Gemma
After all those hours spent shopping, it took me exactly eleven minutes to get ready for Maggie’s party. Five to shower, wash my hair, and slather my body with my expensive new lotion. One minute to fluff up my hair and hope it would dry before I reached the party. Three minutes to dust my nose with powder, outline my lips with Nonna’s Begonia, and brush the apples of my cheeks with Livvie’s tawny blusher. Plus a minute for the mascara and a hint—just a hint, mind you—of bronze shadow, Livvie’s again. How come I never knew my daughter had this arsenal of cosmetics tucked away? I was beginning to think there was a lot I didn’t know about her. It took another minute to step into the dress and zip it up (forget all the rest—this is when you
really
need a man!) and a second to slide my feet into the strappy gold mules and check the end result in the mirror.
Only trouble was, the mirror was about a foot and a half tall, and I was probably well over six feet in the new heels, and I had to hunker down just to see my head and shoulders. I hitched up a bit to catch the middle part where the white dress floated past my waist. Then I had to tilt the mirror to see the skirt skimming my knees and—the final bit—the gold mules.
I chewed anxiously on my bottom lip until I realized I was biting off the Begonia and stopped myself. I was not happy with what I saw. The dress had looked great on the hanger; it was just that something happened when it was on
me
.
Livvie was right, I thought gloomily, I should have tried it on, but I had been too stubborn and too fed up, and now I was paying the price. It was just a nice dress on the wrong woman. A beauty I was not.
They say there are two things that make a woman beautiful: being in love and being pregnant. I don’t know how beautiful I was when I was pregnant with Livvie, but perhaps that was because I wasn’t loved. I was on my own, toughing it out, uncertain of my own feelings: about the coming baby, about the future, about myself. But then Livvie was born, and that other cliché—or miracle, depending on how you look at it—happened, and I was in love with her.
It had been different, though, when I was in love with Cash. Then I had felt loved. And maybe that’s when the real miracle happened for me too. I walked through life in a state of rapture; I discarded the glasses and bought contacts, took to wearing eye shadow and lacy lingerie. I looked like a woman and not just a doctor, and I
felt
like a woman in a way I have never felt since. And never will again.
I heard Nonna calling me and, still thinking of Cash, I put on my glasses, collected my purse and my wits, and hurried downstairs to meet them.
Amalia and her daughter emerged to admire us in our party finery, and believe me, Nonna was quite something to admire. She was curvy, flamboyant in the yellow, elegant in the pearls, leggy in matching heels. And if this gives you the impression she looked like the bride’s mother, believe me, she did not—she glowed like the bride! It was like watching one of those TV makeovers, and I wondered, stunned, if the basic black and the sturdy shoes were gone forever.
“Che bella figura, signora,”
Amalia cried, meaning she looked elegant and stylish, though I thought sexy was more like it. Now I’m blushing: how can I even
think
such a thing of my own mother?
“Nonna, you look so sexy,” Livvie cried, echoing my thoughts, and darn it if Nonna didn’t just laugh and pat her dark curls, unfazed. What on earth was going on in my world? I wondered, bewildered.
Livvie, of course, looked like a little siren in the red Lycra and the yellow buzz cut, with a single dangling rhinestone crucifix earring. Just like Madonna’s, she’d told me, as if that made it all right. She looked both sensual and innocent at the same time, and I crossed my fingers for the innocence part.
Next to the two of them, in my unsuitable virginal white, I looked ready for the Sunday school outing.
Then I remembered. I ran back upstairs to my room and sprayed myself lavishly with Violetta di Parma. If nothing else, I would smell gorgeous.
We followed a long line of cars up an immaculate gravel driveway lined with poplar trees hung with glowing red lanterns. A bronze fountain sprayed us gently as we stepped out, and a liveried valet whisked away our car. We stared impressed at the grand floodlit facade of the Villa Marcessi.
It was one of those huge, splendid Palladian villas with a central double stone staircase and symmetrical rows of windows. It was painted a perfect peacock blue that its architect would certainly never have approved of, with architraves and coping stones in creamy marble. Peacocks swept grandly past us on the gravel, their magnificent tails spread. The marble steps were banked with blue hydrangeas, and music drifted from open windows. Through those windows I could see candles glimmering softly in crystal chandeliers and gilded torchères, and menservants in powdered wigs, knee breeches, and peacock-blue livery offering drinks and canapés from silver trays. I’d had no idea that Maggie Marcessi was as rich as this. Now I
really
felt like Cinderella at the ball.
Carrying the birthday gift basket, we climbed the steps to the massive front doors where a pair of liveried foot-men waited to take our wraps and the gift, and walked on into the vaulted hall. I stared up at the glorious frescoed ceiling whose faded beauty sent one of those pangs through my heart. Then Nonna went off to find her friend Rocco, and Livvie drifted away, and I was on my own again. I accepted a glass of champagne and stood looking around for my prey. I was here for a purpose, after all.
“There you are, I thought you would never get here!” Maggie Marcessi’s fluting English voice came from across the room, immediately making me feel that I was the only person she really wanted at her party. I smiled.
Eccentricity
might be another word for “crazy,” but when it’s combined with charm, it’s a knockout.
She towered over her guests in her silver stilettos, glittering like a Christmas tree in swathes of shocking pink sequins and a skirt that was a mere fluffy drift of pink feathers. Her flame-red hair was swept up into its usual sixties beehive and topped with a diamond tiara at least five inches tall. Add to that a matching diamond necklace and enormous dangling earrings, and you get the picture. And you know what, she still had great legs.
“Dear girl,” she said in her best plummy English tones, kissing me on either cheek and no doubt leaving traces of her luscious fuchsia-pink lipstick. “How delightful you look.”
“And you, Maggie, you take my breath away.”
“Oh, this old thing. I wore it in a Vegas show in, y’know, in…well, I won’t tell you exactly how long ago, but
way
before I met Billy Marcessi, of course. Now how many women do
you
know who could still get into a stage costume they wore in Vegas decades ago? Not many, I’ll bet.”
She stood back, still holding on to my hands, and took another, more critical look at me. “Too plain, my dear,” she said, shaking her head. “A woman without jewels is like a cake without icing.” She unclipped the enormous diamond-and-pearl drops from her ears and thrust them at me. “These will make all the difference,” she said, as I protested that I couldn’t possibly wear her diamonds and that I would be terrified of losing them.
“Not to worry,” she said, giving me an intimate little nudge. “Plenty more where those came from.” Then she whipped off my glasses and said, “Put these in your purse, dear, you don’t need them tonight. Now, how d’you like my house?”
“Like you, it’s wonderful,” I said, cautiously clipping on the earrings. “Are you really sure about these?”
“Oh, don’t keep
on,
dear,” she said, taking me by the arm and leading me through the crowd into a grand
galleria
that was at least a hundred feet long and thirty wide. Tubs of gardenia trees, dropping petals onto the shiny parquet floor, lined walls swathed and looped in peacock tulle. Their scent drifted over us and out through arched French windows that were sheathed in gold silk and hung with giant silk tassels. Between the gardenia trees were giltwood sofas in striped silk, marble plinths with bronze statues of heroic-looking Marcessi ancestors, and inlaid tables with beaded lamps and pretty little boxes and whatnots. A band played on a raised dais in the corner, soft old-fashioned Cole Porterish stuff, and couples were already taking to the floor.
“Let me introduce you.” Maggie steered me toward a group of aristocratic-looking people, the men suave in white dinner jackets, the women tanned and glossy, blond and bejeweled. And then she left me to say hello, good to meet you, clutching my champagne glass in one hand, shaking hands with the other, and feeling suddenly very alone.
I soon made my excuses and hurried purposefully away, searching for Ben. I came to the dining room, where chefs were putting the finishing touches to the buffet table, arranging immense silver platters with whole roast suckling pigs garlanded with bay leaves and tiny green apples. There were shiny bronze ducks on golden platters fringed with scarlet feathers, salads strewn with fresh flowers, peacocks carved in ice towering over mountains of fresh shrimp and lobster, and tubs of golden caviar in iced crystal dishes with mother-of-pearl spoons. Peacock-colored tulle was draped from the ceiling like a tent, and waiters in velvet knee breeches and white powdered wigs waited to serve the guests.
It was like a Roman bacchanalia. Everything about the Villa Marcessi, even the food, was over the top, and I knew there would be no worn rugs here, no cornices in need of fresh gold leaf, no peeling stucco walls. If I had not known Maggie Marcessi was rich, I surely knew it now. The Villa Piacere was a doll’s house compared with this.
I knew the old Count Marcessi was long gone, but I’d be willing to bet there were still cellars here filled with his rare wines, and humidors with his Havana cigars, and enormous safes stuffed full of Cellini silver and priceless jewels, like the ones I was wearing, handed down through the centuries. And when the old count had gotten himself a wife who knew how to spend his money, I bet he had himself a wonderful time. How could he not, with a woman like Maggie to show him how to enjoy it?
I stepped through the French windows onto the vast terrace overlooking the Villa Marcessi’s immaculate gardens and a lake where illuminated fountains danced to the music. A sudden hot wind stirred my hair. The sirocco, Nonna had told me it was called, blowing in from the deserts of Africa. The peacock-colored tablecloths fluttered and candles flickered as I strolled past the lemon trees in enormous Ali Baba urns.
Dusk was just changing to night, and the hills were as soft as folds of dark velvet. The sky was clear, washed clean by the breeze, and a full moon crested over a distant ridge. Hot night sounds wafted toward me: the whirr of cicadas, the croak of tree frogs, a blackbird’s sweet call, the rustle of leaves in the hot breeze. I slipped off my gold mules, and felt the terra-cotta tiles were still warm under my bare feet. It was all so beautiful, and so far removed from my real life, tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
I told myself this was too alluring, too dangerous. It was a dream life. I had to get out of here, get back to the safety of my own reality; back to the emergency room, doing what I did best. Ha, sure, I told myself bitterly.
Sure
. Just being Doc Jericho, the savior of mankind.
I heard footsteps and quickly brushed away my tears. My enormous diamond earrings jangled as I swung around. Ben Raphael was standing there, relaxed, easy in his white dinner jacket, hands thrust into his pockets. He was so comfortable in his body and so completely at home with himself, I envied him.
Ben
Ben was determined not to be cheated out of his refuge, but he also wanted to get to know this pesky woman who was driving him crazy, in more ways than the obvious one of the villa.
He’d caught the glimmer of her white dress on the shadowed terrace and a glimpse of her profile in the flickering candlelight. Her blond hair lifted from her brow in soft waves and curled gently behind her small ears—ears that he noticed were loaded down with enormous diamond drops. She was barefoot and slender in chiffon that drifted around her suntanned legs, and he thought that in the white and with that halo of hair, and without the glasses, she looked like a Botticelli angel. Which, of course, she certainly was not. Dr. Gemma had a sharp way with words no angel would have tolerated.
She turned and looked at him from beneath half-lowered lids, her eyes a narrow flash of blue. He frowned; he could swear she’d been crying.
“How d’you like the villa?” he asked, and she tossed her head and gave him that cold sideways look.
“Isn’t that where we came in?”
“I thought it was as good a starting point as any.”
“Starting what?”
She was as frosty as iced lemonade and just as tart. “We have to talk, you and I.”
“Yes,” she agreed, surprising him.
She was studying him with those narrowed blue eyes. He studied her back. He thought she had a certain odd allure tonight in that white thing she was wearing, though he’d be willing to bet she was one of those women who looked better out of clothes than in them. She was some tough cookie, though, and boy had she let him know it. She had declared war between them, but now it was up to him to call a truce.
“The Villa Marcessi is beautiful,” she said suddenly. “Especially the frescoes in the hall.”
He nodded. “They’re by Veronese. Did you know that frescoes were painted in a time when most of the population was illiterate? So the artists painted the stories on the walls for them, sort of like picture books.”
“I never knew that.” They looked at each other for a long moment. Then, “Where’s your daughter?” she asked.
“Probably with yours. I saw them together a little while ago, sneaking a glass of champagne.”
“And you didn’t stop them?” She looked outraged.
“Of course I didn’t stop them, there was no need. They took one gulp, choked and spluttered, and then went off to find a Coke. They have to learn, you know, what’s bad and what’s good.”
“Don’t you think you should have told them? That drinking is
bad
?”
He laughed. “I think they found out for themselves. Listen, Doc, I’m here to call a truce. Why don’t you and I take a stroll around the garden and talk about the Villa Piacere?”
She stared doubtfully at him, but after all, this was what she had come here for, wasn’t it?
She slipped on her gold mules, Ben took her elbow, and they walked down the steps together into the quiet, lantern-lit garden. The wail of a peacock shattered the silence, sharp as a child’s cry, and then another and another until the night seemed full of the birds’ mournful cries. Ben felt her shiver, despite the hot breeze.
“A ghost walking over your grave,” he said, remembering the old saying.
She gave him that icy look again. “Perhaps.”
“I want you to know I bought the villa in good faith,” he said. “I have all the legal documents. I paid by cashier’s check made out to the estate of the count of Piacere. There was no discussion about the will and no word that the count had disposed of the villa in another way. The attorney, Donati, said he was just doing what was expected of him and that the estate would profit from the sale. He said there were long-overdue taxes, plus death taxes. He was glad to get the money and be able to settle the estate. It was all legal, all aboveboard. Trust me, everything was in order. I’m a professional in these matters.”
“Except there was a will that Donati never showed you, leaving the estate to my family.”
“Do you have a copy of that will?”
Gemma sighed. Somehow she had known that question was coming. “No, I don’t.”
“Have you ever seen the will?”
She shook her head. “No, but Don Vincenzo saw it. It was after the funeral, and Donati was going through the contents of the count’s safe. Don Vincenzo said Donati took out the document. It was the count’s last will and testament, in his own handwriting. Donati asked him who Paolo Corsini was, and then he showed him the will, where it said the estate was left to the Corsini family. Donati said of course there was no family left, but later Don Vincenzo found out they had left for America many years before. He vowed to try to trace them…to trace Nonna, that is. And eventually, a couple of years later, that’s what he did.”
“Look.” Ben stopped and faced her. “I’ve tried to contact Donati, but he never answers his phone. I have to say that the ball is in your court, Dr. Gemma. Until you can prove me wrong, I am the legal owner of the Villa Piacere.”
She was looking at him as though she were about to cry again, all hurt blue eyes in an angel’s face. “I’m sorry.” He took her arm, felt her shiver. The same shiver ran through his own bones, but this was no ghost walking over his grave. There was something different about this woman; she brought out a streak of tenderness he had not known he possessed. He ran his fingers lightly down her arm, felt her draw back into herself.
“Gemma,” he whispered, “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She shook her head. “That’s okay. You’re right, I’ll have to do that.”
He stepped closer, put his hands on her bare shoulders. He could feel the delicate bones beneath, see the flickering of a pulse in her throat. Her eyes reflected the sparkles from her diamond earrings, and suddenly he wanted to kiss her. In fact, he’d wanted to kiss her from the moment he first saw her. He wanted to know how a woman like this kissed. He wanted more, he wanted to
know
her, to know what she was really like, what her secrets were, why she walked around like the ice maiden, deliberately frumpy, deliberately denying herself pleasure.
He put a hand on the nape of her neck, eased his fingers into her soft blond hair, felt the moist heat there. He pulled her closer, saw her mouth open in a soft oh of surprise. And then he was kissing her.