Summer's Lease (The Shakespeare Sisters 1)

‘I want you to set yourself free. There’s nothing embarrassing about words. Only the meaning you attach to them.’ He traced her lips with his finger. ‘If we were talking about chickens you’d say it with abandon.’

Cesca rolled her eyes. ‘Cock. There I said it. Are you happy?’

‘Your voice dropped when you did it. You need to own the word. Try again.’

‘Cock.’ She was a little surer this time.

‘Not loud enough.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake. COCK. COCKCOCKCOCKCOCK.’ She shouted the words, the sound reverberating through the kitchen. Sam started to laugh, his serious expression dissolving away. He took a step back, putting a hand on his stomach, bending over as the laughter exploded from him.

‘You should have seen your face, Cesca,’ he spluttered.

‘I just don’t see the point of saying words simply for shock effect.’

‘I swear I’m going to have it tripping off your tongue by the time I’m through with you. You’ll be “cock this” and “cock that” and you won’t even blink an eyelid.’

‘I certainly won’t. And you can cock off.’

That only made him laugh harder.

‘It’s just over here.’ Sam grabbed her hand and led her around the side of the house, where the gardens gave way to the steep slopes up the mountain. Though evening had arrived, the heat of the day still clung onto the air around them, reddening their faces as they crossed the grass. Eventually they came to a stop, beside a wooden door that led into the hill itself. He slid an old-fashioned iron key into the lock. The mechanism creaked as he released it, then he pulled the door open to reveal a brick tunnel.

‘Wow.’ The cool air escaped from the doorway, hitting their skin. ‘I never even knew this was here.’

‘It’s Foster’s favourite part of the villa,’ Sam said. ‘He’s been stocking it for years.’

She couldn’t help but notice the way he almost spat out his father’s name. Curiosity piqued her. What was it about that man?

They walked inside the tunnel, and Sam pulled the door closed behind them. ‘To keep the temperature even,’ he told Cesca, when she looked alarmed.

He flipped a switch to illuminate the darkness, and the wall-mounted lamps flickered on. Leading her deeper still, they finally came to the cave itself, a large, rectangular cavern lined with wooden shelves. Lying on those shelves, covered in a layer of dust, was a myriad of bottles. So many she couldn’t count them. All angled slightly down, so the corks keeping in the wine wouldn’t dry out.

‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she admitted, still looking around with wonder.

‘According to my mother, it was built by my great-grandfather to impress his wife. She came from a family of wine growers and in wooing her he decided to fill the cave with her wine to impress her. Apparently that’s the only reason she agreed to marry him.’

Cesca laughed, running a finger down the nearest bottle. The dust wiped off onto her finger, revealing a deep green glass below. ‘Sensible woman. Even if he wasn’t very good-looking, at least she could drown her sorrows.’

‘Hey, of course he was good-looking. I’m related to him, after all.’

‘Is that where you get your modesty, too?’

Sam flashed her a smile. ‘Nah, that’s all my own hard work.’ He inspected the bottles, lifting a couple of them up to look at the labels. Finally he pulled one from the shelf, blowing on it to disperse the dust. ‘This one’s my favourite. Foster bought a crate about fifteen years ago, but we’re down to the last few now.’

‘Won’t he mind if we drink it?’

Sam rolled his eyes. ‘He won’t even notice. And it’s not as though he’s short of wine in here.’ He waved at the shelves. ‘Plus I buy him a crate of wine every year for Christmas. He’s the hardest person to find gifts for.’

As soon as they walked back outside the heat hit them. Sam quickly locked up the cave and they headed into the villa, both seeking the relief of the air conditioning. In the kitchen a lasagne was bubbling in the oven, and on the work surface was a board full of cheeses and crusty bread. Another thing she’d miss about Italy when she left it – over here they knew how to make an evening meal into an event.

‘It’ll be another ten minutes,’ Cesca told him, after checking the dish.

‘Perfect. Enough time for us to have an aperitivo.’ Sam grabbed a bottle of gin. ‘I’ll make us a negroni.’

‘I thought you warned me against drinking with strange men,’ she teased, watching as he poured the gin and Campari into a shaker. ‘You said I couldn’t be trusted when I’m drunk.’

‘That’s what I’m banking on.’ He winked at her before pouring the cocktail into two small tumblers. ‘And anyway, the better the drinks, the more you’re likely to savour them.’