Casa Santa Rosa, Palm Springs
October 1962
Romily
Just who the devil did he think he was?
Her arms slicing through the water, her legs kicking with concentrated intent, Romily had been asking herself this question since returning from the aborted lunch with Red St Clair.
What really infuriated her was that he had made no attempt to stop her from leaving. She had been calling his bluff by suggesting she leave, and he’d let her do just that. He had plainly known what she was doing and had called her bluff in return. Seldom did she meet anyone who got under her skin, but in this case Red St Clair had done exactly that.
Deftly turning at the end of the pool, she commenced another length. The only conclusion she could reach about what had happened with Red, was that she must have been too direct with him when asking about therealRed St Clair. It was funny how people went on about wanting others to be straight with them, but when they were confronted with even a mild dose of it themselves, rarely was it to their liking.
Obviously Red didn’t feel comfortable with anyone being direct with him. He wanted to dictate the terms of any conversation and in the process ensure he revealed nothing of himself. Question was, why? What did he have to hide?
Well, one thing was for certain, she had put the kibosh on their working together. She would telephone Gabe and Melvyn to explain, as well as apologise, and then book her flight home.
Home.Where she should have gone in the first place. She shouldn’t be here. She should be at Meadow Lodge celebrating Kit and Evelyn’s wedding anniversary. She hoped the party was the success Kit had so badly wanted it to be.
‘I’d like to do something special for Evelyn,’ he’d confided to Romily. ‘It’s the least I can do after everything she’s done for me.’
Kit had always seen his marriage to Evelyn in those terms, as though he couldn’t quite believe his luck. Often the consequence of that was the belief that good fortune was transitory, that any day it would come to an end.
Out of the swimming pool now, Romily dried herself vigorously, then lay back on one of the comfortable poolside loungers. She would miss this when she left. The sensation of hot rays of sunshine caressing her body felt good on what she ruefully called her ‘old bones’. The leg she broke when shecrash-landed the Walrus occasionally played up with a stiffness on a cold damp morning. Not surprisingly it hadn’t bothered her while she had been here.
Looking at her leg now, she ran a finger the length of thesix-inch scar. Despite the fashion for shorter hemlines, she always wore her skirts and dresses well below the knee to hide the imperfection. It was a poignant reminder of the crash which she had been lucky to survive, and of the man who had pulled her from the burning wreckage: Matteo Fontana.
ChapterThirty-One
Tilbrook Hall, Norfolk
April 1944
Romily
Matteo visited me every day. With nothing to do but stay in bed with my leg in traction, his visits were all I had to look forward to.
He told me that he had learned English from an excellent teacher at school, and that he had been an officer in the Italian army and had been captured in North Africa. As a POW here at Tilbrook Hall, he helped in the infirmary as well as worked on the nearby farm with the land girls. He was considered to be a ‘white prisoner’, which meant he was a low risk POW with no political motivation. As a consequence, he was given a certain amount of freedom, such as joining in with local events in the village.
I was perfectly capable of doing it myself, but he read to me, borrowing books from the library. The owners of Tilbrook Hall, who had decamped to their Belgravia house, had given permission for their library to be at the disposal of the medical staff, as well as the patients.
He was reading to me now and it amused and charmed me to hearGreat Expectationsread with a gorgeously seductive Italian accent. Never had Dickens sounded so good! It may have been the effect of the strong medication I was given, but I could have listened to Matteo reading the telephone book and it would still have had my mind wandering into dangerous waters.
He was the first man I had encountered since my husband’s death with whom I had experienced an attraction. Until now I had been unable to imagine another man’s touch, never mind the kind of passionate intimacy I had enjoyed with Jack. Everyone had told me that I would one day fall in love again, that it would just take time. Had sufficient time now passed?
‘Would you prefer I stopped reading to you?’
I opened my eyes to see Matteo regarding me intently. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘why don’t you put the book down and tell me some more about yourself and your life back in Italy?’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘What did you do before you became a soldier?’
‘It is hard sometimes to remember that I had a life before the world went mad.’
‘Please tell me about it. Unless,’ I added tactfully, ‘it will make you too homesick?’
He closed the book and placed it carefully on the cabinet beside my bed. ‘I grew up on the Island of Ischia and it was expected that I would become a doctor just like my father. “People”, my father would say, “will always need a doctor, so you will always be in work.” I did what he wanted and studied medicine and became a doctor.’
