The Medici Lover. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ her hands across her white apron. ‘It is no trouble, signorina. And Pietro, he tells me you will be very tired.’

      Suzanne examined the contents of the tray, the silver coffee service, the jug of freshly-squeezed orange juice, the chafing-dish containing hot croissants, and curls of butter in an ice-chilled bowl. Lying beside her plate was a single rose, an exquisite bloom, magnolia white, but veined with a delicate thread of palest pink.

      She lifted it carefully, cradling it between her palms, inhaling its perfume. It was as delicate as its colour, and hauntingly fragrant. It was charming of Pietro to think of such a thing, but she hoped he was not reading more into her acceptance of his invitation than was really there.

      ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Thank him for me, will you?’

      ‘The Conte sent you the rose, signorina,’ Lucia stated expressionlessly. ‘They are cultivated here—at the Villa Falcone.’

      Suzanne dropped the bloom as if its thorns had suddenly pierced her skin. Mazzaro di Falcone had no right to send her roses, and she felt angry with him for placing her in such an ambiguous position. Unless … Unless, he had seen her in those hours before dawn, and this was his way of letting her know it …

      ‘Well—thank you, Lucia,’ she said now, pouring herself some orange juice with a slightly unsteady hand. ‘And—and if you do see Pietro, will you tell him I shan’t be long?’

      Lucia moved towards the door. ‘Do not alarm yourself, signorina. Pietro has driven his mother to the village. The Mass will not be over for some time yet.’

      Of course. Suzanne felt a pang of regret. It was Good Friday. If she had not overslept, she could have gone with them.

      ‘Has—did the—I mean, where is the Signora Sophia?’ she asked, her fingers melting the frosting on her glass.

      Lucia made an eloquent movement of her shoulders. ‘The Contessa seldom rises before noon, piccola. Relax. This is a holiday for you, no?’ She smiled. ‘Until later, signorina,’ and the door clicked shut behind her.

      Suzanne finished the orange juice in her glass, and poured herself some of the strongly flavoured coffee. She drank it black with two spoons of sugar, and as she did so, she studied the rose again. It was certainly the most perfect specimen she had ever seen, just coming to fullness, its petals thick and velvety soft. But why had he sent it? she asked herself, chafing at the way her heart thumped when she thought of Mazzaro di Falcone.

      Thrusting the tray aside, she swung her legs out of bed and padded across to the long windows. She paused at the balcony doors, loath to emerge for fear of being seen in the filmy transparency of her nightgown. Had it been a dream, what she had seen last night? Had she really seen Mazzaro walking without sticks? Or had it all been wishful thinking on her part?

      In spite of the turmoil of her thoughts, nothing could spoil her delight in the view that confronted her. Stretching above the walls of the villa, the hillside was thick with larch and pine trees, a cloak of foliage reaching towards the snow-capped peaks beyond. Nearer at hand, she could see a waterfall cascading over an outcrop of rock to reappear as a stream further down the valley, and meadows bright with the yellow heads of dandelions.

      But it was the villa itself which really enchanted her, its stone walls honey-tinged in the sunlight. She could hear the fountain playing and longed to dip her fingers in its depths, its coolness like a trail of ice across her skin. She raised her shoulders in a gesture of supplication, encompassing the whole beauty of her surroundings. Then she turned determinedly back to the room.

      It was a relatively plain apartment, but as with the other rooms of the villa, the pattern of architecture was repeated. The bed was comparatively modern, although its head-board was intricately carved, and the silk sheets disguised a mattress which owed its comfort to modern technology. There were tall arched doors leading into an adjoining bathroom, which had to have been a new innovation, but the green-veined marble tiles blended into their surroundings.

      Suzanne took a shower in the sunken bath, deliberately cooling the water so that her skin tingled pleasurably and then she tackled the contents of her suitcases. The night before she had done little more than drape the crushable items over the back of a chair, and take out her nightgown and toiletries. Now she hung her clothes away in the capacious depths of a massively carved cabinet with a long oval mirror giving her back her reflection.

      It was difficult deciding what to wear. In the normal way, jeans and a shirt would have sufficed, but somehow the Villa Falcone demanded a less casual approach. Or was it just Signora Vitale? she wondered shrewdly. Certainly, the old lady had not approved of her slacks suit.

      With a frown, she buttoned a green shirt across her pointed breasts and stepped into a printed cotton skirt, that swung in pleats against bare slender legs. She refused to wear tights when it was so warm, and stepping into cork-soled sandals, she brushed vigorously at her straight hair. It swung in bleached strands about her shoulders, and as an added adornment, she looped a heavy gold medallion on its chain around her neck. She wore little make-up during the day. Just a light foundation to prevent her skin from shining, and mascara to add lustre to her already dark lashes.

      Before leaving the room, she approached the bed again and looked down at the rose still lying on the tray. She stretched out her hand towards it and then withdrew it again, quickly. Whatever game Mazzaro di Falcone was playing, she wanted no part of it, and the rose could be returned to its owner without her being involved. Even so, it troubled her that by his action, Mazzaro had disrupted the even composure she had always maintained, even in the face of Abdul Fezik’s pursuit, and made her more aware of him as a man than anyone else she had ever met. But it was ridiculous, she told herself severely, drawing in a jerky breath. She was making far too much of what to him had probably been nothing more than a mocking gesture to the romanticism of his race. If she hadn’t glimpsed him walking in the courtyard hours before she might not have thought anything about it.

      But she left the rose on the tray when she went downstairs.

      There was a curving marble staircase leading down into the main body of the hall, its ornate handrail an example of baroque ironwork. The night before, Suzanne had been able to see little of the beauty of this part of the villa, shrouded in darkness as it had been, but now she could see the domed ceiling overhead, and the round windows casting prisms of light in many colours over the mosaic tiling of the floor. The acoustics in the hall were such that she could even hear the sound of her cork-soled feet on the stair, and the rustle of her skirt against her legs.

      The magnificent doors at the front of the villa were closed at present, but she guessed that when the building was opened to the public, visitors would come in that way and get the full benefit from their first glimpse of that nave-like entrance.

      Tempted to linger and study the building in more detail, Suzanne walked determinedly across the hall and turned into the wing of the building occupied by the family. Perhaps later, she could ask Pietro if she might explore, but for the present she was a guest in the house and not a tourist.

      The doors to the small salon were closed, and she was hesitating about opening them, when she heard the sound of steel against marble and the dragging sound of feet being propelled with effort. She knew at once who it was, and her head jerked round nervously as Mazzaro di Falcone approached her along the gallery. This morning, the sombreness of his attire was relieved somewhat by a dark red shirt, but his pants were still uncompromisingly black.

      Seen in broad daylight, the scars on the right side of his face were a network of dry tissue, unhealthily white against the deeply tanned pigment of his skin. Suzanne’s eyes were СКАЧАТЬ