Indiscretions by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online

crush with the unfazed American assurance that always made him smile.
    “Look how pretty our little India looks tonight,” he murmured to Marisa.
    Marisa looked. Her cool glance assessed India Haven’s appearance, deduced the name of the designer and cost of her new outfit, and wondered if Fabrizio had given her a raise. The process took her approximately fifteen seconds and there was no malice in it; it was simply the reaction any Italian woman of her wealth and stature made about every other woman in the room, an automatic placing of the girl into a precise economic and social bracket. The only time Marisa ever failed was with the English. It was almost impossible to tell where they were at because they wore what they bloody well pleased and often it would be Marks and Spencer or something run up by their local dressmaker in some odd though possibly expensive fabric cut so badly that any “line” was lost. Only their jewels gave them away, and the size of those dusty sapphires and emeralds had to be seen to be believed, but then ofcourse they were probably heirlooms from colonial days and most likely were owed to the tax collector.
    India Haven was a different matter. Alone, she didn’t merit a seat at their table at tonight’s dinner after the opening. Yet she couldn’t be dismissed altogether. Now, if
Jenny
Haven were with her, then of course tonight would be a different matter. Marisa was only rich and social. Jenny Haven was a star.
    “I’m going to introduce her to some people,” called Fabrizio, already pushing his way through the crowd toward India, smilingly accepting the compliments of his guests as he made his way toward the bar. He liked India. He liked the way she looked, her wide-boned face with its flashing smile that lifted from her mouth with its wonderfully even teeth to her sparkling brown eyes. Even her curly bronze hair, confined at the back in its fat braid, seemed to vibrate with energy. Two years ago, when India had finally come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t destined to be a great painter, she had approached him and begged him to take her on as an apprentice. “You see, I must learn something,” she’d cried, “and the only thing I know and like is color and form. Interior design is the only answer.”
    Fabrizio had been quite brutal with her at first, mistaking her enthusiasm for pushiness, her smart appearance and multilingual facility for rich-girl boredom. “It’s not all line and color,” he’d snarled moodily, “it’s plumbing and cement and shouting at workmen and coaxing craftsmen. It’s dealing with rich complaining customers who have everything and want you to give them more—and it must always be
different!
It’s bloody hard work, and not for your sort at all.” His own fight from his poor childhood in Naples had added venom to his words, and India had shrunk back into her chair. Her big brown eyes had gazed at him, reproachfully innocent of ulterior motives, and instantly he’d regretted his words. Not thatthey weren’t true, but even though little could be poorer than a poor childhood in the tenements of Naples, it was no reason for taking it out on the girl. She couldn’t be much more than twenty or so. It had been a difficult morning and he was tired. After a glance at his watch Fabrizio had apologized and said he regretted that he had to leave now for lunch. He’d left her sitting there in stunned silence and then he’d turned suddenly at the door and said, “I don’t suppose you’d like to have lunch with me, would you?”
    He still remembered her response. Her face had lit with the same smile she was giving him now. “Would I?” She’d laughed. “And how!”
    Lunch had been fun. And
he’d
done all the talking. He’d told her all about his childhood in Naples, about how its teeming narrow thoroughfares, its jumbled crushing buildings and thronging humanity had made him yearn for space and clean lines, of the scholarships to school,