Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper. India Grey

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СКАЧАТЬ made an effort to keep her own tone casual, as if water cascading through the ceiling in the middle of the night was something tedious but perfectly normal. ‘The roof seems to be leaking. Come on. Let’s find you some dry pyjamas and go and see what’s happening.’

      Holding Lottie’s hand, Sarah felt her way out onto the landing and felt her way gingerly along the wall in what she hoped she was remembering correctly as the direction of the stairs.

      ‘Please can we switch the light on?’ Lottie’s whisper had a distinct wobble. ‘It’s so dark. I don’t like it.’

      ‘The water must have made the lights go out. Don’t worry, darling, it’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m sure—’

      At that moment loud shrieks from the direction of Angelica’s room made it clear that she had just become aware of the crisis. Then the door burst open and there was a sudden and dramatic increase in the volume of her wailing. ‘Oh, God—wake up, everyone! There’s water pouring through the roof!’

      Lottie’s grip tightened on Sarah’s hand as she picked up on the hysteria in her aunt’s voice. ‘We know,’ said Sarah struggling to keep her irritation at bay. ‘Let’s just keep calm while we find out what’s going on.’

      But Angelica only did calm if it came expensively packaged in the context of a luxury spa. Fenella appeared beside her, ghostly in the gloom, and the two of them clung together, sobbing.

      ‘Darlings, what on earth has happened?’ As she joined them Martha’s drawl was faintly indignant. ‘I thought I’d fallen asleep in the bath by mistake. Everything’s soaking.’

      ‘Must be a problem with the roof,’ Sarah said wearily. ‘Mum, you look after Lottie. Angelica, where would I find a torch?’

      ‘How should I know?’ Angelica wailed. ‘That’s Hugh’s department, not mine. Oh, God, why isn’t he here? Or Daddy. They’d know what to do.’

      ‘I know what to do,’ said Sarah through gritted teeth as she made her way towards the stairs. Because that was what happened when you didn’t have a man around to do everything for you; you developed something called independence. ‘I’m going to find a torch and then I’m going to go out and see what’s wrong with the roof.’

      ‘Don’t be silly—you can’t possibly go climbing up onto the roof in this weather,’ snapped Angelica.

      ‘Darling, she’s right,’ said Martha. ‘It’s really not a good idea.’

      ‘Well, let me know the minute you have a better one,’ Sarah called back grimly. The dark house was filled with the ominous sound of trickling water and her feet splashed through puddles on the tiled floor of the kitchen as she searched for Hugh’s expensive and unused collection of tools.

      Amongst them was a small torch. Flicking it on, Sarah let its thin beam wander around the walls and felt her heart sink. Water was dripping from the ceiling and running down the walls in rivulets, just like the ones streaming down the window panes outside. The patio doors shed squares of opaque grey light over the wet floor. She opened them and stepped outside.

      It was like walking into the shower fully clothed. Or maybe not quite fully clothed, she thought, glancing down at Rupert’s striped shirt. Within seconds it was soaked and clinging to her, which at least meant that she couldn’t get any wetter. Shaking her hair back from her face, blinking against the teeming rain, she sucked in a breath and forced herself to walk further out into the downpour, holding the torch up and pointing it in the direction of the roof.

      The low pitch of the single-storey roof was easy to see, but the torch’s weak light showed up nothing that would explain the disaster unfolding inside.

      ‘Sarah—you’re soaked! Darling, come in.’ Her mother had appeared in the doorway, a raincoat over her elegant La Perla nightdress, an umbrella shielding her from the rain. ‘We’re way out of our depth here. Angelica and Fenella have taken Lottie with them to get help from the yummy man next door.’

      Sarah directed the torchlight higher to the spine of the roof, squinting against the rain. ‘But it’s the middle of the night. You can’t just appear on someone’s doorstep at this hour.’

      ‘Darling, we’re damsels very much in distress,’ Martha yelled above the noise of the rain, collapsing the umbrella as she retreated indoors. ‘This is an emergency. We can hardly wait until morning—we need to be rescued now.’

      ‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Sarah disgustedly under her breath, dragging over one of the patio chairs so she could stand on it. Clamping the torch between her teeth, she used the drainpipe to hoist herself onto the low roof.

      The tiles were rough beneath her bare knees, but they felt firm enough. Cautiously, shaking dripping hair from her eyes, she stood up, freeing her hands to hold the torch again. The roof sloped gently upwards to the main part of the house, and she carefully climbed higher, the dim beam of light wobbling erratically over the glistening terracotta tiles in front of her. They were uneven and bumpy but none seemed to be missing. Sarah directed the torch to the highest point, where the kitchen roof joined the wall. There seemed to be a gap…

      At that moment she heard voices below and the wet blackness was suddenly flooded with blinding white light. Sarah gave a gasp of shock and, lifting her hands to shield her eyes from the glare, she accidentally let the torch slip from her grasp. She heard it clattering down the roof as she struggled to keep her balance on the slippery tiles.

      ‘Bloody hell!’

      ‘Stay there. Don’t move.’

      The light was shining right up at her, making it impossible to see anything beyond the silver streams of rain in its dazzling arc. Staggering backwards, she squinted into its beam, instinctively trying to see the owner of the deep, gravelly Italian voice while simultaneously peeling the soaking shirt from her wet thighs and bending her knees in an attempt to make it cover as much of her as possible.

      ‘I said, keep still. Unless, of course, you want to kill yourself.’

      ‘Right now I’m tempted,’ Sarah muttered grimly, ‘given that

      I’m half-naked and you’re shining a spotlight on me. Could you possibly just turn that light off?’

      ‘And if I do that, how are you going to see to get down from there?’ He didn’t have to raise his voice above the noise of the rain. It was rich and deep enough to need no projection.

      ‘I was managing all right until you came.’

      ‘Meaning you hadn’t broken your neck yet. What the hell did you think you were doing, going up there in this weather?’

      Sarah gave a snort of exasperation. ‘God, you sound just like my mother. Can I just point out that I wouldn’t be up here in any other kind of weather, since I’m trying to find out where the water’s coming in. Up there I think I can see a—’

      ‘On second thoughts, I don’t really want to know,’ he interrupted, and Sarah clearly heard the exasperation in his tone. ‘I just want you to come very slowly towards the edge of the roof.’

      ‘Are you mad?’ She pushed dripping tendrils of hair back from her wet face. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I know СКАЧАТЬ