Island of Darkness (7 page)

“No, of course I’m not hurt,” she told him with a laugh. “I haven’t had an accident, I simply can’t start the car, that’s all. I need rescuing.”

“Oh, I see.” He was silent for a moment and she suspected he had a hand over the mouth of the receiver, for she could hear nothing at all for several seconds. When he came on again he sounded much more cheerful. “You’re in luck, honey,” he informed her cheerfully. “Help’s on the way!”

“Clive -”

He cut her question short. “ ’Bye, honey!” The receiver was replaced with such suddenness that she held the instrument in her hand for several seconds, frowning at it. suspiciously. Clive sounded quite blithely cheerful and she could not imagine why.

Seeing her finished with her call, the proprietor left 'his impressive customer and came over to her again. “All is well,
signorina
?” he enquired, and Leonora nodded, albeit a little doubtfully.

“Yes - yes, thank you,
signore
.” She volunteered the price of the call, but it was dismissed with an expressive wave of hands, while the man’s bright dark eyes studied her curiously.

“The
signorina
is staying in Terolito?” he asked, and

Leonora nodded.

“Actually I live there,” she told him, wondering why he appeared so unduly interested. “My uncle has a studio there and a shop,” she explained. “He makes pottery -
terraglia,
and I help him.”

“Ah, si!” He displayed such enthusiasm that Leonora was even more puzzled. “You live there all the time, si?” He leaned closer, glancing at the elegant figure of his lone customer, now gathering up her things prior to leaving, then casting another speculative look at Leonora. “La
signora
is also going to Terolito,” he confided in a hoarse whisper, and raised a meaningful brow as if he expected some reaction from her.

“Oh?” Leonora took a new interest in the woman, although she tried not to make it too obvious.

There were few places in Terolito where such a woman would not be out of her element and Leonora’s mind had already settled on Isola de Marta as the most likely one. She looked at the elegant grace of the slim, long-legged walk and the almost thin body draped in a creation of deep blue that must surely be of pure silk and conceived either in Paris or Rome.

Fashionable shoes added inches to her already considerable height and she left behind her in the small cafe a haunting whiff of Machiavelli perfume among the pungency of garlic and coffee. Her own sudden and quite inexplicable dislike of the elegant figure both startled and alarmed her, but she managed to smile at her plump benefactor to disguise it. Whatever malicious reason he had had for passing on the information she intended to disappoint him, but she could only wonder at his obvious speculation.

“La signora
is very - huh?” Dark Italian eyes rolled meaningly, then almost at once swept over her own trim figure and once again beamed approval. “I am so honoured,
signorina
,” he breathed earnestly. “To have two such beautiful
signore
in my
ristorante
is my good fortune and my pleasure,
si
?”

“You’re very kind,” Leonora murmured, flattered to have been considered in the same category as the elegant creature who was now departing in the roar of a powerful exhaust. There was more than simple Latin gallantry behind his flattery, she was convinced.

Again he leaned towards her confidingly.
“La bella signora
is visiting the so famous Englishman,” he breathed hoarsely, and with the obvious intention of impressing her with his meaning. “Signor Connoro - you know?”

Leonora would have preferred not to have her suspicions confirmed, although she could think of no reasonable cause for her dislike of the idea that
“la bella signora
” was visiting Jason Connor. It had, after all, been her own reasoning. “I know,” she admitted reluctantly, and noted the speculative gleam in the landlord’s eyes.

“Ah, si!” he said softly. “Most surely you would know such a man,
signorina
!”

Leonora determinedly ignored the implication and smoothed down the skirt of her dress. “I must go,” she said with a brief glance at her wristwatch and ignoring his expressed disappointment. “You’ve been very kind and helpful,
signore
, but I told my uncle where to find the car, and he’ll worry if I’m not there when he arrives.”

“Ah,
si, si, signorina,
I understand!”

She smiled at him as she went out of the door with him close on her heels.
“Mille grazie, signore
.”

She walked back along the road to where she had left the car, once again puzzling over Clive’s behaviour on the telephone, and more than ever sure that somebody had been

with him. It was the only reason she could think of for his having covered the mouthpiece while she waited. He seldom had visitors, although he was quite a social man and well liked in the local
tavernas
and the possible identity of his visitor puzzled her.

So preoccupied was she that she failed to give enough of her attention to the rough surface of the road, and before she realised what was happening she missed her footing and fell headlong in the dust. A little shaken and with her eyes prickling tearfully from a stinging graze on her left cheek, she was just thanking heaven that no one had witnessed her inelegant sprawl, when a male voice called out from behind her, and a moment later a hand helped her to her feet

“Mipermetta, signorina
!”

“Thank you.” She felt such a fool for having gone sprawling and wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

The young man, who still held her arm briskly brushed dust from her dress and made sympathetic noises over the graze on her cheek. “You are hurt,
signorina
,” he said, seemingly concerned and, although she felt a bit shaken, she managed a smile.

“I’m all right,” she insisted. “Really,
signore
.”

Her rescuer could have been no more than seventeen or eighteen, but there was a definitely interested gleam in his large dark eyes as he looked at her for a moment then glanced around him. “You are alone and on foot,
signorina
?” he asked softly.

“Not for long,” Leonora assured him hastily. “My uncle’s on his way to fetch me - my car’s broken down.”

“Ah,
si
!”

“I’ll be all right now, thank you.” She was grateful for his concern, but something in his manner made her wary of trusting him too far.

“I will accompany you to your car,
signorina
,” he offered, and evidently had no intention of taking no for an

answer, for one hand was still firmly under her elbow with the fingers tightly curled to prevent any sudden move on her part to leave. “It is unwise to be alone on the roads,” he informed her with a seriousness that was belied by the gleam of speculation in his eyes. “I will protect you.”

“Oh, but I don’t
need
protection, thank you,” Leonora denied firmly, and used her other hand to prise at those gripping fingers. “Please let go of my arm!”

“But,
signorina - bella signorina,
you are alone!” He rolled his dark eyes first at her and then at the sun that was already lowering in the sky. “Soon it will be dark, and you will be—”

“I can hear my uncle coming!” Leonora interrupted swiftly. “So you don’t have to concern yourself about me,
signore.
Now please let go!”

He did not at first believe her, she knew, but then he too caught the fast approaching sound of a car and glanced ahead with narrowed eyes. The powerful roar of the engine shattered the still, warm air and he moved hastily to one side of the road suddenly, taking her with him.

The car, she realised with a sinking heart, could not be her uncle’s rather sedate British family size, it was something much more fast and expensive. It also occurred to her that if she tried to enrol the driver’s assistance she had no guarantee that she would not be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire.

It came into sight at last, low, very fast and bright, shiny black, and the driver turned his head swiftly as he passed them so that Leonora had a brief but clear view of his face. The brakes were jammed on so suddenly that the car skidded to a halt, sending up a cloud of dust, and her cry was instinctive when she recognised the familiar face of the driver.

“Scottie!”

He reversed the car skilfully on the narrow road and drove back towards them while Leonora almost wept with relief at the sight of him. The youth was looking at her cautiously, no doubt wondering what she was going to say to the new arrival about his own actions. She forgot all about how long it was since Scottie had made any attempt to contact her as he got out of the car, a frown on his weathered brawn face, and she smiled at him thankfully.

He came to her, silent for a moment, taking her hands in his and gazing at her earnestly. “Leonora,” he said at last, “what’s happened to you?” His fingers reached out and gently touched the graze on her cheek, then he took out a handkerchief and folded the clean linen carefully before applying it to the sore place. “I thought you weren’t hurt,” he said, and glanced suspiciously at the youth. “Did he —”

“Oh no, Scottie!” she hastened to assure him, then smiled a little sheepishly as she held the handkerchief to her face. “I fell flat on my face,” she confessed.

“But why are you wandering around on foot?” he asked, and looked so anxious that she sought to reassure him as he cast another more than suspicious glance at the young man, who now looked as much sheepish as disgruntled.

“My car broke down,” she explained, “and I rang Clive to come and fetch me.”

“Aye, I know,” he said, and she blinked to have the mystery of her uncle’s visitor so quickly solved. “You’d best come back with me,” he decided, without giving her time to express curiosity about his visit to the studio. “We can arrange something about your car later.”

She felt ashamed of feeling so utterly limp with relief when she had always thought of herself as very independent. Her experience had scarcely been harrowing, and everyone, even her would-be Romeo, had been very kind to her, but somehow she was quite inordinately glad to see Scottie and she looked up at him through a hazy mist.

“Bless you, Scottie,” she said huskily. “I feel a bit limp and sorry for myself.”

“Aye, of course you do!” He put a protective arm round her shoulders and she leaned against him for a moment, while he turned again to the young man who was watching with a hint of a sneer on his full mouth.

He murmured something in Italian and she saw the flush of anger that coloured Scottie’s face as the arm about her shoulders tightened. The reply was in fluent and apparently virulent Italian too and the youth’s dark eyes blazed for a moment at them both before he shrugged with Latin resignation and slouched off down the dusty road.

Scottie’s command of the language would have surprised her more if she had not been reminded again of that elegant and mysterious visitor in the cafe. It had been something in the hard glitter of the youth’s dark eyes that reminded her and her speculation began all over again.

“Come along, my lass,” Scottie told her, and smiled comfortingly, his arm still round her shoulders as he saw her into the car.

The long, rakish-looking Ferrari whose powerful engines had announced its coming long before it appeared. Both the car and the speed it had been driven at surprised Leonora when she thought about it, for both seemed uncharacteristic of the Scottie she thought she knew.

“I was never so glad to see anyone in my life,” she confessed as they sped along the coast road back to Terolito, and Scottie glanced at her over his shoulder.

“That young blood was getting out of hand, was he?” he

asked quietly, and she shrugged uncertainly.

“I don’t really know what he would have done,” she said with a wry smile. “I have a feeling that his bark was probably worse than his bite, though.”

“He was sassy enough to make a crack about me not being your uncle,” he told her quietly, and she could not help smiling as she imagined what his answer to that had been.

“I was
very
glad to see you,” she assured him. “You were the last person I expected.

“Your uncle said you were stranded,” he informed her, and she looked at him curiously.

“You were with Clive when I rang?”

“I was.” He took another bend in the road with a skill that would have done credit to his employer. “I went there to see you,” he explained. “But you weren’t there -fortunately I hadn’t left when your call came, so I came out for you.”

“Why, Scottie?” she asked softly. “Why now?”

It was not that she did not want to see him, but she had taken his absence as a sign that he was prepared to go along with what Jason Connor had decreed - either choose her or his job. It had been reasonable to expect he would want to stay in what must be a very lucrative and fairly comfortable post, but she had found his decision hurtful and rather deflating. Now it seemed he had had second thoughts, and for her own sake she was delighted.