Page 60 of The Secrets of Ashmore Castle (Ashmore Castle #1)

It was hot in Italy. The train travelled through endless vistas of tan grass dotted with clusters of thin dark trees, clattered through small villages of achingly white cottages with red-tiled roofs.

Kitty was exhausted by the time they arrived in Florence, too hot and tired to be charmed by the strange architecture as the cab, pulled by a thin horse that looked as though it might drop dead before journey’s end, took them through the streets.

But Giles sat up straighter, looked around him keenly, craning after every new sight with such rapid jerks she was afraid he’d rick his neck.

Her slightly sour thoughts were dispersed when they pulled up in front of a tall stone house with green shutters, and the door was opened onto a dark, cool interior by a handsome, motherly woman, who held out her arms to Kitty, and said, ‘Oh, my poor dear, how tired you must be! Come in, come in and have some cold lemonade.’

She kissed Kitty on both cheeks, tenderly removed her hat, and said, over her shoulder, ‘Dearest Giles, I shall kiss you too, but first I must take care of the little countess. Come and rest for a while before you go to your room.’

She led Kitty through the house – so dark after the vicious sunshine that she would have stumbled if she had not been so firmly led – and out into a courtyard garden where a table and chairs were shaded by a vine growing over a structure of poles and wires.

Ferns and other greenery grew in dim corners, a fountain tinkled somewhere, and a pale pink rose scrambled over tall grey stone walls.

The air was cool and fragrant. Kitty found herself seated almost without knowing how, before her a glass of lemonade so cold it was beaded with dew.

The lovely woman beamed at her. ‘Better?’

‘Oh, much,’ said Kitty, gratefully. ‘Thank you.’

‘And now, Giles, my dear!’ Giles was engulfed in a hearty embrace. How delightfully demonstrative she was, Kitty thought, wondering if all Italians were like this.

After several exchanges in rapid Italian, Giles said to Kitty, ‘You must let me introduce Signora Lombardi—’

‘Lucia,’ she broke in irrepressibly. ‘You must call me Lucia – and I shall call you Kitty. Giles has told me about you in his letters. And here is my husband Flavio …’

A handsome nut-brown elderly man with swept-back silver hair.

‘Professor Lombardi, head of the School of Etruscan Studies at the University of Florence,’ Giles supplied.

‘… and our daughter Giulia,’ Lucia went on, bringing forward a tall, very dark girl of startling creamy-skinned beauty, who smiled faintly and bowed her head to Kitty.

‘And that is all for now, so many names for you to remember, poor Kitty, when you are so tired and in a strange place! Have some more lemonade.’

‘It’s delicious,’ Kitty said.

Lucia beamed as though she’d had the best compliment of her life. ‘I make it myself, from our own lemons. Can you smell the blossom? There is a tree in the courtyard here.’

‘Is that what I can smell?’ Kitty said. ‘It’s lovely.’

‘There is a small factory in the city that makes a perfume from the lemon blossom,’ she said.

‘You shall have a little vial to remember us by.’ She sat next to Kitty and talked about the city while she drank her second glass.

In the background, Kitty was aware of Giles, the professor and the lovely Giulia talking together volubly in Italian.

It was probably only her tiredness, but it made her feel excluded and just a little resentful.

They shouldn’t talk in Italian when they know I can’t understand , she thought.

When she had finished her drink, Lucia escorted her upstairs to a room with a high ceiling and white linen shades over the tall windows.

The bed was large and high and covered with a white counterpane.

The floor was stone, the furniture sparse and simple, and there was a large stone jar on the floor in one corner in which was a glorious arrangement of flowers, blue and white and scarlet.

It all looked so inviting, she almost wanted to cry.

‘Giles is next door, through here,’ Lucia said, indicating a communicating door.

‘And this is the bell.’ A long sash hanging from the ceiling by the bed.

‘I shall send your maid in to you, and you shall come down when you are ready – there is no hurry. Rest, dear Kitty, sleep a little if you wish. We are so glad to welcome you here.’

Kitty had never had a mother who exuded kindness like this. She would have liked to fall into Lucia’s arms and rest her head on her shoulder. And possibly go to sleep there.

‘I didn’t realise you knew the Lombardis so well,’ Kitty said, that night, as she and Giles climbed the steep stairs to bed.

‘Didn’t you?’ he said, in vague surprise. ‘I thought I told you we were staying with friends.’

‘Acquaintances, you said,’ she corrected.

‘Professor Lombardi was my great mentor,’ Giles said. ‘The foremost expert on the Etruscans – he’s led all the important digs. I’ve learned more from him than from anyone else. And Lucia made me so welcome when I was a lonely young man far from home.’

‘She’s very kind,’ Kitty said.

‘She’s been more of a mother to me than my own mother,’ he said.

‘Giulia seems very clever,’ Kitty said casually.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She ought to have been a boy, really – minds like hers are rare enough in either sex – but it would have been a waste for her not to have been a woman.’

Kitty wasn’t sure what to make of that. ‘You talked a lot to her over dinner,’ she said. He didn’t respond, opening the door of her room for her. ‘I didn’t know you spoke Italian so well.’

‘I had to learn it when I was studying,’ he said. ‘You can’t really study Romans and Etruscans in the modern world and not speak Italian. And living here with the Lombardis helped, of course. It’s the best way to learn a language, to immerse oneself in it.’

‘You lived here for a long time?’

‘Oh, many months,’ he said. He was heading for the communicating door. ‘And many visits since.’

‘I must say, it does make one feel left out, not understanding what’s being said,’ Kitty said cautiously.

‘It was academic talk, mostly,’ Giles said. ‘You wouldn’t have enjoyed it. I’ll leave you to get undressed.’

Marie, who must have been listening outside, came straight in and undressed her as far as her shift, thankfully without speaking. She took down Kitty’s hair, and then Kitty said, ‘I can do the rest.’

‘Thank you, my lady,’ said Marie, and left.

Alone, Kitty removed the rest of her clothes, washed her face at the wash-stand, and slipped naked into bed.

The sheets were gloriously cool against her skin.

It had been a long day, and a long evening – a protracted meal out under the vine arbour, course after course brought by sturdy-looking servants who spoke with easy familiarity to their employers.

So different from home. Her mind was a jumble of confused images – of cicadas, and red wine glowing in the candlelight, of huge stars glimpsed in the square of velvet sky above the courtyard, of night-scented flowers and blundering écru-coloured moths, of Italian voices tumbling on and on like a stream, of the professor laughing, throwing back his head exuberantly and showing fine white teeth, of the dark red beaded gown contrasting so startlingly with Giulia’s creamy skin.

Of Giles smiling and talking, smiling and talking, as though he had finally reached the place on earth where he belonged …

She was almost asleep when he came in, shed his dressing-gown and slipped naked into bed with her.

They had stopped wearing night-clothes – it was a waste of time.

He drew her into his arms at once, without a word, and she felt his hot readiness pressing against her thigh.

With a glad sigh she opened herself to him, and he entered her, more eager, more passionate than ever.

They moved together in the familiar ecstatic dance.

When it was over, he held her in his arms, and she felt him drifting into ready sleep.

He had not spoken, and she felt, for the first time, not contented but oddly lonely.

She had had his essence, but she wanted words too.

‘Giulia is very beautiful, isn’t she?’ she said in a small voice. But he was asleep and didn’t answer.

‘I think his lordship’s a bit smitten with Miss Giulia,’ said James, polishing boots.

The cool morning air came in through the open door to the small scullery beside the kitchen.

Already, in the kitchen, there was a smell of coffee, pans were being clattered and voices were bantering back and forth.

They did love their grub, these Eyetalians, he thought.

‘She’s all right,’ said Marie, working on the countess’s shoes. ‘A bit full of herself, if you ask me. And her hair’s coarse as a pony’s – nothing to write home about. Nice skin, though.’

‘Yeah,’ said James. ‘She can ring my bell any time she likes.’

Marie gave him a scornful look. ‘You can dream about it.’ She yawned. ‘They keep late nights here.’

‘Yeah, but at least some of ’em speak a bit of English. It makes a difference. That butler, Stefano—’

‘Major domo,’ Marie said. ‘That’s what they’re called abroad.’

‘Whatever he is. I had a good chat with him yesterday. He says English servants go down a treat over here. Everyone wants ’em – snob value, apparently.’

‘You stick with his lordship,’ Marie advised. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes anywhere but England.’

‘Huh!’ James said, hurt. ‘What about you, then?’

‘Oh, I reckon I could make it here. I’m quick to learn. And I like the place.’

James was alarmed. He didn’t want to be left on his own. Broken English wasn’t enough for a gregarious man. ‘You’re not jumping ship?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she said.