Under a Siena Sun (Escape to Tuscany #1) - T.A. Williams Page 0,56
but she did have Armando’s. An idea came to her and she reached for her phone. Armando answered almost immediately.
‘Pronto.’
‘Hello, Armando, it’s Lucy from the cottage. I’ve just found the gorgeous rose you left me. It’s absolutely perfect. Thank you so much. I was wondering if you and your wife might like to come down here one evening for a glass of wine so I could say thank you properly. Hopefully you might be able to persuade David to come too. I’d like to thank him as well for his hospitality the other day. Please tell him there won’t be anybody else here. I’m free any evening this week. Tomorrow, maybe, or Wednesday? Whatever suits you.’
Armando reacted very positively and told her he would phone her back once he had spoken to his wife and to David. Barely a few minutes later, he called back to say that the three of them would be delighted to accept her kind invitation the day after tomorrow, Wednesday evening. They agreed upon six o’clock and Lucy had a last-minute thought. ‘Do, please, bring Boris. I met his mum and dad yesterday, and it’ll be good to see him again.’
On Wednesday afternoon on her way home from the clinic she dashed into the shop in Castelnuovo Superiore to stock up on food. She and Donatello, the shopkeeper, were good friends now and she bought more of his wonderful hand-carved ham, several different local cheeses, a lovely aromatic cantaloupe melon and a variety of crisps and crackers as well as some fennel-flavoured finocchiona and little wild boar salami. Back home she hastily toasted slices of bread, cut them into squares and covered them with cheese, pâté or sausage, before cutting the melon into cubes and threading these onto cocktail sticks together with rolled-up pieces of ham. She had put bottles of Roberto’s sparkling rosé in the fridge the previous night and hoped her guests would approve.
She just had time to run upstairs and take a quick shower before they were due to arrive. She resisted the temptation to put on the smart frock she had worn at Daniela’s wedding and went for her new white and pink dress instead. This was a bit short, but her legs were nice and brown by now after all her walks in the hills, so she felt confident she looked okay. Besides, she told herself, there was no point dolling herself up for David’s benefit. Yes, as she had told Daniela, she really did find him very attractive, but she knew there could be no future for her with a millionaire, let alone one who might also be philanderer.
Shortly after seven she heard a car outside and went out to greet them. It was a sleek black Mercedes with heavily tinted windows. Evidently this was the way David managed to get around and maintain his anonymity. It was the first time she had met Fioretta and she took an immediate liking to this motherly lady. Before she could greet anybody else, she was assaulted – in the friendliest possible way – by the happy Labrador and she had to crouch down and make a fuss of him. When she stood back up again, she beckoned them all inside and made a beeline for the sink to wash the dog off her hands.
‘Thank you so much for coming and thank you for the rose.’ She opened the back door and showed them where she was planning on planting it. Armando, ever-helpful, had an idea.
‘I’ve got some wire and some masonry nails back at the villa. If you like, I’ll come round one of these days and pin up a framework for you to train the rose against when it starts going up the wall.’
Lucy thanked him warmly and turned to David who had been standing back, letting Armando do the talking. She noticed a bottle in his hand.
‘Hi, David, you shouldn’t have.’
He handed her the bottle of champagne and she was delighted to see him smile. ‘Like I say, I’ve got cases of the stuff. You’re very welcome.’
As it was another warm, sunny evening without much wind, she took them up to the loggia. Ignoring Lucy’s protests, Fioretta picked up the biggest tray of food and carried it up the stairs, Armando took the rest and David brought the wine, leaving Lucy with just the glasses to carry. They settled down on her recently purchased chairs and David opened one of the bottles of Roberto’s sparkling rosé. Boris positioned himself