The Impatient Virgin Read online

  Probably they were exaggerating. The Italian housekeeper and cleaners and the French chef were all inclined to make dramas out of minor incidents. They had more emotional temperaments than Americans and the British. But as Mr Carlisle was only half-American, perhaps he could be provoked into fiery eruptions.

  Something was vexing him now. He was looking down towards the sea where the translucent blue-green water lapped against ochre rocks at either end of a scimitar-shaped pebble beach. The sight didn’t seem to please him. His black brows were drawn together, his mouth set in a harsh line.

  If Miss Howard’s arrival was causing that grim expression, Charlene wondered why he was allowing her to come. Many well-known journalists had approached him for interviews, but all had been refused.

  Why was he making an exception of Anny Howard?

  Aboard Flight 910 to Nice, the cabin staff had taken their places for take-off.

  Only five other people besides Anny were flying in the forward section. She put her tote on the aisle seat and the file on the seat next to hers. On her way to see anyone else, she would have been eager to start researching her subject. In this instance she wanted to postpone the study of Van’s achievements since the last time she had seen him.

  Instead she opened the in-flight magazine, but found herself reading paragraphs without taking in what they meant. She leaned back and closed her eyes, memories crowding her mind, the old pain lancing her heart.

  That she was now five years older and far more sure of herself didn’t make her confident that she would be able to handle him. She knew her defences would still be flimsy, her weapons feeble when matched with his formidable powers.

  Van wasn’t like Jon, kind and sensitive. In his field, Van was a genius, and like all such men he had a ruthless streak. What he wanted he got. But he hadn’t got her, or not on the terms he required.

  That would have rankled for a long time. He might have forgotten her since then, but what if seeing her again rekindled his ire? Wasn’t it better to avoid that possibility? When they landed at Nice, she could fly straight back to London. But if she did that what would it do to her prospects as a freelance journalist? Greg couldn’t blame her for being thrown out by Van, but he would if she chickened out. She could say goodbye to any more assignments from him, and he might spread the word to other editors. Journalism was a competitive profession in which, so far, she had done well. That could change if she blotted her copybook with Greg.

  Lunch was served. Anny had a good appetite and maintained her svelte shape with an energetic life rather than by counting calories. Today she did less than justice to an excellent meal.

  With forty minutes to landing time, she broached the file, reading with practised swiftness clippings from the American and British computer press. Some of them carried the only photograph of Van ever released by his PR department. It showed him sitting in a swivel desk chair, a monitor screen behind him. His face was as she remembered it, not the way he would look now.

  Replacing the clippings in the file, she took from her bag an envelope sealed five years ago and never opened until now. Her fingers weren’t perfectly steady as she shook out the contents; several snapshots and various sentimental mementoes. It pained her to see them again. Greg, if he knew she had them, would badger her to let him publish them. Despite being taken by an amateur, they were valuable for the light they threw on the time before Van became famous.

  Like Stansted, the airport at Nice was ultra-modern, built as close to the sea as it was possible to be. In the final minutes of the flight, Anny looked down at the familiar coastline, feeling a mixture of terror and joy.

  Once these shimmering waters reflecting the blue of the sky had been her natural habitat. ‘The nearest thing to a mermaid you’ll ever see,’ someone had said of her.

  But that was long ago, when her skin had been almost always sticky from constant dunkings in the sea and her sun-streaked hair, when not hanging in dripping rats’ tails, had been tucked up inside the straw hat she was made to wear out of the water.

  Once through the airport formalities, which didn’t take long these days, she looked around for a quiet corner from which to call Greg on her cellphone.

  He was at his desk and took her call straight away. ‘Hello, Anny. What’s the problem?’

  ‘No problems yet, but your briefing yesterday wasn’t very informative. I’d like to know how you persuaded Carlisle to relax his embargo on journos?’

  There was a pause before he answered. ‘OK, I’ll level with you. I didn’t persuade him. He suggested it to me, but only on certain conditions.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘First, that I sent Anny Howard. It seems he’s read some of your interviews and thought they were good.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘He wanted a written assurance that he would be shown your copy before publication, with the right to make cuts...in fact to veto the whole thing if he didn’t like it.’

  ‘You didn’t go along with that!’ she expostulated.

  ‘I didn’t have any option. Anyway I’m sure he will like whatever you write. People always do. You’re good at telling the truth in a way that doesn’t upset them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on that in this case.’ Hot-tempered when she was younger, at twenty-five Anny had learnt not to fly off the handle even when raging inwardly.

  ‘The fact that he specifically asked for you gives you a big edge,’ said Greg.

  That’s all you know, she thought. Aloud, she said, ‘Maybe...maybe not. I’ll call you later.’

  The girl at the car rental desk took her for a compatriot till Anny explained she was a foreigner. Her fluent French and Italian had been a help to her career, but she hadn’t had to work at them like Jon with his Turkish. She had picked them up as a child, with some Spanish and Catalan learned in harbours and boatyards up and down the coast of Spain.

  The fastest route from the airport to Orengo was by the coast road known as the Moyenne Comiche. But Anny didn’t want to join that shuttle of high-speed drivers and long-distance coaches. After Greg’s revelation of who had really set up the interview, she needed time to re-think her plan of action.

  All along the city’s famous Promenade des Anglais people in warm-weather clothes were walking their dogs, jogging, or strolling with friends while teenagers on roller-blades glided past them. The palms, the tubs of geraniums, the awnings shading the windows of the hotels made her realise how much, subconsciously, she had missed this Mediterranean atmosphere.

  Once this had been her world...

  CHAPTER TWO

  SINCE the first time Sea Dreams dropped anchor in the quiet bay at the foot of the hill dominated by the dilapidated mansion called Palazzo Orengo, Anny had explored every corner of its neglected garden.

  The last remaining gardener, an old Italian, had told Anny’s uncle, the skipper of Sea Dreams, that the garden covered forty-five hectares. There had been a lot to explore. Of all its special places, her favourite was the belvedere with its views of the coasts of two countries, the Italian Riviera to the east and the French Riviera to the west.

  The roof of the belvedere was supported by columns of carved rose-pink marble entwined by an old wisteria, veiling the building with its drooping clusters of pale purple flowers.

  One hot afternoon, while Uncle Bart was napping in his cabin, Anny sat on the belvedere’s balustrade, interviewing Dona Sofia, the Queen of Spain.

  In her imagination, she had interviewed many of the world’s leading women in preparation for the time when she herself would be one of the world’s leading journalists. She had always known what she wanted to be. Journalism was in her blood. Her grandfather had edited a weekly newspaper, her father had been killed reporting a war in Africa and her uncle wrote for the yachting press.

  There being no one to hear her except the small lizards which scuttled up and down the columns, she was asking her questions aloud.

  ‘If you hadn’t been born a princess, Your Majesty
, what career would you have chosen?’

  Before she could invent the Queen’s reply, from behind her someone said, ‘Who are you?’

  The voice gave Anny such a start that she almost fell off the balustrade.

  Standing in the entrance to the belvedere was a tall young man she had never set eyes on before. He was wearing a clean white T-shirt and dark blue jeans with brown deck shoes, the kind with a leather thong threaded round the sides. He had the same colouring as the youths in the nearby village, but their eyes were black and his were as blue as his jeans.

  ‘I’m Anny Howard. Who are you?’

  ‘Van Carlisle...hi...how’re you doing?’

  As she slid off the sun-warmed stone ledge, he came towards her.

  As they shook hands, he said, ‘Sorry I startled you. You must be the girl from the schooner down in the bay. Lucio told me about you.’

  ‘Are you related to Lucio?’

  ‘No, I’m related to the old lady who lives in the palazzo. She’s my great-grandmother.’

  ‘I’ve never seen her,’ said Anny. ‘Lucio calls her la contessa. Is she really a countess or is that just his name for her?’

  ‘It’s her official title, but she was born an American like me. The reason you’ve never seen her is because she’s eighty-three years old and very frail. She stays in bed most of the time.’

  ‘You don’t sound like an American.’

  ‘That’s because when I was little my sister and I had an English nanny. My mother is Italian, my father’s American and we lived in Rome until I was about your age. Tell me about you.’

  ‘I’m an orphan,’ said Anny. ‘But I’m not unhappy like the orphans in books. If I had parents like other people, I’d have to live in a house. I’d much rather live on Sea Dreams with Uncle Bart.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s almost time for his tea. Would you like to come down and meet him? He’s a very interesting man. He’s sailed all over the world. I’ve only sailed round the Mediterranean a few times.’

  ‘I’ve never had much to do with sailing people. Lucio says this isn’t the first time you’ve moored in the bay.’

  ‘We come here every year. The berthing fees in the marinas keep going up and we can’t afford them,’ Anny confided. ‘So we try to find moorings which are free. There’s a fresh-water tap and a lavatory in the beach house which Lucio says the contessa wouldn’t mind us using. We help him in the garden for as long as we’re here.’

  In fact it was only she who helped the aged gardener in his vain attempts to keep Nature under control.

  ‘How long do you stay?’ Van asked.

  ‘Two or three weeks, then we’ll sail to Corsica. How long are you here for?’

  ‘The whole summer vacation. I’m at college in the States. Where do you go to school?’

  They had set out down the long path which, bisected by many other paths, wound its way to the beach.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Anny. ‘Uncle Bart teaches me. We’re doing a special course to make sure I’ll know enough to pass some exams later on. At the moment I’m two years ahead of my age group.’

  Van was as tall as her uncle. Looking down at her, he said, ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Nine and a quarter. How old are you?’

  Her answer made him grin. ‘Going on nineteen. What happened to your parents?’

  ‘My father was a television reporter. He and his cameraman were ambushed by a group of rebels during a war in Africa. That was before I was born. My mother died two years later. I don’t remember her. There was no one else to look after me so Uncle Bart adopted me. The first thing he had to do was to drown-proof me so that if I fell overboard I wouldn’t sink. Are you drown-proof?’

  ‘I learnt to swim at school. I can’t say I was crazy about it...or anything, except computers. Is your uncle teaching you computer skills?’

  When Anny shook her head, Van said, ‘You won’t get far unless you’re computer literate. Maybe I’ll give you some lessons...get you started.’

  ‘What is the child like?’ asked the old lady propped up by pillows in the great carved and gilded bed. ‘Is she pretty?’

  ‘Not pretty, but very intelligent. More like thirteen than nine in her conversation. When they go to Corsica, maybe I’ll sail over with them and come back on the ferry.’

  ‘A splendid idea,’ said the contessa, watching Van wolf down a large helping of pasta. ‘It’s not good to spend all your time riveted to your computer. I’m sure it’s bad for you...hour after hour gazing at a screen.’

  His mouth full, her great-grandson gave her a smile with his eyes. Although he was inches taller than her long-dead husband, and still far too thin for his height, there were moments when he reminded her of Giovanni, the irresistibly attractive Italian aristocrat who had come to New York looking for a rich bride to help him restore his ancestral home to its former glory.

  Now, sixty-five years later, Orengo was again in decline. Very soon, like other once-great houses, it would be demolished and the site redeveloped as a hotel or blocks of holiday apartments. The thought of it tore at her heart but she could see no alternative.

  Van was the only member of the family who ever came here and he was too young to rescue Orengo from the fate of all white elephants. Although several of his American forebears had made fortunes, he was unlikely ever to emulate them. He had a good brain but at present seemed unable to focus on anything but his computer.

  Perhaps in twenty years’ time he would be successful at something, but by then it would be too late.

  On the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Anny was cooking breakfast in the galley when she heard someone hailing the schooner and went on deck to see Van standing on the beach with a knapsack slung on one shoulder.

  Her heart leapt with pleasure. She hadn’t known he was coming and having him to share her birthday celebrations was better than a stack of expensive presents.

  ‘Watch the pan, will you, Bart?’ she called to her uncle. ‘I’m going to pick up Van.’

  By the time the rubber dinghy nudged the shingle at the water’s edge, Van had taken off his shoes in readiness to step aboard.

  In the seven years since their first meeting he had changed as much as Anny had. The lanky youth, built like a half-starved dog, all ribs and prominent shoulder bones, had matured into a man with a lean but powerful physique.

  Bart claimed some of the credit for this transformation. He had taught Van to crew for him and introduced him to the pleasures of snorkelling and wind-surfing. From being bookish and sedentary, he had changed, at least part of the time, to being an active outdoorsman.

  ‘Hi! How’s it going?’ he greeted her.

  ‘Fine. What a great surprise. When did you get here?’

  ‘Too late last night to come down and say hello. Theodora says you were up at the house yesterday, writing letters for her.’

  ‘Her hands are so twisted now it hurts her to hold a pen. But I thought she seemed less depressed. Did she know you were coming?’

  He shook his head. ‘I saw a special offer on trips to Paris. I have to be back there Thursday so I’ll only be here two nights.’

  ‘It’s a long way to come for two nights.’

  ‘I had a special reason. Bart...how are you?’ Looking up from the dinghy as it came alongside, he gave his warm smile to her uncle who had come up on deck to greet him.

  It wasn’t till they were aboard and the two men had greeted each other that Van turned back to Anny. ‘Happy birthday.’ He bent his tall head to kiss her lightly on both cheeks.

  Anny felt herself blushing. Kisses weren’t part of her life. Bart was kind, but he wasn’t demonstrative. Even when she was little he had never kissed her goodnight. Affectionate pats on the head or shoulder and, occasionally, a brief cuddle if she had hurt herself was his limit on physical expressions of the close bond between them.

  Immediately after kissing her, Van started to delve in his knapsack, missing her reaction to the touch of his lips.

 
; ‘A little something for the skipper...’ he handed over a bottle in an airline bag ‘...and some bits and pieces for the first mate.’

  The parcels he handed to her were all beautifully wrapped. Some of the ribbon adornments had become crushed in transit but were soon tweaked back into shape by Anny’s appreciative fingers.

  While Bart went below for a glass to sample his present, she began to unwrap hers, carefully peeling away the bits of sticky tape so as not to damage the lovely paper.

  Members of Van’s family whom she knew only by name had sent a swimsuit, a calculator, a backpack-style bag, a pen as thick as a cigar, a belt with a silver buckle and a couple of cassettes for the head-set he had given her for her thirteenth birthday. All the presents had cards attached to them with messages like—To Giovanni’s mermaid with birthday wishes from Cousin Kate.

  The parcel tagged with his handwriting she kept till last. It looked and felt like a heavy book, perhaps an anthology of American poetry. He knew she loved poetry.

  ‘You’ll have to give me the addresses of all these kind people. I must write and thank them.’

  ‘Postcards will do. You can buy some in Nice this afternoon.’

  ‘Why are we going to Nice?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  When Van looked at her with that glint of laughter in his eyes, it gave Anny a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had felt it a few times before, like a butterfly fluttering inside her. Today it was stronger, more disturbing.

  She read the card on his parcel. The message was short and factual. To Anny from Giovanni. With the date.

  ‘Why not “from Van”?’ she asked.

  ‘Because that’s my proper name. When I’m rich and famous I’ll be Giovanni Carlisle to the world and Van to my family and friends. You won’t use Anny for your byline, will you? I thought when you started your career you’d change to Annette Howard.’

  ‘I like Anny better. It’s what I’ve always been—’ She broke off as, instead of the expected book jacket, she exposed a grey plastic box.