by Jill Mansell
“Oh.” Juliet’s eyebrows arched in mock surprise. “You’re sorry. How nice. Doesn’t it even bother you, sleeping with a man who is married?”
“But I swear I didn’t know…” whispered Camilla with shame and mounting desperation.
“Don’t lie to me! Are your children here now?”
“No, but—”
“Just as well.” Juliet unzipped her handbag and took out the knife as casually as if it were a fountain pen. “There’s no need for them to see this. With you as their mother, I should think they’ve suffered enough already.”
This cannot be happening, thought Camilla, frozen with horror. As if in slow motion, she saw Piers’s wife move toward her, gripping the handle of the knife with both hands. Trembling violently, she backed away. If she could reach the french windows and unlock them quickly enough…
But Juliet was too fast for her. This was what she had come here to do, what she had longed to do so often in the past, and nothing was going to stop her now.
With a strangled yell, she flew at Camilla, lashing out with the knife. As the blade slashed through the white sleeve of her dress, a crimson stain grew as if by magic. Camilla screamed, stumbling awkwardly against the coffee table, and Juliet laughed, reveling in the rush of adrenaline and launching herself once more at the figure now crumpled on the floor.
“By the time I’ve finished,” she panted, the words coming viciously through gritted teeth, “no one will want you, you bitch.”
And the knife slashed again—at the smooth brown neck hung with gold chains, at the face Camilla was trying to cover with her hands. More blood sprayed, splattering the table and the thick apricot carpet, and Juliet marveled at its glossy brightness. Shifting her position, balancing herself over the terrified woman beneath her, she wrenched away the hands with brutal force and slid the knife across Camilla’s elegant cheek. Such a very sharp knife; it was as easy as cutting through butter…and so much blood. Well, Camilla Lewis certainly wasn’t looking so great now…
She didn’t hear the door open behind her. When the scream echoed through the room, she let go of Camilla’s hair and spun around too late to avoid the impact. A heavy china pot slammed into her chest and lukewarm water cascaded everywhere, splashing her face and soaking her clothes. Cursing, blinking the liquid from her eyes, Juliet stared in horror at the screaming boy, naked apart from a T-shirt. Dimly hearing Camilla croak “Marty,” she looked down at the broken pot lying at her feet and felt a wave of nausea surge in her throat. There could be no doubt that it was an old-fashioned chamber pot. And the lukewarm liquid in which she was drenched wasn’t just water…
“You filthy animal!” she yelled, gagging helplessly, and the boy let out an unearthly wail, launching himself at her like a small human bullet.
He’s disabled, Juliet realized faintly, struggling to fend him off as he clawed with frantic strength at her arms. Looks like Down syndrome…not perfect, after all…
With the last of her own strength, she flung him away, snatched up her bag, and ran toward the door. Her eyes burned with tears. Beside her, the phone started ringing. Turning to look back, she saw the little boy kneel beside Camilla and place his arms tenderly around the bloody mess of her head. He was sobbing loudly, making unintelligible noises and taking great gulps of air as he cradled her against his chest, now stained crimson with her blood.
The phone continued to ring.
Slowly, Juliet picked up the receiver and heard a series of long-distance clicks.
“Hello?” said a male voice when she didn’t speak. “Cami, is that you? It’s Nico.”
“Camilla needs an ambulance,” said Juliet, her hands starting to shake. “Please call an ambulance. Now.”
Replacing the receiver, she turned back once more to look at what she had done. “I’m sorry,” she said through chattering teeth, wiping her sweating palms against her skirt and realizing that it was still soaked with urine. “I had to do it. I didn’t know your little boy had Down syndrome… I thought he would be perfect.”
Camilla, floating on the gray border of consciousness, managed to raise one hand and rest it upon Marty’s spiky dark head. In a voice barely above a whisper, she said slowly, “He is perfect.”
Shaking her head, not understanding at all, Juliet closed the front door behind her.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Discovering his wife in bed with his keyboard player, Nico realized, was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Watching them from the doorway, almost admiring the expression of horror and defiance on Caroline’s face as she turned and saw him standing there, he felt a great weight of responsibility float away. His green eyes registered wry amusement as she dragged the emerald covers over her perspiring, naked body.
“I have seen it before,” he observed mildly.
Paddy lit a cigarette. “Sorry, mate. You know how it is.”
“I know,” said Nico, deadpan. “I just dropped by to tell you that I’m flying back to London. Right away. Something’s come up. We’re booked here until the end of the week, so the rest of you may as well stay out here until then. OK?”
Paddy shrugged. “OK.”
“What about me?” said Caroline, shivering with shock.
Nico, privately amazed by his complete lack of either anger or jealousy, said slowly, “What about you? You’d prefer to stay here, wouldn’t you? Let’s face it, Caroline. We’ve both known for a while that our so-called marriage was over. I’ll contact my solicitor when I get back and he can get things moving.”
“It’s not a so-called marriage—” she began, automatically defending herself from criticism, but Nico intercepted her.
“When we met,” he said evenly, “you pretended not to know who I was. That was a lie, and lies aren’t the most suitable foundation upon which to build a lasting relationship.”
“But I didn’t want you to think that—” Caroline broke off, realizing that arguing wasn’t going to help. With defiance in her eyes, she said sullenly, “Oh, never mind. How did you find out, anyway?”
“I didn’t,” replied Nico, turning toward the door. “It was just a lucky guess.”
* * *
Camilla lay back against the starched white pillows and gingerly lifted the sheet covering her body. Since there were no mirrors in the room, she hadn’t been able to see what her face and neck looked like, but she could imagine the horror show. If the wounds there were anything like those on her body, she must look ghastly. And they hurt like hell, too, despite the painkillers.
But it could have been worse. The knife had been a small one, and the woman’s intention had clearly been to scar rather than to kill. By slashing instead of stabbing, many of the cuts were relatively superficial. The median nerve in her left forearm had been spared by less than a centimeter. No major organs had been punctured. The doctor had spent hours repairing her wounds with literally hundreds of painstakingly minute stitches and had reassured her that the degree of eventual scarring would be far less than seemed possible now, with congealed blood and emerging purplish bruising staining the otherwise smooth, tanned flesh.
But scars there would be, and Camilla realized that she was on the verge of panic. Having been heavily sedated earlier, the full horror of the attack was only beginning now, at midnight, to make itself felt. If Marty hadn’t been there, if Nico hadn’t chosen exactly that moment to call her, if Piers’s wife had not for some bizarre reason answered the phone, it could all have been far, far worse.
She should be grateful to even be alive.
So why did she feel so wretched and so very afraid?
Reaching for the bell to summon a nurse, Camilla pressed it and felt the hot tears course down her cheeks. Maybe a sedative or a sleeping pill would help. In the morning, after a few hours of oblivion, she might feel more able to cope.
When the door opened, she wiped her eyes with th
e back of her good hand and blinked as the overhead light came on. Coming through the door was a vast walking bouquet of pink, blue, and white flowers. For a single, heart-stopping moment, she thought, Nico! then subsided, embarrassed by a tidal wave of disappointment. Of course it wasn’t him. The night nurse, a slender woman with a gap between her front teeth, grinned at her as she hauled the enormous basket of flowers onto the bedside locker.
“Special delivery, you lucky girl,” announced the nurse, so cheerily that Camilla winced.
“Is there a card?” she said, pulling herself one-handedly into a sitting position. Maybe Loulou had sent them, or Roz and Sebastian.
“No card. And no visitors either as a rule, but this one charmed his way into the nurses’ station and we simply couldn’t say no. Are you up to a visit, do you think?”
Camilla stared at her. Surely, surely Piers hadn’t come here to see her. Horrified, she said, “Does he have dark curly hair?”
“No, I bloody well do not!” exclaimed an outraged voice on the other side of the door, and this time Camilla’s spirits soared. As Nico appeared in the room, she realized that subconsciously she had been expecting him, and that there was no one else in the entire world whom she wanted to see more.
The night nurse melted tactfully away.
“I had to come,” he said, placing his arms carefully around her and kissing her undamaged cheek. Then he stepped back and grinned. “And here you are, pining away for some gypsy Heathcliff type. Bloody charming.”
“Serves you right for eavesdropping,” said Camilla with a weak smile as she took his hand. “And anyway, he was the one I didn’t want to see. Oh, Nico, I’m so glad you’re here.”
Tenderly, he lifted the strap of her nightdress back onto her shoulder. “I’m glad I’m here too,” he said, wishing he could kiss her again. “Every time I see you, you’re either scantily clad or stark naked. It’s enough to give a man ideas.”
“I’m usually crying too,” Camilla reminded him, realizing that she was about to do it again. Stupidly, Nico’s sudden appearances seemed to have that effect on her. “And I can’t imagine that the sight of me now could give any man ideas.” The words gushed out just ahead of the tears; the next moment, she was clinging to Nico, sobbing helplessly, and he was holding her, kissing her hair and murmuring reassurances.
“Shh,” he whispered when the heaving sobs at last began to subside. “The nurses will kick me out if we aren’t careful.”
“Let them try,” hiccuped Camilla with a watery smile. “Oh, but, Nico, look at my face. They won’t even let me see it. Is it really as horrible as I think it is?”
Taking her seriously, realizing how scared and desperately in need of reassurance she was, he studied her closely for several seconds. It was horrible, but it didn’t seem so to him because she was still Camilla, she was still alive, and that was all that mattered. The longest cut swept from her temple along the line of her cheekbone. Another bisected her left eyebrow, and several smaller ones ran down her lower jaw and onto her neck.
“This side of your face is a bit swollen,” he said, running his index finger lightly along an undamaged part of it. “And it all looks far worse than it is because of the blood that’s still there. These little cuts down here will heal easily. This big one, if it leaves any sign of a scar, will look rather dashing because it’s right beneath your cheekbone. I’m serious, Cami. They’re really not as bad as you think.” He saw the relief in her eyes and winked, tugging playfully at her shoulder strap. “Got any more you’d like me to see while I’m here?”
“You’re nothing but a tart,” she said, smiling. “And thank you. You’ve cheered me up. I still can’t believe that you’ve flown all this way to see me.”
“I sent you a postcard yesterday too,” Nico retaliated with mock indignation. “If I’d known I’d be coming back today, I could have saved myself the price of a stamp.”
“The flowers are lovely.”
“Mmm.” He looked vaguely embarrassed. “Actually, they’re on loan.”
“On loan?” cried Camilla, trying not to laugh. “Where did you get them?”
“The hotel across the road. They’re the main display in reception. I had to give the receptionist a kiss and promise to return them within the hour. Well, you try to buy flowers at eleven thirty at night,” he concluded defensively.
“Nothing but a tart,” repeated Camilla, wiping her eyes. “Go return them this minute. Then come back. You haven’t even asked me yet how all this happened.”
“I know,” Nico said gently. “I managed to get through to your house again from the airport in Montego Bay. Loulou was there, and so were the police. Lou told me everything.”
Camilla bowed her head. “I feel so ashamed. Nico, I know what that woman was going through. I felt so guilty when she told me who she was that I thought I deserved to be attacked. But Piers told me he wasn’t married… I would never have had anything to do with him if I’d known that he was!”
“Well, I can certainly vouch for that,” he said lightly, clasping her cold hands in his own and attempting to avert another crisis. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Cami. He’s the one who lied to you. You couldn’t be expected to know different.”
“I really liked him,” she whispered, so sadly that he was gripped by a spasm of jealousy. Then she met his gaze and said with hopeless honesty, “I really liked you too. Do you think I’ll ever really like someone who isn’t married?”
Nico, overcome with longing, stared back at her. For a long moment, he was stuck for the right words. Finally, praying that when Camilla said “really like” she meant “love,” and that his lawyers could move that quickly, he cleared his throat and said, “In about six weeks, I should think.”
Camilla closed her eyes and shook her head, missing the point completely.
“More like six years,” she said in a quiet voice.
Nico tried again. Picking up her hand, he turned it over and kissed the palm, making her jump. “Six weeks,” he said again, this time more firmly. “And then, scars or no scars, bright-turquoise contact lenses or no bright-turquoise contact lenses”—Camilla blushed—“I am going to ask you to marry me. I know I don’t have what my mother calls a proper job, but I can—”
“You cannot leave your wife!” shouted Camilla, interrupting him in midstream. “My God, Nico, after what’s happened today…you can’t leave her!”
“Oh, shut up, darling,” he said affectionately, adoring the way her gray eyes darkened when she was outraged. “I already have.”
* * *
“Oh, What a Tangled Web!” screamed the headline of the sleaziest paper, and Nico’s heart sank when he saw it. Since connecting his frequent visits to the hospital with the stabbing of Matt Lewis’s widow by her lover’s deranged-with-jealousy wife, the press had been having an absolute field day, casting Camilla in the role of sultry mistress and speculating with wicked inaccuracy that she and Nico had indulged in a passionate, long-running affair. Since Juliet O’Donoghue was now under arrest and Piers had disappeared to “stay with friends,” the press oscillated between the hospital and Camilla’s home, pestering Loulou and driving the hospital staff to distraction. Only Marty was enjoying all the attention; somehow, the story of his potty attack had come out and his famous smile was once more plastered across all the papers.
Marty, Nico reflected with amusement, was becoming almost as well-known as himself these days. Yesterday, he’d been taking him to the hospital to see Camilla and a woman had ignored him totally, pointing instead to Marty. “There’s that little boy I was telling you about, Sharon…”
* * *
“Bloody gutter press!” declared Loulou, entering the kitchen and catching him with the paper spread out on the table before him. “The two of us should have an affair now. That would really get them going.”
Nico grinned, pointing at the page. “T
oo late, they’ve already guessed. ‘Meanwhile, Nico Coletto’s spectacular Wimbledon home remains empty while he spends his nights at Camilla’s house in Belgravia with the lovely Loulou Marks. Who knows what goes on there behind those closed doors? And how will Nico’s wife Caroline react when she hears of all this?’”
“God,” Loulou groaned, shaking her head and reaching for Nico’s coffee. “If we told them we play Scrabble, they’d never believe us. Are you going in to see Cami this morning?”
Nico shrugged. “Lawyers first, hospital second. Sorting out the divorce is turning out to be a damn sight easier than sorting out Camilla. Why does she have to be so stubborn, Lou?”
“She’s upset. Exercise a bit of patience,” said Loulou kindly, having heard all this a dozen times in the last few days. “Look,” she continued, seeing the expression in Nico’s dark-fringed green eyes. “You caught your wife in bed with someone else, leaped on a plane, and proposed to Camilla. Meanwhile, she’s been attacked by a woman for sleeping with her husband. Every day, her bruises and scars look worse. She’s vulnerable, for God’s sake. For one thing, she doesn’t want to make the same mistake twice, and for another…”
“Yes?” prompted Nico, retrieving his coffee cup and discovering that it was empty.
“I think she thinks you feel sorry for her,” Loulou concluded with a helpless gesture. “She’s convinced that no one could possibly want her, looking as she does now. But she’s still shocked by what happened. She’ll get over most of that when the scars start to heal. I told you, you just have to be patient.”
“I’ve been patient,” he exclaimed, “for almost three goddamn years, Lou. The last time I was patient Camilla got involved with O’Donoghue. The time before that she married Matt Lewis. So this time I decided to lay it on the line. I’d waited long enough and I wasn’t going to risk losing her again. And she bloody well turned me down!”
“Poor Nico,” said Loulou, amused by his look of indignation. “Get divorced. Give her time. And be patient.”
