by Anne Mather
Of course, she occasionally saw Ben between times. Sometimes he came to England at his father's request, and once he attended a seminar in London, and stayed at Eaton Chare. One Easter, he had even spent two weeks in England, doing some research into medieval mysticism; but it wasn't the same. For one thing, her mother tended to commandeer his attention whenever she was around, and Cass had noticed how frequently Diana was around when Ben was in the house. In addition to which, she was prone to tell Cass to run along and do her homework whenever she attempted to involve Ben in conversation, and short of being rude to her mother there was little she could do.
But at Calvado she had him all to herself, at least for a good part of the time. And without her mother's daunting influence she was able to feel and act like an adult, and the fifteen years between them had never been a problem. On the contrary, Ben had always treated her like an equal, and although, as she grew older, her mother had protested that she really ought to spend her summers with them, her father had always been sympathetic when Cass had begged his support.
The year she had her eighteenth birthday, her father bought the villa in Bermuda, and the whole household was going to spend the months of July and August on the island. 'You ought to come with us,' Diana told her daughter impatiently, the night before Cass was due to leave for Italy. 'Your father's invited the Hammonds, and Roger Fielding. And you know he's only going because he expects you to be joining us.'
'I'm going to Calvado, Mummy,' Cass insisted, in the process of choosing which cassette tapes she wanted to take with her. 'Signora Scorcese's expecting me. I can't change my mind now. It would be rude.'
'It's a damn sight more rude of you to spend every summer with that woman and her son, instead of with your own family,' returned her mother shortly. 'And don't pretend you really care what Sophia thinks. You're only going because of Ben!' She grimaced. 'You're so transparent, Cass. I'd have thought you'd have got over that schoolgirl crush by now!'
Cass's face had flushed scarlet at this accusation, but luckily the phone had rung at that moment and Diana had gone to answer it, negating any need for her to find an answer. All the same, her mother's words had disturbed her, promoting as they did images of her own reactions to Ben. And, like a self-fulfilling prophesy, they had lingered in her thoughts, so that what had happened had acquired a certain inevitability.
At the start of the holiday, however, she had no difficulty in putting such thoughts to the back of her mind. Ben had met her off the plane, as usual, at the international airport in Pisa, and to begin with she had been so delighted to be with him again that she had forgotten all about Diana's warning. She had so much to tell him, so many anecdotes about Diana and her father, and about her last term at school, that she hadn't noticed any particular tension between them. They were together again; she was happy, and that was all that mattered.
But in the days that followed the situation changed. It was almost imperceptible at first: a certain reluctance on her part to relinquish his hand after he had helped her up the cliff; an awareness of the lithe muscularity of his lean body; a curious willingness to follow him with her eyes, so that sometimes, when he turned about and caught her looking at him, she was overcome with embarrassment.
Initially, she thought Ben was unaware of her aberrations. He took her swimming and sightseeing as usual, and to all intents and purposes their relationship was exactly the same as it had been other years. He teased her just as much as he had ever done, and as he seldom seemed to take her seriously it wasn't too difficult to hide her feelings.
But slowly their relationship was changing. And she thought Sophia sensed it almost before Ben did himself. Certainly, the Italian woman seemed to realise the dangers in leaving them alone together. She found reasons for accompanying them everywhere, even making the arduous trek up from the cove on occasion, after spending an uncomfortable couple of hours under the beach umbrella. She drew the line at entering the water, but she kept a watching brief from the shoreline.
However, it was impossible for her to supervise them all the time. They often spent days away from the villa, exploring the Tuscan countryside, and swimming from quiet bays, far from the haunts of other tourists. Although Cass never forgave Ben for scaring her at the wheel of the powerful little Porsche, she became resigned to its terrifying turn of speed, and she was always a willing passenger. By this means, she became as familiar with the area around Calvado as Ben was himself.
But, in the curious way of fate, when disaster struck, it struck at Calvado and nowhere else. What happened could have happened at any one of a dozen beaches along the Ligurian coast, but it didn't. On all those occasions when she and Ben had been completely alone together, nothing untoward had occurred. In her memory, those days were filled with sun and sea and happiness, and nothing else. Whereas, what happened at Calvado had had all the trappings of a nightmare.
Was that why she had remembered it now? she wondered. Maybe that was why she had had the dream. Because it reminded her of the day she and Ben had gone snorkelling together, and of how she had got into difficulties. Certainly, she had no difficulty in remembering what had happened afterwards. The events of that morning were etched on her brain in images of fire.
It was such a silly thing she had done. For once, Sophia had not accompanied them down to the cove, and after spending perhaps fifteen minutes sunbathing on the beach Cass had suggested swimming across to the rocks at the other side of the bay, below the Benedictine abbey. It was quite a swim, but she knew the waters around the rocks were teeming with wildlife, and Cass was too restless to remain where she was. She wanted to swim; she wanted to burn off some of the surplus energy that was streaming through her veins like liquid oxygen. She wanted to test her strength until she was utterly exhausted. Maybe then she'd be able to relax, instead of living on the edge of emotional purgatory.
Ben had been reluctant to accompany her. He was quite content to lounge in the sun, one arm raised to protect his eyes from the glare, the other resting casually on his thigh. He looked so attractive lying there, she thought shamefully, his lean body bathed in a fine film of sweat. She didn't know exactly what she wanted, but the knowledge that he could be so indifferent to her feelings filled her with defiance.
'Are you coming?' she demanded, twisting her plait of hair up on to the top of her head and securing it with a comb. 'If you're too lazy to move, I shall go on my own. I can't lie here all morning. It's too—too boring!'
Ben groaned, and pushed himself up, sitting cross-legged on his towel. 'You're bored?' he echoed, squinting up at her. 'That's new, isn't it? As I recall it, you used to spend literally hours lying in the sun!'
Cass shrugged and reached for the face mask and breathing tube Ben had bought her. 'Perhaps I'm getting too old to lie on the beach,' she declared, ignoring his wry look of disbelief. 'In any event, I want some action. Are you coming, or aren't you? Make up your mind.'
'Well, you can't go on your own,' declared Ben flatly, getting to his feet, and she glared up at him.
'Why not? Don't you think I'm old enough?'
'Age has nothing to do with it,' he retorted, bending to pick up his own snorkelling equipment. 'OK. Let's go. Far be it from me to hold you back.'
It was a strenuous swim by any standards, and Cass had never attempted it before. The exploration they had once made of the rocks below the abbey had been achieved by circling the bay on foot, and entering the sea at Punta St Michel. Although she knew Ben had swum across the bay before, she had previously considered it was beyond her abilities, and half-way across she realised she wasn't going to make it. Her breathing was getting progressively laboured, and her legs were beginning to feel like lead. She badly wanted to turn back, but with Ben swimming strongly ahead of her she had to go on.
And then disaster struck. As she ploughed ever more deeply into the waves, sometimes submerging her breathing tube completely, her lungs were suddenly filled with sea-water. Som
ehow, the valve on her breathing tube had become faulty and, unable to breathe, panic enveloped her.
She surged to the surface, threshing about wildly as she tore off her face mask and struggled to get some air. But the water in her lungs was weighing her down, and when Ben glanced back all he could see was a flailing vortex of arms and legs.
She never did get the opportunity to ask him what he had thought at that moment. But she did remember his face was grim as he swam back to her, and she was pretty sure that anger gave him the strength to get her back to the cove. Whatever, she coughed and choked all the way back, hardly able to kick her legs to keep herself afloat, relying completely on Ben's life-saving hold. And when he finally dragged her into the shallows he was absolutely exhausted. He barely staggered up out of the water before collapsing on the sand, and for a few minutes Cass was left to cope with her own recovery.
She had little doubt that Ben had saved her life. Had she been alone when the accident happened, she would never have been able to swim back to the shore. Even now, panting on the beach, her lungs burned with the aftermath of the water's invasion, and she had no strength left to climb the cliff.
When Ben stirred himself some minutes later, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed. For a moment, she guessed, he was half afraid she was unconscious, for he knelt beside her and cradled her face between hands that still shook from his ordeal, and said her name in a low, strangled voice.
'Cass,' he muttered. 'Oh, Cass! Stai bene?'
Her eyes opened as he spoke, and the expression he was wearing overwhelmed her. His lean face was dark with concern, and there was such a look of haunted anguish in his eyes that she lost all ability to hide what she was feeling.
'Oh, Ben,' she breathed, lifting her hand, and sliding her fingers into the damp vitality of his hair. And then, hardly aware of what she was doing, she brought his face down to hers.
He resisted for a moment, but only for a moment. When his lips touched hers, the control he had been exerting seemed to snap, and with a muffled groan he stretched his length beside her. The warm wetness of his body lay half over hers, his weight flattening her breasts between them, and his mouth had explored hers with ever-increasing urgency.
She sometimes used to wonder what would have happened if Sophia had not appeared as she had. For those mindless moments of time before his mother came striding across the sand and tore them apart, Ben had been totally lost to his emotions. It was only Sophia's intervention that had brought him to his senses, and her malevolent accusations had rung in Cass's ears for many years to come.
Of course, she had had to leave. At once. Sophia wouldn't allow her to stay in her house a moment longer than it took her to pack her bags, and, although he had said little, Cass had known Ben endorsed his mother's demands. He hadn't even driven her to the airport. A taxi had been summoned from Porto Camagio, and Cass's last view of the villa had been through the rear window of an ancient Fiat, with Sophia keeping a grim vigil in the garden.
The next few weeks had passed in a kind of dream. The flight to Bermuda, the reckless way she had behaved with Roger, even her acceptance of his marriage proposal, had all been part and parcel of the emotional reaction she had suffered after the realisation of what she had done had really hit her. Her self-recrimination was crippling, and she felt sick every time she thought about what Ben must be thinking of her. He had always been so kind to her, so affectionate, never over-stepping the bounds of friendship, treating her with the tolerance of an older brother—which he was. But she had destroyed all that. She had taken his kindness—and Sophia's generosity—and thrown it in their faces. She had behaved abominably, and there were times when she truly wished she had died out there in the bay.
And then, when they returned to London, Ben came to see her.
She had already been wishing she had not accepted Roger's proposal, and when Ben appeared she had thought she was being given a chance to make her peace with him. She had been all prepared to accept the blame, to tell him it had all been her fault, and that she was so dreadfully sorry for the way she had behaved. But it hadn't happened like that.
She had been in her room when her mother had sent for her, and although, when she discovered that her mother was not alone, her initial reaction had been one of stunning relief, Ben's first words after Diana had left them had torn her hopes to shreds. He wasn't in London, as she had thought, to try and make peace between them. On the contrary, if anything his anger towards her seemed to have increased. He spent the next few minutes telling her what a spoilt, undisciplined, stupid little delinquent she was, and warning her to stay away from him from now on. He had been utterly unlike the Ben she was accustomed to, using words against her he had never used before, hurting her and humiliating her, until pride had revived her flagging spirit.
With a flourish, she had told him he was the stupid one, that he was making mountains out of molehills, that she hadn't given what happened a second thought. She also told him she was engaged to be married, and that he needn't flatter himself that she would be bothering him in future. She was going to be far too busy looking after her new husband.
After that, it had been a foregone conclusion that she would marry Roger. To back out would have been too humiliating and, besides, she had got a certain cruel satisfaction from sending Ben an invitation to the wedding. And he had come, much to her dismay. He had stood at the back of the church and listened to her make her vows to Roger, watching her walk down the aisle again afterwards with eyes that were curiously remote.
In the years that followed they had seen one another again, albeit infrequently. Cass had once accompanied Roger on a business trip to Genoa—at her father's suggestion—and Ben had been obliged to spend a couple of days with them. Not to do so would have inspired his father's antagonism, but Roger and Ben had never liked one another, and the exercise was not repeated.
Then, perhaps two years ago, Guido had invited Cass to join him on a trip he had to make to Florence, and they had stayed at the Villa Regina and spent several days with Ben.
But these were awkward occasions, at best. Ben saw to it that they were never alone together, and such conversation as they had was stilted, to say the least. The relationship they had once shared might never have been, and although there was no longer any animosity between them there was little sympathy either.
However, time had a habit of healing most things, and Cass's feelings towards Ben had always been ambivalent. Even when she told herself she hated him, she knew deep down inside her that it wasn't true. She couldn't hate Ben. He was too much a part of her; just as she had believed she was of him. And, as her marriage to Roger veered steadily on to the rocks, she had gradually come to believe that the only person who could help her was Ben. Those summers spent at Calvado had always seemed the happiest times of her life and, like an injured creature seeking a place to lick its wounds, she had returned to Italy, and the only man she had ever truly loved…
It was a damning admission, she knew, but as she thrust aside the covers and got out of bed her immortal soul meant less to her at that moment than the realisation that, once again, she was within a breath of losing everything.
It was three days since Ben had returned to the villa, but since that incident on the cliff path she had seen next to nothing of him. He was avoiding her, she knew: spending time with his mother, or working in the gardens with Carlo, refusing her invitations to go swimming, or driving, or simply to sunbathe on the terrace, with a chilling air of finality. He didn't want to be with her; he didn't even want to talk to her; he was immune behind the impregnable wall of his own invincibility.
For her part, Cass felt trapped, imprisoned, confined by the promise she had made Ben not to go down to the cove alone, yet unable to expunge her restless energies in any of the pursuits she loved. Oh, she had walked into the village a couple of times on errands for Maria, and no one objected to her spending all day, if she wished, exposing her body to the sun. But
her mind was never at peace. She felt constantly at war with her conscience, and she was beginning to wonder just how much more she could take.
Stretching, she came to a decision. Even Ben's wrath was better than his indifference. She would not spend another day vegetating on the terrace. Whether he liked it or not, she was going to go swimming, and the only way he was going to stop her was by locking her in her room.
CHAPTER NINE
BEN was enjoying his second cup of coffee of the day when Cass came stalking on to the terrace. If he was surprised to see her, she was obviously equally surprised to see him, which wasn't so unusual as he had made a point during the last few days of being long gone before she put in an appearance. But today, for some reason, she had decided to get up at an earlier hour, and a quick glance at his watch reassured him that it was barely seven o'clock.
He got to his feet at once, partly out of politeness, partly out of a desire to put as much distance between them as possible, but he found to his annoyance that she wasn't prepared to let him go.
'Sit down,' she said tensely. 'I want to talk to you.' And, when he didn't immediately obey her, 'Or are you too much of a coward to hear what I have to say?'
The accusation was unwarranted, but he sensed a determination in her to get through the carefully erected wall of indifference with which he had surrounded himself. One way or another, she was going to have her way, and although he knew the dangers he told himself it would do no harm to listen.
With a muscle jerking in his cheek, he sank back into his chair, and he saw the sudden relief that crossed her face. Evidently, she had not been as sure of herself as he had thought. It was obvious she was living on her nerves, and his conscience stirred uneasily at his own unwilling guilt.
Crossing his ankle across his knee, he endeavoured to appear relaxed, but with her eyes on him it wasn't easy. Since she had put on a little weight, her beauty had become a vibrant torment, and he hoped the interview would not last long in his present state of awareness. The skimpy bra of her bikini was scarcely a suitable covering and, beneath the baggy Indian cotton trousers she was wearing over the briefs, her long legs displayed a honey-gold tan. She looked sophisticated, exotic and disturbingly sensual. A slender, grey-eyed Venus, with the face of an angel.
