One Hot Summer by Norrey Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

the orange trees, her chin on her hands. He couldn’t keep m e here after the end of my holiday; there’s the British Consul, with my passport; and the bank, dealing with my lost travellers’ cheques. They know I’m here. The masquerade will have to end when my holiday ends, and Marco knows it.
    The scent of orange blossom and canna lilies was heavy this morning, so presently she gathered up her swimming things and went to the pool. There was time for a leisurely swim before her Italian lesson with the Signora.
    After the lesson, the walk round the garden with Signora Cellini, the slow walk from one plant to the next. As they passed the white arched gate, Dino greeted them. The boy was washing and polishing the gaily painted buggy, and the sight of the little vehicle put a mischievous idea into Jan’s mind.
    She left her companion in the long gallery overlooking the sea, and raced back to the gate, snatching up her Greek canvas shoulder-bag as she passed the pool.
    ‘ Dino, the Signora wants you at once—in the open gallery, by the bronze statue. Hurry !’
    The boy dropped his polishing cloth and ran off on brown bare feet. Jan gave him a couple of minutes’ start, then slipped into the driving seat and started the engine. The thing was simplicity itself to drive, but Jan remembered the eight hairpin bends on the precipitous road to the harbour, and went carefully. She had no doubt the Signora would believe she had sent for Dino, and find him a dozen jobs to do among the flowers before releasing him. She had plenty of time.
    Parking her vehicle, Jan wandered round the harbour, watching the boats rocking on azure water, the fishermen mending coloured nets; peering into blue-painted wooden pails to admire the striped and gaudy fish so different from any she had seen on an English fishmonger’s slab. Pretty, they looked, but she had learned by experience that none had the good flavour of cold-water fish, cod and plaice, halibut and sole.
    Leaving the harbour, she soon discovered the town, which had a miniature piazza surrounded by shops and caf e s, and with a fine though small church at the top of a sweep of steps. A beggar woman sat on the steps by the church door; children played with a ball, a dog slept in the shade. Barini not having a regular ferry service, it had escaped the tourist invasion so far, and Jan enjoyed the experience of seeing the beauty of the old buildings and shops not swallowed up in advertisements of hotels, restaurants, and garages. There was, however, a bright clean caf e with basket chairs and coloured umbrellas, and here, when she began to feel hot and tired after her explorations, she sat for a while, ordered a coffee-flavoured ice, and thought about Marco.
    Contact with the workaday world of the harbour had blown away her fanciful ideas about Bianca and the dungeon in the rocks. Perhaps even the idea that her host wished her to impersonate his sister to disguise her absence was a bit far-fetched too. She had been unjust to him, though luckily only in her thoughts.
    He had rescued her from a nasty situation like a true knight errant; offered her the hospitality of his magnificent villa; given his servant orders to drive her anywhere she wished in his absence. That he had offered her not only his sister’s rooms but also her clothes and possessions might, for all she knew, be a form of extravagant Italian hospitality.
    Am I annoyed that he did not follow up all this generosity by paying attentions and compliments? Piqued that I failed to attract him?
    She paid for her ice-cream and walked on. Until her money arrived, she could buy nothing beyond a few postcards and stamps. The few hundred lire she gathered up from odd pockets and crannies in her hotel room would not go far.
    A marquetry shop attracted her. Here were boxes of all sizes, tables, trays, plaques and pictures delicately made in coloured woods, inlaid sometimes with mother-of-pearl. She decided on small caskets for her special