‘Do you wish me to leave, Slade?’ Claudia’s face was white now but her back was as straight as a rod and her gaze unflinching. Formidable wasn’t the word for it, Daisy thought with a tinge of reluctant admiration for the other woman’s strength of mind.
‘That is up to Daisy.’ Slade was clearly still livid—it was there in the thin line of his mouth and the glittering black eyes—but as he moved his arm so his hand slid round Daisy’s waist and pulled her into him the message to his mother-in-law was unmistakable.
She was glad of his physical support—she had the horrible feeling if he let go of her she would fall in a little heap on the floor and it wasn’t at all the message she wanted to convey to Claudia Morosini—but Claudia was Francesco’s grandmother and Daisy didn’t want to be the cause of a family feud. She took a deep breath and said quietly, ‘I don’t want you to go, Mrs Morosini. Francesco needs all his family around him.’
It wasn’t in Claudia Morosini to apologise to anyone, but she came the nearest to it she ever had as her face relaxed a little and she nodded slowly, lowering her eyes as she turned away. She was a beaten woman. She might not have acknowledged it verbally but they all knew it, and Slade put it into words as he said softly, ‘It should make the future easier if nothing else.’
For him—and Francesco—which was good, very good, Daisy thought as she used Slade’s terminology. But her future wasn’t tied up with Slade’s, however much she wished differently. If ever she had needed confirmation that love was a minefield—which caused the victim who suffered from the disease to walk blindfold—she had just had it. She had got it wrong with Ronald McTavish—horribly, tragically for Jenny—and she would bear the scars for ever. But to commit emotional suicide knowingly…
‘The magician has finished.’ Daisy moved herself very carefully out of Slade’s embrace as she spoke. The magician had finished, the magic had ended and instead of colour and warmth and light the world had suddenly become a place of grey shadows.
CHAPTER NINE
THE next few weeks were hard, very hard. Life at Festina Lente was easier in some respects without Slade being around full-time—he had come home three weekends running but then due to a crisis somewhere or other they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him for the last two weeks—but the ache in Daisy’s heart was growing, not diminishing, with his absence.
It was the fact that he was all about her—in the photographs scattered about the villa, in the way everything in his home had his own unique stamp on it—even in Francesco, who was a miniature version of his handsome father. It made everything so difficult. There didn’t seem to be a minute of any day that she wasn’t thinking about him in some way or other, and the more time went on, the more she realised that her appointment as Francesco’s nanny just wasn’t going to work.
But how could she leave the little boy she had grown to love so dearly? Every time the thought hit her Daisy felt her stomach turn over. It was the one cardinal sin they had been warned about time and time again at college—getting too attached to one individual child—but she just hadn’t been able to help it with Francesco. Apart from the fact that he was Slade’s son Francesco was adorable in himself, and although he could be naughty on occasion, and grumpy, and everything else children could be, he had a sweet disposition and he had stolen her heart. It was as simple as that.
Daisy watched him now, rolling over on the grass as he played with Queenie, and his chuckles of delight as the kitten chased the little ball Daisy had bought brought a smile to her lips despite her heartache.
They were sitting on the perimeter of the lawn facing the house, in the shade of a line of orange trees, and next to Mario’s pride and joy—the rose garden. The rich scent of the flowers was perfuming the heavy summer air with an intoxicating fragrance and fat honeybees were droning their pleasure of Mario’s blooms. All was peace and lazy tranquillity, but Daisy didn’t think she would ever feel peaceful or tranquil again.
She had told herself, over and over, that by acting as she was she was allowing Ronald to win. He had been cruel and treacherous, everything about him had been false, but if she allowed his betrayal and the hurt he had caused to perpetuate that was the real tragedy, wasn’t it? Yes, she knew it was—in her head. Her heart just wouldn’t respond to the logic though. Slade was different from Ronald—as different as chalk from cheese—but this fear—and it was fear, she had at last admitted to herself—wouldn’t be reasoned with. In fact the more she had admitted how much she loved Slade, the worse it had got.
Daisy sighed, leaning back in the big cushioned lounger and shutting her eyes. She wasn’t sleeping properly, she wasn’t eating properly—she was a mess! And she hated being like this.
She thought of the envelope lying on her dressing table at this very minute and sighed again. She had written out her notice the night before and she would give it to Slade as soon as she saw him again. She would stay until he had found a suitable replacement for her and made sure Francesco was happy, but then—then it was goodbye. Aloysia had said Slade needed a woman who would make him happy, and Daisy knew she couldn’t do that. She would tear him apart with her suspicions and mistrust; she would fight giving anything of herself for fear of history repeating itself. No, it couldn’t work. And she had to give him the envelope and stop torturing herself.
She was half dozing as she listened with one ear to Francesco playing with the kitten, but her eyes snapped open immediately as she heard the child say, his voice hesitant, ‘Daisy? There’s someone coming.’
‘Someone…?’ She was looking straight into the sun and for a moment, as she squinted into the distance towards the house, she couldn’t make out who the figure walking towards her was. And then she sat totally stunned, her mouth falling wide open, before she scared Francesco half to death and sent a host of birds quietly minding their own business in the trees above scattering into the air, as she shouted, ‘Mum? Mum?’
‘Hello, darling.’ Her mother’s cheerful voice suggested it was perfectly normal for her to appear from halfway across the globe without so much as a telephone call. ‘Violet and Rose are just coming; they’re in the house talking to Slade.’
‘Slade?’ This was Alice in Wonderland Italian style.
But then they had reached each other and her mother was hugging her close and they were laughing and crying and talking all at the same time, until a serious little voice at their side brought them apart as it said, ‘How do you do? I am Francesco and I am very pleased to meet you.’
Whoops! It was a polite reminder for her to remember her manners, Daisy thought guiltily as she glanced down at Francesco’s enquiring little face. And from a seven-year-old!
By the time the introductions had been completed her sisters were already running to join them, Slade following more sedately as he walked lazily across the lawn, and the next few minutes were spent in incoherent babble and more hugging.
When at last Daisy surfa
ced, her face flushed and her eyes bright, it was to see Slade looking at her—Francesco cradled in his father’s arms and Queenie cuddled close to the small boy’s chest—with that same inscrutable, strange expression in his eyes that she had seen more than once.
‘How…? When…?’ She couldn’t seem to formulate a coherent sentence, but he seemed to understand anyway.
‘I thought you would like to see your family and a break for your mother seemed a good idea,’ Slade said easily, his rich, husky voice with its slight accent making her heart turn over. ‘We thought a surprise would be best.’
‘But…but all the way from America?’ Daisy said weakly.
‘It was Slade’s idea and he insisted on paying for us all,’ her mother chimed in happily as she beamed at Daisy. ‘He just wouldn’t take no for an answer.’
No, well, that sounded like Slade.
‘And Vi and I aren’t back at uni for ages yet,’ Rose added contentedly, ‘so it’s just great, isn’t it?’