“You should feel flattered, Miss Hereward,” Signora Bardoli declared, “because the Prince pays you such marked attention! It’s already a subject for gossip that he actually danced with you, and then you disappear together into the gardens of the Palazzo!" Her amused eyes swept upwards to Lance’s face. “Your little ward is a credit to you, Lance,” she told him. “You must have trained her very well, and probably the rewards will be richer than you thought!”
But Sir Laurence didn’t appear to share her amusement, and in fact there was almost a stern look of disapproval on his face as his eyes fixed themselves upon Rose’s face.
“I understood you were coming here with that young man Camillo,” he said with quite noticeable coldness. “Or did I make a mistake and was it the uncle?”
“Oh, come now!” Lola Bardoli interposed, still looking amused. “The uncle has the money, and they both have looks, and Rose would be a simpleton if she couldn’t decide which she liked best out of the two! And if I were in her place I know which of the two I would convince myself that I ought to like best. But perhaps I’m a little too worldly,” noticing Rose’s withdrawn look of distaste.
“If Rose is worldly at nineteen I shudder to think what she’ll be like at twenty-nine!” Sir Laurence exclaimed very shortly.
“Very charming,” the signora assured him smoothly. “Completely charming, I would say, especially to the man of discernment! And tonight she is looking delightful in that dress. Was it Carmello, my dear?” she inquired of Rose.
The latter nodded.
“I thought I was not mistaken,” Signora Bardoli murmured. “Your Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett has the right ideas about you, I can see. She is, as you would say in England, putting her money on the right horse!”
But Rose, feeling a strong sensation of revulsion at being thus inspected by her, and not missing the way in which she clung possessively to Sir Laurence’s arm, was glad to see Camillo threading his way towards them through the throng. Camillo was not looking very much happier than he had looked earlier in the evening, but at least she thought he could remove her from the necessity of attempting conversation with anyone quite like the signora.
But before Camillo, after looking almost defiantly at Sir Laurence, whisked her away, the latter inquired with cool, clear earnestness:
“Enjoying yourself, Rose?”
“Yes.” She turned to smile at him with assumed brilliance. “It’s a wonderful evening!”
But not, she thought a little sickly, as Camillo led her away, as wonderful as the evening when she had walked the streets of Rome at his side!
“What a question to ask anyone of her age,” Signora Bardoli remarked as Sir Laurence stood watching Rose’s slender retreating figure with an odd look in his eyes. “Of course it’s a wonderful evening for her. And if you’re thinking of asking her to dance later on I wouldn’t. You mustn’t be a spoil-sport, you know!” tapping him gently on the arm with her gold-mesh evening bag. “And there can’t be much glamour about a man who has once stood in the relationship of a guardian to one, even if for some reason the guardianship seems to have ended!”
Sir Laurence’s eyes narrowed, and he looked down at her rather sharply.
“You really think that?” he asked.
She shrugged slightly.
“Well, darling”—the way she said “darling” was rather attractive in her soft Italian voice—“what do you think yourself?” Her amused eyes went to his temples, where the few silvery hairs showed up against the sleek, well-disciplined brownness that made his head look very polished and groomed. “If you were still only nineteen, wouldn’t the middle
thirties strike you as a little—remote?”
So Rose was not provided with the opportunity to dance once with the man on whom her thoughts dwelt so constantly throughout the whole evening, but she observed that he danced a good deal with Lola Bardoli. And when the evening ended and Camillo took her back to her hotel, she was not in a mood to respond to his sudden desire to pay her a great deal of attention.
It was really very late—or, rather, extremely early in the morning—and there was absolutely no one about as they left the car and walked through the little enclosed courtyard before the hotel to the impressive entrance. The shadows fell thickly across the paved walks and flower borders, with an inevitable fountain playing in the centre of what in daylight was a positive feast of colour, and in one of the blackest of the shadows Camillo suddenly paused. Rose paused also, and looked up at her escort.
In an instant she was in his arms, and she could feel his mouth pressing hotly and ardently against the remote coolness of her own lips— hitherto quite untouched by masculine ones. For an instant, so surprised was she, that she actually submitted to this quite unexpected act of love-making on his part, and he kissed her with a violence that seemed actually to scorch her mouth.
And then she drew away determinedly.
“Oh, Rose,” Camillo whispered, looking down at her in the faint light, “it would be so easy to fall in love with you! So very easy!”
But Rose had already made up her mind that night that if he was in love with anyone it was Princess de Boccacello’s seventeen-year-old daughter Francesca. And while admitting the power of her own feminine attraction at that late hour after a highly successful dance in which they had danced a great deal together, she suddenly felt rather acutely disappointed in him. Sir Laurence was right, she thought heavily, feeling the weight
of the emerald bracelet on her wrist. And the fact that Camillo admitted that it would be easy to fall in love with her—not that he had fallen in love with her!—allowed her to see quite plainly what he was endeavouring to force himself to do.
And she thought, with a touch of wistfulness this time, what a pity men—nice men like Camillo, who were so full of a very real charm, should be prepared to overlook the important things in life like that. What a pity Sir Laurence, who had just escaped a marriage which might well have turned out to be quite disastrous, should be acknowledging the charm of yet another woman who was—Rose felt absolutely certain—not the right type of woman for him!
But when she was undressing in her hotel bedroom she looked at herself in her dressing-table mirror and thought how violently her lips flamed. She touched them as if the sight of them vaguely excited and disturbed her—or was it the remembrance of Camillo’s ardent kisses?
It was impossible, apparently, to receive kisses even from a man in whom one was not particularly interested without having them upset one in a curious way. It was just as if a lid had been lifted, and all sorts of unguessed emotions and longing rose up and clamoured for attention.
She felt unpleasantly shaken as she went on with her undressing, trying not to imagine what it would be like if another man’s arms had caught at her and held her fiercely out there under the last light of the stars, and another man’s lips come close to hers . . .
CHAPTER XI
Two days later she again saw Signora Bardoli, only this time the signora was without an escort, and had in fact just emerged from beneath a hair-drier in the same exclusive establishment devoted to increasing feminine appeal where Rose herself had been having her hair washed and set. The two met when Rose was paying her bill, and the exquisite young woman behind the counter was booking her an appointment for the following week. Signora Bardoli stepped out of her cubicle and literally beamed at Rose.
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “It is the little English Rose! We meet when we can have an opportunity for talk, unless you are in a great hurry?”
Rose admitted that she was not in any particular hurry, for Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett was spending the day with an old friend who had just arrived in Rome. She had, as a matter of fact, been wondering what she would do with herself for the rest of the day, and was planning to visit her favourite fountain and try and make up her mind when the signora suggested having coffee together.
“We will get my chauffeur to drop us in the Via Veneto,” she said. “Those little pavement cafes are
rather amusing, and one sees so much that is going on around one.”
Rose agreed, and outside the hairdresser’s Lola Bardoli’s beautifully sleek car waited for her, with a chauffeur and a poodle already occupying it, and in the Via Veneto the car was dismissed, although not the poodle, which its owner took affectionately under her arm.
Rose found it a little difficult to decide upon the exact status the Signorina Bardoli occupied in Roman society. She was obviously a very wealthy widow—if she was a widow—and she dressed superbly. She had excellent taste, and a certain amount of culture, striking looks which she tended so carefully that it was well nigh impossible to guess her age—although she could be anything between thirty and forty, Rose thought. Perhaps even older.
And although she dressed so well and had a small fortune in diamonds on her fingers, and about her statuesque throat and in her small, perfect ears, there was a certain harshness about her which suggested she had not always been used to affluence. A hardness which indicated that she had had to fight for what she had obtained. There was a cynicism, too, in her looks, and particularly in the cool, amused smile which so often stole into her eyes.
Today she looked at Rose and very deliberately took in every detail of her appearance, and complimented her on her hair style which was new and attractive.
“That slightly wind-blown effect suits you,” she said while they sipped their coffee, and a slight breeze did its best to make the ruffled effect a little more noticeably ruffled. “You have the youth, and the small, heart-shaped face which it enhances. And that pale primrose suit is most becoming.”
It was—and once again the general effect was that of ice and fire—the refreshing coolness of a lemon ice against the rich warmth of Titian hair.
“Tell me about yourself,” Signora Bardoli requested suddenly. “Lance is very vague about you, you know”—a slight smile touched her lips—“at one time I thought deliberately vague. I’m afraid I didn’t quite believe in his story of a ward.”
Rose’s eyes widened so much, and were so clear and translucent and faintly shocked that the older woman looked away.
“You didn’t?”
“No, my dear. I have met men before who have produced—wards!”
“But I’ve known Lance—Sir Laurence—ever since I was fourteen! And my father knew him for years before that!”
“Quite.” Lola produced a delicate toy of a platinum cigarette-case from her handbag and snapped it open. She passed it across the table to Rose, but the girl shook her head. “I believe everything I’m expected to believe of you now, including Sir Laurence’s own testimonial to the unsullied freshness and charm of your character. I even accept that he has a kind of fatherly affection for you, looking upon you as very young and vulnerable and as someone he is anxious to protect from the snares and delusions of this wicked world!” with a kind of derisive sparkle lighting up her eyes. “The only thing I am not quite certain about,” allowing the poodle to put his well-manicured paws on her chest and nibble gently at her beautifully made-up cheek, “is what exactly you feel for him!”
Rose felt her face flame instantly in a most revealing fashion, and the signora laughed softly, whilst at the same time restraining the poodle.
“Young girls of your age are not like men of Sir Laurence’s age. They do form violent attachments for men older than themselves. But,” as if it was part of her duty to reassure, “they do get over them!”
Rose took a hasty gulp at her coffee, and felt as if she actually blushed all over. She wished ardently in that moment that she had not encountered this elegant and—she felt—deliberately taunting Italian woman at the hairdressers, and she was appalled because she was obviously so very transparent. Perhaps even Sir Laurence himself knew!
“No, my dear,” Lola told her, just a touch of commiseration as well as the bright gleam of humour in her velvety eyes, “you don’t really give away all the secrets of your heart to the world at large, but I happen to be rather perceptive.” Rose said nothing— feeling there was nothing she could say just then— and the signora ordered more coffee. When the waiter had accepted the order and departed she repeated: “But, as I said, you will get over it, so don’t worry! At nineteen these affairs, especially when they’re onesided, are painful, but they don’t last. And in your case you have a couple of very attractive admirers to help you forget, so the cure should be fairly rapid.” Rose found her voice at last.
“I don’t think I understand what you are talking about,” she managed.
“Don’t you?” Lola flashed her a faintly contemptuous glance. “Well, it doesn’t really matter, because there are other things I would like to discuss with you—something I would like you to tell me. Sir Laurence’s broken engagement—the unhappy ending to his marriage plans! Was the young woman in question very attractive?”
“I—’’And then Rose broke off, the breath literally catching in her throat as she stared into a passing taxi. It couldn’t be—no; it would be too much like “talking of the devil” to be really true, and in any case she knew she was making a mistake—but for one moment she had thought she recognized a face. It was a lovely face, framed in a cloud of golden hair, and with an absurd little hat mounted on top of it. There had even been a familiar, faintly peevish expression on the face.
“Is anything wrong?” Signora Bardoli demanded.
“No—no, I—I thought I recognized someone . . .”
“But it was a mistake?”
“Yes.”
The signora sank back and looked a little impatient.
“The young woman Sir Laurence so very nearly married—did you know her?”
“I was to be her bridesmaid.”
“You were?” An amazed look, followed by a look of open amusement, made Rose long to escape. “But, my poor dear child—how dreadful!” And then, with silvery laughter in the voice: “But how slow you were! Have you never heard of catching a man on the rebound? Why, Rose, you missed the chance of a lifetime! If Sir Laurence is the man you imagine yourself in love with you could, with your looks and a little cleverness, have got him to turn to you for sympathy if nothing else! And sympathy can lead quite a long way if you’re very determined.
This time Rose stood up.
“I think I must be getting back,” she said stiffly. “Mrs. Wilson-Plunkett—”
But the signora waved her back into her seat. “I won’t keep you longer than another few minutes,” she promised. “And I’m sorry if I’ve upset your sensitive feelings. However, I do think you were rather foolish, Rose. A man when he’s been badly hurt really does need sympathy, and you were on the spot to administer it. Because you didn’t do so he came to Italy, and I was able to do what I could. For, of course, he told me the whole sorry story, and of course, I could not have been more sympathetic! One does feel sympathy readily when a man is as attractive as Sir Laurence. But that any woman should have, been foolish enough to let him go . . .” She shook her sleekly coiffured head as if she was genuinely amazed. “It is beyond my comprehension to understand it.”
It was beyond Rose’s, but she could not say so. She also wondered what the Italian woman would say if she confessed that instead of sympathizing with Sir Laurence she had accused him of stupidity. She, who had no right to accuse him of anything!
“But I feel great curiosity about this—this extraordinary fellow-countryman of yours who did not apparently understand all that she was letting go! Was the man she ran off with unusually attractive?”
Rose tried to recall him.
“No,” she admitted, “I don’t think that he was.” “Had he, then, a better position than Sir Laurence?”
“No, definitely not!”
“So?” The sleek eyebrows lifted. “It was, perhaps, the result of a quarrel?”
“I—I don’t know . . .” But Rose felt suddenly a little cold and sick inside, recalling the accusation Sir Laurence, in his bitterness and anger, had hurled at her.
The signora consulted her wristlet
watch.
“I must go,” she said. “I have a luncheon engagement, But before we part, please tell me this ... Do you think that Sir Laurence has got over it?” Rose stood helplessly in front of her.
“I couldn’t possibly hazard an opinion.”
“No?” The dark eyes now definitely mocked her. “But the eyes of love are perceptive, and I’m sure you have a fairly shrewd idea that he is over it just a little, shall we say? Perhaps he has even recovered altogether!”
Rose was wandering a little aimlessly in the sunshine, and trying to thrust the recent conversation right out of her mind, when a black car stopped near the edge of the kerb, and she looked up to see Sir Laurence seated behind the wheel of his own Bentley and smiling at her.
“Get in Rose.” He held open the door for her quickly, and as she subsided on to the seat beside him he returned to the stream of traffic. “You were looking very serious,” he told her, “in fact very sober.” He glanced at her rather searchingly sideways. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, of course.”
Suddenly his hand covered one of hers and pressed it for an instant.
“There’s no ‘of course’ about it! You have a perfect right to look sometimes as if you really are grown up, and Life has already started to hurl a few of its perplexities at you—which it will do with increasing regularity as you grow still older! But so long as you weren’t worrying about that young man Camillo, as a result of some defection on his part, I don’t mind.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about Camillo,” she assured him.
“Well, that’s something I can feel heartily thankful for, because, as you may have gathered, I don’t approve of him—or his type!” He turned off into a quieter thoroughfare. “Where do you want me to drop you, Rose? Are you going back to the hotel for lunch, or are you free?”
She confessed to him that she was free as air until evening—and then wondered whether that sounded as if she was angling for an invitation to have lunch with him—and he exclaimed with obvious pleasure:
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