Island of Darkness

ISLAND OF DARKNESS

by

REBECCA STRATTON

Leonora ventured to the Isola de Marta and there met Jason Connor, the famous racing driver, blinded in a car crash, but still a tremendously attractive man. How could she help falling in love with such a man?

But when Jason underwent the operation that would give him back his sight, Leonora realized that she had little chance of ever sharing his life. Or had she?

CHAPTER ONE

Leonora could not help smiling to herself, despite her

exasperation, for Roberto Talhano was such an earnest and inoffensive little man that she found it impossible to do other than sympathise with him. His curly black hair covered most of his forehead as well as his skull, and those soulful dark eyes were so irresistibly appealing that she could not find it in her heart to show the impatience she felt.

Roberto’s wife, Maria, acted as daily woman and occasional cook to Leonora and her uncle, but the arrangement was fraught with disasters, usually brought about by Maria’s temperament which was explosive even by Latin standards. In all fairness Leonora had to allow that some temperament was understandable, for besides being part-time domestic to Leonora and her uncle, Maria also had five
bambini
to care for, despite the fact that she was not yet thirty, and Roberto was not the world’s best provider.

Heaven knew what had prompted the latest tantrum, but she had walked out of Clive Jackson’s house-cum- studio and shop in high dudgeon, calling upon God to witness her patience and vowing never to return. If Leonora had thought she meant it she would probably have been worried, but such incidents were by now so commonplace that both she and her uncle took them in their stride.

It was Roberto who took it most seriously and worried about it most, and as always it was Roberto who came to apologise yet again for his absent wife. As usual he saw Leonora, for Clive was busy in his studio, and anyway he hated domestic upheavals and always shut himself away when Maria gave vent to her grievances.

“I am desolate,
signorina
,” Roberto told her, and his spaniel-like eyes begged for understanding. He loved his Maria for all her explosive temper, and would never have dreamed of blaming her for her behaviour. “If you will explaina to Signor Jackson,” he pleaded, “that Maria is - not so well.”

Leonora stifled a sigh, knowing full well that she would not even mention Maria’s departure unless her uncle did so first, but would simply fill in herself until she decided to return yet again. “I’ll tell my uncle that Maria isn’t well, Roberto,” she assured the anxious little man. “Don’t worry.”

Roberto beamed his gratitude.
“Grazie, grazie,
Signorina Jack-son! I know that my Maria will - will—” He sought helplessly for English words to explain, and Leonora took pity on him, he really was quite pathetic in his loyalty. “Oh, she’ll come round in time,” she smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Roberto, we’ll cope until she comes back. After all, it’s all happened before, hasn’t it?”

Roberto look briefly as if he was going to protest about her implied slight on his wife, but he thought better of it and shrugged his shoulders instead.

“Lo suppongo, signorina
,” he allowed resignedly.
“Mi displace.”

Leonora smiled at him reassuringly and looked down into his boat, moored to the quay. It contained only two lobsters, huge things lying in the bottom of the little craft, and her thoughts immediately dwelt on the fate of Maria and her brood of five if the breadwinner could bring in no more than two lobsters. “Is that all your catch, Roberto?” she asked, and Roberto shook his head.

His expression was, if possible, even more gloomy as he looked down at the two lobsters. “Ah, no, signorina!,” he said with a sigh.
“Le aragoste
are for the
signori
on the rock.”

“Oh, I see.”

Leonora glanced across the smooth blue waters of the bay to the towering height of Isola de Marta. It was not an island, strictly speaking, but was attached to the mainland by a thin strip of land, and in the evenings in summer, when the sun was just going down, it looked like a fairytale castle.

A large white villa was built right at the top of the rock, and the rugged terrain below and around it somehow managed to support trees and gardens up there on the terraced rock face. It had intrigued Leonora from the moment she saw it, and the arrival of new residents had added to her interest.

It was that same interest, or nosiness as her uncle chose to call it, that had prompted her offer to relieve Roberto of his delivery chores. At the time Maria was indulging in yet another of her tantrums and Roberto

was harried and at his wits’ end, reluctant to leave her and row over with an order of fish for the residents on the rock. Impulsively Leonora had offered to go in his stead, and she had gone twice more since, though not for the same reasons.

The villa, once she had landed and climbed the hundred or so steps to the terrace above, offered a breathtaking view that made the trip well worthwhile. It had an air of loneliness too, but with only three people living in a place of that size an air of loneliness was almost inevitable, and lonely or not she envied them their magnificent outlook from those shady, walled terraces.

Not that the third, and most important, member of the household was in any position to appreciate the view, for he was blind. She had not so far met him, but she had read all about Jason Connor’s accident in the English newspapers that her uncle still had. She had been unaware of the identity of the new resident until she went there the first time, and it had been quite a surprise to discover that two of the newcomers were compatriots.

Knowing something of Jason Connor’s history from the papers and magazine articles, Leonora found her sympathy was tempered with reserve. He was a brilliant man in his own field, of course, and everyone knew that racing drivers were a breed apart, but from what she had read about him she was not sure she would like him very much. He sounded conceited and rather selfish, if his chroniclers were to be believed, although they had not written with the intention of conveying as much.

He had crashed his car during one of the important Grand Prix races for the world championship about three months ago, and as a result he had not only sustained serious bodily injuries, but also lost his sight, although it was hoped that the latter was only temporary. In all the articles about him he was presented as dashing and courageous and very attractive to women, a type that Leonora viewed with a certain reserve.

He had taken up residence in the villa on the rock a little under a month ago with only an Italian housekeeper and a Scottish man-of-all-trades as company. Scottie McLellan had welcomed Leonora with open arms, glad to see someone he could talk to in his own language, and she had found him a pleasant and friendly man, devoted to his rather volatile employer, but not blinded to his shortcomings.

He had, he explained at their first meeting, been Jason Connor’s mechanic, but since his accident had been acting as companion and general factotum, a buffer between his employer and the rest of the world.

Leonora suddenly realized that Roberto was looking at her with a hopeful expression in his eyes she had been half expecting. She smiled, guessing what was in his mind and nothing loath to visit the rock again, and glanced again at the two lobsters in the bottom of the boat.

“Would you like me to take those over for you, Roberto?” she asked. “While you stay and smooth Maria’s ruffled feathers?”

“Oh,
mille grazie, signorina
!” Roberto’s soulful eyes beamed his gratitude.

“I don’t mind in the least,” she assured him. “In fact I quite enjoy going over there.”

Roberto rolled his eyes meaningly and he showed his rather large white teeth in a broad smile. “Ah, si,” he breathed earnestly. “II
signore
he is most ’andsome, si?” Leonora presumed he was referring to Jason Connor, although from his pictures she would scarcely have called him handsome. Whoever Roberto was referring to she had no intention of allowing him to nurture ideas like that for very long and she frowned discouragingly.

“I can’t say I’ve noticed anyone particularly handsome over there, Roberto,” she told him coolly. “And now, if you want me to take those lobsters for you, you’d better give them to me and I’ll let my uncle know where I’m going.”

“Ben inteso, signorina
!” He hastily recovered the lobsters from the boat and gave them to her, tied together with string and looking rather dangerously active.
“Mille grazie
,” he called after her as she went into the shop, and her uncle looked up with a curious smile.

Clive Jackson was not much over forty and a very good-looking man by any standards. Leonora was very fond of her handsome uncle and, since he was her only living relative, thanked her stars that they got on so well together. Tall and brown-haired, he had nice grey eyes that always reminded her of her father, and she had had no hesitation in coming out with him to live in this little Italian fishing village when her mother died, three years ago.

He was a very clever ceramic artist and had a nicely thriving little business in Terolito. During the summer he sold to what visitors managed to find the village, but mostly he sold his work to some of the bigger shops in Genoa and got quite good prices for it. Leonora helped in some of the less skilled parts of the work and also served in the little open-fronted shop when necessary.

Leonora had the family good looks herself, with the same reddish brown hair her uncle had but with hazel eyes thick-fringed with brown lashes. She had a neat, petite figure that showed to advantage in a brief, sky- blue cotton dress. Her bare arms and legs were nicely tanned to a golden brown by the Italian sun and altogether she was a fresh and lovely sight that the local young men appreciated quite openly, both with their expressive dark eyes and by more audible means.

“Are those for us?” Clive asked, indicating the lobsters with a brief nod, and Leonora smiled as she put the lively crustacea into a large basket.

“No,” she said, “I’m taking them over to the rock for Roberto.”

“Again?” He frowned and shook his head, breaking his concentration for a moment to look at her seriously. “Do I gather we’ve had another crisis with Maria?” he asked, and Leonora nodded.

“I’m afraid so, but it won’t last long, I don’t suppose. She’ll come round, she always does.”

Her uncle was still frowning, not altogether satisfied. “All the same, Leo, I don’t see why you should act as Roberto’s errand girl.”

“I don’t
have
to,” Leonora told him with a smile. She gazed at the lobsters’ waving claws and pulled a face. “I’m not sure I’m safe with these two monsters of the deep,” she added, “but I don’t mind going over to the rock at all, in fact it rather intrigues me.”

“Are you sure it isn’t the idea of meeting Jason Connor that intrigues you?” Clive suggested bluntly, and Leonora laughed.

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him so far,” she told him, “and I have no reason to suppose I ever will. He’s hiding himself from the world at the moment and I’m not exactly bothered about seeing him or not. But I like Scottie McLellan and —” She laughed a little uneasily, wary of voicing her sympathy in case it should be misconstrued. “I feel a bit sorry for him, somehow. I’m sure he’s homesick and I don’t think Jason Connor’s a very good patient. Not that Scottie complains, but I can read between the lines.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” her uncle said. “Being suddenly plunged into blindness after the kind of life he’s led must be quite a jolt, even for a character as tough as Connor.”

“There’s a good chance he’ll recover his sight, so Scottie says,” Leonora said thoughtfully. “But I sometimes wonder if they’ve told him that simply to - sort of console him, until he’s strong enough to take the truth.”

Could be.” Her uncle looked thoughtful, shaking his head and imagining what it would mean to him not to be able to follow his own career. “But let’s hope your Scottie’s not just being comforting.

Leonora noted the use of the possessive “your” and frowned over it. “He’s not
my
Scottie, Clive,” she told him in a cool voice. “I have enough trouble convincing Roberto that my reasons for going over to Isola de Marta are purely aesthetic. The view from the top, on those terraces, has to be seen to be believed.”