Lucy Gordon – From Florence With Love: Valtieri's Bride / Lorenzo's Reward / The Secret That Changed Everything (страница 20)

‘I promised you some olive oil and wine and balsamic vinegar.’

She blinked, and stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘You drove all this way to deliver me olive oil? That’s ridiculous. Why are you really here, in the middle of harvest? And what was that about not wanting me to run away before hearing you out?’

He smiled slowly—reluctantly. ‘OK. I have a proposition for you. Finish the saddle, and I’ll tell you.’

‘Tell me now.’

‘I’ll tell you while you finish,’ he compromised, so she picked up the rag again and reapplied it to the saddle, putting on rather more saddle soap than was necessary. He watched her, watched the fierce way she rubbed the leather, the pucker in her brow as she waited for him to speak.

‘So?’ she prompted, her patience running out.

‘So—I think Carlotta is unwell. Luca says not, and he’s the doctor. He says she’s just old, and tired, and needs to stop before she kills herself.’

‘I agree. She’s been too old for years, probably, but I don’t suppose she’ll listen if you tell her that.’

‘No. She won’t. And the trouble is she won’t allow anyone else in her kitchen.’ He paused for a heartbeat. ‘Anyone except you.’

She dropped the rag and spun round. ‘Me!’ she squeaked, and then swallowed hard. ‘I—I don’t understand! What have I got to do with anything?’

‘We need someone to feed everybody for the harvest. After that, we’ll need someone as a housekeeper. Carlotta won’t give that up until she’s dead, but we can get her local help, and draft in caterers for events like big dinner parties and so on. But for the harvest, we need someone she trusts who can cater for sixty people twice a day without getting in a flap—someone who knows what they’re doing, who understands what’s required and who’s available.’

‘I’m not available,’ she said instantly, and he felt a sharp stab of disappointment.

‘You have another job?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not really, but I’m helping with the farm, and doing the odd bit of outside catering, a bit of relief work in the pub. Nothing much, but I’m trying to get my career back on track and I can’t do that if I’m gallivanting about all over Tuscany, however much I want to help you out. I have to earn a living—’

‘You haven’t heard my proposition yet.’

She stared at him, trying to work out what he was getting at. What he was offering. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, because she had a feeling it would involve a lot of heartache, but—

‘What proposition? I thought that was your proposition?’

‘You come back with me, work for the harvest and I’ll give your sister her wedding.’

She stared at him, confused. She couldn’t have heard him right. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, finding her voice at last.

‘It’s not hard. The hotel was offering the ceremony, a reception for—what, fifty people?—a room for their wedding night, accommodation for the night before for the bridal party, a food and drink package—anything I’ve missed?’

She shook her head. ‘Flowers, maybe?’

‘OK. Well, we can offer all that. There’s a chapel where they can marry, if they’re Catholic, or they could have a blessing there and marry in the Town Hall, or whatever they wanted, and we’ll give them a marquee with tables and chairs and a dance floor, and food and wine for the guests. And flowers. And if they don’t want to stay in the guest wing of the villa, there’s a lodge in the woods they can have the use of for their honeymoon.’

Her jaw dropped, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. ‘That’s ridiculously generous! Why would you do this for them?’

‘Because if I hadn’t distracted you on the steps, you wouldn’t have fallen, and your sister would have had her wedding.’

‘No! Massimo, it wasn’t your fault! I don’t need your guilt as well as my own! This is not your problem.’

‘Nevertheless, you would have won if you hadn’t fallen, and yet when I took you back to my home that night you just waded in and helped Carlotta, even though you were hurt and disappointed. You didn’t need to do that, but you saw she was struggling, and you put your own worries and injuries out of your mind and just quietly got on with it, even though you were much more sore than you let on.’

‘What makes you say that?’

He smiled tenderly. ‘I saw the bruises, cara. All over your body.’

She blushed furiously, stooping to pick the rag up off the floor, but it was covered in dust and she put it down again. The saddle was already soaped to death.

‘And that dinner party—I know quite well that all of those dishes were yours. Carlotta doesn’t cook like that, and yet you left an old woman her pride, and for that alone, I would give you this wedding for your sister.’

The tears spilled down her cheeks, and she scrubbed them away with the backs of her hands. Not a good idea, she realised instantly, when they were covered in soapy filth, but he was there in front of her, a tissue in his hand, wiping the tears away and the smears of dirt with them.

‘Silly girl, there’s no need to cry,’ he tutted softly, and she pushed his hand away.

‘Well, of course I’m crying, you idiot!’ she sniffed, swallowing the tears. ‘You’re being ridiculously generous. But I can’t possibly accept.’

‘Why not? We need you—and that is real and genuine. I knew you’d refuse the wedding if I just offered it, but we really need help with the harvest, and it’s the only way Carlotta will allow us to help her. If we do nothing, she’ll work herself to death, but she’ll be devastated if we bring in a total stranger to help out.’

‘I was a total stranger,’ she reminded him.

He gave that tender smile again, the one that had unravelled her before. ‘Yes—but now you’re a friend, and I’m asking you, as a friend, to help her.’

She swallowed. ‘And in return you’ll give Jen this amazing wedding?’

‘Si.’

‘And what about us?’

Something troubled flickered in his eyes for a second until the shutters came down. ‘What about us?’

‘We agreed it was just for one night.’

‘Yes, we did. No strings. A little time out from reality.’

‘And it stays that way?’

He inclined his head. ‘Si. It stays that way. It has to.’

Did it? She felt—what? Regret? Relief? A curious mixture of both, probably, although if she was honest she might have been hoping …

‘Can I think about it?’

‘Not for long. I have to return first thing tomorrow morning. I would like to take you with me.’

She nodded. ‘Right. Um. I need to finish this—what are you doing?’

He’d taken off his jacket, slung it over the back of the chair and was rolling up his sleeves. ‘Helping,’ he said, and taking a clean rag from the pile, he buffed the saddle to a lovely, soft sheen. ‘There. What else?’

It took them half an hour to clean the rest of Bruno’s tack, and then she led him back to the house and showed him where he could wash his hands in the scullery sink.

‘Don’t mention any of this to Jen, not until I’ve made up my mind,’ she warned softly, and he nodded.

Her sister was in the kitchen, and she pointed her in the direction of the kettle and ran upstairs to shower. Ten minutes later, she was back down in the kitchen with her hair in soggy rats’ tails and her face pink and shiny from the steam, but at least she was clean.

He glanced up at her and got to his feet with a smile. ‘Better now?’

‘Cleaner,’ she said wryly. ‘Is Jen looking after you?’

Jen was, she could see that. The teapot was on the table, and the packet of biscuits they’d been saving for visitors was largely demolished.

‘She’s been telling me all about you,’ he said, making her panic, but Jen just grinned and helped herself to another biscuit.

‘I’ve invited him to stay the night,’ she said airily, dunking it in her tea while Lydia tried not to panic yet again.

‘I haven’t said yes,’ he told her, his eyes laughing as he registered her reaction. ‘There’s a pub in the village with a sign saying they do rooms. I thought I might stay there.’

‘You can’t stay there. The pub’s awful!’ she said without thinking, and then could have kicked herself, because realistically there was nowhere else for miles.

She heard the door open, and the dogs came running in, tails wagging, straight up to him to check him out, and her mother was hard on their heels.

‘Darling? Oh!’

She stopped in the doorway, searched his face as he straightened up from patting the dogs, and started to smile. ‘Hello. I’m Maggie Fletcher, Lydia’s mother, and I’m guessing from the number plate on your car you must be her Italian knight in shining armour.’

He laughed and held out his hand. ‘Massimo Valtieri—but I’m not sure I’m any kind of a knight.’

‘Well, you rescued my daughter, so I’m very grateful to you.’

‘She hurt herself leaving my plane,’ he pointed out, ‘so really you should be throwing me out, not thanking me!’