He waited another few minutes, putting on his shirt and making plenty of noise to warn her. When he opened the door again he saw that the sofa had been stripped of sheets and blankets.
Olympia emerged from the kitchen, smiling. She was dressed in sweater and trousers and her hair was still long, although it had been drawn back and held by a coloured scarf.
‘Good morning,’ she said brightly. If he’d been thinking straight he might have thought the brightness rather forced, but he was long past thinking straight.
‘How are you this morning?’ she asked.
‘A lot better for that sleep, thank you. In fact, thank you for everything, starting with making me come home with you. You were right about the hotel. It’s a crowded place, but it would have been just like being alone.’
‘Of course, you could always have asked them to send for a doctor,’ she mused. ‘But you wouldn’t have done that. Too sensible. Men never do the sensible thing.’
‘Actually, I usually do,’ he said, making a face. ‘That’s my big problem, according to my mother. She keeps choosing wives for me but, according to her, I’m so sensible I drive them off. I tell her that when I’m ready to marry I’ll find a woman as sensible as myself, and then neither of us will notice how boring the other one is.’
She laughed. From where she was standing no man had ever seemed less boring. A shaft of sunlight was falling on him, emphasising a masculine vigour that made him stand out vividly in her too-neat apartment. She found herself thinking of the countryside in summer, fierce heat, vibrant colours, everything deeper, more intense.
But the subtext of the story was that he had no wife at home. It alarmed her to find that she was glad to know that. It could make no possible difference to her. And yet she was glad.
She covered herself by turning it into a joke.
‘You’re in luck. I know several boring ladies who’d overlook a few deficiencies and make do with you.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said ironically. ‘And while I’m thanking you I’ll add the fact that you called the doctor last night, despite what I said. It was sneaky, but it was also the right thing to do.’
‘Oh, I don’t waste time arguing. When a man’s totally wrong I just ignore him.’
‘Now, that I believe.’
They laughed and she said, ‘The bathroom’s over there.’
He went in, taking the things she’d bought him, and had to admit that even her choice of shaving cream and aftershave were perfect. This was one very organised lady, who got every decision right.
But that was just one side of her, he realised. There was another side, with an unruly tongue that burst out despite all her efforts at control. That was the interesting side, the one he wanted to know more about, which was going to be hard, because it was the one she strove most fiercely to hide. But he wasn’t going to give up now.
When he came out the room was empty and he could hear her moving in the kitchen. He looked around her apartment and again had the sense of something missing. Now he realised what it was. Like herself, the place was neat, focused, perfectly ordered. But what else was she? What were her dreams and desires? There was nothing here to tell him.
He could find only one thing that suggested a personal life and that was a photograph of an elderly couple, their heads close together, smiling broadly. The woman bore a faint resemblance to Olympia. Grandparents, he thought. There were no other pictures.
Her books might give a clue. But here again there was nothing helpful. Self-improvement tomes lined the shelves, courses for this, reading for that. They had been placed there by the woman who wore mannish pyjamas and sleeked her hair back, not the witch whose black locks streamed down like water.
She emerged with hot tea. ‘Drink this, you’ll feel better. I hope you’re hungry.’
‘Starving.’
From the kitchen came the sound of a toaster throwing up slices at the same moment that there was a ring on the front doorbell.
‘Answer it for me, would you?’ she said, heading back to the kitchen.
At the door he found a young man in a uniform, clutching a large bouquet of red roses, a bottle of champagne and a sheaf of envelopes.
‘This stuff has just arrived on the desk downstairs,’ he said. ‘There’s a few others, mind you. The post’s always heavy on St Valentine’s Day, but the others are nothing to Miss Lincoln’s. It’s the same every year.’
‘OK, I’ll take them.’
The roses were of the very best, heavy with perfume, clearly flown in expensively from some warmer location. He managed to read the card.
To the one and only, the girl who transformed the world.
He returned to the main room just as she appeared from the kitchen.
‘You seem to be very popular,’ he said.
He was stunned by the look that came over her face as she saw the roses. Her smile was tender, brilliant, beautiful with love.
‘Who are they from?’ he couldn’t resist asking.
‘What’s the name on the card?’ she said with a laugh.
‘There’s no name,’ he said, and could have kicked himself for revealing that he’d read it.
‘Well, if he wants to keep his identity a secret,’ she said carelessly, ‘who am I to say otherwise?’
‘There’s a bottle of champagne and several cards.’
‘Thank you.’ She took them and laid them aside.
‘You’re not even going to read them?’
She shrugged. ‘What’s the need? None of them will be signed.’
‘Then how will you know who sent them?’
‘I shall just have to guess. Now, let’s eat.’
Breakfast was grapefruit, cereal and coffee, which suited him exactly. While he was eating she relented enough to put the red roses in a vase, but seemed content to leave the cards unopened.
Could any woman be so truly indifferent? he wondered. Were her admirers really surplus to requirements?
Or was this another facet of her personality?
But she was a witch, he remembered, a strega magica, changing before his eyes to bemuse and mystify him. And he had no choice but to follow where she led.
CHAPTER THREE
OVER coffee he said, ‘Considering the mess I made of your car last night, you’d have been quite justified to have abandoned me to my fate.’
‘Yes, I would,’ she said promptly. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t.’
‘Perhaps you’re a warm-hearted, forgiving person?’
She considered this seriously before dismissing it.
‘That doesn’t sound like me at all. There must be some other reason.’
‘Maybe you preferred to keep me around so that you could inflict dire retribution?’
‘That sounds much more like me,’ she said triumphantly. ‘How did you come to have such a nasty accident?’
‘I forgot that the English drive on the wrong side of the road.’
His droll manner made her laugh again, but then she said, ‘You really do spend most of your time in Italy, then?’
‘A good deal. I’m at home in many places.’
‘And you’re part of Leonate, and that’s why you’re over here?’
‘Uh-huh!’ he said vaguely.
‘And then you have to report back?’
‘I shall certainly describe what I find, but I think, for the sake of my dignity, I’d better leave yesterday’s events out of it. I wasn’t trying to trap you. I just acted on impulse. I have a peculiar sense of humour.’
‘I have no sense of humour at all,’ Olympia said at once.
‘That would account for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll make a note of that for my report.’ He pretended to write, reciting the words slowly. ‘No-sense-of-humour-at-all.’ He seemed to think for a moment before adding, ‘Problem-to-be-considered-at-later-date. Suggest-dinner. Then-duck.’