Seduced by Innocence (19 page)

Which was the truth? She would have no peace until she knew.

As she grew nearer, she could see a light on in the shabby little house of gold, and the next moment Maurizio had come out to catch her line and tie it up. He assisted her onto the bank but released her hand at once and kept his distance.

“I guessed you’d be here,” she told him.

“I was afraid you would.”

“Afraid? Why are you avoiding me, Maurizio?”

“Isn’t it obvious why? We both discovered the truth last night. What else is there to say?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I came here to find out.” She hesitated. Maurizio’s silence and uneasiness was making it hard for her. “I had to speak to you because I’m leaving the palazzo today. We both are.”

“Both?”

“Elena and I. Francisco’s been on the phone to his lawyer but he needn’t have bothered. Now she’s made her mind up, Elena can’t wait to get out. She and Leo are full of plans to go into business together, designing jewelry. She’s like a new woman.”

They went into Maurizio’s kitchen and he started making coffee. “I’m glad it’s all ended well for you,” he said without looking at her.

“Has it ended well, Maurizio? Tell me.”

“You’ve got Leo back. Your mother has acknowledged you. That was what you wanted. You can be happy now.”

“Maurizio, do you know how I knew you’d be here?”

He looked at her. “Because I told you it was my refuge?”

“Partly that. But also because it’s February 28th. I read that date on Rufio’s tomb. It’s exactly one year ago today that he died, isn’t it?”

His face softened. “Fancy your remembering such a thing.”

“I knew you’d come here to think about him, and I couldn’t bear to think of you being alone. The rest of us have got what we want. But you can never have Rufio back.”

“How like you to think of that,” he said quietly. “You were always generous, more generous than I deserve. Perhaps even generous enough to let me delude myself—but I don’t want that kind of delusion.”

“Delude yourself about what?” she demanded, her heart beating hard.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Teresa. I know the truth. As long as Leo was lost, our need made a kind of emotional dependency for us. We were enemies but no one else understood what we were going through and we could reach out to each other. But now—”

“Now?” she asked, breathless with hope.

“Now I can’t hide behind that anymore. I have to look clearly at myself, and what I see I don’t like. I see a man who thought he could play God with people’s lives, and who ended up nearly killing Leo and destroying you. I see the pride and arrogance that blinded him to everything but himself. I, too, am going away.”

“Where?” The word broke from her in anguish.

“I don’t know. A long way away from here, where I can do no more damage.”

“The only damage you can do me is to leave me, Maurizio.”

“You think that now, but in time you’ll see I was right. I poison everything I touch. What can you want with such a man?”

“His love,” she cried.

“Even my love is poisoned. Be thankful that you at least managed to escape from me.”

“But I haven’t escaped. I’ll never escape. I belong to you, Maurizio, not because of anything you’ve done, but because I
choose
to belong to you. I love you. There’s no escaping from that, for you or for me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said roughly. “You don’t know what I’m like.”

“But I do. I know the worst of you, and the worst is terrible.”

“Well then—”

“But the worst of me is terrible, too. I know that now. I too have been eaten up with hatred—”

“You have every right.”

“Perhaps. But I’ve done worse.” She moved closer and spoke to him urgently. “Listen to me. After the dreadful things I’ve said to you, you have the right to hear what I’m going to say now.” She paused for a moment to look into his eyes. “Like you, I’ve lashed my hatred to keep it alive. When I felt myself softening toward you, I fought it. I did the very things I blamed you for. You once asked for my understanding and I couldn’t give it to you. Isn’t it ironic to think I can give it to you now because I know I’m just as bad?”

“That’s not true,” he said quickly. “It never could be. When I laid hands on Francisco, I wanted to kill him. At one time I think I would have killed him. But last night I couldn’t, and it was because of you. My revenge had already created one wasteland, and suddenly I saw that that’s all revenge ever creates—waste and desolation. There comes a time when a man has to say that he will accept the pain instead of trying to ease it by hurting someone else, because only in that way can life go on.” He took her face between his hands and spoke softly. “Even if I never see you again, my life will go on, because of you.”

“Don’t talk as though we’re going to part,” she said passionately. “We can’t part now, we’ve only just found each other.”

“Didn’t we find each other once before?”

“No, we only thought we did. But it was false because we were both wearing masks. But the masks have gone now, Maurizio, and we can see each other clearly, bad as well as good. I love you. I love
you,
as you are. Only one thing could be worse than what’s already happened, and that’s if you didn’t love me.”

“You know better than that. But what right do I have to speak of love to you?”

“The right that I give you. Tell me that you love me. Or better still, show me.” When he didn’t move, she came close and laid her hand on his cheek. “Show me, Maurizio.”

With a groan that came from his very depths, he took her in his arms and covered her lips desperately with his own. “It won’t work,” he said against her mouth. “I’m a monster—I could never make you happy—”

“You can make me happy now.” She led him gently upstairs to the room where they’d once made love, and drew him onto the bed. Although his conscience still lashed him, he had no more strength to resist her will.

Now their lovemaking was different, lacking the frantic sensual urgency of before. There would be time for that in the years ahead, but this time they needed something else: love that was gentle and forgiving, whose tenderness could heal. In the quiet exchange of self for self, they rediscovered each other, and their true selves.

At last Terri rose and opened the shutters. While they’d lain in each other’s arms, the sun had come up, making the water glisten and touching the distant domes of Venice with gold. “Once before, we watched the sun rise from this window,” she said. “Do you remember?”

He came to stand behind her and rested his head against hers. “That was another man, a sick man—”

“No,” she said softly. “Just an unhappy one. But the dawn always returns at last, my darling, and now it’s returned for us. Look how golden the sky is. Your mother was right. A house of gold has many rooms. Now it’s time for us to start building ours.”

* * * * *

ISBN: 978-1-4592-8792-1

Seduced by Innocence

Copyright © 1994 by Lucy Gordon

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