‘Why else would he invite me to Winterwood to convalesce?’
‘He’s done what?’ she squeaked, shattered by the news.
‘I must say I’m really looking forward to seeing the house again.’ He sighed fondly. ‘When it belonged to the Cliffords in the fifties I was a regular visitor there—’
‘But I thought you were planning on a convalescent home?’
‘Rico told me what that would cost.’ Weak as he was, Hector all but shuddered in recollection.
‘How clever… I mean, how conscientious of him to have found out for you,’ she managed with the greatest difficulty. ‘But I could look after you at home if you like.’
‘Not with that showing at the Matheison Gallery coming up. I wouldn’t dream of it.’
Bella’s nails dug into her palms like talons. Ten minutes with Hector had sent her from utter despondency to sheer rage. Rico had trussed her up like a goose ready for the oven! Perfectly well aware that their relationship was in deep water, he had ensured that it would be virtually impossible for her to move out. Hector was positively looking forward to a break in the country which would cost him not a penny and where he would be waited on hand and foot.
How could she now announce that she had broken up with Rico? That was no longer the news which she had innocently imagined would cheer Hector up. Indeed, she had the hideous suspicion that Hector, who liked very few people, had decided to make an exception of Rico.
As he drifted off to sleep he was mumbling about what ingenious ideas Rico had on the enthralling subject of reducing expenditure and making the most of a small income. Fit to be tied, Bella stalked out of the room.
She found Rico standing in the small waiting area at the end of the corridor. He watched her striding towards him with supreme cool.
‘You devious toe-rag!’ she launched at him from ten feet away.
“‘A slippery and subtle knave,”’ Rico murmured smoothly.
‘Don’t you dare quote Shakespeare at me!’ she hissed in fury. ‘How could you use an old man like that… how could you?’
‘If you don’t lower your voice, I shall treat you exactly as if you were the child you are choosing to emulate,’ he drawled in a whiplash tone. ‘Now take a deep breath and calm down… right now.’
Her outraged eyes shimmered. She buttoned her mouth shut, not trusting herself to speak. She wanted to slap him and he knew it and he wasn’t impressed. Flinging her a grim glance, he stood back for her to enter the waiting lift.
‘We’ll talk in the car,’ he told her.
Bella shot into the back seat of the limousine like a spitting cat, temper still blazing through her. ‘How dare—?’
‘Be silent,’ Rico said sharply. ‘You cannot make accusations of that variety and expect to get away with it. Hector Barsay may not be a blood relative but you are very attached to him. Since he was also a friend of my late father’s for many years, I naturally felt that I should visit him.’
Gritting her teeth, she studied her tightly clenched hands. So far, so good, but there was no way he could explain himself out of what he had done during that visit.
‘When I saw him earlier you were sulking—’
‘I do not sulk—’
‘You sulk,’ Rico assured her. ‘We had had an argument, but when I went to that hospital I had no idea that when I returned to the apartment you would announce that our relationship was at an end.’
Bella swallowed hard. It was a point she had to con
cede.
‘Hector doesn’t want to go to a home where he will be surrounded by strangers. He also misses you a great deal. That I should offer him hospitality was a natural progression from those facts. At Winterwood he will have every comfort but he will also have the privacy which is so important to him.’
‘All right, I’m sorry,’ Bella muttered from between clenched teeth. ‘But where does that leave us now?’
‘You appear to have already made that decision,’ Rico retorted drily. ‘I gather you didn’t tell him the truth?’
‘How could I?’ she demanded fiercely.
‘Especially when you would have looked a little stupid when I’d told him that you were staying put.’