Page 27 of The Rainbow Recipe
“Office staff, mostly. And if Kat is dead...I’m thinking I’ll go back to selling locally.” Gloomily, Leo poured wine for himself.
“Were the Gladwells with Lucia the last time you saw her? Did you say they visit occasionally?” Pris tried to sound nonchalant, as if just gossiping while she rested. She didn’t have a lot of practice at casual.
Wrapped up in his own problems, Leo didn’t appear to notice her stiffness. “Lucia introduced me to the lot of them that last time she was here, including the models they use for ads. I’d expected blond Englishmen, but her stepfather’s family look as Italian as her father. Her mother must have had a thing for Latin men.”
“The Katherine I met was blond. Was their mother?” She curled up on the gazebo bench as if making herself at home.
“Yeah, both her daughters resembled her. Katherine was—how do you call it?—a piece of work? Volatile. She bossed everyone around, even her father and Lucia. I assume he’s the one with the money though, so maybe I can reach out to him.”
“I understand from my family that Matt Gladwell stayed in the US to run the boutiques. Do you think he might have any influence?” Pris had no idea where she was taking this. She simply wanted to keep him talking, see if she could pick up any strong mental vibrations. So far, all she was getting was weariness. Emotion tended to block thinking.
“Let’s hope not. He strikes me as a full-time jerk. He’s been back here several times with his father. I think they only come by to write off the trip for taxes. They know nothing of oil production.”
That brought an angry phrase to his mind, but Pris couldn’t translate it. Dang, so much for reading minds if he thought in Italian.
“I wonder if that means Lucia and Katherine were actually running the company? You might be better off selling locally, if so.” Finishing her water, Pris stood. “I suppose I better meander back so Dante doesn’t leave me behind.”
“Driving a stick shift with that leg won’t be easy.” Lazy amusement crossed Leo’s face. “I should drive you home and let him figure out how to get back.”
“Doesn’t pay to tick off the one who might find treasure, not until he’s found it anyway.” She strolled toward the wall, hunting for ways to jar his thoughts loose. “What happens if your storage cave is sitting on top of a graveyard?”
An image of bones rose in his mind. Shocked, she grabbed the stones of the wall to steady herself. The image quickly fled. What the heck was Leo thinking about?
“All Italy is a graveyard. We can’t stop building if we find bones or we’d all be living in tents.” He offered his hand to help her up the stone barricade, apparently unsurprised by her route.
“Pragmatic. I like that.” Well, no, she didn’t, she decided, but that was better left unsaid. She grabbed a limb and climbed down the tree on the other side.
Leo knew there were bones to be found in his caves.Whose bones? And how old were they?
Satisfied now thathe’d checked in with his students, Dante retired to the library fire and his laptop. The villa didn’t have anything as modern as a recliner, but the ancient upholstered chair in the library was well-cushioned, and it had a footstool for propping up his leg.
If nothing else, being incapacitated gave him time to finish all the reports he’d been putting off. And he could start work on his next lecture.
Concentrating, he didn’t notice the shadows creeping around the edge of the room until one stumbled over a light cord. Lifting his eyes but not his head, he watched as the twins crawled along the bottom of the bookcase. Apparently finding what they wanted, they settled in a corner with a large volume in their laps.
He was pretty sure they couldn’t read.
Wondering what they were up to broke his concentration sufficiently to notice the aromas wafting through the drafty halls. Lasagna, perhaps. His stomach rumbled, and he realized it was nearing dinner time—as much as his mother managed a dinner hour anyway.
Distracted by the twins and his hunger, he gave up entirely when he heard male voices descending the stairs.Che diavolo?
The instant he set aside his laptop, the twins slid behind the sofa to hide. Prying himself out of the chair with his crutch, he crossed the worn Persian carpet to the shelves, sat on the sofa’s arm, and picked up the book they’d been perusing. It fell open to a vivid illustration of naked angels from the Renaissance, many of them children. Right.
He remembered working his way through these shelves when he’d been a lonely child. Unfortunately, he couldn’t lean over and haul the miscreants from their hiding place in his current condition. Instead, he pulled down a volume of German fairy tales from over their heads and left it in place of the boring Renaissance paintings. Since they couldn’t read, the phantasmagorical illustrations should hold their attention. Quite a few contained children.
Then he stood and worked his way out to the foyer where his unwanted guest waited at the front door, attempting to speak Italian with hand gestures to a couple of what appeared to be workmen from the village. Her gestures were as bad as her Italian. He ought to tie her hands behind her back before she gave them the wrong idea.
A basket that smelled of lasagna ended any confusion. The addition of a couple of bottles of wine still covered in dust from his cellar, and the men beamed in appreciation.
Finally noticing him emerge into the foyer, the workmen lifted their caps, thanked him—in Italian—for hiring them, and departed before Dante could even form a question.
He remembered his mother’s childhood tales about brownies who took over the household. He couldn’t help the comparison as, garbed in her usual drab, Priscilla vanished the instant he turned his back.
Before he could follow and determine whether she’d just given away his dinner, his mother traipsed down the stairs, her face wreathed in smiles. She was still an attractive woman, more so when smiling. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he’d seen her relaxed instead of frazzled.
She launched into a voluble paean to plumbers who could repair their ancient, intractable plumbing, and Dante finally got the picture. He didn’t particularly like it, but he couldn’t dampen his mother’s delight.
Besides, he was the one who had left the interfering female to her own devices all afternoon. He knew better. Whatever she’d done was on his head. He should have drugged her, stuffed her in a trunk, and shipped her home.
