Fifteen minutes later, after a brief discussion about the garden, Paulo left. Flicking back the cuff of his pale blue shirt, Raphael studied his watch and then told her, ‘Soon we shall have some lunch, but first there is something else we have to do.’
Since he was already striding towards the main door to the hallway, plainly expecting her to follow him, there was nothing else Charley could do.
The moment he opened the door bright sunlight streamed in, making Charley blink.
‘This way,’ Raphael directed her, putting his hand beneath her elbow and taking the outside edge of the pavement. Somehow, almost miraculously, the crowd seemed to part to allow them through, and within a few short yards Raphael came to a halt in front of the plate glass windows of the store of an internationally famous Italian designer of women’s clothes.
‘You will need a working wardrobe commensurate with your position,’ Raphael informed her. ‘We may as well deal with that now, whilst we are here in Florence.’
Charley looked at him.
‘I have plenty of clothes at home that my sisters can send out to me.’
Raphael raised one eyebrow in a way that made her face burn.
‘Let me guess: these clothes that you have at home are dull, plain garments that are two sizes too big for you? Si? They will not be suitable for your new role. You will be dealing with artists and craftsmen who value beauty—Italian men,’ he emphasised. ‘It is vitally important, since you are representing me, that they respect you and recognise that you understand the importance of quality craftsmanship. To the master stonemason the correct drape of fabric against a woman’s body is as important to his artistic eye as the correct choosing of a piece of stone, and that applies to all those with whom you will be dealing. In addition to that there will be many occasions on which I shall require you to accompany me to meetings and business dinners. Tonight, for instance, I do not want…’
‘Me to show you up with my dull plain clothes?’ Charley finished for him. ‘Well, in that case I’m surprised you’ve brought me here instead of…of some elegant clotheshorse.’
‘Why does the thought of wearing beautiful clothes fill you with such panic? Most women…’
‘I am not most women, and it does not fill me with panic,’ Charley denied. But of course he was right. She couldn’t tell him, though, that she was afraid of beautiful clothes because she knew they would only underline how unworthy she was of wearing them.
‘What I was actually going to say,’ Raphael continued, ‘was that most women would wish to be dressed appropriately in the company of other women—particularly Italian women, who take a pride in their appearance. You will feel uncomfortable if you are not comparably clothed.’
No, she wouldn’t, Charley wanted to say, because she knew how unsuited she was to the kind of Italian elegance to which Raphael was referring.
‘You have already agreed to work under my direction and to abide by my conditions,’ Raphael reminded her.
‘As project manager, not in telling me what to wear,’ Charley retorted. ‘Work clothes for me mean a sturdy pair of boots and a properly fitting hard hat.’ Was that really pity she could see in Raphael’s gaze?
‘You shall have those, of course, but I hardly think that even you would want to dress in such things for dinner.’
His words were a statement and not a question, Charley recognised, and, much as she would have liked to argue the point, Raphael was turning away from her, nodding to the uniformed doorman to open the door to the store, signalling that any attempt at rebellion on her part simply would not be tolerated.
Now Raphael’s hand under her elbow felt like a form of imprisonment, but despite everything she believed about herself, humiliatingly, Charley was forced to admit that, when the sultry-looking sales assistant who ha
d glided forward cast an assessing glance over her, she was glad she was wearing good-quality clothes—even though at the same time she felt acutely conscious of how badly her looks and lack of self-confidence at being in this most feminine of female places compared to that of the sales assistant. Not that the sales assistant spent much time in looking at her—she was far too busy looking at Raphael for that, Charley thought acidly. But then an older woman came forward, dismissing the other girl, smiling warmly but professionally at Raphael.
‘My assistant is in need of a new wardrobe,’ Raphael told the saleswoman. ‘She will need everyday clothes, at least two business suits, and cocktail and evening dresses.’
No, Charley wanted to protest, not dresses. She never wore dresses. Her mother had always said that she was too much of a tomboy to wear them, and had laughed at her on the rare occasions when Charley had insisted that she wanted to be dressed like her sisters, telling her, ‘Oh, poppet, you can’t wear that.’ Dresses—indeed all feminine clothes—were Charley’s enemy. Just looking at them in shop windows brought her out in a cold sweat of remembered childhood humiliation.
The sales assistant’s dark gaze, sent once in Charley’s direction, didn’t return to her as she nodded her head.
‘Please come this way,’ she invited them.
Within two minutes they were inside a private trying-on suite, complete with newspapers, magazines and a television, coffee having been ordered for them both.
Charley was then whisked into a luxuriously equipped large changing room, where she was measured by the saleswoman and then allowed to return to the main room of the suite, where Raphael was drinking his coffee whilst studying his BlackBerry.
Two young assistants were summoned and given a volley of instructions in Italian so rapid that Charley couldn’t keep up with it, though she strained to catch the dreaded word ‘dress’ so that she could counteract it.
Swiftly, under the saleswoman’s silent eagle-eyed inspection, the clothes rail which had been brought into the room was filled with clothes—beautiful, elegant clothes, in wonderful fabrics and sophisticated colours. Two trouser suits, both black; smartly tailored shorts in black, tan and white; tee shirts and knits; blouses… Charley’s panic and dread were increasing with each new item added to the rail.
It was, of course, the evening dress that did it in the end: a swathe of cream silk satin, studded here and there with tiny crystals, the fabric so delicate that it fluttered sensually in the movement from the air-conditioning. Even without having seen it properly Charley knew instinctively that it was a gown designed for a woman who was confident of her own attractive-ness—a woman who knew that when people looked at her the looks would be looks of admiration. She could just imagine the humiliation she would suffer if she allowed herself to be forced into such a dress; she would look idiotic, make a laughing stock of herself, the beauty and elegance of the dress simply underlining her own lack of them. The silk dress shimmered in front of her, warning her of the humiliation that was to come—inside her head she could hear her mother’s voice, as she stood with Charley and her sisters in the children’s department of Manchester’s poshest store—Kendals on Deansgate—where she’d taken them to buy Christmas party dresses. She had been seven, Charley remembered.
She could see herself now, reaching out longingly towards a deep sea-green shot taffeta dress with a black velvet bodice and a wide sash, and then her mother had exclaimed, ‘Oh, no, Charley—you couldn’t possibly wear that.’