Stolen Beginnings

by Susan Lewis

  Contents

  Cover Page

  About the Author

  Acclaim for Susan Lewis

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of twenty-two novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day, a moving memoir of her childhood in Bristol. She lives in France. Her website address is www.susanlewis.com

  Acclaim for Susan Lewis

  ‘One of the best around’ Independent on Sunday

  ‘Spellbinding! . . . you just keep turning the pages, with the atmosphere growing more and more intense as the story leads to its dramatic climax’ Daily Mail

  ‘Mystery and romance par excellence’ Sun

  ‘The tale of conspiracy and steamy passion will keep you intrigued until the final page’ Bella

  ‘A multi-faceted tearjerker’ heat

  ‘Erotic and exciting’ Sunday Times

  ‘We use the phrase honest truth too lightly: it should be reserved for books – deeply moving books – like this’

  Alan Coren

  ‘Susan Lewis strikes gold again . . . gripping’ Options

  Also by Susan Lewis

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  Just One More Day, A Memoir

  STOLEN

  BEGINNINGS

  Susan Lewis

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409008675

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books 2007

  8 10 9 7

  Copyright © Susan Lewis 1990

  Susan Lewis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 1990 by William Heinemann

  First published in paperback in 1991 by Mandarin Paperbacks

  Arrow Books

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.rbooks.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099514688

  For Linda Margaret Smith . . .

  – Acknowledgements –

  I should like to express my gratitude to all who have helped me during the writing of and research for this book. Karen Ford of Models 1; Francisca Blackburne and Lesley Morgan; the CID at Chelsea Police Station; Richie Horowitz who drove me round New York; Max Eilenberg and Piers Russell-Cobb, for their support at the time the first Stolen Beginnings was wiped – and never recovered – on the computer; and the man, who must remain anonymous, who gave me the character I love most in the book – and much more besides . . .

  But most of all I should like to thank Sandra Brett for the ‘dry run’ which has now become an on-going series . . .

  His face was more exquisite than that of any man alive: the bone-structure was perfect and the Italian ochre eyes seductive, mesmerising; the nose was long and straight, and the mouth wide but not too full. He was their leader.

  As Sergio Rambaldi raised his magnificent head, his hand moved like a bird through the air. The silver blade glinted. The cave was dark, lit by just one candle and the light that seeped through the branches covering the entrance, shielding those inside from the brilliant sun. Laid out before them was the girl’s body – naked and very still. Arsenio lifted his eyes and stole a look at the others; two women and five men, including him. This was their bottega – their workshop. They were grouped silently round the marble slab that he, Arsenio Tarallo, had brought to the mountain three days ago. He had known it was to bear her body, but he had not loved her then.

  The leader turned from the candle and moved slowly to the marble slab. Briefly his eyes met Arsenio’s and Arsenio lowered his head. He knew there had been much debate over him. He knew he did not yet have their trust. But Arsenio Tarallo understood that only time would prove the extent of his dedication to and belief in the bottega. He was honoured to be there – and terrified.

  He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the dank smell of earth, widening his nostrils and inhaling deeply but quietly. The leader murmured to the woman beside him and she took a step back. Arsenio guessed what had been said, and his eyes flew to the face of the girl lying before him.

  Nooo! Every nerve-end screeched. His muscles were tensed, poising his body to spring. But he knew he wouldn’t. Nor would he cry out.

  She had come to him two nights ago. He had been expecting her, but the look of her had taken his breath away. He had touched the blonde silk of her hair as she removed her coat, and then moaned softly at the beauty of her naked skin. She turned, and her face was beneath his, her lips pale and her eyes blue and serene as the Madonna’s. It was her duty to give herself to one of the bottega and she had chosen him. Their love-making was exquisite, spiked as it was by the knowledge that this would be the only time.

  The fine hair on her arms lifted as a swift breeze blew through the cave. The candle flickered. Arsenio’s skin prickled. The blade cut through the air and Arsenio dropped to his knees, echoing the words of the leader: ‘Lunga vita alla donna! Lunga vita al nuov
o rinascimento!’ Long live woman. Long live the new renaissance.

  There was a deathly gasp. Arsenio’s head snapped up. His mouth opened but the screams only gurgled in his throat as he rolled to the floor, his eyes blinded by blood.

  – 1 –

  Madeleine dashed up the narrow staircase, giggling and spilling bread rolls, party-poppers and vol-au-vents from the shopping bag she clutched in her arms. Behind her Marian was trying to grab her ankles and trip her up.

  ‘I’ve never been so embarrassed,’ Marian cried, ‘just wait until I get hold of you!’

  Madeleine shrieked as Marian’s hand closed around her ankle and she staggered against the wall. The shopping scattered and Marian snatched up a can as it rolled down the stairs.

  Madeleine screamed, ‘No!’ But Marian’s finger was pressed firmly on the nozzle and a shower of Christmas snow covered Madeleine’s blonde hair. ‘Right! That’s it!’ Madeleine declared, and scooping up a vol-au-vent, she crushed it in her hand and rubbed the gooey pastry in Marian’s face.

  Marian spluttered and gasped, all the while spraying snow over her cousin, the stairs, the shopping and herself.

  A door opened on the landing below and Pamela Robbins – an assistant film producer – came out of her flat. There was a moment’s truce in the mayhem while Marian and Madeleine, looking like nothing on earth, turned to watch their neighbour as she locked her door, threw a bag over her shoulder and trotted off down the stairs without so much as a glance in their direction.

  When they heard the front door slam, four flights below, they exploded into laughter. ‘Snooty old bag!’ Madeleine shouted. Then lowering her voice and rolling her eyes, she said: ‘I expect she’s gone to make a movie!’

  ‘I don’t suppose you thought to invite her tonight?’ Marian said, starting to clear up the debris.

  ‘Not on your life.’

  ‘And yet you’ll stop complete strangers in the street,’ Marian said, giving her a shove, ‘and invite them.’

  ‘Well, they were gorgeous, at least the short one was. Just the right height for you.’

  Marian shot her a look. ‘You’re asking for more trouble!’

  Madeleine’s snowy face looked even more comical as she pulled down the corners of her mouth and widened her beautiful eyes. ‘I was doing you a favour,’ she protested. ‘I mean, what’s the point in us having a party if there’s not going to be anyone there you fancy?’

  ‘That,’ Marian said, as she took out her keys and opened the door at the top of the dingy staircase, ‘is assuming that someone you fancy will be?’

  ‘Do you think he’ll come?’ Madeleine said, as she hauled herself to her feet and followed Marian into the darkened flat.

  Marian turned to look at her with an expression of exasperated irony. ‘When has a man ever been able to refuse you anything?’ she said.

  Madeleine hugged herself as she savoured the prospect of Paul O’Connell coming to their New Year’s Eve party that night. She had been trying to get off with him for weeks, but so far he was proving the most elusive man she’d ever come across. ‘I wonder what he’ll come as?’ she mused. ‘Come to that, what are you wearing? No! No! I’m not having any of that boring old rubbish you were talking about yesterday. It’s a fancy dress, Marian’ – she crept along the hall towards her cousin – ‘the chance to make yourself wild and exciting – and naughty!’

  Marian yelped as Madeleine dug her fingers into her sides. ‘Naughty is your department,’ she chuckled, ‘I shall just stand by and watch while you captivate every man in sight, and worry about how we’re going to pay for it all.’

  Madeleine threw back her head and gave a howl of frustration. ‘I want a New Year’s resolution from you, madam,’ she said. ‘To give up being sensible.’

  Marian tossed her coat onto the solitary, battered armchair. ‘I gave that up three years ago when I agreed to let you come up to Bristol and live with me.’

  ‘And just look at all the fun we’ve had since.’ Madeleine swivelled in the doorway and went into the kitchen to unload the shopping.

  ‘Yes, just look,’ Marian muttered to herself as she glanced around the shabby room, then turned on the gas fire.

  They’d moved into this garret at the top of a grand house in Clifton’s West Mall three months ago, after Celia, Marian’s mother, had sent enough money to fly them back from Rhodes. They hadn’t intended the Greek islands to be their final destination on their tour of Europe, but shopping sprees in Paris and Rome, coupled with visits to nightclubs in Amsterdam, Nice and Hamburg, had swallowed up every penny of the profit they’d made on the flat in Stokes Croft – something else Celia had financed. Marian still felt guilty about spending her mother’s meagre capital, especially when it chiefly consisted of the insurance money Celia had received after Marian’s father had died in a fire at the paper factory where he’d worked, just outside Totnes in Devon. It was the year Marian won her place at Bristol University. Madeleine had taken her uncle’s death so badly that Marian almost turned down her place, but Celia – who was as ‘proud as punch’ of her daughter’s achievements – stepped in and said that providing Madeleine got herself a job in Bristol, then she could move up there too. Marian had been delighted. Madeleine had lived with them ever since she was eight and Marian was ten, so they were more like sisters than cousins, and secretly Marian had been dreading life without her.

  When she joined Marian in Bristol, Madeleine was sixteen and already blossoming into an exceptionally beautiful young woman; and once out from under Celia’s protective eye, with the prospect of a big city like Bristol to conquer, her escapades and her reputation soon became legendary. Marian’s student friends were disapproving to the point of contempt – especially when Madeleine took a job as a stripper in a nightclub just off Blackboy Hill. She’d worked there for almost a year, hoping that someone would recognise her talent and whisk her off to London; but no one did so she left and became a strip-o-gram girl.

  She loved stripping. There was nothing that gave her a greater thrill than to have her honey-coloured skin, long legs and abundant breasts admired. It excited her in a way that the act of sex never did – though she had sex regularly, sometimes with men she met and fancied in the local wine bars, but mostly with men who told her they could help her become a model or an actress. She was easily taken in because of her obsessive craving for fame, and it was left to Marian to mop up the tears when nothing came of the promises. If Madeleine had been bright enough to get to know the right people, to behave in a way that at least came close to being socially acceptable – if she hadn’t so firmly believed that her sexuality had to be demonstrated rather than suggested – then her route to the top might have been assured. As it was, her skirts were too short and her tops too low, she wore too much make-up, her voice was coarse and her behaviour brazen. Yet even these shortcomings could not detract from the effect of her remarkable violet eyes, luscious wide mouth and incomparable figure. She had the lazy, sensuous look of Bardot and the voluptuous body of Monroe – a breathtaking combination which, in the right hands, might rocket her to fame and fortune. By anyone’s standards her beauty was extraordinary, and she knew it.

  Marian was used to Madeleine’s shameless exhibitionism; ever since she’d had breasts, she’d shown them to any boy who was willing to pay; but being used to it did not mean that she approved. However, her disapproval was something she only ever voiced to Madeleine in private, and she took great exception if anyone else uttered a word of criticism. So when, one night in the Coronation Tap, she overheard one of her friends describing Madeleine as a common little tart, she had so violently torn into the girl that she fully expected her friends to drop her as a result. But if anything, after that, they treated her with a greater respect; as if someone they had until then regarded as retiring – almost dull – might at any time burst into flames of rage or passion. Marian found their baffled esteem amusing, secretly knowing that the likelihood of her firing up like that again was remote; Madelein
e was the only subject she ever got heated about.

  Despite the endless ebb and flow of men through their Stokes Croft flat, and the outrageous parties that vibrated on into the early hours of most Sunday mornings, Marian managed to get her philosophy degree. And to celebrate Madeleine had suggested they sell the flat and go on a tour of Europe. Still heady with her success, Marian had thrown her inherent caution to the winds, and agreed. They’d returned to Bristol four months later, with a hundred pounds – which they’d used as a deposit for this one-bedroomed attic – and enough anecdotes to make them – or at least, Madeleine – the centre of attention for weeks.

  Now Madeleine was back working for the strip-o-gram agency and she, Marian, was a struggling temporary secretary with the Sue Sheppard Agency in Park Street. One day, she told herself, she’d think about what she really wanted to do, but for now the only thing that mattered was that they should earn enough money to pay the bills . . .

  At eight o’clock they were still decorating the flat with the tinsel and trimmings they hadn’t bothered with for Christmas – they’d spent Christmas in Devon with Celia – when some of Madeleine’s crowd from the Chateau Wine Bar showed up, bearing crates of wine, trumpets and streamers. Music blared from the cassette player Marian had bought Madeleine for Christmas, and squealing with delight at the men’s preposterous costumes, Madeleine made them all dance while she rocked and gyrated between them, all the time watching her reflection in the cracked mirror over the fireplace. ‘You’ll have to go back to the Chateau,’ she told them ten minutes later, ‘the party doesn’t start until nine, and besides, Marian and I aren’t ready yet.’ She handed one of them a cheque for the wine; knowing it would bounce, Marian winced.

  ‘What you wearing, Maddy?’ one of the men asked.

  Marian watched as Madeleine pouted her lips and studied him through narrowed eyes. Then, running a hand through her blonde mane, she slowly broke into a grin. ‘Nothing!’ she declared, then pushed them out of the door.

  When she turned back Marian was waiting for her. ‘I told you, not Eve!’ she cried. ‘If you’re going to prance around here with no clothes on, I’m calling the whole thing off.’