Means to an End

by Lucy Gillen

  feared she might change her mind. ‘Oh, he’d come,’ she told her. ‘Have no fear about that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alison sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose he would.’

  Aunt Celia got up from the bed suddenly, and lifted her chin with one hand, smiling down at her. ‘You have your bath and dress, darling,’ she told her, ‘and maybe Stefano will take you for a run in the boat, after breakfast.’

  ‘Oh no ! ‘ She thought her aunt frowned over her swift refusal, but she was smiling when she turned in the doorway.

  ‘See how you feel,’ she said, and went out of the room.

  Stefano and Aunt Celia had almost finished their breakfasts when Alison came down for hers. She had delayed as long as possible in the hope that Stefano would have had his breakfast and gone, but they both looked up when she came in.

  ‘Good morning.’

  She addressed herself to Stefano, and he smiled at her with such gentleness and understanding that she found it harder than ever to contain the tears that still gave her eyes a misty look.

  ‘Good morning, piccola,’ he said softly, reverting to his favourite name for her, and producing another threat to her self-control. ‘How are you this morning?’

  ‘I’m—I’m all right, thank you.’ She refused breakfast when it was offered, but had coffee and stirred it absently while she kept her eyes carefully lowered. It was even more difficult to face him than she had anticipated and she could not, no matter

  how much she thought she should, congratulate him as she had Aunt Celia.

  ‘I would like to—to apologise,’ he said slowly and carefully, as if it was a new experience to him. ‘I think perhaps I did something last night towards

  ‘Please,’ Alison interrupted hastily, shaking her head, ‘I don’t want to talk about last night.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It—it doesn’t matter.’

  There was silence for a few moments, a heavy, rather tense silence, then he turned to her again and smiled in a way that made her feel as if her head was spinning. ‘It is a beautiful morning,’ he told her. ‘I thought perhaps you would like to come with me to the boat, huh? We could go for a ride, round as far as Heron’s Point, if you would like to.°

  ‘I—I don’t think I will, thank you,’ she told him, and sensed rather than saw the look he exchanged with her aunt.

  ‘It would do you good to have a blow on the water, darling,’ Aunt Celia told her gently. ‘Why don’t you go?’

  She wished Aunt Celia, of all people, would not be so insistent, and the fingers holding her coffee cup showed white bones at the knuckles. ‘I—I don’t think I should,’ she told her, sensing that both her aunt and Stefano were puzzled by her reason.

  ‘But why on earth shouldn’t you?’ Aunt Celia asked, while Stefano’s black eyes watched her with a gentle curiosity.

  Alison sipped her coffee, wondering if she had ever felt more miserable in her life. ‘I—I just don’t

  think I should, that’s all,’ she told her.

  Those familiar, strong brown fingers reached out and curled round her hand gently. ‘Don’t you trust me, amante mia?’ he asked softly, and she felt the colour flood into her cheeks betrayingly as her heart began a heavy, painful throbbing under her ribs, and she shook her head.

  ‘Please don’t—please don’t question me,’ she begged huskily. ‘I don’t want to come with you, Stefano. Please don’t—don’t ask me again.’

  ‘Alison! ‘ He said no more, but she knew without looking at him that he was more hurt than offended by her adamant refusal to go with him, and she wished she had worded it in some other way. She had not the slightest wish to hurt him—in fact she would have done anything rather than hurt him, but she could not tell him that, and it was impossible for her to go with him just as if nothing was different.

  It did not come as a shock to her, for it was the only logical reason why she had been so unwilling to see him married to her aunt, but for the first time she faced the fact that she was in love with him. It was a love completely different from the one she had imagined she had for Danny, and it hurt like a physical pain when she thought of what it would do to her to see him happily married to Aunt Celia.

  ‘Alison—’

  That familar and enchanting stress on the second syllable of her name was her undoing. ‘Please—please will you excuse me?’ she whispered as the tears poured down her cheeks again. ‘I don’t feel—’ She hurried out of the room blindly, and

  hesitated only briefly before going out of the back door and down the grassy slope to the headland.

  She stood there for a few moments, poised on the very edge of the tall grey headland like a bird ready for instant flight, then she turned suddenly and walked quickly down the-incline towards the beach, not really knowing where she was going, or caring, as long as it was away from the house and the situation she found unbearable.

  The tide was on the turn and the ruffled edge of it flowed like cream lace over the yellow sand, inviting and gentle, so that she felt the same old urge to walk through it, barefoot. Almost without realising what she was doing, she bent and took off her sandals, the morning-cold water rippling over her feet, soft as silk and oddly soothing.

  It did not matter very much where she was going, there was a whole length of beach with not a soul in sight, and she could go on for ever, or so she felt. The light wind lifted her hair from her neck and cooled her burning cheeks, so that she lifted her face to it, and closed her eyes as she walked.

  She had walked back along the beach until she was now immediately below the tip of the headland, and instinctively she raised her head and looked up. The edge of the promontory with its fringe of feathery grass was outlined against the blue of the morning sky, not yet brassy with the full heat of day, and as she looked at it through hazy eyes, she saw someone appear at the very edge and look down at her.

  A tall, dark figure that there was no mistaking and she felt her heart skip, almost in panic when

  she thought of him coming after her. She could not bear the sympathy he was bound to show, nor the gentle, consoling arm round her shoulders, so she merely shook her head when he chanced disaster to lean over and signal to her that she should wait for him.

  He disappeared, even as she turned her head, and she went walking on, faster now, so as to escape before he could gain the lower ground and catch her up. It would take him some time to come down the way she had come, but she seemed suddenly to be uncertain of her steps and once fell to her knees when she turned her head to see how much start she had.

  ‘Alison!’

  Hearing his voice behind her, almost whipped away by the wind, she stumbled again but refused to look back. She was breathing a little hard now and needed to slow down, but she did not want him to catch up with her. She would make a complete fool of herself, she knew, if he did, and she would not have him know how she felt, not for anything.

  ‘Alison!’

  He sounded so much nearer now and she just had to slow down, so that she was not surprised when he came up behind her and put his hands on her arms, bringing her to a halt, his own breathing warmly erratic against her face. ‘Alison!’

  She wanted nothing more than to turn to him, let him hold her in his arms, but she could not do that, not for both their sakes, so she struggled to evade him and managed to do so only because he had been caught unawares by her action.

  ‘Why?’ He spoke in that same hurt voice he had used at the house, and she felt the tears already starting in her eyes again. ‘Why, amante mia? What have I done that is so bad you will not even look at me?’

  ‘Stefano, please don’t!

  He turned her to face him then, his hands gentle but firm as he held her so that he could see the tears and the abject misery on her face. ‘Oh, carissima!’ he said softly, his black eyes unbelievably gentle as he looked at her. Bella amante mia! Why are you crying?’

  feel—’ She sought for reasons why she should feel so miserable, reasons she could tell
him.

  ‘You do not cry for that Danny, I know,’ he told her. ‘Celia told me that you had admitted you did not love him.’

  ‘I—I didn’t.’

  ‘Then why, cara mia?’

  ‘Because—’ She could not find the words, no matter how she tried, and she could do nothing about it when he pulled her into his arms and held her close against him, his face in the disordered cloud of dark hair below his chin.

  ‘Tell me,’ he coaxed, and Alison closed her eyes for a moment on the exquisite torture of knowing she must not let this go on.

  ‘I know—I know about Aunt Celia,’ she said huskily, pushing against his hold, although he did not release her completely, and the black eyes looked vaguely puzzled by her words, she thought.

  ‘I know too,’ he told her. ‘I am sure she will be very happy. But I do not understand, amante, what

  this has to do with you being so unhappy. Do you not like to think that Celia is to be married again? That is a very selfish thing for you to feel, piccola mia.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind her being married,’ she told him. ‘It’s just that—that—oh, please! Don’t question me! Let me go! ‘ She fought against his hold, but he refused to make escape easy for her, and pulled her close to him again, although he held her where he could still look down into her face and the tearful misery of her eyes.

  He bent his head suddenly and kissed her eyes gently, before he sought her mouth. It was a kiss that lasted so long and was so warmly exciting that she found herself responding to it, forgetting about everything else but being in his arms and loving him as she had never believed possible.

  His mouth was firm but gentle, and he kissed her throat and neck, whispering soft words that made no sense to her because they were in his own tongue, but they sounded sweet and beautiful and she closed her eyes, saying his name over and over again.

  It was not until far too long afterwards that she remembered suddenly and pulled away from him, her eyes wide with dismay at what she had done. ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘No, Stefano, no!’

  He looked at her, she thought, as if he would kiss her again and she pushed against him with both hands on his chest. ‘What is the matter with you, piccola?’ he asked.

  ‘Aunt Celia!’ she said, her huge blue eyes looking so contrite that he shook his head and smiled

  wryly down at her. ‘Oh, Stefano, how could you?’

  He sighed deeply and with Latin exaggeration, his black eyes glinting with a mixture of laughter and impatience. ‘I wish you would explain to me,’ he told her in his precise English, ‘what Celia has to do with us.’

  ‘But—’ She stared at him, a sudden and deliriously bright possibility dawning on her. ‘Aunt Celia,’ she said carefully, ‘is getting married.’

  He nodded, smiling. ‘And so am I, I hope.’

  Alison pushed at him again. ‘Oh, you—you monster! You Bluebeard! How could you be such a—a callous, unfeeling, selfish—’

  He silenced her very effectively and for quite a long time and when he allowed her to breathe again he lifted her chin with one hand and smiled down at her. ‘Now I see why you are so concerned about your aunt,’ he told her, and laughed, a deep, gleeful sound that throbbed against her as he pulled her close to him again.

  ‘You have no right—’ she began, but again he brought his mouth down on to hers and she felt no inclination at all to fight him.

  ‘Have you not noticed,’ he asked her several minutes later and when she had recovered sufficiently to realise what he was saying, ‘that Celia has spent an awful lot of time at the dentist’s lately?’

  Alison frowned, failing at first to see what possible bearing that could have on anything. ‘I don’t see—’ she began, then widened her dark-fringed eyes and stared at him. ‘You mean—’

  He kissed the end of her nose lightly, and laughed. ‘I mean, amante,’ he told her, ‘that your

  aunt’s dentist is a very good-looking man of about forty-five. Have you not seen him?’

  Alison shook her head, still in a daze. ‘No, I don’t have the same one. But why didn’t she tell me?’

  He shrugged. ‘I do not think she wanted to feel she was forcing you into Danny Clay’s arms,’ he told her. ‘If you had known how things were for her, you would have wanted to leave her free of her—chaperone duties and you would probably have been in much more of a hurry to marry your garage man.’

  Alison looked up at him reproachfully. ‘You’re being unkind,’ she told him. ‘And I would have been married to Danny by now, I expect, if you hadn’t been such a Scrooge about my money.’

  ‘I know you would have, piccola, that is why I did not let you have it, huh? I could not have you marrying that man with a car engine for a heart and who would have put you in overalls and kept your pretty nose inside an oily engine for the rest of your life. Besides,’ he added with a wicked gleam in his black eyes, ‘I wanted you for myself, and I knew you would come to me eventually if I could keep that little meccanico at bay.’

  ‘You wanted me?’ she questioned his choice of word with a raised brow and a disapproving pout.

  ‘Wanted you,’ he stressed, kissing the pout out of existence. ‘I love you, carissima, that is what I mean. My English is not so good.’

  ‘Your English is impeccable,’ Alison retorted. ‘And if I thought you meant—’

  ‘I love you, carissima, bella amante mia!’ He kissed her again for so long and so passionately that she could not find enough breath to argue with him when he looked down at her with his black eyes laughing wickedly. ‘You will marry me,’ he said, and she just nodded, wondering vaguely what she had done with the sandals she had been carrying, not even noticing that they had long since drifted off with the ebbing tide.