The Malaspiga Exit Read Online Free

it was the only one. She walked over to the desk and the clerk reached up and gave it to her. He smiled, thinking she would be pleased.
    â€˜It came by hand after you’d gone out this morning,’ he said. He was watching her with an expectant look on his face.
    â€˜Thank you,’ Katharine said. On the back of the envelope, embossed in crimson, was the crest of the Dukes of Malaspiga. She went up to her room and opened the letter.
    It was very brief: four lines running boldly across the page, unevenly spaced.
    â€˜Dear Signorina Dexter, Thank you for your kind letter and welcome to Florence. We should be pleased if you can take tea with us on Wednesday at five o’clock. Isabella di Malaspiga.’ The signature was large, the letters ended with an artificial flourish that suggested years of practice. It was the way someone signed their name when they believed that name itself to be important. Isabella di Malaspiga. She had written to the Duke, her cousin; he must have passed her letter to his mother. That would explain the delay. How very correct they were, this family of aristocrats, self-consciously admitting a distant kinswoman to take tea.
    Tea. She thought only the English indulged in that habit. She folded the letter in its envelope and locked it away in her case. She was not nervous; she lit a cigarette defiantly to prove to herself that her hand was steady, and threw the match away because it trembled in her fingers. There was something about that sinister crest that frightened her, a tonal quality in the name which held menace. Malaspiga. Perhaps she had been scared by some story about them when she was a child—she couldn’t remember. It was as if she had deliberately shut all thought of them out of her mind. She sat on the edge of the bed, relit the cigarette and smoked, thinking quietly. Her letter had introduced her as the grand-daughter of Maria Gemma di Malaspiga, niece of the twelfth Duke who had married and gone to America. It had taken her a long time to write it; several attempts had been made and the results thrown away before she felt it was exactly right.
    When telling a lie, Frank Carpenter used to say, always hide it in the middle of truth. She had said she was making a pilgrimage to her ancestral city, recovering from the loss of her brother who had recently died, and would very much like to make the acquaintance of her cousins, and if possible see some of the family treasures while she was in the city. She hoped that they would forgive the intrusion, but meeting them would mean a great deal to her. She had added a hypocritical flourish, much against her will, to the effect that she had dreamed of coming to Florence and seeing her grandmother’s old home ever since she was a child. Thinking of Carpenter gave her courage. Feminine nervousness couldn’t be helped; she owed a basic self-confidence to him. Not just to the training he had given her, but to that night spent together. The memory of it strengthened her. In moments when the sense of isolation most affected her she had something more than a memory. Something which could be a promise for the future. ‘If you need me …’ he had said. It was an offer that included more than the Italian journey. She threw the cigarette away. The invitation needed an answer. Another letter. She rebelled against that. There was a telephone at the Villa Malaspiga. These were human beings, capable of normal communication. It was ridiculous to feel in awe. She picked up the phone and asked the switchboard to get the number for her. The unfamiliar monotonous whine continued until she almost gave up. Then a voice answered, and speaking in Italian Katharine asked for the Duchess di Malaspiga, and gave her own name. Katharine di Malaspiga Dexter.
    There was a long wait, so long that she wondered if they had been disconnected. Then a high-pitched voice sounded through the receiver.
    â€˜Isabella di Malaspiga is speaking. Is