Desire Has No Mercy

by Violet Winspear

  'I—I can do without those sort of lessons—'

  'Can you, my dear?' He gave a quiet laugh and bending his tall head placed his lips on the smooth curve of her cheek. 'How innocent of you to suppose that you have a choice! Now shall we go inside before my servants decide that we are going to pitch a tent in the forecourt?'

  Light was streaming out from the open door at the top of wide stone steps leading up from the forecourt and a figure in a discreet dark suit was waiting there. They mounted the steps, where to Julia's utter consternation Rome swept her up in his arms. 'Here we are, Giovanni,' he said. 'It's an American custom for a bride to be carried over the threshold of her new home.'

  This he proceeded to do, while Julia lay tensely in his arms, wanting to struggle out of them but constrained by the presence of his manservant who watched the procedure with intent dark eyes.

  'Ah, it's good to be home.' Rome continued to hold Julia while he glanced around the entrance hall, fairly large with a curve to long recessed! windows in which were deep sills upholstered in deep red leather. The walls were panelled but a selection of modern paintings made them seem lighter, and there were flowers in large bowls on a pair of onyx tables.

  'Welcome home, signore—signora.' The manservant bowed politely. 'We have followed your instructions, signore, and I am sure you will find everything to your satisfaction. You had a pleasant journey?'

  'It was a good flight, Giovanni, and now we are both in good appetite. I feel sure Cosenza is preparing a fine meal for us—a wedding supper, no less, eh?'

  'Si, signore. She has been busy in the kitchen for hours. Cosenza knows your favourite dishes and she has made up her mind that everything will be perfect for you and the padrona.'

  'Excellent.' Rome smiled and glanced at Julia, who felt foolish in his arms but was too polite to show her feelings in front of a member of his staff. 'My wife is a slim American, but she has the appetite of an Italian girl and will do full justice to the meal. I think we'll have the table set on the terrazza as it's a fine night and the moon will have arisen in about another hour. Our apartment has been prepared, Giovanni?'

  'To the letter, signore. The workmen were here until this morning and all the redecorations have been carried out as you wished. The rooms are looking che bello.'

  'Then we'll go upstairs. Inform Cosenza that we'll be ready for our dinner in about an hour.'

  'Si, signore.' Giovanni turned towards the door. 'I will fetch up the baggage immediately.'

  'Grazie.' Still making no attempt to set Julia on her feet, Rome began to mount the staircase, which was panelled by gracious wrought-iron at either side of the treads.

  'Aren't you afraid you'll over-exert yourself?' Julia enquired coolly.

  'The delicious Italian meal we are going to enjoy will soon refuel my energies.' His grey eyes looked down into hers, their lids half-lowered to show a gleam of sultry amusement. 'Any increase in your weight, mia cara, is not yet discernible. I wonder if it will be a large child? My mother always said that I weighed heavily, so if you begin in a while to look big we shall know we have a son on the way, eh?'

  Julia compressed her lips and made an involuntary movement in his arms, which tightened their hold.

  'Don't do that while I'm on the stairs,' he said. 'I could lose my balance.'

  'And I could lose—'

  'Don't you dare to say it!' They reached the landing and now his eyes cut into her like steel. 'If you do anything to harm that child, Julia, I promise you I shall wring your lovely neck. Our laws in Italy aren't like those in the States. Here the passions relating to the sexes are taken into consideration and I'd be justified in strangling you if you deliberately tried to have a miscarriage. If you have that in mind, then know my mind as well.'

  'An unhappy marriage can make a woman miscarry—'

  Julia clenched his shoulder with her hand. 'Please put me down. It's one thing to pretend in front of your staff that we're madly in love, but it's unnecessary when we're by ourselves.'

  'What I intend with you, Julia, when we're by ourselves, would not be suitable viewing for my staff.' With an abrupt laugh he paused in front of a pair of high oval-shaped doors, a single arm strong and firm around her as he turned the handle and pushed the doors open with his shoulder. He carried her across the room, furnished for sitting in, and opened another set of doors.

  The room was high-ceilinged, its walls papered silver-grey, with a design of huge white lilies with golden centres. The wall-lights Rome had flicked on revealed jade-green drapes at the windows that swept with a glamorous fullness to the silvery-grey carpet that covered every inch of the floor. Walking silent and lithe, Rome made for the canopied double bed that was the central focus of the room and there he lowered Julia and leaned over her, his arms supported at either side of her on the silvery silk counterpane.

  'Well, Signora Demario, what do you think of your new home? This apartment has been smartened up just for your benefit.'

  Unbearably aware of his closeness and the quizzical smile on his lean handsome face, Julia glanced obligingly around the big bedroom. 'It looks like something out of a Joan Crawford movie,' she said in her coolest, most deflating tone of voice.

  'You little shrew,' he said softly, and suddenly she was gathered right against him and before she could turn her face away he had captured her lips and pushing her back on the bed he kissed her until she felt as if her breath would stop. It was a kiss of total possessiveness, crushing her beneath him, reviving for her vivid memories of the strength in his well-kept body. With a gasp rising in her throat she had to open her lips to his in order to breathe, and as the intimacy of his kiss increased she felt a strange helplessness in her limbs, a sense of langour as if his sensuous mouth was absorbing her.

  When he let her go she lay there weakly, her lips apart, her eyes partly closed. He unbuttoned her coat and she felt his hand on her waist. 'You're mine, Julia, and you might as well accept it. You have my child in you, and that makes you part of me whether you like it or not.'

  'I—I don't like it—' Even her voice had grown weak.

  'Then learn to like it, my dear.' He rose to his feet, a hand thrusting at his black hair as he stood tall at the bedside. 'I have my own dressing-room and sauna, so you may have the use of the bathroom, only don't take all night trying to scrub the feel of my hands from your body. My touch is not so repugnant to your silky skin as you like to believe, and I'll teach you before long, my lady, to be a real woman.'

  'Haven't you done that already?' Julia sat up, a hand at her disarrayed hair. 'I wouldn't be here in your damned house if you hadn't proved your virility!'

  He gave a soft, brief laugh as he strolled towards a door at the far end of the room. 'There are signs, Julia, that you could be quite a woman if you were to let down your hair.'

  'I don't have to let down my hair, Rome. You're good at making a woman look as if she's been dragged through a bush.'

  'Don't let it worry you, carina.' He cast her a taunting look over his shoulder. 'The dishevelled look suits you here in the bedroom, though I like to see you at your most soignée when we dine together. Make yourself lovely for our meal on the terrazza, eh? This is our real wedding night; you can't count the one we spent travelling. I never could get into a romantic mood on a jet.'

  'Have you brought many women to this house, Rome?' Julia made her way to the dressing-table, trying not to notice that her legs still felt oddly tremulous. She took up a hand mirror that lay there and noticed that it was rather beautiful.

  'Only my mother—and you,' he replied. 'That mirror is a genuine Medici, but I bought it for a song in a little shop at Capua. I had it cleaned at a jewellers and it was there I was told its real value. I'm quite good at picking up bargains.'

  'Bully for you, signore.' She turned the mirror about in her hands and saw the gems encrusted in the frame, which was golden. 'Do you regard me as a bargain as I happen to be a Van Holden?'

  'Yes,' he drawled, 'when you come to think of it I
did get you for a fairly moderate price. Some people lose a great deal more at my casino than your sister did.'

  Julia swung to face him, hardening her green eyes. 'If they have to repay you as I did, Rome, then it's a wonder you haven't other children to show for your resourceful way of collecting your debts! I really know very little about you when you come to think of it.'

  'You'll soon know a lot, my dear, but you'd better learn to control your tongue if you don't want to get acquainted with my Italian temper.'

  'Do you lose it, Rome, when people get curious about your background? After all, you've admitted to being friends with a Mafia leader.'

  'As I told your friend Wineman, there are two sides to my life, as there are two sides to the lives of a lot of men.' Rome drew open the door of his dressing-room. 'I'll leave you to get ready for dinner. Wear something attractive for our wedding eve.'

  'Is that an order, signore?'

  'Merely a request, carina. I don't regard you as a member of my staff, so don't pretend to yourself that I do. You're my wife—my bride.'

  'Your—pregnant bride, Rome. Hardly romantic!'

  'I find it—erotic,' he said, and closed the dressing-room door behind him, leaving her with the filigreed mirror clenched in her hands. Erotic, stimulating to his Latin sensuality, that her body was ripening with his baby. Julia lifted the hand mirror and met her own tormented eyes. Always she had been the big sister who looked after her little sister, and now because of it she was burdened with a marriage she didn't want while Verna enjoyed life with a husband she loved.

  Julia's lips had a bitter little twist to them, and she felt their tenderness from the hard pressure of Rome's mouth. There was no love in what he felt for her… in all its aspects it was profane, even a little brutal when he made her kiss him in that way the girls at charm school had said would give a girl a baby. She ran the top of her tongue, around the velvety innerside of her lips and reproduced slightly the sensations he had caused. A shiver ran through her body. Oh God, why couldn't she be married to Paul? He had been so kind and courtly. He wouldn't dream of treating her the way Rome did… Rome was such a boundless, arrogant brute, with none of the sensitive qualities she liked in a man. He was like some untamed animal, graceful to look at but with the instincts of the lower East Side where he had grown up, adept with his fists, part of a tough gang of boys, who had wooed and won girls in the dark alleys at the back of the dance halls where the music had a heavy sensual beat to it.

  That she was Julia Van Holden who had led a sheltered life meant nothing to him. He was out to prove to her that as far as he was concerned she was just a girl who ought to be grateful he had done the honourable thing and married her. It was, for him, the most subtle form of revenge he could take on her family, whom he despised as snobs who had no feelings of pity or understanding for those who had to live in poverty. Julia suspected this might have been true of her grandmother, but it wasn't true of her. She could be compassionate, but the man she was married to had long outgrown the need for compassion.

  She gazed around the bedroom with its silvery and jade tones… a new, strange, unlooked-for world which she must come to terms with; to touch and feel and somehow accept. She had been sarcastic about the room, but there were signs of good taste in all its aspects. Colours and furnishings in no way clashed, and irresistibly her gaze was drawn to the bed where the silk cover was still disarranged from her tussle there with Rome.

  Defiance and consternation swept through Julia, and she thought again what a naive idiot she had been to actually believe that a man with Rome's temperament would bring a wife to his home and then treat her as if she were his ward.

  She looked at the Medici mirror in her hand and felt an urge to smash it, but instead with a sigh she replaced it on the dressing-table, where there were little porcelain boxes in various sizes, with charming patterns of flowers and peacocks. Over by one of the windows stood a peacock-back chair in ivory canework and on a small table nearby a lovely figured clock in porcelain. Against a wall was the towering shape of a wardrobe in ivory wood and on impulse she went and opened its doors. She stood there stunned, for on rows of hangers were dresses and suits of various lengths, for daytime and evening wear. On a rack there was a selection of lovely Italian shoes, and on another a line of matching handbags. There were gloves, silk scarves, and a vanity case with diamond initials.

  Feeling sure she had stumbled on the wardrobe of a girlfriend of Rome's, Julia was far less certain when she saw that the initials were JCD, standing for Julia Caroline Demario!

  She swallowed a dryness from her throat and bent down to open a long white box that lay under the dresses. Swathed in sheets of tissue paper was a black diamond mink wrap, soft, shining and incredibly expensive. An envelope jutted from a sleeve and out of pure curiosity Julia opened it and drew out the card inside. Rome had written on it: 'I found out that while you were in Naples you visited the Tonio Gulli fashion house. As they had your measurements it wasn't difficult to get you kitted out with these garments. You'll wear them, of course.'

  With a flash of temper she ripped the card into pieces. It was typical of Rome to assume that like his other women she'd be thrilled to be given the dresses and the mink wrap —like someone he was keeping who had to be kept sweet with presents!

  Julia slammed shut the wardrobe doors and when she swung round there was a rap on the bedroom door and Giovanni entered with the baggage. The larger case of pigskin was Rome's and the manservant took it to him. Julia was standing there as if she wanted to pick up her own cases and make a dash from the house when someone else came into the bedroom. The woman was wearing a discreet beige-coloured dress with a lacy cap pinned to her hair, and it was her hair that caught Julia's attention, a flamboyant ginger at which Grandma Van Holden had always frowned, though Lucie Jennings had been too good a nursemaid to be dismissed because of her hair.

  'Lucie?' Julia could hardly believe her eyes… it seemed incredible to see right now someone from out of the past whom she had last seen when she was fifteen, when Lucie had left Grandma's employ to marry a ship's steward. Julia approached her and caught hold of her hands, as if only touch would make her real.

  'My dear Lucie, what are you doing here? In Italy of all places… in this house?'

  'Your husband hired me, Miss Julia.' Lucie still had the sprightly voice that matched her hair. 'He found out where I was working in New York and he—'

  'But you're married, Lucie!'

  'I'm a widow, miss.' Lucie looked sombre for a moment. 'My Bert died when the Maria Ives went down. You must have read it in the papers? There was a collision with one of them oil tankers and only a few passengers and crew survived. It happened eighteen months ago.'

  'I'm so sorry, Lucie. I had no idea your husband was on that ship.'

  'There you are, miss, what is to be will be, as the saying goes. I returned to my old line of work, and then when this offer came from out of the blue—well, I couldn't turn down the chance to take care of you again. My Miss Julia, the nicest lady I ever had in my charge. I must say I was surprised, you being married to Signor Demario. I recall his poor mother, such a nice woman but always on the sad side. It must have been hard on him, being just a boy at the time she worked for your grandma. A real tartar she was! I read in the papers she'd passed away—she was always good to you and Miss Verna, I'll say that for her. Perhaps a bit too fussy and protective, but you were a pretty pair and your parents were dead and I suppose it was understandable.'

  Lucie gazed at Julia as the old memories swept over both of them, and then the ginger hair gave that electrical crackle as Lucie shook her head from side to side. 'I wonder what your grandma would say about your marriage, miss? To think of you—and him! Mrs Demario's boy all grown up into such a fine handsome man!'

  'He was always good-looking.' A tremor ran through Julia; not even to kind-hearted Lucie could she confide the truth behind her marriage. 'I wonder what made him think of hiring you, Lucie?'

  'I re
ckon he remembered what good friends we were when you were a girl. He seems a very resourceful man, and when he said I'd be looking after you again! Why, it seems only yesterday that I was brushing your long smooth hair in the nursery at your grandma's house. Such hair, and it's still as bright and shining. Cook used to say you owed it to your Dutch ancestors.'

  'I expect I do.' Julia smiled slightly, remembering the portrait of Henryk Van Holden which used to fascinate her when she was a child; big, blond, with a pirate's patch over his left eye. He had founded the family fortune, but now all the money was gone and the big old house on Brookside was a tenement.

  Julia's smile faded and she gave a sigh. 'Life moves on in mysterious ways, doesn't it, Lucie? Do you believe some things happen because fate means them to?'

  'I haven't much doubt of it, miss. Look at the way you and the signore have come together again—why, he must've been about eleven years old the last time I saw him. You liked him then, didn't you?'

  'Liked—him?' Julia exclaimed. 'What makes you say that? He never used to speak to me, but he often scowled!'

  Lucie gave a laugh. 'Boys are sometimes like that when they have an eye on a girl. You were the princess in the castle and he must've made up his mind all that time ago to marry you.'

  'No.' Julia shook her head emphatically. 'He never intended to marry me—that's just the way it turned out. I must say you're looking well, Lucie, and your hair still has that lovely crackling sound Verna and I used to love to hear when we got you rattled. You know that Verna's married as well?'

  'Yes, you know what a one I am for reading the gossip columns. You've both done well for yourselves, haven't you?' Lucie gazed around the big silvery bedroom. 'Isn't this glamorous? Those long sweeping curtains, that enormous bed, and a carpet you can sink into up to your ankles. I bet Mrs Demario must be proud of the way her boy has got on in the world?'

  'She died,' Julia said quietly. 'My husband isn't in business, he runs a gambling casino in Naples. I suppose you could say that he's very successful at that sort of thing.'