(2012) Evie Undercover (18 page)

She glanced down at his tanned forearm, at the hand still firmly enclosing hers, at
the
jeans
slung low on his hips
.
I
f she was totally honest with herself, there were certain sights she
’d never have enough of
.

‘We’ll get off as soon
as we’ve had lunch
.
’
They
stepped from the first leg of the escalator and began to walk along a short stretch of street to the next section of
the
escalator
. H
is hand still firmly h
eld
hers, she noticed with glee.
‘I get the impression you like Gabriela a bit better now
,
’
he
said
.

‘I liked her when I met her the other night.’

‘I’m not so sure about that, but we’ll let it go. But I did think that the two of you seemed to be getting on really well over coffee this morning
. You were chatting
away
non-stop whil
st
Eduardo and I were l
ookin
g through the book of Perugino’s paintings that
he
bought
as we were leaving
the
Collegio del Cambio
.’

‘
You’re right
, w
e were. But I know what you mean about intense – she’s not exactly a laugh a minute. I’d hate to share a house with someone like that. To be honest, when I first met her, I thought she seemed a bit hard
,
but now that I’ve talked to her,
I can see that she isn’t hard at all. N
o, she’s OK.’

‘What did you talk about?’

She looked at him and laughed. ‘I was about to say that that was something a woman might ask, but I’ve got an awful feeling that I
’d
be called a sexist sow if I did, so I’m not going to say it.’

He laughed.

They turned and went through the entrance to the next section of escalator. ‘You really ought to have been a barrister, Evie. Your talent for not saying something, but getting your message across all the same, should have a wider audience than just me and a metal staircase.
And
why hold back now? I’ve already been
likened to
a matchmaker
this week, and
been seen
as having similarities with your mother
, so
why stop short at
making me a
confidante?’

‘OK, bezzie mate
,
she was asking me about living in England
, if you really want to know. S
he wanted to know the sort of places
my friends and I
go
to at night, our favouri
te clubs and the like, where I shop
– but
that was probably to avoid those shops
.
I can’t see her wearing the sort of things I go for.’

He glanced down at her short
,
pale
-
blue gingham minidress with shoestring straps. ‘You might well be right about that.’

‘She also wanted to know how I liked sharing a house with other people
. S
he’s going to have to do that when she’s in London, although I think she’ll be in a separate flat in a large house that’s been converted into flats. It’s not the same as Rachel, Jess and me living in one house together. I think that was all we talked about. Oh, and she asked quite a lot about where you lived.’

‘
I’m very grateful to you. I
t sounds as if you’ve saved me some work. I told her I’d help her with what she needed to know about London, but you seem to have done that for me, and probably much better than I could have done.’

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

‘Well,
I
would. I’m used to seeing the finished product across the dinner table. The shops and
the
places that they visit to get that way is outside my field of knowledge
, a
nd I’m quite content to let it stay there, thank you.’

‘I’m not sure that she’ll let you. She wanted to know about where you worked as well as where you lived.’

‘I expect she likes the idea of knowing someone in the place she’s moving to. Of knowing two people, I should say. She knows you, too, now.’

‘Maybe. But at the moment, she seems to have lost the two people she knows.’

‘
They’ll
be at the bottom of the escalator
,
you wait and see. They can’t go far without us as we don’t know where the restaurant is.
’

Shading her eyes with her
slender
hands, Gabriela stared
at
the exit
for the
escalator. Where were they
?
she thought impatiently. The morning had been a great success,
and she wanted the rest of the day to go equally as well.

She’d booked a t
able at on
e of her favourite restaurants
, and whilst everyone
in Italy
was
fairly
casual over time –
more casual
,
she suspected,
than she was going to find in England – she didn’t like
arriving
to
o
much aft
er the
time she’d arranged. Apart from anything else, s
he had
managed to reserve
a lovely
t
able for the four of them, and she wouldn’t want the restaurant to despair and give their table to someone else.

However
, they were late for a good reason, she realised, and she should not be too impatient with them. Both Tom and Evie had clearly enjoyed seeing the sights of such a beautiful city, and
their responses showed that they had
appreciate
d
everything she’
d shown them. As a result, at
times they had lingered longer than was wise, given that they had a lunch reservation
. B
ut they couldn’
t be blamed for this
;
i
t was understandable
.

She
looked across
at Eduardo
. He
, too,
was watching the exit,
al
though trying not
t
o be
as
obvious about it as she was. She sm
iled inwardly. He certainly
had a bad case of infatuation
over Evie
,
and this
somewhat surprised her – the women friends
of his that she’d met
in the past
were generally of a cultured nature.

Which
Evie
wasn’t
.

Although
Evie
had
seemed to
enjoy
the morning very much – far more than
Gabrielle had
expected, in fact
. And s
he’d been
somewhat amazed
at how well
Evie
and Tom seemed to get on.
They had clearly become
friends. O
bviously
it was
no more than that, and
it was unlikely
that their friendship would survive their return to Italy – they were just too different as
people
– but it was a surprise to her, nevertheless, how
much
they seemed to enjoy each other’s company
.

She glanced at her watch
, and sighed
. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be much longer.

‘
Remind me, will you, to swap details with Gabriela before we leave?
’ said Tom.
‘
She’ll need my contact numbers in London, although I suppose she could always get them from Eduardo. Ah, here we are. And, look, there they are across the road. What did I tell you?’

‘What a burden i
t must be to always
be
right,’ s
he
said with a smile as
they stepped off the escalator.

‘No one’s that, Evie.’

She shot a quizzical look at him, then turned back to Gabriela and Eduardo, who’d just caught sight of them. Eduardo had been leaning against a wall, but he promptly straightened up and started waving
across the road
to them. Gabriela’s face broke into a wide smile.

How the hell did she do it
?
Evie wondered as they started across the road. Gabriela looked as cool and elegant in her cream linen trouser suit as she had when they’d first met up that morning
–
not a crease; nothing
–
whereas she was sure that her favourite Kate Moss dress had been reduced to a limp rag in the heat
.

What’s more,
she could tell that numerous strands of hair had escaped from the two barrettes she’d put in that morning because they were hanging damply around her heat-flushed face.
She must look a total wreck.

As t
hey reached the other side of the road
and stepped on to the pavement, s
he saw Gabriela’s gaze slip to their linked hands. A look of surprise fleetingly crossed her face, and of something else she cou
ldn’t quite put her finger on, but t
he expression swiftly passed and was lost in the welcoming
crimson
-lipped smile that Gabriela gave them.

‘
Ci dispiace
,’ Evie began.

‘There’s no need to apologise, Evie. It’s difficult to walk past so much beauty and not stop and examine it closely. Eduardo and I were happy to have time to catch up with each other. But come, Tom, let me quickly show you this before we go to the restaurant.’

Turning slightly from Evie, she put one hand lightly under Tom’s elbow
, and
with the other
,
pointed
to
the
intricate engravings on the stone arch around a heavy wooden door near where they were standing. As she moved closer to the doorway, she took Tom with her, and Evie’s fingers gradually slipped through his.

Her hand felt empty.

Damn
!
Gabriela’s timing couldn’t have been worse – by the time that the lesson in architecture was over, the togetherness with Tom woul
d also be over, and there was no certainty
that
they’d
get back to where they’d been
. Thank God there was only lunch to get through before
they could go off on their own.

She turned to Eduardo in desperation and asked how far the restaurant was.

‘That’s the one!’ Evie cried
, standing
in the middle of the sitting room
,
star
ing
up through the glass roof to the
now-illuminated
stone tower above them. Caught in the beam of the spotlight, the column pierced the night.

‘And this is the last one.’ Tom flicked the switch as he spoke.

She turned to look through the
windows
as light flooded the pool.

‘Wow!’

‘That’s a pretty good word for it. Eduardo certainly knew what he was doing, I’ll say that for him.’ He came and stood alongside her, staring with her at the spotlit gardens. ‘H
is Mediterranean
gallantry
may be a bit much at times
, but he’s bang on when it comes to restoration.’ He pushed the
glass
doors open and walked out on to the
loggia
. ‘It’s a beautiful night
. S
hall we have a short stroll
,
if you’ve any energy left after Perugia, that is?’

Did he really need an answer
?

‘I think I can just about summon up enough oomph to take a few steps,’ she said, and al
l but ran out after him. ‘L
ook at the sky! You can hardly see it for stars. That means it’ll be good weather for the flight home tomorrow, doesn’t it?’

‘Something like that. Come on,
let’s walk.’ He took her hand and led them down the path,
along the edge of
the shimmering blue-green pool and down the slope beyond the pool to the rows of s
pectral
olive trees.