by Liz Fielding
His voice changed, becoming sharp. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No-no-no-’
Then he gave a sudden, convulsive movement and threw himself over onto his back. He was breathing harshly now while, ‘No-no-no…’ poured from his mouth.
Acting instinctively, Holly seized his hand, holding it between hers until its jerky movements subsided. At the same time the heaving of his chest became less violent.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him softly. ‘I’m here-I’m here.’
Now he lay still. The only sign of his recent disturbance was the frown creasing his brow.
‘I’m here,’ she repeated. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
Slowly the frown faded and he seemed to breathe more easily, but his hand did not release hers. Holly eased herself down in the bed, trying not to disturb him.
She had embarked on this strange marriage with little idea of what might be facing her, but telling herself that she was ready for anything. Now she wondered if she had been too rash. He depended on her for something that might be beyond her power.
Too late now. She had made promises that bound her as irrevocably as the fingers clasped around hers, while he sank back into peaceful sleep, growing still. After a long time he released her, and she was able to draw her hand away. Then she stayed as she was, watching him, motionless, until she too fell asleep.
She awoke again later to find herself sitting up, unable to remember how it had happened, but instantly alert. She must have slept for hours because the room was filled with a soft, dim light that told her dawn was breaking. Cautiously she turned her head to where he slept.
Once again he’d taken her by surprise. After the disturbance of the night she’d imagined him sleeping curled up in a defensive position, his arms a barrier against a world that had betrayed him. Instead he lay on his back, his arms flung wide, his jacket open, revealing a chest that was thick with dark, curly hair, abandoned, unprotected.
In what other way was he different from how she had imagined? How many sides did he have, and would he live long enough for her to find out?
That was the reality, she reminded herself: he might die at any moment. She closed her eyes, trying to resist the anguish that shivered through her, but it wouldn’t be denied. Somehow, while she thought she was fighting him off, he’d secured a grip on her heart.
She’d told him once that her weakness was a longing to be needed, but that was when she’d seen him as too strong to need anyone. Her real feelings had pounced on her like a tiger leaping from the darkness, overwhelming her before she realised.
The width of the bed should have been a protection. But one of his arms reached across the space between, the fingertips temptingly close. And there was no protection from the thoughts that crowded in on her. The one that hounded her most was the one kiss they’d shared on the night when the barriers began to come down, and he’d later revealed the truth about his torment.
They’d hastily replaced the barriers, but there was no way to blot out the memory of a kiss so fierce and thrilling that they’d both backed off, eyes wary, hearts in denial.
The moment had briefly glittered tonight as they talked, and she’d shut it away hastily. But in the dark warmth it had returned, taking advantage of her defenceless sleep to remind her how his body felt, pressed against hers. In just a few blazing moments he seemed to have imprinted himself on her so that he was still there, his lips touching her mouth, his hand firm in the small of her back.
That hand looked different now, relaxed, gentle. His face, too, was softer than she had ever seen it, although dark with a night’s growth of beard. His frown was gone, but she could see that the tensions of his life had not completely vanished. Beneath the surface peace was a wariness, as though life on the verge of disaster was the only kind possible for him.
While she was wondering if she should awaken him, Matteo opened his eyes and looked directly into hers. He didn’t move, but she had the feeling that a quietness had settled over him, as though he’d found what he wanted, and was glad.
‘Have you been there all the time?’ he whispered.
She nodded.
‘Yes, of course-stupid of me-’
‘Not stupid,’ she said. ‘We aren’t used to this.’
‘Thank you for being there.’
So he knew, she thought. He might not remember exactly, but somewhere, deep inside, he’d sensed her in the night, holding on to him.
His lips moved, speaking her name silently, and he reached up to touch her face, trailing his fingertips gently down her cheek. He looked almost puzzled, as though trying to understand how this had come about. When his hand settled behind her head she hesitated only a moment before leaning slowly down. She could feel him trembling and knew that he must be able to sense the same in her. This wasn’t wise but it was inevitable. She couldn’t sleep beside him all night and remain cool.
She moved slightly so that his free hand could drift naturally across her breast, and braced herself for the sweet sensation.
There was a knock at the door.
Then Liza’s voice called, ‘Can I come in?’
Matteo closed his eyes and a shudder went through him. Holly took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm.
‘Yes,’ she called brightly. ‘You can come in.’
Instinctively she tried to draw away from him, thinking only of calming the tingling in her body. But he held her, murmuring, ‘Remember what we said? Neutered cats.’
She could have screamed at the intrusion of the homely into what promised to be magic. But he was right. So she let him draw her down so that her head fell on his shoulder, and draped an arm around his neck, just managing to settle before the door opened and Liza came in.
She beamed at what she saw, then went back outside and returned pushing a light trolley.
‘I brought your coffee,’ she said.
Somehow they managed to say the right words, pulling themselves up in bed, smiling and acting as though nothing could give them greater pleasure. Which, in one sense, was true, Holly thought. This was all for Liza. Remember that.
But it was hard to stick to her resolutions when she was trembling with sweet urgency as never before. Whatever Matteo had promised about keeping his distance, in another moment he would have cast virtue and honour to the winds, and made love to her with her full consent.
She took her consolation in the knowledge that the vital moment was a success. Liza’s world seemed to have tilted in the way she needed, which meant that the arrangement was working.
And there was always tonight, she thought, feeling happiness creep through her. She tried to communicate that thought to Matteo, but he seemed anxious to get back to his own room, almost unable to meet her eyes.
That night his clerk called to say that the judge was working very late. By the time he arrived home she was asleep.
Two days later Galina returned to her own home. She never spoke of the dangerous subject again, but she smiled at Holly in a way that conveyed her meaning unmistakably.
Matteo travelled everywhere with a police escort, leaving early in the morning and arriving home late. Then he would spend his time with Liza, leaving little time for Holly.
Gradually she realised that her first suspicion was correct. He was avoiding her. Now he slept in his own room, with an alarm set for the early hours so that he could join her then, slipping in on the far side and staying there. Clearly the danger that had almost engulfed them once was not to be allowed to happen again.
In her odd moments alone, Holly watched the news compulsively. One evening there was a brief snippet about Fortese. She’d seen his face before, but only in newspapers that she had hastily put aside to keep them from Liza. Now she had the chance to consider him properly.
He might be a villain but he didn’t have the face of a thug. His features were narrow, gentlemanly, and all the more chilling for that. Eyes like ice, the smile of a dead man. He had committed several murders and always escaped by bribing or f
rightening witnesses or the judge.
But in Matteo he had met his match. On Matteo’s orders the witnesses received double the usual protection and, although clearly scared, they had given their damn-ing testimony.
Matteo could be neither bribed nor bullied. He had imposed a sentence of thirty years. Fortese had listened, motionless, to the sentence. Then, at the very last moment, he had spoken.
‘No prison can hold me,’ he said. ‘I shall find you and kill you.’
Commotion. The police pounced and hustled him out. Judge Fallucci showed no expression as he collected his things and departed.
Watching it now, Holly felt a chill of fear consume her. Matteo could take as many precautions as he liked. Fortese would win. That was the message.
That night she undressed thoughtfully, switched out the light and sat up in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the distance.
On the other side of the door she could hear Matteo moving around. She listened, tense, wondering if he would come in, but, as she had expected, he made no move towards her. After a while the light under the door went out.
She waited, coming to a decision. It took all her courage, but she wouldn’t turn back now. She didn’t know how much time there might be left.
At the door she raised her hand to knock, then lowered it. He was her husband, and she was blowed if she was going to knock. She tried the door and, to her relief, it was not locked.
Like so many other things about him, the room surprised her. It was small, almost monastic. In the corner was a narrow bed, on which he sat, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped, his forehead drooped wearily against them.
He was too lost in his own thoughts to hear her enter, and didn’t know she was there until she dropped down on her knees beside him.
‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ he said.
‘Why, because you’re afraid you might have to talk to me?’ she asked, looking up seriously into his face.
‘No, I just…’ but he gave up at once, confronted by the truth in her eyes.
‘I needed to talk to you tonight,’ she said. ‘There was a programme going back over your history with Fortese-’
‘Did Liza-?’
‘No, she knows nothing except that you’re unusually busy just now, but she doesn’t know why. We talk all the time, except when the physiotherapist comes to work with her leg, or a teacher comes to give her a lesson.
‘When I can be alone I read the papers or watch the news, and there are so many things I want to ask you, but you hide away.’
‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Matteo,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘I’m not a fool. I know exactly what there is to worry about. Every day I listen for you to come home, knowing that one day you may not come. I tell myself that if it was bad news someone would telephone first, and if there’s no phone call then you’re on your way. I try so hard to believe that.
‘When you enter the house I want to run and see you, to touch you and make sure that you’re real, but I keep back and let Liza have you to herself. I have to be content with staying in the shadows, but I thought we’d have more than that. The first night-’
‘The first night I came close to breaking my solemn word to you-’
‘Be damned to your word!’ she said, so fiercely that he stared. ‘Stop being a lawyer all the time. All right, you promised to keep your distance but you didn’t swear an oath about it in court. That kind of foolish promise is made to be broken. What kind of man can keep such a promise with a woman he wants?’
‘Who says I want you?’ he demanded in a voice that was as brutal as he could make it. Much more of this and he would go mad.
But nothing worked with this woman. Instead of being dumbfounded she flung back, ‘You do!’ in a voice of pure rage. ‘You tell me every moment, and you tell me most when you’re trying hardest not to. You want me as much as I want you, so for pity’s sake give up the pretence.’
She was still kneeling beside him, her face upturned, the moonlight shadowing the hollows of her breast. Moisture gleamed on his forehead as he seized her shoulders in cruel fingers.
‘Will you stop this?’ he demanded. ‘I’m trying to act like a man of honour.’
‘Then be damned to your honour too. Forget it. If Fortese shoots you down, shall I engrave that on your tomb? Here lies a man of honour. He kept his word to the end, but he left his wife alone and desolate, with an empty heart.’
She drew a deep breath and took a calculated risk. ‘Unless, of course, honour is just another word for fear.’
‘Are you mad?’ he flashed at her. ‘Of course it’s fear. How can I not be afraid? Yes, I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time, and that first night I nearly took you. But I’m glad I didn’t because where can it end? We’ve grown closer than we meant to, you know that. But who am I to dare to get close to a woman? To dare to l-’
‘To love?’ she challenged him. ‘Say it.’
But he shook his head.
‘At any other time I’d reach out to you,’ he growled, ‘and stop at nothing until I’d made you mine. I’d fight anyone, even you, to make you love me. I’d take you to bed and love you until you forgot the whole world, and I’d enclose your heart in mine so that we were one-if only-’
He sighed heavily.
‘If only…’
She tried to answer but something was making her throat ache.
‘But what right do I have to try to win your love when I probably won’t be here much longer? We have to be realistic. Fortese specialises in murder. He’s practically a genius, and he’ll probably get to me.’
‘Don’t-’ she whispered in agony.
‘I must. One day-when this is over-if we get through it-’
‘We will. You’re not going to die,’ she said frantically.
‘I pray to God I won’t, now that I have so much to live for. But I won’t risk leaving you when our love has only just started-’
‘You fool!’ she said violently. ‘Don’t you know it’s already too late for that? Do you think our love hasn’t started just because we haven’t been to bed? Do you think the love of the heart somehow doesn’t count if the body hasn’t loved too?’
‘How do you come to know so much about love,’ he whispered, ‘when I know so little?’
‘Enough,’ she said, laying her lips against his. ‘No more. Basta!’
She had made her decision and now there must be an end to this. She only wanted him.
It was her kiss rather than his, but he gave himself to it with a whole heart, like a man who had suddenly discovered the elusive answer. He moved gently at first, exploring her lips with his own, then claiming her more deeply.
Slowly he rose, drawing her to her feet so that he could more easily remove her nightgown. His own clothes followed quickly, and she knew her own cautious moment. She was being asked to give so much trust, and for her, as for him, total trust was the last great barrier. But he seemed to understand that, drawing her gently down onto the bed with him.
‘You’re right,’ he growled. ‘It’s too late to back away.’
‘I don’t want to back away. Haven’t you understood anything?’
Once she’d said that, it really was too late. At first he made love to her slowly, with a restraint through which she could still sense a thrilling urgency. And when he saw her smiling at him in dreamy delight he made love to her again, but without restraint now, so that she too could throw off the world and exist only for him.
When they lay in each other’s arms later she gave a slight shiver as the world returned.
‘Summer’s over,’ he said. ‘Now it’s getting cold at night. We should get warm again before you catch pneumonia. Let’s go back to your room. The bed’s bigger.’
‘No,’ she pleaded, holding on to him. ‘I don’t want it to be over yet.’
He nodded, catching her meaning at once. This narrow, uncomfortable little bed was t
he place where love had reached its first fulfilment, and they were reluctant to leave it. The grandest bed in the world could not compare.
‘Let’s put something on and go under the covers, then,’ he said, rescuing their clothes from the floor. Safely back in bed, they drew up sheets and blankets. There was so little room that they had to huddle together, lest one of them fall out, but they didn’t mind that.
‘I can never be sorry,’ he whispered after a while. ‘But-’
‘No,’ she said, laying her fingers over his mouth. ‘No buts. I forbid it.’
‘Going to be a bullying wife, huh?’
‘If you force me.’
‘You’re so reckless that I admire you for it, even while it scares me. Suppose I die and leave you with a child? Have you thought of that?’
‘You talk of me having a baby as though it were the worst thing that could happen, but it wouldn’t be. At least I’d have part of you left.’
‘Where do you get your courage from?’ he asked tenderly.
‘From you.’
‘And if I’m no longer there?’
‘The same answer. I’ll still get my courage from you. You’ll always be there, with me. But don’t talk of that. I’m not going to be gloomy tonight. There’s too much to be happy about. You’re not going to die.’
‘My darling-’
‘You’re not. I won’t allow it. Do you think he is stronger than me?’
‘Nobody is stronger than you,’ he said fervently.
Dreams. Fantasies. The real world was still out there, still deadly. But she would fight it. She let her thoughts range free, seeking something light to bear her up, and at last a soft choke of laughter broke from her.
‘What is it?’ he asked, almost alarmed. ‘What the devil is funny about this?’
‘To think I accused you of always shouting. It was me doing the shouting this time. I had to or you wouldn’t have listened. I’ll remember that in future. Shout your husband down. If he won’t shut up, at least you’ll make a great noise together.’
Laughter welled up inside him, threatening to break out in a roar that would wake the house. Instead he buried his face against her in an agony of bittersweet joy, and laughed and laughed until he wept.