With no other clue, Pris was left relying on her gift forknowing. She knew something was off about La Bella Gente. Evie’s geeky Sensible Solutions team had determined the boutique’s origin was in Umbria. The company’s London base might have been a better place to start, but she didn’t know anyone there.
She had at least met Dante. He possessed a hardheaded mental block she couldn’t penetrate and was probably the most irritating, uptight man on the planet, but it gave her some small pleasure to annoy the arrogant Italian Indiana Jones by showing up on his doorstep as unexpectedly as he’d appeared in her life.
He hadn’t told her he was a damnedcount. He’d left it up to Evie’s team to learn that. She’d known he was hiding secrets but dang... Way to intimidate a girl.
She looked for a bell to push or pull but only found a heavy metal knocker on an ancient wooden door painted in peeling turquoise. She’d been briefed on Dante’s background and knew, despite his ancient title, he wasn’t wealthy. He was simply the all-knowing prick who had passed through Afterthought one week and left without a word.
Well, it was possible she’d driven him into fleeing. She often had that effect.
But it couldn’t be coincidence that La Bella Gente had shown up in town after he left, not when the boutique’s owners were related to the landowners near Dante’s home and purchased their olive oil from this region. And then someone in the group had mentally thought his name in panic. Nope, he knew something, and she meant to find out what.
No one answered her knock. She heard childish shouts through the open window so someone was home. Children? She’d thought Dante unmarried. One more secret he kept from her?
She knocked a little louder, then winced at the frantic vibrations emanating from within. Since she had no means of running back to town, she threw up the mental shields that made her look like an automaton and tested the iron door handle. The door swung inward. She stepped into a cavernous hall with marble floors in need of polishing and a gilded ceiling with peeling plaster. Impressive.
“Ciao?” she asked tentatively. She’d been listening to internet tutorials, but they didn’t tell her how words were used in normal conversation.
Voluble Italian exclamations poured from a back room, followed by a matronly figure in black wiping her hands on a towel hurrying into the entry hall. The stream of Italian aimed in Pris’s direction passed right over her head. Was she being welcomed or thrown out? Did she dare lower her mental shield and let in the onslaught?
Tentatively, she took another step into the gloom. “Hello, I’m Priscilla Broadhurst. I sent word that I’d be arriving today?”
The woman threw up her hands in what appeared to be welcome—or maybe relief, given her next words, in perfect British English. “You’re here, thank all the heavens. I’m sorry. It’s an emergency. I don’t have time to introduce you to the children. They’re in the nursery. There’s been a dreadful accident. I must run. Make yourself at home and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Um, children?” She’d asked if she could rent a room while she took a cooking class. No one had mentioned children.
“Alessandro and Arianna. They eat at six. Bless Dante for sending you!”
Before Pris could question more, the woman grabbed an enormous black purse and rushed out the open front door. A moment later, a car engine roared and gravel rattled.
Um...
Well, at least she must have the right house. Taking a deep breath, she opened her mind again and studied her surroundings.
The villa had probably once been spectacular. The marble entry led to an impressive—dusty—marble staircase. A fading fresco adorned one wall, an aging wooden cabinet with painted figures filled the opposite wall. Peering in, she found an old overcoat and a modern nylon downy jacket.
Deciding she probably ought to be certain the children weren’t murdering each other or someone else, she stepped deeper into the huge foyer, glancing into the spectacular front room with windows overlooking a valley dotted with distinctive Tuscan cypress.
She didn’t have a great deal of experience with children, except for avoiding them when she had to work in private homes. Her cousin had a six-year old who was mildly competent. Evie had an eleven-year-old ward who was too old for her age. But they had Malcolm heritage, and Pris acknowledged that made a difference. As a Malcolm herself, she knew weird when she saw it. She couldn’t count on these children having anywhere near the understanding of her psychic family.
No one interfered with her progress. She’d expected servants in a place this size. Shouldn’t a busy man with a title and a fabulous house have a few servants scattered about? But no one emerged to ask what she was doing as she checked out the downstairs.
Not hearing any more shouts and rather enjoying the freedom of exploring without interference, she took her time. The library was all dark wood shelves, velvet draperies, parquet flooring, and better tended than elsewhere. Someone spent time here. An electric fire burned in the grate, keeping the books dry against the early November damp.
She stumbled into an immense kitchen of modern appliances and fell in love. Running her hand over the gleaming six-burner stainless steel stove and admiring the colorfully tiled walls and counters, she studied the amazing view out the aging French doors. A stone veranda with ancient urns filled with topiary led down to a terraced garden still green with herbs and late autumn vegetables. Chickens pecked in the fading sunlight.
Here was the heart of the villa.
Why play hide-and-seek with invisible children when she knew how to lure them out?
With satisfaction, she opened the enormous stainless-steel refrigerator and gathered her ingredients.
Six: Dante
Italy
Painkillers wearing off,Dante grimaced and swung his crutch up the crumbling stone stairs. His mother worriedly followed, chattering about suing Leo, fretting over the dinner she hadn’t cooked, and the nanny he’d supposedly sent. His mother was one of the many reasons he traveled for a living. She was a non-stop worrier. And talker.
The moldering villa he hadn’t the funds to repair was another reason. He hated the reminder of his incompetency at repairs and inability to earn fortunes in his chosen profession. But right now, opening the aging front door to air redolent of garlic and tomatoes, he almost—almost—appreciated his crumbling home.
