An Engagement of Convenience Read online

  Harriet relaxed a little. Dante had been in California when Rosa had blotted her youthful copybook.

  ‘Whatever you wish, Nonna,’ said Leo, and raised his grandmother’s hand to his lips with practiced grace. ‘But I think you should be resting tonight, in preparation for tomorrow’s celebrations.’

  ‘But then, you are not always right, Leonardo,’ she said gently.

  Leo Fortinari acknowledged the hit with a raised hand, said his goodbyes in a way which encompassed Harriet without actually addressing her individually, and departed with the faintest hint of swagger in his retreat.

  ‘Now,’ said Signora Fortinari with satisfaction. ‘Tell me everything about yourself, my child—’

  ‘First, please let me make my apologies,’ said Harriet swiftly, following Rosa’s instructions. She took a deep breath. ‘Nonna, I know this is long overdue, but I’m desperately sorry for what happened.’

  ‘And I should have been more understanding—and forgiving,’ said Vittoria sombrely, and took Harriet’s hand. ‘Let us talk of it no more. You are here now, and that is all that matters. Pride is a terrible thing, Rosa, and I am guilty of it. I should have mended the rift with your father, and not allowed Leo to influence me so much. He was always so adamant that seeing you again would reopen old wounds and endanger my health. But he was wrong. Life is too short for such foolishness.’

  Harriet nodded soberly, thinking of Rosa’s parents.

  ‘Who should know better than you, child?’ For a moment Vittoria Fortinari looked every moment of her age, and more, then she straightened and summoned a smile. ‘Now tell me, Rosa, have you brought a beautiful dress to wear tomorrow night?’

  Harriet confessed to bringing more than one. Rosa had provided her with two stunning creations with mouth-watering labels, each of them worn only once.

  After bringing the signora up to date on Rosa Mostyn’s current life and job, taking care to omit any reference to Pascal Tavernier in the process, Harriet reported on the precarious health of Allegra Mostyn.

  ‘Tony is driving everyone mad, Allegra included, because he’s in such a state,’ said Harriet.

  ‘It is a fortunate that men are not obliged to give birth,’ said Vittoria dryly. ‘Otherwise the human race would have died out long ago.’

  Harriet’s appreciative chuckle turned into a yawn, and the other woman patted her hand affectionately.

  ‘Silvia has taken up your luggage. Go up to your room and have a bath and a rest before dinner, my child. You look tired. I shall visit the kitchen, and interfere with all the preparations for tomorrow. Because of them dinner tonight will be just a simple cold meal.’

  ‘I’ll enjoy that,’ Harriet assured her, and accompanied the signora across the square hall. The shallow, worn stone stairs led up to a gallery which ran round three sides of the renaissance-style colonnade of arches in the hall below.

  ‘You are in your old room, cara,’ said Vittoria, and kissed Harriet’s cheek. ‘Sleep, if you can. We shall eat at eight.’

  Very much aware that the signora was watching with a fond smile, Harriet went upstairs slowly, praying she could find the right room. Following the diagram etched in her brain Harriet turned left at the head of the stairs, counted three doors along on the right, and sure enough, an open door revealed Rosa’s luggage standing at the foot of a carved wood bed in a room where everything, down to the last ornament, was just as Rosa had described it. Harriet closed the door behind her and leaned against it, letting out a sigh of heartfelt relief. So far so good. Two hurdles cleared. Only Dante and Mirella left. But Rosa had been certain there would be no trouble with Leo’s younger brother and sister. The most dangerous fly in the ointment, she’d warned, was Leo himself. Harriet cursed herself for failing to hide her dismay when his grandmother commanded him to dine with them. Leo had been amused by it, damn the man. Now that Signora Fortinari had accepted her without hesitation it was obvious that Rosa was right. Leo was the main danger.

  Rosa had strongly advised against being friendly with Leo Fortinari. Harriet was to be as cool and distant as she liked, because that was how Rosa would have behaved if she’d come herself. If only she had! thought Harriet wearily, and blessed the industrious Silvia when she found her clohes unpacked and put away. Feeling more criminal than ever she shut herself into the bathroom and used Rosa’s cellphone to call her mother, and after a swift report on initial success, promised to ring next day and asked Claire to pass on the news.

  Later, after a bath and a rest among the cool linen sheets of the bed, Harriet felt a lot better. Wrapped in a dressing gown she stood at the window for a while, able to enjoy the view to the full now there was no hostile male presence to spoil it for her. She had spent time in Siena during her language course, and had fallen in love with Italy the moment she arrived. The view from the Villa Castiglione rekindled the passion as she gazed at violet-shadowed hills rolling away into the fading light. The village in the foreground was far enough below to be a mere jumble of umber walls and cinnamon roofs clustering round a church and a slender tower where a bell began to peal as she watched. Harriet listened with delight, and relaxed at last as she breathed in the remembered scent of Tuscany.

  When starlit darkness eventually hid the view Harriet turned back into the room and switched on lamps, then threw open the doors of the carved armoire and eyed the selection of clothes Rosa had provided. The borrowed jeans she’d worn with a lightweight jacket for travelling were the kind of thing she wore herself, though with less famous labels. But for more formal wear Rosa had a liking for clothes totally foreign to anything Harriet owned. Once her hair was dry she smoothed on a dress knitted from cobwebfine topaz wool, with a long skirt which curved over the hips and clung at the knees in a way which suggested a mermaid’s tail. Thankful for an inch less than Rosa above and below the waist Harriet added the matching jacket to mitigate the second-skin effect a little, then made up her face with Rosa’s cosmetics, emphasizing her eyes as patiently instructed. She slid her feet into bronze pumps with tall, slender heels, then gave her reflection a mocking salute with a hand embellished with Rosa’s heavy, pearl-studded gold ring.

  When Harriet went downstairs she took a peep into a dining room laid ready for dinner, then crossed the hall to find Rosa’s grandmother enthroned on the ruby velvet sofa, with a tray of drinks beside her.

  ‘Rosa, how elegant!’ she exclaimed.

  Harriet bent to kiss the cheek held up for the caress. ‘So are you, Nonna.’

  ‘Come, pour yourself a glass of wine, and sit beside me while we wait. Tell me about Tony and his new wife. Do you like her?’

  Harriet told everything she’d learned about the unknown Tony and Allegra, and their excitement over their first baby, then broke off to nibble hungrily on a bread stick wound with prosciutto. But she chose sparkling water to drink. Having come this far without mishap it seemed best to avoid the tongue-loosening properties of Fortinari wine.

  ‘You are hungry, child. You should have asked Silvia for something to eat,’ scolded Vittoria.

  ‘I just wanted coffee when I arrived,’ said Harriet, taking another bread stick. ‘And I can never eat on the plane. I hate flying.’

  ‘Do you, dearest?’ Vittoria Fortinari looked surprised. ‘You used to love it when you were a child.’

  Oops, thought Harriet. Careful. ‘I’m not so keen these days—’ she halted abruptly as the other woman’s eyes filled with sudden tears.

  ‘Of course you are not, Rosa,’ said Vittoria huskily, and dabbed a handkerchief to her eyes. ‘Forgive me.’

  Harriet’s arms went out involuntarily, and Vittoria clasped her close. They stayed immobile for several seconds, both of them deeply contrite, for different reasons, for bringing up the subject of flying.

  ‘Good evening.’

  Harriet drew away swiftly from the scented, comforting embrace of Rosa’s grandmother to see Leonardo Fortinari approaching across the faded, beautiful carpet. Less formal, but equally impressive in a
n open-necked shirt under a linen jacket a shade or two paler than his perfectly cut fawn trousers, he gave Harriet a slow, all-encompassing look which travelled up to her eyes at last and stayed there.

  ‘I agree that Rosa looks beautiful this evening, but stop staring at her,’ said his grandmother severely. ‘You are late—and where is Dante?’

  Leo removed his gaze with visible effort, and turned to his grandmother. ‘Forgive me, Nonna. Dante makes his apologies,’ he said, stooping to kiss her. ‘He is detained in Arezzo, and will not be home until late. But he promised to be first here tomorrow night.’ He turned to Harriet. ‘Your rest has transformed you, Rosa.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she returned with composure.

  ‘But she is hungry,’ said Vittoria, and rang a small silver bell. ‘Let us go straight to the table.’

  Harriet made appreciative murmurs as she was served with pasta in savoury meat sauce for the first course of the meal Vittoria Fortinari had warned would be simple, due to the industry still raging in the kitchen as they dined.

  ‘It was always your favourite,’ she said affectionately, as Harriet made short work of her pasta.

  ‘With such appetite it is a wonder you stay so slender,’ observed Leo, watching her. ‘You were much rounder once.’

  ‘I work hard,’ said Harriet. So did Rosa, despite her money.

  ‘Is Tony so relentless in keeping you tied to the Hermitage?’ queried Leo, leaning nearer to fill her water glass.

  Aware that Vittoria Fortinari was awaiting her answer with deep interest Harriet met his black-lashed eyes serenely. ‘Not at all. I answer to no one but myself. Now. When my parents died I inherited a substantial sum of money, as I’m sure you know. I work in the family business because I want to, not because I’m forced to. And at the moment, while Tony is so anxious about Allegra, I divide myself between the Hermitage out in the country, and the Chesterton in Pennington, to give him more time with her.’

  Signora Fortinari nodded approvingly. ‘In his letter Tony told me he is very grateful for this.’

  Leo Fortinari shook his head in mocking admiration. ‘It is hard to believe that reckless little Rosa has changed into such a responsible adult.’

  His grandmother eyed him coldly. ‘It is time, Leonardo, that we put the past behind us, and enjoy the present What little I have left of it,’ she added, laying a dramatic hand on her heart.

  ‘Nonna, you will live to be a hundred,’ he assured her, but from then on his manner became noticeably less hostile to the prodigal granddaughter.

  Rosa’s teenage episode obviously rankles with him even now, thought Harriet, as the plates were removed. Leo, apparently taking his grandmother’s words to heart, helped both women to thin slices of spiced ham, and to the accompanying salad of cheese and ripe red tomato slices dressed with olive oil and basil. Harriet accepted his attentions politely, but listened with genuine interest as he talked of the latest Fortinari Chianti Classico.

  ‘Is that what we’re drinking?’ asked Harriet.

  Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘No, little savage. This is from the 1997 vintage—the best for fifty years. Nonna has opened it in honour of your return.’

  ‘Instead of the fatted calf?’ said Harriet, smiling, and willed Leo to change the subject. One of the many differences between herself and Rosa Mostyn, was her very un-Italian ignorance of wine.

  ‘A fondness for wine was never one of your failings, darling,’ said Vittoria, startling Harriet by her insight. ‘At least,’ she added, eyes twinkling, ‘not when you were seventeen.’

  Nor was it for Harriet now she was nine years older than that. Wine was an unaffordable luxury in the Foster household.

  ‘So, Rosa,’ said Leo, leaning back in his chair, ‘you are an important aid to the running of the Mostyn empire.’

  Harriet was getting tired, and finding it hard to concentrate. She spoke Italian fluently enough, but an entire evening of conversation in a foreign tongue, while simultaneously trying to maintain a faultless impersonation of Rosa, was beginning to tell. ‘Two hotels can hardly be called an empire,’ she pointed out.

  ‘True,’ he allowed. ‘But they are successful, and well known to foreign visitors for their luxury and comfort. Perhaps I shall come and stay at your Hermitage, and sample the Mostyn hospitality myself one day.’

  ‘By all means,’ said Harriet, secure in the knowledge that if he did the real Rosa Mostyn would have the pleasure of entertaining him. A thought which gave her a sudden, unaccountable pang she put down to indigestion.

  Signora Fortinari instructed Silvia to serve coffee in the salon. ‘Rosa has brought something beautiful to wear to my party,’ she informed Leo, as he helped her up from the table.

  ‘She could scarcely look more ravishing than she does tonight,’ he said, giving Harriet a smouldering look which clenched secret muscles in response under the clinging gossamer wool.

  ‘True,’ agreed his grandmother, ‘but tomorrow is a special occasion.’

  Harriet detached her gaze from Leo’s with effort. ‘And because of it, I’ve actually brought two dresses. Tomorrow Nonna can choose which one she prefers.’

  After the meal they went back to the salon to drink coffee under the painted cherubs on the exquisite, faded ceiling.

  ‘You always liked the putti,’ said Leo casually, following Harriet’s eyes. ‘You were fond of one in particular.’

  ‘The trumpeter blowing in his friend’s ear,’ agreed Harriet, blessing Rosa’s memory for detail.

  ‘You look tired, dearest,’ said Signora Fortinari lovingly. ‘Drink your coffee, then off you go to bed so that you will be fresh and sparkling for my celebration tomorrow.’

  ‘Signora?’ said Silvia from the door. ‘Could you come, please?’

  ‘Another crisis,’ said her mistress with a sigh as Leo helped her to her feet.

  ‘I will keep Rosa entertained until you return,’ he assured her.

  Harriet received the news with mixed feelings, hoping the problem in the kitchen would be resolved quickly, before Rosa’s formidable cousin tripped her up in some way.

  ‘Perhaps you would care to go out onto the loggia?’ he suggested. ‘Even the moon is obedient to Nonna’s wishes for a perfect birthday.’

  Welcoming the idea of concealing moonlight Harriet went out ahead of him and leaned her hands on the balustrade as she gazed at the panorama before her. The summits of the rolling hills were bathed in bright moonlight, but a thin veil of mist added an ethereal touch to the half-hidden village below.

  ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful it is,’ she said quietly. Which was true. Each time she’d returned to Northern Italy in her student days her reaction had been the same.

  ‘And I had forgotten how beautiful you are, Rosa,’ said Leo softly, his eyes on her profile. ‘You have changed so much it is hard to believe you once caused me—and not only me—so much trouble.’

  ‘I was very young, Leo. I’m not the same person I was then.’ Her mouth twisted wryly at the truth of it. ‘Surely it’s a good thing that I’ve changed?’

  ‘Very good,’ he said huskily, and moved closer. ‘So good that perhaps now is the time to kiss and be friends.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ROSA HAD BEEN RATHER VAGUE about the exact nature of the trouble with Leo Fortinari, but since it seemed likely kissing had come into it somewhere Harriet stepped back, determined to avoid stirring up any extra trouble on Rosa’s behalf. Or her own.

  ‘You disagree?’ said Leo. His voice dropped half an octave, causing turbulence Harriet’s clinging dress failed to disguise from him. His eyes dropped to the hurried movement of her breasts, and she turned away quickly, her hot hands grateful for the cold stone of the balustrade.

  ‘No games, please, Leo,’ she said acidly. ‘I’m not seventeen anymore.’

  ‘No, you are not,’ he whispered, moving close behind her.

  Harriet tried hard to control her breathing as she felt the heat of his body penetrate through her dress. She
tensed, feeling his breath on her neck as his hands appeared either side of hers on the balustrade, preventing her escape.

  ‘As Nonna said,’ he breathed against her hair, ‘it is time to forget—and forgive—the past. The present is so much more appealing, Rosa.’ She tensed as his arms slid round her from behind, his hands cupping her breasts, his mouth pressed to the hollow behind her ear.

  Harriet stood motionless, head bowed, her hands clenched on the balustrade as she controlled her mutinous senses, forcing them to ignore the fire his caressing hands and lips sent streaking through her body. Stay cool and distant, she told herself wildly, and by superhuman effort controlled every muscle and quivering nerve in her body, as she battled with the urge to twist round in Leo Fortinari’s arms and surrender her mouth to the lips now moving along her jaw.

  It seemed an eternity before Leo became convinced of the message she was sending him, but at last he moved away, breathing audibly, and leaned, arms folded, against one of the columns of the loggia. From the corner of her eye Harriet saw him staring down-at the view below, his profile hard and cold as marble in the moonlight.

  ‘When you were young you desired my caresses, Rosa,’ he said harshly.

  Harriet wanted them right now, a discovery which rendered her speechless.

  ‘You were a most persistent charmer in those days,’ he went on, as though they were discussing the weather. ‘You threatened to kill yourself if I spumed your rash little overtures.’

  ‘Emotional blackmail,’ said Harriet wearily. ‘Teenage hormones on the rampage. As you can see, I didn’t carry out my threat.’

  ‘For which,’ he said smoothly, turning a dark, discerning eye on her, ‘we are all grateful, Rosa.’

  ‘Are you?’

  Leo smiled, his teeth showing white in the half light. ‘If you tried your wiles on me now, I would be more receptive.’

  Harriet suppressed a shiver at the thought of it.

  ‘You are cold?’ he said instantly. ‘Let me give you my jacket—’