The Tuscan Tycoon's Wife

‘Five years. I got some work doing odd jobs about the rodeos, and bought him cheap from a guy who owed me money. He reckoned Elliot’s career was over, but I thought he still had good things in him if he was treated right. And I do treat him right.’

‘I guess he appreciates that,’ Leo said as she rose and went to fondle Elliot’s nose. The horse pressed forward to her.

He rose too and began to stroll along the stalls, looking in at the animals, who gazed back, peaceful, beautiful, almost seeming to glow in the dim light.

‘You know about horses,’ Selena asked, joining him. ‘I could tell.’

‘I breed a few, back home.’

‘Where’s home?’

‘Italy.’

‘Then you really are a foreigner.’

He grinned. ‘Couldn’t you tell by my “funny accent”?’

She gave a sudden blazing grin. ‘It’s not as funny as some I’ve heard.’

It was as though the sun had come up with her smile. Wanting to make her laugh, Leo went into a clowning version of Italian. Seizing her hand he kissed the back and crooned theatrically,

‘Bella signorina, letta me tell you abouta my country. In Eeetaly we know ’ow to appreciate a beautiful lai-ee-dy.’

She stared, more flabbergasted than impressed.

‘You talk like that in Italy?’

‘No, of course not,’ he said, reverting to his normal voice. ‘But when we’re abroad it’s how we’re expected to talk.’

‘Only by folk who need their heads examined.’

‘Well, I meet a lot of them. Most people’s ideas about Italians come straight out of cliché. We’re not all bottom pinchers.’

‘No, you just wink at women on the highway.’

‘Who does?’

‘You do. Did. When Mr Hanworth’s car passed me, I saw you looking at me, and you winked.’

‘Only because you winked first.’

‘I did not,’ she said, up in arms.

‘You did.’

‘I did not.’

‘I saw you.’

‘It was a trick of the light. I do not wink at strange men.’

‘And I don’t wink at strange women—unless they wink at me first.’

Suddenly she began to laugh, just as he’d wanted her to, and the sun came out again. He took her hand and led her back to the bale where they’d been sitting, and they clinked beer cans.

‘Tell me about your home,’ she said. ‘Where in Italy?’

‘Tuscany, the northern part, near the coast. I have a farm, breed some horses, grow some grapes. Ride in the rodeo.’

‘Rodeo? In Italy? You’re kidding me.’

‘No way! We have a little town called Grosseto, which has a rodeo every year, complete with a parade through the town. There’s a building there with walls covered with photos of the local “cowboys”. Until I was six I thought all cowboys were Italian. When my cousin Marco told me they came from the States I called him a liar. We had to be separated by our parents.’

He paused, for she was choking with laughter.

‘In the end,’ he said, ‘I had to come and see the real thing.’

‘Got any family, apart from your cousin?’

‘Some. Not a wife. I live alone except for Gina.’

‘She’s a live-in girlfriend?’

‘No, she’s over fifty. She cooks and cleans and makes dire predictions about how I’ll never find a wife because no younger woman will put up with that draughty building.’

‘Are the draughts really bad?’

‘They are in winter. Thick stone walls and flagstones to walk on.’

‘Sounds really primitive.’

‘I guess it is. It was built eight hundred years ago and as soon as I finish one repair it seems I have to start another. But in summer it’s beautiful. That’s when you appreciate the stone keeping you cool. And when you go out in the early morning and look down the valley, there’s a soft light that you see at no other time. But you have to be there at exactly the right moment, because it only lasts a few minutes. Then the light changes, becomes harsher, and if you want to see the magic again you have to go back next morning.’

He stopped, slightly surprised at himself for using so many words, and for the almost poetic strain of feeling that had come through them. He realised that she was looking at him with gentle interest.

‘Tell me more,’ she said. ‘I like listening to people talk about what they love.’

‘Yes, I suppose I do love it,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I love the whole life, even though it’s demanding, and sometimes rough and uncomfortable. At harvest you get up at dawn and go to bed when you’re in a state of collapse, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.’

‘You got brothers, sisters?’

‘I’ve got a younger brother—’ Leo grinned ‘—although technically Guido is the elder. In fact, legally I barely exist because it turned out my parents weren’t married, only nobody knew at the time.’

She made a quick, alert movement. ‘You mean you’re a bastard too?’

‘Yes, I guess I am.’

‘Do you care?’