The Sicilian Doctor's Proposal. Sarah Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ Sunday morning Rosemary went to church in the nearby village. She asked if Lucia would like to go with her but did not appear to mind when she declined. Although it was unlikely that anyone attending morning service in the small parish church would recognise her from newspaper pictures published months ago, Lucia wasn’t ready to face the world yet. The family lunch party was enough of an ordeal for one day.

      Since her arrival she had washed and ironed the jeans, shirt and sweater she had worn to come here. Today she was wearing her own things in preference to those that Rosemary kindly lent her. Her other clothes, like the rest of her possessions, were in storage. Not that she had a lot of stuff. Only clothes and books and her painting things.

      Mrs Calderwood had not returned from church and Lucia was in the dining room, making herself useful by laying the table according to Mrs Bradley’s directions, when she saw a car in the drive. As it drew up in front of the house, she recognised it as a Jaguar, the make her father would have liked to own had he had enough money. The driver was Grey.

      He got out but instead of turning towards the house, he stood facing the garden, stretching his arms and then flexing his broad shoulders. Today he was casually dressed in chinos and a blue shirt with the sleeves folded to mid-forearm.

      Before he could turn and catch her watching him, she withdrew to the inner end of the room where he wouldn’t see her.

      Instead of heading for the front door, he went round the side of the house and a short time later she heard him speaking to the housekeeper on the other side of the door that led to the kitchen. It was a thick door and she couldn’t hear their conversation, only the two voices, one deeper and more resonant than the other.

      Then the connecting door opened and he walked into the dining room, making her spine prickle with apprehension.

      Mustering her self-possession, she said politely, ‘Good morning.’

      ‘Good morning. When you’ve finished in here, I’d like to talk to you. Braddy’s making me some coffee. I’ll be on the terrace.’

      Taking her compliance for granted, he withdrew.

      Wondering what she was going to hear, Lucia completed her task. She had chosen and arranged the flowers in containers from a large selection on the shelves of what had once been a scullery.

      ‘Small, low arrangements please, Lucia,’ Mrs Calderwood had said, before leaving for church. ‘We want to be able to see each other.’

      From a variety of possibilities, Lucia had chosen hem-stitched linen place mats in a colour to tone with the flowers. Beneath them were heat-proof pads and, on three sides, mellow Georgian silver knives, forks and spoons. The side plates were antique Spode bone china, the large folded napkins linen in a colour to tone with the mats. The fine sheen of the table’s surface reflected everything on it in a way that made her long to paint it.

      Grey was standing up, drinking coffee from a yellow mug, when she joined him.

      ‘Have you had coffee?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, thank you…earlier.’

      He gestured for her to sit down then seated himself in a chair at right angles to hers.

      ‘Where would you have gone if my mother hadn’t intervened? Presumably they don’t release you without checking that you have somewhere to go or money for food and lodging?’

      ‘I was planning to collect one of my suitcases and find a bed-and-breakfast place. The flat I was living in before was only rented.’

      ‘Where is your suitcase?’

      ‘There are two, but I would only have needed the one with my clothes and hair dryer and so on. I packed them and put them in storage while I was out on bail, between being arrested and sentenced. My lawyer expected a suspended sentence but I thought it was best to prepare for the worst.’

      ‘What does “in storage” mean?’

      ‘They’re in a furniture repository near where I used to live.’

      He raised a dark eyebrow. ‘Why not with friends or relations?’

      ‘I don’t have any close relations. Both my parents were only children. Two cases aren’t the sort of thing you dump on people unless they have a lot more room than any of the people I knew did. Your living quarters are probably much more spacious than most people’s, but would you want to be encumbered by someone else’s suitcases?’

      He thought about that for a moment. ‘It would depend on the strength of the friendship.’

      ‘My two closest friends weren’t around. One of them works in New York and the other is married to an Italian. They live in Milan.’

      ‘So you’re on your own?’

      ‘Yes, but that’s no big deal. Most people are on their own these days, Mr Calderwood. Large, close families like yours aren’t the norm any more. It’s mostly a “singles” world now.’

      ‘I know and I wish it weren’t,’ he said frowning. ‘The way things are going isn’t good for anyone. It’s not good for society as a whole and it plays hell with children’s lives. But it’s not my sex that’s to blame for the breakdown of family life. That’s down to your sex. It may still be a man’s world—just—but the direction it’s taking is a consequence of women’s initiatives.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      Before he could answer, the sound of the front bell could be heard through the open door that led from the terrace to the hall.

      ‘That’ll be my sister and her husband.’ He rose to go and let them in.

      Wondering if Rosemary had told them her history, Lucia picked up his empty mug and took it to the kitchen. She would have liked to know what Grey would have replied if they hadn’t been interrupted, but it was unlikely he would resume the topic in the presence of the others and it wasn’t likely she would be alone with him again today.

      She had rinsed out the mug and was drying it when Mrs Calderwood came through the dining room door. ‘I’m back. How are things going, Braddy?’

      ‘Everything’s under control.’

      ‘Good: I’ll get you your drink, introduce Lucia, and come back and make my special dressing for the starter.’ Beckoning Lucia to accompany her, Rosemary headed for the door leading to the rear of the hall.

      As she had put on a dress to go to church, Lucia had worried that her jeans might be too informal for today’s lunch. To her relief, her benefactor’s daughter was also wearing jeans, though her top was recognisably one of a famous designer’s expensively beautiful knits and Lucia’s was a schoolboy-sized shirt she had found on the men’s rail in a charity shop.

      Before Rosemary could introduce them, her daughter jumped up, put out her hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jenny…and you’re Mum’s unlikely-looking jailbird. Nice to meet you. This is my husband Tom.’

      A thickset man with a receding hairline and kind blue eyes offered his hand. ‘Hello, Lucia. I’m an architect…married to a woman who prides herself on her outspokenness which is why some people cross the road when they see us coming. The first time СКАЧАТЬ