Ah, she thought, without surprise.
Now we’re coming to it.
She said, ‘Oh God, Silvia, you haven’t been losing money at bridge again, not after the things Ernesto said last time.’‘Oh, that.’ Silvia looked down, playing with the emerald and diamond ring on her wedding finger.
‘I’ve hardly touched a card for months.
Truly.
Anyone will tell you.’‘Except that I don’t know anyone to ask,’ Ellie returned, scenting an evasion.
‘And I have no money to bail you out, so don’t even think about it.’‘That’s not what I’m asking,’ Silvia denied swiftly.
‘It’s just that—well—Ernesto is being a little silly at the moment about my going away without him, even to see my own godmother, and if he knew you’d be there too, I’m sure he’d change his mind.’Ellie brought over the fresh coffee, placing the cup on the table beside her cousin’s chair.
She said slowly, ‘It’s not like him to play the heavy husband.
Silvia, you’re sure that you’re not the one who’s being silly?’Silvia flushed angrily.
‘And what makes you an authority on married life? I wasn’t aware that you even had a boyfriend.’Ouch, thought Ellie, remembering at the same time that attack had always been Silvia’s favourite form of defence.
Also, that it had been several weeks since her cousin had sought her company—and then only at the last minute to make up the numbers at a dinner party, where, to add to her usual shyness, she’d felt badly dressed and totally out of her depth.
Especially when Silvia had been at her sparkling best, eyes gleaming like her jewellery, and her mouth curved on the edge of a smile all evening, and the centre of everyone’s attention.
As if, Ellie thought, a fire had been lit inside her.
In fact, on that occasion, Ellie had taken her godmother’s place, as the Principessa Damiano had been suffering from a heavy cold.
But at least she’d only had to give up a few hours—unlike this new request, where she’d be committed from Friday evening until late afternoon on Sunday.
Not a prospect she relished, however fond she was of her tiny, exquisite godmother fluttering like a butterfly in the pale draperies she affected.
Although that, Ellie had always suspected, was just a fa?ade, concealing a will of reinforced steel.
Which was why she’d probably used Silvia to back up her invitation.
But Ellie was always conscious that Madrina inhabited a world where Silvia belonged, but she herself did not.
They might be first cousins, but chalk and cheese didn’t even come near it.
Silvia, the elder by almost a year, was silvery fair, with green eyes that looked at the world from the shadow of extravagant lashes, a small straight nose and a frankly sexy full-lipped mouth.
Her chief ambition from childhood had been to marry a rich man and she’d achieved it effortlessly, although Nonna Vittoria had frowned and tutted over her choice, murmuring that cara Silvia needed to be held in check, and that her fidanzato, though estimable, might not be the man to do it.
Ellie, on the other hand, had often thought, without rancour, that she resembled the negative of a dramatically coloured photograph.
Her own hair was the shade generally known as dirty blonde, and she was pale-skinned and slender.
Nonna Vittoria always told her she had unusual eyes, but the rest of her features were nothing to admire.
Nose too long, she thought.
Mouth too serious.
However, on the plus side, she enjoyed her work, liked most of her colleagues and had a small group of friends of both sexes with whom she ate out and attended films and concerts.
She supposed it was a relatively sedate existence, but it suited her.
Yet so did her own company, and the times when she could escape to the coast and the waiting Casa Bianca were among her happiest.
She couldn’t let the opportunity to spend the weekend there pass.
Could she?Yet, as she drank her coffee, she sent a covert glance at her cousin.
Something was wrong.
She knew it.
The shining brightness of a few weeks ago had become restive—even edgy.
She said quietly, ‘Silvia, I don’t want us to fall out but I need you to be honest with me.
Why do you want me to accept Madrina’s invitation?’Her cousin looked sulky.
‘It is nothing.
An absurdity.
A man Ernesto feels has paid me too much attention.
He has even started to think that I am meeting this man and not going toLargossa at all.
But if he knows that you and I will be at the Villa Rosa together, his mind will be at rest.’Ellie frowned.
‘Wouldn’t it be simpler if he accompanied you himself?’Silvia spread her hands.
‘He cannot.
There is a client—an important man—with tax difficulties which must be settled pronto.
So Ernesto must handle the case personally, even if he has to use the weekend.’Ellie could sympathise with the client’s needs.
Italy’s labyrinthine tax laws were not for the inexperienced or the fainthearted.
And yet—and yet …She recalled suddenly that she’d thought she heard the name of Alberoni mentioned in a low-pitched conversation by the water cooler at work a few weeks ago, only to find when she joined the group that they were talking about something completely different.
Now she found herself wondering uneasily if the subject had been deliberately changed at her approach and just what they’d been discussing.
If the stolid Ernesto had been stirred to a seething mass of jealousy, might he have reason? Whatever, he seemed to be taking steps to keep Silvia in check at last, and maybe, as her cousin was all the family she had left, she should help, besides having no wish to hurt her godmother’s feelings by a refusal to attend her house party.
‘Who else will be there?’ she asked cautiously.
Silvia shrugged.
‘Oh, Fulvio Ciprianto and his wife.’ She added casually.
‘Plus one of Madrina’s elderly cronies, the Contessa Manzini.’Manzini, thought Ellie.
The name was vaguely familiar, but in what context? Then her mind went back to that wretched dinner party, and she remembered.
A man, she thought, tall, very dark, and lethally attractive even to her untutored gaze, who’d been pointed out to her as Count Angelo Manzini.
Not, she’d reflected at the time, that he looked even remotely like an angel.
The lean saturnine face, amused dark eyes and mobile, sensuous mouth suggested far more sin than sanctity.
However, no playboy apparently, but the successful chairman of the Galantana fashion group, or so she’d been informed by her neighbour during a brief lull between courses.
Which, considering what she’d been wearing, was probably why the Count had totally ignored her.
‘A few others, perhaps,’ Silvia went on, twisting the emerald on her finger again.
‘I am not sure.
But if you get bored,’ she added with renewed buoyancy, ‘you can always ask Zio Cesare to show you his roses.
You like such things.’Ellie had never addressed her godmother’s august husband as ‘uncle’ in her life, and Silvia knew it.
Another reminder of the wide gap in their circumstances.
‘Thank you,’ she returned ironically.
‘So I can tell Madrina that you will be coming with me, Ella-Bella?’ Silvia was watching her almost eagerly.
But, thought Ellie, there was another element in her expression that was not so easy to fathom, and which sparked a faint frisson of concern.
‘Only if you swear never to call me that stupid name again, Silly-Billy.