The Untouchable (18 page)

“Coming,” she called, pushing her feet into her favourite black stilettos. At least they made her feel a million dollars, even if nothing else she was wearing did.

Leo needed burping. Rosy spread a cloth over her dress and lifted him to lie against her shoulder, rubbing his back. “Did he finish his milk?” she asked.

“He did.”

Rosy rubbed until Leo produced a volley of small burps. “Good boy.” She patted him gently. “Good boy.” She lowered him into the cot, wrapped him and put him on his side supporting his back with a rolled-up blanket, all the while aware of Marco’s eyes on her.

“There,” she whispered, straightening up. “He’s gone straight down.”

Marco’s eyes swept her body from the top of her hair to her heels.

“I’m in love,” he said.

Dangerous gleam in his shadowed eyes, or disbelief that he’d fallen for the tiny bundle in his arms? She’d better presume the latter.

“Good,” she said, “I knew you would be. He’s adorable.”

Marco’s eyes changed. He opened his mouth to speak.

“Shhhh,” she said. “Let’s go downstairs.”

“No. I’d like to stay a moment.”

She left the room, confused. Stay with her, or Leo? No, remember, the kiss had meant nothing significant. Guys like Marco kissed everyone. One or two kisses did not foreshadow a desire to commit. And why was the word
commit
even hovering in her thoughts? She wouldn’t commit to anyone, ever. Not after what happened to Luke. She had no right.

Holding that thought, she stood on the stairs suspended in the half-dark above the bustling lower floor. The kitchen door opened and shut, emitting delectable whiffs, Christmas carols added an undertone of soft joy to the mood of anticipation, something she hadn’t felt since childhood. And, something else. Luke had stood aside. He was there, but not right in front of her, not anymore. She focussed, considering her feelings, but nothing came besides a flow of peace, wrapping her in warm magic.

She went on down the stairs. Marco would be well soon. She’d already heard him on the phone, discussing his recovery programme with Terry and a gruelling travel schedule with someone called Valerie Preston. Before she knew it, he would be out of her life and back to his own where she had no place, not even as a friend, because their paths would never cross. Marco knew exactly what he had to do, what he had to achieve, and when and where and how. She was the one thrown into confusion by her new status as Frederick’s heir; the one who must make firm decisions, and chose her path in life.

Besides, a thirty-four year old spinster throwing herself at a celebrity four years her junior was sad. She needed to watch herself.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Marco was glad he’d made the effort. The small dining room
—
a room he’d never been in before
—
had been commandeered for the Christmas Eve meal. A beautiful table, dressed with white linen, candles, silver and crystal, and sprinkled with small, shiny red baubles, sparkled under an antique chandelier. From his seat at the table, Marco could see the red and silver Christmas tree twinkling in the hall.

There were only four people. Ricky and his girlfriend, Mel, Rosy and himself. Pleasantly intimate, far better than being on his own. Still, tension strained his nerves, and it had everything to do with the tiny person fast asleep in the
crib upstairs, that scrap of a human who had turned his life upside down. Marco knew nothing about kids, bar one instinctive fact, crystal clear. Life would never be the same.

However, for now, he would put that concern on the back burner and play the part of a good guest. Rosy, breathtakingly sexy in a simple black cocktail dress, had exposed her excellent legs, which he’d never seen before. He’d only ever seen her in jeans. She’d pinned up her hair sixties style, eyes smoky with dramatic makeup, and had gone to a huge amount of trouble with dinner. She
served a spectacular three-course meal from the antique buffet that ran the width of the room, her tongue pressed against her top lip as she sliced and dished. He had to stop himself gawking at the sophisticated, confident, feminine beauty who came to sit beside him.

The meal served, Rosy invited everyone to begin.

“Excuse me,” Marco said to Mel while Rosy tucked a napkin under his chin, cut up his food and fed him slices of delicious, rare beef Béarnaise, “but Leo isn’t the only baby in this house.”

“At least Marco’s potty trained,” Ricky remarked, and they all laughed.

The conversation continued, relaxed and humorous, like the four of them had been good friends for years. They ate for hours, slowly, savouring the courses, drinking excellent Australian wine on Ricky’s recommendation. Marco said the least, absorbing the atmosphere. Care, trust, and friendliness swirled in the warm room, nurtured by superb food and wine. He hadn’t experienced anything vaguely similar since his childhood.

The meal over, he hovered in the kitchen while the clearing and washing up got underway.

“Ready for bed, Marco?” Ricky tossed the wet dishtowels into the washing machine.

“I guess.” Marco looked across the room to where Mel and Rosy were finishing off.

“I’ll do the night feed,” Rosy said to Mel. “You and Ricky have a break.” She caught Marco’s eye. “Night, Marco, see you in the morning.” She dismissed him with a smile and went upstairs.

Marco swallowed his disappointment. What did he expect
—
a one-night stand? How, for Christ’s sake? In any case, Rosy wasn’t that sort of woman, that much he knew.

But, she’d enjoyed their kiss! A kiss that had come out of nowhere, an urge to put his lips on hers and taste her warmth when she stood close to him. Since that, however, something had changed. She’d been charming at dinner, but distant. She’d cared for him, done everything for him, but hadn’t met his eyes, hadn’t smiled at him, for him, always looking away before they connected. Had that kiss swayed her in some way? God alone knew, and God alone knew how women functioned. In fact, he probably didn’t.

The next day, Christmas Day, more of the same. Rosemary was busy. Busy with the baby, busy with food, busy with guests, busy phoning her friend in London, busy with a call that went on forever to her mother who seemed to be on an around-the-world fishing trip with a new husband. Bored with his room, Marco hung around the house impatient and edgy, like some kind of non-essential, half-invisible spare part.

Eventually, lunchtime rolled around.
This time Rosemary had planned the meal in the kitchen, laying the table with bright cloths, flowers, painted china,
and glasses with coloured stems. To Marco’s astonishment, she—alerted by Lydia—had invited some elderly neighbours who would otherwise have spent Christmas alone. At first, Marco was reticent to join in, but the cosy ambience of the snowbound old house, good food and wine made everyone jovial, and the old couples clearly had no idea who he was. He succumbed to the warm affability of the occasion, even managing
to win a game of cards after lunch.

“That was a great day, Rosemary,” he said, after Ricky and Mel had gone for a walk, everyone else had gone home and the house was quiet save for the hum of the dishwasher and
Il Capitano
having a noisy post luncheon snack of roast duck and parsnips. “Thank you. I owe you, and I was glad to be included.”

“I’m glad you were here, because…” Her eyes filled. “It’s easy to miss people at Christmas. You know, when a soulmate has loved you with all their heart and they die…well, they’re not here to love you any more, are they? There’s just a big hole of nothing where that love was. Do you know what I mean?”

“Not really,” he said, after a moment. “Not entirely, because...” He stopped talking, sought her eyes.

“Because what?”

“Because no one’s ever loved me like that.”

A frown pinched her forehead. She blinked, wouldn’t look at him.

“Love never dies, Rosemary,” he said. Was that even true? Because he could think of nothing else to say.

Leo chirped from the kitchen where he’d been cosy in his pram. “Hungry and wet,” Rosy said, a sigh moving through her shoulders. “Not good, poor little chap.”

“No,” Marco said, and went upstairs alone.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Ah,” Fiona said, “at last, after one brief happy Christmas text, I get a call from my best friend on Boxing Day.”

“I do want to say happy Christmas to you and Charlie and the kiddies, but I can’t talk, Fi.”

“You mean about Dallariva disappearing into thin air after kidnapping his newborn son? People are saying he’s lost the plot, that he’s mentally unstable, dangerous, and that his career at the top is over.”

Rosy sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t say anything.”

“I read in the paper that—”

“Fi.”

“Okay, okay, I get the message. How was Christmas? What have you been doing?”

Rosy told her, leaving out all details of Marco, worried that someone was listening to the call. It wasn’t impossible. Surely someone, if they knew where Marco was, could monitor mobile phone signals to and from her house?

“I’m sorry, Fi,” she said eventually. “This is really stilted. I’ll update you when I’m back in London.”

“No need to rush. We’ve got nothing on the books I can’t handle until halfway through Feb. It’s going to be a quiet start to the year, so if you’re enjoying yourself, stay on a few weeks. You’ve probably got a heap of stuff to think about and organize. And, um, aren’t you needed there for, you know, things?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

“Keep safe, and call me anytime.”

Rosy stayed where she was, curled on the study sofa, her phone in her lap, long after she and Fiona said goodbye. She’d wanted to tell Fi everything, like she always did, but hadn’t felt at liberty to do so. Stressed, she rested her head on a cushion, yawned and closed her eyes.

***

After a slow, late morning, a lunch of leftovers and an afternoon sliding downhill into Boxing Day inertia, Ricky decided they all needed fresh air. He insisted they get out of the house before post-Christmas torpor took hold, suggesting a walk to Marco’s house, and a tour of inspection.

“Besides,” he added, “Marco hasn’t been outside since his great escape from Saint Theodore’s.”

Rosy agreed, and she and Mel dressed Leo warmly, tucking him into his pram under a mountain of rugs, while Ricky buttoned Marco into a fur-lined jacket and Rosy pulled a woolly beanie over his hair. His pale face contrasted with his dark clothes, accentuating his eyes. They stood out, a clear and incredible blue, in the hard structure of his face, reminding Rosy of the day
—
so recent, although it felt like years
—
when she had caught him swimming, and he’d come up out of the water with his hair sleek, his heavy eyelashes spiked wet and sparkling. Then, her smile had fallen on rocky ground. Now it was returned, tentative, but with gentle, pensive eyes that rested on her a moment too long.

“Out, everyone!” Ricky stood at the open door, marshalling them into the cold. “And watch your step, Marco. You mustn’t fall.”

They walked four abreast on the icy road, Mel pushing the pram, Ricky keeping a close eye on his patient.

“Oh, my,” Mel said, once Ricky opened the gate to Marco’s property
and they stood on the drive in front of the house, looking up at the façade.

Rosy shivered inside her coat. If the house had appeared forlorn before, it was now desolate. Thick snow lay on the terrace, drifted up against the front door. Bare trees showed no signs of life beneath the scowling grey sky.

“Jeez,” Ricky said, “this is the first time I’ve had to dig my way
into
a house.”

“Has it always been like this?” Mel pulled her hat down over her ears, looking at the abandoned garden running wild under brambles.

Marco, silent, shook his head.

They stood on the crumbling steps of the terrace, while Ricky wrestled with the door. It gave way reluctantly to an enormous, double volume hallway and a pungent smell of mold. He
unbolted both doors and pulled them wide. They went into a vast hall, sealed, at one upper damaged corner, with bright blue tarpaulins. Rosy and Mel waited while Ricky took Marco upstairs for an inspection.

Rosy had never seen anything similar in a private house. From the huge flagstones underfoot
to the giant, rustic chandelier hanging way above, where the ribs of a vaulted, frescoed ceiling joined, it took her breath away. She parked Leo out of the draft and went to inspect the enormous fireplace with a stone mantel as high as her head.

“Crikey, it’s cold!” Mel hugged herself, rubbing her arms, bending over the pram to check Leo was snug.

“If this were mine,” Rosy pointed a gloved finger at the fireplace, “I’d have a fire burning day and night.”

She walked around the hall, astonished by the space, her footsteps resonating off faded walls. Panelled double doors opened onto room after beautifully-proportioned room, frescoed salons with French doors giving onto terraces, a formal dining room with a similar stone fireplace to the hallway and, at the back of the hall, a handsome, large unused kitchen, pantries, and the scullery, where she had peeked in during her ill-conceived earlier visit. A broad stone staircase rose to the second level of the house where, she imagined, draughty bedrooms with tall, gloomy windows overlooking choked shrubberies and the hilltop village of Saint Michel.

“This is spooky,” Mel said, “and I don’t like the smell. I’m taking this little guy outside.” She pushed the pram outside.

Rosy agreed about the smell, but stayed behind, imagining shutters and windows flung open, sunshine streaming in over flagstones and rugs and big, comfortable pieces of inherited furniture. As for the garden, it should billow with exuberant colour in the summer and be clipped and green in the snowy winter, always echoing with birdsong and the bright chatter of fountains. The sadness it exuded didn’t bear thinking about.

A chilly silence hung heavy in the freezing air. The house was dead. Its heart had stopped beating.

***

“What happened to that house, Marco? Why is it empty? Where’s the furniture?” Rosy hurried to keep up with him, afraid he would stumble. He couldn’t get away from the place fast enough.

“The furniture’s in storage,” he snapped.

“Why? Why not get it out and make the house livable?”

He put his head down and kept walking.

“Heavens, Marco, slow down will you?” Rosy glanced behind her to see Ricky,
Mel and Leo way behind, dawdling in the weak sunlight that leaked between the clouds, and tripped. She went into an ungainly skid, just managing not to fall.

“Rosemary! Watch it on the ice.”

“
You
watch it. Stop rushing, for God’s sake. What’s wrong with you? Did you buy that house for Lily? Is that it?”

He slowed, heaving out a breath and grunt of utter frustration.

“No,” he said, eventually. “I inherited the house from my mother when she died. It’s been in her family for generations. But, I was only sixteen so the house was locked up and the furniture stored until I came of age. The idea was…” his voice broke, “…the idea was that Lily and I would live there, raise Leo, have a base to call home.” He stared ahead. “Lies, all fucking lies.”

A breath shuddered in his chest. He glanced at her, cold tears on his cheeks. “Forgive me. My mother, her memory, is important to me.”

“Mothers are always important, Marco. We all need and love our mothers.”

Leo, rolling along the drive in his brand new pram started to cry.

“Dinner time,” said Rosy.

“Thanks for doing all this.”

“It’s not only me.” She reached up and brushed the wetness from his cheeks with the inside of her wrist.

“Mostly, it is.”

“What about spaghetti carbonara for supper, and then we’ll light a fire and watch a movie?”

“Sounds great.”

“But first Leo needs his bath and feed.”

“I’ll help.”

Rosy slipped an arm around his waist. They walked the last part of the drive, to the house, where lamp-lit windows and the glitter of the Christmas tree twinkled a warm greeting.

***

“Thanks, Rosemary. It’s a brave woman who feeds an armless man spaghetti carbonara.”

Ricky re-filled the wine glasses. “Only a few days to go, mate. You’ll be doing light exercise by the end of the week and, a week after that, you won’t even know you’ve had an injury. You’ll be back to full-on, pre-season training before you know it.”

Marco sat back, replete. “In view of that, I shouldn’t be eating this, but it’s my favourite dish.”

“And it’s Christmas,” Rosy said, “when we don’t worry about things like that.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the story with that house?” Mel asked, gathering plates.

Marco shrugged. “I inherited it.”

“And you live there?”

“When I’m not racing, I plan to live there, yes.”

“So you haven’t moved in yet?”

“I guess not.”

Ricky stood up, put a box of chocolates on the table, took the plates from Mel and carried them to the sink. She followed. While they were loading the dishwasher at the other end of the kitchen, Rosy turned to Marco. “Were you going to use that stored furniture again?”

“No. Lily didn’t like it. She said it was ugly and heavy. She was going to throw it out and start over.”

“I hope she didn’t!” Rosy glared at him, wineglass in mid-air. “That’s your family’s stuff, isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

Rosy put down her glass and sat forward. “Do you like the house?”

He thought. “I used to, the way it was, although we never lived there. We lived in Milan, and came on extended holidays once or twice a year. Many, most of my happy childhood memories are tied up with the Villa Diana.”

“How wonderful for Leo. Chocolate?” She held up a truffle. He shook his head.

“Leo?”

“Yes, Leo.” She put the chocolate in her mouth and savoured. “You have to make a home for Leo, and soon. What better place than the one holding happy memories? You need to unstore that furniture and get the house up and running, and do it now, before the start of the racing season.”

She was right, but how the hell could he do that? He didn’t have the faintest idea where to start. “I don’t have time.”

“You have to make the time.” Stern, she spoke around the chocolate. “Leo is not going away. You have him forever. Forever, do you understand? Until the day you die.”

He gazed at her, loving the schoolmarm look he was getting, entirely sabotaged by a flake of dark chocolate on her lower lip.

“Two things,” he said. “One, you have chocolate on your lower lip, left of centre.”

“Oh.” She licked it off and smiled at him.

“And, two, would you like to see my furniture?”

She laughed. “Is this a ‘come up and see my etchings’ moment?”

He raised his eyebrows then narrowed his eyes. “Could be.”

“I’m happy to risk it.”

“It’s a date,” he said, delighted.

They tossed a coin for which movie to watch and the girls won. Ricky’s Christmas box set, the complete Bruce Willis, would have to wait. Marco didn’t mind. He was happy to doze on the sofa while Mel and Rosy laughed and cried their way through a rom-com. Besides, as soon as the movie started, Rosy came to sit next to him. A quarter of the way through, she tucked her feet up, put a cushion in his lap and lay down. It was chummy more than anything else, but he rested an arm against her body, feeling her every sob and laugh.

And, he had a date, of sorts, tomorrow. Even though it would be in a warehouse in the industrial zone to the west of Nice, who knew where that could lead?