Tall, Dark and Italian: In the Italian's Bed / The Sicilian's Bought Bride / The Moretti Marriage

Silvio shrugged. ‘What do you say? So-so? Si, it has been a so-so day. How about you?’

Tess felt an almost irresistible urge to laugh, but she doubted Silvio would appreciate her hysterics. She couldn’t involve him in her problems. Ashley wouldn’t like it and Castelli definitely wouldn’t approve.

‘It’s been—interesting,’ she said, moving to drop the blinds on the windows. ‘But I’m not sorry it’s over.’ And that was the truth.

‘I saw Raphael di Castelli come into the gallery earlier,’ Silvio ventured, his brows raised in inquiry, and Tess wondered if she was being absurdly suspicious in thinking that that was the real reason he had come. ‘He is quite a well-known person in San Michele. In the season, many people work at the villa. Picking the grapes, capisce?’

Tess stared at him. ‘You know him?’ she asked, absorbing the fact that his name was Raphael di Castelli. She moistened her lips. ‘Does he have a large vineyard, then?’

‘I think so.’ Silvio was regarding her curiously now. ‘And, no, I do not know him. Well, not personally, you understand?’

Tess hesitated. Ashley’s interest in Marco was beginning to make sense. ‘And Ashley?’ she asked, trying to sound casual. ‘I believe she knows his son?’

‘Ah, Marco.’ Silvio nodded. ‘Si. Marco is—how do you say?—the artist, no?’

‘Marco’s a painter?’

‘He would like to be.’ Silvio spread a hand towards the paintings lining the walls of the gallery. ‘He would like the exhibition, I think.’

Tess caught her breath. Castelli hadn’t mentioned that his son wanted to be a painter. But perhaps it explained how Ashley had come to know Marco, however.

Now she looked around. ‘Are any of these his paintings?’ she asked cautiously and Silvio laughed.

‘A mala pena.’ Hardly. ‘But he is ambitious, no?’

‘I see.’ Tess nodded. ‘Does his father approve?’

‘I think not,’ said Silvio, sobering. ‘Di Castellis do not waste their time with such pursuits. Besides, Marco is still at school’

‘Ah.’ Tess thought that explained a lot. ‘Well, thank you for your insight. It was certainly—um—interesting.’

‘And Marco’s father?’ prompted Silvio. ‘You didn’t say what he wanted.’

‘Oh.’ Tess had no intention of discussing the reasons for Castelli’s visit with him. ‘He—er—he was looking for Ashley.’ She crossed her fingers. ‘He didn’t say why.’

‘Mmm.’

Silvio didn’t sound convinced, but Tess decided she had said enough. ‘Now, I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I want to go to the supermarket before I go home.’

‘Or you could have dinner with me,’ Silvio suggested at once. ‘There is a favourite trattoria of mine just a short way from here.’

‘Oh, I don’t think—’

‘You are not going to turn me down?’

Silvio pulled a petulant face, but Tess had had enough. ‘I am sure there are plenty of women only too eager to dine with you, Silvio,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s been a long day and I’m tired. I wouldn’t be very good company tonight.’

‘But Ashley, she said you would be glad to go out with me,’ he protested. ‘She tell me you are not—attached, no?’

‘Did she?’ Tess wondered what else Ashley had told these people about her. ‘Well, she was wrong, Silvio. I do have a boyfriend.’ Boyfriends, anyway, she justified herself. There was no need to tell him there was no special man in her life.

Silvio shrugged. ‘But he is not here,’ he pointed out blandly, and she sighed.

‘Even so…’

‘Another evening, perhaps,’ he declared, evidently undeterred by her answer. Then to her relief he walked towards the door. ‘A domani, cara. Arrivederci.’

‘Arrivederci,’ she answered. ‘Goodnight.’

Tess waited only until he’d stepped out of the gallery before shutting and locking the door behind him. Then, leaning back against it, she blew out a relieved breath. What a day, she thought. First Castelli, and then Silvio. She would be glad to get back to the apartment. At least there she could be reasonably sure she wouldn’t be disturbed. Unless Ashley had some other secret she hadn’t bothered to share with her sister, that was.

She slept badly, having only picked at the salad she’d prepared for herself. She kept thinking she could hear a phone ringing, but it was only the wind chimes hanging on the balcony outside the bedroom window.

In the event, she dropped into a fitful slumber just before dawn and when she woke again it was daylight and the sun was filtering through the blinds.

After putting on a pot of coffee, she went and took a shower in the tiny bathroom. The water was never hot, but for once she appreciated its lukewarm spray. She even turned the tap to cold before stepping out and wrapping herself in one of the skimpy towels Ashley had provided.

After pouring herself a delicious mug of black coffee, she stepped out onto the tiny balcony. The world looked a little less hostile this morning, she thought. But that was ridiculous, really. It was people who were hostile, not the world in general. And if anyone was to blame for her present situation, it was Ashley.

Her sister’s apartment was on the top floor of a villa in the Via San Giovanni. The road was one of several that climbed the hill above the harbour, and, although the building was rather unprepossessing on the outside, at least its halls and stairways were clean and didn’t smell of the onions and garlic that so many old buildings did.

Ashley’s apartment was fairly spartan, but it was comfortable enough. She had added rugs and throws and pretty curtains at the narrow windows, and Tess had been pleasantly surprised to find it had a separate bedroom and bathroon as well as a living-room-cum-kitchen with modern appliances.

Now as she leaned on the balcony rail she amended the feelings of betrayal she had had the night before. Okay, Ashley had lied to her—had lied to all of them—but from Tess’s point of view nothing had really changed. She was still filling in at the gallery and she had only herself to blame if she didn’t enjoy the novelty of a break in such beautiful surroundings.

But it was hard not to wonder what Ashley was doing. Getting involved with a teenager seemed crazy, even by her sister’s standards. Yet Ashley had always been a law unto herself. Tess could remember her father grumbling about his younger daughter’s antics on one of his infrequent visits to Derbyshire to see her. He and his new family had still lived in London, but Tess had moved away when she’d become a teacher. It had been easier not to have to make excuses for not visiting her family as often as her father would have liked.

Realising her mug was empty now and that she was just wasting time, Tess turned back into the bedroom. Shedding the towel onto the rail in the bathroom, she walked naked into the bedroom again to find something suitable to wear.

Ignoring the suspicion that Raphael di Castelli’s visit the previous day was influencing her, she chose a cream chemise dress that was spotted with sprigs of lavender. It was long, as her skirt had been, but she chose canvas loafers instead of the boots she’d worn the day before.

Her hair had dried in the sunshine and she surveyed its wisps and curls with a resigned eye. Some women might appreciate its youthful ingenuousness, but she didn’t. She should have left it long, she thought gloomily. At least then she could have swept it up on top of her head.

Shrugging off these thoughts, she rinsed her coffee mug, left it on the drainer, and exited the apartment. Three flights of stone stairs led down to the ground floor and she emerged into the warm air with a growing feeling of well-being. She wasn’t going to let Ashley—or Castelli—spoil her holiday, she decided. She had a good mind to shut the gallery early and spend the latter half of the afternoon on the beach.

Ashley’s little Renault was parked a few metres down from the apartment building and it took some patience to extricate it from between a badly parked Fiat and a bulky van. It didn’t help that she had to keep control of the vehicle by using the handbrake, the steep slope of the road making any kind of manoeuvre an act of faith.

She managed to regain her composure driving down to the gallery. Tumbling blossoms on sun-baked walls, red-and ochre-tiled roofs dropping away towards the waterfront, buildings that seemed to be crammed so closely together, there didn’t seem to be room for anything between. But there were gardens lush with greenery, fruit trees espaliered against crumbling brickwork. And the sensual fragrance of lilies and roses and jasmine, mingling with the aromas from the bakery on the corner.

The phone was ringing when she let herself into the gallery. Ashley, she thought eagerly, hurriedly turning off the alarm as she went to answer it. ‘Hello?’

‘Teresa?’ Her spirits dropped. She should have known. It was Ashley’s mother again. ‘Teresa, where have you been? I’ve been trying the apartment but you weren’t there.’

‘I expect I was on my way down here,’ said Tess, adopting a pleasant tone even though she felt like screaming. Then, with sudden optimism, ‘Have you heard from Ashley?’

‘No.’ The clipped word conveyed it all, both distress and impatience. ‘Have you?’

‘If I had I’d have let you know,’ said Tess flatly, and heard Andrea inhale a sharp breath.