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‘Did you think I was?’ The glow of warm satisfaction vanished and she straightened in her seat, her voice indignant.
He shrugged, but his amused expression told her he was enjoying her pique. ‘I wasn’t sure. You wouldn’t be the first and you certainly won’t be the last in this modern age which seems to be obsessed with turning women into stick insects.’
‘Stick insects?’ There was even more colour in Daisy’s face now. Had she got this right? He was calling her a stick insect? ‘You like your women fat, is that it?’ she asked with a haughtiness that covered blazing anger.
‘No, that is not it,’ Slade answered calmly. ‘I like women to be exactly the way God intended them to be—fat, thin, tall, short—whatever. When a woman is truly herself, when she is confident in her inner soul and comfortable with herself, that is what is beautiful and it shines through to the face and body beyond.’
‘Really.’ She was glaring at him, she knew it, but she just couldn’t do anything about it. He made her so mad. ‘So you are saying you find fat, plain women just as attractive as thin, beautiful ones?’ she asked with caustic sarcasm. She just bet!
His gaze had sharpened now and she suddenly realised she was displaying far too much emotion.
‘Before I married my wife my last girlfriend was fourteen stone and five foot six inches tall, and she was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.’ His voice was still quiet but there was a bite to the words that told her he was annoyed at her refusal to believe him. ‘Not on the outside—on the outside the world would have considered Josephine very ordinary—but when you looked into her eyes she was beautiful.’
‘So why didn’t you marry her instead of your wife?’ And then she stared at him, appalled, as she realised what she had said, her hand clapping over her mouth. She had no right to ask a question like that, she told herself in utter horror, no right at all. She couldn’t believe she had been so unforgivably rude. ‘I’m sorry, Slade.’ She spoke quickly before he could open his mouth. ‘That was inexcusable.’
He looked at her for a long moment, his dark face straight and his glittering eyes probing, and Daisy waited for the explosion. It didn’t come. Instead he settled further back in his chair, raking the hair off his brow before he said, his voice even, ‘Hardly. A little impolite, perhaps, but it could be argued the frankness of our conversation merited such a question.’
‘Could it?’ Daisy stared at him doubtfully, her cheeks on fire. What was it about him that brought out the worst in her?
‘Josephine died,’ he said after another brief pause. ‘Very unexpectedly. She was a keen yachtswoman and there was an accident—it was nobody’s fault.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ If ever coals of fire had been heaped on her head it was now and they showed in the scarlet of her cheeks.
‘We had been seeing each other for some three or four months before she died,’ Slade continued imperturbably, ‘but whether our association would have developed into marriage I have no idea. It certainly wasn’t at such an intense stage when she died anyway. But she was a lovely girl.’
Daisy nodded quickly. She just wanted this horribly embarrassing conversation to end, she told herself miserably. She hadn’t realised until just this very minute how much Ronald’s infidelities had soured her. The women had all been beautiful, very beautiful—at least the ones she knew about. And more than one or two had been wealthy to boot. But of course there were still men who looked beyond a lovely face and perfect figure, even handsome, charismatic, powerful men—men like Slade Eastwood. She just found it difficult to take on board, that was all, she admitted ruefully.
‘What about you?’
‘What?’ Daisy came out of her painful self-analysis with a bump as the deep voice challenged her across the table.
‘What do you think the female sex looks for in a partner?’ Slade asked coolly. ‘What do you look for?’
‘Me?’ She clenched her hands beneath the concealing folds of the heavy linen tablecloth and prayed for just an ounce or two of the easy self-assurance Slade was displaying. ‘I…I don’t know,’ she stammered, wondering how on earth they had progressed to this point. ‘I…I suppose kindness, tenderness, that sort of thing?’ she proffered uncomfortably.
He nodded slowly, his black eyes hooded, and then his lids lifted as the piercing, laser-sharp eyes seized hers. ‘I won’t ask you if your husband had these attributes because it is none of my business,’ he said with devastating matter-of-factness, ‘but I doubt it. Now, here comes Alberto with the cheese and fruit, and we will have coffee, yes?’
‘Coffee?’ For a moment she simply echoed the word, her brain refusing to engage, and then she nodded quickly. ‘Oh, coffee. Yes, yes, please,’ she said tremblingly. If ever she could do with a hearty shot of adrenalin it was now!
For the next fifteen minutes or so until they left the inn the conversation touched on nothing more controversial than the beauty of the countryside and the domestic arrangements at Festina Lente, but all the time—every second—Daisy was vitally aware of the big dark man sitting opposite her. He had stirred something inside her she didn’t want to examine but which was fighting to have conscious consideration. But it was too painful—it was much, much too painful—to even begin to think she could believe what he had said. She didn’t want to, she admitted baldly. And she wasn’t going to. End of story.
The confusion lifted—she was in control again, and that was the way she intended to stay, she told herself firmly. No man would ever make a fool of her again, and the only way she could ensur
e that was to keep the world at arm’s length. It was really very simple. She had done the till-death-do-us-part and happy families bit and it had nearly destroyed her; she would be content, more than content, with peace of mind now—if she could ever achieve it. But she would. One day she would.
They arrived at Merano in the middle of the afternoon, and Daisy thought it was the most beautiful town she had ever seen. Sheltered by high mountains and surrounded by orchards and vineyards, the air was mild and sweet and there was a profusion of magnolias, oleanders, pomegranate shrubs and other lush vegetation colouring the promenades, parks, streets and houses.
Slade’s villa was situated on the outskirts of the town, and Daisy found herself leaning forward in her seat for her first sight of Festina Lente.
The air was warm and moist as the Bentley passed through open iron gates—worked in a lacy pattern which was striking—and onto a long, sweeping, curved drive. The gardens on either side of the drive were ablaze with colour and there was the very English fragrance of burning leaves somewhere in the distance, but then they had turned the corner and the house was in front of them.
‘Festina Lente,’ said Slade quietly as Daisy’s gaze swept over the lovely elegant building in front of them. ‘I would like to say it has been in my family for generations but I cannot make such a claim. Suffice it to say I shall endeavour to pass the estate down to Francesco who seems to love it as much as I do.’
Daisy nodded slowly. She had not expected such magnificence although she had known Slade was wealthy, of course. But this—this was spectacular.
Horseshoe-shaped stone steps led up to the massive front doors of the house which was built in a fairy-tale-castle design of spiral towers and turrets topped with deep red tiles. The house itself was mainly white although red and green ivy had been encouraged to wander where it would, along with rambling roses of every hue imaginable.
Lacy iron balconies projected from some of the bedrooms on the first and second floors, and these were covered in scarlet geraniums, morning glory and other vibrant plants, red and purple bougainvillaea trailing down to the ground floor in some places.
