Jorja suppressed a sigh. Now and again she had envied Angelica's freedom but for the most part she had been content. Duncton lay in a Sussex vale and the surrounding countryside was lovely; it hadn't occurred to her to even think of marriage until Renzo's eruption into her life. She and everyone in the village had assumed that she would always take care of her father and remain a spinster in the tradition of stay-at-home daughters.
Abruptly Bruce straightened up and Jorja became aware that Renzo was approaching the alcove, walking towards her with the aid of his stick and yet still managing to look upright and commanding. It flashed through her mind to wonder what kind of a man he would have been if the riding accident had not disabled him. Would he have been more carefree and less aloof, as if in learning to control all the pain which his leg had caused him, he had become insensitive to other people's pain.
'Are you ready to go on your honeymoon?' he asked in his sardonic way. 'If so, then you had better go with Flavia to change out of your gown.'
Flavia was his personal assistant, who had arranged the reception and booked their stay at Duke's Hotel in Sandbourne on the Sussex coast. She was hovering just beyond Renzo's shoulder, a tall redhead who still managed to look businesslike in a pearly-grey suit with a pink carnation pinned to the lapel.
'I ‑' Jorja looked around for somewhere to set down the plate of half-eaten food. Bruce took it from her hand and gave her the slightest of encouraging nods. She stood up and found Renzo quite near to her; their eyes met and her fears leapt to the surface as she stood there and felt his personality and his force sweep over her. This stranger was her husband and quite soon she would be quite alone with him.
'Well,' he spoke with a touch of mockery, 'aren't you eager to get to the seaside? It was your idea, after all.' He glanced at Bruce, who was regarding the two of them with a touch of perplexity. 'When I asked this girl if she would like to visit the Caribbean for the honeymoon she informed me that she very much liked an English resort called Sandbourne. That when she was young and her mother was alive they would go there for the summer vacation. Very well, I said, if you prefer the uncertain English weather to the balmy breezes of the tropics then we shall go to this childhood paradise.'
He returned his eyes to Jorja's pensive face. 'Paradise awaits us, and you stand there as if glued to the floor. If you don't go this second to change your gown then I shall take you as you are.'
'I'm going.' She cast a quick, uncertain smile at Bruce, then snatching above her ankles the full satin skirt of her wedding gown she hastened from the room with Flavia, hearing a renewal of claps and cheers as the guests realised that the bride was about to change into her going away outfit.
Flavia opened the door of the bedroom where Jorja was to change. The dress in delphinium blue was laid out on the bed, and the ivory cashmere coat was still on its hanger. The rest of her trousseau was in pigskin baggage in the boot of the handsome veteran Rolls-Royce which Renzo drove. It had a magnificent engine and he maintained that the car almost drove itself. Panelled in rich woods, upholstered in glove-soft hide, it was equipped with a music-centre instead of a cocktail cabinet.
Very carefully Flavia assisted Jorja out of the satin gown. 'How does it feel to be married?' she asked.
Jorja removed the long satin underslip and shivered as she bared her shoulders. How could she say that she felt nothing but a crushing loneliness for the life she had left in order to marry a stranger?
'I feel a little—detached,' she said, 'but that could be the effects of the champagne. I'd never had it until today.'
'Truly?' Flavia smiled slightly but not in an unkind way. 'Anyone can see that you've led a blameless life—let me secure those little hooks for you.'
The material of the blue dress was French jersey of the very best quality; everything that Renzo had insisted on providing for her trousseau was of the very best. It wasn't only that he had a lot of money to spend but she had quickly realised that he was a man of impeccable taste. With a discerning eye he had selected every garment of her honeymoon clothes, and at each fitting Jorja had been amazed by her own appearance in the long mirrors.
It wasn't that he made her wear garments that would have been Angelica's choice, but he chose fabrics and colours that befitted Jorja's own personality. Soft, fine, casual things whose simplicity concealed their cost.
'This colour does become you,' Flavia remarked, and she retreated a few steps in order to study Jorja. 'You reflect certain aspects of your sister, and yet you're different.'
Jorja stepped into the shoes that matched her dress. Did the people who were less close than Bruce know what Angelica had done to Renzo, or had he managed to conceal the true facts? She suspected that for his brother's sake he had managed to save the affair from becoming a public scandal; there was also his sister-in-law and the child to consider.
'Angelica has always been the outgoing one.' Jorja tried to sound casual as she sat at the dressing-table and ran a comb through the simple styling of her hair. A vase of flowers stood beside her and she breathed the scent of yellow tulips mingling with carnations and irises. She felt the scent creeping into her brain and senses, as if storing itself away.
'It was a good thing they realised their incompatibility before getting married, Renzo being a Catholic.' The wedding dress rustled as Flavia carefully folded it. 'I'll take your gown to Hanson Square while you're away, Jorja, along with the accessories and the veil. And what would you like me to do about letters if any arrive for you at the house? Shall I send them on to the hotel?'
Jorja wondered if her father would relent and write to her. She sorely hoped that he would. It would be unbearable if he chose to treat her as if she had betrayed him.
'If I do receive any mail, then I would like you to send it on to me.' Jorja stood up and felt the soft clinging of the jersey-silk dress, and this added to the sense of unreality she couldn't shake off. Her attire at the rectory had been neat shirts with a skirt or a pair of trousers, and it had been necessary to make her clothes endure. Now, at Renzo's insistence, she had more than she could possibly need ... a dream come true for many a girl but Jorja felt trapped.
She avoided looking again in the mirror because her hair was the same pale gold as her sister's. She didn't want to look into her own eyes because they were the same deep blue. Even in her slenderness of build she resembled Angelica.
'I'm the copy,' she had told Bruce Clayton. 'Renzo couldn't have the original so he married me.'
The silk lining of her coat struck cool against her arms and when she shivered Flavia looked at her with a touch of concern. 'Becoming a bride is more enjoyable for the guests, isn't it, Jorja?'
'It is,' Jorja spoke fervently, her fingers tensed upon the stylish crocodile handbag into which Renzo had dropped such items as a crocodile wallet, a gold pen, a gold key-fob, and a mother-of-pearl compact and perfume spray. She had found money in the wallet, a car key on the fob, and a Chanel perfume in the spray. Such a man would be generous to equal his cruelty... there stalked in his Roman blood distant echoes of the Christians torn to ribbons by lions.
When she wryly smiled, Flavia patted her hand. 'That's better, my dear. Those people out there will be expecting a smile, and as you may have noticed the Caswell woman has eyes like a hawk. She's the terror of Fleet Street in those outlandish hats of hers, and she can blow the merest flicker of gossip into a flame. I know your sister's on your mind, but smile, for Renzo's sake.'
'Yes, it's all for his sake, isn't it?' With that thought in mind Jorja rejoined her bridegroom amid a crowd of people who were just as strange to her as he was.
One face alone in that crowd gave her. a slight lift of the heart, for as she met Bruce Clayton's eyes, he lowered the lid of his left eye in a wink of understanding.
He was so opposite to Renzo, whose distinguished good looks were unnerving as he drew her ringed hand into the crook of his arm.
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'Jorja and I have an urgent appointment so we have to
leave you. We thank you for coming to see us married.'
'It was a pleasure, darling.' Connie Caswell laughed. 'You two have given me my best story for weeks.'
'I feel sure we have,' Renzo retorted, and as he spoke Jorja felt the tension in his body. So for him, as well as for her, the wedding had been something of an ordeal. He had managed to conceal his inner feelings well, but it was obvious that he must have been thinking all the time of Angelica.
Jorja tilted her chin in a proud way. Well, he had asked for any unhappiness that he felt ... any regret that he had forced her to share a marriage when not a spark of love existed between them.
'Throw the bouquet,' someone called out.
Flavia handed it to her and with almost a gesture of wanting to throw away the marriage that went with the flowers, Jorja tossed the bunch of rosebuds and freesias into the crowd. Someone caught it, she didn't know who, for Renzo was suddenly hurrying her away with him.
'Do have fun, darlings.' The suggestive voice of Connie Caswell followed them. 'Send me a postcard from Sandbourne—if you find the time.'
Renzo muttered something in his own language, and it came as a relief to Jorja to find herself inside the Rolls-Royce, which the doorman had kept under surveillance. It wasn't strewn with ribbons as they drove away in the rain which kept most of the guests inside the foyer of the hotel.
'It was bound to rain.' Renzo gestured in a very Latin way as they waited at some traffic signals. 'We could have flown into the sun, had you been willing.'
She cast a glance at his profile ... did he imagine that she was ever going to be a willing participant? Her eyes as she looked at him were as gem-hard as the sapphires in her ring. All she saw was a man who had blackmailed her into marriage with him ... a man who felt driven to punish everyone who was connected with the girl who had gone behind his back with his brother.
Latin people were like that, so she understood. They practised a form of vendetta which extended to the members of the family, and already he had caused a serious rift between her and her father ... a rift she could hardly bear to think about.
Renzo Talmonte made his home in England, but from the crown of his dark head down to the soles of his well-shod feet he was an Italian, and today in the guise of a bridegroom he had carried his vendetta a step further, and Jorja watched him smile to himself.
What were his thoughts as he drove through the city traffic? It seemed to Jorja that he was finding pleasure in them, as if so far his plan of revenge had gone smoothly and he could anticipate the next torment he had in store for her.
'Everything went off very well,' he remarked. 'Flavia's an excellent organiser and I wouldn't know what to do without her.'
'It's a pity you didn't marry her!' Jorja's emotions were so Overwrought that she needed to let off some steam after the ordeal of being married to a man who didn't love her. 'Why did you have to destroy my life—what did I ever do to you?'
'A short while ago you became my wife,' he retorted. 'You stood at the altar looking like a bride figure carved out of white icing. That is how Connie Caswell described you. She even had the audacity to ask me if we love each other.'
'Oh, and what did you say?' Jorja stared through the windscreen and watched the raindrops being swept back and forth by the blades. People hastened along the pavements, umbrellas aslant in the gusty rain, and the traffic was heavy along Piccadilly. Drivers honked and hooted but there was a deliberate calm about Renzo.
'I told the woman that I never discuss my personal feelings.'
'You'd hardly tell her, Renzo, that we barely know each other—that our motivation for marriage is your ... hatred.'
'I have heard it said, Jorja, that hate and love are as inseparable as night and day. That you can't have one without the other.'
'I don't believe it,' Jorja spoke tensely. 'Night and day are distinct from each other, you can tell them apart. The same goes for love and hate, you can tell one from the other quite easily.'
He manoeuvred the car into the stream of traffic heading towards the Embankment. 'Don't stop there, Jorja. I find your theory of immense fascination.'
She didn't care if he was being sardonic and spoke with feeling. 'W-when you love someone you want to be with him. When you hate someone you want to be anywhere but in his company. I think you can guess how I feel, Renzo.'
'Indubitably. You would like to be anywhere but driving with me to Sandbourne—I thought you liked the place?'
'I like it enormously but I don't expect to enjoy myself on this occasion,' she said distantly.
'Too bad, cara mia.' He spoke casually. I intend to enjoy myself ... strange to say, although I've had a house in England for some time, I have never visited one of your seaside resorts. I am looking forward to the experience.'
'With a wife who can't stand the sight of you?' Jorja was using words like pointed pins and she enjoyed digging them into him. It was her only means of defence. Renzo wouldn't find her an easy victim of his vendetta.
'My effect upon you, Jorja, is of little consequence,' he replied. 'It is your effect upon me which matters.'
Jorja absorbed the meaning in his words and felt a hot stinging in her cheeks. The build-up of emotion was almost more than she could bear and for a wild moment she wanted to grab the wheel and wrench the car into the kerb. She wanted to give way to emotion and not care about the consequences, but an image of the ivy-hung rectory at Duncton was so clear in her mind. She visualised her father at work upon a sermon in the oak-lined study, an aroma of steak and kidney pie drifting from the kitchen which had been her domain for such a long time.
She couldn't shatter Daddy's world; it was bad enough that he wouldn't speak to her because he believed she had let him down.
'You'll regret this day, Renzo,' she said, and she huddled away from him in the cashmere coat, despising the fine clothes he had forced upon her.
'I don't want you looking like a domestic,' he had said, when he had taken her to the fashion house where a staircase of marble led to a salon of mirrors, reflecting her figure from every angle. The eyes of the sales ladies had appraised her as if she were a gauche filly he wanted them to train.
'I detest you,' she declared.
'Then how fortunate that I don't love you,' he drawled.
'Things are bad enough without your wretched love!' She watched the rain run down the windows of the car like teardrops. 'You're in love with Angelica but none of this is hurting her. The ones you're hurting are here in this car.'
'Is that so?' He spoke without emotion.
'You know it is!' Jorja said fiercely.
'You didn't have to marry, me—I gave you a choice.'
'Some choice!' Jorja gave him a scornful look. 'When you first met me, signore, you had me summed up as the kind of daughter most people despise. Protective and caring of my father and not too bothered about having fun all the time, because, as Daddy told you, Angelica and I were never alike in ways. You saw the contrast that first time you came to Duncton, you knew I had no choice from the moment you spoke about your being my husband. You knew I couldn't hurt my father.'
'Of course I knew it.' Renzo spoke dispassionately. 'I would not have come to Duncton had I not known it.'
'My God,' Jorja's eyes dwelt upon him unbelievingly, 'there has to be a name for a man like you.'
'Homme sans merci, as the French say.'
'Man without mercy.' Jorja breathed the words and thought how well they applied to him.
'Si.'
CHAPTER TWO
The porter lifted out the pigskin luggage from the boot of the Rolls, and Jorja walked beside her husband into the reception hall of Duke's Hotel, a dominating feature of the wide esplanade with its banks of flowers.
In days gone by, when Jorja used to come to Sandbourne with her family, this majestic hotel had been a kind of palace to be admired from a distance. When the smartly dressed men and women emerged for their outings Angelica would say that one day she would stay at hotels like it and wear the very
latest styles.
It was no wonder that Jorja felt bemused as she stood there while Renzo signed the register and made various enquiries. It seemed hardly believable that it was she, the unassuming daughter of the Reverend Michael Norman, who had come to stay at Duke's. Her glance travelled the tall marble columns to an ornate ceiling hung with chandeliers. She noticed the old-fashioned lift in a cage of wrought-iron, and the arcaded lounge where some of the guests sat in cane chairs and enjoyed afternoon tea.
Jorja was longing for a cup of tea, and her wistful glance into the tea lounge must have caught Renzo's attention for he told the porter to take up their luggage and pressed a generous tip into his hand.
'Come along.' Renzo took Jorja by the elbow and led her to a cane table for two. 'I haven't the heart to ignore such an imploring look in your eyes.'
As they sat down, Jorja was aware that they were being studied by people at the adjacent tables and she was glad that neither of them showed any sign of having been married so recently. Renzo ordered a pot of tea and a selection of cakes from the waitress and he looked so at ease in these grand surroundings that he might have been a married man for years.
Jorja relaxed and drew off her gloves in softest kidskin and exactly the colour of her shoes. She let her coat slide off her shoulders on to the cane back of her chair and tried not to notice the comprehensive look which Renzo gave her; a look which took in her hair, her mouth, and the slim, pale column of her neck in contrast to the blue dress.
Was she reminding him of Angelica? They had been engaged for several months so inevitably they had shared meals together, and being two people of the world they might have stayed at hotels as lovers.
It was a thought she didn't wish to dwell on, for it emphasised Angelica's treachery towards him and made her feel more afraid than ever of the emotions that were banked down under his urbane manner. Despite the handicap of his leg he was a physically strong man, the fine grey cloth of his suit tailored across wide shoulders ... she would be no match for him if he released pent-up, bitter passions upon her when they were alone in their hotel suite with the door closed upon the world.
The Honeymoon Page 2
