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‘I’ve sent my staff back to their homes, given the snow warnings. And, whilst I can vouch for my beverage-making skills, the food will be simple.’
They were alone here? She tried not to think about it.
Surely he’d call the man in the village and get him to collect her? Then she’d arrange an appropriate time to talk—one when she’d look less waif and more like the capable woman she usually was, wearing the only nice dress she’d packed. Not muddy and unkempt...a damsel in distress needing rescue.
This was not the way her journey to the mountains of Lasserno was supposed to begin after she’d fled her home of the past twelve months. At twenty-four, she’d forged a career as one of the youngest orchestra leaders of the day. A girl from Down Under making it big as principal violinist in Europe... She should be proud of her achievements... But her life had unceremoniously unravelled before her and all she’d been able to do was watch in horror as it had careened out of control.
Yet again the sting of tears threatened. But these weren’t tears of sadness—they were tears of anger. She blinked them away. There was no chance of her cheating jerk of an ex, Viktor, being granted any more tears. Not. A. Single. One. She couldn’t have known that he’d also been spreading rumours to orchestra management about her niggling strain injury, which had led to the suggestion that she take some time away ‘to consider her future’. Then her parents’ relationship had finally fallen apart after one too many of her father’s outrages. And now Lucy couldn’t shake the sensation that every part of her life was a fraud.
No. Those thoughts weren’t intruding again. The only fraud here was the travesty of the car she’d really not been able to afford to rent, so had found the cheapest option. Paying to keep her mother afloat after she’d finally left Lucy’s dad, paying even more for solicitors so her father wouldn’t steal everything her mother had built from her own career, had stripped Lucy financially. Lucy had become embroiled as well, with her father’s solicitors saying the violin she played should form part of the financial pool in the wash-up of her parents’ failed marriage. They’d claimed her mother had never given ownership of the centuries-old violin to Lucy, instead only loaning it to her.
And, to top it all off, she might be stuck here in a large, spooky castle with a man she didn’t know. A man who still looked at her as if she was an unwelcome oddity dropped on his doorstep.
‘I should ask... Do you have any likes, dislikes, allergies?’
That shred of thoughtfulness almost undid her. No one had thought of her much at all in the past months of what had turned into a bitter Austrian winter.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t eat brains or tripe.’
Stefano raised an eyebrow. She wanted to bury her head in her hands. She had no idea what caused her to ramble like this in front of him. It would be no surprise if he sent her back out into the snow.
Lucy tried to sound like someone who had control over her life and a working social filter. She even gave him what she hoped was a thankful smile. ‘Whatever you have will be wonderful.’
He nodded and walked to the door. She could stare unabashed now at his broad shoulders, lovingly covered by the dark navy woollen sweater. At the glorious vee of his torso which spoke of consistent effort and strength. She really had no time for men with all the focus on her career. If asked, she’d say she was generally attracted to less hard-looking males, but in Stefano, Lucy was coming to realise the allure of testosterone-fuelled magnificence. Because ‘magnificent’ was the only adjective that really suited this man. He was almost dizzying with it.
The door shut behind him with the soft click of well-oiled hinges and she turned to the solid case beside her, designed to protect the precious contents within, which she always kept close.
Her violin.
She’d worried about it in the rapidly chilling weather. The instrument needed to be kept warm, like her. Treated with all the care such centuries-old wood deserved.
With her mother’s own performing career in a string ensemble long ended, her mum had given Lucy the violin. The violin’s history was almost as precious as the instrument itself, because it had saved her grandfather’s life during the Second World War. He’d disguised his true identity as part of a downed allied flight crew by hiding as a violinist, playing in a band. No one had questioned the entertainers, and he’d travelled to safety with an instrument that was supposed to have been a reward for some heroic deeds—or so the family story had gone.
All lies.
This violin that she credited with her success wasfarmore than an old and valuable piece of her family’s tapestry. Everyone who knew anything about music commented on what an uncommon instrument it was, with its magnificent tone. Her grandfather had claimed it was a reproduction, no matter what the worn label inside might say. Still valuable because of its age and the expertise with which it had been made, was the only reason her father was trying to get his greedy hands on it. He’d ultimately stolen everything else of value from his family—why not this as well?
It was only when her mum had finally begun cleaning out Lucy’s grandfather’s house after his death, going through the diaries and papers packed tight into an old suitcase under the bed, that she’d discovered that what Lucy held in her hands at each concert, and played with love as an extension of her body and soul, was no copy. It was real.
A Stradivarius.
Lucy unclipped the travelling case with trembling fingers to check, but the violin lay safe and undamaged on the black velvet inside. After her mother’s call, she’d been almost afraid to touch the instrument again. And even more terrifying than the knowledge that this violin was almost priceless was the reality that her grandfather hadn’t been given it, but that it had been...taken.
Lucy had brought copies of certain diary entries with her—what her mother had managed to go through so far in her grief. Neat script written in wartime, when her grandfather had feared he wouldn’t make it. Mention of some woman, Betty, was all wound up with talk of his time in Lasserno and then on the run. Parts, almost a coded chronicle for his family if he didn’t survive, or that was what she thought.
It was as if by reading it she was learning something new about the gentle, caring man she’d talked with for hours about life and love. Whom she’d written to as she’d travelled overseas because he’d loved her postcards and letters. She’d adored him as a role model and a good man, because her father had always failed them. Although now she recognised that the family had been given a sanitised version of his past before. The diaries told a story that was far darker and murkier. Of love, desperation and theft in wartime.
The violin is Lasserno’s heart, not mine...
One thing seemed plain. Her grandfather had been given something priceless to protect by a family—most likely Stefano’s family—and had kept it for his own. Fleeing with it to save himself.
Lucy knew the pain of having precious family items stolen. Her father had taken a gold necklace his mother had given her and pawned it one day, to put a bet on the horses. He’d sworn Lucy to secrecy over that loss. Lucy had witnessed her mum’s pain on being unable to find her own mother’s engagement ring, never confronting Lucy’s father over taking it to pay off some debt. But they were mere trinkets when compared to a Stradivarius. The loss of an heirloom so precious would have hurt a family deeply.
Now her father was trying to take the violin too.
It was yet another reason she’d come to Lasserno after her life had imploded. The solicitor she was paying so much for had said her father would have a hard time proving the violin hadn’t been properly gifted to Lucy. But if her mother couldn’t get any mention of it struck out of the divorce proceedings, Lucy knew the true value of the instrument would be revealed. Her father’s solicitors had already asked for a valuation.
She’d been assailed by twin dreads: losing her violin in a court battle and having it sold to some investor, or losing it to the family from whom it might have been taken over three-quarters of a century before.
