Married Under The Italian Sun. Lucy Gordon
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forcing me to sell my home to pay his debts. His debts, Bruno, that he had persuaded me to sign for. The other was Joseph Clannan, who saw my desperation and used it to beat me down on the price. I sold for much less than the place is worth because I needed money quickly. If I could have got a fair price I’d have had enough to give me some hope for the future. I wouldn’t be penniless and living here.’ He cast a scornful look around the shabby rented room that was his home now.
Bruno regarded him with pity, which he was careful to conceal. They were both thirty-two, and had been friends since their first day at school. Nobody knew the fierce, embittered Vittorio better than his gentle friend. Nobody understood him as deeply, or feared for him more.
He was silent, watching Vittorio pace the narrow confines of the room, his tall, rangy body looking so out of place in it, after the spaciousness of the Villa Tazzini, that it was like seeing a wild animal trapped in a tiny cage. Sooner or later the animal would go mad.
Vittorio wasn’t a handsome man. His face was too harsh for that, his cheeks too gaunt, his eyes too fierce. His nose was irregular, so that people meeting him for the first time wondered if it had been broken. His wide, firm mouth suggested an unyielding nature, one that could love or hate with equal ferocity, and never forgive an injury from foe or lover alike.
Even Bruno, his closest friend, was slightly afraid of him, and pitied anyone who got on Vittorio’s wrong side.
‘Won’t you forget that man for a moment?’ he begged now.
‘How can I forget him?’ Vittorio asked savagely. ‘He forced the price down until he practically stole the estate from me! And do you know why? To impress a woman. To make her a gift of my home at the least possible expense to himself.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Bruno pleaded.
‘But I do. As I showed him round I heard him say, “My pretty lady will just love this. It’s just what she said she wanted.” All for a woman. So now I want to see that woman. You said your friends in England could send you something that would show her to me. Do you have it or not?’
‘Yes,’ Bruno said, reluctantly unwrapping the small parcel he carried. ‘This is a video of a television show called Star On My Team. It was shown last week, and they taped it for me. But I still wish you’d drop this. Hate the man if you must, but why blame her?’
‘Do you think they can be separated? Do you think I don’t know the kind of woman who puts a price on the bedroom door, and then ups the price again and again? We all know them. Give me the tape.’
Taking it, he pressed it into an ancient video recorder that stood in the corner of the room, poured two glasses of wine, and the two of them sat down to watch.
‘Here she is. The beautiful, the fabulous—Angel!’
Vittorio never took his eyes off the ravishing blonde, with her long hair, luscious make-up and a sexy pout, as she sashayed out to meet her audience.
Flaunting herself, he thought cruelly, taking in the golden figure-hugging dress and flashy jewels. A woman used to being waited on, who demands the best, and gets it.
‘Putana,’ he muttered. Prostitute.
‘That’s going too far,’ Bruno protested.
‘You think a wedding ring hides what she is?’
‘She may not be wearing it any more. My friends say there is talk of a divorce.’
‘So she demanded my home as her parting present? Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
At that moment, Angel gave her famous inane giggle. It went up the scale, growing more lush and significant with every teasing note. She put her fingertips daintily over her lips, looking from side to side as if to say, Silly me.
A perfect performance, Vittorio thought. Apparently fatuous, but actually calculated to tempt a man through his weakness. Even he had felt a faint tingle up his spine, and it served to increase his rage.
Bruno stared at Angel’s polished beauty.
‘She may be all you say,’ he mused, ‘but you can see why—’
‘Oh, yes,’ Vittorio said contemptuously. ‘You can see why!’
There was a tinkling sound as his wine glass broke in his hand, crushed by the cruel pressure of his fingers. He seemed unaware of it. His eyes were fixed on the screen, and the beautiful, provocative woman laughing as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
The journey began with a flight to Naples. It would have been easy to call the villa and ask for someone to collect her from the airport, but getting there under her own steam seemed a good way to start her new, low-profile life. Besides, Angel liked the idea of arriving unexpectedly and seeing the house as it was naturally.
It was an impulse she soon regretted. Being independent was fine if you had only a few bags. But if you were carrying all your worldly goods it was a pain in the neck to have to load them into a taxi at Naples airport, unload them again at the railway station, then onto the train to Sorrento, followed by a bus to Amalfi. By the time she was in the last taxi, to the villa, she was frazzled.
But she forgot the feeling as she gained her first glimpse of the dramatic Amalfi coast. She’d heard of it, and studied pictures, but nothing could have prepared her for the dazzling reality of the cliffs swooping down, down, down into the sea.
‘They’re so high,’ she said in wonder. ‘And those little villages clinging to the sides—how come they don’t slide down into the water?’
‘They are protected by a great hero,’ the driver announced proudly. ‘The legend says that Hercules loved a beautiful nymph, called Amalfi. When she died, he buried her here, and placed huge cliffs all around to safeguard her peace. But then the fishermen protested that they would starve because now they couldn’t get to the sea, so he built them villages on his cliffs, and vowed that he would always keep them safe. And he always has.’
Looking down, Angel found the pretty tale easy to believe. What else could explain how the little towns clung on to the steep sides, rising almost vertically, white walls blazing in the sun?
‘Is the Tazzini estate up there?’ she asked.
‘Right on top, although the lemon orchard stretches down the cliff face, in tiers, to catch as much sun as possible.’
‘Are the lemons good?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.
‘The best. The makers of limoncello always compete to buy Tazzini lemons.’
‘Whatever is limoncello?’
‘It is a liqueur, made with lemons and vodka, straight out of heaven.’
So she had a ready market for her produce, she thought, with a surge of relief.
‘There they are,’ the driver said suddenly, pointing as they rounded a bend. ‘Those are lemon flowers.’
Angel gasped and sat totally still, riveted by the sight that met her eyes. It was as though someone had tossed a basket of white blooms from the top of the cliff so that they cascaded down, shimmering, gleaming, dazzling in the sun, awesome in their beauty.
On the last stretch she took out a mirror and checked her appearance. She’d resolved that those days were behind her, and in future she would worry less about her appearance. But she simply couldn’t let her first entrance be less than perfect, and so she checked her mascara and refreshed her lipstick. Now she was ready for the fray.
They were approaching a large pair of wrought-iron gates which were closed but not locked, so the driver was able to open them and go through. Another few minutes and she could see the villa.
As she’d told Nina, it wasn’t a palace but a large country house, although built on impressive lines. Made of pale grey coloured stone, it reared up three floors, with a flight of stairs running up to the second floor from the outside, where a covered balcony ran the