An Elusive Desire

by Anne Mather

  Nicola had been waiting for them the night before. When the sleek Maserati swept beneath the stone gateway that gave access to the courtyard, she had emerged from the castle, her flowing velvet caftan giving an impression of an earlier age.

  Rafaello, who had not spoken since they left Santo Giustino, paused to give Jaime a tight look before thrusting his door open. ‘My wife appears to have recovered,’ he remarked, rescuing her jacket from the back of the car and tossing it into her lap. ‘You will find she often has these attacks. But do not worry, she is not as fragile as she looks.’

  ‘But—–’

  Jaime started to speak, but Rafaello was not listening to her. He had already thrust his legs out of the car, and as he got to his feet, Nicola reached them.

  ‘You’re late,’ she pouted, looking up at her husband with resentful eyes. ‘I’ve been waiting for ages. Was Jaime’s plane late?’

  ‘So far as I know, it was on time,’ replied Rafaello, flexing his weary shoulder muscles. ‘We came as quickly as we could. However, you will appreciate that I do not have the ability to rid our roads of other traffic!’

  ‘Don’t be cross.’ Nicola’s lips tilted. ‘What must Jaime think of us?’ She reached up to press her lips against his taut cheek, her eyes darting sideways as the other girl got out of the car. ‘Caro,’ she murmured huskily, her fingers seeking the parted vee of his shirt, and then stepped back with a provoking smile as Rafaello dashed her hands away. Without looking at his wife again, he strode away across the courtyard, disappearing through the doorway that Nicola previously had used.

  Jaime, not knowing what to make of what she had seen, made an effort to behave naturally. Going round to the back of the car, she fumbled awkwardly for the catch of the boot, but Nicola, after following her husband’s retreating figure with her eyes, seemed to remember her manners, and came eagerly to embrace her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, the look of provocation quite gone now, and replaced by a distinctly tearful expression. ‘Oh, Jaime,’ she hugged her very close, ‘you don’t know how good it is to see you again! You must forgive me if I seem thoughtless, but Raf can be so cruel at times.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s good to see you, too, Nicola.’ Jaime drew away determinedly, immediately aware of how gauche Nicola always made her feel. She had changed little, hardly at all, in fact, and her diminutive height of a little over five feet had always made Jaime feel like an Amazon. A cap of glossy dark hair framed a face that might have modelled a Botticelli angel, and in those early days Jaime had often marvelled that Rafaello had not chosen Nicola from the beginning. She was so much more to his taste, after all, not least because Nicola had had no ambitions beyond making a good marriage, and she had done her best to catch his attention before Jaime came on the scene.

  ‘Leave your luggage,’ exclaimed Nicola impatiently now. ‘Giulio will attend to it. You must be starving. We’ll go and have dinner, and then I’ll show you your room.’

  After the journey Jaime had just had, she would have preferred to go straight to her room. A shower and a change of clothes would have been very welcome, but as Nicola’s guest, she felt obliged to fall in with her wishes. But afterwards …

  It was deliciously cool inside the thick walls of the castle. Outside, the evening was quite humid, but inside an air-conditioning system that required no electricity kept the atmosphere fresh.

  ‘I thought it would be incredibly cold in winter,’ confessed Nicola, leading the way across a marble-tiled hall, with suits of armour set beneath fading tapestries, ‘but it’s not. As a matter of fact, it can be quite cosy; although I must admit I prefer the apartment in Rome.’

  ‘The apartment?’ echoed Jaime, gazing about her with fascinated eyes. An inlaid marble staircase swept above them in a veined pinkish semi-circle, and a vaulted ceiling arched above a mural gallery.

  ‘Of course.’ Nicola led the way into an oblong-shaped dining room, where a rectangular table was set with three places. ‘Didn’t you know Raf had an apartment in Rome? He has a house in Florence, too, and a palazzo in Venice. He’s a rich man, Jaime. Surely you knew that.’

  ‘I knew.’ Jaime schooled her features not to show any expression but one of polite interest. ‘You live here, though.’

  ‘Most of the time—unfortunately,’ declared Nicola, with a tightening of her lips. ‘Raf insists on being near his blasted vines. All the other vigneti leave the growing of the grapes to their estate capos. But not Raf!’

  She pulled impatiently at a velvet cord, hanging beside a screened fireplace, and presently a woman, dressed all in black, appeared. ‘We will eat now, Maria,’ Nicola declared, as Jaime moved to look out of the long windows. ‘Will you tell the signore we are waiting?’

  ‘Credo che sia partito, signora,’ murmured the woman apologetically, and Jaime, turning from the window, saw the look of anger that crossed Nicola’s face.

  ‘Speak English, can’t you?’ she exclaimed, her fists clenching tightly at her sides. ‘Where is he? Where has he gone? He knew we were about to have dinner.’

  ‘I’ll conte—the signore—he has gone to the—to the vigneti, signora,’ stammered Maria, spreading her hands. ‘Mi spiace—–’

  ‘Oh, bring in the food!’ ordered Nicola shortly, lifting the carafe the woman had left on the table, and pouring herself a glass of red wine. ‘Pronto, Maria!’

  ‘Si, signora.’

  Maria withdrew and Nicola raised the glass to her lips. ‘I suppose you think I was hard on her,’ she remarked, observing Jaime’s doubtful expression. She swallowed a mouthful, of the wine. ‘The woman’s a fool! She should have told me immediately where Raf had gone.’

  ‘Where—has he gone?’ asked Jaime, not sure she had interpreted Maria’s words correctly, and Nicola waved the hand holding the glass in a gesture of resignation.

  ‘He’s gone down to the winery,’ she declared carelessly. ‘I told you, Raf cares more about his vines than he does about—practically anything.’ She pulled a heavily carved chair away from the table. ‘Sit down, can’t you? We don’t stand on ceremony here.’

  The meal that followed was deliciously flavoured and expertly presented. Slices of cured ham were offered with cubes of iced melon; there was a fragrant vegetable soup, and eggs served with pasta, and pizza, piled high with tomatoes and cheese and anchovies. There was crisp salad, and fresh fruit, and cheeses, both sweet and savoury, and wine of various vintages, looking magnificent in tall, long-stemmed glasses.

  But Jaime had no stomach to appreciate any of it. She didn’t like the undercurrents here. She didn’t care for the way Nicola treated the servants, or understand her mood that alternated between a touching gentleness and a brittle impatience. One moment she seemed subdued and appealing, arousing Jaime’s compassion when she spoke of the loneliness she suffered here, miles from her friends and family. She scarcely understood the language, she said, and although most of the servants could speak English, they lapsed into their own tongue whenever she came near.

  Yet, to counter this impression of devoted womanhood, was Nicola’s attitude when Jaime suggested she should talk to Rafaello, explain the situation and try to make him see the problems she was experiencing. Then Nicola became quite agitated, dismissing Jaime’s words with an hysterical outburst, declaring that Rafaello wouldn’t talk to her, that he didn’t understand her, and that there were times when she wished she was dead.

  Lying in bed now, Jaime felt the faintest trace of a headache stirring just behind her temples. It was probably the amount of wine she had drunk the night before, she decided, refusing to admit the possibility that her unease about her visit here could be responsible. After all, Nicola was not in any immediate danger. She was disturbed, certainly, but given time they might be able to work something out. It was not her problem. She had come here at Nicola’s request and she would leave as soon as she had convinced her that this was something she had to handle herself. She was not a psychiatrist, she was not even a marriage guidan
ce counsellor, and Nicola had to be made to see that Rafaello was the obvious person to turn to.

  Sliding out of bed, Jaime padded barefoot across the carpeted floor and peered weakly through the blinds. It was another sunlit morning, and when she pushed the window open she could smell the fragrance of newly-cut grass. It was still early, barely eight o’clock, but the sound of horse’s hooves from the yard below drew her attention from the shining curve of the river and its banks starred with daisies. Rafaello and another man were leading two horses out of the courtyard and on to the hillside beyond, and Jaime drew back out of sight, afraid that he might think she was spying on him.

  He had not returned when Nicola showed her to her room the night before, and although the other girl would have lingered, Jaime begged to be excused. She was confused and she was tired, and she wanted desperately to be alone to think about everything that had happened. Nicola had eventually left her with the somewhat disturbing injunction that they would have plenty of time to talk today.

  Yet now here was Rafaello, the cause of her friend’s unhappiness, if Nicola was to be believed, embarking on an early morning outing with every sign of pleasured anticipation at the prospect. This morning, too, he looked more relaxed than he had done last evening. Gone were the expensive jacket and well-cut trousers he had worn the day before. In their place, tight-fitting jeans clung to his thighs, pushed into knee-length leather boots; and instead of the fine silk shirt Jaime remembered, a rough cotton jerkin was stretched across his chest. It exposed the upper part of his chest, exposed the brown skin, the muscles taut beneath, and Jaime knew a sudden dizziness at the remembrance of how smooth his skin had felt against hers. ‘Skin on skin,’ he had said, pulling her down on top of him in his suite at the hotel in London, and the afternoon had slid away as so many afternoons had done …

  Jaime turned back from the window abruptly, pushing back the tumbled weight of her hair with an unsteady hand. This would not do, she told herself fiercely. She had not come here to re-live old memories. She had come because Nicola had begged her to do so, and the sooner she set about achieving her objective the better.

  Ignoring the sounds from beyond the windows, she pushed her feet into fluffy mules and went into the bathroom. Like her room, which had only the minimum of furnishings, the bathroom, too, was of spartan design. A huge white bath with clawed feet, a matching basin, and a lavatory set up on a kind of dais completed its fitments, along with a noisy water-tank, that protested every time she turned on the taps. She had taken a bath the night before, so now she contented herself with a rather lukewarm wash before returning to the bedroom.

  Giulio, whoever that might be, had delivered her suitcase the night before, and it had been there waiting for her when Nicola showed her to her apartments. As she rummaged through the case now, grateful that modern clothes required little attention, Jaime wondered if she would be able to find her way downstairs again. Nicola had made no apology for the distance she had had to walk, but judging by her situation in relation to the courtyard below, she should be able to find her way down.

  Deciding to follow Rafaello’s example, Jaime put on a pair of white denim slacks and a lime-green cotton shirt, with elbow-length sleeves that ended in a cuff. Ignoring the chiding voice inside her that scorned her decision to put on flat sandals instead of her usual four-inch heels, she brushed her hair and leaving it loose, tied a narrow scarf, bandanna-fashion, around her forehead.

  Within the walls of the castle, there seemed to be few sounds, or perhaps that was because she was nowhere near its other occupants, Jaime reflected ruefully, descending the winding stairway to the first floor. She seemed to have been accommodated in one of the turrets of the castle, and she refused to panic when she reached a fork in the passageway and realised she had no idea which direction to take.

  A narrow window gave her her bearings, and choosing the left of the two passageways, she crossed her fingers and followed it. She was unutterably relieved when it finally emerged into the gallery at the top of the main staircase, and trailing her fingers along the cool marble balustrade, she descended to the hall below.

  She could hear someone singing now, in one of the apartments off to her right, and as she reached the bottom of the stairs, a girl appeared, carrying an armful of fresh linen.

  ‘Buon giorno, signorina.’

  The girl addressed her politely, and would have passed her to go up the stairs, but Jaime put her hand out to detain her. ‘Er—buon giorno,’ she echoed, hoping the girl would not imagine she was familiar with her language. ‘I wonder—am I too early for breakfast?’

  ‘Breakfast, signorina?’ The girl’s dark brows ascended. ‘Ah—no, signorina. La signora, she is not having breakfast.’

  ‘Oh?’ Jaime looked as perplexed as she felt, and she turned with some relief, when another voice interrupted them. ‘She means the signora does not eat breakfast, signorina,’ the young man who had appeared from behind the stairs said easily. ‘Signora di Vaggio has forgotten the English habit of bacon and eggs.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Jaime uttered a relieved laugh. ‘I don’t eat bacon and eggs either.’ She was very conscious of his dark eyes appraising her as she spoke, and she had to acknowledge he was a handsome creature. ‘I just wondered if I could get some coffee, that’s all. If it’s no trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ he assured her, returning her smile with admiring eyes. ‘Se ne vada, Lucia. Lasci fare a me.’

  ‘Si, signore. Signorina.’

  The girl bobbed and hurried on up the stairs, but Jaime was aware that she glanced back from time to time. Evidently, whoever he was, her companion had some authority over the servants, but the girl’s attitude towards him had not been one of diffidence.

  As if reading her thoughts, the man spoke again: ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ he said. ‘My name is Lorenzo Costa. I am the—chauffeur—to the Conte.’

  His chauffeur! Jaime’s tongue came to circle her lips in a thoughtful motion. Did that account for his familiarity; for the feeling she had that Lorenzo Costa had a high opinion of his talents?

  ‘Well, I’m very grateful to you, Signor Costa,’ she murmured, with a bow of her head. ‘I’m afraid my Italian is limited to phrases like: sono inglese, and non capisco, and come stá!’

  ‘Your accent is very good,’ he applauded her smilingly. ‘What a pity you do not speak our language fluently. There are other phrases I would like to hear from your lips.’

  Jaime laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Probably, it wouldn’t be considered very proper to fraternise with the staff, but it was such a relief to speak to someone who presented no threat to her hard-won independence.

  ‘Have you worked here long, Signor Costa?’ she asked, noticing how white his shirt was against his dark skin. He was wearing black trousers and a black wasitcoat, and she could imagine that in his uniform he would offer quite a challenge to the female members of the staff.

  ‘The Conte employed me two years ago, signorina,’ he responded, lifting his broad shoulders. Though he was not so tall as Rafaello, he was more sturdily built, and the muscles in his arms rippled as he moved. ‘And my name is Lorenzo,’ he added dryly.

  ‘Lorenzo.’ Jaime repeated his name. ‘I see.’ She smiled. ‘Well, Lorenzo, do you think it would be possible for me to have a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Ma certo, signorina,’ he declared, giving her a mocking little bow, and pointing her towards the dining room, he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  To her surprise, he brought her breakfast himself, appearing perhaps ten minutes later with a tray containing a pot of coffee, with cream and sugar, a dish of croissants, a jar of strawberry conserve, and curls of yellow butter.

  Jaime, who had been leaning on the stone window ledge, looking down over the rooftops of Vaggio su Ravino several hundred feet below, turned in surprise at his entrance. ‘Maria is busy,’ he said carelessly, setting the tray down on the polished table. ‘Vene. The croissants have just come out of the
oven.’

  Jaime shook her head. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mio piacere,’ he assured her easily, and at her look of incomprehension, he added: ‘My pleasure.’

  Jaime took her seat at the table and looked up at him helplessly. ‘I wish you would join me.’

  ‘Regrettably, that is not possible,’ he averred, with a smile. ‘But, after you have eaten, I would be happy to show you a little more of the castle, if you wish.’

  Jaime hesitated. ‘Signora di Vaggio—–’

  ‘Signora di Vaggio does not usually rise much before noon, signorina,’ Lorenzo assured her confidently. ‘I will return in fifteen minutes. You can let me know your decision then.’

  The coffee was strong, and Jaime took it black with two spoonfuls of sugar. The croissants were, as Lorenzo had said, hot from the oven, and although she had not thought she was hungry, Jaime found the creamy yellow butter and real strawberries irresistible. By the time Lorenzo returned, she had eaten three of them, and his smile was knowing as she wiped her mouth on the napkin.

  ‘You are ready?’ he asked, as she pushed back her chair and Jaime nodded.

  ‘If you’re sure that Nico—I mean, Signora di Vaggio is not an early riser.’

  ‘You will find out,’ remarked Lorenzo, stepping back to allow her to precede him out the door. ‘Come, this way. I will show you the gardens.’

  They went out the door through which Jaime had entered the night before. In daylight, with the sun glinting on its rough stonework and sparkling like diamonds on its jewelled panes, the castle had an entirely different aspect from the one she had imagined the night before. Or perhaps it was that the atmosphere today was not tainted by the row that had erupted between Rafaello and his wife, and Jaime could look about her with interest and not apprehension.