really . . .”
He trailed off.
Isabel smiled. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was feeling flippant. I don’t know why I said that.”
Tomasso seemed confused. He turned to the waiter and asked him about one of the options, and was told about it. Isabel studied her menu. She was not sure what had prompted her curious comment. Perhaps it was the incongruity of the situation—
that she was dining with the man who had been pursuing her niece, although he was her own age; who was so slick and elegant, and who had given the young male waiter what had struck her as an appreciative look. Yet none of that justified rudeness or a weak attempt to be funny.
F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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She looked up from the menu and made a suggestion as to what they might have. The waiter, still eyeing her in a bemused way, agreed with her choice, and Tomasso nodded his assent. A bottle of chilled white wine, which Tomasso had chosen, was produced and their glasses filled.
The earlier awkwardness soon passed. Tomasso spoke about his day in Edinburgh and about his plans to drive up to Glencoe.
“Will Cat be going with you?” she asked. She knew the answer, but asked nonetheless.
He looked into his glass, and she realised that there was an issue of pride; he was the rejected suitor—rejected gently, and with humour, no doubt, but rejected. “She will not,” he said. “She has the business to look after. She cannot leave that.” He sipped the wine. Then, his face brightening, as if an idea had just occurred, he said, “Perhaps you would care to accompany me? The Bugatti has two seats. It is not the most comfortable of cars, but it is very beautiful.”
Isabel tried not to let her uncertainty show. “Glencoe?”
“And beyond,” said Tomasso, describing a wide movement with a hand. “We could drive across that island—the large one—Skye? And then . . . and then there is so much more.
There is so much of Scotland.”
“But how long would we need to be away?” asked Isabel.
Tomasso shrugged. “A week? Ten days? If you could not manage that, we could make it less. Five days?”
She did not answer immediately. The last time that somebody had invited her to go away like this was when John Liamor had suggested Ireland, and they had caught the ferry to Cork.
And that was in another life, she thought, or almost, and now 1 8 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h here she was, in this restaurant in Edinburgh with this man whom she hardly knew, being asked to go away.
She picked up her wineglass. “We barely know one another,” she said.
“Which makes it more of an adventure,” he said quickly.
“But if you think . . .”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think that. It’s just that to drop everything and go off . . .”
He reached out and touched her wrist, briefly, and then withdrew his hand. “But that is what makes it so exciting.”
Isabel took a deep breath. “Let me think about it,” she said.
“I need to think.”
Her answer seemed to satisfy him. He sat back in his chair and smiled at her. “Please do,” he said. “I am in no hurry to leave Edinburgh. It is very—how should I put it?—very congenial.
Does that sound right to you?”
Isabel nodded. “It’s close enough.” She moved her fork and knife slightly so that they were parallel with each other; a small detail, perhaps, but that was what zero tolerance was all about.
One started with the cutlery.
Tomasso was staring at her, as if waiting for her to say something. Well, she decided, I can ask.
“You’re in no hurry to get back to Italy,” she said. “May I ask: What do you actually do? Do you have a job to get back to, or . . .”
The
“And what does this company do?” She was prepared for evasion, but somehow, face-to-face with him, what he, or the company, did seemed less important;
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“We make shoes,” said Tomasso. “Mostly shoes for ladies.”
“Where?” Isabel asked. She asked the question, and knew it was abrupt, even rude.
Tomasso did not appear to mind the examination. “We have two factories. One in the south,” he said. “And another in Milan. The designs all come from Milan.”
