops’.

  And he had put a spoke in their wheel in another way.

  If Maddie had assumed that Jeremy would immediately want her to move into the company flat with him, she soon found she was wrong..

  ‘Dad says he needs to use the flat himself on occasion,’ he told her. ‘And it would make things—awkward if you were there. And anyway he feels we should wait to live together until we’re actually married.’

  Maddie had stared at him. ‘But who on earth does that nowadays?’

  Jeremy shrugged. ‘I guess he’s just old-fashioned about these things.’

  But Maddie was convinced ‘hypocritical’ was a better description, and would have wagered a year’s salary that his father and the glamorous Esme had been sharing a bed even while Aunt Beth was alive.

  ‘And what happens after the wedding?’ she asked. ‘Because, we’ll be living there then, or will your father expect me to move out any time he plans to stay overnight?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said impatiently. ‘He’s talking of taking a suite at a hotel.’ He pulled a face. ‘And, believe me, sweetie, it could be worse. When it began, Sylvester and Co was Sylvester, Felderstein and Marchetti. You could be having all sorts of foreign directors dropping in.’

  ‘Might have been fun,’ Maddie said lightly. ‘So why aren’t there any now?’

  Jeremy shrugged again. ‘The families died out, or started new ventures of their own. That’s what Dad said, anyway. We only became fully independent in my grandfather’s day.’

  Since when Nigel Sylvester had achieved success in the corridors of power, joining various government think-tanks and advising on banking and economic affairs.

  So much so that, rumour had it that he would be offered a life peerage in the next New Year Honours’ List.

  I wonder if he’ll expect me to call him ‘My lord’ she mused as she took the creaky elevator to her office on the first floor. Or curtsy when we meet. While Esme will be even more insufferable when she’s Lady Sylvester.

  But I’ll deal with that when I have to, she told herself. For now, I’m concentrating on this dream assignment that’s come my way.

  Italy in May, she thought with an ecstatic sigh. Boy, I can hardly wait.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT WASN’T UNTIL the plane had taken off that Maddie really believed she was going to Italy.

  In view of the events of the past ten days, she would hardly have been surprised if Nigel Sylvester had found some way to have her bodily removed from the aircraft.

  It had all come to a head over dinner at the company flat. She had believed with pleasurable anticipation that she and Jeremy would be alone, and was shaken to find his father and Esme waiting for her too, with Mr Sylvester telling her, with his thin-lipped smile, ‘We feel we should all get to know each other a little better, Madeleine.’

  Heart sinking, as she realised Jeremy was avoiding her gaze, she’d replied, ‘By all means,’ and accepted the dry sherry she was offered.
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br />   Conversation had been light and general over dinner, but she’d only picked at the excellent meal, cooked by the housekeeper Mrs Palmer, and watched with trepidation as the good woman was thanked and dismissed once the coffee and brandy were on the table.

  The door had barely closed behind her when Esme leaned forward. ‘I think, Madeleine, if the men will forgive us boring them with feminine affairs, we need to discuss your wedding dress as a matter of urgency.’

  Maddie put down her coffee cup, bewildered. ‘But that’s all in hand.’

  Mrs Sylvester’s arched brows lifted. ‘Indeed? I am not sure I understand.’

  ‘I’ve chosen my dress and it’s already being made by Janet Gladstone, who owns the bridal shop in the village. You must have seen it.’

  ‘Not that I recall.’ Esme’s tone suggested she had not noticed the High Street either. ‘And, anyway, I’ve made an appointment for you with Nina FitzAlan in three days’ time.’ Her smile was complacent. ‘As I’m a favoured client she has agreed to drop everything in order to supply us with a gown of her own exclusive design. But there is no time to be lost.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Maddie said evenly. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t possibly alter my arrangements, especially as Aunt Fee and Uncle Patrick are paying for my dress, and those of the bridesmaids.’

  ‘And naturally you feel that a top London designer is beyond their reach, financially.’ The older woman nodded. ‘Well, don’t concern yourself about that. Nina’s bill, of course, will be sent to me. There is no need for your aunt and uncle to be bothered.’

  ‘But they will be bothered. And so will I. Very much so.’ Maddie ignored Jeremy’s pleading glance from the other side of the table. ‘Because I’m getting exactly what I want. White wild silk embroidered with silver flowers. I’ve already had two fittings, and it’s going to be beautiful.’

  Esme allowed herself the small, tinkling laugh that made Maddie’s teeth ache. ‘I don’t think you have quite grasped, my dear, that you are dressing for a very important occasion. And a village-made frock, however pretty, just will not do.’

  She paused. ‘So we will have a preliminary meeting with Nina at ten thirty on Thursday, after which you will hold yourself available for fittings at her salon whenever required.

  ‘And as you’ve mentioned bridesmaids,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps this is the time to say that while I admire your loyalty in wanting your flatmates Sally and—Tracey, is it...’

  ‘Trisha,’ said Maddie.

  ‘I think I told you.’ Esme swept on, ‘that Nigel would like his godsons’ little ones to be your attendants. Two pigeon pairs—so convenient—and, I thought, in Victorian dress. Those charming caps for the boys, and frilly pantaloons for the little girls.’

  Maddie’s hands were clenched tightly in her lap. ‘And I think I made it clear that I would not, under any circumstances, have very small children following me up the aisle. Especially ones I have never met, but, I gather, are barely potty-trained. Which,’ she added, ‘would make me fear for the pantaloons. Besides, Sally and Trisha are old college friends as well as my flatmates, so they will be my bridesmaids—the only ones.’

  She paused. ‘And, as, I’m going to be working abroad shortly, I couldn’t be available for fittings with Ms FitzAlan, even if I wanted to.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Nigel Sylvester in a tone which made Maddie feel she’d been stranded naked on a polar ice cap. ‘I think it is full time you recognised that you have responsibilities to my son that far outweigh your obligations to this—tin-pot job of yours, and hand your company a week’s notice.’

  Maddie lifted her chin. ‘And you must also recognise I have no intention of abandoning my career.’

  ‘Career?’ he repeated almost meditatively. ‘I think, my child, that you’re deluding yourself.’

  He then proceeded to deal quite mercilessly with her qualifications, her abilities and her ambitions, holding them up to ridicule, and dismissing them with quiet contempt, and all of it uttered with a smile like a naked blade held to her skin.

  While all she could do was sit, head bent, in silence until it was over.

  ‘How could you?’ she flared at Jeremy when they were back in her own flat and alone, Sally and Trisha having taken a swift look at her white face and blazing eyes and tactfully disappeared to bed. ‘I thought we’d already dealt with this. So how could you just sit there and let him speak to me—treat me like that?’

  ‘I’ve told you time and again how he feels about working wives,’ Jeremy said unhappily. ‘And I’ve also tried to explain how Dad sees the importance of this wedding.’

  She was about to hit back when she saw how wretched he was becoming and took a deep, steadying breath. It’s not his fault, she reminded herself. His father has bullied him all his life. You know this.

  ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Esme and your father may have taken over most of the arrangements, but they’re not adding me to their bag. I shall wear the dress I want, and have Sal and Trish as my backup on the day itself. No toddlers in sight. Not negotiable.’

  He said slowly, ‘But there’s Italy. If I begged you not to go, would you think again?’

  ‘I don’t want you to beg,’ she said more gently. ‘Just to understand how much I want to research the Floria Bartrando story. I’ll be gone a matter of days, that’s all. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘It already is.’ He shook his head. ‘Dad’s totally vitriolic on the subject, as if he’s got a down on the entire Italian nation.’

  ‘Your father simply has a down on not getting his own way at all times,’ Maddie told him candidly. ‘It wouldn’t matter if it was Italy—or Outer Mongolia. However I can’t and I won’t give way to him, because that would set an unacceptable precedent. You must see that.’

  She paused. ‘Of course, we could always elope. Get a special licence and do the deed somewhere with a couple of strangers as witnesses.’

  Jeremy looked at her with blank horror. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  She hadn’t been entirely joking either, she thought, suppressing a sigh.

  She forced a smile. ‘Alternatively, you could always come with me to Italy. Take a few days of all the leave you’re owed and explore the delights of Liguria.’ And we could be alone as lovers again with no-one to interfere or disapprove. Get back to the time when we first fell in love. Wouldn’t that be good?

  She added, ‘And if I had you as an escort, that might placate your father about the trip in general.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t. And now I’d better go.’ He took her in his arms and held her tightly. ‘Oh, Maddie, I hate it when we quarrel.’

  And I hate it when we have quarrels forced upon us, thought Maddie, fighting her disappointment as she kissed him and said goodnight.

  And in the morning, she mused as she closed the door behind him, I shall have to tell the others it was a lovers’ tiff. Pre-marital nerves or something. And see if they believe me.

  * * *

  Ironically, soon afterwards it began to seem as if Nigel Sylvester might get his own way after all.

  Because Todd, her boss at Athene came within a whisker of calling the whole Bartrando project off.

  ‘We need to know why a young singer with the world at her feet should simply disappear for thirty-odd years,’ he’d said, frowning, at one of the morning conferences. ‘We were promised a preliminary interview with Floria Bartrando herself, yet now they seem to be fobbing us off with a small provincial opera festival instead.’ He snorted. ‘And that’s not worth the expense of the airfare, even if it is being sponsored by some local bigwig.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s making her comeback at this festival,’ Maddie suggested, trying not to sound too anxious. If it all fell through, she could imagine Nigel Sylvester’s triumph and the increased pressure to fall in with all future plans as a result.

  Todd shrugged. ‘Then, in that case, why don’t they say so? I’m worried that this whole Bartra
ndo thing could simply be a publicity stunt, and you’ll end up being shown a grave in a cemetery and told that the festival’s in her memory.’

  ‘In which case, I use my return ticket, and we bin the entire project.’ Maddie tried to sound upbeat. ‘But I’m sure it’s all going to work out.’

  And a few days later when Todd summoned her to his office, it appeared she was right.

  ‘I did the festival sponsor an injustice,’ he announced, tapping the letter on the desk in front of him. ‘He’s written to us, in person, snail mail. His name’s Count Valieri and he’s apparently the link with Signorina Bartrando, so you’ll be liaising with him.

  ‘He’ll have you met at the airport in Genoa and taken to the Hotel Puccini in Trimontano, where the festival will take place later in the year. And he’ll contact you there and set up a meeting with the mystery lady.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe you should pack a posh frock if you’re going to be hobnobbing with Italian aristocracy.’

  ‘I’m more likely to be palmed off on some private secretary,’ Maddie returned unruffled. ‘But I’d better find out a bit about him, to be on the safe side.’

  ‘I’ve already had a quick look online, and there isn’t much.’ Todd frowned. ‘Just that the Valieri family actually started the festival over fifty years ago, so he’s probably quite elderly, although there’s no picture. And the family money now comes mainly from olive oil and ceramics. Apart from that—zilch.’

  ‘Then it’s fortunate we’re not planning to tell his story.’ She hesitated. ‘Did he drop any hints about Signorina Bartrando?’

  ‘Not one. Here, you’d better have it.’ He handed her the sheet of elegant cream notepaper and she read the two short paragraphs.

  The Count used black ink, she saw, and his handwriting was crisp and incisive.

  Back in her office, she checked the hotel he’d booked for her on the internet and saw it had an impressive number of stars, and its food and comfort were highly praised by recent guests.