wooden door which gave access to the outside world, she wondered
for a moment if anyone would try to stop her. 'Not that there
seemed to be anyone about. Annunziata had vanished, presumably
back to the kitchen regions, and Santino himself was nowhere to be
seen. In a way, this was something of an anti-climax. Juliet had
been certain that he would seek her out during the afternoon, and
she had been geared up for another confrontation between them.
Now she was conscious of feeling curiously deflated when her
overriding emotion should have been one of relief, she thought.
Outside the castello, the heat struck her like a blow, and she stood
very still for a moment or two, getting acclimatised and assimilating
her new surroundings. She could see now that the castello had been
built on a rocky-prominence at one end of a small bay. Just ahead
of her, a long flight of stone steps cut into the side of the rock led
down to the dusty ribbon of road along the shoreline, and below her
she could see Santino's car drawn up in the shade of some trees.
Everywhere she looked seemed to shimmer in the heat. Along the
bay she could see a cluster of roofs and white walls and guessed
this was the village. Directly below the castello, the shore was
rocky with infrequent patches of sand, but further along towards the
village, Juliet saw that there was a gently shelving beach where a
number of boats, many of them with curiously elongated prows,
were drawn up.
Juliet made a slight grimace. If she wanted privacy, then it seemed
that the rocky shore below the castello was her best bet. She did
not particularly want to undertake her sunbathing under the gaze of
any number of Italian fishermen. She shaded her eyes with her hand
as she scanned the horizon and thought longingly of her new and
expensive sunglasses left behind in Rome. She could feel the sun
beating down on her unprotected head, and started forward down
the steps. It might be slightly cooler down at the water's edge in
between the rocks, she told herself.
As she reached the road, she cast a longing glance at Santino's car
and on impulse crossed the small paved area into the shade of the
trees to look at it more closely. Something in her mind was arguing
half-heartedly that Santino might have left it unlocked with the keys
in the ignition and a full tank of petrol, but even before the door
catch resisted her tentative pressure, she knew she was being
over-optimistic. Besides, even had her fantasy borne fruit, was she
really planning to drive this sleek and powerful monster over roads
she didn't know back to Rome? She shook her head regretfully and
turned away. As she did so, something at one of the upper windows
of the castello high above her caught her eye-a glint, as if the sun
was being reflected back from glass that moved.
Indignation boiled up in her as she realised that someone- and it
had to be Santino- was watching her through binoculars. He must
have seen her at the car, she thought furiously, and guessed what
was going through her mind. Recklessly she turned to face the
castello and thumbed her nose at it. It was schoolgirlish and silly,
she knew, but it made her feel immeasurably better, and she
marched on down to the beach with her head high and something
approaching a swagger in her step. As she picked her way rather
more gingerly across the stone and pebbles, she wondered if he was
still watching her progress, but nothing in this world would have
made her glance round to check.
It seemed, if possible, even hotter down on the shore and she
moved more slowly, flinching a little as she clambered across rocks
that had been baking in the sun for most of the day. At last she
judged she was out of sight of the main rooms of the castello and
without further hesitation she peeled off the cheesecloth tunic and
dropped it beside the rock she was standing on, before diving in.
The coolness of the water was a shock at first on her overheated
body, but a delicious shock. For nearly twenty minutes she dived
and swam and floated. The water was crystal clear, and she wished
that she had a snorkel and mask so that she could explore the deep
pools among the rocks even more thoroughly. She climbed back on
to her rock and sat for a moment, wringing the water out of her
sea-darkened hair, and feeling the damp scraps of her bikini drying
perceptibly on her body in the heat. Beware of sunstroke, she
thought, shaking her cloud of damp hair over the nape of her neck
and covering herself rather regretfully with the cheesecloth tunic. In
the distance she thought she could hear voices and guessed they
were from the village, carried in the still air.
It was incredibly peaceful, she thought. Almost like Paradise-even
down to having its own personal Satan lurking in the undergrowth.
A reluctant smile twisted her lips as she visualised the arrogant
Santino Vallone lurking anywhere. No serpentine subtlety in his
make-up, yet he was as proud as Lucifer and had the face and
bearing of a fallen angel.
Juliet sighed and gave herself a little mental shake. She was being
fanciful again. Santino was no Prince of Darkness, she told herself
roundly. He -was simply a powerful industrialist who did not
hesitate to take the law into his own hands if he deemed it
necessary. The only pity was that she had had to experience his
ruthlessness at first hand.
She rested her chin on one bent knee and stared broodingly across
the glittering water, wondering what it must be like to encounter
Santino under other circumstances-to know him as the other
women who had stayed with him at the castello must have known
him-as a casual acquaintance, then an escort, then a lover. She
remembered moments over dinner the previous evening when he
had seemed almost human, and she had recognised even then the
pull of his attraction-moments when Jan's shadow had not been
between them.
If I'd met him by chance, she thought, while I was sightseeing
somewhere-the Colosseum perhaps, and he'd invited me to
dinner-I wonder if I'd have accepted.
But she knew the answer to that particular question almost before
her mind had framed it. Yes, she would have gone to dinner with
him, and anywhere else he had chosen to take her, humiliating
though the admission might be. It was as well for her own peace of
mind that there had been this antagonism between them from the
first. At least she still had some shreds of self-respect to hang on to.
Besides, she thought, reasserting her common sense, who's to say
that if we had met casually somewhere, he would even have given
me a second glance? The only reason she was here was because he
was convinced that she was Jan, and he had probably only tried to
make love to her because he was bored and she was available. She
had no idea what kind of woman appealed to him, but she
.imagined someone as dark as himself, almond-eyed and sultry, or a
ravishing Botticelli blonde.
She gave another little sigh. One thing was certain. When he and
Jan did finally come face to face, he would ask himself how he
could possibly have made such a mistake- would see how
superficial the resemblance between them really was. She had seen
it happen so many times over the years-heard herself described
often as 'that lovely child' and then heard the intake of breath as the
speaker's eyes fell on Jan, and know that once again she had been
relegated to being 'the other one' or 'the quiet one'. She'd thought
that it no longer had the power to hurt her, but suddenly she was
fiercely resolved not to be around when the time came for Santino
to make his comparisons.
She felt tears heavy and hot at the back of her eyes, and childishly
pressed her balled fists against her eyelids.
Close beside her Santino's voice said, 'What's the matter?'
She started. She had been so absorbed in these new and painful
reflections that she had never heard his approach.
'Nothing,' she said, sitting bolt upright and transferring her gaze
back to the horizon with quite unnecessary intensity. 'The sun's a bit
dazzling, that's all.'
'Have you no dark glasses?'
She shot him a fulminating glance. 'They were one thing you forgot,'
she said too sweetly.
He gave her a mocking little bow. 'I suppose I may be forgiven one
slight omission.' His eyes wandered over her, boldly assessing the
slender curves revealed by the clinging cheesecloth. 'I seem to have
chosen well in other respects.'
She shrugged one shoulder. 'If you want to think so ...' She resumed
her intent scrutiny of the sea and the huge landmass which was just
visible in the haze and heard him give a little half-suppressed sigh.
It was an irritable sound, and she guessed he was not used to
having his presence ignored in this way.
'You seem to find Sicily fascinating,' he observed.
'Is that Sicily?' She leaned forward, shading her eyes with her hand.
'I had no idea. I've never seen it before and ...'
. 'Never seen it?' He stared at her. 'I understood it was while you
were working on a magazine spread near Palermo that you and
Mario first met.'
Juliet swallowed. 'Well, of course,' she said after a moment. 'I