Refusing to be quieted by his discouraging coldness, Jemima smiled. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘A couple of years. It has the privacy I need. Intruders can only approach by sky or sea and both are monitored. I can walk by the sea here without fear of a camera appearing from the bushes,’ he spelt out flatly.
They got into the beach buggy waiting to waft them up to the doors of the castle. Jemima was smiling, her earlier concerns forgotten as she rejoiced in the warmth of late afternoon and the beautiful gardens surrounding them. It would be really interesting to stay in a castle, she thought absently, studying the imposing fortress before her. ‘How old is it?’
‘The oldest section is medieval, the youngest eighteenth century.’
They mounted shallow steps to the giant porticoed entrance where two women awaited their arrival. Both wore black, one of possibly pensioner age and the other around fortyish.
The hall was an imposing oval shape with a marble floor and black ebonised furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Jemima was silenced by the sheer splendour of the castle, especially when she compared it to her parents’ tiny retirement home. How could she ever have denied Nicky the wealthy lifestyle that his father evidently enjoyed?
‘Do you own the whole island?’ she whispered, unable to contain her curiosity.
‘Yes,’ he admitted in the sort of tone that implied that it was not a very big deal to own your own island, and in Jemima’s mind the gulf between them stretched even wider.
Luciano introduced the older woman as his housekeeper, Agnese, and the younger as her daughter and Nicky’s new nanny, Carlotta. He settled the baby into Carlotta’s arms and addressed her in Italian. Jemima reminded herself doggedly of her agreement to step back from Nicky as he was borne off screaming, presumably to be fed and put to bed. As Carlotta mounted the stairs Jemima could hear her talking softly and soothingly to the distressed baby and her concern eased a little.
‘Agnese will show you to your room,’ Luciano announced.
Agnese’s small creased face was as frozen as an ice sculpture. Telling herself that that was still preferable to a dirty look, Jemima followed the older woman upstairs and down a tiled passageway with ancient stone walls. Double doors were flung wide and light flooded across the most amazing bedroom Jemima had ever seen. Tall windows cast sunshine over the sumptuously hung four-poster bed. Gorgeous furniture vied with opulent fabric and a glorious floral arrangement to take her attention. Taken aback as she realised that the palatial room was for her use, Jemima hovered by the little table bearing the magnificent flowers and watched wide-eyed as an actual maid in a uniform appeared through one of the several additional doors to smile and stand back as though waiting to usher Jemima into the room she had vacated.
The housekeeper indicated with her hand that Jemima should take the invitation and Jemima obediently walked into a very large dressing room lined with built-in furniture. And that was when the show began. The maid began opening doors and rifling through hangers packed with garments to display them. Racks of shoes, drawers filled with silky lingerie and a dressing-table unit packed with cosmetics below a mirror surrounded by special lighting were duly shown off. Jemima’s jaw dropped while she attempted to work out what all these items could possibly have to do with her. The maid passed her a tiny gift envelope and she slid out the card.
With my compliments, Luciano.
Jemima blinked and looked again, fingers tightening round the card as it slowly sank in on her that she had not been measured up for a nanny uniform as she had assumed but for a new wardrobe. She broke out in perspiration, her jeans uncomfortably warm. Luciano had given her a vast new wardrobe and as she flipped with anxious hands through the nearest selection she realised that it was all designer stuff, filled with famous fashion labels that even she, who didn’t follow fashion, had heard of. She was gobsmacked, so gobsmacked that when the maid and the housekeeper departed she simply sank down on the boudoir chair by the dresser and stared back at her own unadorned face. Her face looked weird in the fancy lights, oddly bare and shocked, and she breathed in deep and stumbled upright to peel off her jeans before she could expire from heat exhaustion. In the bedroom she opened the suitcase she had travelled with and yanked out a cool cotton skirt to step into it.
But she still couldn’t think straight. Indeed all she could think about was the contents of the dressing room. What on earth had she done to give Luciano the impression that such an extravagant gesture would be welcome? Her tummy gave a nauseous flip and she shut her eyes tight, hot colour burning her cheeks. Oh, yes, she knew what she had done. She hadn’t said no when she should’ve. She hadn’t said yes either, she reflected numbly. She had simply let him do what he wished. And evidently that had been sufficient to encourage Luciano to go out and spend thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds to enable her to dress like a queen. Hands cool now with shock, she pressed them to her hot cheeks and groaned out loud. My goodness, what was she going to do?