Moth to the Flame(12)

He rose courteously at her approach, and held the chair for her to sit

down again. He looked incredibly tall as he stood over her, and

more formidable than ever, although he was smiling slightly.

'I have ordered fresh coffee,' he said. 'What little was left in the pot

was getting stale and bitter.'

Juliet glanced down at the cup in front of her. She didn't really want

any more coffee. If she drank too much of it in the evening then she

didn't sleep properly. But then she didn't actually expect to get

much sleep under the circumstances anyway, she thought wryly,

and lifted the cup to her lips.

The fresh, brew was hot, but it still had that faint bitterness Santino                       
       
           



       

had mentioned, and she put the cup down after a tentative sip with a

faint grimace.

'Can we go now?' she asked. 'I'm a working girl, remember? I can't

take too many late nights.'

'Your looks do not seem to have suffered from them so far,' he

commented, blowing a reflective smoke-ring.

She flushed and drank some more coffee to mask her

embarrassment. He sat, watching her, his eyes hooded and

meditative.

'I ask you one last time, Janina,' he said, and she wished, with a

sudden pang to hear her own name on his lips and not her sister's.

'Will you accept the money I have offered, go back to your own

country and leave my brother in peace?'

He sounded almost tired, she thought in surprise, perhaps even a

little dispirited. Maybe he wasn't used to people rejecting any offers

he decided to make them, whether on a personal or a business level.

She swallowed some more of the coffee, then said quickly, 'I can't.

It-it's too late. Please take my word for that.'

Later, much later, she thought, he would know what she'd meant by

her hurried words.

'Your word!' he repeated, and to her dismay all the former cynicism

and contempt had returned to his voice to wound her. Then he

laughed shortly. 'Finish your coffee, cara, and we'll go. There's

clearly no more to be said.'

Juliet finished the coffee and replaced the cup in its saucer. So it

was all over. Waiters were bowing and smiling as they left, and she

guessed that he must have settled the bill in her absence and added

a generous tip.

Fate played some strange tricks, she decided as she sat beside him

in the car and heard the engine purr into life. For one evening she

had lived like a millionairess, only to be accused of being a

gold-digger. That was an element that had been missing from all the

best fairy tales, she told herself. Prince Charming had never

accused Cinderella of being out for what she could get, nor had any

of King Cophetua's relatives offered to buy off the beggar-maid.

It was much easier to be Juliet Laurence, schoolteacher, she

thought, or would she find, when it came to it, that nothing was

going to be easy for her again? That was depressive talk, she

criticised herself robustly. Her pathetic charade had to come to an

end sooner or later, and it was better that it was sooner rather than

later when she considered some of the self-revelations that had

come to her during the evening. And she wanted it to be over.

There was pain and danger waiting on the path she had embarked

on so recklessly. Her own life might be dull in comparison, but at

least it was safe and real.

It was very warm in the car even though the side windows were

open to admit the evening air. In spite of herself, she could feel an

almost irresistible urge to yawn taking hold of her, and stifled it

guiltily, brushing a concealing hand across her mouth. Santino

Vallone, she thought, would definitely not be accustomed to women

who yawned in his company.

Yet it certainly wasn't boredom she was assailed by-she felt too

keyed up for that-but a sudden and inexplicable drowsiness which

she found herself fighting with a strange urgency.

Santino leaned forward and flicked a switch on the dashboard and

music began to play softly, with a slow sensuous beat which had an

increasingly soporific effect. She forced her weighted eyelids to

remain open and pulled herself into a more upright position in the

seat. There was no way- no way at all in which she was going to

sleep.

Now if she had been with Barry she would simply have succumbed,

putting her head on his shoulder and letting her drowsiness have its

way with her, but such an action would be unthinkable with a man

like Santino. Even if they had merely spent a pleasant evening in

each other's company with no ulterior motives on either side, she

would still have been chary at putting herself so completely at his

mercy.

She found another yawn threatening, and turned her head away to

hide it, gazing rather desperately out of the window. Darkness

outside the car, darkness within it, and the soft insistent rhythm of

the music-all of it lapping her like a warm blanket, infinitely

comforting, infinitely appealing. And all she had to do was let go

and slide down into the darkness, closing her weary eyes and not

even thinking any more because thinking, reasoning was too hard

when you were so nearly falling asleep.

Through the mists that were drowning her, smothering her, he heard

him say softly but with an underlying note of faint amusement,

'Why fight it, cara? Just close your eyes and enjoy the ride.'

It was the amusement that told her, and she grasped at it with the

last remnants of reason. Her mouth felt stiff as if it didn't belong to

her, and her voice seemed to come from a long way away as she                       
       
           



       

heard herself say, 'The coffee -what did you put in the coffee?'

His laughter, mocking and enigmatic, was the last thing she heard

as she fell asleep.





CHAPTER FOUR


She came awake slowly, her hand automatically reaching out to

grope for the alarm clock that she felt .must have triggered her

subconscious. But it wasn't the usual clutter of clock, lamp, the

novel she had been reading that her hand encountered. And as the

sun began to filter through her still-closed eyelids, she thought,

'How stupid. Of course, I'm still in Rome at Jan's flat. But I've been

dreaming about being at home.'

Then she opened her eyes and her first thought was that she was

dreaming still. For the room around her bore not the slightest

resemblance to the streamlined luxury at the flat. It was completely

and totally unfamiliar.

She sat up, accepting that there was a slight dull ache across her

forehead, her eyes questing round the room with increasing alarm.

It wasn't particularly large, but it had a formidable air which was

immediately apparent. Stone walls, their austerity unrelieved by any

kind of hangings or colour wash, massive furniture belonging to a

previous generation, small-paned windows set in deeply ledged

recesses. And the bed she was lying in surely belonged more

properly in a museum, she thought apprehensively as she gazed up

at the brocaded canopy over her head, and the long curtains that

swept down on either side of it. She supposed the curtains could be

drawn round the bed at night, but last night they had not been, They

had been looped back with heavily gilded and tasselled cords. The

sheets and pillowcases were of linen so fine that it felt like silk

against her skin, and they were edged with exquisite lace that even

her untrained eyes suggested was probably handmade.

Which brought her to the next realisation-that the sheet, and the

elaborately quilted and embroidered bedcover, were the only

covering she had. The colour stormed into her face. Someone had

brought her here, undressed her and put her to bed, and she had not

the slightest recollection of any of it happening. The last thing she

remembered, she forced her mind back, was music and the swift

motion of a car, and a man's voice.

She pressed her hands against her burning cheeks as her memory

began to stir sluggishly, and she began to recall all that had taken

place-when? The previous evening? It was difficult to say, but

surely she had not been to sleep for so very long?

There was a faint unpleasant taste in her mouth, and after a

moment's hesitation she reached for the carafe of fruit juice which

stood on the carved chest of drawers beside the bed and filled the

glass, draining it to the last drop. It was deliciously cool and

refreshing, and her head was beginning to clear that little bit more

with each minute that passed.

She looked rather desperately round the room. Where were the

clothes she had been wearing last night? she asked herself. There

was no doubt in her mind that wherever she was, Santino Vallone

had brought her there, and she writhed inwardly with shame at the

thought of herself naked and helpless under his cynical gaze.

She wanted to get out of bed and start looking in the huge,

elaborately carved wardrobe for something to wear, but her lack of

any kind of wrap made her hesitate, feeling vulnerable. After a

moment she dragged at the bedcover and twisted it around her

shoulders like some exotic Renaissance cloak. It wasn't an ideal

dressing gown by any means, but anything was better than nothing,

she thought as she climbed out of the high bed and trod across the

thick goatskin rug which was laid over the bare wooden floor.