Alchemy (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Serena Fairfax

  When the guests were thus occupied, Tamsin and Gareth were supposed to clean the casa, make the beds and heat up the meals that Eve, with Tamsin’s more creative input, had prepared and frozen ahead. The bulk of the drudgery fell on Tamsin’s shoulders as Gareth lounged about sipping wine and caressing his latest squeeze via smartphone. Luca, realizing Gareth invariably put upon Tamsin, found he was getting quite protective of her.

  Just days to go before she returned to England. Then, one morning, Luca bounced in and told Tamsin they were boarding the ferry to Gardone.

  “How exciting!” Tamsin angled her head round to see if anyone had heard.

  “Where better to lose ourselves in than the Vittoriale, home of the debauched Gabriele D’Annunzio, poet, playwright, warmonger and womanizer who died in the late 1930s, a national hero. Sounds familiar?”

  Tamsin’s eyes shone and her heart sang. “I’ve been dying to see it but somehow never managed to, although Dad has often taken parties round. It’s always a talking point.”

  “Well, now’s your chance.” He brushed her lips with his, his groin fighting the urge to tear off her clothes and suck her off. His scent, warm and spicy, tinged with musk and salt, sent a jolt through her, making her want to lick him to pieces. Dressed in gray striped shorts, dark blue tee, and flip flops, he looked like a dangerous, conquering hero that no belch from Hell could smite.

  “Let’s go for it.” They streaked down to the harbor and once off the ferry that had jounced over the wrinkled blue lake, they arched up a tree-lined avenue to the terracotta, yellow-stuccoed Vittoriale girdled by enormous cypresses and laurel. Golden light filtered through the trees. Inside, she was dizzied by the extravagant and bizarre treasure trove, his dandified clothing. Every room bore a name—the sumptuous Room of the Cheli commemorating Annunzio’s gluttonous pet tortoise that died of indigestion after obscenely gorging itself on garden plants, the Room of the Stump decorated with the bloody imprint of a severed hand, the little ghoulish Room of the Leper housing a coffin stuffed with soil from the grave of a hanged man in the Balkans. Every chamber was crammed with oversized objects d’art, furniture, figurines, phallic symbols, useless, priceless and eccentric ornaments and novelties, replicas of the prosciutto and figs Annunzio was partial to which reminded him of his lovers’ cunts, and the salacious and vicious log books of fucking he maintained to the end of his life.

  “What a madhouse! Everything’s so OTT.” Tamsin managed to pull herself out of the maelstrom into which she’d plunged. They emerged into welcome sunshine, the scent of flowers heady in the air. “How could he have borne to live in that muddle?” Her gaze melded with his.

  Luca grinned and, taking her hand, tugged her to the silence of the orchard, separated from the gardens by a belvedere. A bronze statue of the Canefora, a squatting figure of a curvaceous woman carrying a basket of fruit on her head, stood on a pillar within a grove of pomegranate trees. He pulled her down.

  “Do you know what pomegranates symbolize?”

  Tamsin shook her head and he drew her towards him.

  “Fertility and plenty.”

  He peeled off her bra. “Very few know this secret place. They’re too mentally and physically exhausted to explore any further after doing the interior and garden.”

  “Annunzio was impossibly outrageous wasn’t he?” she asked as he dipped his head to nuzzle her breasts. Desire pitched in her stomach.

  “That’s an understatement. He was a Fascist, daredevil, and druggie who secreted cocaine in a little jeweled case in his waistcoat and somehow captured the imagination of the nation, but that said, it’s no denying he was a fascinating character who, from the grave, seduced that English writer—I forget her name—to write a stunning biography about him that recently earned her a prestigious prize.”

  He flipped off his tee and she moved into his chest, her tongue flicking out to savor his bare skin. “Did he have any children?”

  “Oh yes, several, but he wasn’t at all interested in them. In fact, when one of his mistresses gave him money specifically to apply towards a daughter’s school fees, he promptly went out and spent it on buying a thoroughbred horse. The poor girl had a lot of difficulty wrapping up her education.”

  “Do you think anyone would want to write about you?”

  “What a question! I hope not, and think not. My life’s not interesting enough and I plan to keep it that way.” He pointed to where a fountain gushed crystal water. “Annunzio spent hours in the nude sitting under that, reading Dante in an edition he had specially commissioned that was printed on paper made from rubber.”

  Tamsin slanted him a look “You were interesting to me when I was seven. That’s my first heroic memory of you. I was bawling because Gareth was threatening to lop off my tresses with a penknife if I didn’t reveal where I’d hidden a box of chocolates. You told him to stop and, when he didn’t, you hit him and pounded him to the ground. Dad said it was quite a dog fight.”

  He laughed, his arm circling her waist. God, he wanted her now, spread out beneath him, her legs widening, snagging his heated steel. “I was a confident little tyke, quite a macho and thoroughly spoilt.” He didn’t add, and thoroughly traumatized. Worried about him, Salvatore and Catarina had sought out the best therapist in Italy under whose expert, sensitive guidance he’d slowly learned about handling his demons.

  “If you think your life’s not interesting, you’ve probably not met the right person yet. Dad says his life took off when he met Mum, although I’m not sure what’s with them now.”

  Patrick, a sensitive, shy man, was a bachelor until almost forty when Eve, a colleague ten years younger, on whom it had gradually dawned she was not going to be one of the leading lights of the English theatre, had bowled him over. It was Eve who’d decided that they buy the casa, Eve who decided that they pack in their steady teaching jobs to run these courses. Now he was bullied not only by Eve but also by Gareth, although he and Tamsin had an unspoken special relationship. Ruby, the baby of the family, was thoroughly indulged by them all.

  As they nestled, she told Luca about her parents, striving to retain their rightful place in the middle class whilst lacking the means.

  “Why don’t they just sell up and go back to England instead of struggling to keep up appearances here?”

  Tamsin sighed. “Why indeed? I suppose they’d rather eke out a living here in the sunshine kidding themselves they’re enjoying an expat Italian lifestyle than penuriously grind away in a tiny flat rented from a social housing provider in England. I suppose it’s a sort of snobbery.”

  “So I suppose selling the casa wouldn’t cover the cost of a place in England?”

  “I expect it would, in some deeply unattractive town in the sticks that most people spend their lives yearning to escape from, but that’s not the sort of place they fancy living in. And they certainly wouldn’t be able to shoehorn themselves into teaching. They’re past it.”

  “So with whom do you live in England?”

  Tamsin sat up and fastened her sandals. “Ruby and I are with Mum’s parents, who are rather”—she wrinkled her nose—“dreary and frail. Gareth’s housed by Mum’s twin brother and has much more fun with our tribe of cousins. And that’s the story of my life.“ She grinned. “I can’t wait for university to spice it up.”

  He stroked her cheek, his eyes never straying from her face. “You bet it will. Be careful.”

  “You sound like Dad! Mum keeps saying she wishes she were in her twenties again. Actually, she has never grown up. In fact, she has immatured with age! She does some really mad things and often, I feel a lot older than her.”

  “Like what?”

  She glanced round and lowered her voice. “We’ve just the one family computer in the casa. I happened to click the history button on the browser and there it was, a website that advertised for adventurous couples wanting to reclaim their youth. Sort of full-on wife-swapping and bed-hopping, swingers, S&M, that sort of thing.”

  Luca c
huckled softly and, reaching forward, stroked her nose. “Couldn’t it have been a bored guest fed up with all that worthy instruction and looking for inspiration for the next artistic or creative writing endeavor?”

  She shook her head. “They use another, dedicated one. Then I picked up on something she said to Dad and he must have put his foot down because she sulked for a good few weeks and Dad and I had to keep things ticking over.” She hesitated. “Did you really mean that about her doing a Mrs Robinson?”

  Luca said quickly. “She’s an imaginative woman, our Eve.” He smiled inwardly. He’d given Eve the fuck of her life and now actually wished he hadn’t shown off because she was always angling for more. Tamsin had a certain gleam in her eye that told him she was on the verge of asking about himself, and he felt something like pressure building up in him. He batted away further questions by glancing at his watch. “I guess we ought to be getting back. Although, before I forget…happy birthday.”

  “You remembered!” Her eyes shining, Tamsin tore off the wrapping paper. “Oh, it’s amazing!” She threw her arms round him. “I’m going to say it’s just what I wanted and you’d better believe it.” She drew the silvery-gray, metallic-sheen organza blouse over her head. It was the one she’d lusted after and tried on when she’d dragged him into a little boutique in Verona. But, as she’d told him, then she’d have to auction the casa to afford it.

  “From us.” He didn’t say “me,” she noticed on a sharp sting of disappointment. “And you look magical in it.”

  “Thank you, thank you.” Her eyes shining, she turned her face up at him.

  He bent his head and kissed her, then jumped up and lifted her to her feet. They lingered down to the lake, breaking into a dash as the ferry’s siren signaled its departure.

  Instead of abandoning her back home as she expected, Luca headed towards the villa. “Let’s make the most of your last couple of days here,” he murmured.

  “I’d better call my folks—they’re expecting me to help out.”

  “Gareth’s isn’t disabled, is he?” Luca said pointedly. “Surely he’ll pitch in?”

  “Not if he can help it,” Tamsin said with a sigh. “He’s pretty much a law unto himself and that means double duty for poor Dad.”

  Luca paused. “I’ve an idea that I’ll have to run past Salvatore and Catarina. But meanwhile, they can’t begrudge you a dip.”

  “Oooh. That lovely expanse of water beckons.”

  Maria found her an interesting bikini and as Tamsin emerged from the pool house, there was Luca standing naked at the edge of the mosaic-tiled pool, his powerful legs astride, a bronzed god framed against the rays of the sun. She swallowed and sucked in an unsteady breath.

  He broke into a convincing mimicry of Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” “You’re overdressed,” he added dangerously in a voice that sent a delicious shiver up her spine and, taking her hand, they jumped in with big splash. They raced each other up and down the pool, gasping for breath until Luca, with a certain glint in his eye, trapped her at the shallow end and, kissing the hollow in her neck, lowered her bikini bottoms and laced himself to her, his fingers flicking and teasing, filling her with heat.

  Then, slowing his rhythm, he reached for his towel and leapt out of the pool and, lifting her out, laid her down on a sun lounger. Draping a towel decorously over his lower half, he rubbed her with sunscreen, working his magic on her, heightening her arousal.

  “Have to go,” she murmured, closing her eyes, although that was the last thing she wanted to do and, rising to her feet, she wobbled, pleasure crashing through her, towards the pool house.

  “You’re getting good at this, it calls for a replay.”

  “Now that’s an idea.” Her heart flipped.

  He grinned, loving the way she blushed, loving the scent of her sun-kissed skin, and let his gaze rove over her glistening contours. Then he stalked after her, spun her round, and stripped off her top, bringing her to her knees with a throaty murmur, licking her wet cunt, riding her with his tangy scent and hardness. Opening the floodgates, he brought them to wave upon wave of orgasm that had them shuddering and yelping

  “Pussy galore.” He plunged back into her slippery sweet Eden.

  “Cock of the walk.” Tamsin exploded in a million stars around him.

  “One of these days I’ll do an Annunzio and write poems in praise of your pubic hair.”

  As she dressed, he let her in on the little secret he’d hatched.

  “I’ve told your folks they’re to announce it as a mystery occasion.”

  “And what’s the mystery?” She expected him to say he’d send Maria over to do the cooking.

  “Your guests will be ours this evening.”

  “What!”

  “It’s amazing what cachet a title holds even to the most republican-minded of us. Everyone loves to meet, eat and talk with a prince. Gareth will drive them over and must stay sober for the drive back. My parents and I will entertain them and Patrick can have the evening off, if he wants.” He knew Eve only too well to realize she’d want to be in the thick of things.

  “What an extravagant gesture!”

  “Thanks, but Eve has to know we aren’t setting a precedent.”

  “No, no I’m sure she understands that. Anyway, there’ll be no opportunity for a repeat, given the Leopoldo absence over the next few years.”

  The guests turned up looking somewhat grumpy, having been shaken out of the itinerary that they’d expected to be set in stone, but began to thaw visibly as Maurizio, giving them a potted history of the place, conducted them on a tour of the glorious grounds, cloudy with summer blossom, the rock and bamboo gardens, past hedges of rhododendron to the fern valley, plying them with nicely chilled prosecco at intervals. Pre-prandial drinks were served inside as Salvatore and Catarina, quiet but charming, circulated and chatted, ably assisted by an affable Fabio. Eve was in her element, never without a glass in her hand, rakish and skittish. Gareth, reluctantly nursing homemade lemonade, looked rather fed-up but no one noticed or if they did, didn’t give a hoot.

  A buffet supper awaited in the formal dining room and the guests oohed and aahed, overwhelmed by the glorious rain of light from crystal chandeliers crafted by master glassblowers, the richness of the cobalt blue and gold ceilings, the brilliance of red and black lacquer, the pearly alabaster windows, Meissen porcelain and embossed silk wall panels. Two gleaming silver herons inlaid with enamel and precious stones adorned the dining table with a scattering of several artistically deployed smaller ones, interspersed with a generous array of regional delicacies washed down with wine from the estate.

  As the meal began, Luca caught Tamsin’s eye and they escaped unnoticed, up the winding staircase to his suite of rooms. His bedroom was a masculine, nuanced space, but there was nothing sharp-edged about the king-sized bed heaped with downy pillows, the immaculate cotton sheets, the cool tiled floor. The singed, faded photograph of a smiling couple in a silver frame on his bedside table sounded a poignant note.

  “I thought you’d prefer this sort of feast.” He smiled all wolf-like, animal urges flaring as he undressed her. “We’ll be undisturbed for several hours.” Lust pooled in his groin.

  “You thought right.”

  “Don’t I always!” Hell, she was eager and willing and who said anything about the price tag of commitment? He tipped her down, a long thigh shifting her into place with a fierce, visceral want.

  Tamsin raised her hips and tightened round him, and he was easing softly inside her, then plunging, thrusting, hard and swift. She caught his rhythm, met his spiraling need with her own, iron within the velvet glove, and lost herself in him.

  “Salvatore and Catarina are enjoying themselves.“ He rolled over onto his back, an arm resting behind her shoulders. “They’re a pretty retiring couple but occasionally relish the excitement of out-of-comfort-zone experiences.”

  “Well, they’ve risen to the occasion.”

/>   “Eve’s in her element.”

  “She never stops reminding me she was a raver when she was young—it’s as if she’d won an Olympic gold medal—so I wonder what attracted her to Dad?”

  Luca sat up and finger-prodded her dimples. “I’ll tell you. She saw him as someone malleable who wouldn’t mind her wearing the trousers.” He forbore from saying he found Tamsin’s temperament rather like Patrick’s. She wouldn’t give a man stick. She’d be happy to let him run the show, cozily welcoming him home in the evening with his slippers at the ready and sexually compliant at bedtime. Not such a bad thing.

  He rolled into her and, stroking the lush fleece of pubic hair, felt her jolting for him.

  Later, as the party quaffed the finest Brazilian coffee in the elegant drawing room, Luca, then Tamsin, joined them and, as they suspected, they hadn’t been missed. Then, to Tamsin’s horror, one of the least prepossessing guests plonked himself down at the Bechstein, surprising them with an unexpectedly virtuoso rendition of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” its melody darkly haunting and mysterious.

  Luca glanced at Salvatore and Catarina and sensed they were flagging. “That was great and we’re pleased you could come. And now, Gareth wants to tuck you up in bed.”

  Rather reluctantly, they rose and, expressing effusive thanks, swayed out, all rather the worse for the unlimited supply of fine wines—unlike the two glasses of plonk per day Eve rationed them to. Luca helped the shakier ones aboard the coach, Gareth sounded the horn and revved the engine impatiently and with a lurch and much grinding of gears, they were off.