The Honeymoon

by Violet Winspear

  He sat in the high-backed cane chair, the lamplight softened by the amber shade. He gazed out upon the dark, wet garden and despite his look of being alone with thoughts he didn't wish to share, Jorja felt only a momentary pang of hesitation.

  'May I sit with you, Renzo?' And without waiting for his reply, she approached him and sat down on the foot of the chaise-longue. 'I can smell the rain on the grass. It's such a wonderful smell, isn't it?'

  'Innocent,' he said, 'like the beginning of the world.'

  'Sometimes you say things that are like your music.'

  'The better part of me speaking.'

  'We're all shaded in by the lights and darks of our personalities,' she said, clasping her arms about her knees because they trembled just a fraction. 'There aren't many people whom the Devil's Advocate would be able to pronounce as saintly.'

  'Not many,' he agreed, 'but there are those who don't deserve to be hurt. Those who give of themselves without asking the one who takes if he deserves such generosity ‑'

  Suddenly, to Jorja's deep distress, a sob broke from Renzo, and instantly she was on her feet and she was holding him, pressing his head to her breast, stroking his black hair and murmuring his name.

  'Renzo, darling, what can I do to help you? I know how much you are grieving for your mother.'

  He shook his head against her. 'It isn't madre, not entirely.'

  'Then tell me, dear heart.'

  'How can you call me that?' he burst out. 'How can you bear to be near me? Why aren't you with Bruce? He phoned you—he wanted you—don't you think I could tell?'

  'Yes, he phoned because he thought I was leaving you.'

  'So that was what you talked about over your lunch with him?' But even as he spoke, Renzo clasped his arms about her waist and his entire body strained for her closeness and her touch.

  'We talked about a lot of things, Renzo, and I told him that if I left you I would go home to Duncton because love is something I don't seem able to cope with. But that was at lunchtime. I didn't know then what I know now, that love has a further side to it, one that doesn't give up what it feels is worth fighting for.'

  She paused and slowly ran her fingers down his face, feeling the hard fine bone of him and the heat of his lips. 'Angelica,' she said deliberately, 'can go to hell. I can give you more, and beyond that more than she ever can. I'll fight her tooth and nail if she comes anywhere near the man who belongs to me.'

  Her breast heaved as she spoke, and then she felt lips hard and urgent against her body. She felt him standing, taking hold of her, lifting her and laying her down on the chaise-longue. His lips were bruising her, but it was wonderful. His hands were everywhere, and it was doubly wonderful.

  'Jorja, dolce mia,' he explored her as if he had just found her, as if she were his brand new bride and he had never known her. In a mixture of Italian and English he said things that brought the heat rushing to her face.

  'After the destructiveness of Angelica how could I believe that her sister could be so beneficent? Like some damned, ungrateful brute I started to look for faults in you. How could I do it? What got into me? Here, here in this garden room I lashed out at you and your sweet young face went so white. Madre was angry with me and it may have been what I did, what I said to you that brought on her heart attack!'

  'No.' Jorja pressed a kiss against his mouth. 'When I phoned the doctor he seemed as if he'd been expecting such a call. I believe, Renzo dear, that your mother was dying and she wanted to be with you. The three of us were together, weren't we? She knew and spoke of being contented, didn't she? She couldn't take any more suffering, for there is a point beyond bearing and when we reach it, Renzo, we die.'

  After long, long moments he spoke. 'If your love for me has died, then tell me. I don't want pretence, or sacrifice, or anything that isn't total need and desire. I want every tiny atom of what you are. Every breath in your body. Every smile that you smile. Every joy and pain.'

  He drew her to his heart, savage and tender ... as love is.

  'We get the measure of the love we give,' she said softly. 'Love me with all your heart, and in return I shall love with all my heart all and every atom of you.'

  He searched her eyes in the lamplight and they were clear and bright as the night had become, there beyond the windows of the garden room. The rain had died away and the clouds had unveiled a slip of a moon. It peered in through the windows, almost like a smile that watched as a lover kissed his love.