Widow - Anne Stuart [9]
She realized she was clutching the small steering wheel so tightly that her hands hurt. She loosened them, taking a deep, calming breath, and turned off the radio. The sudden silence was shocking—just the sound of the wind through the olive trees, riffling the leaves.
She drove past the stone cottages, the farm buildings and winery that had been abandoned before the war. And then up and around the curving drive until she came to the villa itself, bathed in warm, golden light. La Colombala. The towers of the abandoned church loomed behind it, casting shadows in the bright Tuscan sunlight. It took her breath away.
It was the same, and yet different. The main section was two storeys high, made of a whitewashed stone, and two single-floor wings spread out on either side. One was for the kitchen and the servants, the other was Pompasse’s studio. The doors and windows to the house stood open, but the studio was shut tight, and Charlie felt a tiny clenching in her heart.
He’d been an old man. A difficult, impatient, tempestuous old man, who’d never paid any attention to his health. He’d smoked like a chimney, he’d drunk too much, and his formidable temper had set his blood pressure soaring. She’d loved him once, and she could mourn the loss of his talent. Although, there had been times when she suspected he’d lost his talent long ago.
She switched off the car and sat there in the stillness. No one had heard her arrive, which suited her. Whoever was in residence was sleeping off the heat of the midday sun like all good Tuscans.
She climbed out of the car and stretched in the sunlight like a cat, pulling off the scarf that had restrained her hair. She was wearing jeans and a merino wool sweater. Pompasse would have been horrified. He’d always preferred to see her in designer clothes. He would take some comfort in the knowledge that the sweater was Versace.
She was about to head toward the house when something caught her eye. She looked to the left, where the vineyards stretched out in the sunlight. It was October—it should be harvest time, or past, yet the grapes still hung heavy on the branches. Pompasse had been dead for less than a week—the neglect around the villa had been going on for far longer.
Someone was moving out there among the vines. Pompasse used to love to walk among the grapes, pretending he was a master winemaker. It always used to amaze Charlie—that one of the world’s great artists would want a fantasy life as another kind of artist.
It wasn’t Pompasse out there, she told herself. Pompasse was dead, gone forever. But it was definitely a man, and even though he’d disappeared around a corner she knew it hadn’t been Tomaso. This man was younger, taller. And Pompasse had seldom tolerated any men in his household of women.
Without stopping to think about it Charlie headed into the vineyard. She followed the scent of fresh cigarette smoke. Cigarette smoke was an odd thing—dead nasty when it lingered, but actually pleasant when it was fresh. Only Pompasse had smoked at La Colombala, though Tomaso occasionally indulged in a pipe. Pompasse had considered it a filthy habit, but he himself was above his self-imposed rules. But he was dead now and she no longer had to live in a haze of smoke. Still, the fresh scent of it made her feel oddly nostalgic.
The sun was hot overhead, despite the fact that autumn was well advanced. The merino sweater was too warm, the sun too bright, and she’d left her sunglasses in the rented Alfa. She was half tempted to go back for them, when she turned the corner to come face-to-face with a mysterious stranger.
3
Charlie stopped short of barreling into him, just barely, doing her best to put a pleasant expression on her face. If she’d learned anything from