To have a guide who knew the small, out-of-the-way places, or who could sort out what was worth seeing from what was not, might have been nice. Joletta’s smile held a shade of regret as she said, “I suppose we’ll have to make do by ourselves.”
Caesar slid into the car. “A shame,” he said, his dark eyes somber with regret as he turned the key in the ignition with only the briefest glance to see if Rone was in the vehicle. “A terrible shame.”
The Italian drove with verve and a total disregard for the dangers of the Le Mans-like Paris traffic. He did slacken his speed somewhat when Joletta reached for a hold on the dash as they rounded a corner. A few minutes later, however, he was racing again, and using his horn to intimidate less aggressive drivers.
He was, she supposed, the kind of man who might be called dangerously handsome, with heavy-lidded eyes, a sensually wide mouth, and thick hair that grew low on his neck. That he was aware of it was obvious, for there was an inner assurance about him and a faintly humorous challenge in the way he looked at her — and at most other women, she suspected. That manner, with his car and clothing that appeared to be on the forward edge of fashion for men, added up to a continental glamor that had an undoubted appeal. It was not the kind of look that attracted Joletta ordinarily; still, it might have been interesting to get to know him a little better.
Or perhaps not. The last thing she needed just now was another complication.
She thanked the Italian for everything again when they reached the hotel. There was such disappointment in his dark eyes as he said good-bye that she might have changed her mind and agreed to dinner from sheer guilt, had Rone not taken her arm to draw her away.
“You’re a softy, aren’t you?” he said with amusement shading his voice as they walked into the hotel.
“Probably,” she agreed, her own smile wry. “I’m also beginning to think I need a keeper. I’ve never had so much bad luck in my life; it’s downright embarrassing.”
“You shouldn’t have been hurt this evening. If I had been more alert, it wouldn’t have happened.”
The self-blame in his voice disturbed her. She said, “You aren’t responsible for me. I was joking about the keeper.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “What if I would like the job?”
“It’s a thankless position, as you should know by now.” There was a tight feeling in her throat, but she ignored it.
“My favorite kind.”
“In that case, you’ve got it,” she quipped, and was self-aware enough to wonder if she was really joking. She refused to consider that he might be serious.
She also refused to think that it might not have been an accident that she had come so close to serious injury this afternoon. The number of people who could have known where she was at that instant was so few, and foremost among them was Rone. Some things were best left unexplored.
There was grandeur and glitter at Versailles, just as Joletta had expected, but there was also something depressing about the huge, chill rooms, the mirrors endlessly reflecting emptiness, and the preserved fragments of lives that had been rudely interrupted, crudely terminated. The stagnant fountains in the unnaturally regimented gardens appeared forlorn, as if waiting for laughter and merriment and wicked, pleasurable decadence that would never come again. She was ready to leave when the bus pulled away for Lucerne.
The drive was long, though the motorway they took to the southeast was excellent. Joletta’s head had begun to ache again, though she had been fine during the morning. She took a couple of aspirins and leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes.
After that, the trip became a blur of small villages of cream stone clustered around gray-roofed church steeples, of clipped hawthorne hedges and vineyards with the grapes pruned to knee height, and of bright fields of yellow rape and blue-green rye like giant patchwork quilts. The blue-and-white road signs, the rest areas labeled Aire stop, and the mechanized tollbooths that sped past her window had a surreal quality; they were not what she was used to seeing, and so seemed not quite what they should be.
She woke once to find her head pillowed on Rone’s shoulder. Since he was asleep also, and the muscled firmness felt good under her cheek, she stayed where she was.
Lying there with her eyes closed, she thought of how easily he seemed to have made his decision to join her, and how easily she had accepted it. That he would want to be with her was gratifying, yes, but somehow she was also disturbed by it. He was congenial company, natural, easygoing, entertaining; somehow they found a great deal to talk about. Still, there was something in his attitude toward her that bothered her. He seemed to be attracted to her, yet he seldom touched her beyond the most casual contact. His comments might be mildly amorous, but his basic behavior was more brotherly than loverlike.
It wasn’t that she wanted him to make mad, passionate love to her. She was glad to meet a man who didn’t try to push her straight into his bed. It was a privilege to be with one who had the decency to realize that a woman with a concussion, however slight, would appreciate a kiss on the forehead and a quiet good-night at her bedroom door.
Regardless, when she thought of the way he had kissed her on a dark street in New Orleans, it didn’t seem quite right. It was as if he was deliberately restraining himself, almost as if he was wary of offending her.
Nor did she fully understand her own reactions toward him. His presence, his attentive and protective attitude gave her a secret thrill, yet there was also something inside her that counseled caution. She was used to that in her dealings with men, used to questioning their motives, yet this seemed different.
She thought of her suspicion of him in London. It had not lasted, especially not after she realized her cousin, and possibly her aunt, was also in Europe. She wondered, however, if he might have sensed it. He was a man of such finely honed instincts that it seemed possible. She did not like to think there had been anything in her manner toward him that might have caused it.
She was not going to make too much out of this joint trip. In the first place she didn’t have the time, and in the second it would not be smart. She had not asked him to come. On the other hand, she could not prevent him from joining the group, even if she wanted to. She would enjoy his company and the odd sense of security it gave her, taking the situation as it came. And if nothing much came of it, she would not be disappointed.
It was late when they arrived at Lucerne. The town was dimly lighted and the mountains no more than dark outlines looming beyond the starlit sheen of the lake. Their hotel was located down a side street only a few blocks from the lakefront. The room Joletta was given was small and quaint, with a many-armed art nouveau lamp with glass tulips for shades and walls paneled with alpine scenes in sepia tones. There were no sheets or blanket on the twin beds, only pillows and fluffy duvets. The big casement windows, though covered for privacy by electrically operated blinds, could be opened to the cool, pure mountain air. Breathing its freshness, Joletta fell once more into sleep.
She awoke ravenous and bored with being an invalid, ready for anything and everything. Immediately after breakfast, she and Rone took the cog train with the group to the top of Mt Rigi. It was an exhilarating journey through meadowlands where the chocolate-brown cows of Switzerland grazed near wooden chalets on rich green grass starred with yellow alpine flowers, all against a backdrop of blue, snow-dusted peaks and steep-walled valleys. The day was gloriously clear, so the entire panorama of Alps, the sailboat-studded lake, and Lucerne itself was visible from the mountaintop. Perhaps for that reason, and because it was the weekend, families of Swiss, from grandmothers to the smallest chubby baby, were out in force.
The hang gliders were there, too. Joletta could not bear to watch them launch themselves into space with such terrible élan with only the flimsy support of nylon and aluminum tubing. She could not see how anyone could possibly enjoy such a sport and could not believe that anyone actually did. Rone teased her about her squeamishness, but she noticed that he made an ef
fort to remain always between her and the edge of any precipice, even if it meant blocking her view.
They lunched on bratwurst and rosti potatoes with a dessert of raspberry ice, all while watching a folklore show. Afterward, Joletta and Rone roamed around the town. They window-shopped for Rolex watches and Swiss knives and snapped pictures of the ornate frescoed designs on the walls of the houses. They wandered along to the Lion of Lucerne, monument to the slain Swiss guards of Louis XVI, which, Rone informed her, had been called the most touching memorial in Europe by Mark Twain.
It was at the monument that Joletta discovered she had left her notebook behind at the hotel. There was a certain freedom in not having it; she could enjoy the civic plantings of pansies and tulips and English daisies, also the white lilacs, spireas, and mats of alpine rock-garden plants in the small, neat gardens before the small, neat houses, without feeling that every plant had to be recorded.
The sun was setting in rose-and-lavender luminescence when Rone and Joletta came finally to the covered footbridge. It snaked across the River Reuss at the point just before it flowed into Lake Lucerne. Appearing narrow only because of its long length, it was only partially closed in on the sides yet massively built, so much so that it made the covered bridges of New England seem puny by comparison.
Joletta and Rone craned their necks to look at the scenes from the history of the town that were painted on the roof-support sections in rich colors touched with gilt. It was a progression of events beginning in the Middle Ages, one they followed as they walked along with their own echoing footsteps and the whisper and gurgle of the clear, green-tinted river in their ears.
“Look, swans,” Joletta said as they stopped to lean on the bridge railing near the water tower that loomed near the middle of the span.
“A mated pair.” Rone followed the progress of the big white birds as they glided, touching their long graceful necks together, with their feathers tinted pink by the afterglow.
The water smelled a little of fish and cold-weather algae and melted snow. To their left lay the picturesque green onion domes of some church, while the mountain peaks lay in the distance behind them. They could just hear the brass band from a restaurant in the town. Lights were beginning to come on as the dusk deepened, small, glowing points of brightness that were reflected in the water at the river’s edge.
The evening breeze blowing over the river was cool. Joletta pulled her cardigan of cream cotton closer around her. As she gazed at the lights along the riverbank and the organized patchwork of rooftops that made up the town, she wondered if Violet had stood here, had seen this view.
Thoughts of Violet had been easing in and out of her mind since the day before; she had even dreamed of her again while dozing on the bus. Joletta was beginning to admire the way her ancestress had dared to go after what she wanted. Violet had accepted the fear, the guilt, and the dangers, and acted anyway. That was not the kind of behavior one might expect of so thoroughly Victorian a woman. Or was Violet that Victorian? Had New Orleans been as affected by the prudish precepts taught during that era as had the more northeastern portion of the United States, where puritanism had its sway?
Thinking of herself and her long engagement to Charles, Joletta suspected that she had not been as deeply involved in that relationship as she had believed. It had never occurred to her to go after him, to risk rejection and humiliation for what she wanted. Though she had never quite admitted it to herself before, she had felt a quick, hastily suppressed relief when she knew Charles was gone forever from her life.
Given another chance, what would she do now? She wished she knew. She wished, in fact, there was some way to tell just how much of Violet’s blood flowed in her own veins, how much of her spirit had been transmitted with Violet’s genes.
“Tell me something,” Joletta said into the long quiet that had fallen. “Do you think that history repeats itself?”
“You mean in the sense of people making the same mistakes others did before them?” Rone asked.
“I was thinking more along the lines of — not reincarnation exactly, but of events taking place in a later generation in much the same way they happened in an earlier one.”
He gave her a quizzical look, his gaze resting on the sunset flush on her face. “I think you’ll have to be more particular if you want an answer out of me.”
“Never mind,” she said with a smile that did not quite reach her eyes. “It was a crazy idea, anyway.”
He watched her for the space of time it took a frown to come and go between his eyes. He ventured a reply of sorts anyway, then. “Strange things happen all the time, I suppose. As for reincarnation, there’s a good portion of the world’s population that considers it a perfectly reasonable idea.”
“But not you?”
“I don’t intend to rush into anything until they prove it.”
“Which may be too late,” she suggested.
His lips curved in a wry smile. “That’s the trouble with most beliefs.”
The pair of swans floated toward them, delicately courting with rhythmic twining of their long necks. They drifted under the bridge and out of sight. Joletta turned her head to look at Rone. He was watching her, his gray gaze dark and unreadable in the dimness. He straightened slowly, turning toward her. She came erect also. Her senses tingled with alertness as she sensed some change in him.
He reached for her with slow deliberation, closing his hands on her upper arms as if touching her was a pleasure to be savored. He met her gaze without evasion, the expression in his own open, yet somber, almost driven. She met his eyes, her will suspended and uncertain. As he moved closer she lowered her lashes, resting her gaze on the sculpted curves and smooth surfaces of his lips.
Her breath was suspended in her chest. She could hear the accelerating strokes of her heartbeat whispering in her ears. The scent of him, compounded of fresh air, clean clothing, warm skin, and sandalwood, drifted around her. The radiating warmth of his body was enveloping; it destroyed thought, annihilated will. Her eyelids fluttered down as she lifted her face ever so slightly in consent, in expectation.
His mouth was firm and gentle, the pressure inviting. She spread her hands over his chest under the lightweight canvas windbreaker he wore, sliding them upward to trail her fingers through the silky thickness of the hair growing low on the back of his neck. The surfaces of her own lips tingled with heated sensitivity as she allowed them to part in invitation.
It was a delicate exploration of will, a blind revel of the senses, a gentle prelude. Unhurried, they tested the physical bonding of the kiss, feeling its swelling power, and its promise.
Heat gathered under Joletta’s skin, so she ceased to feel the evening coolness. His tongue touched hers. She met it with her own, enticed by its gentle probing. With a soft sound in her throat, she joined the sensual discovery of tender inner surfaces and the glazed-smooth edges of teeth. His hand at her back, smoothing the taut muscles, drawing her closer, was an incitement to surrender.
She lowered one hand, letting it drift down over the planes of his chest and under the edge of his windbreaker to the trimness of his waist. The leather of his belt was smooth, and cool in contrast to the wafting heat of his body. She followed its circular path to the center of his back, where the ridged muscles left a slight hollow that seemed a perfect opening for her fingers. She tucked them inside, pressing with her palm to hold him firmly against her.
His indrawn breath was soft, yet deep. He shifted slightly, cupping her face in his hand. With the side of his thumb, he traced the turn of her jaw, the delicate softness of her earlobe. Trailing his fingers lower, he brushed the slender turn of her neck, outlined the fragility of her collarbone, then slowly, gently, closed his hand upon the globe of her breast.
Anticipation burgeoned inside her, a steady, heated promise that spread in waves, until her skin tingled and the blood ran fast and warm in her veins. She shivered in instant reaction as his thumb smoothed across the exquisitely tender cres
t of her nipple. Her grasp tightened in a slow contraction of muscles as she pressed closer. She could feel the firmness of his lower body against the yielding softness of her own.
Footsteps clattered in approach. Voices murmured. They were no longer alone on the bridge.
Joletta went still, then began to withdraw by slow degrees. Rone’s chest rose and fell in a silent sigh as he let her go just as slowly. He kept his arm at her waist as they glanced at the three Swiss students, two boys and a girl with waist-length blond hair, who tramped past them.
The young trio did not even look in their direction.
A rueful smile curved Joletta’s lips. How American of her to be concerned over being seen kissing a man. There had been couples embracing with varying degrees of intimacy everywhere she had been so far, from Hyde Park to the top of Mt Rigi.
She looked up at Rone, but the light had grown so dim that she could not make out his expression there under the roof of the bridge. It appeared grim, but it might have been only the deepening purple gray of the twilight slanting across his face, for a moment later he gave a rough-edged laugh and swung with her to walk on toward the bridge’s end. Turning at that far side of the river, they retraced their footsteps back toward the hotel once more.
Most of the rooms of the tour group were on the same floor; Rone’s was located near the staircase, a few doors away from Joletta’s. He did not stop there, however, but walked on down the narrow hall with her. Joletta glanced at the room key she had picked up at the desk, trying to see it in the dim light given off by a wall sconce left over from the twenties.
Abruptly, Rone clamped a hand on her wrist, bringing her to a halt. As she looked up at him he put a finger to his lips for silence, then nodded toward her door.
“Did you leave the light on in your room?” he asked, his voice pitched just above a whisper.
“I don’t think so,” she said with a slow shake of her head.
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 16
