by Norrey Ford
‘Can’t one walk round at low tide?’ Jan wondered.
‘There is no tide in the Tyrrhenian sea, you ignorant girl!’
‘Sorry, I forgot. Could one swim round?’
‘Only if one were an exceptionally good swimmer. The cliffs go sheer into the sea on either side, and there would be no place to moor a boat.’
Jan pointed below them. ‘How do we manage the last bit? From here, it looks as if the cliff ends in mid-air over a sheer drop.’
He chuckled. ‘It does. The last part of the descent is by ladder.’
‘Help!’
‘An-iron one, cemented into the rock. We keep it in repair, though no one uses the beach nowadays. I used to, as a boy, but Bianca complains the climb up again spoils the cooling effect of the swim.’
‘Why isn’t it overgrown, if no one uses it?’
‘What an inquisitive girl you are! I’ve no idea. Probably Dino or one of the men about the place clears it from time to time. They may use it for swimming, for all I know.’
‘I see. You did give Dino orders to lock it, didn’t you?’
‘No. He misunderstood me. I told him not to allow you to get yourself lost, and to keep an eye on you. He exceeded his orders, that’s all.’
‘Then it was for his own reasons he didn’t want me down here.’
Marco gave her a sharp glance. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I wonder about things, that’s all. The hinge on the gate was oiled.’
‘I have an efficient staff. Shall we move on, or do you want to rest a few moments longer?’
‘On. I can’t wait to get into the sea. Blue, emerald, turquoise, green, azure. It fascinates me. Is it warm?’ The ladder was vertical, the descent longer than Jan had imagined. Looking down, she felt slightly sick. It would be awful to fail now, but she wished heartily she had not been so insistent upon coming down to the sea.
‘There’s always a first time,’ Marco smiled. ‘Once you’ve done it, you won’t think a thing about it. Wait, now.’ He went down several rungs, then leaned outward, his arms outstretched as he gripped the sides of the ladder firmly. ‘Come down to me. Don’t look down, I’ll tell you when to stop. Put your feet into the rungs, please, not on my face.’ She felt his hand take a grip of her heel and guide her foot. ‘That’s right. Now I am holding you, you cannot fall. Move when I move. Left foot down now.’
She was all but clasped in his arms as they moved down step by step. All she could see were the iron steps, the riven and striated rock, the outcrop of tiny flowering plants. She could feel the warmth of his body close to hers, hear his breathing.
‘Are you all right, Jan?’
‘Yes, thank you. I feel perfectly safe.’
‘In my arms?’ She heard him chuckle quietly. The wretch, he was mocking her very natural fears.
Would she ever understand this man, with his lightning changes of mood?
Feet on the hot sand at last, Jan craned her neck to see the route they had travelled. ‘I’ll do it alone next time. I don’t intend to let a silly old ladder get the better of me.’ Eager for the pleasure of the salt water, she stepped out of the playsuit, revealing a hot red silk jersey bikini with shoestring straps which she had chosen to set off her creamy skin.
Marco tilted back his head and looked at her through half-closed eyes. ‘Clever girl! On Bianca it is a failure. Why?’
‘Possibly because she swims in the Mediterranean sun more often than I can. Is she tanned?’
He snapped his fingers. ‘That’s it. We almost never see a true milk-white skin. Jan, you are really beautiful.’
She laughed happily. ‘You’ve made my day! With a newly mended heart to my credit, a smashing compliment was just what I needed, like cream on strawberries.’
‘Tell me about this heart of yours? Was it broken?’
‘In a thousand pieces. I almost died. Then one day I looked and it wasn’t even cracked.’
‘You hadn’t loved him after all.’
She thought a minute, shifting the sand with her toe. ‘Oh yes, Marco—I loved him.’
‘But you found someone you loved more, perhaps?’
‘Now who’s inquisitive? No, funnily enough, it wasn’t that. I just realised one day that he wasn't grown up and probably never would be. Or not till he stopped loving himself more than anybody else.’
‘Was he handsome?’
She narrowed her eyes, trying to recall all the details of Michael’s face she knew so well, with her eyes, her hands, her mouth.
‘I don’t think so. His face just added up to—Michael. Looks don’t matter, except at the very beginning. Once you’re in love you only see the one person shining through.’
‘You think you may love again?’
‘Goodness, I hope so. I’m twenty-one. I’d hate to think my love life was ended.’
‘It won’t be. I see strings of beautiful young men in your future.’
‘One will be enough, if he’s the right one.’
He reached out both hands, cupped her smooth shoulders and pulled her towards him. His mouth came down hard on hers. This was a man’s kiss, insistent, demanding, confident.
Her body, unprepared, leapt to respond. She felt an overwhelming urge to grasp, to clutch, to yield. But as his arms and mouth pressed more insistently, she recoiled, rigid in his arms, and made a desperate effort to turn away her face. When he became aware of her resistance, he released her so abruptly that she staggered, almost lost her balance. He steadied her with a cool strong hand on her waist.
‘Why did you do that?’ she flung at him. ‘Kissing wasn’t in our bargain.’
‘You bargain for kisses?’ he asked lightly, a mocking smile on his lips. ‘I think you owed me that one. Now you know how a grown-up man kisses, and experience is always valuable, is it not?’
He turned and raced towards the water.
Aware of the inner excitement his kiss had roused in her, aware that here was a powerful and dangerous man accustomed to having his own way completely in his own domain, she hesitated only a moment before following. They had come down here to swim, and swim they must, if the situation was to be brought back to the level of their normal relationship. She was no child, to make a fuss about a single kiss. Accept it and forget it was the best course , to adopt. An amorous, temporary affair with her host was the last thing she wanted; nor did she intend to spend the rest of her stay at the Villa Tramonti dodging a man who was physically attracted to her.
She made a long running dive, and when she came up and shook the water off her face, he was close by, watching. He grinned and shouted as if nothing had happened.
‘How do you like the Tyrrhenian Sea?’
Great!’ she laughed.
He dived and swam under water. In the clear emerald sea, bubbles of air enveloped his body, so she could see him, a silver man, swimming below her over the silver sand.
They swam, or floated lazily, until Marco called to her that he was going out. She followed him up the beach and flopped down beside him on the spread towels.
‘That was absolutely wonderful! Oh, Marco, bless you—a cigarette.’ She leaned over to take a light from his cupped hands. ‘Just perfect! Have we time to sunbathe?’
‘Until we run out of sun. We shall lose it round the headland soon.’ He lay on his back, fingers linked behind his head. ‘Tell me about yourself. Are you going to accept my offer of a job here with us?’
She shook her head. ‘Uh-huh!’
‘Uh-huh yes, or uh-huh no?’
‘No. I’d like to. I want to—at this moment. But I’ve worked three hard years for my finals and I intend to sit them. Then I’ll be qualified, and be something. A properly qualified nurse, with experience, can work almost anywhere she pleases, do you know that? Australian outback, Canada, the Arctic—you name it, people get sick and want nursing. Besides—’She hesitated, drawing a line in the sand with her finger.
‘Besides—?’ he queried, craning up to look at her.
‘They did everything together—everything.’
‘So you should be encouraging her to continue with what they started. One must have some purpose in life, and—well, it seems to me that if one is taken and the other left, there’s a purpose behind it. There’s something left to be done. Marco, your mother could die of sheer boredom perched up on the top of your island. But she is not ill, and she doesn’t need a nurse.’
‘I have a good apartment in Rome, but she hates the city. Any suggestions, while you’re busy reorganising my life for me?’
‘I have. But you’d be angry with me. You are not a patient man, Marco Cellini.’
‘Pretend I am.’
She gave him a long, steady look. ‘You asked for it, Marco. All right. When Dino took me all around the island pretending he didn’t know I wanted the harbour, I saw a lot of poverty. Too much. Some appalling housing, only habitable because of your wonderful climate. Some crippled children. Some beggars. Beggars, Marco! To me, that is unthinkable. Little kids, begging in the road! You say you own a good deal of Barini—you and your father before you. Don’t you feel any sort of responsibility for the people, for the way they live?’
‘We’ve done a good deal, in our time. You’re not suggesting my mother took some responsibility for houses and layabouts who won’t work to keep their children?’
‘I wouldn’t dare suggest anything to Barini’s lord and master. All I’m saying is that there is much to be done, or left undone, by someone.’
‘I see.’ The coldness edged into his voice again. ‘Well, now you’ve demonstrated that I’m an incompetent landlord, a wicked son, is there anything else you’d like to sharpen your stiletto on while you’re making it so obvious you hate the sight of me?’
‘I’m not too sure of your performance as a brother, either. But I don’t hate the sight of you. You’re extremely decorative lying there on the sand, like one of your own gorgeous statues—alive, but with a stone heart perhaps. I wish I understood you, Marco. So far, you’ve shown yourself a lion, a tiger, a bear, a—ow!’
He had swung over and grabbed her ankle in a steel grip.
‘Don’t torment the wild animals, girl. Just—wait—till—I—get—a grip—’
Aware that she had gone too far, and could hardly hope to escape Marco’s vengeance now, she lashed out with her captured leg, kicking him fair and square in the chest. While he gasped to recover the breath she had knocked out of him, she scrambled to her feet and flew barefooted across the sand to the ladder, began to climb rung over rung at top speed. The steepness and height were forgotten now.
A lion, a tiger, a bear. Yes, he was all of those. But what she had foolishly overlooked in her baiting of him was that Marco Cellini was also a man. And such men are dangerous.
At the top of the ladder, she paused, gasping for breath, and glanced down. He had stopped to put on his sandals. Prudent Marco! Had he done that to protect his feet, or was he genuinely unwilling to catch her?
No, he was really coming after her. He belted his towelling wrap tightly, then started across the sand. Wise, then. In sandals he would make better speed on the rock staircase. She began to climb again, pulling herself up by clumps of shrub, taking risks as she leapt from narrow stair to narrow stair. When she reached the top and came out through the gate to the level terrace, her feet were scratched, bleeding, and bruised. But Marco was still coming up fast and she dared not stop.
She raced across the garden, swung round the pool, took a flying jump across a bed of rare ferns. The long louvres which kept Bianca’s room cool through the long hot days were closed. Her fingers scrabbled at the fastening. Then she was through, as Marco leapt over the ferns, taking the same short cut as she had used but a minute before.
Across the sitting room and into the bedroom, slamming the door shut. Surely he would not pursue her into here? While she still clung, panting, to the long curved satin-brass handle, something went thump! on the door.
Silence! Eaten with curiosity to know what Marco had thrown, she opened the door a crack and peered out. Her sandal. She squatted on her heels, reached out a cautious hand to draw it in, when thump! came the second one.
Then there really was silence. Jan waited a long time, till her heart stopped thudding and she began to shiver in the cool room. Then she opened the door. The sitting room was empty, the louvres shut. But her second sandal lay pathetically upside down in a little sandy patch on the shining white marble floor.
She showered, and rinsed the salt out of her hair, then pinned it into place and blew it dry with Bianca’s drier.
Of one thing she could be sure. Lion, tiger, or bear; or an angry man bent on vengeance, Marco Cellini would appear at his mother’s dinner table suave, charming, exquisitely dressed and perfectly mannered.
So tonight she would wear the most beautiful dress in his sister’s wardrobe. Just to show him that two could play at that game!
CHAPTER IV
On the journey to Rome, Marco was taciturn. Jan had the impression that his silence had nothing to do with the events of the previous day. He was preoccupied with his own affairs. Last night after dinner he had excused himself immediately with a plea of work to do and telephone calls to make, and had not reappeared.
He took the fast motorway route from Naples to Rome. The flowering broom and acacia made the road a river of gold and perfume.
‘Thank you for bringing me,’ she said when Marco had parked and switched off the engine. ‘You’ve saved me hours of travelling. I don’t want to be a nuisance, as I know you have business in Rome. I’ll manage fine on my own. Here, at least, I know my way about.’
There had been no difficulty in finding parking space. Like everyone else, he had parked on the sidewalk. ‘If you knew your way about, as you put it, you’d never have met me or come to Barini. I shall accompany you to the bank, but first you will need your passport and travel documents. Come along.’
Keeping up with his long strides was not easy when one had to dodge in and out of the racing traffic. Jan felt like a pet poodle on the end of a lead. Marco never looked back to see if she was following, taking it for granted that she would be at his heels when he stopped. Twice her heart was in her mouth as he swung confidently off to cross a road, marching straight into the traffic with arm upraised like an ancient Roman senator. She recalled with rueful amusement her own efforts to cross ,the controlled pedestrian walks, her fury when drivers did not slow down but merely twisted round her as if she had no right to be on the crossing at all.
‘The important thing,’ Marco said when at last he stopped and waited for her to catch up, ‘is never to lose your nerve. Hold up your arm and march. Never dither. What are you going to do with yourself for the rest of the day? I shall be free at four-thirty.’
‘One last day in Rome? Of course, it must be the Vatican. I want to go up on the roof of St Peter’s to see the view, and I believe it’s possible to walk inside the dome and look down into the basilica.’
It is. See the treasury too. Tourists often miss that, as it opens only at special hours. There’s a board giving the times, in the church. There you’ll see the finest work of gold and silver craftsmen for centuries past; all the greatest artists in the world have worked for the Holy City. There are gifts from countries, cities, kings and princes, popes and cardinals; the best their countries could produce, from the earliest centuries to—to, let me see—Winston Churchill and President Kennedy.’
‘That I must see. Then I want to walk along the Via Veneto, and I thought I could lunch there, out of doors, if it wouldn’t be too expensive.’
He smiled. ‘Said to be the most elegant and beautiful street in
the world. Or, shall we say, one of them? You’d be happier with a male escort, I think. I shall take you there, at one o’clock.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t mean—I wasn’t hinting, Marco.’
‘I know. After yesterday, you are just a little afraid of me, aren’t you? You need not be. I am not a seducer of innocent maidens, in spite of your thinking me a bear, a lion, and a tiger. Let me see—we must be quite sure of our meeting place. Be waiting by the obelisk in the centre of the colonnade in St Peter’s Square at twelve-forty-five precisely. I will pick you up there.’
Demurely, she said, ‘Yes, signore.’ He caught the twinkle in her eyes as she spoke.
‘You think I am a dictator, yes? But I merely wish to make sure there is no mistake as to the place and time. I never keep a lady waiting, and in a big and busy city like Rome, it is not a good thing for a driver to be kept waiting. Your training as a nurse should make you appreciate the virtues of precision.’
‘It does. I shall be there.’ The hours she’d wasted waiting for Michael, the reproaches she had swallowed. His righteous, innocent indignation when she had not been able to keep back a grumble. He never understood that time could matter.
The formalities did not take long.
‘How good it feels to have possessions again! This is Bianca’s handbag, so the first thing I’m going to do is to buy one for myself. And some of my own makeup, and a decent comb. If I won a jackpot I couldn’t be more delighted.’
Marco reached over and took the little wad of travellers’ cheques out of her hand. ‘You can have that one. I’ll keep the rest. And give me your passport and tickets, please.’
Suspicions she had succeeded in burying leapt to the forefront of her mind. What was he up to? Without money, tickets, passport, she was at his mercy. Part of the relief she felt at having them back was the knowledge that she was independent again; could move about, when and where she liked. She would be foolish indeed to surrender everything but pocket money for the day, into this man’s hands. He was, after all, a stranger. One girl he said was his sister had disappeared from his house.
