Second Chances in Chianti (Escape to Tuscany Book 2) by T.A. Williams (best ereader under 100 TXT) 📗

Alice spent a lot of the day researching Amerigo Vespucci but was only able to find sketchy traces of his family after his death in Spain in 1512. She did, however, read all about his career and the controversy surrounding just how many times he actually travelled to the New World and how his name became associated with the continent. She gradually put together a brief paper, outlining the facts and pointing to the possible significance of the presence of the coat of arms in Panzano, as well as the villa. This, she felt sure, would be of interest to Conrad Chesterfield. She hadn’t heard from him since their brief encounter at Giovanni’s restaurant and she seriously doubted whether he would contact her. She decided that she would drop the paper into his letterbox as a little parting gift before heading home at the beginning of August, and leave it at that.

She drove up to the tower at six o’clock and took with her a bottle of the local sparkling wine to which Signor Innocenti had introduced her. She had debated what to wear and had decided not to go overboard, so she had chosen the same simple summer dress she had worn for lunch with Claudio. This wasn’t the time to pull out her designer frocks. Even so, by the time she finally decided she was presentable, she calculated she had been in the bathroom for even longer than the fairly lengthy make-up sessions she had had to go through before the shooting of every episode of Pals. In spite of this, she kept checking her appearance in the rear-view mirror all the way up to the tower and almost ran into a ditch as a result. For what was, in all likelihood, just going to be a short viewing of a historical artefact, she was far more nervous than at almost any time she had been in front of the cameras.

When she reached the gates, she pressed the bell and after a brief delay they opened automatically. As the car crunched up the gravel drive to the tower, a familiar black shape emerged from the trees and came running alongside, barking excitedly. She pulled up and opened the door, her nerves slightly reassured by the presence of the dog. As soon as Guinness realised it was his new best friend in the driving seat, he nearly jumped on top of her. She scratched his ears and persuaded him to let her climb out, but then he immediately goosed her with his cold wet nose – the dress was maybe a tad short – making her jump and blush with embarrassment. She was just smoothing her dress and endeavouring to calm herself down when she heard Matt’s voice.

‘Good evening, Alice. You look… a bit different from this morning.’ This sounded complimentary but she wasn’t going to get too excited yet. She just kept it light, hoping her cheeks weren’t glowing too brightly as a result of the Labrador’s friendly assault.

‘I thought it was time to make a change from the sweaty, unkempt look.’ He was wearing jeans and a light blue polo shirt, and he looked good. ‘No shorts tonight?’

‘Seeing as you’re the first female visitor to the tower since my mother at Easter, I thought I should make an effort. Come on in.’

Alice handed him the bottle of wine and digested this snippet of information, as they walked up half a dozen stone steps to the entrance. This was an imposing arched wooden door almost six feet wide, studded with ancient square-headed nails. On either side of the doorway were narrow arrow slits, while the real windows didn’t begin until further up the building. The massive stones used in its construction looked as if they had always been there, and Alice got a real shiver of history as he pushed the door open and ushered her into a dark hallway.

‘The coat of arms is over here.’

He flicked a light switch and led her across to a stone slab, sculpted in the shape of a shield, set in the wall directly opposite the door, alongside a steep stone stairway. Any visitor to the tower would have been unable to miss this very obvious sign of ownership. She checked it out and confirmed that it was identical to the two other shields she had seen. It was unmistakably the Vespucci coat of arms. She pulled out her phone.

‘Would you mind if I took a photo or two?’

‘Of course. Go ahead.’ She noticed that he retreated several paces, so as to be well out of shot.

Once she was satisfied with the pictures she had taken, he ushered her towards the stone stairway with a word of warning. ‘It’s a long way to the top, but the view’s worth it, I promise. But with all the running you do, you’ll probably get there faster than me. Just be careful where you put your feet. Some of the steps are odd heights. Why they couldn’t make them all the same, I really don’t know.’

‘Ah, but I do – or at least I think I do.’ Alice rolled out a snippet of historical information she had picked up in the course of her studies. ‘I remember reading that medieval castle builders sometimes deliberately did that so that attacking soldiers trying to charge up the stairs would end up flat on their faces.’ She gave him a little grin. ‘Mind you, that might just be a useful excuse for some pretty shoddy building work.’

She was very conscious that she was wearing a fairly short skirt and he was walking behind her, and this realisation did little to calm her nerves. The first to get to the top was the dog, who scampered effortlessly up the tortuous stone staircase. As they climbed, it got lighter and lighter in there as the window openings set in the substantial walls grew wider. They finally arrived at the top floor, where wide arched windows flooded evening sunlight into the