The Marchese's Love-Child (24 page)

He shook his head. 'All I knew was that she'd repelled me from the first. And nothing my father could have said or done would have persuaded me to make her my wife.'

The contessa was weeping noisily. 'It cannot be true. She would never have harmed you. In spite of your cruelty and indifference, she loved you. You know that.'

He said grimly, 'I knew that she was obsessed by me. And that she was determined to become the Marchesa Valessi. Between you, you forced me away from my family home, and drove a wedge between my father and myself. Unforgivable things were done at your instigation.'

'No,' she moaned. 'No, Alessandro.'

Polly said softly, 'Sandro—she's in real pain. No more, please.'

He looked at her sombrely, then went reluctantly to the contessa, and lifted her to her feet. He said more gently, 'Just the same, I would have spared you this knowledge, as I did my father, if you had not started your insidious campaign against my wife— the whispers at the party you organised with such kindness, the rumours among the staff, all stemming from you.

'But Paola emerged triumphantly from each trap you set for her. How that must have galled you. But it is all over now. There are no more secrets, unless you choose to keep from Emilio what you have heard today. Can you imagine what a feast he would make of it—what the headlines would say about your beloved Bianca?'

A shudder went through her. She looked up at him, her face suddenly a hundred years old. 'I shall say nothing,' she told him dully. 'All I can ask, Alessandro, is a little kindness.'

"There is the house on Capri,' he said. 'You have always liked it there. Alberto will examine your financial circumstances and make suitable arrangements for your comfort. Now he will escort you back to Comadora.'

She nodded with difficulty, then took his hand and kissed it.

Polly watched Signor Molena offer his arm, and lead her back to the car. Saw it turn carefully, then go back towards Comadora.

Leaving her, she thought, to travel alone with Sandro. She stole a glance at him, and saw that he was staring down at the crash site again, his eyes hooded, his face like a mask.

He said quietly, "There is nothing there. No sign that anything ever happened.'

Only that scar, she thought. The one you will carry forever.

She wanted to go to him. To take his face in her hands, and kiss the harshness from his mouth. To offer him the healing warmth of her body.

But she didn't dare.

I made him face this, she thought. I made him remember the unthinkable—the grotesque. The fear and the pain. And how can he ever forgive that? How can he ever forgive me?

She swallowed. 'Sandro—shall we go home?'

'Home?' he queried ironically. 'You mean that huge empty house I visit sometimes, that stopped being home after the death of my mother?'

'But it could be again,' she said. 'It has to be—for Charlie.'

His sigh was small and bitter. 'Yes,' he said. 'At least I have my son.'

He walked away to where Giacomo Raboni waited. They spoke quietly for a moment or two, then embraced swiftly, and the old man, whistling to his dog, went back the way he had come.

On the journey home they sat, each in their separate corners, the silence between them total.

At last Polly could bear it no longer. She said, 'Is the chauffeur's glass partition soundproof?'

'Yes,' he said. 'Completely.'

She hesitated. 'Then may—may I ask you something?'

'If you wish.' His tone was not encouraging.

'What was Bianca doing in your car that day?'

'You imagine I invited her for a drive?' he asked bleakly. 'I had just had a bad interview with my father—one of the worst. He had done something I could not forgive, and I needed quickly to put it right. Bianca must have been listening at the door as she often did, because when I went out to the car she was there in the passenger seat, waiting for me.

'I told her to get out—that I had no time for her little power games—but she refused. I had no time to argue, and to put her bodily out of the car would have been distasteful, so I had to let her stay. Although I warned her that I was not returning, and she would have to make her own way back to Comadora alone.

'She began bragging to me almost at once about her power over my father. Said that I could run away, but in the end he would make me many her or strip me of my inheritance. Leave me with an empty title. Then she became amorous—said she would give me pleasure in ways I had never had before. She even described some of them,' he added, his mouth curling in contempt.

'I was fool enough to let her see my disgust, and she began to get angry in a way I had never seen before. She began to talk about you—said filthy, obscene things, becoming more and more hysterical. Finally she was screaming at me that I belonged to her. That she would kill both of us rather than lose me to another girl. That was when she began trying to seize the wheel.

'Even then I did not realise she was serious, may God forgive me. I thought she was just being—Bianca. The one that only I seemed to see.'

He shook his head. 'I was shouting back at her—telling her I was going to throw her out of the car if she didn't stop.' His mouth tightened. "That was when she attacked me with her nails, as Giacomo said. And the rest you know.'

Polly said in a small voice, 'Do you think she was mad?'

He shrugged. 'I have asked myself that a thousand times. If so, she hid it well with everyone but me.'

'Yes.' Polly swallowed. She said with a touch of desperation, 'Sandro, I'm so sorry—for everything.'

"There is no need,' he said. “The contessa had nursed her delusions for too long, and it was time the truth was told. So do not blame yourself.'

He sounded kind but remote, and her heart sank.

But she mustered a smile. "Thank you. That's generous.'

'Is it?' he asked, an odd note in his voice. 'But then, Paola, you ask for so little.'

And there was silence again.

Back at the palazzo, there was an air of shock that evening. The contessa had gone by private ambulance for a few days' rest at a clinic, and it was apparent that she would not be returning.

Alberto Molena stayed for dinner, and, although conversation was general over the meal, it was clear there were pressing matters to be discussed. So Polly was not surprised when courteous excuses were made over coffee, and the two men retired to Sandro's study, and remained closeted there.

Polly listened to music for a while in an effort to calm herself, then went upstairs to her room and sat by the window. She had plenty to think about. Questions that still remained unanswered, but which could be more complex than she'd believed.

Sandro had been on his way back to Sorrento when the accident had happened, she thought. And he'd spoken of some 'unforgivable' action of his father. What had the old marchese done to prompt such a reaction? she asked herself.

And why was Sandro coming to her, if he intended to end their affair? It made no sense. Especially as Bianca was clearly convinced that their relationship was still a threat to her, and Sandro had not denied it during their fatal quarrel.

The man who had visited her, scaring her with his oblique threats and offering her money to leave—who had sent him? Was it really Sandro, as she'd always believed? For the past three years, she'd looked on it as the agonising proof of his cruel betrayal. Now, suddenly, that certainty was shaken to its foundations.

I have to know, she thought. I have to put the last missing pieces in place—even if I don't get the answers I want, and all my worst fears are confirmed. But I can't just barge in, asking questions.

Somehow, she knew, she had to bridge the distance between them. And there was one sure way to do that, she thought, warm colour rising to her face.

How did they manage these things in the old days? she wondered, sending the huge bed a speculative look. Did the then marchese announce over dinner that he would be visiting his wife later? Or did the marchesa send a note to her husband, requesting the pleasure of his company in bed? Or was there simply a look— a smile—any of the covert signals that lovers had always used?

Whatever, she didn't think any of that would work in her own situation. Maybe the direct approach would be best.

She went into the dressing room, and retrieved the black lace nightgown from her jacket pocket, before taking a long scented bath.

A shadow over moonlight, he'd once called it, she thought, looking at herself in the mirror, and the most blatant evidence of her wishes that she could ask for.

She put on a satin robe in case she encountered a lurking servant, and made her way, barefoot, to his room.

She drew a deep, steadying breath, then knocked swiftly and went in. Sandro was there. He was in bed. And he was alone.

In fact he was propped up by pillows, frowning over a sheaf of papers he was reading. He glanced up at her entrance, his expression changing to total astonishment.

'Paola? What is it? Is there something wrong?'

She'd planned what to say, but the words were sliding round in her brain. 'It's Charlie,' she blurted out at last.

He sat up. 'Is he ill?' he demanded, his voice sharpening in alarm.

'No,' she said. 'As far as I know, he's fast asleep. But he's lonely. He was so happy when the twins were here, and he really needs children near his own age around him.'

She swallowed, her fingers nervously playing with the sash of her robe. She said, 'You said I never asked for anything. So—I was thinking—maybe he should have brothers and sisters.'

She stole a glance at him under her lashes, hoping for some reaction, but she was disappointed. Sandro's face was expressionless.

'Indeed?' he said politely, after a pause. 'So what do you suggest—adoption, or some scientific trick in a laboratory?'

She hadn't expected that either. 'No, of course not.' She made a small helpless gesture. 'I thought that you—that I...'

She ran out of words, so she slipped off the robe and let it drop to the floor, allowing him to assimilate the full effect of the cobweb of lace that was the only covering for her nakedness.

He looked at her very slowly, his hooded gaze travelling over her from head to foot.

He said quietly, 'Are you really so desperate for another child? Then take that thing off and come here.'

She'd thought he would get out of bed, and come to her. That he'd tear the gown from her with his own hands as he'd once. But she obeyed him, quickly, almost nervously sliding under the sheet he'd turned back for her. Knowing with a kind of sick certainty that this was not going according to any plan of hers.

He pushed the papers to the floor and turned to her, the topaz eyes sombre as he looked down at her.

Once he kisses me, she thought desperately, it will be all right. I can make it all right...

But Sandro did not kiss her. His hands slid down her body in an almost perfunctory caress, then moved under her flanks, lifting her towards him. She was already aroused, wildly receptive to even the prospect of his possession, so there was no physical barrier to his invasion of her body, which was wordless, clinical and immediate.

And as she lay beneath him, stunned, it was apparent that it was also going to be over very quickly. He cried out once, harshly, and she felt the scalding heat of his climax. Then he rolled away from her and lay, his chest heaving as he recovered his breath, one arm across his eyes.

When he spoke his voice was muffled. 'I hope I have performed my duties as stud satisfactorily, marchesa. I trust, also, that your wish for conception will be granted, as I would not wish to undergo this experience a second time.'

'Is that—that all you have to say to me?' The husky words were forced from her dry throat. Her bewildered, unsatisfied body was aching for the fulfillment he had never before denied her. Burning for him to love her.

'No,' he said, 'cara mia." He made the endearment sound like an insult. 'I could think of much more, but you would not wish to hear it, believe me. And now perhaps you will leave me to sleep.'

She was dying inside, but somehow she managed to reach her robe, and huddle it round her before she fled.

Too late, she thought, her heart thudding, as she almost fell into her own room and slammed the door shut behind her. He had told her it was too late as they left the house that morning. But she hadn't understood. Or had she just been deliberately blind and deaf?

Now comprehension had finally dawned, and with it a heartbreak that threatened to destroy her utterly. And she pressed herself against the unyielding hardness of the heavy door, and let the fierce agony of tears have their way with her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Polly got into the rear of the limousine, placing the bouquet of flowers she'd been given on the seat beside her, then leaned forward to wave a smiling farewell to the women who'd thronged out of the restaurant to see her depart.

As the car threaded its way through the narrow streets crowded with tourists, she leaned back and closed her eyes, kicking off her high-heeled sandals and wriggling her toes, the nails enamelled in an elegant pale pink to match her fingers.

Teresa had advised her well, she thought, looking down at the deep blue of her silk suit. Whatever else might be wrong with her life, at least she dressed well.

Today she had been the guest of honour at a charity luncheon in aid of a local children's home, and she'd made a small speech at the end of it in her increasingly fluent Italian, and been warmly applauded.

She took lessons several times a week with a retired schoolmaster, who lived with his plump, cheerful wife in a small white-painted villa on the edge of town. Usually they sat under an awning on the patio, and when work was finished the signora would serve coffee with tiny almond biscotli, often accompanied by a glass of her home-made limoncello.

The first time it had been offered, Polly had felt wrenched in half, remembering with vivid poignancy how Sandra had once teased her about making the delicious citrus liqueur for him. But she had smiled gallantly, and praised it extravagantly, to the delight of her hostess.