Moth to the Flame (14 page)

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

simply meant that I'd never seen it from quite this angle before.' She

gave a little artificial laugh. 'When you're working, one place is very

much like another, you know.'

'I doubt that,
cara
,' he said a little grimly. 'Change places with a

young girl labouring in a factory in Milan and see if she would

agree with you.'

She flushed, already well aware of the foolishness of her remark. 'I

didn't quite mean that,' she said stiltedly.

'I hope not.' His tawny eyes were narrowed as he looked at her. 'Do

you know, you puzzle me, Janina.'

Her own glance fell away. 'I fail to see why,' she said in a subdued

tone.

'I'll tell you why. Because you don't fit all my preconceptions. Most

of them,
si,
but not all. There are—anomalies.'

Juliet could feel herself tensing. This is it, she told herself, the big

denunciation.

She made herself pout a little. 'I'm sorry if I don't conform to the

pattern of womanhood that you expected.'

'I didn't say that.' He smiled mirthlessly. 'In many ways you

fulfil—all my expectations, and yet in others ...' He gave a slight

shake of the head. 'I suppose it's all part of this artificial world you

inhabit. Eventually you forget what it is to be a real person. Acting

a role all the time must become second nature.'

So much for her skill in portraying Jan! She thought wryly.

'But I must confess,
mia,'
he went on, his voice deepening slightly,

'that occasionally in those great eyes of yours I catch a glimpse of

someone I would like to know better.'

She could feel her heart beating very loudly and painfully. The

impulse to tell him the truth there and then was almost

overwhelming, but it was too soon, she told herself desperately. If

the wedding hadn't taken place yet, there was still time for him to

prevent it.

She gave a little tight smile. 'Has it ever occurred to you that it

might be the same person that your brother Mario has fallen in love

with?'

'No, it has not,' he said bitingly. 'I'm perfectly well aware of what

constitutes your attraction for Mario,
cara,
and it is not your

beautiful soul. In the early days, before you managed to persuade

him that he needed to marry you, he was almost embarrassingly

frank on the subject.'

A faint colour rose in her cheeks that she hoped fervently he would

attribute to the sun.

'Then I'm surprised you didn't decide to nip the affair in the bud

right then,' she said quickly, bending forward so that her hair swung

in a concealing curtain across her cheek.

'Why should I? I told myself that Mario had as much right as

anyone to sow some wild oats before settling down with a wife and

family.' His voice was cynical. 'Where I made my mistake was in

believing that you knew the rules of the game and were content to

abide by them.'

'Aren't you afraid,' she said slowly, still staring down at the