Means to an End

by Lucy Gillen

  money, and she almost regretted it even as she spoke, but he was smiling again. ‘You like to be a lady of leisure?’ he asked.

  Alison shrugged, attempting to laugh off her sudden agitation. `I’m enjoying it so far,’ she admitted. `Although I’ve no idea how long I can keep it up with your hand on the purse-strings.’

  `You hate having my hand on the—purse-strings?’ he suggested, and she shrugged again.

  `It’s not a very flattering state of affairs,’ she told him. ‘It makes me feel like—well, like a kept woman.’

  He laughed then and shook his head slowly. ‘And you would much rather be a meccanica, huh?’

  This was her chance, Alison thought wildly. She would never have a better one, and he was as amenable as he would ever be, lazing here in the sun and talking to her much more frankly than he had ever done before. She felt that she knew him better now, after these few minutes, than she had in all the three months she had known him. She said nothing for a moment, however, then she sat upright, taking a handful of sand and letting it run through her fingers as she spoke.

  ‘Will I ever have the chance to be a meccanica, Stefano?’ she asked.

  He was silent for so long that she began to think he was not intending to answer her at all, then he too sat upright and took off his sunglasses, his arms hugging his knees to him, not looking at her but down at his clasped hands.

  `Is that what you really want, piccola?’ he asked

  softly, and she felt a sudden, strange sense of doubt in her heart when she thought of it.

  She had never been in any doubt what she wanted until now. ‘It—it’s what Danny wants,’ she told him, not committing herself for the moment.

  ‘But it is your money.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He turned his head and looked at her and for a moment she tightened her fingers on another handful of trickling sand, as it slid between her fingers. ‘You know it is, cara mia.’

  ‘Then why won’t you let me have enough to buy the garage for Danny?’

  He said nothing for a moment or two, then looked at her again with eyes that were quite serious and, unbelievably, a little sad. ‘Because it is for Danny and not for you,’ he said quietly.

  ‘But of course it is.’ She tried hard to think of some way to make him see it as she saw it. ‘Danny wants to own a garage, Stefano, and I think he’ll make a go of it, given the chance. I don’t think he’ll ever manage it without my help, and it seems to me that I’m the one person who should help him most.’

  ‘Because you are going to marry him?’

  ‘Because I’m going to marry him.’

  He held her gaze steadily and disconcertingly. ‘You love him?’ he asked, and she nodded.

  ‘I’m going to marry him.’

  He reached over and lifted her chin, trying to make her look at him again, but she found herself oddly reluctant to do so. ‘That is the answer you gave me when I asked you the same question before,

  piccola,’ he told her softly. ‘It is not really an answer.’

  ‘I’ve—I’ve known Danny a long time.’

  He shook his head, his hand still under her chin. ‘That too is an evasion and not an answer,’ he said. ‘Why do you not answer me, piccola ?’

  Alison shook her head, using a hand to free herself of his hold, but he turned the hand she pulled away from her face, and curled the fingers over hers. For a long moment he looked at her, his black eyes glistening like coals, and she knew she made some soft, vague murmur of sound when he moved, and took her other hand in his, pulling her close to him.

  ‘Stefano ! ‘

  She felt, an unreasoning panic suddenly as he pushed her down into the shifting softness of the sand, his hands now on her shoulders, pushing down until it felt as if the ground was sinking under her and his mouth stilled even the small sound she made. She fought him briefly, and struggled for breath, then suddenly yielded to the urgency that emanated from him and slid her hands up round his black head, drawing him down closer until the throbbing beat of her heart pounded wildly in her head and her mind whirled chaotically.

  Quite suddenly, it seemed, he released her, and she opened her eyes again to see the dark face still close, to her own, but wearing an expression she could not immediately interpret, and she gazed at him for a moment in silence, the sun warm and dry on her face. `I—I suppose I should be angry,’ she said then, her voice strangely husky and not sounding like hers at all.

  The black eyes strayed slowly over her face, lingering on her mouth so that she though he might kiss her again, and half smiled. ‘You should be angry,’ he said. ‘I am trying to think why you are not.’

  She laughed softly, looking at him from under her lashes, and most reluctant to move. `Do you think I should be?’

  This time his gaze stayed firmly with hers, and she thought there was a harder, less gentle look about it. ‘If you are going to marry your Danny, most certainly you should be angry,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’m angry.’

  He still rested on one elbow, only inches away. ‘Or have you some ulterior motive for not being angry?’ he asked softly, and laughed. ‘Is it that you are so determined to have that money that you are even prepared

  She hastened to deny whatever it was he had in mind before he voiced it, and she really was angry now that she realised what he thought of her. ‘That’s monstrous ! ‘ she declared, sitting up so quickly that her cheek brushed against his, making her shy away as if she had been stung.

  ‘Do you deny that you have been ‘ he shrugged

  expressively, ‘nice to me, lately?’ he asked.

  She said nothing for a moment. It was most disconcerting having him analyse her intentions so accurately and she could have curled up there and then and sunk through that shifting sand with embarrassment. Instead she jerked up her chin after a moment or two and glared at him defiantly, her eyes bright and blue as jewels as she admitted it. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t deny it ! I have been trying to

  make you change your mind.’ She saw him smile and only refrained from hitting him with difficulty. ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ she told him. ‘That’s an old saying we have in this country.’

  ‘And this is love?’ he asked quietly, too quietly, she thought.

  ‘Yes! ‘

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, then smiled slowly. ‘Then it is war, too, piccola,’ he told her. ‘Because I still do not believe you are asking for that money for the right reasons.’

  She curled her hands into tight little fists and glared her frustration at him. ‘I don’t care what you believe,’ she told him. ‘You have no right to deprive me and Danny of that money just because you like playing—playing lord and master. That money is mine and we have a right to it.’

  ‘Only if I say so.’

  ‘Oh ! Oh, you unreasonable, stubborn ‘ She

  got to her feet, clumsily and with a sudden gasp of pain because she had for the moment forgotten about her injured foot, and stood looking down at him. ‘I’d like to go home,’ she said haughtily. ‘Right now.’

  He made no move, but merely looked up at her and smiled. ‘Not when you demand to go like that,’ he told her with infuriating calm.

  She was trembling and her hands were clenched tightly at her sides. It was difficult to believe that only a matter of minutes ago she had been in his arms and allowing, even wanting, him to kiss her. She glared down at him, still relaxed and easy on

  the sandy beach. ‘Will you please take me home?’ she said.

  ‘When we have been here such a short time?’ ‘Now!’

  He sighed deeply, but looked quite undisturbed by her anger. ‘I wish you would not show off,’ he told her calmly. ‘Come and sit down again.’

  ‘I won’t sit down, because I’m not staying,’ she declared, and he shrugged and smiled.

  ‘Then you will have a very long walk, piccola.’ She stared at him, unbelieving. ‘You—you mean you won’t take me home?’

&
nbsp; ‘When I am ready, yes.’

  ‘How very gallant ! ‘ she jeered.

  The black eyes regarded her from beneath half-closed lids and she could have sworn that he was laughing at her, except that his expression was quite serious. `I do not feel very gallant at the moment,’ he told her. ‘If you will sit down and be patient for a little while I will take you home and you can make a vow never to come out with me again.’

  ‘I’ll certainly do that ! ‘ she retorted, and he laughed.

  ‘Poor Alison,’ he said. ‘How many times must I tell you, piccola, you cannot win?’

  Reluctantly she sat down again on the sand, and after a moment or two she looked at him through her lashes and saw him smiling at her. ‘I’ve only just realised,’ she told him with every appearance of being serious about it, ‘how much I hate you, Stefano Illari. I wish I’d never seen you or bothered about Great-Grandpa’s money. Danny and I can manage

  quite well without it and ‘ She stopped suddenly

  in mid-sentence and put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide and shocked.

  ‘Alison?’ He looked at her anxiously, one hand reaching out for hers. ‘What is wrong?’

  ‘Danny,’ she said in a flat voice of resignation. ‘I forgot all about Danny coming to see me.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘AN hour and a half,’ Danny said, for what seemed to Alison like the thousandth time. ‘I waited there a whole hour and a half for you to come back. I’ve never felt such a—a silly idiot in my life as I did with your aunt sitting there feeling sorry for me.’

  Alison looked suitably contrite, or hoped she did, for if she was honest about it, she was beginning to get a little tired of hearing him complain about her absence. She had known Danny would be angry, as soon as Aunt Celia told her that she had found him home, and driven him up to Creggan Bar to see her, as she had promised, only to find Alison not only missing but, worse, in the company of Stefano Illari. But she had not expected him to be quite so complainingly garrulous on the subject.

  Aunt Celia had said little about her ‘own feelings in the matter, but Alison suspected that she was probably more annoyed than her manner betrayed, although whether on Danny’s behalf or her own was difficult to guess. She had been willing enough to drive Alison down to the village, however, and had even offered to fetch her back again when she was ready.

  ‘I’m sorry, Danny, I truly am sorry,’ Alison told him, also for the thousandth time, it seemed. ‘That’s why I came down here to see you tonight, so that I could explain and apologise.’

  She had even taken the unprecedented step of

  calling at Danny’s home to see him since she had not arranged to meet him that evening, and she was so sorry about forgetting him. His mother had been surprised, to say the least, to see her standing there on the doorstep, and her aunt just driving off, but she had invited her in, and Danny had received her in the sitting room, though not very graciously.

  ‘You know how I dislike going up to Creggan Bar,’ he said, yet again, and Alison sighed.

  It was obvious, she thought ruefully, that he had not even listened to her apologies and explanations, but was intent on letting her know how humiliated he had been. ‘I know you do,’ she said patiently.

  ‘You asked me to come and see you and then promptly cleared off somewhere with Illari, and forgot all about me,’ he said. ‘Very flattering, I must say.’

  ‘Oh, Danny, I’m sorry ! ‘ She looked at him appealingly, in spite of the fact that she was rapidly losing patience with him and his non-stop complaints. ‘I don’t know what more I can say, except that I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you can’t blame me for being mad at you?’ She shook her head. `No. No, I don’t blame you at all.’

  He looked at her for a moment in silence, as she sat there with her hands in her lap, perched right on the edge of a chair in his mother’s seldom used front room. Then he left his own chair and came and crouched down beside her, one hand lifting her chin, trying to get her to look at him.

  ‘I love you,’ he said softly at last, and leaned over and kissed her mouth lightly.

  `Danny ‘ She looked into his eyes at last, but only briefly before the memory of a very different kind of kiss made her hastily lower her gaze again.

  He slid his hand under her hair and laid it gently against her face and neck, his fingers caressing, smiling at her. ‘I was mad because you forgot me,’ he told her, ‘but mostly I think it was because you were with him. Why did you go with him, darling?’

  `Because I was trying to do as you wanted me to, I suppose,’ she said, and he looked at her curiously, the caressing fingers stilled for a moment.

  `What I wanted you to do?’ he asked. ‘What do you mean?’

  She shook her head slowly, wondering if she could explain just what had made her go with Stefano in the first place, apart from the boredom of staying indoors. It was difficult to know why she had simply gone off with him without giving Danny a second thought, without even considering Aunt Celia, if Stefano had not reminded her to leave a message for her. She supposed that somewhere in the back of her mind there must have been the notion of pleasing Stefano, so that he would be in a more yielding frame of mind and perhaps let them have the money they wanted. But if she was quite honest about it, she would have to admit that the money had not been her prime motive.

  ‘It was you who suggested I should be—nice to Stefano,’ she reminded him, feeling a little guilty to be off-loading the blame on to him, when he was apparently the injured party. ‘I thought a trip in the boat might—mellow him a bit.’

  `Oh, I see.’ He looked more amiable about it now

  that he knew her reason concerned him, and he looked at her shrewdly, his light blue eyes anxious that she should have been successful in her mission, so that his wasted journey would have been worthwhile after all. ‘Did it work?’ he asked. ‘What did he say about it?’

  She remembered only too well what Stefano had said about it, but she did not propose relaying it word for word. She also remembered what he had to say about her attempted subterfuge too, and she shook her head dolefully.

  ‘He said quite a lot,’ she told him. ‘None of it very flattering, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘What’s more,’ Alison went on, heaping on the agony, ‘he guessed what I was trying to do. I gather I’m not very good at the femme fatale business.’

  Danny stared at her in dismay. ‘Oh no ! ‘

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But what on earth did he say?’

  She shrugged uneasily, remembering the moment that had led up to Stefano’s discomfiting guess. ‘He just said that I must have some ulterior motive for not—I mean for being—well, pleasant to him.’

  He flopped himself down in his own chair again, looking utterly miserable, his chin propped on one fist, his mouth drawn down at its corners disconsolately. ‘Which means that he’s going to be on his guard and twice as hard to get near in the future,’ he bemoaned. ‘Couldn’t you have been a bit more subtle, darling?’

  ‘I was trying to be subtle,’ Alison told him defensively.

  ‘Then how did he guess what you were up to?’

  ‘I don’t know how he guessed,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’m just not very good at deceiving people.’

  He looked across at her. ‘Will you keep trying?’

  She might have known it, she thought ruefully. Danny would not give up easily when he really wanted a thing. ‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Although I don’t hold out much hope, now that he realises what I’m up to.’ She remembered something else then and hastily avoided his eyes. ‘There is something else,’ she said, and he looked at her curiously. ‘I—I seem to remember saying something about us managing without the money,’ she confessed, and he stared at her unbelievingly.

  ‘You said what?’ he asked.

  ‘I—I told him I wished I’d never heard of Great-Grandpa’s money, and that we could manage quite well without it.’
/>   ‘Alison, are you raving mad?’

  ‘Probably ! ‘ she retorted, wishing he could have been a bit more understanding about it.

  ‘What on earth made you say that?’

  ‘Oh—I don’t know ! ‘ She looked down at her hands, held tightly together in her lap, the fingers taut and white-boned. ‘I was angry with him,’ she went on, when he did not speak and she found the silence unbearable. ‘I was so angry I felt like—like ‘

  ‘Throwing away our chances,’ he observed tartly, and Alison suddenly felt like crying. She felt suddenly as if she was trapped between the two of them, Danny and Stefano, and each just as stubborn as the other in his own way, One determined to get

  the garage he had set his heart on, and the other just as determined to withhold the means of getting it, while she was tossed between the two of them like a shuttlecock.

  ‘I do wish I’d never inherited the wretched money,’ she declared, a suspicious brightness in her eyes. ‘Or else that Great-Grandpa had really left it to me, instead of making me crawl to Stefano for every penny I need. It isn’t fair—I hate having to ask him, and most of all I hate having to be two-faced about the way I behave towards him. I’m no good at being a—a cheat just because you need—we need enough for your precious garage. I hate doing it!’ A tear rolled down her face dismally, and she was beginning to feel thoroughly sorry for herself. ‘Nobody bothers how I feel, caught between the two of you and getting the kicks from both sides. I wish I’d never heard of the wretched money ‘

  Danny was beside her again before she had finished speaking, his hands soothing her, holding her in his arms. ‘Poor darling!’ He kissed her mouth with more enthusiasm than finesse and smiled at her tearful face. ‘Don’t cry, my darling Alison, please don’t cry, my darling.’

  ‘I—I can’t help it,’ she said jerkily. ‘I’m fed up!’

  ‘Darling!’ He kissed her again, pulling her close so that her head was on his shoulder, her tearful face pressed against his neck. ‘Forget about it if it’s going to upset you this much. It isn’t worth it.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she argued tearfully.