Stephanie's Revenge (21 page)

They mounted
the stairs slowly, but the bare boards creaked as though they were
being climbed by a herd of elephants. Each time Stephanie
transferred her weight from one foot to another the wood protested
with a shriek that she thought must wake the dead. However slowly,
however lightly she tried to tread, the next step produced another
creak, louder, longer, more insistent. Then Paulo's footfalls
behind her produced another rondo of noise echoing through the vast
cellars.

At any moment
Stephanie expected the door at the top of the stairs to be thrown
open and the lights to be snapped on. At any moment Angelina would
appear.

They reached
the small wooden landing in front of the door without incident.

Paulo shone
the torch on the door to find the handle. He gripped it and turned
it. The handle rotated, making a noise like a rasp grating on
metal. Paulo pushed the door. Nothing happened. He pushed the door
again. Nothing.

'It's stuck,'
he whispered.

'Let me try.'
Stephanie grasped the handle, but as Paulo's hand gave way to hers
the handle sprung back. A click as loud as a rifle shot echoed
through the cellars. As it died down they listened intently. Had
they woken the housekeeper? Stephanie heard a sound and her heart
stopped. It sounded like a rustle of clothing. But then there was
silence.

After minutes
of silence she dared to try the handle again. Again the terrible
rasping noise of un-oiled metal on metal. As soon as it was fully
rotated she pushed. Nothing. Not the slightest movement. She pushed
again with all her might. The door didn't move a fraction of an
inch.

She almost
started to cry. She was so close to escape. So close. And now this.
If they forced the door it would undoubtedly wake the housekeeper
and they'd be back where they started, or she would. And Gianni
would see his nephew never got another chance to free his
prisoner.

There had to
be away. This was her chance and it might be the only one she got.
There had to be a way.

'Why did you
close it?'

'I had to.
What if she'd woken up and found it open?'

That was true.
'There's only one thing to do. Force the door and grab her before
she can get up. The two of us can overpower her. She'll be drowsy.
There must be something we can tie her up with.'

Paulo didn't
hesitate. 'Stay here, I'll look.' The stairs creaked again.
Stephanie watched the beam of light darting to and fro across the
cellar floor. After what seemed to be ages it started back up the
stairs, the noise reverberating again.

Paulo shone
the torch on his hand. He had some curtain cord from an old set of
curtains and a pair of old woollen socks, moth-eaten and
ragged.

'Good,'
Stephanie whispered. 'Where is she, exactly?'

'On the left
of the door.'

'You hold her
down. I'll stuff these in her mouth.' Stephanie took the socks from
his hand and balled them up.

They took a
deep breath. Paulo turned the handle and held it, then they both
stood shoulder to shoulder and slammed into the door with every
ounce of energy they could muster. The door budged half an inch but
still didn't move. They shouldered it again and it burst open.

The first
thump had woken the housekeeper, the second had made her start to
sit up. Fortunately, Stephanie could see her clearly in the gloom
of the room, her eyes dilated by the darkness of the cellar. She
dived for the woman's head, catching her around the neck and
pulling her down on the bed again. The woman's mouth was opened to
scream but the sound was muffled by the woollen sock as Stephanie
stuffed it in. Paulo had dived too and was holding the woman's legs
down.

Together they
tied her wrists and ankles and knotted a piece of cord around her
head to hold the socks in place. She struggled, but was soon
helpless.

'Well done,'
Stephanie said, grinning like a schoolgirl who'd just defeated the
school bully.

'I'm not going
to be welcome in this house again.'

But they were
still not out of the house. They listened to see if the commotion
had woken anyone else. Apparently it had not. Apart from the
distant tick of a clock the house was still completely quiet. Paulo
went to the door that led out into the hallway behind the main
staircase. This door opened easily without a sound, and they stole
out into the hall. Stephanie soon got her bearings. Paulo led her
out into the vast vestibule of the house where she had been what,
to her at least, seemed to be weeks before.

Without saying
a word they tiptoed to the front door. It was bolted at the top and
bottom with two massive steel bolts. Paulo carefully slid them
back, the top first, then the bottom, and then pulled the latch
back and opened the door.

At that moment
everything happened at once. First, an ear-splitting siren started
to wail and every light in the house went on. It was the burglar
alarm. Paulo had hidden in the house, forgetting the housekeeper
would set the alarm even if his uncle was too drunk to remember
it.

Almost
immediately, Gianni appeared on the balcony of the staircase, naked
but for a pair of boxer shorts.

'Paulo!' he
screamed, starting down the stairs at the same moment as Angelina
appeared from the cellar door, free of her ankle bonds but still
tethered by her wrists and gagged.

Paulo and
Stephanie stood frozen, like rabbits in the headlights of a car.
Then Stephanie started to run, out into the drive, run as fast as
she could. The gravel of the driveway cut her feet but she couldn't
care about that. This was her only chance.

By the time
she was at the entrance columns with Paulo right behind her -
somewhere in the back of her mind she thanked God there were no
gates - Gianni was at the front door. He too ignored the gravel
under his feet and started off across the drive.

Out in the
road Stephanie had no idea which way to go. She turned left, but
her ankle gave way as her foot hit the edge of the pavement and she
sprawled into the road. Paulo helped her up just as she heard a car
coming down the road towards her. Gianni was cursing, she could
hear, running across the drive and cursing at every painful
step.

They ran down
the road, the car she had heard coming up behind her, its
headlights on. But instead of accelerating past, the car drew up
alongside her. Stephanie, concentrating on running, her ankle
aching where she had sprained it, her feet sore from the gravel,
only looked at it when she heard the voice.

'Stephanie.'

She stopped
dead. The car stopped too, its window open. It was the Rolls Royce,
and the voice belonged to Devlin. She had never been so surprised
to see anyone in her entire life. She could do nothing but stand
open-mouthed and stare. The car door opened and he pulled her
inside.

'Stephanie,'
Paulo called, trying to catch her hand, then clutching at the
handle of the car door. The car accelerated, pulling Paulo's hand
off the chrome handle. He ran after it, running harder and harder
until he had no hope of catching it. Then he stood in the middle of
the road.

Gianni had run
too, after Paulo and after the car.

Now they stood
watching the car brake at the distant T-junction and turn left
before it disappeared from view. Then Paulo turned to face his
uncle...

Matching
Stephanie's desires perfectly, the Rolls Royce sped away from the
house and then turned north, its big engine effortlessly speeding
back to Umbria, Lake Trasimeno and the castle.

Stephanie had
let Devlin hold her in his arms for at east an hour before she had
said anything, and Devlin, for his part, made no attempt to
question her. He was content to let her tell her story in her own
time. She did not cry. She remembered the conclusion she had
reached in the cellars. What had happened to her was not the result
of a quirk of fate; she had played with fire and got burnt. It was
as simple as that. If she had not gone to Rome in the first place
none of it would have happened. And she had been lucky. Her 'burns'
might have been a lot worse. She had managed to escape and evade
Gianni's long-term plans.

Her energy and
strength returned in direct proportion to her feelings of wellbeing
and, perhaps more importantly, to the warmth inside the car. It was
the first time she had felt properly warm for days - the heating in
the cell had never lasted long enough to get through to the chill
in her bones. She finally started to think calmly and rationally.
Firstly, she was going to make sure it never happened again. The
castle was going to get a security system. And secondly? Well,
secondly would wait. Secondly was a question of what she was going
to do about Gianni. That would have to wait until she had eaten
some decent food, taken some exercise, and pampered and cosseted
herself a little.

Finally, as
the powerful headlights of the Rolls picked out the long country
road ahead, Stephanie levered herself up from Devlin's arms. She
looked in the mirror in the rear quarter of the car with the help
of the angled interior light. She switched off the light almost
instantly.

'I look a
mess,' she said. 'What day is it?'

'Sunday
morning.'

'Three days!'
She'd lost all sense of time. It had felt more like three weeks.
'I'm a bit confused. How did you come to be outside? Did
Paulo—'

'Paulo?'

'Gianni's
nephew. He helped me escape.'

'I've been
outside since Friday night. We did it in shifts. When Jasmina told
us what had happened, I knew there was only one man who could have
been responsible. We came to Rome. I got the plans of the house
from the City Architect. When I saw the cellars I knew you had to
be there. But I couldn't just knock at the door. I was planning a
raid, getting some of my people in. Meantime, we always had either
Jasmina or Venetia or me outside. Just in case. Just in case what
happened, happened...'

'Oh thank
you.'

'Did he hurt
you?'

'Not really
hurt. But what about Jasmina?' Stephanie had forgotten about
Jasmina since the first day. 'They didn't take her too, then?'

'No, she woke
up with a headache. They'd come in through the terrace window. We
found the grappling hooks.'

'We're going
to get a security system.'

'We certainly
are.'

'Have some of
this.' Devlin handed her a flask of brandy and Stephanie sipped
tentatively at the smooth liquor. It made her feel warm inside, and
relaxed.

Nothing else
much was said. It was not long before the car pulled up to the
jetty where the boat was waiting. It was only when she started to
get out of the car that Stephanie felt the cuts in her feet. The
deep wool rugs in the Rolls had protected them but now, on the
grass, she winced in pain.

Devlin saw the
problem and solved it simply. He picked her off her feet and
carried her to the boat like a baby in his arms. The image of the
short-legged, stout Devlin carrying the tall, slim Stephanie was
unexpected enough to make Stephanie laugh. By the time she was
seated in the boat, wrapped in a blanket from the car for warmth,
she was giggling helplessly. It was the first time she'd laughed in
days.

On the castle
jetty, illuminated by big floodlights, Venetia and Jasmina, alerted
by the sound of the engines, waited impatiently as the boat came
alongside. As soon as it was secured they leapt aboard to greet
Stephanie with kisses and hugs.

Venetia lent
her the shoes she was wearing, and they helped her up the narrow
stone steps into the castle, where a big fire was burning in the
grate. More than anything, she told them, she was hungry. The cook
was woken and a huge breakfast prepared which Stephanie ate
ravenously, though careful not to have too much, for fear her
stomach would revolt after three days of little more than bread and
gruel.

Then, after
cleaning up the cuts on her feet and applying plasters, and making
sure the sprain in her ankle was not at all serious, they took her
up to her bedroom, where, at Stephanie's request, Venetia ran her a
hot bath. On Devlin's orders they all left then.

'Just in case
you're worried, I hired a security firm. The island's being
patrolled. Next week we get electronic security.'

Stephanie was
glad to be alone. She bathed quickly in the hottest water she could
take without scalding herself and towelled herself dry in warm
towels from the heated towel rail. Through the terrace windows she
could see the dawn beginning to break across the lake. She went
over to the windows, watching the lake for a moment before, despite
what Devlin had said, checking that they were firmly bolted. She
drew the thick curtains and shutters and found extra blankets for
the bed. Piling the blankets on top of her she let the warmth seep
into her body. This was one Sunday, she had a feeling, she was not
going to see much of.

And she was
right. She slept dreamlessly, almost without moving her position,
and woke slowly, coming to gradually with a series of little naps
and half-sleeps before finally waking completely and feeling, once
again, ravenously hungry. Light was seeping through the edges of
the curtains. She got up and threw the curtains back. It was a
beautiful, hot, sunny morning. She looked around for her watch. It
was still where she had left it on Wednesday evening. She put it on
her wrist before looking at the time. It was ten o'clock. She had
slept for twenty-eight hours.

She picked up
the phone and ordered her breakfast. While she waited she showered,
a hot, hot shower. Even after such a short period of imprisonment
it felt wonderful to be able to bathe and shower freely, without
the presence of the sour-faced Angelina watching her every
move.