Desire Has No Mercy

by Violet Winspear

  Lucie frowned slightly as she studied Julia. 'I wasn't sure what he did for a living. Giovanni speaks English, but he isn't the sort to tell you much, and his wife is all Italian like those pizzas she makes. The daughter is a flighty one, with an eye for the men, so I can't say I have much to do with her. The name they've given her— Maddalena! If you ask me, she'll be living up to it!'

  'She works here in the house?' Julia asked.

  'If you can call flicking a duster round the rooms her main occupation,' Lucie said tardy. 'She spends half the day hanging around the gardener, who isn't all wrinkled and taciturn like old Jeffers who used to take care of your grandma's garden. This one goes around bare to the waist, with a gold chain around his neck and a tattoo of a pierced heart on his arm. He knows his job, but all the same he looks as if he belongs in a dance hall.'

  Julia smiled. 'Something of a Valentino, eh?'

  Lucie nodded, her gaze fixed upon Julia's face. 'You've lost that little-girl look I remember, Miss Julia, as if everything had a kind of wonderment. The bones in your face stand out in a lovely way, and you're so grown-up and elegant, but there's something—maybe a bit of grief still for your grandma.'

  'Yes,' Julia agreed quickly, 'I do miss her. Verna and I were with her such a long time.'

  Lucie nodded. 'It's only to be expected that you miss her, especially now you're a newlywed and would like her advice and approval.'

  'Do you honestly think she'd approve?' Suddenly Julia was laughing, but it was the kind of laughter on the edge of tears and she didn't dare to enjoy the self-pity which might lead to her confiding in Lucie. She had to remember that Lucie was employed by Rome and she, as his wife, owed him loyalty even if she didn't love him.

  'I'd better get a move on.' She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. 'Rome and I are dining in less than an hour and I guess he'll be annoyed if I spoil the meal by keeping him waiting. Oh, what shall I wear? There isn't time to unpack my case—Lucie, he's gone and crammed that wardrobe with clothes, so will you select a dress for me while I take a shower?'

  Ten minutes later she came out of the bathroom, onyx-tiled with a sunken tub, its pedestal basin, toilet and bidet in a water-lily pattern. Lucie had selected eau-de-nil undergarments to go with a long velvet dress in deep jade green, the charming simplicity of the style accentuated by a slim jewelled belt, the neckline softly rounded to show off Julia's creamy skin.

  Julia touched the velvet dress and hesitated. 'Perhaps something less dressy,' she murmured. 'It isn't as though we're having guests—'

  'Mr Rome chose the dress, miss.' Lucie picked it up and held it ready for Julia to step into. 'He came in a few minutes ago and took it off the wardrobe hanger himself. You'll want to please him—won't you?'

  Words of denial trembled on Julia's lips, and then with a slight shrug she allowed Lucie to assist her into the dress, which she had to admit fitted her perfectly. The skirt shimmered like the green colour in a peacock's fantail and Julia's fingertips stroked it as Lucie clasped the belt about her waist. How long would it be, Julia wondered, before it really began to show that she was carrying a child? So far there was only a minimal alteration in her contours, adding just a slight fullness to her hips and breast, and when she turned to the mirror she had to admit to herself that the dress was attractive on her… adding a slight voluptuousness Rome would notice at once.

  'Oh, you do look a picture, miss!' Lucie exclaimed. 'The signore certainly knows what suits you, and they say that's the sign of a really attentive man.'

  Julia's heart gave a disturbing throb. She had pleaded for Rome's inattentiveness, but she could see for herself that he would approve of her in the dress of his choice, which seemed to compliment the smooth creaminess of her skin and the ashen shine of her hair.

  Lucie went to the dressing-table, for Julia stood in front of a full-length mirror whose long oval frame was a moulding of gilded birds and imps. Through the mirror Julia saw Lucie open a small case and take from it something that gleamed in her fingers.

  'Mr Rome said you must wear this with the dress, miss. Isn't it charming?'

  Julia turned to Lucie, who was holding a necklace so it caught the light of the lamps. Strung on stems of gold were buds and flowers made of emeralds with diamond centres, and even as the female in Julia responded to the charm of the necklace, she resented passionately the way her husband was wooing her with expensive gifts… letting her know with each presentation that she was going to give him in return the pleasure of her body.

  She took a deep shaking breath, as if something constricted her heart. In every way he had bought her… first with the money Verna had lost to him, then with a wedding ring that saved her from indignity, and now with costly dresses and jewels. She had called herself his toy, and as if wound up with a little key that made her respond, she allowed Lucie to place the necklace around her neck and clasp its diamond catch.

  'You look lovely, Miss Julia.' Lucie smoothed the dress and the fair hair, which lay in a soft upcurl on the velvet. Julia wore very little make-up, and her mouth had a vulnerable curve to it. 'Everyone used to say your sister was prettier, but I always knew you'd grow up to be the elegant one. My, you should have your portrait painted just as you are! I wonder if the signore will think the same?'

  'I don't imagine so.' Rome, in Julia's cynical estimation, wanted a woman he could touch, not a painting of her to look at. He wasn't an artistic sort of man like Paul Wineman who appreciated elegance for its own sake, not as something he wanted to disorder with his hands, uncaring if nylon laddered, if silk ripped and soft skin bruised in an effort to escape the lips that stole a woman's right to surrender herself with love.

  Julia met Lucie's eyes and saw in them a kind of puzzlement, as if she was beginning to notice the lack of warmth and eagerness in Julia's attitude towards the man she had married.

  'I—I was always the reserved one, remember?' Julia applied a little perfume to her neck and wrists. 'In several ways Verna and I are unalike—I guess you could say she's the ardent one.'

  'Still waters run deep, miss.' Lucie gave Julia a careful scrutiny. 'It's in deep waters where the best fishing is supposed to be, and some men like it that way, so I've heard.'

  'You and your sayings,' Julia smiled. 'I am glad you're here, Lucie, to take care of me. Now the house doesn't feel quite so alien.'

  'My Bert always said I had a cheerful face. Now you go and have a nice dinner with the signore, out there on the terrazza in the moonlight. My, but he has grown up to be handsome! Gives even a middle-aged body like me a kick to look at that face of his, not to mention his fine figure. He's straight as the Guardsmen at the Palace.'

  'Do you miss London?' Julia asked. 'Didn't you want to go back there when you lost your husband?'

  'Not really, miss. I've worked too many years in America, and now this is quite a change for me, working in Italy. It's lovely and warm in this part of the country—there's something romantic about it.'

  'I always thought you had a romantic soul.' Julia's gaze settled on the bed that dominated the bedroom and she felt a tremor deep down inside her. There seemed so little romance in her marriage… she was here because she had no choice, and it wouldn't be too long before Lucie realised that she was going to have Rome's baby and that it had been conceived some weeks before their marriage.

  Resentment stirred again through Julia's body. She had been her own private person until fate had thrown her into Rome's ruthless arms… those arms which the Italian sun had tanned to a deep gold. His skin all over was a golden hue, holding in it a sensual warmth that Julia remembered, and ran from the bedroom in an effort to forget.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Julia stood poised at the head of the stairs, gazing down the long sweep of them to the hall. In a romantic novel she had read at charm school the heroine had fallen down a flight of stairs and lost her baby… she had wanted it and the husband had been the one who didn't care. Julia put out a hand and gripped the stair rail. It was crazy to compare r
eal life with fiction, and much as she wanted to be free of Rome she didn't fancy a broken neck in the process.

  One hand on the rail and the other holding the long skirt of her dress Julia descended the stairs with the unaware grace she had possessed even as a child. She had a natural air of composure which had always masked her hurts and bruises, and the only time she had cried in front of others had been at Verna's party… the memory was still so vivid, of a boy uninvited to join in the fun and games because he was the cleaning woman's son. Proud and fierce, he had flung her offering of ice-cream at her feet and when it splashed her shoes and white socks she had burst into tears. Maybe that was why her grandmother had been that extra bit angry, seeing her in tears when she so rarely gave way to them.

  Lost in her thoughts, Julia arrived at the foot of the stairs to find the object of her memories waiting there, and as always it was confusing to find the intense boy lost in the tall worldly man. Her eyes locked startled with his as she stood poised on the final step to the hall. His lean face was shaven except for the darkness of his sideburns and she felt deep inside her a movement, a spasm, as if within the womb his child reached out to him.

  It was unsettling and as if he sensed this Rome reached out and took hold of her hand. As he did so his eyes moved up and down her figure in the velvet dress.

  'You,' he murmured, 'are a lovely thing to see.'

  'So you've already informed me,' she said coolly.

  'Not in so many words, my dear.'

  'Your eyes do the speaking for you—they always did.'

  'I'm a grown up man now, Julia. If you gave me ice-cream now I wouldn't throw it back at you.'

  A warmth ran over her skin, for he gave the words a sensual meaning; her fingers tensed within his, but she only managed to pull her gaze from his. His dinner jacket was a deep aubergine colour, superbly tailored to his lean hard figure. Julia noticed the fine quality silk of his shirt and tie, the way his tapered trousers fitted without a crease. He was straight like a Guardsman, but with a supple, animal ease that Julia felt in him as he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and walked her across the hall and out upon the wide terrazza at the rear of the villa.

  It overhung the sea like the prow of a galleon, and was balustraded by a fretwork of iron. A circular table was set with fine china and silver on lace and so still was the night that candles had been lit in silver sticks. There were big terracotta pots against the parapet wall, in which flowers of various sorts spilled over the sides. Lanterns shone here and there on the terrace and shadows lit mysteriously a few remnants of Roman statuary.

  Over all hung the scent of the sea, and overhead the moon was awesomely full, like a great golden pendant attached to a string of diamonds, the stars that paled to obscurity beside that glowing orb.

  'What a night!' Rome exclaimed. 'Do you know that line of Browning's, "Open my heart and you will see graved inside of it, Italy"?'

  'I can see that America could never hold you,' Julia replied. 'You're an Italian in every cell of your body, aren't you? Looks, instincts, roots! You belong here, but I don't.'

  'A woman learns to adapt, Julia. Women are good at that because their roots can re-establish themselves in the man rather than the land.'

  'That remark is so arrogantly male,' she rejoined. 'As if without a man a woman is rootless.'

  'Most women are, my dear.'

  'And what do you call a man without a woman?'

  'A damned fool.' Rome's grey eyes were moonlit, and amused as they met hers. 'There isn't any part of a man that doesn't get pleasure from the woman he wants to be with. All his senses are involved… what he sees, touches, breathes, hears and speaks to. A woman pleasures the possessive instinct in a man.'

  'And yours is particularly potent, isn't it, Rome?' She slid into the chair and was very aware of him standing over her, her spine tensing as she felt his hand slide over her hair.

  'Yes, I like the feeling of being the owner of fine things,' he agreed. 'I like it very much that you have elegance and class, like this Versalini goblet.'

  He picked up the goblet, which had graceful patterns in the glass and was set on a shining stem. He moved it about in his fingers by the stem and there was a faint smile on his lips, and then abruptly his eyes met Julia's as he struck a fingernail against the crystal and it made a ringing sound. 'Aren't you going to thank me for the surprise you found upstairs?'

  Julia touched the necklace. 'It's very nice, thank you,' she said politely.

  His fingers tightened on the stem of the wine glass and she stared fascinated, for his fingers were strong enough to snap it. 'By God, Julia, I could take you by the neck when you put on that milady air of yours and don't really care a damn if I gave you nothing. Other women—'

  'Yes,' she broke in, 'what would other women do? Lick your shoes?'

  'Not my shoes, Julia.'

  She flushed and had an image of another woman in his arms, held milky-pale and yielding against the tawny gold skin, her lips moving in sensuous kisses over his body. There was no doubt in Julia's mind that what she imagined had often been a reality. The warmth in Rome's skin went deep into his flesh and bone and he would always have needed the touch of a woman. She remembered how his mother used to look when she brushed the tousled black hair out of his eyes after he came back from running an errand, or had been helping old Jeffers in the garden. There had been pride and love and a hint of fear in Mrs Demario's eyes, as if she had known that the force of life would be powerful in her son as he grew up to be a man and there would be no way she could keep him safe from women and danger.

  Both had been attracted to Rome, and Julia knew it as she watched him replace the lovely wine glass on the lace tablecloth.

  'I wasn't thinking of the necklace,' he drawled.

  Julia caught her breath as comprehension struck her. 'You mean Lucie?'

  'Of course I mean Lucie.' He strolled round to his own chair, beside which stood a stand with a silver bucket holding a bottle of wine. He withdrew the bottle from the ice and took a look at the label, nodded his satisfaction and sat down. 'Are you pleased with her, at least?'

  'Oh yes.' This time there was fervency in Julia's voice. 'I was so surprised to see her after all this time—what made you think of asking her to come to Italy?'

  'I thought you would like with you someone you had known as a child and trusted.' He caught and held Julia's gaze across the table. 'I know it isn't easy for a girl when she's having her first baby. You will have need of the good Lucie. She's kind and sensible and she knows your little ways better than anyone. She was probably more of a mother to you than your tartar of a grandparent, who always looked as if she was locked body and feelings into whalebone.'

  'Grandma was good to Verna and me. It was a great shock to her when our parents were killed on that safari during the Kenya uprising. It wasn't until I grew older that I learned about the Mau-Mau and what they did to white people who fell into their hands.'

  'I know.' His face went sombre. 'Put it out of your mind, carina. Don't be haunted by it.'

  'In case I damage your child, Rome? I've heard that one about beautiful thoughts making beautiful babies, so I'll think about that night in Naples instead.'

  'Santo Dio!' He banged a hand down on the table and shook the china and stemware, and made the candle flames quake in the silver sticks. 'Can't we ever enjoy a meal without a mention of Naples, and what you like to think of as my animal lust?'

  'It's why I'm here,' she retorted. 'I don't happen to prefer a dinner a deux with you to being with friends of my own choosing, whose company I find congenial.'

  'You no doubt have the aesthetic and courtly Paul Wineman on your mind.' Rome raised his left eyebrow in a sardonic way. 'I'll permit him to be there, but elsewhere is my province. Quite frankly, I couldn't imagine that he'd know what to do with a woman if he ran out of artistic conversation.'

  'Don't judge Paul by your standards,' she rejoined. 'Machismo isn't everything in a man—some women find it a bit
of a bore.'

  'Not those I've known, donna mia.'

  'Dance hall girls and silly women who bet on bad numbers?'

  'By the saints—' Abruptly he laughed. 'They should have named you Kate, not the sweeter name of Julia, which sounds like Juliet.'

  'Romeo and Juliet!' It was her turn to laugh. 'They should have named you Tarquin!'

  The amusement fled his eyes and suddenly they were like hot steel in his dark face. 'I didn't pounce on you in the dark, my dear. You asked for a levelling when you called me lowdown. I don't take that kind of talk from anyone, least of all from a Van Holden. Didn't you realise, you little fool, that you had those IOUs almost in the palm of your hand? I was going to give them to you after I'd made you plead a little, but you had to let me know how superior you thought yourself. Superiority has no defence against nature, has it, Julia? It got the better of both of us for I'm usually in better control of that kind of situation.'

  'Meaning?' She flung up her chin as she looked across at him.

  'Meaning, my dear, that I don't usually get the girl into trouble. You must have gone to my head.'

  'Your head, Rome?'

  He stared at her and she heard the catch of his breath. 'Watch out, Julia, or you might become human.'

  'It's because I'm darned well human that I'm stuck with you!' She forced her gaze from his and glanced over to where those remnants of statuary caught the moonlight on their pale stonework. 'I—I hate bits and pieces of stone torsos, but you Latins seem to find them fascinating.'

  'Mainly because sculpture was quite an art in Italy and Greece.' He broke a breadstick and crunched it. 'Michelangelo thought the male body one of the supreme creations, but I take the opposite view. The touch of a woman by soft lamplight is comparable only to perfect pizza and hot melting cheese—ah, and here comes Giovanni with some of that good Italian food! Che bello! It smells good!'

  Julia felt her own hungry response to the appetising pasta e fagioli which was served to them in earthenware bowls, a soup crammed with chopped vegetables and spaghetti, thick, spicy and hot. Chunks of home-baked bread were placed on the table and the chilled wine was poured into the Versalini glasses.