A Rumoured Engagement

Saskia switched the oven on, set out butter, fruit and some cartons of yoghurt, made a fresh pot of coffee, then went out to sit on the terrace to lie in wait for Luke, in case he intended taking off without saying goodbye. She heard him leave the bathroom, then a minute or two later he came out on the terrace, wearing well-cut jeans and a white shirt, a lightweight jacket over his arm. But there was no suitcase in evidence, she noted, brightening.

‘I’m off, then, Saskia,’ he said briskly.

‘If you’ve got time, please stay and have breakfast first,’ she said. ‘I obviously put my foot in it again just now. I really didn’t mean to.’

Luke looked down at her, eyes narrowed, then he shrugged and laid his jacket down on one of the wicker chairs. ‘All right’

They ate yoghurt and peaches in silence, then Saskia poured coffee and got up to take the rolls from the oven.

‘Pax?’ she said lightly as she set them on the table.

Luke eyed her expressionlessly. ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

She gave him a reluctant, apologetic smile. ‘I’m not at my best right now.’

‘And even at your best you’re not over-affectionate where I’m concerned.’ He took a roll and buttered it. ‘I’ve often wondered why, exactly, Saskia. Is there something about my person that offends you?’

‘No, of course not. It’s just-’ She shrugged. ‘I’m off men at the moment’

‘That explains this particular moment, maybe, but you’ve been hostile towards me for the best part of ten years.’ Luke stirred his coffee slowly, staring down into the cup. ‘I always assumed it was because Marina and I hit it off so well from the first’

‘Good heavens, no,’ Saskia said in genuine surprise. ‘I was pleased for Mother because you obviously liked her so much. She was very nervous about you before she met you.’

Luke’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Was she really? I never knew that’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Was that the problem, then? Because I made her nervous?’

Saskia sighed. ‘No. I told you why before. I resented you, Lucius Armytage, because I was such an ugly duckling.’

He let out a crack of laughter. ‘But that wasn’t my fault, Sassy.’

‘Of course it wasn’t-but I still hated you.’

‘Do you hate me still?’ he asked, surprising her.

‘No.’ She smiled a little. ‘At least, not so much.’

‘Good.’ He leaned back in his chair, scrutinising her lazily. ‘And you must know, if only from the odd look in the mirror, that Saskia grown up is no ugly duckling. Though,’ he added warily, ‘I’m not sure about the hair.’

‘You don’t like my gold threads?’

‘I meant the cut. I preferred that long mane of yours, Sassy.’

‘It’ll grow,’ she said prosaically. ‘Though I hope it doesn’t quite yet This particular visit to the hairdresser cost an arm and a leg, not to mention ages on a waiting list for the man who actually cut my hair.’

Luke raised an eyebrow. ‘Was this for some special occasion?’

‘Of course-in honour of moving in with Francis Lawford.’ Saskia refilled their cups, avoiding Luke’s eyes.

‘So what happened?’

‘I changed my mind.’

There was silence for a moment while he waited for her to say more. When she didn’t Luke finished his coffee and got up. ‘I must go.’

Saskia had also changed her mind about wanting to go with him. But Luke didn’t ask again. He collected his jacket and she went outside with him, unsurprised when she saw the shield-shaped radiator and distinctive crimson of an Alfa-Romeo roadster. Luke, even when hiring cars, veered towards the aesthetically pleasing.

‘Very nice,’ she said admiringly, and gave him a head-to-toe look. ‘All in keeping with your restrained elegance, stepbrother.’

‘You know the motto in Italy,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Look your best at all times and at all costs. Image is important in this neck of the woods.’ He got in the car and looked up at her.

‘So, apart from a hike to the village, what are you going to do today?’

‘As little as possible.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you be back for dinner?’

For a moment she was sure Luke meant to say no, but he nodded slowly. ‘Don’t go to any trouble. Something cold will be fine.’

Saskia watched the red car wind its way down the serpentine bends of the track which led from the Villa Rosa to the main road. After it had accelerated out of her view she stayed where she was for some time, her eyes on the undulating landscape with its colours of umber and ochre punctuated at intervals by dark fingers of cypress pointing up into the cobalt sky. These surroundings were no help in the present circumstances, she thought morosely. The beauty of it all was meant to be shared with a lover, not help one forget him.

She sighed impatiently and went back into the house to clear away the breakfast things, her mouth twisting a little at the hint of domesticity. Then as she was putting the dishes away she heard a car, and her eyes lit up. Luke was coming back. He must have forgotten something. And this time she would swallow her pride and ask to go with him.

But when Saskia hurried outside she found an elderly green Fiat instead of the smart Alfa-Romeo, and she masked her disappointment with a welcoming smile for Serafina Marenghi—the plump, bustling woman employed to look after the villa.

Teenaged Carlo, who smiled shyly from behind the wheel, was taking his mother shopping, and Serafina would be happy to make any purchases required. A list was made, a bundle of lire handed over, and Saskia advised to make the most of the sunshine—since, warned Serafina, glancing skywards, it would not last much longer. Cold weather was on its way.

Left with nothing to do, and all day to do it in, Saskia took Serafina’s advice. She changed her jeans and sweatshirt for a brief two-piece swimsuit, anointed herself with suncream, collected a novel and pulled one of the steamer chairs out into the sun. If nothing else she could at least augment her tan.

But the day passed very slowly. Odd, she thought, that yesterday had been spent in exactly the same way, but surely the minutes hadn’t crawled by like this. A little after midday she heard the Fiat chugging its way up to the house again, and pulled on her sweatshirt and jeans to take the groceries from Carlo, who shyly handed over a paper-wrapped bundle of herbs from his mother’s garden.

Saskia thanked him warmly, insisted he keep the change he proffered, and went inside with her haul. Serafina had kept to the list and added a few ideas of her own, as requested, so that the tall refrigerator now housed a salami, wafer-thin ham, slices of roast turkey breast, sausages flavoured with fennel, some buffalo mozzarella and a hunk of Parmesan. There were also several loaves of bread, some fresh rolls, a huge bag of tomatoes, some spinach, a melon, a few figs, and a dozen eggs supplied by Serafina from her own hens.

After putting away the surplus bread in the freezer, Saskia washed the spinach and steamed it lightly while she mixed eggs into extra-fine flour to make the pasta for the ravioli she intended giving Luke as a first course. Tonight, she vowed as she worked, she would be as pleasant and friendly a sister as any man could wish for. And for once it was good to have time for the kind of cooking learnt from her mother.

Marina had been born to an Italian mother and English father. Her brief marriage to a young pilot in the Royal Air Force had ended when he’d crashed during a training flight, leaving Marina widowed and six months pregnant at the age of twenty.

When the first wild agonies of grief were over Marina concentrated on making a future for herself and her child with the modest sum of money Richard Ford had left her, and set herself up in a shop which sold elegant, well-designed clothes at affordable prices. The premises she found had a small upstairs flat, and, with her mother’s help with the baby, the business acumen of her accountant father and her own flair for fashion, the dress shop with the simple name ‘Marina’ eventually became a success.

By the time Saskia was in her teens her grandparents had sold their house in England and retired to the Villa Rosa, which her grandfather John Harding had bought for his Anna Maria so that she could live out her remaining days in the sun of her native Tuscany.

It was around this time that Marina was asked to an Oxford dinner party where Samuel Armytage was a fellow guest. They were married a year later. Several years afterwards, to their combined shock and joy, Marina gave birth to twin boys, Jonathan and Matthew, who, unlike Luke, were the spitting image of their father.

Saskia rolled her pasta dough thinly, then pressed a rectangle of it over the raviolatrice, a tray with square, jagged-edged moulds which made light work of creating ravioli. Luke, she thought as she filled the hollows with spinach and ricotta cheese, followed his mother for looks, while she, according to her mother, was very much like the father she’d never known. But by complete coincidence physically Luke could well have been her brother. They were both tall, with long, narrow faces, tawny brown hair and green eyes. But her own were an opalescent almost-green, whereas Luke’s were darker, the colour of moss. The resemblance, which amused Marina and Sam, had always been a source of irritation for Saskia. But if Luke harboured any views on the subject he kept them to himself.

When the ravioli were stowed away in the refrigerator, ready to cook, Saskia returned to the sun with a book and lay there until late afternoon, when a sudden drop in temperature sent her indoors for a bath-this time with the bolt firmly home on the door. By the time six o’clock was pealing in some bell-tower in the distance Saskia was dressed in white Levi’s and a jade cotton shirt, her face burnished by her protracted session in the sun.

When the Alfa-Romeo came to a halt alongside the house half an hour later, Saskia was sitting amongst the pots of geraniums under the pergola. She looked up with a smile as Luke joined her.

‘Hi. You look hot. Had a busy day?’

‘Very. But productive. Good evening, Saskia.’ He looked at her with envy, the lopsided smile lifting one corner of his mouth. ‘I’m weary, travel-stained, and in much need of a shower. No need, I see, to ask how you are. You glow.’