Angel of Darkness

‘I do believe I have found food I would kill for,’ she sighed, blissfully stuffed as she rested back in her chair.

‘I didn’t think you would eat most of it,’ Angelo confided.

‘I lost so much weight last month, I can afford to indulge a little.’ Pleasantly relaxed, Kelda asked him a question that had been bothering her for several days. ‘Tell me, when did you change your mind about my mother? What makes you so keen for her to marry your father again?’

‘He hasn’t been happy since the divorce. He was working too hard...in spite of medical advice. Hence the heart attack,’ Angelo divulged unemotionally. ‘He still loves your mother. To be brutally honest, even if she was the money-grabbing blonde I once thought she was, I’d still encourage the marriage. He needs her. I accidentally walked in on them the first time she came to the hospital and there she was, fluffing up his pillows, hanging on his every word, generally looking at him as if he was a god come down from Olympus—’

Kelda could not avoid wincing at the description of her mother’s behaviour around Tomaso. ‘I bet he loved it—’

‘Fifteen minutes of Daisy and he was itching to get out of that bed,’ Angelo said wryly. ‘She made him feel like a man again. She did more for him than all the specialists I had flown in to try and cheer him up about his future prospects.’

Kelda chewed at her lower lip. ‘Mum can’t help being like that round a man,’ she muttered defensively. ‘She’s the nurturing, cherishing type.’

‘I have to admit that when I first saw her in action years ago, I thought it was all an act.’ Angelo topped up her empty glass and sent her a shimmering smile that made her feel oddly dizzy. ‘Of course, it wasn’t. It was just Daisy. I know that now. She’s one of that rare breed, loving and giving...no greed, no calculation. Eleven years ago, I should have had greater faith in my father’s judgement. He’s no fool.’

Kelda’s entire attention was intently pinned to him. A glorious smile spontaneously curved her full mouth. The free admission that he had entirely misjudged her mother, followed by such generous praise of Daisy’s nature, soothed once raw loyalties and delighted her no end. In response to her smile, Angelo’s intense charm blazed forth, catching her unawares.

Feeling scorched, her heart leaping behind her breastbone in a sudden onrush of excitement, she lowered her lashes and struggled to think of something to say but Angelo got in first.

‘What was your father like?’

Bemusedly, she repeated, ‘My father?’ She was so unused to anyone mentioning her father and then once more, she smiled. ‘He was really wonderful,’ she said softly.

Dense ebony lashes dropped low on Angelo’s intent gaze. ‘Tell me about him,’ he encouraged very quietly.

‘I get my height and my colouring from him,’ Kelda shared with unhidden pride. ‘He was hot-tempered but he had a terrific sense of humour and he was marvellous with kids. I remember the way he used to play with us when we were very young. He was like a child himself sometimes.’ She laughed. ‘We moved house a lot. He was very restless, or maybe it was Mum who was restless. He started working abroad when I was five...it really broke my heart—’

Angelo seemed strangely preoccupied with the contents of his glass. ‘Where abroad?’ he cut in.

‘He was an oil worker with a big company in Jordan.’

‘Jordan?’ Angelo repeated softly. ‘Did he come home very often after he started working in... Jordan?’

She frowned. ‘It cost so much, you see. He came back a couple of times but we really kept in touch by letter. I have every letter that he ever wrote to me. He used to tell me terrific stories about the desert. Savage Arabs and crazy camels. He had a great imagination...I dare say he made up half of it to amuse me—’

‘Possibly,’ Angelo murmured in a curiously flat tone.

Kelda didn’t notice. ‘It’s silly, but I always used to wish that he would write direct to me instead of just enclosing his letter to me in with one to Mum. She used to bring them to Liverpool when she came, and she never brought the envelopes with the foreign stamps and I always wanted those to show off to my friends!’

Silence had fallen. A bee buzzed languorously over to the acacia blossoms by the side of the wall. Kelda was feeling wonderfully relaxed. ‘What hurt most,’ she sighed, ‘was only finding out that he had died after the funeral! Mum thought we were too young to handle it but I was thirteen and I still remember her coming up to Liverpool to tell us. I was so angry with her for not telling me immediately.’

‘She was trying to protect you.’ Angelo rose with that lethal elegance of movement that was so characteristic of him. ‘I think it’s time to go.’

Kelda reddened. ‘You should have said that you were bored.’ She was furious with herself for rabbiting on as she had. Why had she done that? She had never discussed her father with anybody before.

‘You never bore me, cara.’

As she clashed with his brilliant dark eyes, she felt oddly naked, horribly vulnerable all of a sudden. Abruptly, she stood up and their surroundings swam dizzily around them. She had had far too much wine. Alcohol loosened the tongue, she reflected ruefully. Angelo closed a large hand over her smaller one and silently guided her down the steep steps to t

he car.

Her stupid fingers were clumsy with the seatbelt. Brushing them away, Angelo did it up for her. ‘Do you still think of me as a slum chid?’ she heard herself ask without forethought.

Lean fingers curved to her delicate jawbone, inexorably forcing her to turn her head towards him. ‘Shut up,’ he said softly, not unkindly.

‘I did grow up on a council estate—’ she began sharply.

‘I told you to shut up.’ His brown fingers moved caressingly over her taut cheekbone and then he leant down, deftly winding his other hand into her hair and let the tip of his tongue slowly and smoothly trace the tremulous line of her lower lip.