The Sicilian Doctor's Proposal. Sarah Morgan
seven they had a light lap supper while watching the news on TV. Then there was a gardening programme Rosemary wanted to watch, followed by a repeat of a popular comedy show.
When that was over, she said, ‘If I were you I should have an early night, or at least read in bed. You’ll find a selection of books that I thought might interest you on your bedside table.’
As they both rose, Lucia said, ‘I don’t know how to thank you for being willing to give me this chance. I’ll do my best to make sure you never regret it.’
‘I’m quite sure I shan’t,’ Rosemary said kindly. ‘Goodnight, Lucia. I hope you sleep well. Tomorrow we’ll plan our first expedition together.’
To Lucia’s astonishment, Grey’s mother placed her hands on her shoulders and kissed her lightly on both cheeks.
During her time in prison she had found she could bear the bullying of some of the screws, as the prisoners called the prison officers, and the hostile behaviour of some of her fellow inmates. It was always the unexpected kindnesses that had weakened her self-control.
Now the affectionate gesture brought a lump to her throat and made her eyes fill with tears. But it wasn’t until she was alone in her room that she flung herself into an armchair and indulged in the luxury of weeping.
Later, after washing her face, brushing her hair and teeth, and putting on the hand-smocked white voile nightgown spread across the turned-down bed, she opened the curtains and turned out the lights.
Tonight she didn’t feel like reading. She just wanted to lie in the comfortable bed and watch the moon through an unbarred window and try to accustom herself to this miraculous change in her fortunes.
Whether she could ever win Grey’s good opinion seemed doubtful. In his view, and that of many other people, she would probably carry the stigma of her crime for the rest of her life. It was a lowering prospect: never, in some people’s estimation, to be re-admitted to the ranks of the honest and honourable.
Then, as her lips began to quiver and she felt another bout of crying coming on, she told herself not to be a wimp. What did it matter if Grey continued to despise her? Rich and arrogant, what did he know about ordinary people’s lives and the pressures they had to bear?
Clearly he wasn’t accustomed to anyone defying him. Most likely he would blame Lucia for his mother’s refusal to accept his embargo on her plan. It was also likely he would look for ways to enforce his will.
If he did, she would resist him, as she had this morning when he had tried to buy her off. From what she had seen of ‘Mr Grey’ as the housekeeper called him, Lucia felt it might do him a great deal of good to have someone around who would refuse to kowtow to him.
CHAPTER THREE
LUCIA was woken by birdsong.
She lay listening to what she realised must be the dawn chorus as heard in the depths of the country. Compared with the twitterings at first light of suburban and city birds, it was like someone whose only experience of choral music had been a small school choir hearing, for the first time, the chorus of a grand opera company. After a while it died down and she drifted back to sleep until something else woke her. This time the room was full of sunlight and Mrs Bradley was bringing in a breakfast tray.
‘Mrs Calderwood thinks you should take it easy for a few days,’ said the housekeeper, after they had exchanged good mornings. ‘She’ll be up to see you presently. You can eat eggs, I hope?’
‘I can eat anything,’ Lucia assured her.
After the housekeeper had gone, she nipped out of bed to brush her teeth before drinking some of the chilled orange juice. Under the silver-plated dome with a handle on the top was a perfectly poached egg, with the deep orange yolk only produced by hens who could peck where they pleased, on a thick slice of toasted brown bread. Several more slices of toast were swathed in a thick napkin inside a basket, next to a little dish filled with curls of butter and a glass pot of thick-cut marmalade that, like the bread, looked home-made.
After months of enduring the horrible breakfasts in prison, Lucia relished every mouthful. She was pouring the last of the tea into her cup when there was a tap on the door and Rosemary appeared.
‘Good morning. What sort of night did you have?’
‘Wonderful, thank you.’
‘Good. I’m told that coming out of prison is like being discharged from hospital after a major operation. It’s best to take things rather slowly…re-adapt at a leisurely pace. I thought this morning we’d take the dogs for a walk. They belong to my eldest daughter Julia and her husband. They’re visiting a game reserve in Africa. Leaving the dogs with me is preferable to boarding them in kennels.’
Later, while they were walking an elderly golden retriever and two energetic Jack Russells, she said, ‘Perhaps you’ve wondered why I didn’t visit you in prison to introduce myself before you came here?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Lucia.
‘I felt it might be an intrusion on the short time you were allowed to see people you knew,’ Rosemary explained. ‘Also I felt it would be difficult to make friends in those circumstances.’
‘It would have been,’ Lucia agreed.
She did not reveal that she had had no visitors. Some of the people who might have come to see her lived too far away. After giving up her last job to take care of her father during his long illness, she had lost touch with former colleagues. In their twenties, most people had too much going on in their own lives to bother with colleagues who had either been ‘let go’ or had dropped out for other reasons. Anyway, from what she had seen, visits from family members and friends could be more upsetting than pleasurable.
But she didn’t want to think about what she had learned in prison. She wanted to put it behind her and get to grips with the future.
‘These painting trips you mentioned yesterday…where are you thinking of going?’ she asked.
‘I thought we might start with the Channel Islands before going further afield. Years ago, when the girls were small, we shared a house on Sark with some friends who also had young children. We took it for a month. Our husbands came over to join us at the weekends. Other years we went to France. Do you speak French, Lucia?’
‘Not very much, I’m afraid.’
‘Never mind. It’s not important. I’m not a linguist myself, nor was my husband. I don’t know where Grey gets his gift of tongues from.’
‘Does he need them for his work?’
‘Not specifically, but languages are always an asset. He does travel a lot, both for business and pleasure.’
In his spacious office on the top floor of a riverside tower block in London, Grey was pacing the thick carpet and thinking about the girl who, forty-eight hours ago, had still been locked up, and today was being cosseted by his mother, an expert at pampering anyone whom she considered needed it.
There were other things that he ought to be giving his mind and, normally, he kept his life neatly compartmentalised, focussing his whole attention on the compartment he was in. Right now that was the property business started by his grandfather, developed and expanded by his father, and now directed by himself.
But instead of being able to concentrate on matters pertaining to a major expansion, he was fidgeted by a strong hunch that, unless he found a way to get rid of her, that girl was going to cause trouble.
After pressing the bell for his personal assistant, he took another turn around the room.
When, notepad in hand, she appeared in the doorway, he said, ‘Bring me the file on that court case I was involved in, would you, Alice? And I want to speak to my sister Jenny, if you can get her.’
Alice nodded and withdrew.