Island of Darkness (8 page)

“Och, you know well enough why!” he said quietly, and looked at her briefly over his shoulder. “I’d nothing to do with that quarrel the other week, and I missed seeing you. I did as Jason said for a while, but then I decided I wasn’t letting him spoil my - my relationship

with you and I went to see you.”

Impulsively she reached over and touched his hand with her finger-tips as he spun the wheel. “I’m glad,” she said softly. “I’ve missed you.” She looked at him from the thickness of her lashes, another point occurring to her suddenly. “Does Ja - Mr. Connor know you came?” she asked, and he pulled a face.

“He will now,” he said. “I borrowed his car to run into Rapallo and said I wouldn’t be long. Then I not only called at your uncle’s place to see you, but also came out again to rescue you. He’ll think I’ve left home!”

“Oh dear!” She looked at him again anxiously. “Will he be very angry?”

Scottie shrugged. “Very likely,” he said with a singular lack of concern. “He’s fond of blowing his top lately.” She declined to comment, but spared another moment to admire his driving skill. He was surely expert enough to be a racing driver himself if his current form was anything to judge by, unless, of course, he lacked the necessary dash and nerve that track racing demanded. But now at least she knew who this sleek, fast car belonged to and realised that it was just the kind of vehicle she would expect Jason Connor to own.

“I’m not surprised this is Ja — Mr. Connor’s car and not yours,” she told him with a wry smile. “I thought it didn’t look like you somehow, but I never thought of it being -being his.”

“Jason’s,” he said quietly, and gave her a brief, wry smile from the corner of his eye. “You don’t have to shy away from using his name, Leonora.”

She looked a little startled at his perception, but said nothing, and he smiled again. “You don’t afford cars like this on my pay, either,” he told her. “You’re right, it isn’t me — this bit of machinery is strictly luxury class!”

“Whosever it is,” Leonora said, “I’m glad you had it today and came so quickly to my rescue. I only hope you don’t get into too much trouble over it. Will - Mr. Connor raise too much of a dust about you being so long?”

Scottie smiled wryly. “As I said, he’ll probably blow his top and ask me where the hell I’ve been, but don’t worry, he won’t object when he knows why I’ve been so long. You’re doing him an injustice if you think he will, Leonora.”

“Am I?” She kept her eyes straight ahead and thought about that glamorous visitor in the cafe, wondering if Scottie knew of her impending arrival, or even if Jason Connor himself did, but she lacked the nerve to say anything about her yet.

“You don’t know him,” Scottie insisted. “He’s already regretting that fight you two had, and if you were to come over to the rock again, he’d welcome you with open arms -even if he didn’t make it very evident.”

Leonora doubted it very much, especially with the advent of the visitor, but she wished Scottie’s words had not aroused the memory of how she had been held in those arms that were supposed to be ready to welcome her, and she felt a warm colour in her cheeks. She shook her head, resisting the temptation to do as he said, and instead bit her lip firmly. “I can’t come again, Scottie,” she said quietly. “I was told in no uncertain terms to go back where I belonged and not dare to go near Isola de Marta again, and I intend to do just that.”

“You’ll not give him another chance?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“I doubt very much if he’ll care whether I come or not,” she told him, her pulse tapping nervously at her temple as she watched his face. “You’ve got a visitor, Scottie, didn’t you know?”

He took his eyes off the road for a long moment and looked at her steadily. “What gives you that idea?” he asked then in a cool, quiet voice.

“Because - there was a woman in the cafe I phoned from.”

Scottie looked dismayingly grim and she wished she had said nothing about it. “A woman?”

“A rather chic and elegant woman,” Leonora enlarged, seeing nothing for it but to go on now that she had started. “Not English, I’d say, perhaps Italian or Spanish and very rich, if her clothes were anything to go by.”

“Veronique Tomaso,” Scottie said, so softly that she barely heard it.

“French?” she ventured, and he shook his head, but did not offer to enlighten her.

“I’d better put my foot down,” he declared, suiting the action to the word so that they shot forward at an even greater speed, and Leonora clung to the car door and gazed at him in amazement. “God knows what Jason will do if she manages to get past Lucia!” he said.

Her heart was tapping urgently at her ribs as she looked at his grim, set face and she wondered what drama was about to be enacted with the arrival of the glamorous Veronique Tomaso. “But surely he can’t
do
anything except - behave normally, can he?” she said, and Scottie laughed shortly.

“He’s taken that hideaway up there with the express purpose of avoiding people,” he said in a cold harsh voice. “He’ll cut my throat for not being there to stop Veronique getting to him!”

“Oh, Scottie, I’m sorry!” It was, she supposed, her fault in a way that he had not been there when the unwelcome visitor arrived, and she felt quite inexplicably guilty about it.

Scottie shook his head and spared her a smile over his shoulder. “Oh, don’t let it worry you, Leonora,” he told her. “You weren’t to know just how much Jason hates letting anyone see him the way he is now.”

“But you and Lucia see him,” she said, still strangely disturbed by the thought of Jason’s possible reaction to being alone when his caller arrived. “I’ve seen him too,” she added, trying to diminish his fears. “Although I suppose that’s really why he ordered me to go away and stay away.” “Nothing of the sort,” Scottie denied with surprising firmness. “I’ve told you he’d welcome you back, Leonora, and I meant it — I know him!”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” she insisted. “Wanting to see someone he scarcely knows, like me, and not welcoming someone he’s known—” She looked at him curiously. “Does he know this - Veronique Tomaso quite well?”

“Very
well,” Scottie declared grimly, and there was no mistaking his meaning as he put his foot down harder on the accelerator. “That’s why he won’t want to see her — she wants to marry him!”

CHAPTER FOUR

Several times during the next couple of days, Leonora was tempted to take her boat across to Isola de Marta as Scottie had suggested she do, but the thought of Veronique Tomaso still being there deterred her. She was curious to know the outcome of her visit, but not to the extent of going over there and probably finding herself involved in a situation that could prove embarrassing.

Scottie had said that Veronique Tomaso wanted to marry

Jason Connor, but he had not enlightened her about Jason’s feelings in the matter, whether before his accident he had been in favour of the idea or not. She could not easily imagine Jason Connor as the ideal husband, but of course a woman like Veronique Tomaso would probably have very different standards from her own. She was very likely prepared to put up with a great deal just to be married to a man as well known and undeniably attractive as Jason Connor was.

She had mentioned the visitor to the rock only briefly to her uncle, and his raised brows had left no doubt as to his opinion of why she was there. He mistrusted Jason Connor and was much less sympathetically disposed towards him since Leonora’s visits to the villa. It was obvious that he feared the worst for her and he probably saw Veronique Tomaso’s arrival as fortuitous - something to distract Jason Connor’s attention from his niece.

Leonora had half expected to see Scottie again, but she realised that it was possible he was either busy with the unexpected visitor, if she was still there, or else coping with the backwash of temperament that her arrival had caused. Either way she was left feeling strangely anxious and uncertain about what was going on at the villa.

She almost wished Maria would oblige with one of her temperaments so that she would have an excuse to go over to the rock on Roberto’s behalf, but Maria refused to be anything but sunny and contented.

She did see Roberto on the quay one morning, however, and when they exchanged greetings she thought there was something sly about his smile. He had a bright speculative gleam in his dark eyes when he greeted her cheerfully, and he nodded his head, beaming broadly and with such obvious meaning that she eyed him suspiciously.

“Yesterday I take fish to Isola de Marta,” he informed her in his heavy accent, and after such a meaningful pause that Leonora took care to make her reply as casual as possible.

Her heart was clamouring at her ribs for no good reason except that she could not help suspecting that whatever it was that Roberto found so pleasing concerned her in some way. “Oh yes?” she said, as if such news could scarcely matter to her.

But Roberto apparently thought he knew better than to take such calm at its face value. “I see the two
signori
,” he informed her with much jiggling of his eyebrows. “Signor McLellano and Signor Connoro.” He paused to make sure his words were having the desired effect and looked rather disappointed when she showed no outward sign of interest. “Both
signori
aska me to tella you,
signorina
!”

“Oh?” She did reveal surprise at that, and she could feel the rapidly increased rate of her pulse as she strove to appear casual. “And what did they ask you to tell me, Roberto?”

She could imagine that Scottie might have sent her a message via Roberto, but the thought of Jason Connor putting himself to the trouble was much harder to believe, despite what Scottie had said. And yet Roberto seemed very sure of himself, despite his rather garbled delivery.

He creased his brown face thoughtfully in an apparent effort to repeat the messages word for word. He took a deep breath and in his strong, lyrical accent relayed exactly what had been said to him. “Signor McLellano say — please aska the
signorina
to come and visit us,” he rendered faithfully, and Leonora smiled.

“And Signor Connor?” she prompted softly, wondering what made her so anxious.

Once more Roberto concentrated. “Tella her,” he repeated carefully, “thata she better getta to hell over here anda putta dis man out of his misery, or I willa personally breaka ’er neck!” He looked at her anxious to be understood and Leonora found herself suddenly and unbelievably lighthearted and laughing unrestrainedly.

“Oh, thank you, Roberto!”

It was obvious that Roberto was a little uncertain of the reason for her laughter, but there was nothing she could do about it and her eyes danced and sparkled with it. She felt quite alarmingly and deliriously lightheaded. He looked at her for a moment curiously, then frowned. “I makea you laugh at me,
signorina
?” he asked, and she hastily shook her head.

“Oh no, Roberto, it wasn’t you,” she assured him, putting a hand on his arm. “It’s - it was Mr. Connor who made me laugh with his message. Thank you very much for telling me, I’m grateful -
tante grazie,
Roberto!”

Roberto bobbed his head, smiling again.
“Mi piacere, signorina
!” His black eyes narrowed and he looked at her curiously, affected by her obvious pleasure. “You will go to see
il signore
?” he asked, and she shrugged her shoulders lightly, unwilling to be too sure as yet.

“I might,” she said, but Roberto was smiling, as if he was much more certain than that.

“It is good,” he said softly, and took his leave of her with a polite little bob of his head. As she walked back along the quay Leonora was sure he was following her with that frankly speculative gaze, curious about the messages he had delivered - as her uncle would no doubt be too.

“I thought you were firmly against ever going again,” Clive remarked when Leonora told him about her meeting with Roberto. Not everything, just that both Scottie and Jason Connor had sent her a message via Roberto.

“I know I said so, Clive,” she told him. “But - well, circumstances change, and Scottie was very anxious that I
should
go, when he fetched me after my car broke down.”

Clive looked at her with one brow raised. “That was two days ago,” he remarked dryly.

“I know, but-”

She shrugged and he shook his head. “Are you going?” he asked.

Leonora shrugged again. She was sure in her own mind that she wanted to go, but unwilling to admit it. “I think I might,” she told him. “I’d like to see Scottie again.”

Clive’s good-looking face gave nothing away, but she knew he was regarding her steadily as she concentrated on the pattern she was painting on one of his squat earthenware vases. “He seemed a decent chap, your - that Scottie McLellan,” he said. “Good, steady type - no nonsense about him.”

Leonora smiled to herself at his near slip. Sometimes Clive could be very transparent and he was determined to see her settled with a husband, despite his own bachelor status. “He’s very nice,” she agreed quietly. “But he still isn’t
my
Scottie, Clive, and nor is he likely to be.”

Her uncle made a moue of doubt. “He seemed pretty keen, the way he spoke when he came here,” he said.