Page 42 of Bloodlines and Birthright

“Anything could have happened! Scala could have woken. What if he’d seen you? What if he’d had a weapon? Can we trust Rocco not to tell him?”

They were the same concerns that had kept me awake. He was right. Anything could have happened. Why had I been so foolish?

“What’s come over you, Gavin? It’s not like you to gad about at leisure through another man’s house in the middle of the night. In a foreign country, I might add.”

Miss Wheeler placed a hand on his arm and tilted her head to the side. She didn’t say a word, but an understanding passed between them. I couldn’t decipher it and felt somewhat excluded.

I cut into my poached egg on toast and stabbed it with my fork. “I don’t know why I went upstairs. It was a whim, a moment of madness. Don’t be cross with me.”

Oscar grunted.

Miss Wheeler’s other hand rested on my arm. “He’s only cross because he was worried, Professor.”

“Worried? I’m not worried.” Oscar waved in my direction. “He’s fine, as you can see. Perhaps if I’d known what he was doing at the time, I’d have been worried. But I’m not now.”

“Then why are you cross with him?”

He picked up his coffee cup. “I’m jealous that he had an adventure without me. I thought about going upstairs but decided not to because I knew Gavin would worry. So I stayed downstairs, and it seems I missed out on a valuable interrogation.” He drained his coffee cup and picked up the pot to refill it, only to find it empty. “Does anyone else want more coffee?”

We made plans as we finished breakfast. Armed with the new information about the two Scala brothers, we decided to speak to each in turn. But first, we’d see what Rocco could tell us.

It was Miss Wheeler who suggested we threaten to blackmail him about his connection to anarchists to learn as much as we could. Oscar agreed. Neither seemed perturbed at the thought of using underhanded tactics to get answers.

I, however, had many reservations. My stomach felt a little queasy all of a sudden.

When Miss Wheeler returned to her room after breakfast to collect her parasol, Oscar and I returned to our rooms, too. I unlocked my door and was about to enter when Oscar stopped me.

“Where did you meet Rocco?” he asked.

Admitting I’d entered Scala’s bedroom and been confronted by his naked lover in the corridor was not a conversation I wanted to have with Oscar. With anyone. “I told you. Upstairs.” I kept my gaze on him. It was too hard and unsteady. I blinked. Blinked again. Too many times? Surely he could see I was guilty of deliberately withholding details.

“Yes, but where upstairs? Was Rocco wandering about, too? If he was, perhaps he was looking for something as well. Perhaps he was looking for information about the Scala factory to pass on to De Angelis. If so, we could use that in our interrogation. So, was Rocco sneaking around, searching rooms?”

“I, er…” My stomach gurgled loudly. “I need to use the privy. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.”

Chapter 14

We waited under the shade of the trees where the driveway met the quiet road on the slope behind the villa’s outbuildings. Aside from the arrival of a cart carrying two young maids and several baskets of produce they’d purchased at the market, no one else passed us. The road was only used by Signore Scala’s servants and his lover, out of sight of visitors.

We didn’t have to wait long before we saw Rocco cut through the line of trees and cross the grass to join the gravel driveway. He didn’t notice me until I stepped out from the shadows. The others stayed back, for now.

Rocco showed no sign of concern at the sight of me. Now that it was daytime, I could study him properly without the lantern light casting shadows. He wasn’t so much handsome as he was pretty, with olive skin, a heart-shaped face and large dark eyes. Eyes that now flared with mischief and something else that I couldn’t decipher.

“You changed your mind, Gavin,” he said in his thickly accented English.

I took a step back, even though he’d not taken one toward me. “My friends and I want to question you.”

I heard the rustle of leaves as Miss Wheeler and Oscar stepped out of the bushes.

Rocco’s jaw slackened. His gaze flew to Oscar, ignoring Miss Wheeler entirely. He swallowed. “What is this, Gavin?”

“Gavin already?” Oscar’s cocky tone irked me.

Miss Wheeler cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “There is no point running, Rocco. We will catch up to you.”

Her mild, soothing voice had the desired effect. Rocco visibly relaxed. “I have no more to say. I tell Gavin everything last night. I know those men, but we are not friends.” He sliced his hand through the air to drive the point home.

“Our questions are not about them,” she said. “We want to know about Signore Scala’s family.”