Liberate Yourself (The Desires Unlocked Trilogy Part One) (34 page)

‘As for Theo, trust me, all will be clear after you go inside the Dark Room tonight.’

The way he speaks, it’s as if he knows something she doesn’t.

‘What are you hiding from me, Leonardo?’ She pokes him with her finger.

He gives her a honeyed smile.

‘Patience, Valentina.’ And the way he says it reminds her of Theo. Now her anger at her lover has dissipated and she is filled with concern. Has she ruined any future she and Theo might have, by sleeping with Leonardo? Should she hide it from him? And yet she can’t regret last night. That’s the odd thing.

‘I would like you to do something for me, Valentina,’ Leonardo says.

She looks at him questioningly.

‘In order for me to ensure that the Dark Room fulfils your needs to perfection, I want you to tell me about your most erotic fantasy.’

He looks at her intently, and she can feel her cheeks colouring as if he can read her mind.

‘Do you think you can do that, Valentina?’ He sidles over to her side of the bed.

‘I don’t know,’ she mumbles. ‘I’m not sure I know what it is.’

‘I could help you think of something,’ he says, stroking the top of her thighs underneath the covers. Her body immediately responds to his touch. She is still left wanting from last night.

‘Okay . . .’ she whispers.

‘Close your eyes,’ he instructs her, and she does what he asks, so that all her senses are focused on his touch. She feels his finger pushing against her clitoris, gently rubbing it.

‘Go into your fantasy, Valentina.’ His voice purrs. ‘Take me to your deepest, darkest desire.’

As Leonardo’s fingertips bring her closer and closer to the edge, in Valentina’s mind is illuminated an image. Her ultimate fantasy. Hesitantly she relays her vision to Leonardo.

When she has finished, the image is replaced by another scene. One she doesn’t share with him. In it she returns to her bedroom at night. Theo is there, torch in hand, and he is gloriously naked. He drops the torch so that it is spinning on the floor, projecting light around the walls of the room like a disco ball. He lifts her up with both hands, up so high that the top of her head is brushing against the chandelier, making the glass tinkle and projecting even more reflections, like raindrops cascading all around them in their bedroom. He brings her down again and she puts her legs around his waist, guiding him into her. One thrust and she is open wide, the frustrations of this week melting away as if a door has been opened in the small of her back and a flood of emotion is pouring out. And so Valentina comes again and again, the magic of Leonardo’s touch transporting her into the arms of her lover, Theo.

SIGNOR BRZEZINSKI IS BACK. BELLE HAS NOT SEEN HIM
, but she heard him last night, stomping around the house, and shouting at Renate in the kitchen that his meat was not cooked right. He is biding his time, she thinks, but it will not be long before he hits her again. She can’t risk it, not because she is frightened of him, but because she needs to protect Santos. She knows her lover will be true to his word if he sees one more bruise upon her skin.

I will run away, Belle vows when she wakes the next morning. She has a delicious fantasy of herself and Santos far, far away from Venice. She is wrapped in furs, crunching in the snow, Santos at her side, the steam from their breath mingled as they look up at the bright domes and spires of St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Clutched in the palm of her hand, inside her coat pocket, is the Romanov emerald that they have retrieved from a communist stronghold. Or they are somewhere tropical, sailing on his white schooner and stopping off
in Cuba, where they spend the night dancing and gambling with shady characters, only to escape with all the winnings. Yes, luck would be on their side, for surely when two people are meant to be together, they will be granted a greater measure of good fortune.

The door opens and Pina enters with her breakfast tray. Belle sits up in bed, patting the pillows behind her and feeling more positive than she has in ages. It is time to break her promise. What kind of promise is it anyway when it is demanded from you by your father on his deathbed? That is bribery, Belle reasons. It is time to live for herself and no longer feel responsible for her mother.

She looks down at her breakfast on the tray on her lap. Milky tea in the bone-china cup from Vienna, two neat triangles of toast and a softly boiled egg in a silver eggcup. She knocks the lid off the egg with her teaspoon. Just looking at the yolk turns her stomach. She hastily shoves the tray aside and gets out of bed.

‘Madam? Are you all right?’ Pina is at the windows, drawing back the curtains.

Belle nods, unable to speak as she rushes into her bathroom. She barely makes it to the toilet before she throws up.

As she sits on her haunches by the toilet bowl, Pina hesitantly enters the bathroom.

‘Madam, are you ill?’

‘I don’t know, Pina. I was feeling fine a minute ago. It was the egg. It’s made me rather queasy.’

She puts her hands on the cool black and white tiles of her bathroom floor and then up to her forehead, but she doesn’t have a temperature.

‘You should get back into bed. Rest.’

Belle stands up shakily, leans over the sink and looks at her pale face.

‘No. I have to go out.’

She locks eyes with Pina in the mirror. The younger girl blushes scarlet. She knows my secret, Belle thinks. I don’t know this girl at all, yet I would trust her with my life.

‘Tell me, Pina,’ Belle says as she starts to apply her makeup. ‘Do you miss your home in Sicily?’

The girl nods, her eyes doleful, her mouth drawn in a sad line.

‘I remember when you sang to me in your dialect. It was quite beautiful.’ Belle leans forwards and starts shaping her eyebrows. She still feels a little sick, but she is not going to let it stop her from seeing Santos today. ‘So are your parents in Sicily still?’

‘My mother is dead, madam, and my father has a new wife and family.’

‘Oh, I am sorry, Pina.’ So that is why the girl is always here, never home for holidays and no visits from relatives.

She pauses, and looks at Pina. She is so young, she thinks. Nearly the same age as Belle herself was when she first got married.

‘You are so pretty, Pina, you must have many admirers.’

Pina blushes an even deeper shade of red. She casts her eyes down to the floor.

‘I really don’t care for any of them,’ she says.

‘Then don’t be persuaded to marry,’ says Belle firmly. ‘Enjoy your freedom while you can.’ As she says these words, she wonders what kind of freedom Pina might actually have. Certainly not as much as her.

‘I am not able to choose my own husband anyway.’

Belle turns around and scrutinises Pina’s face. And she sees, under all the shy softness, an anger burning inside the young Sicilian girl.

‘Why not? Your father seems not to bother with you any more. This is 1929, Pina, not the eighteenth century.’

‘There is an agreement between my father and Signor Brzezinski.’

Belle frowns. What does the girl mean?

‘What kind of arrangement?’

‘Signor Brzezinski is to select my husband,’ says the girl, barely audible.

‘Why does he get to choose your husband, Pina?’

Pina looks distressed. She clasps her hands, and tears spring into her eyes.

‘I shouldn’t say.’

Belle thinks. What kind of power could Signor Brzezinski hold over another man?

‘It’s to do with money, isn’t it, Pina?’

The girl nods, her voice barely raised above a whisper.

‘My father had to give me as a maid to Signor Brzezinski in payment for his debts to him. It was agreed that when I was seventeen, Signor Brzezinski would arrange my marriage to his own advantage.’

The young girl’s voice is shaking with emotion. Belle sits down on the stool in the bathroom, her eyebrow brush still in her hand. The shock of what she has just heard registers slowly. Her husband is no better than a pimp. What other young women has he controlled over the years? She looks at the maid, a thought suddenly occurring to her.

‘And how old are you now, Pina?’ she asks.

‘I was seventeen last week.’

Belle looks into Pina’s tearful eyes and she sees herself, the little Polish girl, and the last conversation she had with her dying father. An unpleasant thought occurs to her. What exactly did her father say to her? She dredges back the words.

‘It is a good marriage, Ludwika. He is a rich man and can provide well for you and your mother. He has contacts with the Germans. He can get you both out of Warsaw.’

How she begged her father.

‘I don’t want to go, Tata. I want to stay here with you. Please.’

Her father raised his hand weakly, his eyes filled with tears.

‘It is my dying wish, my daughter. You must promise me you will marry this man, and look after your mother.’

‘No, Tata, I can’t. I don’t love him . . .’

‘He will save your lives, Ludwika. You must do it.’

She was sobbing, clinging on to her father’s hand. He didn’t look like himself any more. He was a shadow of his former self. Where was her big strong father, who could knock down any man? She looked across the bed at her mother, but she was so beside herself with grief that she didn’t even see her daughter.

‘Alexsy,’ she was whispering. ‘Alexsy, don’t leave me . . .’

‘Promise me,’ her father hissed with his dying breath, and she did it. She looked straight into his eyes and said yes, she would marry Signor Brzezinski. She has never really understood why her father demanded such a thing of her, until now. Suddenly the reason is as clear as day. She was bounty as well. She knows her father had money problems, for after he died it materialised that he had not a penny left to his name. So she was the return on an unpaid debt. She feels sick again at the thought of it. How could her father, and her mother, have done that to her? Their betrayal cuts through her, makes her heart so heavy she feels like crying, and yet she can’t, not in front of this poor Sicilian girl.

Now her decision is irrefutable. Today she will cut the ghosts of her parents free. It is too late for her mother anyway. She knows in her heart that she is never coming back. The last time she saw her she was lost, for ever relegated to that place of no return. Signor Brzezinski cannot hurt her now. Belle takes a deep breath and turns back to the mirror, lifts her chin to her reflection.

‘You must run away, Pina,’ she says to the reflection of the red-eyed girl. ‘I will give you money.’

Pina is shaking her head.

‘No, I cannot leave you,’ she says.

Belle raises her eyebrows and stares at the girl for a moment.

‘Well if that is the case, my dear, then we must escape together.’

‘But what about my father, and his family? He is indebted to Signor Brzezinski. What will happen to them if I run away?’

Belle spins around on her stool, leans forward and takes the girl’s hands in hers.

‘You must not worry about them, Pina,’ she says harshly. ‘Your father has given you up to Signor Brzezinski. You must think of yourself now. You owe your father nothing.’

She feels the expression in the girl’s eyes lighten, as if for the first time she has been given a little hope.

‘But where will we go?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know,’ says Belle, her eyes flashing with excitement. ‘All I can tell you is that we will be sailing out across the lagoon and never coming back.’

As she speaks, Belle hears the door of her bedroom banging open. The two women exchange glances. There is no one else in the household who would make such an entrance.

‘Louise!’

It is Signor Brzezinski. Not even nine in the morning and he is angry, Belle thinks wearily. How will I avoid being hit? she muses.

‘Stay here,’ she whispers to Pina, putting her finger to her lips. Today she must placate her husband if it is to be the day of their great escape.

Belle emerges from the bathroom, still not fully made up. Her husband is dressed in one of his smart business suits. His thinning grey hair is slicked back, and his large pale forehead shines like the top of her boiled egg.

‘Is something the matter, sir?’ she asks politely.

‘I have heard reports,’ he says.

She raises her eyebrows.

‘You mean rumours, sir? You should not trust gossip.’

Signor Brzezinski takes a step towards her and grabs the wrist of her right hand, squeezing tightly. She tries not to react, although he is hurting her.

‘I have received an eyewitness account that you were seen on a rooftop in Venice, naked, and with a strange man.’

She laughs with false jollity.

‘Oh really, Signor Brzezinski,’ she says. ‘Why on earth would I do something like that? I would have to be mad!’

He shoves his face into hers. His eyes are black slits.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought, my dear. But you see, this is a very reliable witness. It was reported to me that not only were you naked on this rooftop, but you were also fornicating in broad daylight with a common sailor.’

She holds his gaze and stares back at him, brazen in her denial.

‘I may have misbehaved in the past, sir, but you have
taught me well not to disobey you. I can assure you that I would have to be crazy to attempt to do such a thing and invite your wrath yet again.’

She manages to pull her arm away, and rubs it in an effort to hide the mark.

‘What woman does a thing like that?’ she says. ‘Not even a prostitute.’

‘A woman like you, Louise. A foul, sinful creature,’ her husband hisses through his teeth. ‘If I had known you would be so much trouble . . . If I had known you would be a useless wife, not even able to give me a child, I would have made a different choice.’

He grabs her by the arm again, and pulls her close to him. She can see the perspiration on his forehead, smell his disgusting breath.

‘I needn’t have married you, for I had your mother anyway.’

His words are worse than a punch to the stomach. Belle wants to double over, but as she writhes away from him, he grabs her other wrist so that he is so close to her, she can see the blood in his eyes.