by Anne Mather
‘When she died? Oh, no. Lorenzo has found himself a new protector, an American widow, who has more money than brains. She has taken him to the United States. They left several weeks before the child was born.’
‘But—it was his child!’
The Contessa shrugged. ‘He had no intention of claiming it as such. He knew that so long as Rafaello and Nicola were married, the child would be accepted as theirs. He knew Rafaello would not allow the child to suffer for its parents’ infidelities.’
Jaime made a helpless gesture. ‘He—he’s completely amoral!’
‘Perhaps.’ the Contessa inclined her head. ‘Myself, I am glad he is out of my son’s life. Whatever happens, that is a blessing.’
Jaime gestured towards the tray, but when the Contessa declined any further refreshment, she said: ‘Well, thank you, for letting me know about—about Nicola. I am grateful—–’
‘Wait!’ The Contessa held up her hand. ‘That is not why I came.’
‘It’s not?’ Jaime was confused. ‘But I thought—–’
‘Jaime, I told you: I thought you knew. My reasons for coming here have to do with Rafaello, not Nicola. I thought I had made that clear.’
Jaime licked her lips. ‘No. No, you didn’t. I-I’m sorry, but I assumed you wanted to find out whether Raf had told me.’
‘I did. But that was not why I came.’ The Contessa paused. ‘Jaime, if I ask you a very personal question, will you give me an honest answer?’
‘If I can.’ Jaime shifted back into the cushions, her voice a little unsteady. ‘But—but if you’re going to tell me to keep out of Raf’s life, then don’t bother. I-I have no intention of opening up old wounds.’
‘You have not?’ Rafaello’s mother gazed at her with some dismay, and Jaime shook her head.
‘No. No, you needn’t worry, contessa, I realise how you must feel. If—if things had been different—well, who knows how I’d have answered, but now I can see you would want to assure yourself that Raf doesn’t make the same mistakes again.’
‘No, you are wrong!’ burst out the old lady fiercely. ‘Jaime, you have misunderstood me completely. I did not come here to tell you to keep out of my son’s life; quite the reverse. He needs you, Jaime. He needs you desperately. But as proud as he is, he will never tell you so himself!’
Jaime stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What do you think I mean, Jaime? You made your choice very plain all those years ago. Do you think I could ever convince him that you had had second thoughts?’
Jaime swallowed convulsively. ‘You—you know, don’t you?’
‘That you still love my son?’ The Contessa nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I know that. From the moment we met, I knew it. But do you love him enough to sacrifice your career for his sake? That is something I do not know.’
Jaime got up from the couch and walked nervously across the room. Then, turning, she looked down at the old lady. ‘When—when I first met Raf, I was eighteen. As—as I told you, my father had walked out on my mother when I was just a child. If it hadn’t been for a cousin of my mother’s, I should never have had the kind of education I had. But I did, and—and I suppose I felt I owed it to myself to do something with it.’
‘And Rafaello?’
‘Raf?’ Jaime hesitated. ‘Oh—Raf was something else. He was all the things my mother had taught me to avoid. A man who was handsome, who was attractive to women! A man who could take all my carefully drawn plans of making a career for myself, and screw them up.’
‘Yet you let him go.’
‘Yes.’ Jaime bent her head. ‘Yes, I did that. And regretted it immediately afterwards.’
‘No—–’
‘Oh, yes.’ Jaime’s lips twisted. ‘But can you imagine how I felt when I discovered he was going to marry Nicola? The announcement was made less than a month after—after—– Well! It was enough to convince me that my doubts had been justified.’
‘Oh, Jaime!’
‘So now you see, it isn’t really a question of my feelings at all. It’s Raf’s. He—he despises me. He’s still physically attracted to me, but he doesn’t love me. I don’t know how you could think he did.’
‘Jaime, all I know is that since we buried Nicola, my son has been like—like a dead man.’ The Contessa shook her head. ‘I tried to tell myself it was because of Nicola, and in the beginning I almost convinced myself, but it is not so. I realise now that this is not some new condition. Maria tells me he has not eaten a good meal in months, and I am afraid he is working himself to death.’
Jaime caught her breath. ‘And—and you think I can change that?’
‘I hope and pray you can. Jaime, Rafaello loved you, I know that. Whether he still does is something you must find out. But he will never come to you, so I am appealing to you to go to him.’
Martin took the news that Jaime was going to Italy philosophically. ‘I can’t say it’s entirely unexpected,’ he commented, from behind his square mahogany desk. ‘Much as I hate to say it, you haven’t been yourself since you came back, and it will do you good to get this thing out of your system, once and for all.’
‘And if I don’t?’ murmured Jaime unhappily. ‘Get it out of my system, I mean.’
‘Then I suppose I’ll have to think seriously about that Italian branch,’ replied Martin casually, and Jaime leant across and kissed him for his understanding.
Getting a flight to Pisa wasn’t difficult. At this time of year, most people were planning a Christmas break, and as it was still ten days to the festivities, Jaime had no problems.
In Pisa, she hired a car to take her the final miles of her journey. In truth, she was not enthusiastic about driving about these country roads in icy conditions, but it was the quickest way she could think of getting there. And she wanted to get there. She wanted to see Rafaello’s face when she turned up. She wanted to hear his voice when he spoke to her. She wanted to find out once and for all exactly what they had, or whether time, and misunderstandings, had destroyed that elusive desire. Passion was not love; sex was not love; but if that was all he could offer, would it be enough?
It was early evening when she drove up the final twisting track to the castle. Darkness had fallen some time before, and on the dark unfamiliar roads, Jaime had found it difficult to find her way. She half wished she had asked the Contessa to come with her, but that lady had insisted Jaime came alone.
‘Rafaello must not know I came to you,’ she said, in some agitation. ‘He would never forgive me. Promise me you will not tell him. I do not know what he would do if he knew.’
The Castello yard was dark and deserted, and indeed, if Jaime had not had the Contessa’s word that Rafaello was at the Castello, she would have had doubts. There seemed to be no lights anywhere, but the curtains were drawn, and their heavy folds disguised any illumination within.
Knocking at the studded door, Jaime wondered if anyone would hear her. The iron bell-pull was merely ornamental, and no one had installed anything incongruous like an electric system. Allowing the heavy brass ring to fall against the solid wood once more, Jaime had half decided to seek accommodation in Vaggio for the night and return to the Castello in the morning, when the door finally swung inward.
‘Signorina Forster!’
It was the housekeeper, Maria, who had answered her summons, and she stared at Jaime in dismay. For one awful moment Jaime wondered if some other tragedy had occurred of which she was in ignorance, but evidently Maria’s distress was not what she feared.
‘Oh, la signora is not here, signorina,’ she exclaimed, her hands fluttering nervously to her full bosom. ‘Signorina Forster, you have had a—how do you say?—a journey for nothing! La signora—la signora ě morta!’
‘I know, Maria.’ Jaime wished she would invite her in. It was a bitterly cold evening, and she had left her overcoat in the car. Standing here, waiting for someone to answer the door, she had got chilled to the bone, and she looked with some longing at the fire burning in the hall grate behind the
housekeeper. ‘I didn’t—–’
‘Chi è, Maria?’
The weary masculine tones caused her to break off abruptly, and as she stood there shivering in the wind, Rafaello appeared from the direction of the library. He was pushing back his hair as he spoke, his head inclined slightly forward, so that he didn’t immediately recognise the visitor. But then, as Maria turned to him, spreading her hands bewilderedly, he lifted his head, and Jaime paled at the sudden bleakness of his expression.
‘La signorina è qui, signore,’ Maria explained, with a lingering trace of doubt in her voice. ‘I-I have told her—la signora is dead!’
‘I knew,’ exclaimed Jaime, realising she would have to take the initiative before he ordered her to leave. Brushing past the startled housekeeper, she entered the hall of the castle, holding out her hands to the fire’s warmth and adding: ‘Will you ask Giulio to bring in my bags? It’s so cold, and I’ve been waiting for ages for someone to hear me.’
Rafaello looked as though he might refuse, but then, as if aware that Maria was watching him and that she expected a certain code of conduct from him, he nodded. ‘Il bagaglio, Maria, per favore,’ he directed tersely, and to Jaime: ‘You had better come into the library.’
There was a fire in the library, too, casting its warmth over the shelves of books, adding a certain intimacy to its austere interior. Rafaello had evidently been working at the desk, and a lamp was lit to give him light, illuminating the columns of figures he had been studying, the gold fountain pen, which had been thrown down when he went to investigate the interruption.
‘Sit down,’ he essayed shortly, closing the door behind them and walking towards his desk. ‘Do you want a drink? I have some cognac, if you are really cold.’
‘Thank you.’
Jaime sank into one of the leather armchairs, watching him as he approached the cabinet, watching his hands as he handled the decanter and glasses. She thought the decanter rattled as it struck the glass, but she couldn’t be absolutely certain. What she was certain was that his mother had not been exaggerating. Rafaello had lost some weight; the suede trousers and matching waistcoat hung on his disturbingly thin frame.
When he turned to hand her the glass, she had a proper chance to look at his face, and what she saw there filled her with alarm. Surely Rafaello was ill, or suffering from some wasting disease, she thought. She had never seen a man’s face change so much, or witnessed so much condemnation in one freezing glance.
‘Thank you,’ she said now, taking the glass from him jerkily, and immediately averting her eyes. This was going to be so much harder than she had imagined, and already she was half prepared to believe that the Contessa had been wrong. Rafaello did not want her. His grief was not consequent on her behaviour. She had been a fool to come here on an old woman’s whim, when Rafaello evidently saw no merit in her unwelcome intrusion.
She was not given long to compose her arguments. ‘Why have you come?’ he demanded, propping himself against the side of the desk and regarding her with cold inimical eyes. ‘I suppose it was unreasonable to hope that you might not find out that my wife was dead. I imagine you have come here to offer me your belated condolences.’ His lips twisted. ‘There was no need. If you felt you had to acknowledge the event, a letter would have sufficed.’
Jaime took a determined sip of the brandy, then, wincing at its raw strength, she forced herself to speak. ‘How cold you are, Raf,’ she murmured, evading a direct answer. ‘I was—sorry to hear of Nicola’s death, but that wasn’t why I came.’
‘It was not?’ There was no glimmer of interest in his voice. ‘I cannot conceive of any other reason you might have to make this journey in winter.’
‘Can’t you, Raf? Can’t you?’ Jaime steeled herself to face that contemptuous stare. ‘I really don’t believe that. Even you could not be so obtuse.’
Rafaello held her gaze for several unnerving minutes, and then, as Jaime was about to give up, he looked away. ‘I do not know what you mean, signorina,’ he declared, studying the wine in his glass. ‘There can be no other reason for you to want to see me.’
Jaime’s knees were knocking beneath the hem of her skirt, but she was compelled to go on: ‘You must know that’s not true,’ she said carefully. ‘After what happened—–’
‘After what happened—when?’ he snarled angrily. ‘Do you mean five years ago, when you threw my offer of marriage back in my face? Or can you possibly be referring to our confrontation six months ago, when you kindly reminded me of my responsibilities to my wife!’
‘Raf—–’
‘No, you will hear me out! You must think I am some kind of fool, indeed. You come here, expecting to be treated in the way I would treat any other guest, when you must know that you are the last person I would wish to see.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ He tossed off the rest of his brandy, and dropped the empty glass on to his desk. ‘Why?’ he grated. ‘In God’s name, Jaime, have you no shame? What manner of woman are you? What can we possibly have to say to one another, when you know in your heart that everything has been said!’
‘No!’
‘Why do you say no?’ He glared at her savagely. ‘What more do you want from me? What last shred of pride are you seeking here?’ He lifted an unsteady hand and directed it at her. ‘You told me—you told me everything when you said we had drunk too much wine! You did not come to Italy to help me, Jaime, you came to help Nicola make a fool of me! And now that she is dead, you come back to complete the destruction!’
‘That’s not true!’ Jaime jerked to her feet to face him, clamping her teeth together to prevent them from chattering.
‘Oh, spare me the histrionics, Jaime! I have had enough of them to last me a lifetime. Whatever your reasons for coming to Vaggio, I do not want to hear them. Nicola is dead! I am dead! And so far as I am concerned, you are dead, too!’
‘No—–’
The choking denial left her lips, but Rafaello was not prepared to listen to it. ‘You have had a long journey,’ he declared, taking a steadying breath. ‘Naturally, I would not expect you to leave at this time of night. You may accept my hospitality until the morning, and then—–’
‘To hell with your hospitality!’ burst out Jaime tearfully, uncaring that her tears were causing her mascara to run and cause dark streaks to circle her already hollow eyes. ‘I didn’t come here to turn round and run away again. I came because I loved you; I came because I wanted to tell you that; I came because my life has been empty for five long years, and I hoped that now we might have a second chance!’
Rafaello was arrested as he walked towards the door, but although the sincerity of her words got through to him, their meaning didn’t. ‘I have had experience of your love, Jaime,’ he stated harshly. ‘Five years of experience, as it happens. And to my knowledge, it has never amounted to much.’
‘Oh, Raf!’ Jaime shook her head helplessly, as her last desperate plea seemed to be having no success. ‘I’ve loved you for five years, too. Don’t you think it’s about time we started doing something about it?’
Rafaello’s mouth curved scornfully. ‘What would you suggest?’ he demanded. ‘Would you like me to hire an overseer so that I could spend my time in London, with you? Or would you prefer it if I sold the Castello and the vineyard, and bought a house in England? Or perhaps you have it in mind to commute from Vaggio to London, so that you could continue with your job as—–’
‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Jaime put her hands over her ears closing her eyes against his bitter cynicism. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t understand! I didn’t come here to ask you to do any of those things. I-I came to tell you I love you. Isn’t that enough?’ She opened her eyes again. ‘Don’t you want me any more, Raf? Not even—physically?’
Rafaello’s hand fell from the door handle. ‘Damn you, Jaime,’ he muttered violently. ‘Damn you!’ His hands clenched at his sides. ‘Yes, I want you. God knows, I’ve never stopped wanting you. But I’ve fin
ally found the will to say: not on your terms!’
Jaime’s hands fell to her sides. ‘You don’t know what my terms are.’
‘I can guess.’ Rafaello closed his eyes now against the unconscious appeal of drowned grey eyes and tear-wet cheeks. ‘If you care about me at all, Jaime, you will get out of here, before I do something I will bitterly regret.’
‘Nothing you did could be a cause of regret to me,’ exclaimed Jaime, scrubbing the backs of her hands across her cheeks. ‘Oh, Raf, please stop fighting me. I need you so desperately. Please—please, don’t ask me to go!’
‘Jaime—’
His groan of anguish came with a final bid for detachment, an unsteady groping for the handle of the door, that sent Jaime rushing across the room to him. Sobbing helplessly, she clutched at his thin waist, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face against the finely-textured suede of his waistcoat.
‘I won’t let you do this, I won’t!’ she choked despairingly, and the yielding softness of her body against his achieved what words could not. Although his hands descended on hers cruelly, gripping her narrow wrists and digging into the flesh, they did not thrust her away. Instead, he turned rather shakenly to face her, and uttered a muffled oath of defeat as he bent his head to hers.
His mouth was hard and violent, an outlet for the starved emotions he had suppressed for so long. His hand at her nape held her a prisoner, but Jaime had no desire to resist. Her lips opened eagerly in urgent anticipation, and the kiss which had begun so savagely deepened to an aching sweetness.
When he finally released her mouth to bury his face in the scented hollow of her neck, Jaime was trembling quite uncontrollably, and his arms around her tightened possessively. ‘All right,’ he muttered, brokenly, ‘I cannot let you go—I admit it. But if you ever leave me again, Jaime, I swear it, I will kill you!’
‘I won’t leave you,’ promised Jaime tremulously. ‘I-I didn’t come here to make terms, Rafe. You’re all the terms I ever wanted. Only—only I waited too long, and I thought I’d lost you for ever.’
Rafaello’s brows drew together as he tipped her face up to his. ‘What do you mean? You waited too long?’
