'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.
CHAPTER SIX
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!'
'Si, signora.' Giovanni returned her smile in his rather grave way.
'The steps are quite safe now?' Lucie demanded.
Giovanni inclined his head. 'Tullio has been down to take a look and he assures me everything is in order. We wouldn't allow the signora to take any unnecessary risks, especially with the signore away from home.'
Rome had been gone for a week, but he had not been in touch to say when he'd be home. 'I expect he got tied up with someone.' Julia poured tea and looked indifferent. 'I'm grateful to you, Giovanni, for getting the beach steps in order.'
'The signore left his orders. Is there anything special the signora would like for lunch?'
'Just lots of nice tasty things, and one of those crunchy pickles I like. Cosenza will know.'
Giovanni allowed his lips to quirk. 'Cosenza will not forget the pickle, signora.'
After he had gone Julia handed Lucie her cup of tea. 'Oh, don't look po-faced, I've missed going down to the beach. It does me good down there. I get plenty of fresh air.'
'You be careful, miss. There'd be hell to pay—'
'Would there?' Julia stirred her tea and looked cynical. 'What do you imagine he's doing right now? Sitting in his office doing the accounts?'
'Very likely.'
'I just can't seem to shake your hero-worship, can I?'
'If he's done wrong, miss, he's doing his best to make up for it. I've seen that for myself—a lot of young women would envy you for having him, and living in a place like this.'
'I happen to think there are more important things.' Julia sipped her tea and her gaze rested broodingly on the shimmering surface of the pool. 'You loved your husband, didn't you?'
'My Bert?' Lucie smiled, and then sighed. 'He was a good, kind man and no doubt that's how he came to die, helping others and not giving any thought to his own safety. Yes, there's something special about loving the man you live with, I'll grant you that, Miss Julia.'
'There's none of that between Rome and me—you must have realised that weeks ago.'
'I know he sleeps in his dressing-room.' Lucie looked directly at Julia. 'Some men are proud, and if you've shown him that you don't want him—'
'He knows well enough that I don't want him,' Julia said tersely. 'We aren't married in the true sense of the word, so don't speak to me as if I'm under some obligation to be a proper wife to him. I'll never give in to him—I'll fight him to the last ditch!'
'You could regret that, you know.'
'The thing I regret is that everything is over between me and Paul, the other man I told you about.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. Paul wanted me as I was. He could never accept the fact that I've belonged to Rome and carried his child. He's too fastidious.'
'One of those, eh?' Lucie looked down her nose. 'The sort who likes to believe women are delicate ornaments rather than functional human beings. I reckon you've had a lucky escape, if you don't mind me saying so, miss?'
'I do mind!' Julia looked indignant. 'I happen to like a sensitive man.'
'Insensitive, you mean,' Lucie muttered. 'A woman is a very natural creature and she needs a man who accepts that she isn't always sweet and sunny but has her moods and a body that's at the mercy of old mother nature. Now Mr Rome likes women because they are women, not bits and pieces of Crown Derby to be put on a shelf in a nice arrangement.'
It was a remark Julia refused to find amusing, but for some odd reason she smiled over it as later on she made her way down the beach steps, the young gardener Tullio walking ahead of her carrying her picnic basket, a striped rug and several magazines.
The sun was hot and tawny like honey through glass, and the sea was littered with great globules of golden light, with silver trapped inside. Everything had a lazy air, and the meandering sands were patched gold and brown, the scattered rocks lapped by the water. Seabirds took languid swoops over the sea, their wings carved against -the blue sky.
'What a perfect day!' Julia paused on the steps to take in the scene, her nostrils tensing to the wild scents of everything. Tullio turned to look at her, and she thought that with his torso bared to the sun and his black curly hair he looked like the wild god Pan. Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, and breaking the golden lilies afloat. She smiled and his white teeth flashed in answer to her. In that moment she understood what Lucie had been getting at. Italian men more than most seemed to have an earthy reverence for all that was part of nature, and it was there in Tullio's dark eyes as they moved over her body. She could see his bold approval of her, a woman pregnant with an Italian baby.
He then said something in Italian, unaware that she understood his words. 'A pretty woman should not be alone on a beach but should have the company of a man.'
For an instant Julia was tempted to reply to him in Italian, and then decided that he might think she was inviting his company. It wasn't that she feared Rome's disapproval, it was her realisation that she felt rather lonely and would have liked to share her picnic lunch with someone friendly and uncomplicated. But it wouldn't do to invite the gardener to lunch. The others working in the villa wouldn't understand or approve, and she didn't want to hurt Maddalena's feelings.
When they reached the sands she politely thanked Tullio for carrying her basket and rug. 'I shall be fine just here. You go and have your own lunch.'
She saw the little expression of regret in his eyes, as if he had hoped that she might ask him to stay. 'Go along,' she smiled. 'Maddalena will be waiting to have lunch with you.'
'Si, signora.' He inclined his curly head and the sun glinted on the religious medallion he wore. He and Rome were about the same age, she realised, but there was a worldliness about her husband that made him seem more mature than Tullio. It was probably his American upbringing and the kind of people he mixed with at the casino, and as she watched Tullio mount the steps in long strides she wondered if Rome would have been like him had he been born in Campania and taken to the soil for a living. She tried to imagine Rome in such circumstances, but inevitably the image was obscured by the vivid reality of another… Rome in a white dinner-jacket, wrenching loose his tie in reply to her accusation that he was a lowdown gambler. 'Right,' he said, 'let's see how you like being brought down to my level, my lady!'
Julia stood a moment staring at the sea beyond the arching groin of rock through which it swept back and forth in relentless motion, then shaking her head as if to clear it of images she laid her beach rug in a wedge of shade from the overhanging cliffs. She knelt and smoothed it out, feeling the little drag on her body where the baby lay curled inside her. A warmth stole over her skin, rising out of the neckline of the thin cream tunic she wore with a rust-coloured skirt which Lucie had altered.
Julia didn't want to think about Rome, but there was no chance of forgetting him the way she was. She would have liked to take a dip in the sea but could no longer get into her swimsuit… unless of course she went in nude. A smile tugged at her lips and she glanced around her. The beach was entirely private to the villa and from here she couldn't be seen from the terrazza… again she glanced at the sea and the longing to feel the creaming water on her limbs was too much for her.
Quickly she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, then removed her shirt and underwear. She gave her brassiere a wry look; it was two sizes larger than she normally wore and had been bought at a store in the village. Having a baby, she reflected, made a woman feel as if her body was being taken over by some lordly little creature who expanded it for his own use.
She stood there in the down-pouring sun and an almost sensuous feeling stirred through her body, and then she was running towards the sea, her hair bright and free about her bare shoulders. She ran into the sea from under the big groin of rock, gasping at the thrust of the water as it lifted her off her feet and turned her on her back, so that instinctively she opened her arms and moved her legs to the motion.
How good it felt! She was buoyant in the water, her body light and free again. She swam with smooth strokes, loving the silky coolness on her skin. Never in her life before had she swum without a suit, and now she understood why Rome never wore one.
She knew he didn't, having watched him in the pool unobserved, nothing on his body but the dark hair that lay like silk on his skin when he climbed out of the water and stretched himself on the sun-hot tiles.
He would roll over lazily as the sun caressed every inch of him, just like a tawny tiger. 'Swim with me,' he had invited her, but she always refused, and he shrugged his shoulders as if it didn't really matter to him if she gave him her company or withheld it.
He knew there were other women who would welcome him in a pool, or in more intimate places. He had probably been aware since puberty that he had sensual appeal for women, and Julia knew that if it hadn't been for the baby it would have suited him to remain unmarried. He didn't have that air of wanting to be settled that some men had, and some nights he would prowl the garden court, a cigar glowing at his lips, and the following morning he would say at breakfast that he had to go to Naples. It was as if he felt caged up in the villa and needed the bright lights of the casino, the sound of the croupiers at the tables, the excited laughter of women who staked everything on the turn of a card or the spin of a ball on the roulette wheel.
It all went through Julia's mind as she swam until she was pleasantly gratified and ready for her lunch. When she came out of the water the sun was so warm that her body was dry before she reached her niche under the cliffs. She wrung the water from her hair and combed her fingers through its damp strands. Her hands travelled down over her neck and bosom, wiping oft the salty bloom until her skin was supple and glowing.
She felt so good and couldn't confine her sense of freedom. The sensible brassiere was crammed out of sight in her raffia bag, and all she put on was her cream tunic which came to her thighs. She would wear her skirt later on when she returned to the villa.
She sat down on the rug and opened her lunch basket, which contained a salad, slices of cold chicken and ham, a wedge of cheese pasta, a crisp-looking pickle, fruit and a flask of creamy coffee. She sighed with contentment and tucked into the food, watching the sea as it creamed in and out of the big groin of rock.
Desire Has No Mercy Page 12