“Why don’t you come for dinner tonight?” Mr.Clark suggested, surprising Lillian with the invitation.
She sat forward. “Dinner? Where?”
“At the villa.” He checked his watch. “Mrs.Guardini sometimes gets her nose out of joint when I work too late in the evenings. I should head up there.”
Lillian felt a touch of disappointment at the notion that he considered this to be work. For her, it was pure pleasure.
“She’ll have the table set by now,” he continued, “and everyone will be sitting down shortly.”
“Everyone?” Lillian grimaced. Heaven help her, the wine had clouded her brain. She couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence.
Mr.Clark began to name names. “Matteo, Domenico—that’s Mrs.Guardini’s husband, who runs the vineyards for me—and Francesco, my driver and right-hand man. You could invite your husband to join us if you like, if he’s back from wherever he went today. You could call him from the villa.”
Lillian’s stomach had been growling for the past hour. “I am hungry.”
Mr.Clark stood and held out his hand. “Well then. Up you come.”
She allowed him to pull her to her feet.
“But first, we should clean up after ourselves,” he added. “Let’s take the glasses to the kitchen and recork these bottles. We’ll bring them to the table and finish them off. Domenico will be thrilled.”
Lillian helped him with those tasks. Then they carried the bottles out of the tasting room to the stone terrace and up a set of worn marble steps to the iron gate outside the formal gardens.
The villa came into view. It was dark, but the moon was full. It cast a bright, bluish glow on the garden path, lighting their way. Their footsteps crunched over the white gravel while they talked and laughed. Moon shadows were everywhere.
During her training, Lillian had seen the villa from afar, but she had never set foot inside the enormous Tuscan mansion. Mr.Clark led her to a narrow side door, where they entered into a lower level.
“This must have been a servants’ entrance at one time?” Lillian asked.
“Actually, I believe this was a ‘door for the dead.’ In medieval times, it was considered bad luck to bring your dead out the front door, so homes often had a smaller door somewhere.”
“Interesting.” The door looked wide enough for a coffin but not much else.
Mr.Clark showed her to a telephone in the hall, which she used to call Freddie at the shed. She let it ring more than five times, but he didn’t answer, so she finally hung up.
Mr.Clark then escorted her through a wide stone corridor with graceful arches. It took them past a large kitchen, recently modernized, where delectable aromas of basil, pasta, and roasted meat roused Lillian’s senses.
“It smells scrumptious in here,” she said.
Another corridor brought them to a back door that opened onto a patio beneath a green arbor. Covered in thick, tangled vines, it was a cozy space with tiny white lights strung overhead. A long dinner tablebeneath a floral tablecloth held countless platters of food, vases of fresh flowers, and candles that burned in old straw-covered Chianti bottles.
“Anton, you’re late!” a man shouted in good spirits as he turned in his chair. “And who is this lovely creature you have brought with you this evening? Welcome.”
An older woman slid her chair back and stood. “I’ll get another plate,” she said before disappearing into the house.
Mr.Clark began the introductions. “Allow me to present Lillian Bell, our new American tour guide. Lillian, this is Domenico Guardini, the vineyard foreman, and that was his wife, Caterina. She’ll be back in a moment. You know Matteo, and this is Francesco. He’s a Renaissance man. He does everything for me.”
Francesco held his hand over his heart. “With pleasure, Anton.”
Caterina returned with a plate and utensils, which she laid out while Matteo leaped up to fetch another chair.
Lillian took a seat at the table. “It was very nice of Mr.Clark to invite me.”
“Lillian, please. You must call me Anton,” he said.
“I see you brought wine,” Domenico interrupted with delight, rising from his chair to investigate the labels. “Meraviglioso, Anton. Finally. Let’s enjoy it, shall we?” He turned and winked discreetly at his wife.
Lillian suspected they had been discussing, in private, the wine that had been locked away in the secret Maurizio room for decades—bottles no one was permitted to appreciate.
