Evening Star

by Catherine Coulter

Alex gazed over at the old man. A man old enough to be her grandfather would take her. He shifted his gaze back to the dais and saw her standing perfectly still, as if she were somehow apart from the proceedings.

  Signora Lamponni was ready to close the bidding. He heard himself shout, “Two thousand dollars.”

  Daniele reeled. Jesus Christ, what was the bloody American doing? He looked at Giana, and saw her weave where she stood.

  In a quite calm voice he shouted back, “Four thousand dollars.”

  Signora Lamponni quickly said, “It is done. Four thousand dollars.”

  Daniele rose quickly, but Alex was quicker. He walked toward the dais and said quietly, “It is the procedure, is it not, that the buyer pay you the full price, signora?”

  Signora Lamponni nodded helplessly.

  Alex peeled off two thousand dollars in bills from his wallet. “I request to see this gentleman’s four thousand dollars,” he said politely.

  “Are you calling me a liar?” Daniele tried, schooling his features into his haughtiest look.

  “No, sir. I merely wish to assure myself that you have the four thousand dollars.”

  Daniele carried no more than five hundred dollars. He made a last effort. “The signora knows that my credit is sound. I will return shortly with the money.”

  “But the price must be paid upon the close of the bidding, is that not the procedure, signora?”

  Signora Lamponni shot Daniele a helpless look. “That is true, signore.”

  “Uncle,” Giana whispered, taking a jerking step.

  Daniele knew he could do no more here. He caught Giana’s dazed eyes and gave her an encouraging smile.

  He turned to the American and said, “The girl is yours, sir.” He turned on his heel and strode from the salon.

  “The American gets her.”

  “For two thousand dollars, she’d better have two maidenheads.”

  After Alex had given Signora Lamponni the two thousand dollars, she asked him, “Do you wish to examine her?”

  “It would be difficult, since she is fully dressed,” he said, frowning toward her. Her shoulders were squared, and she stared back at him, her chin high in the air.

  To Signora Lamponni’s great relief, he shook his head. “It is not necessary.”

  He stepped to Giana and said, “Pick up your gloves, Helen.”

  She made no move.

  He sighed, and took her arm. “Then we will leave them.”

  “Number five,” Signora Lamponni called out quickly.

  Alex felt her tugging against him. He said in a low, angry voice, “Enough acting, else I’ll have you stripped right here.”

  Giana went limp against his arm, and he led her from the salon into a small room dimly lit by gaslights. He took her shoulders in his hands and regarded her silently for a moment.

  “You can stop your playacting now, Helen or Molly. How does it feel to be the most expensive virgin in all of Rome? You had better be worth it.”

  She stared at him, her eyes dark and wide. He was so large, terrifying, and he believed her a whore. Where was Uncle Daniele?

  “Let me go,” she whispered.

  “I think not, little one. I shan’t let you go until the sun rises, and perhaps not even then.” Alex pulled her roughly against his chest and forced her chin up. He covered her mouth with his and pressed his tongue against her tightly sealed lips. He felt her tremble, and forced himself to slow. He eased his hold and let his hands rove down her back.

  Giana felt the change in him. His hands held the back of her neck, but he was not pushing her against him. She parted her lips to beg him to leave her alone, and felt his tongue slip inside her mouth, touching hers. She felt a shock of pleasure and gasped, horrified at herself.

  Alex felt her respond to him. He lowered his hand to caress her through all her damned petticoats. He felt her shuddering against him, then, suddenly, she was fighting him, struggling wildly against him with all her strength, her fists striking his chest and shoulders.

  Giana felt the auburn wig slip to one side She gasped and threw up a hand to right it.

  Alex laughed, and jerked the wig off. “So, my sweet, you’ve black hair. It is quite lovely. Why did you wish to hide it? After all, I would have known the moment I had you naked.”

  “You will get your two thousand dollars back I swear it. It is a mistake. Please, you must let me go.”

  His dark eyes narrowed. “Stop this nonsense. I am no longer in the mood for your acting.” He gentled his voice, not really understanding why. “I will be easy with you, have no fear, little one. I felt you respond to my kiss. I will make you feel more, much more.” He heard her gasp, as if in outrage, and said in a hard voice, “I have always wanted to give a harlot her first lessons. Enough now.”

  “No.” She threw herself at him, clawing at his face.

  Alex felt her fingernails draw blood. He grabbed her wrists to protect himself, but she ducked her head down and bit him. She was kicking wildly at his shins. He drew back his fist and slammed it into her jaw. She crumpled where she stood.

  He drew out his handkerchief and gingerly wiped away the few drops of blood on his cheek. He stared down at her for a moment. Her thick black hair, come loose from its confining pins, was spilled down her back.

  “I must be a half-witted fool,” he said aloud. Jesus, he thought as he picked her up, how was he to carry an unconscious female in his arms through the lobby of his hotel? He held her in one arm and pressed his fingers over her jaw. She would have a bruise, but thankfully, he hadn’t broken anything. Why the devil had she attacked him?

  He found himself admiring her creamy English complexion and the thick black lashes that fanned against her cheeks. His eyes fell to her slender neck and to the bodice of her gown, ripped open in their struggle. To his surprise, the torn chemise beneath was plain white linen, with not a frill or a row of lace.

  Her firm young breasts rose and fell. His fingers rested against them before he drew the chemise over her. He carried her through the side entrance of the huge house, nodding to a servant to fetch his carriage. He felt a drizzling rain against his cheek. He cursed softly, shrugged out of his coat, and covered her with it.

  As he waited, he found himself wondering if she had prized herself so highly she did not expect to have to strip. He held her tightly against his chest, protecting her from the rain. He heard a sudden noise and whipped about. But he was too late. He felt a crash of pain in his head.

  “Giana. Giana. Child, are you all right?”

  Daniele shoved Alexander Saxton’s body away and pulled Giana into his arms, shaking her.

  Giana felt an instant of terror and lashed out at him.

  “Stop it, Giana, it is I, Daniele.”

  “Oh, thank God,” she gasped, struggling to her knees. “Why? I don’t understand—”

  “I will explain everything to you, Giana. Come, let us get out of here.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No, he will just have a sore head on the morrow. Quickly, Giana.”

  Alex heard the name through the veil of pain that clouded his mind. Giana. What an odd name, he thought.

  Chapter 8

  London, 1847

  Giana took in a deep breath of fresh September morning air. She delighted in its crisp coolness, though she shivered in her summer cloak. She allowed the coachman, Abel, to assist her from the brougham, and stood quietly for a moment beneath a full-branched oak tree on the west side of Hyde Park. She watched the few elegantly dressed gentlemen and ladies who were promenading along the walkways. How delightful it was that every word she heard was English. She tilted her face up to catch a sliver of sun that broke through the blanket of leaves above her.

  “Giana.” She smiled as she turned to look at Randall Bennett striding toward her. He was, she thought, as devastatingly handsome as she remembered, exquisite in smartly tailored buff riding clothes and black riding boots. She wondered vaguely where he had left his horse, or if
there was no horse, and he had simply decided that he appeared to best advantage in riding clothes.

  “Ah, my little dove, you are home at last. God, the days have been endless without you.” He grasped her mittened hands in his and squeezed them.

  “Hello, Randall,” she said.

  “How beautiful you look, my love. That is a new bonnet?”

  “Yes, I bought it in Paris.”

  Randall Bennett laughed and pulled her against his chest. “We are talking nonsense. What I really want to do is hold you in my arms.” She felt his hands stroke her back, and she slowly pulled away from him.

  “You are looking well, Randall.”

  “Since you are with me again, my love, it cannot but be so. Come, Giana, sit down with me, I’ve so much to tell you.”

  She placed her hand on his arm and strolled with him to the small circular pond that lay beneath a green web of leaves, and sat down on a narrow stone bench. She spread her skirts gracefully about her and allowed him to lace his fingers through hers.

  “It is a pity we have no bread crumbs for the ducks,” Giana said.

  “My little dove,” Randall said, his eyes bright with excitement, “I have found the most perfect setting for your beauty.”

  “You mean I look well surrounded by quacking ducks?”

  “Silly girl,” he said, laughing. The engaging dimple on the right side of his mouth deepened. “No, my love, it is a charming manor house, called Horsham Hall, but an hour by train from London. The owner, poor fellow, is all done up and has to sell. When we return from our honeymoon, it will be our country home. The gardens are exquisite, and of course there will be servants to see to all your needs.”

  “My needs?”

  Randall dropped his voice to an intimate whisper. “Do you not want your husband to be successful in business, Giana?”

  “I suppose it is rather inescapable, given that I am a Van Cleve.”

  He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers one by one. “Alas, my love, to be worthy of you, it seems that I will have to spend much of my time in the workaday world. But soon, very soon, Giana, you will have a child, my child.” His voice caressed her and his eyes swept down her slender figure.

  “You have not asked me, Randall, about my summer in Italy.”

  He looked charmingly rueful. “Forgive me, Giana. My excitement in seeing you finally. I seem to be able to think only of the future, and our life together. Did the time pass as slowly for you as it did for me?”

  “Yes, it passed very slowly.”

  It occurred to him suddenly that her voice sounded curiously flat. She could not have heard about the opera dancer—he had been so careful. Even her bitch of a mother had steered clear of him during the summer.

  He studied her face, but all that struck him was that she looked so very lovely, so unspoiled. “Time will never pass slowly again, my love,” he said.

  “You are doubtless right. Let me understand you, Randall. You have found this manor house in the country, and you wish me to live there whilst you are gaining fame and fortune here in London. Or rather,” she added, her eyes roving past him to rest upon a preening duck beside the pond, “just fame. The fortune, of course, is already there.”

  “If it pleases you, my darling, we can also purchase a house here in the city,” he said carefully, wondering again at the curious flatness in her voice. But her upturned face was clear, her vivid eyes guileless. “I want only your happiness.”

  “I am glad to hear you say that.”

  He arched an elegant brow. “Could I want anything else?”

  Giana smiled, but her eyes held a strange glitter.

  “Giana, has something happened? You seem somehow different, my love. Your mother is prepared to stand by her bargain, is she not?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, shrugging. She watched him take a deep relieved breath. “Randall, are you a good lover?”

  He started at her question, utterly shocked that she would wonder such a thing, much less ask bluntly about it. He saw that she was perfectly serious, and decided not to chuck her on the chin and call her a naughty puss. Perhaps she had heard something. He laughed softly, intimately, thinking that it behooved him to tread warily. “Giana, my little love, you will have your answer the night of our wedding. I will do my best not to disappoint you.”

  “I know that I will not.”

  “Not what?”

  “Ever be disappointed by your prowess as a lover, Randall.”

  He preened, taking her words at face value. He managed to say in a severe voice, “You mustn’t talk like that, love, it is not at all proper, and you tempt me beyond reason.”

  “You don’t look tempted beyond reason.”

  He laughed. “If there were not people strolling close by, I would forget myself and let you understand me.”

  “The problem is, Randall,” she said, each word distinct, “that I do understand. Did you know that a woman cannot divorce her husband for adultery? She has not the right. The husband, on the other hand, can do whatever pleases him, and if his wife is unfortunate enough to take a lover, the husband can not only divorce her, he has the right to keep her children and all her money. In short, if a wife does anything to displease her husband, she can end up in the street without a penny to her name.”

  He eyed her carefully, wondering what the devil was on her mind. “The laws are perhaps unfair,” he said, “but I assure you, Giana, that such a circumstance would never apply to us.” He tried to laugh heartily. “I trust it is not your intention to ever take a lover, my darling.”

  “Oh no, never would I do that. I simply wondered if you were well-versed in a husband’s rights.”

  He shrugged elaborately. “I know only that it is a husband’s responsibility to care for his wife, to protect her and keep her pure and unsullied by the mundane concerns of life. And, of course, to love her with all his heart.”

  “I see,” she said, frowning thoughtfully.

  “It is nothing for you to be concerned about, sweetheart. I have decided our wedding can be held in early October. Earlier, if you wish it. And for our honeymoon, I had thought of Greece. We could hire a yacht and sail the islands.”

  “It sounds like a costly proposition.”

  So that was it. Her damned mother had convinced her that he wanted only her money. “Giana, believe me,” he said with passionate sincerity, clutching her hands tightly, “I love you, only you. I would not care if we stayed in my rooms for our honeymoon, so long as we were together. It is all I have ever wanted and all I will ever want. I will work hard to support you, my love. Your mother will discover that I am no lackadaisical fellow to hang on her bounty.” He patted her hand fondly as one would a precocious child’s. “And even though you tell me that you understand about a man’s needs—well, you will find out on our wedding night how much I need and desire you, Giana.”

  “You are fluent, Randall, terribly fluent.”

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  “You say all the right things, and so very well, as if you had rehearsed them in front of the mirror.”

  His jaw tightened in anger. “What is this, Giana? Why are you speaking nonsense? Are your affections so easily engaged that you found another in Italy? Do you no longer love me?”

  “I never loved you, Randall.”

  He rose quickly and strode jerkily back and forth in front of her, slapping his riding crop against his boot. She saw Vittorio Cavelli for an awful instant, raising his riding crop, his face mottled with fury as he stood over the cowering Lucia. “You lie. You are trifling with me, madam, a man who sincerely loves you.”

  She shook her head clear of the memory, and forced herself to look up at Randall. Odd, she thought, how his face lost much of its beauty twisted with anger. She admitted to a moment of fear of him and his riding crop, but shook it off. “Do you use the crop on women, Randall, when you are making love to them?”

  “Ah, now you would accuse me of being a wife beater?” />
  “No, I did not say that. After all, you have never been married.”

  Randall managed to gain control of his temper. She had heard of the opera dancer, he must face it. Her damned mother must have had him followed, and now the little chit was toying with him, wanting him to confess all and beg her pardon, likely on his knees. But what was this nonsense about his riding crop? He dropped the offending crop to the ground and sat down beside her again. “Giana,” he said his gray eyes clouding with pain as they held hers, “there is no other woman, save you. A man—well, a man sometimes has needs, before he is married, of course. I do not know what your mother told you, but I saw the girl because I was so very lonely for you. She is nothing to me, Giana, and I sent her away long before you returned to England. You are the only woman I will ever want or love.”

  Giana wanted to giggle. The vain, strutting peacock thought she had found out about a tawdry affair.

  “Do not apologize, Randall. I understand about men’s needs, truly I do. What I do not understand is why only men are allowed to have them.”

  Why was she pushing him, he wondered frantically, and speaking openly about sex, and a woman’s needs, for God’s sake?

  “As I told you,” he said hoarsely, “when we are wed I will teach you about pleasure, yours and mine. You must believe me, my love. After you are my wife, I will never have need of another woman.”

  She wanted to tell him that what he had said made not a whit of sense, but she knew that to continue on was needless, in fact cruel of her. But it was he who was the cruel one, the one who had purposefully sought her out, played on her dreams. Dear God, he hadn’t even had the good sense to stay out of another girl’s bed until he had her safely wed to him. She rose swiftly to her feet and looked down at him.

  “Randall,” she said, her voice clear and cool as the morning air, “I have no intention of wedding you. Indeed, I doubt that I will ever marry any man, so you cannot accuse me of betraying you with another. I understand that Norman Carl Fletcher, the very wealthy banker, has an unwed daughter. She is not terribly pretty, but of course, that doesn’t really matter, does it?”