by Sara Craven
‘Oh, no,’ Flora said swiftly. ‘Aldleigh Manor sounds really wonderful. But it might be fully booked.’
‘They have a room for us,’ he said quietly. ‘Overlooking the lake. I must confess I already made the reservation. Although it can always be cancelled if you wish?’
‘Certainly not.’ Flora threw him a wicked grin. ‘I can’t wait to see it. And if it’s anything short of paradise I shall know who to complain to.’
‘You’re very quiet,’ she commented as they edged their way out of London.
‘I am concentrating on my driving,’ Marco returned after a pause. ‘Remember that for me the gear shift—the road—everything is on the wrong side. And if I scratch Vittoria’s darling—Madonna!—I’ll be a dead man. And I have people depending on me back in Milan.’
‘Are accountants really that important?’ she teased.
‘Only when they are as good as I am, mia bella.’ He slanted a grin at her.
He really had no need to worry, she thought. He was a marvellous driver, considerate with other traffic, and not using the powerful car as an extension of his virility.
All she had to do was sit back and admire his profile, and bask in the envious glances of people toiling along hot pavements.
The hotel was important enough to be signposted.
‘Oh,’ Flora said. ‘It has a golf course.’
‘Well, that need not concern us,’ Marco said, turning the car between tall stone gateposts. ‘Unless you wish to hire clubs and play?’
‘No, thanks,’ she said hastily. It was just a reminder of Chris that she didn’t need, she thought, guilt piling in again. Well, perhaps she could find some reason to tell Marco she didn’t like the place, and persuade him to drive somewhere else.
But it was difficult to know what she could possibly object to, she thought, as the building itself came into view from the long curving drive. It was three storeys high, its grey stones lit by the late afternoon sun which gave the mullioned windows a diamond sparkle. The commanding entrance was made more welcoming by the urns of bright flowers which flanked it.
As Marco drew into one of the parking spaces allotted to hotel guests a porter instantly emerged to take their bags.
They were shown into a vast foyer, made cool by arrangements of tall green plants and dominated by a massive central staircase.
Through an open door Flora could see people sitting in a pretty lounge, enjoying afternoon tea.
She touched Marco’s arm. ‘That looks nice.’
He smiled at her. ‘I’ll have some sent up to our room. Wait for me here, cara, while I register.’
As he went to the desk Flora took off the scarf she’d been wearing and shook her hair free. She looked around her, noting where the lifts were and spotting discreet signs indicating the cocktail bar, the dining room and the leisure club. According to the brochure that she picked up from a side table, as well as an outdoor swimming pool the Manor boasted an indoor pool, together with a gymnasium and a sauna in its basement.
Perhaps I can interest Marco in some other form of exercise, she thought, suppressing a grin. Or, on second thoughts, perhaps not…
She heard her name spoken, and turned, the smile freezing on her lips as she did so.
Because it wasn’t Marco with the key, as she’d expected.
It was Chris. Standing there in front of her with three other men, all carrying golf bags. Looking astonished, and not altogether pleased.
‘Flora,’ he repeated. ‘What on earth are you doing here? How did you find me? Is something wrong?’
‘No, nothing.’ Or everything, she thought desperately. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ She gave a wild, bright smile. ‘But I’m not actually staying. So, please, don’t let me interfere with your game. Do go on, and I—I’ll see you on Monday.’
‘Oh, we’ve finished for the day,’ Chris said. ‘Not a bad couple of rounds at all. But you haven’t met the lads. Jack—Barry—Neil, this is my fiancée, Flora Graham, who seems to be just passing through for some reason.’ And he laughed with a kind of boisterous unease.
There was a chorus of greeting which faded into a bewildered silence, and Flora realised, horrified, that she’d actually taken a step backwards.
‘So nice to see you all,’ she babbled. ‘But I really must be going.’
If I can just get outside and find the car I can wait in it. Tell Marco I can’t stay…
She turned to flee, and cannoned straight into Marco himself. He steadied her, hands on her shoulders, halting her flight.
‘You are going in the wrong direction, carissima.’ He sounded amused, every word falling on her ears with total clarity. ‘The lift is over there, and we are on the first floor—in the bridal suite, no less.’ He slid his arm round her waist and pulled her close. His voice became lower, more intimate. ‘I have asked them to send up your tea, and some champagne for us, so that we can—relax before dinner. Would you like that, my sweet one?’
The silence seemed to stretch out until doom. Except that doom would have been preferable, Flora thought. She felt as if she was watching everything from a distance—Chris looking stunned, with his mouth open and his face brick-red—his companions exchanging appalled glances and trying to edge away—and Marco, his hand resting on her hip in unquestioned possession, smiling like a fallen angel.
At last, ‘Who are you?’ Chris burst out hoarsely. ‘And what the hell are you doing with my fiancée?’
Marco looked in his direction for the first time, his glance icy and contemptuous. And totally unwavering. He said, ‘I am Marco Valante, signore, and I am Flora’s lover. Is there anything more you wish to ask me?’
Flora saw Chris’s mouth move, and realised he was silently repeating the name to himself. The angry colour had faded from his face and he was suddenly as white as a sheet.
There was tension in the air, harsh, almost tangible, filling the shaken silence.
‘No,’ Chris muttered at last. ‘No, there’s nothing.’ And, without looking at Flora again, he turned and stumbled away, followed by his embarrassed companions.
‘I think, mia bella,’ Marco said softly, ‘that your engagement is at an end.’
‘You know the old cliché about praying for the floor to open and swallow you?’ Flora threw a sodden tissue into the wastebin and pulled another from the box. ‘Well, it’s all true, Hes. I just wanted to disappear and never be found again.’
‘Yet once again the floor remained intact,’ said Hester. ‘So what did you do? Go for the sympathy vote and throw up over Chris’s shoes?’
‘It’s not funny.’ Flora sent her a piteous look. ‘Hes, it was the worst moment of my life, bar none.’
Twenty-four hours had passed, and they were in Flora’s sitting room. Flora was stretched out on the sofa and Hester was standing by the window, glass of wine in hand.
She nodded. ‘I believe you.’ She whistled. ‘Boy, when you fall off the wagon, Flo, you do it in spectacular style, I’ll grant you that. No half-measures for our girl. So what happened next? I presume Chris tried to kill him?’
‘No.’ Flora shook her head drearily. ‘He just stood there, looking at Marco as if he’d seen a ghost—or his worst nightmare. And then—he walked away.’
Hester frowned. ‘You mean he didn’t even take a swing at him? I’m not pro-violence, but under the circumstances…’
‘Nothing,’ Flora said tonelessly. ‘And he didn’t look at me, or say one word.’
Hester grimaced. ‘Probably didn’t trust himself.’
‘I can hardly blame him for that,’ Flora sighed. ‘I can’t forgive myself for the way I’ve treated him.’
‘Let’s talk some sense here.’ Hester walked over, refilled her glass, then resumed her station at the window. ‘I never felt that you and Chris were the couple of the year. You met and liked each other, and it—drifted from there.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe you’d both reached a stage where marriage seemed a good idea, and you were conten
t to settle for just all right rather than terrific. It happens a lot, and in a lot of cases it probably works perfectly.
‘But not for you, Flo. That red hair of yours gives you away. You’re really an all or nothing girl, and sooner or later you’d have realised that. It’s much better that it should happen now, before the wedding, even if the endgame was a bit drastic. But you didn’t plan it that way, so stop beating yourself over the head. Ultimately it’s all for the best.
‘And, if it comes to that,’ she added, frowning, ‘why wasn’t he here seducing you himself? If he hadn’t been off with the lads, this Italian guy wouldn’t have been able to get to first base with you.’
‘We weren’t joined at the wrist,’ Flora objected.
‘Or anywhere else, I gather,’ Hester said drily.
She paused. ‘Have you heard from Chris since it happened?’
‘No,’ Flora said bitterly. ‘But I’ve had calls from practically all our families and friends. Clearly Chris recovered enough to get on the phone from the hotel and spread the bad word about me. By the time I got back here the answer-machine was practically bursting into flames. My mother—his mother—even my bloody stepsister banging on about little Harry’s disappointment over the loss of his pageboy role.’
‘Nightmare stuff,’ said Hes. ‘And universal condemnation, I suppose?’
Flora shrugged. ‘My mother’s disowned me completely. Says I’ve brought disgrace on the entire family and she’ll never be able to hold her head up at the bridge club again. And, according to Chris’s mother, in more right-thinking times I’d have been whipped at the cart’s tail.’
‘Prior to being stoned to death, I suppose,’ Hester said acidly. ‘Charming woman. Pity there isn’t a public hangman any more. She’d have been ideal. Well, at least you’ve escaped having her as a mother-in-law. That’s one bright spot amid the encircling gloom.’
She paused, then said carefully, ‘And what about your Signor Valante? Has he been in touch since yesterday?’
‘He drove me back here. I don’t think either of us said a word. He brought in my bag and said he regretted the embarrassment he had caused me. And went.’ Flora made a brave attempt at a smile. ‘End of story.’
‘Presumably because he’s hideously embarrassed himself.’ Hester sighed. ‘After all, it was the most appalling coincidence to choose that hotel out of all the others you could have gone to.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Whose decision was that, by the way?’
‘It was Marco’s suggestion, but he didn’t pressure me into it. He said we could take pot luck somewhere else, if I wanted.’ Flora shook her head. ‘I should have obeyed my instincts and taken him at his word. Only Aldleigh Manor did sound lovely.’
‘Wonderful,’ Hester agreed drily. ‘Just the place to meet one’s friends.’
‘Oh, don’t.’ Flora blew her nose, destroying another tissue. ‘Anyway, it happened, and it’s over. And Marco’s gone. I just hope I never have to set eyes on him again,’ she added, her voice cracking in the middle.
‘Pity,’ said Hester. ‘I’d have liked to meet the man who finally made you into a woman. Because under all the woe, my lamb, there’s a new light burning.’ She gave her friend a worldly look. ‘Nice, was it?’
‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ Flora crunched another tissue in her hand.
‘That good, eh?’ Hester said reflectively. ‘So what are your immediate plans, once you’re over your crying jag?’
‘I’ve got to get away for a while. I’d already been considering it, and now I’m sure. I feel bad enough about all this without having to field the angry phone calls,’ she added, shuddering. ‘I need to get myself back on track—somehow.’
‘And you really don’t want to see Marco Valante again?’
‘Never—ever.’
‘That’s tough.’ Hester came away from the window. ‘Because he’s outside, just getting out of a car.’
‘Oh, God.’ Flora scrubbed at her tearstained face. ‘Don’t let him in.’
‘Nonsense.’ Hester grinned at her as she went into the hall to answer the doorbell. ‘I want to meet him, if you don’t. I might even shake hands with him for his sterling efforts on behalf of repressed womanhood.’
‘Hester!’ Flora shrieked, but it was too late. The front door was being opened and there was a murmur of voices in the hall.
A moment later, Hester returned, her face wearing a faintly stunned expression. ‘You have a visitor,’ she said, standing aside to allow Marco to precede her into the room. ‘And I have places to go and things to do, so I’m sure I leave you in good hands.’
‘No—please. There’s no need…’ Flora began desperately, but Hester simply blew her a kiss, added an enigmatic wink, and departed.
Leaving Flora staring at Marco across the back of the sofa. She was horribly conscious of how she must look, in ancient jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair pulled back carelessly into a rubber band, her face pale without the camouflage of cosmetics, eyes reddened through weeping.
He, on the other hand, was immaculate, in another elegant suit, but his usual cool assurance was not as much in evidence. There was an odd tension about him, she realised. There were signs of strain in his face, the skin stretched tautly across the high cheekbones, and his eyes were watchful, even wary, as they studied her.
And yet, in spite of everything, she felt the familiar, shaming clench of excitement deep within her at the sight of him. The uncontrollable twist of yearning that she was unable to deny.
She felt more tears welling up suddenly—spilling over. He made a small, harsh sound in his throat and walked round the sofa to sit beside her. He took a spotless handkerchief from his pocket and began to dry her face, his touch gentle but impersonal.
When she was calm again he studied her gravely for a long moment. ‘My poor little one,’ he said quietly. ‘Have you discovered you cared for him more than you knew?’
She shook her head. ‘I wish I could say that,’ she said huskily. ‘But it wouldn’t be true. I—I would have broken off the engagement anyway, but I never meant it to happen like that. To publicly humiliate him in front of his friends.’
‘Then why are you crying?’
Because, she cried out in her heart, I thought I would never see you again. Because I’ve just realised that, for me, it was never just sex. That, God help me, I’ve fallen in love with you. But I know you don’t feel the same, so this has to be a secret I can never share—with anyone.
She gave a wavering smile. ‘Perhaps because I’ve never had so many people concertedly angry with me before.’ She swallowed. ‘The general view is that I’ve done an unforgivable thing.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘That is a harsh judgement,’ he said at last. ‘Engagements are broken every day.
‘But not by me,’ she said. ‘I—I’ve always been so—well-behaved. And now I’m a bad lot. A scarlet woman, no less.’
He said her name, on a shaken breath, drawing her into his arms and holding her close. She flattened her hands against the breast of his shirt, absorbing the comforting warmth of his body, feeling the beat of his heart under her palm. Content, she realised, just to be near him. And how pathetic was that?
He took the band from her hair, running his fingers through the silky waves to free them, lingering over the contact. She could sense the pent-up longing in his touch, and her heart leapt.
‘Your friend told me you are planning to go away for a while,’ he said at last. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘I know I’m being a wimp, but Chris seems to have told everyone about us, and I’d rather not face the music for a while.’
‘Have you decided where to go?’
‘Not yet.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t seem capable of active planning at the moment.’
‘But your passport is in order?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then that makes it simple,’ he said. ‘I shall take you back to Italy with me.’
/> Her lips parted in a soundless gasp. She stared up at him. ‘You—can’t be serious.’
‘Why not?’ He shrugged. ‘I have to return there, and you need to escape. It solves several problems.’
And creates a hundred others. She thought it, but did not say it.
‘Won’t your family—your friends—find it—odd?’
‘Why should they? I shall take you to the castello. I often have friends staying with me there.’
In translation, the castello was where he took his women, she told herself with a pang. She would be just another in a long line.
She ought to apply some belated common sense and return a polite but firm refusal, and she knew it. But he was leaving soon, and she wasn’t sure that she could bear knowing this was the last time she would be in his arms, breathing the warm masculine scent of him, or feeling his lips touching hers.
She thought in agony, I can’t let him go. I can’t…
She said slowly, ‘Marco—why do you want me with you?’
He put his lips to the agitated pulse in her throat. ‘You have a short memory, mia cara.’ The smile was back in his voice. That husky, sensuous note which sent her blood racing. ‘Do you really not know?’
It was the answer she’d expected, so there was no point in regret or recrimination.
Heaven, she thought. Hell—and now heartbreak. Stark and inevitable, whether she stayed or went. But at least he would be hers—for a little while longer.
On a little whisper, she said, ‘Do you think this is wise?’
‘Ah, mia bella.’ There was an odd note in his voice that was almost like sadness. ‘I think it is too late for wisdom.’
‘Yes,’ she said, sighing. ‘Perhaps so.’ She tried to smile. ‘In that case the answer’s yes. I—I’ll go with you, Marco.’
He took her hand and kissed it, then laid it against his cheek, his eyes closed, his face wrenched suddenly by some emotion that she did not understand.
But instinct told her it had nothing to do with happiness.
And she thought, Heaven help us both.
