Desire Has No Mercy (16 page)

'And he knows it,' Maddalena retorted.

'Don't they all!' Julia walked from the
terrazza
into the hall, and as she passed one of the onyx tables she saw a letter lying on a salver and paused to examine the envelope in case it was addressed to her. It was pale mauve, expensively thick, and Rome's name was upon it and the handwriting was a woman's. Julia put it to her nose and smelled a delicate perfume. She set her lips and examined the postmark —Madrid. Spain! Her devoted husband certainly believed in spreading wide his net! She returned the letter to the salver and continued on her way to the bedroom, where she was collecting together such items as a sunhat and sun-oil when Lucie came into the room carrying a sewing-box.

'That's right, miss,' she said, 'you relax in the sun by the pool. It will do you the world of good, especially as you didn't get much sleep last night.'

'I'm going down to the beach,' Julia said casually.

There was a significant silence, and then Lucie placed the sewing-box on the bed stool and returned to the door, where she
stood
firmly against the handle. 'Over my dead body, miss,' she said.

'Please get away from the door.' Julia could feel herself beginning to tremble slightly. The beach had become an issue, and all because of the baby… it wouldn't do for anything to happen to Rome's baby!

'Please move out of my way,' Julia said tensely.

'No, miss!' Lucie had set her stocky body determinedly against the door. 'That cliffside has become hazardous and you know it! You could be hurt—why, I'd never forgive myself if any harm came to you!'

'You mean the baby, don't you?' Julia had gone so pale that only her eyes seemed to hold any colour. 'Rome's precious infant!'

'Don't talk like that, Miss Julia. The baby means just as much to you and you wouldn't want to hurt it by risking yourself on those beach steps.'

'You think not?' Julia tossed her hair and hardened her eyes. 'I never wanted this child in the first place—he forced it upon me and I hate him, do you hear? I hate him!'

'Miss Julia!'

'If you knew what he did—'

'I don't believe Mr Rome ever did you a day's harm.'

'No, he did it at night, and he made sure I had nine months of misery to endure.' Suddenly the tears were spilling over and Julia no longer cared about pride and keeping her feelings to herself. 'Y-you can't imagine how unhappy I am! I'm a prisoner in this house, condemned to live here until I have the child before I can be free—and I mean to be free!'

Through her tears Julia saw the shocked, unbelieving look on Lucie's face, then generously she was holding open her arms and like a child again Julia was running into them, not with skinned knees or a broken toy, but with an aching and bewildered heart that needed comfort.

'My poor lovey,' Lucie stroked her hair, 'I could see there was something amiss between the two of you, but I never dreamed it was making you this miserable. So you married Mr Rome because you had to?'

Julia nodded and it was such a relief to have someone at last to confide in. 'He ruined everything for me, Lucie. There was someone I liked so much, the sort of man who would have had Grandma's approval, and then this happened and I had no option but to marry Rome—'

'What I don't understand,' Lucie drew her brows together, 'you were never the sort of girl to get yourself into that kind of trouble. Miss Verna was more flighty in that way, but you—you were always such a proud little person, with respect for yourself and others that always made me extra fond of you. You weren't cut out for affairs with men—'

'There was no affair—not in the sense that Rome and I were seeing one another a-and were in love. I—I don't want to go into the details, except to say that I'm only staying with him until the baby's born. He wants the baby —I'm just incidental.'

'But you can't mean—?' Lucie scanned Julia's face.

'You can't give up your baby—it isn't in you!'

'Isn't it?' Julia smiled wryly and touched her stomach. 'He'd never let me take the baby with me and I mean to get away from him. He'll be a better provider than I. He has money and this house, and he likes the idea of being a father. That's the only redeeming thing about him, he wants his child and was horrified when I mentioned—anyway, he wouldn't let me go to a clinic for that sort of thing and insisted that I marry him. We struck a sort of bargain, you see.'

'Yes, miss.' Lucie looked at Julia as if she glimpsed the real cause of so much distress. 'Now why don't you wash your face and go and sit by the pool? For the time being, Miss Julia, the baby is your main concern and you know it, don't you? You can't hurt the innocent.'

'I—I was innocent.' Julia felt the blood rise in a wave of heat through her body. 'I'm justified in blaming Rome for all this. I can't be fooled by his charm like other people— I know how ruthless he can be. Life could have been so different for me, so orderly and nice, and now it's just a mess. Sometimes at night it all sweeps over me and I just don't know what to do—having a baby is different, Lucie, if there's love involved and there's someone you can turn to in the dark when the little fears start jabbing at you. I—I've never had a baby before and sometimes I'm afraid—'

'Hush now,' Lucie soothed. 'Take each day as it comes and don't keep asking questions of fate. I kept doing that when my Bert died, but you never get any satisfactory answers and only wear yourself out. Now you freshen up and go and relax in the sunshine until it's time for lunch. If you fancy anything special, Cosenza will be only too pleased to cook it for you. How about a nice lamb chop, little peas and some baked potatoes, with apple pie to follow? That was always your favourite meal in the old days.'

'The old days,' Julia sighed. 'We never realise how lucky we are when we're children and there's someone grown up to rely on. Had Grandma lived, none of this would have happened!'

'Who knows?' Lucie glanced around the big bedroom, with its cool, silvery beauty. 'Fate has us on a string, miss. We all get dangled in the lion's mouth one way or another, and the villa's a nice place when you look around it.'

'It's a gilded cage,' Julia said quietly. 'All of you are really on Rome's side, making a prisoner of me. You'll be on his side when the baby's born, won't you?'

'I don't take sides, miss. I just believe in common sense.'

'I believe you're talking about compromise,' Julia argued.

'Yes, miss.' Lucie held Julia's pained eyes with her own. 'A baby needs a mother and a father, and you should know that only too well.'

'I—I don't want to think about it! I don't want to talk about it any more!' And turning away, Julia hastened into the bathroom to wash away her tears.

Compromise, she thought, gazing into the mirror and seeing the forlorn look that lurked about her mouth and in her eyes. Give in to Rome… remain his wife for the sake of the child and know that whenever he felt the urge to see another woman he would do so. He didn't even care if they wrote to the villa on their scented notepaper.

She caught her breath as his child moved inside her, a flutter that was part of her and yet distinct from her, a presence that lived and grew in her, the tiny heart pumping away beneath her heart.

'Damn you, Rome!' she whispered tormentedly. 'Why couldn't you stay out of my life!'

There was no answer except another of those flutters in her body, that movement of the tiny limbs stretching and touching her, reminding her too vividly of the man in whose arms she had lain while on the waterfront at Naples someone sang a Neapolitan love song. Even yet she remembered the sound echoing on the water, while she learned from the warm lips on hers that desire has no mercy.

It seemed that everyone in the village was taking an interest in Julia's condition, and she was doing her best to get used to it. It seemed to be part of the local character and people had started to bring presents of little carved toys and knitted garments to the villa, along with home-made candy that was really delicious—candied cherries and figs, plums with a nut filling, sultana fudge and creamy toffee.

'I shall look like a plum duff before long!' Julia laughed, sharing the sweets with Lucie as in days gone by. 'The Campanians are such nice people, you can't help growing fond of them.'

'They're genuine,' Lucie said. 'They aren't spoiled by the artificial things too many city folk regard as essential, as if without machines and a psychoanalyst they couldn't survive.'

'You're my analyst, Lucie. What would I do without you?'

'Remember, miss, it was Mr Rome who thought you'd like the idea of having me here.'

'He knew he'd often be away on his little trips.'

'He has his business to think of.'

'A gambling casino can hardly be placed in that category. Everything he has,' Julia made a sweeping gesture with her hand, 'has been bought with the money a lot of foolish people lose at his gaming tables. Believe me, he has no conscience about it. He made up his mind a long time ago that he wasn't going to work like a slave and end up like his father.'

When Lucie looked enquiring Julia realised that Rome's mother had never talked of the circumstances of her widowhood.

'Rome's father died of overwork,' she said quietly, for it suddenly seemed wrong to abuse his confidence. 'Mr Demario tried to establish a small business and then fell ill and didn't recover.'

'Then it's understandable if Mr Rome chooses to make his living the way he does. No one forces people to gamble with their money and I'm sure the casino is honestly run and everything—I couldn't imagine the
signore
cheating anyone just to make himself rich.'

'Some people are weak, Lucie.' Julia sighed as she thought of her sister's lack of resistance to the fever of gambling. 'A casino to them is like this nut fudge to you and me, except that we know when we've had enough. I hate the casino! I wish I'd never seen the place!'

'You were bitten by the gambling bug?' Lucie looked surprised. 'That doesn't sound like you, Miss Julia, not that I'm saying you didn't like a bit of fun—do you remember when I used to take you and Miss Verna to Coney Island? Your eyes used to shine and I couldn't keep you off the helter-skelter—'

Lucie broke off and looked thoughtful a moment. 'It was Miss Verna who did the gambling, wasn't it?'

Julia nodded. 'I—I had to try and help her. She was engaged to Lawrence Hale, but I knew he wouldn't risk marrying a girl who lost hundreds of dollars playing roulette—you know the Hale family, they've always been in banking and the law. They wouldn't have stood for it, and it would have broken Verna's heart to lose Lawrence. I went to the casino to speak to the proprietor—I had no idea it was Rome. He suggested a way I could pay off the debt, but as you can see, Lucie, there was a little miscalculation, which everyone seems certain will be a boy. Most of those little knitted things are in blue—'

Julia broke off, for Giovanni was making his way towards the pool, carrying a mid-morning pot of tea on a tray. As he set it down on the little table beside Julia's lounger he told her that the shoring up work on the cliffs was completed and the beach steps had been cleared of rubble.

'Oh, good!' Julia smiled up at him. 'I've missed the feel of the sand and the sound of the sea moving in and out of the big groin of rock. Ask Cosenza to pack me a lunch basket, I'm going to spend the afternoon down there!'