The Castle of Allure E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"Signora Grimaldi introduced her friends as they met with Flavia in the hall, “this is Signora Cassani and this is Signora Altieri. And this,” she said turning to the dark haired woman “is my daughter Antonina.” In that moment before they kissed in greeting, Flavia looked into those deep dark, almond shaped eyes, set above full lips. By now the elderly trio were already making their way towards the sun terrace. That perfume again. Flavia had an almost irresistible need to keep holding Antonina in that greeting embrace. Only with difficulty did she tear herself away. Antonina had not moved to break off. Was she feeling the same? She stood now before her, her neck flushed a little. “Let’s join the others,” said Flavia When she held Antonina’s delicate warm hand in hers she felt a jolt of energy run up her arm and across her body"

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

The Castle of Allure

also available in Italian as Castello Invogliato All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. published by BookRix BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

Castle of Allure

Alessandro shifted uncomfortably in the antique chair. The waiting area was tiny. Opposite him, like a long forgotten client, its base resting patiently on the red tiled floor was a large and ancient terracotta oil jar. A potted plant spilled over the lip and trailed downwards. The rest of the décor was starkly modern; white walls, black desk, black computer. He could hear muffled voices coming from the office of the notary, Guido Barillo.

Appearing from a doorway, a girl in a smart suit.

“You can go in now,” she said, giving him a big smile as she returned to reception.

Barillo stopped flicking through a box of legal papers and stood up.

“Please,” he said courteously, “take a seat.”

The lawyer himself sank back into his chair behind a large wooden desk, the top inlaid with red morocco leather. Behind him rose mahogany shelves holding bound volumes of the law, the gold lettering on the black spines together declaring its power.

It was in these surroundings then that Alessandro found out, not only that he had inherited the ancient title of ‘count” and with it some property which overlooked his home village, but, from the journal which the notary handed over, he learned the circumstances of his good fortune.

The journal takes us back twenty years to the province of Toscana, where, in the foothills of the Appenini sits the aged Castello Invogliato. Small and rugged, it had never been taken by an invader or attacker. Its lower walls seemed to merge with the bare rock that supported it. Junipers wedged themselves into cracks and wild thyme sat on ledges soaking up the April sun.

High above, on a small battlement terrace, Flavia Bertini moves blinking into the daylight.

It had been a difficult winter. There had been snow and wind, then hail and then rain. The castle was unheated save for open fireplaces.

She had slept in the kitchen, by the big stove. It burned the logs from her chestnut woods below.

A local man, Giacomo Valli, had cut the timber and stacked it by the kitchen door.

And now, the sun. She had wondered if it would return. She pushed her long grey streaked hair from her eyes. She looked out over the treetops below, the branches still bare with a hint of green as the new buds came on the trees. Birdsong filled the air; song birds, warbling and twittering.

A hoopoe, that crested harbinger of spring, with his panpipe like “upupa”, called across from the far side of the valley.

She was alone in the Castello except for the weekly visits of Francesca.

Francesca, a young woman of the village, was the cleaner. She prevented the dust from taking over. She hoovered, she polished she took things down and washed them. She opened windows even in the dead of winter.

” Contessina Bertini, fresh air,” she would announce,” is what you need; you are like a bat in this place.” When she left, Flavia would close the windows again, one by one.

By an order of the government in 1948, the nobility had ceased to be recognised in Italy.

Some in the village still called her Flavia Contessa, Francesca called her Contessina. After all, hadn’t Flavia been born in 1947, so was already a little countess when the law was passed, so surely it could not apply?

Flavia had not grown up in the castle. She had lived in Milano, gone to school there and university. The castle had only become hers through death, or more correctly, deaths. One by one, members of her family had died, from old age, illnesses, from automobile accidents, terrorism, drowning. She could not have imagined just how many ways to die there were when the lawyer explained how the castle now was rightfully hers.

She had had a brief look at it two years ago, on a rare moment away from her business career. When she had at last unlocked the big door, what had struck her was the silence, the calm, the lack of noise, the stillness. She had climbed up, exploring rooms like a naughty child and had come out onto the terrace on the battlements then, just as now, bathed in sunshine, only then the terrace was covered in a coppery carpet of dead chestnut leaves.

That first visit had not gone un-noticed. As she descended from the upper rooms she heard the bell ring in the hall. At the door was a thin dark haired woman of about thirty-five, bright intelligent eyes with thick eyebrows above that almost met. She moved with a firm step, a woman used to physical work. It was Francesca. She explained that she had cleaned for the castle before when great uncle Sergio was here. She was concerned about the dust and the drapes. There would be much to do if the signora was going to stay. Flavia invited her to step into the hall. In response to Flavia’s questions Francesca replied readily that she was married, her husband Giacomo worked in the woods, and she had two children, a girl and a boy, Maria and Alessandro.

“Eh le signora? Replied Francesca,” Do you have any bambini?