'He was an arrogant boy who threw ice-cream all over my shoes,' she replied. 'Now shall we return to the reception? I expect Verna and her husband will almost be ready to start out on their honeymoon trip.'
Julia pulled free of Rome, walking away from him, back into the room where the wedding guests were chatting in animated, smartly dressed groups, the darkly clad waiters moving among them with trays of food and drink.
It was all very lively, touched by that air of excitement that a wedding creates in the hearts of most people. Verna looked radiant in her deep-pink going away suit and the smile on her face was Julia's only consolation. At least one of the Van Holden sisters would be happy in her marriage, and those damning IOUs had long since been destroyed.
Julia walked towards her sister in order to kiss her goodbye. Only a close observer would have noticed the irony in her smile. Had she really said to Verna when they burned those gambling slips: 'There, now we can forget about Naples and everything connected with the place. It's all gone up in smoke!'
'Darling!' Verna flung her arms about Julia and hugged her. 'Thank you for my lovely wedding and all the hard work you've put into it. You are the best sister any girl could have, and soon it will be your turn to walk up the aisle with a man you adore. There's nothing quite like it. I feel like a princess!'
'You look like one.' Julia kissed her sister and smiled at the man who would now be responsible for her. 'Always be as happy, Verna, as you are today.'
'I intend to,' Verna said with confidence, her ringed hand tucked around the arm of her bridegroom. 'I'm never going to do anything that will make this man of mine think less of me than he does today. Today he thinks I'm the icing on the cake!'
Everyone laughed… they didn't notice the frozen way Julia was looking at the tall, dark man who stood on the edge of the crowd. He was the stranger here, the outsider, and yet he shared with her the most intimate of secrets. How shocked everyone would be if they knew she was having his baby!
CHAPTER TWO
Julia noticed on the aircraft how the stewardesses kept glancing at Rome as they moved up and down the aisle, ensuring that the passengers were comfortable and had all they required. She felt certain they were extra concerned that he should be well taken care of, and didn't doubt that each one of them would have liked to change places with her.
She didn't think that she and Rome looked like a 'just married' couple. They weren't holding hands and looking into each other's eyes as if they couldn't wait to be alone together. They sat with a certain amount of space between them and she still wore her glove on her left hand, concealing the golden gleam of the wide-banded ring he had placed on her marriage finger twenty-four hours ago, almost gothic in design and companioned by an emerald in gold claws which weighed on her slim hand. She had tried to resist the emerald, whose clarity and cut told her it was real, but he had gripped her by the wrist there in Tiffany's and slid the ring on her finger, smiling narrowly when the assistant remarked that it matched her eyes.
'That's the idea,' Rome drawled as he wrote out the cheque. 'It's a rare combination, isn't it, a blonde with green eyes?'
'In case you're wondering,' she had said to him outside the shop, 'my hair isn't dyed.'
'I know that, Julia.' Inside the cab that drove them to the church he had smiled in a nostalgic way. 'I knew you when you were a little one, remember? Your hair was bright as a dandelion and my mother once told me that your nurse-maid used to rinse it in lemon juice so it would keep its colour. It worked, eh?'
Oh yes, thought Julia, sitting there beside him on the jet, it would suit his sense of style that her fairness was a pleasing contrast to his Latin darkness. There was no denying that he was stylish, with excellent taste that was either innate or carefully cultivated. His three-piece grey suit was without fault, combined with a shirt and tie in white and grey, with golden ovals at his cuffs, matching the gold ring which had been held out to her on the prayer book and which she had to place on his marriage finger. He could, she supposed, have been taken for a member of a high class family, with the well-defined profile and patrician nose.
'Why are you called Rome?' she suddenly asked him.
He looked at her a trifle sardonically, for she hadn't spoken to him voluntarily since they had left the church as husband and wife, merely replying to his remarks as they drove to the airport and were checked in for the flight. When he had bent his tall head to kiss her mouth she had quickly turned her cheek so his kiss fell against the side of her lips. In her ivory-coloured suit and eau-de-nil blouse she looked as cool as her eyes upon his face.
'To remind my mother of the eternal city when she and my father left Italy to live in America,' he replied. 'There seemed more chance of him finding a good job and he worked hard so he could buy a share in a shoe business. He was unaware that one of the partners was crooked, and he was blamed for a fraud that wasn't his and sent to prison. While there he tried to defend a youth who found himself under siege by a homosexual thug, and for that my father was beaten senseless and he died in the prison hospital of a ruptured blood vessel in his inside. Of necessity my mother had to cook and clean for those who could afford to pay her for working herself half to death so I wouldn't go hungry to school with holes in my shoes.'
He broke off abruptly and took a deep drink of his champagne. 'I don't suppose you remember my mother, but in her wedding photograph she wore a lace veil and looked so lovely and eager, as if she believed that love was going to be hers all her life. I gave her my love, but how could it ever be the same as my father's? She died herself in Naples two years ago, and I am thankful that her sad life ended in the sunshine of Italy. She adored Italy and never could like America, and that was one of the reasons why I chose to make Naples my place of business. I won't make excuses for the casino, except to say that I wanted money as soon as possible. My mother had leukaemia and I was able to give her a few comfortable years before she joined my father.'
He fell quiet, his grey eyes fixed broodingly upon the champagne glass in his hand. 'The best vintage you have on board,' he had requested, and it had struck Julia that he would have liked to tell the stewardess that he was a bridegroom.
'I—I'm sorry to hear about your parents,' she said. 'But that doesn't excuse your behaviour, does it, Rome? Or doesn't it worry you very much that you've ruined my life?'
'My dear, if you represent ruin, then there should be more of it about.' His eyes were smiling, taunting her just a little as they wandered over the smooth sweep of her hair from her temples, a bright frame around the delicate charm of her face. 'You're looking particularly lovely.'
'It wouldn't suit you to have it otherwise, would it, Rome? You want women to be as stylish as the clothes you put on, so they compliment your Latin looks.'
'Do you like my looks, Julia?' He said it a trifle mockingly. 'It would be nice to know that something about me appeals to you.'
'Do you need me to like something about you, Rome?' Her cool green eyes studied his face, made striking by the good bone structure that was so entirely rooted in his Italian background. There were shadings of ruthlessness in the thrust of his cheekbones, a suggestion of great passion about the moulding of his mouth, a secretiveness in the cleft that was so exactly centred in his chin.
She had felt the power of his physical passion, so unlike anything she had imagined with a cultured, civilised man like Paul Wineman. Rome was utterly Latin, with a deep vein of southern sensuality running through him, erotic and out to enslave a woman by her senses. He would understand the dark desires a woman might feel… might need to have gratified. At the thought Julia blushed and felt as if waves of alarm and awareness singed the very roots of her being.
This man was her husband! How could she be sure he'd abide by his promise to behave as if he were her guardian? The gold rings on her hand and the vows they'd exchanged in the church, with its stained-glass windows, its holy statues and incense, were symbols of his ownership.
'To love, honour and cherish,'
he had said.
'With my body I thee—take,' she had substituted in her mind.
Julia felt a subtle sense of torment. The man she had married was ineffably his own master… and hers. She felt it in the way he looked at her, in the way he leaned towards her, his nostrils tensing. 'You smell of lilacs,' he murmured. 'You look as if you'd been dipped in crystal like one of those classic figurines, all shining and worth a pretty penny.'
'And that pleases you, doesn't it, Rome? I now belong to you and anything you possess has to be distinctive and worth its price.' Her voice matched her outward look of cool poise, but in her mind, and her body, she was remembering how he had swept her up in his arms as if she were weightless and how warm his skin had felt when he pressed her to his brown flesh hardened by the Italian sun. Rome was flesh and blood all the way through!
'Are you very rich?' she asked. 'Have you made heaps of dollars out of those fools who gamble at your tables? I expect you have, you're that sort of man. But something puzzles me, Rome. I thought gambling was controlled by the Godfathers, those dark men from Sicily who lay down the laws where gaming is concerned—and other activities of a sinful nature.'
'You're asking if I'm a member of the Brotherhood?' He looked at her in silence a moment, and then softly laughed. 'It's always the assumption, isn't it, carina? But as it happens life takes odd twists and turns. I told you, didn't I, that my father died as a direct result of defending a young man in prison. That young man eventually became one of the Dons of great power and he is a friend of mine, but he isn't in any way my boss. I run my own casino in Naples because of his friendship, but I run it regardless of the Brotherhood, who would never dare touch me because of Vitale's regard for me. It is in human nature to gamble… just as it's in the nature of the human race to eat and drink… to love and hate. I run a good establishment. No one gets really hurt.'
'No one?' she murmured. 'You can say that to my face?'
He swept his grey eyes over her, taking in the suit that was slightly open to reveal the silk-chiffon of her blouse, on its lapel a single orchid pinned with a little tiger whose eyes shimmered green as her own. 'If I hurt you, baby, it doesn't show.'
'I have feelings,' she rejoined. 'I suppose you think be-cause you're good-looking and well-bathed, what you did to me bears no relationship to the back alley variety of assault? I had little defence against you. You're as strong as an ox!'
'My first compliment from my bride,' he mocked. 'I'll treasure it.'
'I'd tell you to go to the devil, Rome, only I know you're there already.' She smiled sweetly as she said it and in reply he raised his champagne glass to her.
'Do you think we'll always be as happy as we are right now, Julia?'
'Always?' she echoed, and as he continued to look at her, she felt goose bumps rising on her skin, especially her arms and the base of her spine, tingling cold and yet hot as if dry ice had been dropped down the back of her blouse.
'Always is a long time, Rome, if you're getting ideas just because of that ceremony yesterday morning. Why was it in church? You aren't a religious man, you take too many gambles.'
'It would have pleased my mother. She wanted me to marry so she could be a grandmother. Italian people like the solid continuation of the family; they enjoy seeing children around the house, hearing their laughter and seeing in their faces the family likeness. It makes death seem but a door through which to step, with part of you still alive. She would have been pleased about the child.'
'Is that why you married me?' Julia asked quietly. 'It is only the child you want, isn't it? I—I need to know.'
'Of course I want my child.' His lashes seemed to darken his eyes, the lowering of his lids giving him both a sinister and a sensual look. 'I've already made that perfectly plain, have I not, Julia?'
'So long as I know, Rome. I don't want to stay married to you for longer than is necessary.'
'The child will be as much yours as mine, Julia. You may love it regardless of me.'
'I could never love any part of you,' she said scornfully. 'The kind of men I like behave like gentlemen, and for all your fine clothes and your villa in Campania, you're basically a ruthless, vindictive brute who pretends to care for the memory of your mother. If you had any real respect for women, I wouldn't be here right now, married to you and hating every minute of it.'
'Do you mind lowering your voice?' he said pleasantly. 'I don't care to have it broadcast that I have a shrew for a wife.'
'I'd like to tell the world what I have for a husband.' Her eyes blazed into his. 'I'm no sweet and adoring Italian girl for you to order about, signore. Respect and adoration have to be earned, and all I have for you is aversion. It's only because you're tall that I look up to you, but to me you'll always be low class.'
'Grazie.' He inclined his handsome head, his lashes still dark across the centres of his eyes. 'With a shrew for a mother and a brute for a father the pair of us can expect to have a charming infant!'
'It's your fault there's to be an infant at all,' she rejoined bitterly. 'Nothing could be harder to bear than having your child inside me. A child should be made with love, and this one is already branded with hate.'
'Not mine,' he said quickly. 'It wasn't one of the worst experiences of my life, having you in my arms. You're very lovely—'
'For God's sake stop it!' She flung a hand over her eyes and turned her head away from him, gazing out blindly at the sheer white clouds bouncing by in a sky of incredible blueness. The plane dropped a little, then rose again and her stomach heaved. No… no, she mustn't be sick. Not in front of Rome. It was bad enough that she felt so queasy when she first woke up, the physical proof that she was bearing his child, so mortifying when she looked in the mirror and saw her own pallor and the tiny beads of sweat on her skin. And there would be more to suffer! Her body would fill out and grow heavy, and that unwanted burden inside her would sap her energy and take the youthful spring out of her walk and the lustre out of her hair. She would look horrible, and then would come the painful, sweating business of giving birth!
A shudder went through her body. It would be different if she wanted the baby… if she loved the man who had given it to her. 'Are you feeling all right?' His fingers closed upon her arm. 'Come, Julia, if you wish to be sick—'
'Shut up and go to hell!' she said fiercely, pulling free of his touch. 'I don't want you or your concern. Leave me alone!'
'You know I can't do that, so don't be childish, Julia. What has to be, will be, and we have to make the best of it.'
'All right for you, Rome. Your body hasn't been violated!'
'Santo Dio, do you have to say such things?'
'Do they hurt, Rome?' She turned to look at him curiously. 'Can you actually feel them pricking your insensitive skin? I'd never stop saying them if I thought that was possible. It would be a gratifying way to pass the time I must spend with you.'
'I won't take too much goading,' he warned her. 'Push me too far and you already know what happens.'
'Yes, Rome, you use brute force. I imagine it's in you. The Romans were never very gentle, were they? Look what they did to the Sabine women, not to mention those poor devils they fed to the lions. Isn't it true that we are what our forebears have been?'
'No doubt the Van Holdens kept slaves for years,' he said sarcastically. 'Your grandmother certainly took it for granted that other people were around to take her orders. But maybe you wouldn't be aware of that. She obviously spoiled you and your sister and turned the pair of you into pretty little dolls, too rare -to be touched by human hands. I remember the boys at your sister's party, wearing kid gloves to handle the little girls in their satin dresses. Kids who grow up thinking there are two types of women, those they must treat like art objects, and those they pay for an hour's fun.'
'You'd know all about that, no doubt,' Julia said coldly.
'On the contrary,' he gave a soft laugh, 'I've never had to pay a woman.'
'How flattering for your ego!'
&nbs
p; 'No, my dear, I flatter women by treating them as such. I wouldn't insult them by presuming they have feelings as fragile as glass, and that only the male of the species has senses that can give him pleasure. That's why the girls of your class develop into dissatisfied harridans, it's because they've never known what it feels like to be treated as sensual women, with desires that need the human touch. They become brides in clouds of lace and silk, and then are initiated into wifehood with swift cool politeness by a bridegroom who believes that if his bride has social pedigree then she has no sex.'
Rome lit one of his dark Italian cigars and quirked an eyebrow at her. Julia knew what he meant… to him all women were the same, whether from her background or the backstreets of Naples. He had never treated any of them with swift cool politeness when he took them in his arms.
'You're quite the Lothario, aren't you?' she said, a certain fine disdain showing on her face. 'I prefer a man who has more of an objective in life than proving his machismo at every opportunity.'
'Like strolling around art galleries and writing literate pieces for the art magazines?' he drawled. 'I doubt if even you, my dear, would have found that very thrilling after a while.'
'What do you mean?' she asked. 'I enjoyed my work and people I met in the course of it—'
'Wineman the art critic in particular, eh? What does it feel like to be kissed by someone who looks as if he has pale blue ink in his veins?'
'Paul isn't the sort who grabs hold of a woman and forces himself upon her. He's a gentleman—and if you don't mind I'd like to change the subject. I find it offensive discussing my good friends with you.'
'You're a bit of a snob, Julia, but that's to be expected when you grew up in the care of a woman like Blanche Van Holden. It's a wonder she didn't ruin you entirely.'
'She left that to you,' Julia retorted. 'If anyone has had a bad effect on my character, then it's you, Rome. I never knew I had an edge to my temper until I met you.'
Desire Has No Mercy Page 3
