At the Count's Bidding(54)
There was no answer to that. Not one that came without a good dose of pain in its wake.
“I’m here now,” Paige said stoutly, trying to focus on the woman who had always been good to her, without all these complications and regrets. Not that she’d give you the time of day if she knew who you really were, that rough voice that was so much like her mother’s snarled at her.
“Then I have two questions for you,” Violet replied, snapping Paige back to the present. “Can you operate a manual transmission?”
That hadn’t been what Paige was expecting, but that was Violet. Paige rolled with it. “I can.”
It was, in fact, one of the few things she could say her mother had taught her. Even if it had been mostly so that Paige could drive the beat-up car she owned to pick her up, drunk and belligerent, from the rough bars down near the railroad tracks.
“And do you want to drive me to Lucca?” Violet smiled serenely when Giancarlo made an irritated sort of noise from the fireplace across the room and kept her eyes trained on Paige. “If memory serves, it has wonderful shopping. And I’m in the mood for an adventure.”
“An adventure with attention or without?” Paige asked without missing a beat, though she was well aware it had been a long time since Violet had gone out on one of her excursions into the public without expecting attention from the people who would see her out and about.
“Without,” Giancarlo snapped, from much closer by, and Paige had to control a little jump. She hadn’t heard him move.
“With, of course,” Violet said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “No one has fawned over me in a whole week, and I require attention the way plants require sunlight, you know. It’s how I maintain my youthful facade.”
She said it as if she was joking, but in that way of hers that didn’t actually allow for any argument. Not that it was Paige’s place to argue. Her son, however, was a different story.
“You’re one of the most famous women in the world,” Giancarlo pointed out, and the dark thing Paige heard in his voice was a different animal than the one he used when he spoke to her. More exasperated, perhaps. Or more formal. “It’s not safe for you to simply wander the streets alone.”
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Paige,” Violet replied.
“And what, pray, will Paige do should you find yourself surrounded? Mobbed?” Giancarlo rolled his eyes. “Hold the crowd off with a smart remark or two?”
“I wouldn’t underestimate the power of a smart remark,” Paige retorted, glaring at him—but his gaze was on his mother.
“That was a long time ago,” Violet said softly. With a wealth of compassion that made Paige stiffen in surprise and Giancarlo jerk back as if she’d slapped him. “I was a very foolish young woman. I underestimated the kind of interest there would be—not only in me, but in you. Your father was livid.” She studied her son for a moment and then rose to her feet, smiling faintly at Paige. “We were in the south of France and I thought it would be a marvelous idea to go out and poke around the shops by myself. Giancarlo was four. And when the crowds surrounded us, he was terrified.”
“The police were called,” he said, furiously, Paige thought, though his voice was cold. “You had to be rescued by armed officials and you never went out without security again—and neither did I. I hope you haven’t spent your life telling this story as if I was an overimaginative child who caused a fuss. It wasn’t a monster in my closet. It was a pack of shouting cameramen and a mob of fans.”