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'Nico ... Nico ...' She was still sobbing his name, as familiar arms came round her in unfamiliar clothing, her father's face haggard as he looked down into hers.
'Oh, my poor baby!' He held her to him, strangely unfamiliar in the uniform he was wearing, older and graver than she remembered, and then another man, obviously an officer, was suggesting discreetly that they left the men to get on with the job they had come to do, indicating a waiting Land Rover. As her father helped her into it, Saffron looked back over her shoulder. Gunfire echoed from the farmhouse, now enveloped in dense smoke.
'They've got orders to take them alive,' her father told her grimly, plainly not happy with the orders, 'but fortunately they'll stand trial in Italy, which will mean they'll get much harsher sentences—life imprisonment at the very least.'
Life imprisonment! Saffron thought of Nico confined to a cell and something twisted inside her. He had saved her, she thought numbly, surely that must mean something. She turned to her father, wanting to tell him so, but he silenced her unsteadily and hugging her. 'Oh, my poor darling girl! I can't wait to get you home. We'll go away somewhere together, have a proper holiday, put all this behind us.'
Numbly Saffron agreed, refusing to admit that some aspects of her imprisonment at least would not be easy to forget. She was free and safe, and she must concentrate on that and try to forget ... everything else.
CHAPTER NINE
Naturally enough Saffron's capture and subsequent rescue caused something of a nine-day wonder in the press, when the news became public. Columnists who had dismissed her as gossip column fodder now hounded her for interviews, until it became almost impossible for her to set a foot outside her father's apartment.
Her new relationship with her father was an unexpected bonus she had not anticipated, and his tender care and concern for her touched her deeply. He was planning to take her away on holiday as soon as pressure of business allowed. So far they had not discussed her ordeal—she had expressed a wish not to do so, and he had acquiesced, although warning her that she simply could not bury the whole incident out of sight.
Every day she scoured the press for some mention of her kidnappers; the role of the S.A.S. in her rescue was being kept very low-key; the only reason they had been involved was because her father's company was engaged in the production of a new highly technical weapon, and it had been feared that somehow this had been leaked to her kidnappers, the Government had stepped in, or so her father had told her.
However, no matter how carefully she scrutinised the press Saffron saw nothing about the raid on the farmhouse or its result. She told herself that it was natural that she should be curious about the fate of her kidnappers, but it was only one of them who occupied so many of her thoughts—-Nico. Had he escaped, or had he been taken captive? She told herself that she should feel pleasure in the possibility of his capture, that her own humiliation had been avenged, but all she could feel was a dull aching pain.
A month after her rescue her father took her to the Caribbean, where they spent an idyllic fortnight lying on pale silver sands beneath deeply azure skies—or at least it should have been idyllic. Saffron didn't find it so: She was still tense and on edge, jumping at the lightest footfall, too edgy to appreciate the light-hearted conversation and company of the other young people at the hotel.
'When we get back I'm going to concentrate more on my job,' she told her father firmly one morning. 'What we're doing now is just the tip of the iceberg.'
'Just as long as you don't spend all our profits on these welfare schemes,' her father teased in response. He had been treating her as though she were made of glass and he was terrified she was going to break into a thousand shimmering pieces.
In an effort to reassure him she talked over her plans with him on the flight home. It was a long one, eight hours, and Saffron woke up just before the false dawn cramped and stiff, to hear the pilot announcing over the tannoy that they were having to put down at the nearest airport.
'Slight' engine trouble—nothing serious,' he reassured his passengers.
'Better safe than sorry,' a smiling stewardess commented to Saffron as she came to check that seat-belts were all fastened. 'They've got another plane standing by, so you won't be delayed for too long.' She gave Saffron's father an especially charming smile. Her father was still a very attractive man, Saffron found herself realising with a small start, wondering if he had ever thought of remarrying, having other children. She realised with a stab of shame that she knew little or nothing of her father's hopes and dreams; and worse still, that she hadn't wanted to know, treating him merely as a distant provider whose presence could otherwise be ignored. From now on, though, all that was going to change. She squeezed his hand as they started to descend, listening to him talk to the stewardess.
'Where are we putting down?' she asked the girl incuriously as she headed back to her own seat in the rear of the aircraft.
'Rome,' the other girl told her, 'but there won't be time for any sightseeing, if that's what you're thinking!'
Rome! The pressure of her father's fingers increased slightly, his eyes compassionate and understanding as they met hers. Poor Daddy, in a way it was worse for him than it was for her. So far she had told him nothing about her ordeal; nothing about Nico.
As the stewardess had said, they were not delayed at all at the airport. A fresh plane was standing by, but as they hurried to their departure gate Saffron's attention was caught by the headlines on a newspaper.
'Kidnap gang to be brought to early trial,' they screamed. 'English Lord's daughter to stand as witness.' There was more which she barely had time to see, something about her being the only one of their victims ever to be found alive, but Saffron couldn't read it all because her father was hurrying her past, his face pale and drawn.
'You never told me,' she accused when they were settled in their new plane.
'I didn't want to upset you. You don't have to appear at the trial if you don't want to, in fact I told Dom ...'
'Dom?'
'Dom Hunter,' her father explained. 'His godfather and I were partners ... I don't think you've ever met him. He's several years older than you, thirty odd.'
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'No, I haven't,' Saffron agreed shortly. 'But what does he have to do with the trial?'
'Nothing, except he's a brilliant lawyer, and we were discussing the possibility of you having to appear before we came away. He said I should warn you, but rightly or wrongly I wanted you to have this break free from anything like that hanging over you. In fact, as I told Dom, I don't want you to appear…'
'But if I don't they won't be able to convict the gang, will they?' Saffron asked slowly, remembering what she had read.
'I don't believe so,' her father agreed gravely, shaking his head. 'You're the only witness, for want of a better word, but I don't want you exposed to any more danger or upset.'
