Moth to the Flame (17 page)

softly under his breath as he did so. >

When the flustered Annunziata arrived almost at the gallop, he

gestured to her to clear the table. He offered no explanation, but

Juliet thought Annunziata would easily be able to draw her own

conclusions from the soaking tablecloth and Santino's own suddenly

dishevelled appearance.

She sat and looked down at her fingers linked tensely together in

her lap. She was ashamed now of what she had done, but it had

been an instinctive reaction. She could not have sat quietly by and

heard Janina labelled as a prostitute. She felt cold and sick inside.

Santino walked round to her side of the table and his fingers hurt as

they closed around her wrist, jerking her to her feet.

'Red hair,' he observed too plea sandy. 'I should perhaps have

realised that somewhere there would be a temper to match it.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, biting her lip to conceal the pain she was

feeling from his crushing grip. 'But you shouldn't have said that.'

It was you that wanted to hear the truth,' he said coldly. 'And you

will be sorry, I promise you.'

He pushed her down on to one of the sofas, sat down beside her

and before she could pull away or utter a protest, his arms were

round her pulling her against him and he was silencing her indignant

mouth with his own.

He was very thorough and very brutal, but only Juliet was aware

that it was anger not passion that was driving him. To Annunziata,

scuttling from the room with the debris from the table, it would

simply have seemed as if the
signore
was re-establishing his

mastery after some lovers' tiff.

The weight of his body was pressing her inexorably back against

the soft cushions. Her hands had come up between them

instinctively in an attempt to push him away, but it was useless.

Against the demand of his lips and hands, she had all the resistance

of a rag doll. Her fingers were splayed against the dampness of his

shirt front and she could feel the warmth of his skin through the thin

material. Somewhere inside her a small wanton voice was urging

her to unfasten the buttons of his shirt and slip her hands inside, to

touch the warm muscularity of his chest.

He lifted his head and stared down at her, and although he was still

frowning, she knew that much of his anger had already been

dissipated in that first furious assault on her mouth.

When he bent to her again, his kiss, his touch had magically

gentled. This time his lips barely brushed hers before moving on to

caress the curve of her cheek, her temples, her half-closed eyes.

And at once that old traitorous longing rose up within her to betray

her, roused by this new and unexpected tenderness.

Santino pressed his lips along the smooth line of her jaw and

lingered over the telltale pulse in her throat, while his hand gently

and rhythmically stroked the curve of her bare shoulder.

Juliet felt a little shaken sob rise in her throat. His hands and mouth

were unbearably persuasive and her own response was little short

of tumultuous. The restraint he was showing was a provocation in

itself, and she was shamingly aware that her body was straining

upwards to meet his in an unspoken offering, her rounded breasts

straining against the flimsy material which imprisoned them, the

nipples taut with desire.

He stared at her again, his eyes studying her mouth as if he had

undertaken to commit its soft fullness to memory. His hands were

busy at the nape of her neck, unfastening the scarf that confined her

hair so that it fell in a tangled coppery cloud on to her shoulders.

Then he bent and kissed her again, parting her lips with intimate

possession and awakening her to a greater sensual awareness of

what a kiss could be than she had ever known before.

When at last he lifted his head, she heard herself give a little

involuntary moan of protest, and he laughed, deep in his throat.

'Don't be impatient,
cara mia.'
His voice was deeper and huskier

than she had ever heard it. 'We have all the night ahead of us, and

besides, I want to dance with you—a pleasure I've promised myself

for a long time.'

He slipped the scarf round her waist and holding both ends in one

hand pulled her gently, almost teasingly to her feet.

Dance? she thought bewilderedly. But there's no music.

As if he had read her thoughts, he led her over to an intricately

carved chest at one side of the room and pressed some hidden

switch. At once music swelled into the room from concealed

speakers, very soft and slow with an insidious sensuous beat. He let

the scarf drift to the floor and slid his arms around her, drawing her

close, making her move with him to the music.

For a dazed moment she thought that this was what she had

dreamed about when she had first seen this dress. She had known

instinctively that it was a dress to fall in love in, and she knew now

that in spite of everything that had happened, everything that had

been said, she had fallen in love with Santino Vallone. She let

herself relax against his body, leaning her head against his shoulder,

while his arms tightened possessively round her.

She could, she thought, have stayed like that for ever, but laughing

softly he pushed her away to arm's length, spinning her gently so

that the long delicate skirt floated out around her like a blue-green

cloud, then drew her back so that he could kiss her again. Nothing

mattered, she thought, closing her eyes, but the sheer intoxication of

his nearness.

His lips found the sensitive hollow just below her ear, and she

heard him whisper, 'Dance for me,
mia.
I want to watch you.'

Opening her eyes, she found the room was much darker than it had

been. While they were dancing, Santino must have been

extinguishing the lamps one by one. But he had retained one of

them, a tall standard lamp which spilled a pool of light on to the

tiled floor rather as a spotlight might do upon a stage, and this

presumably was where he wanted her to dance, because he had

stepped back into the shadows and was standing watching her.

She felt suddenly shy and a little foolish. She was no dancer, but no

one could have resisted the beat of that music. It was strangely

lonely in the pool of light as she began to sway to it, using her

shoulders and hands first, then her hips and the whole of her body,

the rhythm seeming to take over and become a part of her. Her

whole body felt light as air and she lifted her skirts in each hand,

using the fullness as if they were butterfly wings as she dipped and

swayed and turned in time to the beat.

But she wasn't a butterfly, she thought dreamily as she spun round.

She was a moth circling endlessly in the brightness, utterly

possessed by its brilliant, dangerous excitement.

Santino was behind her suddenly. His hand lifted the heavy fall of

hair away from her neck and his lips were burning on her nape.

'Exquisite,
mia cara
,' he murmured against her ear. 'But not quite

what I intended. I wanted you to dance for me as you danced at

Vittoria Leontana's party. You can't have forgotten. Or shall I

refresh your memory?'

His fingers stroked down her bare back until they reached the edge

of her dress, then continued, taking the long zip fastener with them.

The gown slipped from her shoulders and slid to the floor at her feet

in a shimmering pool.

For a moment Juliet stood still, shocked and motionless, then with a

stifled cry she bent and snatched up the dress, holding its folds

protectively against her bare breasts as he turned her inexorably to

face him. His eyes narrowed impatiently as he observed her

instinctive gesture of modesty.

'Why bother to pretend any more?' he asked. 'You didn't cover

yourself before me—or nearly thirty others—at Vittoria's party,

although your outraged escort intervened before the ultimate

revelation.' He smiled reminiscently, but the smile did not reach his

eyes which remained curiously hard as they studied the girl in front

of him, who might have been some piece of ancient Roman statuary

of a goddess, clutching her flimsy draperies about her, except for

the ebb and flow of colour in her cheeks which marked her as being

all too human.

'I don't know what you mean,' she managed at last past the tightness

in her throat.

'Don't you? Yet it was a memorable performance. It made an

indelible impression on me,
cara,
and I was only privileged to see

the last few minutes of it. But I was told afterwards that when it

was realised you were not only prepared to take off your dress but

everything else beneath it, you could feel the shock waves oh the

Via Veneto.' He smiled without mirth. 'Striptease is not new, of

course, but it has a certain rarity value when performed in a usually

respectable
salotto.
Nor, I believe, does the dancer normally

distribute her garments as so much largesse among her audience.'

He paused. 'Poor Rizziani was most upset,' he continued almost

casually. 'I thought at the time he was probably disturbed to find

that your charms were not reserved for his eyes only as he had

probably thought, but I think now he was probably equally

concerned at the cost of the clothes you had discarded so

carelessly, and which he had presumably paid for.'

The calm voice stopped, and Juliet found her legs buckling under

her as if only the necessity to hear what he had to say had been

keeping her upright. She sank to the floor, her hands still gripping

her crumpled gown so tightly that the knuckles showed white.

Bowing her head, she began to cry, long tearing sobs that hurt her

throat, painful tears that scalded her eyes.

He wasn't lying, even though her mind rejected the pictures his

words had evoked. He spoke so coolly, so passionlessly, but then

he had no idea that he was destroying an illusion. Janina—the

spoilt, the beautiful, the envied. Juliet's blood went cold within her

as she visualised her mother's stricken reaction if this ever came to

her ears. Mim mustn't know, she thought wildly. The baby was

nothing compared to this. Mim could have understood that,

probably, although she would have been hurt. But Mim would

never, never understand how a daughter of hers could have

deliberately stripped naked to titillate the jaded palates of a handful

of Roman society partygoers. And from what Santino had said, it

seemed that Jan had at the time been the mistress of this Rizziani,

whoever he was. It was all so degrading, so much worse than she

could ever have suspected even in her wildest nightmares. Was it

any wonder than Santino Vallone balked at the idea of Jan marrying

into his family? Could she entirely blame him for his opinion of Jan,

knowing what he knew, seeing what he had seen?

'The tears are charming.' His voice cut cynically across her

desperate thoughts. 'But it's a little late for remorse,
cara.
And I'm

not as old-fashioned as Rizziani. I don't believe that a beautiful girl

should necessarily be anyone's exclusive property. And you are

beautiful—hair like fire and a body like snow, an intriguing

combination. I always hoped I would have the opportunity to see

them again. And tonight you can complete the performance. There'll

be no Rizziani to interrupt with his tiresome objections or wrap his

coat around you just at the moment of truth this time, so dry your

eyes,
mia,
and go on with your dance.'

'I can't.' She pressed a fist against her trembling lips. 'You—you

don't understand ...'

'I think I do.' He reached down and lifted her to her feet, not gently.

His eyes glittered in the lamplight which shadowed the dark planes

and angles of his face, making him look more satanic than ever. 'In

spite of the broad hint I gave you at our first meeting,
piccina,
you

still didn't really believe I'd seen you myself, did you? And it isn't

pleasant to be found out in one's misdeeds, especially when one

thought they were buried for ever. But why so coy,
mia cara
? If I'd

undressed you a few moments ago while we were kissing, you