A Gift for a Lion (13 page)

At least she recognised the tune he was attempting to render. It was the Easter Hymn from
Cavalleria Rusticana
and not the most obvious choice for a summer evening stroll in a cypress walk, Joanna thought, grinning. Mischievously she watched him approach and when he was directly under her window, she began to whistle with him, joining harmoniously in the same tune. Immediately he checked and looked up. In the long shadows of the setting sun, his face was an alarmed blur and she waved to him reassuringly.

'It's all right,
signore
,' she called. 'I'm staying here too. Perhaps we'll meet at dinner…'

She broke off in surprise. The man had turned and was running away down the walk, back in the direction he had come from.

Joanna turned away from the window with a shrug, then laughed as she caught a glimpse of her pale reflection in the white dress in the mirror.

'He must have thought I was a ghost,' she thought. 'No wonder he ran!'

She was still smiling when Josef knocked and entered a few minutes later.

'The
signorina
is happy tonight. She has enjoyed her day?' he asked.

'Very much,' Joanna nodded. 'But, Josef, the funniest thing,' and she quickly related what had just happened.

But it was evident that Josef did not share her amusement at the little man's rout. He stared at her in open dismay.

'
Scusi, signorina
. I must speak with the
signore
. Please to wait here until I return.'

What in the world? Joanna thought as she stared after him. Surely she hadn't said anything that would cause that kind of reaction? She had startled the stranger, true enough, but even if he was some honoured guest of Leo Vargas, she had done no real harm.

Feeling suddenly tense, she sat down on her dressing stool. Could that little man in the badly fitting suit have anything to do with the
palazzo's
secret? It didn't seem possible. He looked far too ordinary to be involved in anything criminal or even vaguely sinister.

Josef was so long in returning that she began to think she had been forgotten and would have to forgo her dinner as penance for having frightened the stranger. When he did come, he was quiet and formal and ushered her down to the
sala
on the ground floor with barely a word.

Nick was waiting for her by himself, immaculate in evening dress but also curiously ill at ease. He handed her a glass.

'Dry Martini,
cara.'

'Thank you,' she said, then impulsively put her hand on his arm. 'Nick, what's happened? I saw this man in the garden and…'

'Oh, that,' he gave a rather constrained laugh. 'Josef told us that you had nearly frightened one of the gardeners to death. The poor man did not realise that particular room was occupied. By the way, you must excuse Leo again this evening. He received a radio message from the mainland just now and has to work through dinner.'

'I quite understand.' Joanna gave him a bright smile. So it was true, then. She had seen something, or at least someone, that she should not have done, and it seemed to have started a mass panic. Perhaps she had at last scored a minor triumph in this game of cat and mouse she was playing with the master of Saracina.

She smiled again and slid her arm through Nick's. 'Shall we have dinner?' she suggested gaily. 'Suddenly I have the most tremendous appetite.'

It was an edgy meal with Nick obviously preoccupied and having to exert himself to play the attentive host. On the surface, everything was just the same, with excellent food and the usual impeccable service by the neat menservants in their green uniforms. Even without women, the
palazzo
seemed to function on well-oiled and totally unobtrusive wheels, Joanna thought wonderingly. Only Josef was missing from his usual supervisory role, standing by the sideboard watching the service of the meal with eagle eyes for any lapse in standards.

When dinner was over, Joanna agreed readily to Nick's suggestion that they should drink their coffee on the terrace. The air was warm and still and heavy with the scent of flowers. Joanna walked to the head of the wide stone steps which led down to the gardens and stood looking longingly into the perfumed darkness.

'It's a wonderful evening for a walk,' she said dreamily.

'Then we will walk,' Nick took her arm companionably and they set off down the steps towards the broad gravelled walk that stretched away in front of them.

As they walked Nick told her that the gardens had been laid out by the Vorghese prince who had lived on Saracina in the eighteenth century.

'He wished to re-create the kind of landscape that was familiar on the mainland,' he said, shrugging. 'But in spite of the formality it has a certain antique charm, don't you agree? He demolished the wall which used to surround the grounds at this end as well. He probably realised it was unnecessary when the sea is a more than adequate barrier against intruders. Most intruders, anyway,' he added with a sly sideways glance that made Joanna flush slightly.

'How do we get on to the cliffs?' she asked.

'We just keep walking. There is nowhere in the grounds that is too far from the sea.' He pointed to where the tall hedges met in a dark archway ahead of them. As they stepped through, Joanna caught her breath in sheer exhilaration. They stood on a narrow tongue of land, surrounded on both sides by the shifting restless sea. On the farthest horizon, a dark blur showed.

'Corsica,' Nick told her.

Briefly she thought of Tony and the others, and wondered if they had returned with the
Luana
to Cannes yet. The cruise seemed almost as if it had taken place in another lifetime, she thought, and shivered slightly.

'You are cold. I will fetch you a wrap,' Nick said instantly.

'You mean you will actually leave me here alone?' Joanna lifted her brows at him incredulously and observed his obvious embarrassment with satisfaction, but he gave her one of his engaging grins.

'I trust you implicitly,
cara
,' he declared. 'Besides, where could you go? You are not dressed for scrambling down the cliff, even if there was a way. And also,' he gestured towards the cliff-edge, 'I leave you with another protector.'

He appeared to be indicating a large boulder which had been positioned almost at the furthest tip of land, and he grinned again at her puzzled look before he vanished back between the crowding cypress hedges towards the dark mass of the
palazzo
.

The remaining light was fading rapidly and the faint glow which still lingered in the western sky would soon be replaced by the paler wash of moonlight, Joanna realised. In spite of the proximity of the house and the grounds, this headland was a lonely place, and she hoped Nick would hurry. On an impulse, she bent and slipped off the frivolous gilt strapped sandals she wore, relishing the feel of the short tussocky grass under her feet as she wandered towards the solitary boulder, impelled by vague curiosity. As she neared it, she realised it had begun to take on a positive shape and that the solid mass of rock had been carved into a representation of a crouching animal.

It was—it could only have been, she thought resignedly, a lion, facing the sea and the marauders it might bring, crouched in menace with one threatening paw upraised.

The carving itself was old. The stone was weather-beaten, and lichen grew in its more sheltered crevices, but in spite of the blurring that time and storms had brought about, nothing could dispel the power and defiance that still emanated from the great stone beast.

'So you see the Lion of Saracina exists after all,
signorina
.'

He had come silently over the grass and was standing only a few feet away from her, a shadowed figure in the gathering darkness. Her first startled recoil flung her bruisingly back against the stone itself and she heard his brief muttered '
Dio
!'

He pulled her away from the stone without gentleness, his hands pushing aside the sleeve of her caftan to examine the graze on her arm.

'You have hurt yourself?'

She tried unsuccessfully to tug herself away. The touch of his fingers on her skin revived too many disturbing memories.

'I'm all right. You—you just startled me.' She despised herself for the shake in her voice. She wanted to be calm, to convince him that no matter what had happened to her because of him, she had been able to retain her poise. Yet she was forced to admit that it was impossible and that the mere fact of his proximity was enough to reduce her to a dry-mouthed stammering gaucherie.

'You must forgive me.'

'I'll add it to the list,' she took refuge in pertness.

'The list of the wrongs I have done you?' His teeth gleamed momentarily in a smile. 'But what are they, after all, compared with the advantages you have enjoyed since you came here?'

'Advantages?' She stared at him, incredulously. 'Now I know you're mad! How can you speak of advantages when I've been locked up—terrified almost out of my wits—watched as if I was the criminal instead of…'

She faltered to a halt, aware of a sudden bleakness in the eyes fixed on her face.

'You were saying,
signorina
?' he prompted blandly.

'You know what I mean,' she whispered, gripping her hands together.

'Do I?' He smiled grimly. 'You want me to confess my crimes? Very well. I have locked you in your room—for reasons of safety. I have had some experience of your insatiable curiosity, remember, and equally have little reason to trust your discretion, but—we shall see, now that you are locked in no more.'

'And the grille over the window? Will that also be removed?'

'Ah, yes. The harem latticework which has angered you so. That, I regret, must remain. But not, I promise you, to bolster any fantasies I may have about the women who occupy that room at times. It is merely that the stonework of the little balcony outside the window is un-safe, and the grille ensures that no one will be tempted to take any risks, not even you,
signorina
.'

She flushed a little at the bite in his words, as he went on, 'As to my other—crimes, so I have you watched—or you could say instead I have provided you with a companion near enough to your own age to ensure that you are not bored while you are my guest. As to your being frightened out of your wits, Signorina Leighton, I see no sign of that. I find your wits quite unaffected by your professed ordeal at my hands, and I advise you to look long and hard in your mirror before you deny that there have been any advantages in your stay here. The girl who came to Saracina uninvited was strained and tense. It showed in her eyes—in her responses and reactions. She had lived like a butterfly and the boredom of such a life had trapped her.'

He paused and his voice became lower. 'That girl has gone, Joanna, and someone else has taken her place. Someone who may be frightened and angry, but who is alive and aware as well. Someone who has learned that uncertainty can add a spice to life that was never there before.'

'I don't think you have any right to say that,' she accused him, her voice trembling slightly. 'I was perfectly happy—with Tony.'

'And you have also been perfectly happy without him.' He shook his head and she knew that he was smiling. 'It is not how I would wish the woman I loved to feel,
cara
.'

'No, of course not,' she came back at him furiously. 'You would expect her to belong to you body and soul, I suppose, with no hope of ever having a separate identity or a life of her own.'

'It is a contradiction of the nature of love to talk of it in terms of separateness. Joanna. There is no warmth or generosity in the type of relationship you describe. Why settle for milk and water,
mia
, when you could have wine?'

His body was as hard against hers as the rock she had almost clung to for refuge, but with a warmth that seemed to penetrate to the very marrow of her bones. Her hands came up to brace themselves against his chest, her little cry of protest stifled under his mouth. The dark velvet of the sky sequinned with stars swung in a dizzying arc before her eyes closed and she yielded to the overwhelming sensual delight of his kiss.

He groaned her name as his hands slid down her slender back to her hips, holding her against him in a shattering intimacy which made no secret of his desire for her.

His mouth descended on hers again with a fierceness that drove the breath from her body. Totally acquiescent to the demands he was making of her, she clung to him, her fingers gripping almost convulsively the white silk of his shirt. At last he put her from him, his hands tangling in her dishevelled hair, forcing her head back so that he could look down into her face.

'That is the fault of wine,
mia
.' His own voice was breathless. 'It goes to one's head, as you go to mine. Now I must take you back to the
palazzo
before I am tempted to add a seduction here on the grass to the list of wrongs I have done you.'

Joanna stared up into the dark face, only a few inches from her own. Only one coherent thought was emerging from the welter of emotion that possessed her. Leo Vargas could not want her as she wanted him if he could so easily draw back after what had just passed between them. He had refused her wordless offer, and the humiliation was as great as if she had begged him aloud to become her lover.

With a supreme effort, she controlled the sob that was rising in her throat and stepped backwards, away from him.

'Oh, come,
signore
.' She kept her voice miraculously light and crisp. 'A few kisses in the moonlight are one thing, and you're certainly very attractive, but you can't imagine that I would have let things go any further.' She forced a giggle.

It was too dark for her to read the expression on his face, but the disgust was plain in his voice when he eventually spoke.

'My newspaper cuttings on you were incomplete,
signorina
. They suggested that you were young and rather foolish, but they did not give the impression that you were also a tease. It's a dangerous role,
cara
, and I advise you to have a care in future when you choose a partner for your sick little games. Now I will escort you back to the
palazzo
.'