The Sin of Cynara (7 page)

  'I can stand it,' said Carol, feeling an unbearable fraud at the way she had taken in these people. She had had no lover, and when Teri was born she had sat in a waiting-room while her sister Cynara suffered the birth pangs. Her body felt on fire with guilt and she suddenly stood up and went to the big bed where Teri had fallen sound asleep.

  'He's tired out, poor pet,' she murmured. 'We've been travelling for hours and it was rather hot on the bus.'

  'My dear, you must be tired yourself.' Gena stubbed her cheroot and slipped her foot into her sandal. 'Have you everything you need? I guess you won't feel like coming down to dinner tonight?'

  'Oh no.' Carol had never felt less like facing this family which she had so far succeeded in fooling, and all she wanted right now was to be safely alone with Teri. 'I'll make an early night of it, and please believe that I'm deeply grateful to all of you for making us welcome at Falconetti.'

  'Thank Rudi, my dear. He's the padrone here and the one who makes the important decisions. It may have helped that you're rather a nice-looking creature, with exceptionally pretty hair—'

  'What do you mean?' Carol looked at Gena with a sudden alarm in her eyes. 'Why has it helped that I -I've nice hair?'

  'Rudi is a man, cara.' Gena looked amused by Carol's alarm. 'Very much so, unless you didn't notice and were concentrating only upon his scars? They're frightening, I know, but his eyes are still as keen as they always were and I'm willing to bet that he noticed your hair and your fair skin that takes a blush so attractively - oh, don't let it panic you. My brother knows the effect that his face has on women and he'd never risk being hurt by one of them — never again !'

  'Again?' Carol could feel the sudden tension in the room, as if a coldness had crept in, and a sense of those dark passions that could exist between a man and woman. 'Was it—?'

  'Yes.' Gena's face was suddenly as hard as if carved in marble. 'The slim and delicate hand of a woman did it — with vitriol. He was lucky not to lose his sight.'

  'How absolutely awful!' Carol had gone so white that her eyes looked intensely violet 'But why? I — I thought perhaps there had been a fire and he'd been hurt in it.'

  'One of those emotional fires, Carol, in which a man and a woman are sometimes caught. An inferno almost as terrible as the real thing.'

  'But why - how could anyone do such a thing?' Carol shuddered as she thought of it, the burning acid, searing into his face, creating an agony which he would never be able to forget. It was far more terrible than being trapped in a fire, for that was a natural sort of hazard, but to have acid thrown at you - instinctively Carol threw her hands up against her own face in a self-protective attitude. Her imagination was vivid and she had a fearful mental picture of those fine Italian features being destroyed while a woman looked on, the empty vitriol bottle in her slim, cruel hand. What could have made her so bitter, so revengeful that she put her mark on a man with corrosive acid?

  'You ask why.' Gena shrugged her shoulders. 'I have asked Rudi that question and he has never answered it, and when my brother puts up a shield of reserve then it's useless to try and penetrate it. All I can tell you is that the woman fled and my brother never had a warrant taken out against her. It was a love-hate quarrel, that's about all I know. He never talks about it.'

  'How could anyone love and hate to that degree!" Carol asked.

  'Deep people often do, my dear. Will the little boy want a milky drink before you put him to bed?'

  'He likes Horlicks, if that would be all right? Otherwise just warm milk with a teaspoon of sugar.'

  'They'll probably have Horlicks in the kitchen. I'll tell one of the maids to bring it up, with a glass of wine for you. I insist. It will help you to sleep, for I've always found that it's never easy to drop off in a strange bed in an unknown house, and this is a very large one - the bed as well, eh?'

  Carol glanced at the great bed and nodded. 'You're being very kind to us, signorina.'

  'Please call me Gena. Molto bene, questa la vita.'

  'Good night.' Such was life, indeed.

  When the door had closed behind Gena, the room seemed larger than ever and Carol gave way to a shudder of sheer nerves and stood there with her arms clasped around her own body. Had she known all this about the Falcones would she have come here like this, imposing on them - in a way? She gazed at the small, still figure of Teri, his redskin on the bed beside him, and she felt the familiar ache of love for him. There had never been any other soul as close to her as the boy was; she couldn't say that she and Cynara had been all that close even though they had been twins. There had been none of that soul communication that people spoke about in connection with sisters born in the same hour, and there had never been all that much alikeness in their ways. Cynara had shown a preference for the male sex at the very start of her teens, but for Carol that awareness had not awoken until the entry of Vincenzo into her life. He had kindled love in her heart, and then had crushed it out so completely that Carol couldn't imagine herself being starry-eyed over a man ever again.

  In fact she now felt frightened by the dark sides there were to the emotion called love.

  Her fingers crept to her own cheek, smooth and softly hollowed, and she recalled the feel of the baróne's scars when he had forced her hand to his face and made her touch him.

  A woman had done that to him . . . how then could he ever harbour gentle feelings towards any other woman? The searing pain of the acid would have penetrated to his heart and burned out of it all the kinder aspects of love and desire. He might even feel tempted to be cruel to anyone who tried to get close to him, for how could he ever trust again, ever truly believe that his face was lovable?

  He had said it, hadn't he? That he reserved his cruelty for women?

  At that moment Teri stirred awake and lay looking at her with his great dark eyes.

  'What's the matter, Gaily?' He struggled into a sitting position and sleepily blinked his long lashes. 'You have ever such a funny look on your face.'

  'It's my natural look, Buster.' She sat down on the bed and drew him close to her heart. 'Well, caro, it looks as if we're going to live in this island palace. Do you like the idea?'

  He nodded against her and clasped his arms about her neck. 'Is that tall man with the terrible face really my uncle, Gaily?'

  'Yes, and you mustn't think of his face as being terrible. He was in an — accident and he can't help his scars. He's being very kind to us by letting us stay here and you must always be a good boy to him and never, never mention his face. Do you understand?'

  'I'm not afraid of him, Cally,' Teri insisted. 'He's nice on one side, isn't he? I'll look at that side and then I won't get shivery in my tummy.'

  She smiled and kissed his ruffled hair. 'That's my Buster! Now how about having a wash before I put you to bed?'

  'Can I sleep in here with you, Cally?' His arms clung closer and she felt him glance over to the archway that led into that other large room with the bed that was a lot too big for one small boy. A smaller bed would have to be found for him, and some brighter furnishings, otherwise he would never be persuaded to sleep on his own. The baróne, she suspected, had some firm ideas about the upbringing of boys and he'd hardly be pleased if she made a baby of his nephew.

  'For tonight, caro,' she said. 'Tomorrow we'll make your own room look much nicer and then you won't mind sleeping there like a big boy, now will you?'

  'No,' he said hesitantly. 'It's a very big house, isn't it? You should see the stables all full up with horses. Flavia showed me the big black horse that her papa rides, and he tossed his head ever so high and had steam coming out of his nose.'

  Um, she thought, he sounds like his master !

  'Come along, honey bunch,' she lifted Teri off the bed, 'let's go and clean your face and hands.'

  The bathroom was also large, with a deep green-tiled bath tub that fascinated the boy because it was let into the floor and had steps leading down into it, like a mini swimming-pool. Back home at the Copper Jug the bathroom had been a converted back room with a narrow white tub and cold white walls. But here on the walls were mosaics of sea scenes, and Teri re-discovered King Neptune and his court of mermaids and he stood there entranced while Carol ran water into the marble pedestal wash-basin.

  'I've never ever seen a bathroom like this one, Cally. It's 'normous and just like a sea cave.'

  Carol had never seen one like it herself. 'It's bella' she agreed, and thought to herself that Rudolph Falcone lived here in his island palace like one of the nobles of the Medici times, shut off from the rest of the world where there were too many eyes to stare at his face.

  She caught sight of her own face in a large, bold-framed mirror on the wall, and she felt anew that clutch of alarm at what Gena had said about her appearance having softened the hard heart of her brother. She saw her own vulnerable look, the sea-green lighting of the bathroom making her hair and skin seem unreal in their fairness. She had let down her hair for the man, but not to seduce him; not to make him imagine that she was free with her kisses.

  'Do you like it here, Cally?' Teri stood there, wriggling a bit when she applied the face flannel.

  'It's a beautiful house, Buster, but like you I feel a bit strange in it. I expect in a few days we'll be more used to the atmosphere.'

  'Then we're never going home to the Jug?' he asked, and he suddenly gave her the quick, mischievous smile of a small clown. 'I'm glad Auntie Rachel isn't here with us, for she was always scolding me, and she said I ought to be put in a home. What's a home, Cally, and why should I be put in one? Is it like the dogs' home where they take all the strays?'

  'You're as full of questions as a pumpkin is of pips !'

  Carol smiled as she wiped his face, but inwardly she was fuming. Aunt Rachel had been furious when she had brought Teri home as a tiny baby, for the Aunts had hoped that Cynara, who during the last six months of her pregnancy had lived in rooms in London, would sign away the baby so he was taken for adoption and the dreaded breath of scandal then receded from their door. But in her fashion Cynara had loved Vincenzo and she had begged Carol to live with her in London and between them they would bring up Vincenzo's child. That had been the agreement, and then on the day of Cynara's discharge from the hospital she had vanished, leaving Carol to cope alone with the dark-haired infant who then, and for always, had stormed her heart with his huge eyes and his helplessness.

  Carol had found it impossible to part with Teri, and had thought it would be better for both of them if she arranged with her aunts to go on living with them, helping out in the tearoom, in an environment she was accustomed to. Being all alone in London with a small baby had seemed too much of a challenge at the time, but now she had the feeling that she would have coped. At least it would have saved her from the persistent nagging of the Aunts, who lived in constant dread that Cynara would reappear and claim the child, and therefore reveal to their clientele that they had a niece who had sinned.

  Oh yes, in many ways were the Aunts a pair of Victorians, and Carol could only wonder at herself for enduring the tensions that were never at rest behind the shell-ruched curtains of the Copper Jug.

  She had dared to make her escape from all that, but it couldn't be denied that she had fled from petty tyrants only to find herself in the lair of a veritable dragon who carried the scars of his own brush with love and hate.

  When she and Teri returned to her bedroom they found that a maid had brought a steaming cup of Horlicks with some chocolate finger biscuits, and a fluted glass of wine for Carol. The various standard lamps set about the big room cast pools of soft light on the floor, islanded with rugs, and on the panels where big-framed paintings hung. Teri hopped up the half-moon of steps and dived into the bed, and there he sat sipping his drink, while Carol unbound her hair and began to brush it.

  'It's better than a dog's home,' Teri announced. 'D'you reckon he'll let me ride one of the ponies, Cally?'

  'If you ask him very politely,' she said, 'and remember to call him Uncle Rudolph.'

  Teri gazed at her big-eyed over the rim of his beaker. 'It's a very long name and that lady with the laughy eyes called him Rudi.'

  'That, my Buster, is because she is the baróne's sister and entitled to - to an affectionate name for him, just as I have my name for you. To you, caro, he is Uncle Rudolph and don't you forget it. He's an important man, remember, and we must show a proper respect for his hospitality.'

  'Will we see much of him, Cally?' Teri nibbled a chocolate finger and his own straight dark brows made that single line across his small but decidedly Italian nose as he watched the lamplight shimmering on Carol's hair. 'He touched you !'

  'It was nothing.' But even as she spoke Carol could feel the wave of warmth sweeping over her, and that clutch of panic in the pit of her stomach. The baróne was absolute master here, and in his eyes she was the woman who had lived with Vincenzo and borne a love child. She had to accept the bitter with the sweet, and there was a certain sweetness in having this apartment to share with Teri, with its great carved door that secured for them the kind of privacy very much denied at the Copper Jug. The amber-shaded lamps gave a light that was softly golden, and though large the apartment was warmed by radiators, for as in most southern countries the nights were cool after the sun died away.

  She tucked Teri into her bed and bent to kiss his forehead. 'Sleep well, caro, and have good dreams.'

  'Goo-night, Cally.' Already his lashes were falling sleepily to cover the big dark eyes. 'It's ever such a soft bed.'

  'Yes, isn't it?' She sat there on the bedside watching as he fell asleep, and she assured herself that she didn't care what attitude the baróne took towards her. This was where Teri belonged and it had been worthwhile coming here for his sake.