Lucy Gordon - The Tuscan Tycoon’s Wife

‘Hi Leo! Everything OK?’

‘Not quite,’ he said, horribly conscious that he was only half dressed, and trying not to go red. ‘Selena dropped one of the glass jars into the bath, while she was in it, and it smashed.’

‘Poor Selena! Is she still trapped in there?’

‘No, I got her out, and she’s safe,’ he said, wishing the earth would swallow him up. ‘I promised her I’d tell your mom about the jar. I’ll do that-er-just as soon as I’ve put on a shirt.’

He got into his room as fast as he could, trying not to hear two teenage girls snickering significantly. It was a sound calculated to freeze a man’s blood.

Delia reacted just as Leo had known she would, with sympathy and kindness.

‘What’s a jar?’ she said. ‘I’ll go and make sure she’s all right.’

She was back in a few minutes, sweeping into the kitchen to order food to be taken upstairs to Selena. She seemed to have spoken to her daughters in the meantime, for her attitude to Leo had developed a tinge of roguishness.

‘I gather you played knight in shining armour. And who could blame you? She’s a very nice-looking girl.’

‘Delia, I swear I never met her before today.’

Fatal mistake. Delia smiled knowingly. ‘You Italians are so dashing and romantic, never missing a chance with the ladies.’

‘What are those wonderful smells coming from the kitchen?’ he asked desperately, ‘because you are looking at a starving man.’

Mercifully food was allowed to drive out all other topics of conversation, and the only other person who raised the matter was Paulie, who nudged Leo aside and said much the same as his mother, except that he made it sound vulgar and offensive. When Leo had smilingly explained to Paulie all the unpleasant things he would do to his person if he ever mentioned it again, the matter was allowed to drop.

While he dressed for the barbecue Leo tried to get his own reactions in perspective. Despite her prickly defensiveness, for which he reckoned nobody could blame her, Selena was oddly appealing. But there wasn’t, at first glance, anything special about her. Even holding her naked body shouldn’t have been a big deal, since she lacked the buxomness he preferred in women.

Yet, mysteriously, something about her had got to him. He still couldn’t figure out what, but the sight of Paulie smacking his fat lips over what he thought had gone on in her room had filled him with rage. Leo, the most amiable of men, had only been restrained from violence by recalling that this was his hostess’s son.

Guests were starting to arrive, heading for the field where the big party was taking place, the same field where last night’s big party had taken place, and where there would be another one just as soon as someone could think of an excuse. Leo watched it from his window, grinning, anticipating the evening.

‘Ready for a great time?’ Barton hollered as Leo came down the stairs.

‘I’m always ready for that,’ Leo said, truthfully. ‘But can we call in at the stables first?’

‘Sure, if you want. But Leo, you don’t have to worry. She’s going to be all right.’

‘Elliot’s a he.’

‘It wasn’t Elliot I was meaning,’ Barton said, seeming to speak to nobody in particular.

The anti-inflammatory drug was evidently taking effect, and Elliot seemed contented. The way to the barbecue field led past Barton’s garage, and through the open door Leo could see Selena’s van, and the remains of the horse trailer.

‘That’s had its day,’ Barton mused. ‘The wonder is, how it lasted so long.’

Leo climbed into the van. What he saw there made him grow very still.

He thought of himself as a man who could cope with tough living, but the inside of her home shocked him. Everything was the barest and meanest possible. There was a couch just long enough for her to sleep, a tiny stove, a minute washing area. The best that could be said for the place was that it was spotlessly clean.

His own experiences of living rough, he realised, had been those of a rich man, playing with a kind of toy. However harsh the conditions, he could always return to a comfortable life when he got bored with playing. But for her there was no escape. This was her reality.

What could have made her choose the life of a wanderer, which seemed to offer her so little?

One thing was becoming horribly clear. The accident had robbed her of almost everything she had.

After that he had no chance to think gloomy thoughts. Texas hospitality opened its arms to him, and he rushed into them, enjoying every moment, and telling himself he’d have time to be exhausted later. What with plentiful food and drink, music and pretty girls to dance with, several hours slipped happily away.

When he could pause for breath he wondered how Selena was fixed? Had she eaten the supper Delia sent up, and was she hungry again?

He piled a plate high with steak and potatoes, tucked some cans of beer under his arm and headed for the house. But some instinct made him check the stables-just in case. As he’d half expected, Selena was there, leaning on the door of Elliot’s stall, just watching him contentedly.

‘How is he?’ Leo asked, looking in.

She jumped up. ‘He’s better. He’s calmed down a lot.’

She was better too, he could see that. Her cheeks had colour and her eyes were bright. He raised the plate to show her and she eyed the steak hungrily.

‘That for me?’

‘Well, it sure as hell isn’t for Elliot. Come on out.’

He found a solid bale of hay and they sat down together. He handed her a beer and she tipped her head back to take most of it in one go.

‘Oh, that was good!’ she sighed.

‘Well, there’s plenty more out there,’ he said, indicating the door with his head. ‘In fact there’s plenty of steaks too. Why not come out and join the party?’

‘Thanks, but I won’t.’

‘Still not feeling up to partying?’

‘No, I’m better. I slept well. It’s just-all those people, looking at me and thinking my voice isn’t right, and-everything isn’t right.’

‘Who says you’re not right?’

‘I do. This house-everything-it gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

‘You’ve never been in a house like that before?’

‘Oh, sure, plenty of times. Just not through the front door. I’ve worked in places like this, mopping floors, cleaning up in the kitchen, anything that was going. Mind you, I preferred a job in the stable.’

‘When was this? You talk like you were ancient, but you can’t be more than forty.’

‘More than-?’ She saw the wicked gleam in his eyes, and laughed. ‘I’d thump you if you weren’t sitting between me and the beer.’

‘That’s what I like,’ he said, handing her another can. ‘A woman with a sense of priorities. So, not forty then?’

‘I’m twenty-six.’

‘And when was all this ancient history?’

‘I’ve been looking after myself since I was fourteen.’

‘Shouldn’t you have been at school?’

Another shrug. ‘I suppose.’

‘What happened to your parents?’

After a few moment’s silence she said, ‘I was raised in a home, several actually.’

‘You mean you’re an orphan?’

‘Probably not. Nobody knew who my father was. Not sure even my mom knew that. All I really knew about her was that she was just a kid herself when she had me, couldn’t cope, put me in a home. I expect she meant to come back for me, but things got too much for her.’ Selena took another swig.

‘And what then?’ Leo asked, in the grip of an appalled fascination.

‘Foster homes.’

‘Homes? Plural?’

‘The first one was OK. That’s where I found out about horses. After that I knew whatever I did it had to be with horses. But the old man died and the stock got sold off and I was sent somewhere else. That was bad. The food was rotten and I was cheap labour, kept off from school because they were too mean to pay an extra hand. I told them where they could stick it and they sent me packing. Said I was “out of control”. Which was true. In a pig’s ear I was going to let them control me.’

‘But aren’t there laws to protect kids in this situation?’

She looked at him as if he was crazy.

‘Of course there are laws,’ she said patiently. ‘And inspectors to see that the laws are followed.’

‘So?’

‘So bad things happen anyway. Some of the inspectors are decent people, but they get swamped. There’s just too much to do. And some of them just see what they want to see because that way they finish work early.’

She spoke lightly, without bitterness, like someone describing life on another planet. Leo was aghast. His own existence in Italy, a country where family ties were still stronger than almost anywhere else, seemed like paradise in comparison.

‘What happened after that?’ he asked, in a daze.

She shrugged again and he realised how eloquent her shrugs were, each one seeming to contain a whole speech.

‘A new foster home, no different. I ran away, got caught and sent back to the institution, and after a while there was another foster home. That lasted three weeks.’

‘What then?’ he asked, for she’d fallen silent again.

‘This time I made sure they didn’t catch me. I was fourteen and could pass for sixteen. I don’t suppose they looked for me long. You know, this steak is really good.’

He accepted her change of subject without protest. Why should she want to discuss her life if it had been like that?

NOW that her fear for Elliot had been eased Selena was growing more relaxed, exuding an air of taking life as it came that Leo guessed was more normal with her.

‘Have you and Elliot been together long?’ he asked.

‘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?’