Widow - Anne Stuart [41]
“He’s dead now, madame,” Lauretta said soothingly. “He’s at peace now.”
“But what about the rest of us?” Antonella said bitterly. She tilted her head to stare at Charlie. “So you’re Charlie. How very strange. I thought you were dead….” The sentence trailed off.
“You thought I was dead?” Charlie repeated, slightly queasy.
But Madame Antonella didn’t answer. She turned and wandered back into the cottage, her tuneless hum floating back to the terrace.
“I’m sorry, Charlie,” Lauretta said earnestly. “You aren’t hurt, are you? She gets odd ideas at times, thinks someone is going to hurt her. She must have thought you were someone from the past.”
“Maybe,” Charlie said, rubbing her shoulder. In fact she could have almost kissed the old woman. The pain in her shoulders had obliterated the feel of Maguire on her body. At least temporarily.
She glanced at the low stone wall. “Is she quite safe up here? I didn’t realize how steep the slope is. Wouldn’t she be better off in the main house?”
“She won’t come. Pompasse had tried to get her to come down in the past, but she barricaded herself in the cottage and refused to come out. He even threatened to put her in a home if she didn’t behave herself.”
“And did she?”
Lauretta shrugged. “When has the old woman ever behaved herself? And she gets worse every year. Pompasse finally gave up arguing. He said if she ended up falling to her death then it would be a fitting end, and we should let her be. I bring her meals when she’s too tired to come down to the main house, and I help bathe her when she lets me. Tomaso and I take her to mass and to the doctor’s when she needs to go, but otherwise she’s happy enough up here in her little house, as she has been for all these years.”
Charlie looked back over the wall, to the steep path below. “I hate to think of her falling, lying there helpless….”
“We check on her several times a day. She wouldn’t be there long. And if she dies that way, so be it. She’s an old woman. Death is part of life—you Americans have a hard time realizing it.”
There was no reproof in her gentle voice, but her words still startled Charlie. She wasn’t used to thinking of herself as an American, despite her birth, despite the last five years. She and her mother had always been rootless, wandering, and Pompasse had considered himself a citizen of the world, rather than from one country. She must have unconsciously adopted that notion.
That, and her love of this small piece of land, which had always felt more like home than any place in the vast United States did, including her cozy apartment and her restaurant.
But for some reason it was no longer feeling like the home it once was.
She wasn’t about to argue. Not with Maguire coming up the path, heading straight toward them.
It was too late to escape—if she took off, he’d simply catch up with her. The sooner she faced him the better, to prove how completely unmoved she was by his kiss. And Lauretta’s beaming presence would provide some measure of security. Though why she should be smiling at Maguire was beyond Charlie’s comprehension.
Charlie sat back down in the iron chair, sliding away from the wall a little bit, and waited for him. He was taking his time, looking entirely unruffled.
“Ah, that explains it,” Lauretta greeted him obscurely.
“Explains what, bella?” he replied, mounting the stone steps, barely glancing at Charlie. She wasn’t reassured, though. He was as aware of her as she was of him—he was just playing more games. God, she had to get him out of here!
“Why Signora Charlie is covered with dust. The two of you look like you’ve taken a bath in plaster. Were you up in the old church?”
“Looking for the missing paintings,” Maguire said amiably. “We didn’t find a trace of them. And you’re certain you have no idea where he took them?”
“I’ve told you over and over again, Signore Maguire, that I have no idea where they are. Aristide