Roberta clapped her hand to her mouth.
“How terrible,” she gasped. “Are the girls upset about their mother’s death?”
Cassie had no idea if this was a leading question, and knew she must answer carefully.
“They are being very brave,” she said. “They were sad, of course, but they missed their father terribly and they are looking forward to seeing him again.”
She hoped that Roberta would accept this explanation, and was relieved when she nodded understandingly.
“I know that their divorce was acrimonious. In fact, I was told by Ms. Rossi’s assistant—Maurice, I think—that the horses would be sold because the girls had no more use for them. Then Mr. Morandi, their father, insisted that the horses must be kept so he continued paying their board. He used to come to the stables on lesson days, hoping to see the girls. He must have stood here on ten or fifteen occasions, waiting for his children to come and ride, only to leave, disappointed, when they did not arrive.”
Cassie understood now why Ms. Rossi had prevented her daughters from riding.
Looking round, Roberta said, “Here we are. The girls are on their ponies. Come through to the indoor arena and watch them ride.”
Cassie was impressed by how well the two girls rode their beautiful gray ponies, and by how fearless they were. She watched in awe as they trotted and cantered around the arena, before taking turns at completing a small course of jumps.
Breathless and smiling, the girls walked their ponies to cool them down before dismounting and helping to unsaddle them.
“That was wonderful,” Venetia said, running to Cassie and hugging her. “Thank you so much for bringing us here. I have been so worried about our horses. From time to time, when we were bad, Mama said she would sell them. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at night, wondering if she had.”
“I was worried, too,” Nina agreed in a sad voice. “It was awful not to know, and every week there would be a different reason for our lessons being canceled. We were never good enough to be allowed to go riding.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Cassie said firmly. “Remember that, because it’s very important. You were good enough, and it was an unfair decision to prevent you from riding, and it was made for other reasons.”
Nina was silent for a while and then nodded in understanding.
“I thought so,” she said.
*
Mr. Morandi arrived at exactly five p.m. As soon as the car’s headlights flickered their way up the drive, the children burst out of the front door and hurtled over to the large black SUV.
“Papa!” they screamed in unison.
Cassie followed, and was in time to see a tall man with tousled, graying hair climbing out of the car. He bent to hug his daughters, his face alight with joy.
“My lovely girls. Nina, Venetia, how you have grown. I have missed you so much.”
“We missed you too, Papa. Why have you been away so long?” Nina asked.
“Circumstances were beyond my control and I was forced to stay away. I promise it will never happen again.”
He straightened up and saw Cassie.
“You must be Cassie, the au pair. The police told me you were staying on to care for everyone until I arrived. I cannot thank you enough.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said shyly, stepping forward.
“She is our friend,” Venetia told her father in piercing tones, and Cassie blinked unexpected tears away.
“I am glad to hear it and I hope she will agree to be my friend as well.” With a grateful smile, Mr. Morandi shook Cassie’s hand before taking his bag out of the car, together with two large, beautifully wrapped parcels.
“These are for my beautiful girls,” he said.
With screeches of delight, Nina and Venetia took the gifts.
Cassie turned away, wanting to give Mr. Morandi some time alone with his daughters, but to her surprise, he called after her.
“Can we meet in twenty minutes, in Ottavia’s downstairs office?”
“Of course,” Cassie said, wondering what Mr. Morandi wanted to tell her in private.
When she walked in, Cassie sensed that Ms. Rossi’s dominant presence had finally evaporated. Mr. Morandi was already making a start on packing up. With him whistling a tune as he filled a cardboard box with files, the elegant room seemed like a different and friendlier space.
“Please close the door,” he said.
Hesitantly, Cassie complied, before taking a seat.
“I am going to put this house up for sale as soon as possible,” he told her. “We will make a fresh start as a family, in a place where there are no bad memories.”
Cassie nodded. She couldn’t help wondering what had happened during the divorce, and how Ms. Rossi had managed to keep the children away from their father afterward.
“As you can imagine, the divorce was extremely acrimonious.” Mr. Morandi said, as if reading her mind. “Ottavia had become extremely difficult to live with. I knew from the start that she was aggressive, uncompromising, and driven. I loved her for all her strong qualities, but I didn’t realize the true nature of the person that lay beneath. After the children were born, aggressive behavior turned abusive—to me, most of all. Uncompromising became unreasonable and combative. She became emotionally and physically violent to me and I worried she would start doing the same to the children.”
“That must have been impossible to live with,” Cassie said.
He frowned, and Cassie could see his deep regret that things had reached the point of no return.
“It was unbearable. I tried my best to manage the situation. I suggested counseling, therapy, but she wouldn’t hear of it. In the end I had to leave. It was too toxic. I was suffering, my business was suffering. I hoped I would be able to get full custody of the children but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.”
Intrigued, Cassie leaned forward.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Ottavia launched a full-scale court battle against me. She changed the locks and reprogrammed the gate and fired all the staff
