Cast the First Stone: A stunning wartime story

by Angela Arney

  CAST THE FIRST STONE

  Angela Arney

  © Angela Arney 1991

  Angela Arney has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1991 by Bantam.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For all my family and friends who put up with the months I spent as a recluse when writing this book. For Judith Murdoch whose constructive criticism and encouragement spurred me on to finish writing the novel.

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  1943—1944

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  PART TWO

  1944—1961

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PART THREE

  1961—1966

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  PART FOUR

  1966

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  PART FIVE

  1966—1968

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  PART ONE

  1943—1944

  Chapter One

  1 May 1944

  ‘I do solemnly declare . . .’

  When he was speaking Italian, Nicholas managed to sound more English than usual. The very preciseness of his tone was alien to the musical language. Now his clear voice echoed loudly as he repeated the marriage vows.

  Liana trembled with nervousness. She wished she didn’t feel so sick. To her heightened senses, the walls of the tiny church, already bulging ominously with age, seemed to shudder visibly every time Nicholas spoke.

  His voice, so loud in contrast to the mumbling of the priest, made her jump. She looked up fearfully. Common sense told her she was being irrational, but, nevertheless, she half expected to see lumps of mouldy plaster come crashing down from the walls. Like the walls of Jericho. What was it made them fall? A voice, a trumpet? She could not remember, and anyway it isn’t important, she reminded herself, dragging her wandering attention back to the marriage service.

  Nothing so dramatic as tumbling walls happened, and apart from Nicholas’s voice repeating the marriage vows, the only sounds were the rustling silk of her dress and the occasional scuffle and cough from the small congregation. Why, oh why, was it so difficult to concentrate, Liana wondered. It was important that she did; more than one life depended on it. But still her mind floated away. Restlessly her fingers smoothed the silk of her skirt, the shiny material slipping beneath her touch. Strange, she thought, this material was a parachute only a short while ago. Some Allied soldier came floating down into my part of Italy, his life dependent on this piece of silk. Now it is my wedding dress, and my life is dependent on it too, because I need this marriage. The gravity of the thought focused her mind, and she concentrated on the service.

  ‘I’m nearly there, nearly there.’ She repeated the words silently to herself as they clattered through her brain, keeping in time with the regular thud of her heartbeat. She felt impatient. The wedding service was dragging, and Liana was irritated with the old priest. Surely he could hurry it up a little? But at last he finished with the long Liturgy of The Word, and now began the actual Marriage Rite.

  ‘Nearly there.’ She relaxed a little, the pent-up tension escaping with a little hissing sigh from her lips. ‘But not quite!’ The remark exploded painfully somewhere inside her head, and a sudden rush of panic nearly overwhelmed her. I’m going to be sick, she thought. But I can’t be sick, not here, not in the church. Not at my wedding, not now! Oh God, I’m not as much in control as I thought.

  ‘But I will get there, I will, I will, I will.’

  Liana’s head jerked up with the effort of reimposing her conscious will over her subconscious. The sheer silk of her wedding dress stuck to her limbs as a fine sheen of perspiration suddenly covered her body. A terrifying thought struck her. Had she spoken the words out loud?

  She slid her gaze anxiously past Nicholas and the priest. Biting her bottom lip, she breathed a sigh of relief. It was all right, the words must have been in her head: no-one else had heard. They couldn’t have, because no-one was looking in her direction. Nicholas was still repeating the vows after the priest, and Charlie Parsons, the best man standing beside Nicholas, was looking bored, as was Hamish Ross, the officer who had given her away. She had nothing to worry about.

  Straightening her back, Liana stared resolutely straight ahead, focusing her gaze on the walls. But no comfort was to be found there. Elongated eyes stared at her from all directions, each one filled with malevolent accusation. The eyes belonged to the faded frescoes of numerous saints. They seemed to jostle for space, as if each one wanted a better view. Liana felt another bout of quickening hysteria spiral in her stomach.

  ‘What do you know? Eight hundred years on a wall doesn’t qualify you to denounce me!’ The screaming came from far away, shrilling hideously with panic-stricken laughter. She recognized that shrieking voice hurling the words at the silent paintings – it was her voice. Although this time she knew she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Liana,’ Nicholas hissing her name broke the nightmare.

  Liana nearly wept with relief at the timely interruption, but her response to Nicholas was automatic. Turning towards him, she smiled and presented the serene exterior he knew so well. It was an effort, but somehow she did it. Dragging her mind back to the present, controlling the rigor that threatened to rack her body, she hastily subjugated the menacing thoughts. I must be vigilant, she thought fiercely. Now is not the time to go to pieces and lose control. Not now that I’m so nearly there.

  She concentrated on the gnarled hands of the priest holding the dog-eared missal. He began to speak. ‘I do solemnly declare . . .’

  Liana spoke after him. ‘I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I, Eleanora Anna Maria, Baroness San Angelo di Magliano e del Monte, may not be joined in holy matrimony to Nicholas Peter Hamilton-Howard.’

  There, she had said it, and it was the truth – almost. There was no lawful impediment to their marriage; not unless it counted that Nicholas was not a Catholic, and because of that, they shouldn’t be having the full nuptial mass. But what did that matter? The service meant nothing, just a jumble of words. Nothing, nothing mattered, except getting the wedding ceremony over and done with.

  ‘I will.’ Once again the voice of Nicholas interrupted her thoughts.

  The priest turned to Liana. ‘Do you, Eleanora Anna Maria . . .’

  Her eyes flickered derisively over the old man standing before them, and her lips curled with thinly veiled scorn. His withered frame was covered in a filthy soutane, stained with food and wine, the droppings of many meals – not all his own by the look of it. The soutane was much too large for him, and flapp
ed loosely around his scraggy body. Probably stolen from some other less fortunate priest. A sham, she thought contemptuously, even you, supposedly a man of God. You don’t believe in God any more than I do. How can you? How can you be a priest and take a bribe? She knew Nicholas had paid him well for their wedding. Money bought everything in Naples. Even a civil and church wedding was possible with no questions asked. There was only one question, ‘Can you pay?’

  But despite her disdain, an unexpected flash of pity caught at her throat. Who am I to judge the poor old devil? He is a walking cadaver underneath that all-enveloping soutane. Suddenly she felt guilty of her pitiless condemnation of the old man. He is no different from me, she thought, or to thousands of other Italians. We are all desperate. Like me, he has long ago jettisoned his principles in order to grasp at any chance to survive. No, I mustn’t condemn him, she told herself. Priests have to eat too.

  ‘I will.’ Liana’s voice gained in confidence.

  Nicholas placed the ring on the missal. ‘May the Lord bless this ring which you give as a sign of your love and fidelity.’

  As if on cue, a shaft of sunlight burst through the narrow chancel window. Like a spear it pierced the pages of the missal. The gold of the ring suddenly came alive, shimmering with living warmth. A good omen, thought Liana, and felt comforted. That shining circle of gold was the tangible evidence of a change in her life. For her, it was like an arrow. It pointed away from Italy, away from the past towards the future, their future.

  Nicholas picked up the slim, golden band. ‘In the name of the Father,’ he touched her thumb with the ring, ‘in the name of the Son,’ the ring touched her forefinger, ‘in the name of the Holy Ghost,’ now her middle finger. Then he slid the ring slowly on to the fourth finger of her left hand.

  Liana heaved a silent sigh of relief, and the inner trembling she’d felt all day began to fade away. It was done at last. They were married. The schemes she had conceived only a few weeks ago were gradually coming to fruition. Allowing herself the luxury of relaxing a little at last, she glanced up at Nicholas. His grey eyes glinted with an urgent expression. A wry, inner smile curled inside her: she understood the urgency of his expression very well. He was impatient to possess her body, and she couldn’t blame him for that. These last few weeks she’d led him a merry dance. Playing the seductress one moment, purposely tempting him almost beyond endurance, then closing the shutters snap in his face as she reverted to a virtuous, virginal girl. The plan had worked. She had successfully kept him at bay and kept the flame of passion going at the same time. It hadn’t been easy. Sometimes Nicholas seethed with exasperation coupled with frustration.

  ‘You’re a prick teaser!’

  ‘Darling, I’m not.’

  ‘Then let’s make love.’

  ‘I’m not that sort of girl.’

  ‘What sort are you?’

  ‘The sort that saves herself for her husband.’

  How many times, she wondered, had they had that conversation?

  But now everything was different. A sense of exhilarating triumph stole over her. Now he was her husband, and tonight they would consummate their marriage. She didn’t let herself dwell on thoughts of that. It was a wifely duty, and one she intended to fulfil. Poor Nicholas, she’d make up for his weeks of frustration by giving him a wedding night to remember! After that, everything should be easy. A faint smile curved her lips, floating across the space between them, and Nicholas, misunderstanding, responded eagerly.

  Behind what Nicholas fondly thought was a smile of sensual longing, Liana dispassionately observed and analysed her new English husband. Nicholas Hamilton-Howard, Earl of Wessex, was twenty-six years old. He was tall and lean, and had a long face with well-defined features. His thick, fair hair was straight, and had a tendency to fall across the high dome of his brow, and his eyes were a clear grey. His mouth was wide and generous, but betrayed a hint of weakness, a characteristic Liana had been quick to recognize and capitalize on. Every inch of his long-boned form spelled out what he was: an English aristocrat, set apart, physically and mentally, by centuries of inbreeding.

  ‘Happy, darling?’

  Nicholas wanted reassurance. Liana’s gaze, that a moment ago he’d thought so warm and inviting, had suddenly clouded over and shut him out. He wondered if he would ever understand what was going on behind her enormous dark eyes. At nineteen, Liana possessed a mysterious aura of strange, sensual remoteness that gave hint to a maturity reaching far beyond her years.

  ‘Of course.’ She answered automatically.

  It was only after she had answered, that she stopped to think. In a way, I suppose I am! The realization surprised her, for it was something she had not thought possible. But then the calculating logic which had served to steady her nerves in the past took over, and Liana knew why she felt the way she did.

  She smiled up at Nicholas. ‘I’ve married the man I wanted. That’s why I’m happy.’

  And, she added silently, our life together will be successful because I shall chart the course. His weakness would be the source and sustenance of her strength. Not that I shall ever let him know that, she told herself, never for a moment even considering how difficult that might prove to be.

  The service over, Nicholas offered his arm, and Liana took it. They walked arm-in-arm down the aisle of the small church and emerged outside into the hot spring sunshine of Naples. The sparse congregation, composed mostly of Nicholas’s fellow officers, watched him enviously.

  Hamish Ross put it into words. ‘Some fellows have all the luck,’ he muttered.

  The creamy silk of her wedding dress emphasized Liana’s fragile feminine beauty. She was the ideal woman: beautiful, charming and utterly innocent. Every man present felt his masculinity stirred, bemused by a vague notion that she needed to be protected and cherished from the rough and tumble of life.

  The narrow cobbled street outside the church was crowded with curious onlookers. Shabbily dressed women, most with babies balanced in the crook of their hips, craned and jostled for a better view of the bride. A crowd of ragged, barefoot children tumbled at their feet, pickpockets every one of them if they had the chance. But now, even their attention was caught up in the excitement of the wedding, and an explosion of spontaneous gaiety rippled through the crowd at the sight of the wedding party.

  Liana felt a conflicting mixture of humility and irritation at their pleasure. They had no right to be happy. How could they laugh? She knew only too well the deprivation of their lives, and it was no laughing matter. The daily grind of the battle merely to survive was wearing and soul-destroying; and yet they were unenvious and genuinely pleased for her. They possessed an innate quality she knew she lacked, the typical Neapolitan ability to rise above misfortune and take pleasure from the moment. But for them, fate had ordained that it would only be a fleeting moment. They were doomed to remain for ever in poverty and hunger; whereas she had meticulously planned her escape to England, and had absolutely no intention of remaining impoverished for a moment longer than necessary. Nicholas might not be rich now, but he would be, and so would she. It was always possible to make money, and Liana knew she would find a way. What had surprised her was the fact that, according to Nicholas, no member of the Hamilton-Howard family appeared to have been bothered by the lack of money.

  Nicholas had been very honest with her. His family was of ancient and noble birth, but far from rich. Risky business ventures, drunkenness and gambling by previous male heirs, had virtually wiped out all its wealth.

  ‘People think we’re rich because we own so much,’ he said. ‘But all that’s really left is a vast, under-used farming estate in Hampshire and a stately home with a badly leaking roof!’

  Liana shrugged gracefully. ‘No matter,’ she said.

  But she knew it did matter. Noble birth meant nothing without the money to back it up. She intended to ensure that Nicholas should become the richest earl in England. Quite how she would achieve this, she was not yet sure, although she
had already decided she would start with the farm. Since she had known Nicholas, she had retrieved some of the old geography school books from the cupboard in the chapel. Miss Rose, the English teacher, had left them behind in her haste to quit Italy just before war was declared. From them she had learned that southern England was a lush, arable land with a temperate climate. Liana could think of no reason why a farm in such a climate couldn’t be made to pay and show a profit. No need to scratch out a meagre living from arid dusty soil, always praying for rain, the way the mountain peasants did. The fact that she had no practical knowledge of English ways and customs, or of farming for that matter, was not the slightest deterrent. Organization and planning were all that was needed, plus the necessary ruthlessness to do whatever proved to be necessary, even if it met with resistance. Nicholas would have been astonished if he had known what plans and schemes were in her mind, but on their wedding day, he did not. He took the beautiful girl at his side at face value – feminine, mysterious and vulnerable – and felt fiercely protective.

  ‘Naples, May the first nineteen forty-four. Wedding pictures, take one.’ Hamish snapped an imaginary clapperboard, and the ritual taking of snapshots began.

  ‘A kiss,’ someone shouted.

  Nicholas drew her close. ‘You arc all mine.’ His grey eyes shining with opaque brilliance looked down into hers.

  ‘Nearly, but not quite,’ whispered Liana, this time curving her mouth with deliberate sensuality.

  She was rewarded by seeing his nostrils flare, and knew she held him in the palm of her hand. Still smiling, Liana drew her veil up teasingly to hide them from the onlookers. Then reaching up she kissed him, purposely darting her tongue between his lips, rubbing it along his teeth and into his mouth in a brief but suggestive movement.

  ‘Hell!’ said Nicholas as she drew away.

  Liana laughed triumphantly as he pulled her closer. She could feel his erection.

  ‘Come on, break it up you two,’ shouted Hamish. ‘We don’t want to stand in the street all day.’