‘Yes, her name was Maria. She came from Fiesole, a tiny little town near here. They were childhood sweethearts. I think they got engaged when they were fifteen. They married when they were twenty.’
‘What was she like?’ Alex asked curiously.
She was trying to imagine the kind of woman who would attract Rinaldo, but she found it hard to picture him in love.
‘She was pretty and plump and motherly. You’d probably call her old-fashioned because all she wanted was to look after us. My mother was dead by then, so it was really nice having her.’
‘Is that why he married her?’ Alex asked, scandalised. ‘To have a woman about the place?’
Gino grinned.
‘Oh no! He was crazy about her. It was Poppa and me who needed motherly attention. I was ten years old. Maria was a great cook, and that’s really all a ten-year-old boy cares about. She and Rinaldo seemed very happy. I used to see him come up behind her, put his arms about her and nuzzle her neck. He was a changed man. He laughed.’
‘What happened?’
‘They were going to have a baby, but it was born at seven months and both mother and child died.’
‘Oh, heavens!’ Alex whispered in horror. ‘How long ago was that?’
‘Fifteen years. They’d been married for less than two years.’
‘How awful for him. To be so young and watch his wife die-’
‘It was worse than that. He wasn’t there. Nobody expected the baby to come so soon, and he was away buying machinery. Poppa called him as soon as things started to happen and he rushed back, but he was too late.
‘I was there in the hospital when he arrived, and I’ll never forget the sight of him. He’d driven all night, and he looked like a madman, with wild eyes. When the doctor told him Maria was dead he wouldn’t believe it. He rushed into her room and seized her up in his arms.
‘I’d never seen him cry before. I didn’t think it was possible, but he was off his head.
‘At that stage the baby was still alive, but not expected to live. They baptised him quickly. He wanted to hold him, but he couldn’t because he had to stay in the incubator. It was no use though. He died half an hour later.
‘By that time he’d calmed down but it was almost worse than when he was raving. He was in a trance, just staring and not seeing anything. He got through the funeral like that-just one funeral, with them both in the same coffin. It was almost as though he didn’t know what was happening.
‘Since then he never speaks of them. If I try to mention them he just blanks me out. I’m not sure what he feels now. Probably nothing. He seems to have deadened that side of him.’
‘Can any man do that?’ Alex mused.
‘Rinaldo can. He can do whatever he sets his mind to. Why should he want to go through such pain again?’
‘But surely it could never happen again? No man could be so unlucky twice.’
‘I think he’s decided not to take a chance on it. Since Maria died the farm has been his whole life. Poppa left the running of it to him.’
‘What about you?’
Gino gave his attractive boyish grin.
‘Theoretically I have as much authority as my brother, but Rinaldo’s a great one for letting you know who’s the meat and who’s the potatoes. His being so much older helps, of course.’
There was something slightly mechanical about Alex’s smile. She no longer felt able to joke about Rinaldo. The image of the overbearing dictator that had dominated her thoughts had suddenly become blurred.
There was another image now, a young man agonising over the death of his wife and child, then growing older too fast, hardening in his despair.
‘Are you all right?’ Gino asked as she rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘Yes, I’m just a little tired. I’m not used to so much heat.’
‘Let me take you back to the hotel.’
The night air was blessedly cool as they strolled back. To her relief he seemed in tune with her mood, and did not talk.
At the door of the hotel he took her hand and said, ‘I’d ask to see you again, but you’d only think Rinaldo put me up to it. So I won’t.’
She smiled. ‘That’s very clever.’
‘But it’s all right if I call you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but not tomorrow.’
He nodded. Leaning forward he kissed her cheek gently, and walked away.
Gino slipped into the house quietly, but his caution was wasted, as he had feared that it would be.
‘Good evening,’ Rinaldo said, without looking up from the computer screen where he was doing the accounts
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ Gino asked.
Rinaldo didn’t answer this. Dragging his eyes away from the screen he leaned back, stretching like a man whose limbs had been cramped too long.
‘You look like the cat that swallowed the cream,’ he observed. ‘I hope the cream was good.’
‘Don’t be coarse.’
‘I also hope you didn’t forget that you were there for a purpose. You haven’t just been enjoying yourself, you were supposed to be neutralising a threat.’
‘Alex is no threat. She’s trying to be as helpful to us as she can.’
Rinaldo groaned.
‘She really got to you, didn’t she? Well, before you get too starry-eyed, remember that this is the woman who was negotiating with Montelli at our father’s funeral.’
‘She wasn’t negotiating. He just walked up to her. In fact he did it again today and she drove him off with threats of violence. I heard her.’
‘He was there again?’
‘They were in the coffee shop when I arrived, and she sent him packing.’
‘Of course-because she saw you.’
‘You’re a cynical swine, aren’t you?’
‘I know more about women than you do, and a damned sight more about hard cash. And one of us needs to be cynical about this lady. You’re evidently a lost cause. What did she do? Flutter her eyelids and let you look deep into her blue eyes?’
‘They’re not exactly blue,’ Gino said, considering. ‘More like a kind of violet.’
‘They looked ordinary blue to me.’
‘Maybe you weren’t looking at them in the right way.’
‘I was looking at them with suspicion, and that’s the right way,’ Rinaldo growled.
‘Well, maybe it was the dress,’ Gino agreed. ‘That was dark blue and very elegant, sort of clingy, especially over her waist and hips-’
Rinaldo got to his feet restively.
‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ he growled. ‘You’ve plainly made a fool of yourself-’
‘If you mean that I’m enchanted, I plead guilty.’
‘Enchanted. Listen to yourself. You were sent on a mission and you return spouting a lot of sentimental drivel. She’s probably laughing at you this minute. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if she got straight on the phone to Montelli as soon as you left.’
‘You’re determined to think the worst of her, aren’t you?’
‘With reason.’
‘You know nothing about her,’ Gino said with a flash of anger. ‘You’ve been prejudiced since the first moment.’
‘Do you blame me?’
‘I blame you for not giving her a chance.’
Rinaldo sighed.
‘But it isn’t up to me. It lies in her hands now, that’s what’s so damned-’ he checked himself.
