Chapter One #2
‘He learnt his role under your father, and your father wouldn’t have got off his feet to do anything for himself,’ Fiero pointed out with amusement. ‘Your problem is too much compassion and, according to Harvey, that’s not your role.’
‘But if it isn’t, what is?’ Orazio asked ruefully.
Zia hurtled through the door of the basement flat and bestowed a fleeting kiss on the top of the greying head of the older woman wrapped in a blanket in an armchair, knitting. ‘Sorry I’m late. I had to do Sandrine’s shopping for her supper party tonight.’
‘I forgot about that. You should tell her how tired you are after your shift at the hotel,’ Alina suggested, but she did so in a lacklustre undertone, already foreseeing how such a remark would be received by Sandrine.
As an excitable miniature dachshund danced round Zia’s feet in welcome, flapping ears flying, pink tongue licking at her hand as she patted him, Zia laughed.
Her former nursemaid and her pet were the two bright spots in her dreary day.
After all, she didn’t get to put her feet up when she got home after work.
No, she simply worked for Sandrine instead—Sandrine, once her guardian, who now treated her like a servant.
As Alina had aged and become less capable, Zia had taken over the older woman’s duties of cooking for Sandrine and cleaning her house upstairs.
If she had refused, Sandrine would have thrown Alina out on the street.
Alina didn’t seem to appreciate how often Sandrine had made that threat or that the tough older woman meant what she said.
And while Zia believed she could have coped, she didn’t earn enough to take care of Alina as well or Sausage, the little dog who had become theirs.
Over the years, Alina had gradually become Zia’s family and the closest thing she had ever had to a grandmother.
In the space of months after the revolution that had killed her parents, Zia had gone from being a much-indulged only child to a battered little girl and a shadow of her former self.
Sandrine Beccari might have willingly ferried the little Princess, who had been born in London, to the safety of the UK but she hadn’t expected the tragedies that had followed and she certainly hadn’t planned to be saddled for years with the responsibility of a young child.
Temperamentally unsuited to parenting, Sandrine had fiercely resented Zia’s existence and the loss of her glamorous life in Mandovia at the late Princess Vittoria’s side.
She had taken her temper and disappointment out on Zia, and Alina, subjected to similar abuse as a lifelong servant in backward Upper Mandovia, had proved incapable of protecting her former charge.
Life had only improved for the two of them when they had been forced to move into the small damp basement flat.
It had been cheaply renovated for tenants, but the tenants had infuriated Sandrine with their complaints and had made too much noise.
Getting rid of them, she had been relieved to turf Alina and Zia out of her much more comfortable house upstairs while continuing to expect Zia to act as free labour.
And since they couldn’t afford to pay Sandrine rent for the flat, how was she ever supposed to break free of the arrangement?
In reality, Zia did have an escape plan but it was taking time to accomplish her goals.
Currently it entailed getting the education that Sandrine had denied her by insisting that she be homeschooled.
Zia had pretty much educated herself because Alina, put in charge of that home-based programme, had left school at the age of fourteen to start work and had only ever learned the basics.
Year after year, once Zia was officially out in the working world, she had studied for exams to acquire the qualifications she needed to get into college.
It was a slow process, however, because she didn’t have much free time to study.
At twenty-two years of age, she had only recently reached the stage where she could even apply for further education and she dreaded taking on the loans she would need to allow her to become a student.
But it would be worth it, she kept on telling herself, because once she qualified as a primary school teacher she would be earning and then her real life could begin.
She barely recalled the life she had been born into, wincing at the truth that she was a princess only on paper, a title that meant nothing in terms of cold, hard cash or respect.
Her mother was a perfumed memory of warmth but she still remembered her father shouting and slapping her away from him when she knocked over a cup and then her mother scooping her up and murmuring loving words in comfort.
Zia had been careful to stay out of her father’s way after that.
The much feared and loathed dictator of Upper Mandovia had not been any kinder in his domestic life.
‘We have a Mandovian guest at the hotel right now,’ Zia informed Alina, knowing that that rare event would engage the older woman’s interest.
‘If she’s staying at the Astor Place she must be a very rich woman. What’s her name?’ Alina asked, dark eyes sparkling with curiosity.
‘Sofia Marone and she has a maid travelling with her. I heard them speaking Italian and referring to Lower Mandovia’s capital city while I was changing the bathroom towels and the maid kept on calling her mistress “my lady”, so she must be someone titled.’
Alina frowned and hummed, ‘Marone… Marone. There was a count with that family name. I suspect that’ll be the connection.’
The older woman embarked on an animated recitation of what she knew of the Marone family history and perked up considerably while deciding that the hotel guest was very probably the wealthy count’s second wife.
Zia made their evening meal in the tiny scullery and served it on trays before heading upstairs, laden with groceries and receipts, to embark on the supper-party preparations.
The connecting door brought her straight into Sandrine’s sleek contemporary kitchen, which as usual required cleaning before she could prepare the dish that had been requested.
The click of Sandrine’s stiletto heels approaching stiffened Zia’s spine to steel. ‘What are you making?’ she demanded imperiously.
‘Chicken Alfredo.’
‘And for dessert?’
‘I’m not making one. You said it was a casual gathering to drink wine and play cards. I brought the snacks and the wine but I won’t be able to stay and serve it. I have a class tonight.’
‘That’s not acceptable!’ Sandrine hissed and Zia spun round.
‘I’m afraid it has to be. I keep your house clean, do the washing, the shopping and I cook whenever you ask. Surely that’s sufficient to cover us not paying rent,’ she responded, quelling her instinctive fear of the older woman.
A tall, emaciated brunette in a skintight black dress, her red-lipsticked mouth pursed, Sandrine glowered down at her. ‘I decide what’s sufficient, not you. Have you any idea how much rent you should be paying me?’
‘It’s a damp one-bedroom flat with heating that doesn’t work, not a palace,’ Zia dared, tilting her chin, which took courage because she was five feet one inch tall and, in her heels, Sandrine was almost a foot taller than her.
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Sandrine launched, half an octave higher.
‘I do almost everything you ask me to do,’ Zia responded quietly. ‘I do work for a living as well.’
‘Poor little princess,’ the brunette sneered. ‘And more fool me that I’ve kept you all these years! I should’ve handed you over to social services and thrown that old crippled crone out years ago! Instead, out of the goodness of my heart, I looked after you both at my own expense.’
‘I’ll leave everything prepared for you,’ Zia promised soothingly. ‘And clean up tomorrow.’
‘I’m thinking of advertising for live-in help to take your place.’ Sandrine dropped the news on her with a razor-edged smile. ‘Someone properly trained as a housekeeper.’
Zia nodded in silence, not trusting herself to speak.
It was pointless engaging with Sandrine when she was in a temper or making threats.
The older woman had little self-control and Zia was careful not to invite assault.
She had suffered quite enough violence from Sandrine while she was growing up and she refused to stand for it as an adult.
‘Nothing to say to that?’ Sandrine prompted provocatively as she strolled back to the door.
‘Of course not, you must do as you wish,’ Zia breathed before turning back to the sink to finish her task.
The dish prepared, she set out plates and cutlery and a note with cooking instructions on reheating.
Returning to the basement, she grabbed her file and headed out to her class on early child development.
Later that evening she fell into her bed across the small, cramped room from Alina, exhausted, and contemplated her early start the next day with a stoic grimace.
Late morning in the hotel, she was waiting to clean the last luxury suite on her schedule when one of the doors in the hallway flew open and the young woman she had identified as a maid gesticulated fiercely at her. ‘Come here!’ she shouted.
Abandoning her trolley, Zia approached. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously.
‘My employer has misplaced a valuable diamond brooch!’ she exclaimed. ‘Help us look for it…come on, what are you waiting for?’
Zia really didn’t want to get involved but it was management policy to always try to please guests and, mastering her reluctance, she stepped into the suite where the guest, surrounded by designer shopping bags, was frantically tipping out drawers in a dresser to search for her missing jewellery.
Zia got down on her hands and knees to check under the furniture, while wondering where the maid had gone. ‘Did you see my brooch when you were in here earlier making the bed?’ the guest demanded.