The Devil to Pay (20 page)

“Oh, look at you there!” Rianna laughed.

Tomos leant over. “Yes, I’d have given Daniel a run for his money in those days, wouldn’t I? And there’s Eliza, or Elsie as I call her.”

Rianna recognised her from the photo debacle with Isabella. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yes, she is.” His tone was suddenly harsh. “Look, here’s another photo.” He opened an envelope and thrust a piece of paper across the table at her. “Look at the picture. What do you see?”

Rianna’s fingers shook as she took the faded photograph from him. She was beginning to feel uneasy and hadn’t fully recovered from her last experience of Bracchi family photographs. She wished Daniel would hurry up and rescue her. It was a colour print, but quite old judging by its turned corners and the clothes the people in it wore. A group of women stood outside a café. “It’s an ice cream parlour or coffee house?” Rianna’s eyes pleaded with him for guidance.

“The people,” Tomos muttered and suddenly coughed. “Recognise anyone?”

Rianna focussed on the photograph, but her brain was whirring with confusion. Having quickly scanned the group of four women, her gaze returned one particular figure and she froze. Red platform boots, a blue off-the-shoulder gipsy-style dress and a multicoloured scarf tied back a mass of honey curls. The bright blue eye shadow she wore made it impossible to distinguish the colour of her eyes at such a distance, and she wore large hooped earrings with a short necklace of glass beads...

The breath caught sharply in the back of Rianna’s throat and her vision blurred as what she saw began to slowly register. Shaking her head, she held the photograph closer and traced a fingertip over the woman’s features. They were devastatingly familiar. There was a photograph of the same woman hidden away in a suitcase under Gran’s bed. A harsh lump settled in her chest as a tear prickled up, slipping silently onto her cheek. “Mummy.”

“Yes, your mummy. And the reason why you must leave this place immediately.”

“Leave? I don’t understand. Why do you have this?”

“This is very difficult, not much time but, Rianna, it was a long time ago. We...we were very close, your mother and I. Too close. You can’t marry Daniel. I know that’s why he brought you here today. You can’t have anything to do with him in
that
way.” The air almost hummed with their anxiety as his dark grey eyes locked with her silver ones. “You are my daughter, the product of a very brief affair in Wales, but Daniel must never know. If he was to discover what I’d done outside of marriage, he would never recover from the shame. It would destroy us as a family and ruin everything we’ve ever worked for.”

This couldn’t be happening.

“You’ve known for all these years? When you came to the quarry—” Rianna’s voice became louder as the meaning of his words began to sink in. Anger and disbelief welled up as she let the photograph fall from her grasp. “You’ve just told me I’m your daughter for God’s sake! Didn’t you ever think to say anything before? Didn’t you care about me at all?” Rianna place a hand against her breastbone to quell the very real feeling she would be physically sick. “I can’t believe what you just told me. This is some kind of warped joke. Have you no decency?”

Tomos shrugged and stared out of the study window to the deep valley beyond. “I was a lot older than her. I should have known better and she was already engaged to your father, but she was so beautiful. It had to remain our secret. There was nothing to be gained. Your mother and I agreed never to breathe a word and I’ve always respected her wishes, until now, when I really have no choice. I offered her money, but she was too proud to take it, and everything happened very quickly after that. By the time you were born, she’d had a shotgun marriage to your father.”

Rianna shivered in spite of the heat. “You bastard.”

Tomos carefully leant over and picked up the photograph. He pressed his lips together thoughtfully and with a poignant raising of his eyebrows, slid it back into the drawer, locking it with deliberate precision. “Are you carrying your passport?”

Rianna nodded blankly. She’d been unable to shake off the tourist-like habit of carrying it with her everywhere she went.

“That is fortunate. I will instruct my driver to take you straight to the airport.” He flipped out a black chequebook and began to scribble furiously. “This is a blank cheque to cover the inconvenience of leaving your things in Portofino. Take as much as you want. None of this is your fault.”

“But Daniel, I can’t just leave him. He needs to know the truth. I have to speak to him before I go.”

“No! He must never know the truth, you do understand, don’t you?” His eyes blazed with granite fire and his lips trembled with the effort of expressing himself so forcefully. “Do you want to break his heart? Shred his life into a million pieces? Do you?”

Rianna shook her head. “Of course not, but he’ll follow me. He’ll track me down and demand an explanation.”

“Then you take this,” Tomos said quickly, handing her a wallet of stationary and a pen. “On the way to the airport you write him a letter telling him it’s over. That this was all a stupid mistake and you never want to see him again.” Tomos straightened his shoulders stiffly. “My driver will bring the letter back and I will console my son.”

“But I don’t think I can...I love him.”

“If you love him like you say, then you
must
do as I have told you. There is no other solution. The love you say you have for my son is a forbidden love in the eyes of the world. Your relationship is repugnant, unnatural. You must forget him.” His voice shook as he slammed a fist down onto the desk. “Let him go!”

Rianna stood in a dazed state, clutching at the strap of her handbag like it was a life raft, a means of escape from the sheer awfulness of what was happening to her.

“And make it convincing,” Tomos said with increasing agitation as he picked up the telephone to call the car. “Daniel’s not stupid. You will have to be brutal so there is no hope left in his heart.” He paced up and down as he waited for his call to be answered. “There are plenty of beautiful women for a man like Daniel. Don’t worry. He’ll soon forget you ever existed.”

Rianna didn’t need to hear another word as her brain told her exactly what she needed to do now. The pen felt cold and hard in her hand. Her heart felt hollow.

****

What could she possibly write? How could she lie sufficiently to justify her appalling departure and the breaking of her engagement to the only man she could ever truly love? The fat barrel of the Mont Blanc pen hovered over the thick vellum notepaper.

Twenty minutes was the length of time it would take to deliver her to the airport. Twenty minutes to write the most difficult, deceitful words she could muster and she couldn’t even do it gently. Tomos was right. It
had
to be brutal. There was no way Daniel would accept a feeble brush-off, his pride would never stand it, but she couldn’t tell him the shocking truth. If she could spare him from the unbearable suffering that was her lot right now, then she had to do it.

Dear Daniel,

Rianna wept as discreetly as she could. The driver had already looked with concern at her bleary, tearstained face a few times in the rear view mirror. She took a juddering breath and struck a dark thick line through the word “dear”.

****

Daniel angrily waved the long white envelope over his head. “What do you mean she’s
gone
? Half an hour ago you said she was helping Agneta with the vegetables and I wasn’t to disturb them, so what the hell are you talking about now?”

Tomos shrugged and went to turn up the stereo. “She’s just gone,” he said lamely. “I think she was worried about there not being enough potatoes to go round, or cabbage. I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter.”

“Dad, it does matter!”

Tomos shrugged. “So read her letter.”

This was hopeless. He was getting nowhere. “Look, I’m just going down to see how things are going with dinner,” he lied. “I won’t be long.”

“Oh, yes. Fine,” Tomos replied mildly. “No rush.”

Daniel burst into the kitchen, startling Agneta as she basted the meat. “Is she here?”

“Who?”

“The Virgin Mary!” Daniel replied with exasperation and then held up his hands in apology. “I’m sorry. I’m looking for Rianna. Dad said she was here helping.”

“Oh, no, Signor. Just me.” The large spoon wobbled in the air as she registered something was up. “Is everything all right?”

“Nothing I can’t deal with, but could you let dinner tick over for half an hour or so? We’re not quite ready for it yet.”

Daniel could feel the blood pounding in his ears as he went to the summerhouse at the back of the Castello’s grounds. He needed time and space to gather himself together. Time to read the letter Rianna had left for him. He had no idea of its contents, but gut instinct told him it wasn’t likely to be particularly good. When he’d read it, he could set about the task of fetching her back where she belonged, with him.

Taking a deep breath, he carefully peeled apart the join in the envelope. His belly lurched with the awfulness of the unknown lurking within the envelope, and the sudden weakness and vulnerability a few pieces of paper were causing him. It made him sick to his stomach.

Daniel,

I’m sorry if this makes you angry after yesterday, but I have to go. Immediately. Something clicked while I was talking to Tomos and basically I don’t believe a marriage between us could ever really work. You made it clear that I had to be sure about spending the rest of my life with you and I’m not convinced I genuinely can. Isabella did us both a favour. She knew it would never work either and didn’t want to see you make another stupid mistake.

There’s something else I should have told you as well. I’m so sorry, but there’s still someone back home. I wasn’t honest with you about that. His name’s Ryan and we’ve made plans for the future, which I wasn’t quite sure about before, but I am now. I don’t belong here and I’m going to move in with Ryan and take the kids with me. He’s got a good job with the council, so we’ll be fine for money and his children get on with the twins. Please don’t try to contact me. Ryan won’t like it and it will upset the children.

I’m sorry, Daniel, but I want out. It was fun while it lasted.

I’ll be handing in my notice as soon as I get back, so you don’t need to do anything on that front.

All I can do now is wish you luck and happiness for the future.

Best regards,

Rianna.

“Best regards,” Daniel muttered as he watched the letter tumble from his fingers and float down onto the stone floor. “What the hell is going on?”

Then he picked it up for a second look, to check he’d read every word properly and hadn’t missed a vital clue. The paper was buckled in places, the odd smudge, Rianna’s tears. At least she still cared enough to cry, he thought sourly.

He paced the uneven stone slabs for a minute, running his hands through his hair in an attempt to get his brain to think straight. Her handwriting was almost as bad as his. He glanced at the letter again. He pictured her writing it—she had been very upset—he could see it now in the jerky lettering.

He didn’t believe the letter’s content for one moment. It all felt far too wrong. It made no sense. There was no one called Ryan, he just knew it. But Rianna had still left. What on earth had happened? It can’t have been Isabella again surely? And he’d only left her alone for half an hour or so with his father.

Dad.

He exhaled with despair. “Oh, what has he done this time?”

****

“You love this old music, don’t you, Dad?” Daniel placed a friendly arm around the old man’s shoulders.

“Old?”

“Yeah, it’s nineteen-twenties, thirties?”

“I suppose it is,” the old man concurred with a wistful shake of the head.

“Must take you back to being a kid.”

Tomos stared out to sea for a moment before answering. “Yes.”

“Dad, about Rianna—”

“Rianna? The girl?”

“Yes.”

“I told you, she’s gone, left you a letter.”

“Yes, I’ve got it, Dad.” Daniel found it difficult to be patient. “But I need to know what happened when I was in the cellar.”

“Happen? We had a nice time looking at some photos of the old days back in Taff’s Weir.” He suddenly looked a bit sheepish. “She seemed to enjoy it.”

“Come inside and show me too, Dad,” he replied gently. “Just while dinner’s cooking.”

Daniel looked at the jumbled mess on the desk. Heaps of black and white and faded coloured prints with curled edges formed a mosaic of nostalgia. He lifted a few up, looked at them and then let them fall softly back again. “Why did she go, Dad? Her letter didn’t really say.”

Tomos stiffened. “Fetch me a glass of the brandy you brought up, Daniel. Just a small one.”

Daniel handed over the glass. “What did you say to her, Dad?”

“I had to tell her!” Tomos bit down on his bottom lip and rocked in his chair. “She had to know. You must know that I don’t know what you were thinking of bringing her here. I showed her the photograph, too.”

“Which photo, Dad?”

“Oh, you know, my favourite. The one in my desk drawer. The
best
one.”

“Show me.”

Tomos fumbled with the desk key, but eventually produced the photograph. He shrugged. “I had to tell her, boy. I guessed straightway why you were both here. No way you could get married, wouldn’t be allowed.”

“Wouldn’t be allowed?”

“I’m sorry it had to come out like this, but you’re my son and she’s my daughter. Law won’t allow it unless they’ve changed the rules along the way somewhere.”

She’s my daughter…

“Rianna
isn’t
your daughter.”

“I slept with her mother at least three times and nine months later Rianna was born. So I’m afraid she is.”

“No, she
isn’t
!”

“She looked at the picture and spotted her mummy right away. They’re like two peas in a pod. Quite beautiful.”