(2012) Evie Undercover (13 page)

‘What I meant is, as you well know, that you’re quite good fun to be with. I think you’d accept that, wouldn’t you? In fact, you have to accept it
–
I’m the boss.’

‘Didn’t I read somewhere that the word
“
boss
”
has a second meaning? Doesn’t
it
also mean
“
stud
”
? Are you bragging?’

He leaned back against his chair. ‘I rest my case.’ They smiled at each other across the table
,
and their eyes met. Both instantly looked away.

‘What are we doing tomorrow, Tom?’
she asked after a short pause.

‘The beds are being delivered in the morning. We need to be there in good time to tell the deliverymen where
to put them
, and then I thought we could go and see something of the area. Perhaps we’ll drive up to Montefalco, which is about forty minutes from the house. It’s a really pretty little place, and it’s got some wonderful murals in the church there.
Well, i
t’s not
actually
a church any more
. I
t’s a cross between a museum and
an
art gallery.’

She p
ointed
her finger to her head. ‘Airhead. Remember?’

‘And then we can
get
some lunch
,
accompanied by the thing that Montefalco’s famous for.’

‘Which is?’

‘Red wine. While we’re there, we’ll get a few bottles to take with us when we go
up
to the house in the evening to see
the tower and pool
lit up. We’ll play it by ear as to whether we go to the house tomorrow night or on Friday.’

‘I can’t believe how quickly the week’s gone by. It’ll
soon be
Saturday
, and that means England
. What about Friday? Is there anything else we have to get for the house before we leave?’

‘Nothing that can’t wait.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Friday’s rather been taken out of my hands, I’m afraid.’ His words came out on a rush. ‘Gabriela’s going to show us Perugia on Friday, and Eduardo’s coming, too. Believe me, I’d have liked to have got out of it if I could have done, but they mean well and I don’t want to upset them.’

Oh, hell! Yet
another lost opportunity for her and Tom to do somet
hing on their own.

‘I expect we’ll have a nice time,’ she said flatly.

‘I’m sure you’re right
,
but that’s not how I would have chosen to spend our last full day. However, Gabriela was very insistent. I’ve promised to help her with any problems in London and she wants to say thank you by showing us Perugia, which she loves. She went to university there.
’ He paused a moment. ‘
Are you sure that’s al
l
right with you?’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Look on the bright side
–
it may be a bit
of a
hectic
way to spend the
last day, but at least you’ll have another full day with Eduardo.’

‘I think I’ll go to bed.’ She stood up. ‘Goodnight, Tom.’

‘Goodnight, Evie. Sleep well.’

He stared into the black night beyond the terrace.

What on earth was the matter with him? He’d just spent the evening with a charming woman, who was exactly the sort of woman he chose to go out with in London
–
beautiful, smart, sophisticated; not someone he’d ever fall in love with, but someone he would, under normal circumstances, have f
ound a stimulating companion
– y
et instead of thoroughly enjoying every minute of the evening, he’d spent the whole time trying to do what women always did - listen to more than one conversation at the same time.

Despite knowing that he wouldn’t understand a word of what Evie and Eduardo were saying to each other, he’d rather hoped to be able to pick up some idea about their
mutual
feelings from the tone of their voices. But he’d been singularly unsuccessful in doing so, and that was entirely because his conversation with Gabriela had continually got in the way.

They
had obviously spent some of the time talking about places in Italy
. H
e’d picked up the words Lake Garda
more than once
, and he’d wondered if
Eduardo had been suggesting that he
go
with
Evie to
visit
the places she’d got to know when she worked there. That was fair enough
–
they were free agents, after all.

So why did that idea irritate him
? B
ecause irritate him it clearly did
.
Evie was a pleasant employee and Eduardo was excellent at his job. Good luck to them both, was what he said, or what he should have been saying.

And there was something else
. H
e was mystified as to why he’d missed her contributions to the conversation tha
t evening. Yes, she was amusing,
but he could listen to any of his Billy Connolly collection if he felt the need of a good laugh, so why had he found himself wishing that he was talking to her
and not Gabriela
?

He really couldn’t understand himself, but his mood was disconcerting. Whatever the reason was for the way he felt, he very much hoped that it would soon pass and he could get back to his normal state of pleasant detachment.

Unfortunately, getting back to normal in the immediate future
was a bit of
a forlorn hope. The next morning, for example, could be tricky, given the funny mood he was in.

The beds w
ere going to
be delivered in the morning, and he and Evie would be at the house by themselves when they arrived. The fact that they’d be alone shouldn’t matter at all.

As they were leaving the restaurant after dinner h
e’d actually thought about suggesting
Eduardo come up to the house before the beds arrived
, but in the end he hadn’t done so. Thinking back on it now, though, it might have been a
sensible thing to do
. Once the beds had arrived, he and Evie could have said goodbye to Eduardo and gone off to Montefalco on their own.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d asked Eduardo at such short notice – it had already been agreed that he would be at their disposal for the week. He
had no doubt that Eduardo
would have
readily
come and joined them
,
if for no other reason than that it would have been a chance to spend more time with Evie.

True, being a minute longer than was absolutely necessary in Eduardo’s company wasn’t an attractive proposition – far from it – but for reasons that he wasn’t clear about, he rather felt that the advantages
of having Eduardo there
outweighed the disadvantages.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too late to ask Eduardo. Obviously it was too late to ring him that evening – and Evie had gone to bed, anyway, so she wasn’t around to do the talking
–
but he could ask her to ring Eduardo at breakfast the following morning and suggest that he get to the ho
use for ten thirty. Yes, that’
s what he would do. It had been stupid not to have sorted this out earlier on, but at least it wasn’t too late to do the
wise
thing.

He stood up. He felt better already.

Chapter Nine

And so to beds
…

‘That’s done, then.’ Evie stood under the porch in front of the house, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun as she watched the
green
delivery van gradually disappear behind the trees lin
ing
the dusty track
that ran
down the side of the mountain.

‘
Many thanks for your help, Evie,
’ Tom
said,
dropp
ing
the last piece of cardboard on to the pile of used packaging that was heaped up in the corner of the porch. ‘
It couldn’t have gone better. I
t all looks very good now.’

‘Just think, the next time you come to Italy, all the other furniture will be in place, too.’

‘I’m glad you said that
.
It’s
reminded me
that
I need to make sure Eduardo knows where the furniture’s got to go when it gets here
–
after all, he’ll
be the one who’s
here when it arrives. We’d better do a rough plan
that we can
give to him in Perugia tomorrow.’

‘I half wondered if you’d ask him to come along this morning, just in case there were any problems.’

And she
had
half wondered, while at the same time she’d hoped like mad
with the other half that he would
n’t
.

There was no point in her spendi
ng any more time with Eduardo. H
e knew perfectly well that she wasn’t interested in him in a romantic way. If she’d needed any more proof than the sympathy she’d seen in his eyes the night before – sympathy that was obviously based on his mis
reading
of the situation – she had only to think back to the moment when he’d said goodbye to her
as they left the restaurant
.

They’d all stood and waited while he bent very low over her hand, but only she had seen that when he raised his eyes to her face, he’d lowered one eyelid in an unmistakable wink.

It was so unexpected that for an awful moment, she’d thought that she was going to break out into a fit of giggl
es
. Fortunately, she’d managed to smother the urge. At that moment, she’d known for sure that her relationship with Eduardo had definitely morphed into a non-romantic friendship, and she was really pleased
about that
– it felt more honest.

But much as she hadn’t wanted Eduardo there with them that morning, she was surprised that Tom hadn’t asked him to join them. And it was funny how when she’d
mentioned Eduardo
earlier on
, he’d gone into a sudden frenzy of activity. What was going on in his mind
?
she wondered.

She stood and watched him
move
around the pile of discarded cardboard, lining up the corners of the flattened cartons so that they were even. Could it simply be that he thought she fancied Eduardo and felt guilty that he hadn’t asked him to join them for the day
so that she
would
have more time with him
?

But how likely was that!

She was only
an employee, after all. A
nd as Tom had said in a different situation, she was meant to be thinking about
his
needs, not the other way round. But if that wasn’t the reason, it was hard to see why Tom was suddenly fussing around with the leftover packagi
ng and why he
looked so uncomfortable when
ever she
mentioned Eduardo.

‘Actually I di
d intend to ask you to call him,
’
he said
abruptly
, and h
e stopped what he was doing and straightened up, a piece of corrugated cardboard paper in his hand. ‘But in the end I forgot about it in the rush to get here before the furniture arrived. A
nd a
s it so happens, we didn’t need him after all, did we?’ He indicated around him and dropped the cardboard on to the pile. ‘We managed a
l
l
right, just you and me.’

More than al
l
right, she thought happily. He hadn’t mentioned Gabriela so much as once all morning.

‘We certainly did. We made a great team. So what now, partner? We
’ve
unpacked the lamps, but we left t
hem in the corner of the hall. I
f you want, we can go round the house and put one on each bedside table. Then we’ll r
eally be finished, or at least
we’ll have done all we can do for now.’

‘Your enthusiasm for hard graft is commendable, Evie. However, I think we’ll settle for putting a lamp in the main bedroom, and leave the rest for another time. We’ll do a quick sketch of where the furniture has to go, and then we ought to set off for Montefalco.’

‘Righteo.’

He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s a bit later than I thought
. W
e’ll have to do the plans very quickly. If I remember rightly, the art gallery closes for lunch at twelve thirty or one.
B
y the time we
’ve
finished here
and driven to Montefalco
, there
probably
won’t be sufficient time to do it justice
this morning
.
However,
it
open
s
again
at
about five
, and
I suggest that we
go to Montefalco as planned,
have a leisurely lunch
followed by a walk around the village,
and
then
go to the gallery
when
it
opens
ag
ain
.
’