Kiss of Hot Sun Read online

  His keen interest in me was enormously flattering. If I’d not been scared of getting caught on the rebound after that deathblow from Philip, I might have let Giles know how much I liked him. But as it was, I stayed markedly cool.

  I managed to hold him off all the first day. But after lunch on the second, when the staff were off duty and Adeline was taking a siesta upstairs, Giles caught me by the door of the kitchen.

  “You keep pacing around like a caged animal, Kerry.”

  I pretended not to notice that his face was barely six inches from mine. “Go away. I’ve got work to do...”

  “And all the time in the world to do it in.” He jerked his head in a quick grin. “Relax, Kerry. You’re in Sicily now.”

  “But I’m supposed to be here to do a job.”

  “Stop arguing with your good luck.” He leaned forward suddenly so that his lips were against mine. I felt my resistance dissolving. Was there some magic in the Sicilian air that made me want to let him kiss me?

  Whatever it was, I struggled against the impulse, pushing myself back to the wall. But I couldn’t escape him. His arms were tight around me, drawing me towards him again. I could feel the supple warmth of his lean body. His teeth shone white against deep-bronze skin.

  “No Giles, don’t,” I said sharply. “Somebody might come.”

  He laughed. “Wouldn’t that be just too awful—for someone to catch sight of a pair of lovers kissing, here in Sicily...”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, struggling out of his arms.

  He let me go, just retaining one hand firmly in his own.

  “You can’t stop me hoping,” he said lightly.

  I couldn’t find it in me to brush Giles off more decisively. Maybe my damaged pride needed the tonic of having a man interested in me.

  Together we strolled out to the shady loggia, a green haven of trailing creepers and vines. It was cool and refreshing. Beyond, the heat of afternoon sun shimmered above parching grass.

  Giles was very much at home at the Stella d’Oro. He wandered back indoors, and emerged a moment later carrying a tray. Just iced water and lemon juice; without any sugar at all it was marvellously tangy.

  A little fountain tinkled as a background. We lounged in long cane chairs, sipping the drinks, talking in a desultory way. Giles asked what had brought me to Sicily, and I explained a bit about myself and my job with Monica.

  I didn’t say a word about Philip Rainsby.

  Giles gave me a slow, appraising survey of a look. “I thought maybe it was a man that brought you belting over here.”

  “Of course it’s not a man!” There was acid in my voice.

  “I meant,” he remarked mildly, “a man you are running away from. An unhappy memory, maybe?”

  “You’re crazy. I needed a job, that’s all.”

  “Only, there isn’t much work for you to do?” His eyes narrowed. “It almost makes me wonder if you haven’t got some sort of hold on Adeline.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you know something the old girl doesn’t want made public.”

  Swift anger rose in me. “Are you suggesting that I’m blackmailing Miss Harcourt?”

  I began to get up, but from such a low, reclining position it wasn’t an easy thing to do with dignity. Giles put out a lazy hand and held me back.

  “Calm down, Kerry. I was only kidding.”

  “Well, I don’t think it was funny, that’s all.”

  But I stayed. Giles sipped his drink for a minute. Then, with mock contrition, he raised his eyes to mine. “Am I forgiven?”

  I had to grin at him. “I must admit I feel a bit of a fraud, though. We could easily have a lot more people staying here. A fabulous place like this, and bang in the middle of the season...”

  “There are some new people coming tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes. A couple from England, I hear. And another chap on his own.”

  I felt piqued that Giles should know more than I did about expected guests. He must have seen my annoyance, because he added hastily: “Adeline just happened to mention it.”

  “Well, it’s a pity she didn’t happen to mention it to me!” But I felt hurt more than angry. And after all, Giles wasn’t the one to blame. “Oh, never mind...” I stretched back luxuriously in my chair. “It’s too gloriously hot to quarrel about anything.”

  He gave me an amused glance, nodding with approval. “Now you’re getting the idea of Sicily,” he said. “The main thing is to relax and stop worrying about things that don’t really matter anyway. Enjoy yourself.”

  “I can see it could be a pleasant life,” I admitted.

  “Take it from one who knows! And as a first lesson in the art of living, you shall come on a little excursion with me tomorrow.”

  Chapter Three

  Afternoon tea was the social high spot of the day at the Villa Stella d’Oro. Adeline made quite a ceremony of it. She presided over the wagon, wielding an exquisite silver teapot and water jug. It gave her an unmatched opportunity to dazzle everyone with her dramatic talents, and I guessed this was the only reason for sticking to so English a habit. All other meals at the villa were strictly Italian-style.

  But that afternoon we were a small party, only Giles and I were joining her for tea. The honeymooners were out, apparently forgetting the time. We sat in the salon, long windows thrown wide to the loggia.

  “I hear from Giles we are expecting three more guests tomorrow,” I said, deliberately revealing a mild resentment.

  But Adeline didn’t seem to notice. “I only hope we shall like them. It is so trying if people are not simpatico.” Then she added casually: “By the way, Signor Zampini is also coming for a few days. You met him in Rome, I believe?”

  “Yes. Monica took me along to a party at his place.” I remembered the man particularly because he’d struck me as so repulsive. “I didn’t realise that you knew him, Miss Harcourt.”

  Delicately, Adeline added cream to a cup of tea. “Oh yes indeed, we are old, old friends.”

  The thought of having Signer Zampini so close at hand gave me no pleasure. I was surprised, too. I wondered what on earth Adeline Harcourt, one-time queen of the London stage, could possibly have in common with this fat and hairy Italian.

  It struck me as odd that, since they were such old friends, she hadn’t been at his party in Rome. I knew for a fact she’d been in the city that evening.

  Giles drifted into the conversation, talking about the proposed jaunt as though it were already fixed, taking it quite for granted that I could go. I felt horribly uncomfortable at his easy assumption that my job could be treated so lightly.

  But I needn’t have worried. Adeline was enthusiastic. “It’s a very good idea for you to get to know your way around the island. How else can you appear knowledgeable when guests ask for information?”

  “But oughtn’t I to be here when the new people arrive?”

  Adeline blithely dismissed this as quite unnecessary. In fact, I rather got the impression she would prefer me to be out.

  * * *

  Summer had come early, even for Sicily. The heat was mounting, each day up on the one before. When we set out the sun was already high, bouncing up from the ground almost as fiercely as it glared down from the sky.

  Giles planned to drive me up Etna. “Not all the way, though. After six or seven thousand feet the road fizzles out. Of course, you can always walk the rest, if you like.”

  I glanced at him suspiciously, wondering if he was pulling my leg.

  Actually, I found Giles surprisingly well-informed. He spoke with compassion of the dreadful earthquakes Sicily had suffered, the Messina disaster early in the century, and the recent upheavals on the western side of the island. He told me about some of Etna’s worst eruptions, way back. “Still, maybe the old girl isn’t all bad, considering this lot comes from the filthy muck she throws up from her innards.”

  �
�This lot’ was the lower slopes, lush vineyards and terraced orchards of lemon and orange. Olives too, and everything imaginable crammed in. Not the tiniest fragment of soil was allowed to go to waste.

  Quite suddenly Giles swerved off the road. He pulled up beside the entrance to a cafe. I glimpsed a sprawling white building half hidden by trees, with tables and chairs dotted around a paved courtyard.

  “We’ll have a drink here, and push on nearer the crater for lunch,” he said. “Then we’ll have time for a slow amble back to the villa for tea.”

  “This trip sounds more gastronomic than educational,” I laughed.

  Giles didn’t laugh. “I don’t intend it to be either.”

  It was the sort of remark, I decided, best left well alone.

  Maybe I was slowing down to a Sicilian pace after all. It was so easy just to sit back and let things happen. The idea of a long cool drink in that shade-dappled garden was heaven. Even the feather-soft air seemed to be asking what was the hurry. Wouldn’t Etna still be there tomorrow?

  In the cafe garden we made for a small arbour that had a view right up to Etna’s summit. But half way across, Giles switched direction.

  “It’ll be cooler inside,” he muttered.

  I protested. “But it’s gorgeous out here. And I wanted to enjoy the view.”

  “You’ll be sick of that view soon enough,” he said rather sourly. He reached for my hand, and firmly marched towards the glass door leading inside.

  I threw a wistful glance over my shoulder, and caught a swift impression of a familiar face. Still towed by Giles, I took a second look back.

  Signor Zampini—the fat and greasy Guido Zampini! He looked as repellent as ever, uncomfortably hot in a dark blue suit tight-buttoned across his massive paunch.

  Giles skipped up a couple of shallow steps. I fell up them, nearly capsizing. As I swung round to save myself, my last flash took in Zampini’s companions, a man and a woman. The man I didn’t know. The woman I did—oh my God I did!

  I’d seen her just once before. Back in Rome, sitting on a hotel terrace, big-eyeing Philip Rainsby.

  “Giles !”I yelled. “Wait a minute.”

  He almost dragged me the last yard. We were inside the cafe, door shut behind us, before he stopped and faced me.

  “What’s up, Kerry?”

  I was on the edge of telling him, but I held back. It was something too personal to talk about. And I had an odd feeling there were wider implications I couldn’t yet analyse.

  “What’s the matter?” Giles repeated, looking a bit anxious.

  I improvised. “You nearly had me over then, that’s what.”

  He grinned. “Sorry. I wanted to grab us a nice table.”

  I couldn’t see what he was flapping about. Most people seemed to share my own preference for the tables in the garden. The restaurant itself was almost empty.

  Giles must have had another reason for his abrupt change of mind. It was as though he too had spotted somebody outside, somebody he wanted to avoid.

  The fat Italian was a likely candidate. Giles must surely know Guido Zampini, I reckoned. Perhaps he disliked

  Adeline’s old friend as much as I did.

  I was cheated of my cool drink too. We gulped down a hurried Martini in the uncomfortable overwarm restaurant. And then we were on our way again, attacking the mountain road like hell was on our tail.

  My memory of that mad drive up Etna is hazy. Vaguely, I recall a falling-off of cultivation as we climbed higher. Then there were trees, I think, before a curiously forbidding region of black desert. I was certainly glad of the coat Giles had persuaded me to bring. In the heat down below, it had seemed impossible that I should need it. But high up the air was chilly and the wind biting.

  We lunched at a sort of clubhouse at the end of the road. Giles ate ravenously, saying the cold air gave him an appetite. But I wasn’t hungry. I couldn’t get out of my mind a picture of three people at a table in a cafe garden thousands of feet below us. They’d be gone by now, but in my mind they were still there, talking earnestly.

  Seeing Zampini was just an unpleasant coincidence. But the sight of that woman had shaken me badly. It reminded me too sharply, too cruelly, of someone I’d thought I was beginning to forget.

  Giles made sure we got back to the Stella d’Oro in time for the teatime ritual. “It means so much to Adeline,” he said lightly. “We mustn’t disappoint the old darling by being late.”

  We had ten minutes to spare before five o’clock deadline. I went straight up to my bedroom to wash off Etna’s dust, and slipped into a crisp pink linen dress. I got down to the salon bang on time.

  Unexpectedly, it was quite full. Giles was there, of course, lounging easily in an armchair next to Adeline. On her other side were two men I’d not seen before—one rather short, trim and military-looking, with a small neat toothbrush moustache. The other, much younger, was tall and fair, with a paler complexion that looked as if it were new to Sicily.

  There were also three people sitting with their backs to me. It was only as they swung round, the men jumping politely to their feet, that I recognised them.

  I’d been expecting Guido Zampini to show up at the villa sometime today, so his presence didn’t surprise me. Maybe the sight of the other two didn’t surprise me all that much, either. Maybe I’d feared this ever since seeing the three of them together at the cafe.

  I believe I managed to conjure up a smile. But if so, then it was quite utterly false.

  Chapter Four

  Adeline Harcourt, queening it over the tea wagon, had all the smooth style of a Mayfair hostess. “Kerry, darling! Do come and meet my friends.”

  Taking a good strong hold on myself, I went forward.

  Adeline began the introductions. “Signor Zampini you have met before. I have known him for oh, so many years...” She pursed her lips and gave a teasing little shake of her head, as if begging him not to divulge precisely how many years it was. She moved on. “Mr. and Mrs. Blunt, who have come to stay with us for a while...”

  “How do you do?” I murmured.

  The man held out a huge hand, thick fingers splayed. “How do, me dear. And none of this Mr. and Mrs. business, if you please. The names are George and Rosie...”

  “Rosalind!” his wife corrected sharply.

  Now that I looked at her more closely, I had to admit she was attractive. She had a perfect heart-shaped face, and silky golden-blonde hair that swung to her shoulders. Vivid wide blue eyes gave her a look of fetching innocence. Yet underneath I detected a vein of toughness that maybe only another woman could recognise.

  Her husband’s grin was entirely fond as he said: “I always call her Rosie. Happen she’s as sweet as any rose I ever saw...”

  “Oh, don’t be a damn fool George,” she slung back spitefully.

  Her voice was strident, and I couldn’t place the accent because it was larded over with pretensions to class. The man, however, spoke pure Yorkshire—a no-nonsense, unpolished Yorkshire.

  Adeline was continuing with the introductions. The two men beside her, I gathered, were connected with the local police.

  “.... Inspector Vigorelli and his assistant, Cesare Pastore.” She became stagily arch. “They pretend they have come for the pleasure of taking tea with me, but I suspect they know all about my wicked criminal activities, and will whisk me away to one of their dungeons at any moment.”

  I managed to join in the dutiful titter, but the image of a hotel terrace in Rome was dominating my mind. Philip Rainsby and that woman—and I wasn’t a bit surprised to discover she was married. I could picture the scene too clearly to doubt their intimacy. There had been a closeness between them that spoke of a whole lot more than casual friendship.

  The older police officer had taken my hand and bowed low, clicking his heels smartly. The younger one shook hands, and looked into my eyes.

  I became aware I was keeping the men on their feet. I sat down hastily.

  Signor Zampini flas
hed me a gold-dazzling smile, and explained to the others: “Signorina Lyndon was so kind as to come to a little reception I gave in Rome.” In spite of his thick charm, I got the impression that for some reason he disliked me, or distrusted me. I remembered how I’d dodged him at the party. Maybe he had recognised that as a deliberate brush-off. I smiled back at him, trying to look amiable. For Miss Harcourt’s sake I mustn’t offend him any further.

  I turned to the woman. “You and your husband have just arrived from Rome?” I wasn’t really sure what I hoped to gain by asking about Rome. She was hardly likely to mention Philip.

  To my surprise she looked embarrassed and glanced at her husband. Flushing, he flickered his eyes towards Zampini. Following the quick sequence, I was certain that the fat Italian gave a slight nod of assent.

  It had all happened so rapidly that the woman’s reply could have sounded spontaneous. “Yes, that’s right. We flew over from Rome this afternoon.”

  “This afternoon?” But it was in the morning that I had seen them with Zampini.

  “Aye, lass,” George Blunt confirmed quickly. “Straight from Rome we’ve come, and driven up here from Catania.”

  Just what was going on between these three?

  “I don’t remember meeting you at the party,” I said, tossing out the bait to both husband and wife.

  Rosalind Blunt looked cautiously puzzled, but her husband charged straight in.

  “What party would that have been, lass?”

  Suddenly I was aware that the rest of the company had become an absorbed audience.

  “I mean Signor Zampini’s party—the one he mentioned just now.”

  Both the Blunts started talking at once in their eagerness to deny all previous knowledge of the Italian. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Signor Zampini before...” she fluttered, while he came in heavily: “Never clapped eyes on the gent until ten minutes ago.”

  A shiver ran through me, a whisper of... not quite fear, but of something pretty unpleasant all the same. Why were the Blunts and Zampini pretending to be strangers?