The Italian Matchmaker(22)

Rosa sashayed out on to the terrace, swinging her hips, her bottom protruding to accentuate the pretty curve of her back. Her red dress was tight and low cut, her glossy brown hair fell over her shoulders in dark waves. She had her mother’s pale eyes and black lashes, the same petulant bow to her lips but her father’s strong chin and wide, angular face. She knew she was beautiful. Most of the fights she provoked with her husband, Eugenio, were due to her flirtatiousness: Eugenio was so handsome when angry and life would be dull without the fire of their battles and the sweetness of their making up.

Luca raised his eyes and Rosa’s heart skipped a beat. He was devilishly handsome. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said brightly. Her flawless English threw them both.

‘My goodness,’ exclaimed Caradoc. ‘A Latin beauty who speaks English like the Queen.’

‘I’m so pleased you think so. My mother’s English, my father Italian.’

‘Well, that accounts for it,’ said the professor. ‘What did I tell you, Luca? The girls are easy on the eye, are they not?’

‘My friend here tells me you serve a good coffee.’

‘He isn’t your father?’ said Rosa . . .

‘We’re brothers,’ quipped Caradoc. ‘Can you not see the resemblance?’

Rosa giggled. ‘Of course. Silly me! Two coffees then, brothers?’

‘Make it strong, with hot milk on the side,’ said Luca. ‘Piping hot milk.’

‘You didn’t bring your wife?’ she asked innocently.

‘I don’t have one.’ He was used to women like her, but she didn’t look a day older than twenty-five.

‘What a shame,’ she replied with a sympathetic smile. ‘Tell me, you’re from the palazzo, aren’t you?’

The professor nodded. ‘The ghosts haven’t scared us off yet.’

‘Oh, that rubbish!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Let me get your coffees. Then I’ll tell you all you want to know about that place. My grandmother was Valentina, you know.’ She watched the younger man’s eyes light up with interest.

Alba emerged from the kitchen. ‘So, who are they?’

‘The younger man is called Luca. They’re not father and son. Luca called him “my friend”.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘He’s not married.’

‘Divorced,’ observed Alba.

‘How do you know?’

‘Just a hunch. He’s got the look of a man who’s been dragged through the law courts by an avaricious woman.’

‘He’s gorgeous!’ breathed Rosa as she placed two cups beneath the espresso machine. ‘I could make him happy.’

‘You watch out,’ cautioned Alba. ‘You’ll only upset Eugenio and I don’t think I can take much more of your bickering.’

‘We’ll move out if you wish,’ Rosa said sulkily.

‘Don’t be silly. And leave me with Cosima?’

‘She looks like a witch dressed in black all the time.’

‘She’s in mourning. It’s her choice and her right.’

‘Well, it’s very dull for those who have to live with her. You know, my children call her la strega behind her back.’

‘If they call her witch, darling, it’s only because they’ve been listening to you. Have some compassion.’

‘It’s wearing thin. As you said yourself, it’s been three years.’

‘That kind of loss stays with you for ever,’ Alba said fiercely. ‘By God’s grace it won’t happen to you. Now take them their coffee – you’re here to serve, not to flirt.’

‘I wonder who I take after?’

‘Don’t be cheeky.’

‘Papà said you took some taming.’

‘Rubbish, I was his from the moment I saw him on the quay.’ Alba watched her daughter walk provocatively across the terrace. She saw the young man’s eyes linger a moment on her cleavage before returning to her face. Alba shook her head resignedly. He was very good-looking. She was reminded of Fitzroy Davenport, the man she had nearly married – might have married had he had the courage to follow her. She recalled their adventure at the palazzo, sneaking into the ruins in search of the mysteries surrounding her mother’s death. What fun they had had searching for clues in the damp rooms overrun with ivy and mildew. Then they had met the emaciated Nero, smelling of alcohol and decay, rotting in the palazzo the Marchese had left him. Why had Nero finally chosen to sell the place? She was angry that he had. It should have been left a ruin. Nature would have devoured it in the end, swallowing the past and the darkness that shrouded her mother’s secret visits there, when she had let the Marchese make love to her in the folly. The thought of strangers building over the past without a care and erasing the history with paint and wallpaper was an insult to her mother’s memory. Nero should have allowed it to crumble, leaving it to the spirit of the Marchese who most certainly walked those corridors in a hellish limbo of his own wickedness.