These Tangled Vines(35)

Feeling a little disgusted by the conversation, I tried to change the subject. “None of this helps me understand what happened between him and my mother. All I know is that she would never have gone after Anton’s money. She wasn’t like that.”

“Yet here you are,” Connor replied, “by some miracle, the prime beneficiary. Something does smell fishy about that.”

I finished searching through a box, set it aside, and opened another.

“Look at you . . . ,” Connor said. “What a busy bee. I’ll bet you’d pay a million bucks right now to find a box full of perfume-scented valentines so that you could put a stamp of approval on that bogus will.”

“It’s not bogus,” I replied. “The lawyer said it’s valid.”

“That lawyer’s a hack who doesn’t know anything about what was written in those letters. I can’t believe he even mentioned them to us. He must have known I’d turn this place upside down looking for them. But what do I know? Maybe he’s sipping brandy on a plane back to London right now, laughing his ass off.”

“I doubt that’s the case,” I said.

“You have such sweet faith in people. It’s hard to believe we’re related.”

“I can’t argue.”

Connor sat down again. “It’s getting late, and I’m hungry. How about this for an idea? We’ll call a truce for today. I’ll leave if you will. I’ve had enough of this musty old studio anyway.”

I looked around at the remnants of my father’s artistic life—the paintbrushes in jars, old tubes of oils, and rolled-up canvases in boxes, which I couldn’t wait to look at. But Maria was expecting me for dinner.

I checked my watch. “I do have to get changed.”

Connor stood. “Excellent. We agree on something at last. It’s quittin’ time. Let’s go.” He clapped his hands. “Chop-chop.”

He watched my every move as I closed the last box. Then he followed me out.





CHAPTER 11


LILLIAN


Tuscany, 1986

“Forgive me, Lillian,” Mr. Clark said, sitting forward on the sofa and smiling charmingly. “I’ve poured too much wine.”

“No,” she replied, “it was wonderful. They were good wines, I must say.”

He raised a glass. “Thank you, Lorenzo, wherever you are.”

The weather outside had grown hot and humid, and Mr. Clark raked a hand through his hair. Lillian couldn’t seem to look at him directly. She gazed at a painting on the wall, studying its composition and colors, but this was a ruse to hide the fact that she was aware of her boss’s every movement, even the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

They sat in silence, not talking, just listening to the crickets chirping in the cool grass outside. Feeling the pleasurable effects of the wine, Lillian tilted her head back and looked up at the frescoed ceiling again. She wondered about the artist. He must have been a spiritual person, passionate about his work. How wonderful it must be—to love your work in such a way . . .

She supposed Freddie was like that. Sometimes his desire to write was all-consuming. Whenever he was sitting at his desk, hunched over his typewriter, and she carried a supper tray into the room, she felt like an unwelcome disturbance. At the very least, she felt invisible. Sometimes he would hold up a hand to signal that she shouldn’t speak, because if she did, she would interrupt his creative flow and pull him out of his imagination.

She respected Freddie’s focus. It was a natural, God-given gift that he could transport himself to another world—as if he were leaving his physical body—and tell a story about that world of his creation.

“Why don’t you come for dinner tonight?” Mr. Clark suggested, surprising Lillian with the invitation.

She sat forward. “Dinner? Where?”

“At the villa.” He checked his watch. “Mrs. Guardini sometimes gets her nose out of joint when I work too late in the evenings. I should head up there.”

Lillian felt a touch of disappointment at the notion that he considered this to be work. For her, it was pure pleasure.

“She’ll have the table set by now,” he continued, “and everyone will be sitting down shortly.”

“Everyone?” Lillian grimaced. Heaven help her, the wine had clouded her brain. She couldn’t seem to form a complete sentence.

Mr. Clark began to name names. “Matteo, Domenico—that’s Mrs. Guardini’s husband, who runs the vineyards for me—and Francesco, my driver and right-hand man. You could invite your husband to join us if you like, if he’s back from wherever he went today. You could call him from the villa.”

Lillian’s stomach had been growling for the past hour. “I am hungry.”

Mr. Clark stood and held out his hand. “Well then. Up you come.”

She allowed him to pull her to her feet.

“But first, we should clean up after ourselves,” he added. “Let’s take the glasses to the kitchen and recork these bottles. We’ll bring them to the table and finish them off. Domenico will be thrilled.”

Lillian helped him with those tasks. Then they carried the bottles out of the tasting room to the stone terrace and up a set of worn marble steps to the iron gate outside the formal gardens.