Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper. India Grey
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had done the catering for an engagement party and dropped the cake—complete with lighted sparklers—in front of all the guests and the happy couple. One half of which just happened to have been her lover of seven years and the father of her child. Embarrassment and abject shame were old friends of hers. The small matter of being set up to provide hilarious entertainment for her sister’s hen party was nothing to Sarah Halliday: the original poster child for humiliation.
The sun was low, dipping down to the horizon, dazzling her through her tears and turning the field into a shimmering sea of gold. Sarah swiped furiously at the wheat in her path, giving vent to the fury and resentment that buzzed through veins that a few moments ago had been thrumming with desire.
That was the worst bit, she thought despairingly. Not that she’d been set up, but that it had felt so wonderful. She was so lonely and desperate that the empty kiss of a stranger had actually made her feel cherished and special and desirable and good…
Right up to the moment she’d realised he was laughing at her.
Reaching the brow of the hill, she tipped back her head and took a big, steadying breath. High up in the faded blue sky the pale ghost of the moon hovered, waiting for the sun to finish its flamboyant exit. It made her think of Lottie, and she found that she was smiling as she started walking again, quickening her pace as she descended the hill towards home.
Lorenzo bent to pick up the envelope that she’d dropped in her hurry to get away from him.
Funny, he thought acidly, in all the versions of the story he’d ever read it was a shoe Cinderella left behind when she fled from the ball. He turned it over. Ah. So her name wasn’t Cinderella…
It was Sarah.
Sarah. It sounded honest and simple and wholesome, he reflected as he pushed through the crowd towards the door. It suited her.
He strode quickly out into the middle of the dusty lane that ran in front of The Rose and Crown and looked around. To the right, the car park was packed bumper-to-bumper and he half expected to see one of the gleaming BMWs shoot backwards out of its space and accelerate out into the narrow road. But no engine noise shattered the still evening.
There was no sign of her.
Intrigued, he shaded his eyes against the low, flaming sun and turned slowly around, scanning the fields of wheat and hedgerows that unfolded on every side. The air was thick, dusty, hazy with heat and, apart from the distant sound of voices and laughter from the terrace, all was quiet. It seemed she had completely vanished.
He was about to turn and go back inside when a movement in the distance caught his eye. Someone was walking through the field beyond the pub, wading through the rippling wheat with fluid, undulating strides. Unmistakably female, she had her back to him, and the sinking sun lit her riot of curls, giving her an aura of pure gold that would have won any lighting technician an Oscar.
It was her. Sarah.
He felt the deep, almost physical jolt in his gut that he got when he was working and instantly his fingers itched for a camera. This was what he had come here looking for. Here, in front of him, was the essence of Francis Tate’s England, the heart and soul of the book Lorenzo had loved for so long, encapsulated by this timeless, sensual image of a girl with the sun in her hair, waist-high in wheat.
On the brow of the hill she paused, tipping back her head and looking up at the pale smudge of moon, so that her hair cascaded down her back. Then, after a moment, she carried on down the slope and disappeared from view.
He let out a long, harsh lungful of air, realising for the first time that he’d been holding his breath as he watched her. He didn’t know who this Sarah was or what had made her run out like that, but actually he didn’t care. He was just very grateful that she had, because in doing so she’d unwittingly given him back something he thought he’d lost for ever. His hunger to work again. His creative vision.
Which, he thought grimly as he walked back across the road, just left the slightly more prosaic matter of copyright permission.
CHAPTER TWO
THREE weeks later.
Sarah’s head throbbed and tiredness dragged at her body, but as she closed her eyes and took a deep inhalation of warm night air she felt her battered spirits lift a little.
Tuscany.
You could smell it; a resiny, slightly astringent combination of rosemary and cedar and the tang of sun-baked earth that was a million miles from the diesel smog that hung over London’s airless streets at the moment. Britain had been having an extended spell of hot weather that had made the headlines night after night for weeks, but here the heat felt different. It had an elemental quality that stole into your bones and almost forced you to relax.
‘You look shattered, darling.’
Across the table her mother’s eyes met hers over her glass of Chianti. Sarah smothered a yawn and smiled quickly.
‘It’s the travelling. I’m not used to it. But it’s great to be here.’
She was surprised, as she said the words, to realise how true they were. She’d got so used to dreading Angelica’s wedding with all its leaden implications of her own conspicuous failure in so many departments—most notably the ‘finding a lifelong partner’ one—that she had neglected to take into account how wonderful it would be to come to Italy. The fulfilment of a lifelong dream, from way back when she could afford to have dreams.
‘It’s great that you’re here.’ Martha’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘I think you needed to get away from things because frankly, my darling, you’re not looking in great shape.’
‘I know, I know…’ Aware of her straining waistband, Sarah squirmed uncomfortably. The bonus of having a broken heart was supposed to be that you lost your appetite and the weight fell off, but she was still waiting for that phase to kick in. At the moment she was stuck in the ‘bitterness-and-comfort-eating’ stage. ‘I am on a diet, but it’s been tough, what with Rupert and work and worrying about money and everything—’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Martha said gently. ‘I meant mentally. But if money is difficult, darling, you know Guy and I will help.’
‘No!’ Sarah’s response was instant. ‘Really, it’s fine. Something will come up.’ Her thoughts strayed to the letter she’d had a couple of weeks ago from her father’s publishers, the latest in a long line of requests she’d received for film options on The Oak and the Cypress in the eleven years since she’d inherited the rights. In the beginning she’d actually taken several of these offers seriously, until bitter experience had taught her that Francis Tate seemed to attract penniless film students with a tendency to bizarre, obsessive psychological disorders. Now, for the sake of her sanity and her burdensome sense of responsibility to her father’s memory, she simply refused permission outright.
‘How’s Lottie doing?’ Martha asked now.
Sarah glanced uneasily across at Lottie, who was sitting on Angelica’s knee. ‘Fine,’ she said, hating the defensive note that crept into her voice. ‘She hasn’t even noticed that Rupert isn’t around any more, which makes me realise just what a terrible father he’s been. I can’t remember the last time he spent time with her.’ Latterly most of Rupert’s visits to the flat in Shepherd’s Bush had been for hasty and singularly unsatisfactory sex in his lunch hour when Lottie was at school. Sarah shuddered now when she thought of his clumsy, careless touch, and his easy excuses about problems at the office and the pressure of work for the evenings and weekends he no longer spent with her. She wondered how long he would have carried on the deceit if she hadn’t found him out so spectacularly.
‘You’re better off without him,’ Martha said, as if she’d read Sarah’s thoughts. Sarah sincerely hoped she hadn’t.
‘I know.’ She sighed and got to her feet, starting to gather up the plates. ‘Really. I know. I don’t need