Alessandro shot Laura a sideways glance, caught her eye, kept looking until she looked away and then settled down for the count.
It was nearly six-thirty. Yet another unappetising dish prepared by Freya was bubbling away merrily in the oven and in a few minutes he would fetch a chilled bottle of wine, which he decided would be an excellent accompaniment to the thrilling battle of wills unfolding in front of him.
He already knew what the outcome would be. His father might be able to argue for England but he would never be able to hold out against a determined Edith. The woman had missed her calling as a riot-control specialist in a prison block.
At the moment she was reminding Roberto of every conversation they had ever had in which he had complained about the size of the house. There had been a lot, especially in recent months, and she had a very good memory.
‘And don’t you even bother telling me that you can always live in one wing of the house! Stuff and nonsense!’
‘You’re a harridan, woman! A harridan!’
‘And then there’s that garden so-called of yours! How big is it, exactly? Ten acres? What’s a man of your age doing with ten acres of garden? You’d need a car to get round the lot! I’ll wager you haven’t been to the lavender field since last year! And who told me that the greenhouse was getting a little out of control? You won’t let any of the gardeners in to tend the plants but you can’t tend them all on your own, admit it!’
Alessandro looked at his father’s scowling face with amusement. He wore the harried look of someone who’d just found a hole in his defences and simultaneously discovered that he lacked the time and the necessary tools to do a patch-up job.
He had never seen Roberto on the back foot. His father had always made a show of being in command. He had been a towering, forbidding and silent figure in Alessandro’s childhood, a largely absent one during his teenage years and a broodingly taciturn and borderline belligerent one as Alessandro had reached adulthood.
That was not the same man sitting in the burgundy covered chair now, glowering at Edith before huffing into silence.
‘You’re a damned witch, woman!’ He looked at her and then said slyly, ‘Could you have an ulterior motive for trying to get me out of this house? I hear that house down the road from you is coming up for sale in the next month or so... You know the one I mean...those layabout softies from Edinburgh inherited it when old man Saunders died. Wouldn’t fancy getting your hands on me, would you?’
‘You should be so lucky!’
‘If you’ll excuse me...’ Alessandro stood up, flexed his muscles ‘...I’m going to get some wine and, Laura...’ he shot a glance at her, eyebrows raised ‘...why don’t you accompany me? You can check on whatever delight Freya’s shoved in the oven for us to eat. It’s been in there for the past four hours so whatever it’s meant to be it’ll probably emerge as baby food.’
‘Don’t you go thinking you’ve won this round, young man!’ Roberto banged his walking stick on the parquet flooring and glared at his son. ‘Won’t be browbeaten into doing what I don’t want to do and...’ he transferred his beady eyes to Edith, who wore the smug expression of the victor ‘...won’t be nagged into it, either!’
Alessandro shrugged and left the room with the vague promise that the matter could be revisited over dinner. Behind him, Laura followed. She hadn’t said a word, leaving her grandmother to argue with Roberto. She had sat in her chair, her body rigid with tension, her focus exclusively on Roberto, but she had been aware of his son with every pore in her body. Alessandro had relaxed back in the chair, his fingers lightly entwined on his stomach, his legs outstretched and loosely crossed at the ankles. She had sensed his alertness, his watchfulness... Her antennae had picked it up like a gazelle picking up the scent of a jungle cat.
‘I think,’ he drawled the minute they were in the kitchen, ‘that what we have in there is called a foregone conclusion. Maybe we should leave your grandmother to seal the deal and mop up the blood before we take the wine in. I can’t believe she got the better of my father! Memorable.’ He poured them both a glass of Chablis and watched as she went straight to the oven, removed whatever was being cremated in a cast-iron casserole pot, winced and then rested the pot on the hotplate.