by Penny Jordan
Swiftly, under the saleswoman’s silent eagle-eyed inspection, the clothes rail which had been brought into the room was filled with clothes—beautiful, elegant clothes, in wonderful fabrics and sophisticated colours. Two trouser suits, both black; smartly tailored shorts in black, tan and white; tee shirts and knits; blouses… Charley’s panic and dread were increasing with each new item added to the rail.
It was, of course, the evening dress that did it in the end: a swathe of cream silk satin, studded here and there with tiny crystals, the fabric so delicate that it fluttered sensually in the movement from the air-conditioning. Even without having seen it properly Charley knew instinctively that it was a gown designed for a woman who was confident of her own attractive-ness—a woman who knew that when people looked at her the looks would be looks of admiration. She could just imagine the humiliation she would suffer if she allowed herself to be forced into such a dress; she would look idiotic, make a laughing stock of herself, the beauty and elegance of the dress simply underlining her own lack of them. The silk dress shimmered in front of her, warning her of the humiliation that was to come—inside her head she could hear her mother’s voice, as she stood with Charley and her sisters in the children’s department of Manchester’s poshest store—Kendals on Deansgate—where she’d taken them to buy Christmas party dresses. She had been seven, Charley remembered.
She could see herself now, reaching out longingly towards a deep sea-green shot taffeta dress with a black velvet bodice and a wide sash, and then her mother had exclaimed, ‘Oh, no, Charley—you couldn’t possibly wear that.’
Just remembering the incident now, Charley could feel the sting of humiliation burning up under her skin, brought on by her mother’s words and her own awareness of people turning to look at her, no doubt contrasting her with her pretty sisters.
Unable to stop herself, she stood up.
‘I can’t possibly wear any of these clothes,’ she told Raphael agitatedly, too wrought up to notice the discreet manner in which the saleswoman had whisked her assistants and then herself out of the room.
‘Why not?’ Raphael was in no mood for female histrionics. He’d been awake in the early hours, questioning himself as to the wisdom of spending the night alone in his apartment here in Florence with Charley, and not very much liking the answers he had been forced to come up with.
And now, when he had decided that he had no alternative other than to make the best of the situation and see to it that she was properly prepared in every way to do the job for which he had hired her, the last thing he wanted was Charlotte behaving like a drama queen over him providing her with the clothes she so obviously needed.
‘Why not? Isn’t it perfectly obvious?’ Charlotte demanded bitterly. ‘Just look at them, and then look at me. There’s no way I’m going to try them on when I know I can’t wear those kind of clothes. I’ll look ridiculous and…make a fool of myself.’
Catching a note in her voice that was close to hysteria, Raphael put down the paper he had been reading and stood up, his irritation forgotten.
Charley was shaking, close to tears, and there was a look of deep self-loathing and misery in her eyes. The fact that her self-control was so obviously close to breaking was enough to arouse instincts within Raphael that he couldn’t ignore or deny. How could he call himself a man and ignore her distress? His parents had brought him up to be chivalrous and protective of the female sex, and besides… But, dangerously, her distress was also awakening other instincts within him—the instincts of a man who desired a woman. Of the two of them, only he knew how close he was to taking her in his arms and holding her there—and only he must know, Raphael warned himself, because once he had taken her in his arms there would be no going back. His pulse and then his body quickened, confirming what he already knew.
‘Why on earth should you think that?’ he demanded, and the curtness his own conflicted feelings had injected into his voice increased Charley’s misery.
There was a long pause whilst Charley looked away from him, and then, as though the words were being wrenched from her, she replied to him.
‘Because I do—that’s all.’
It was a child’s reply, defiance—a defence against something too painful to reveal. Raphael knew that because he knew exactly how it felt not to be able to admit the true cause of an inner pain that had gone too deep for comfort.
Why had she said what she had? Why had she let him see her vulnerability? Why had she given him the weapon with which he could destroy her? It was too late now to ask herself those questions, Charley knew.
‘I see.’ Raphael paused. Charley trembled inwardly in the long pause whilst Raphael assessed the situation. What had he wanted most as a child, when confronted by his own pain and fear? Hadn’t it been reassurance that there was in reality nothing to fear? A statement made confidently by ‘a higher authority’? He had not received that reassurance because it had been impossible for his mother to deny the inheritance that was his, and even all her love had not been enough to protect him from that harsh reality. A woman’s confidence in herself as a woman was everything. He had seen that in his mother, and somehow he wanted very much to restore it to Charley. But between that thought and acting upon it lay a no-man’s land, and Raphael knew that he would be crossing a dangerous line within himself if he crossed that space.
He could stop. He could turn away from her. He could…
‘Well, the choice is yours, but personally my judgement is that this dress would suit you very well indeed. You have the figure for it, and you carry yourself well, with elegance—something that not all women do.’
Too late now. He had crossed it. And in doing so had set in motion the situation he had sworn to himself he would avoid.
Charley could only stare at Raphael, her lips parting and then closing again. Raphael had complimented her. Raphael had said she carried herself well—with elegance. Raphael believed she could wear the dress.
A feeling—dizzying, euphoric, boundless in all that it offered her—flooded through her like a dam breaking, washing clean everything that lay before it, carrying away in its flood the detritus of all that was rank, festering and poisoned, leaving her feeling so different, so lightened, that she looked down at herself in a bemused fashion, as though her body was unfamiliar to her and something she had to learn to know and understand. ‘Elegance?’ she repeated wonderingly.
Raphael nodded his head, and told her, ‘Try on the clothes and see for yourself.’
There was no time for any further private conversation. The saleswoman had returned, accompanied by a girl carrying a fresh tray of coffee—a discreet excuse for having left them, to save her face, Charley recognised, as she allowed herself to be ushered back into the changing room.
Once there, Charley quickly discovered that there was far more to buying new clothes Italian-style than she had ever imagined. For a start, there was the makeup, applied deftly and determinedly by another impossibly pretty, slender girl dressed, as they all were, in black. Only when she was satisfied was Charley allowed to step into the first of the two black trouser suits and a cream silk shirt. All the time Charley was forbidden to look at her own reflection until everything was done. Was it for her benefit or Raphael’s that her hair was brushed and tamed? Or was it more likely because of the size of the potential sale that she was getting all this attention? Charley couldn’t help wondering, a little cynically. It didn’t matter what the reason was in the long run because the result would be the same: she would look like a garish caricature; she already knew that.
Only when she was finally allowed to look in the mirror she didn’t look like a caricature at all. Instead she looked… As she stared at her reflection, Charley blinked her mascaraed lashes uncertainly. Her lashes looked so long, and her eyes looked so…so big, their colour somehow deeper thanks to the subtle addition of expertly placed eyeshadow, she recognised distractedly. She was putting off the moment when she would have to look again at her whole reflectio
n, just in case she had been wrong and the miracle that seemed to have taken place had been more of a mirage than a miracle.
Guardedly and carefully, fearfully almost, Charley let her focus move downwards, past her mouth with its soft sheen of warm pink lipstick, down to where the open neck of the silk shirt revealed the little hollow at the base of her neck in a way that made her want to touch the unfamiliar vulnerability it revealed. Still she was holding back from fully looking at herself. But the saleswoman was walking towards the door, and Charley knew that soon she would have to show herself to Raphael. She looked quickly into the mirror, holding her breath, and the air leaked from her lungs as she met the image looking back at her, and saw that the miracle had actually happened.
That was her—that immaculately groomed, slender-looking, feminine young woman with long legs and fragile wrist bones. What magic was this? How could a simple trouser suit bring about such a transformation? Or was she after all just imagining it? Seeing in herself what she so desperately wanted to see? Believing what Raphael had told her because she wanted to believe it? Torn between hope and doubt, Charley blinked away threatening tears. There was only one way to find out. It was said that the eyes could not lie—perhaps only when she stood in front of him would she really know what Raphael truly thought.
When she walked into the room he put down his paper and looked at her, but it was impossible for Charley to tell what he was thinking from his expression. Something—a small swell of chagrin and disappointment—formed inside her.
She turned on her heel—or rather on the heels she had been given to wear to try on the suit—totally unaware of the instinctive and wholly female affronted flounce in the movement of her body.
Raphael saw it, though.
‘So are we agreed that I was right?’ he said dryly.
Charley knew that he was, but she wasn’t prepared to give in.
‘My parents—’ she began defensively, only to be stopped when Raphael spoke again.
‘Whatever your parents or anyone else might have said, whatever they might have believed, ends now and is in the past. Only the weak blame their past for the faults they find in their present; the strong acknowledge the effects of their past and then move on from it. We are all free to choose whether we will be weak or strong.’ His gaze challenged her to make her choice.
Charley took a deep breath. She felt dizzy again, light-headed, sort of untethered—as though something within her was floating free. As she struggled to understand what she was feeling she heard Raphael addressing the hovering saleswoman.
‘We will take everything.’
‘But I haven’t tried everything on yet,’ Charley tried to protest.
‘There’s no need. I am sure they will all fit perfectly—and besides, it’s nearly two o’clock and as yet we haven’t had any lunch.’
Charley could see that there was no point in trying to argue or protest.
By the time she had changed back into her own clothes everything was arranged. Her new things would be packed up and delivered to the apartment, and would be waiting for her when she returned there.
They had lunch in a small restaurant down an alleyway that opened out into a courtyard basking in sunshine, with tubs of spring flowers in bright bloom, but despite the relaxed ambience of the setting it wasn’t a pleasant lunch. Raphael barely spoke to her, responding to her attempts to make conversation by asking him about the city with such terse replies that Charley lost her appetite, along with the desire to continue trying to converse with him. He was obviously bored with her company, and her heart turned over inside her chest and went leaden with pain when she saw him looking in the direction of a stunning redhead who was walking past their table. No doubt he was wishing that he was with the redhead instead of her, Charley guessed miserably.
She tried not to let her feelings show as he flicked back his cuff and glanced at his watch, as though impatient for their lunch to be over. She’d been a fool to hope as they left the shop that he might offer to show her something of the city.
It had been a mistake to bring Charlotte here to this small restaurant for lunch, Raphael recognised, irritated with himself for the way his desire for her was weakening him. The intimacy of the restaurant made him ache for the even greater intimacy of his bedroom, and Charlotte naked in his arms on the bed within it. There was no logical reason why she should have this effect on him. He had, after all, known and resisted far more openly sexual women. But the sunlight striking through the windows warmed the pale skin of her throat, making him want to touch it, to possess the tiny pulse he could see beating at its base, to possess her. This was madness. He couldn’t allow himself to be controlled by his desire for her. It would be breaking all the rules he had made for himself.
‘I have some meetings this afternoon.’
At last Raphael was speaking to her, even if his voice was abrupt and cold. Charley focused on him as he summoned the waiter and asked for the bill. Was it because of this morning and the clothes? Was he already regretting allowing her to work on the project? She made herself think about how she would feel if he were to change his mind. The surge of emotion within told her immediately. She wanted desperately to work on the garden project, she realised. She wanted to prove herself—wanted to be herself.
The same sense of shock and recognition she had felt staring at her new reflection in the mirror of the changing room hit her again now, bringing with it an awareness that deep down inside herself she had longed for the opportunity to overturn the conceptions about herself that imprisoned her; had secretly yearned not to be clumsy, awkward Charley, but someone else instead. Before she had told herself that that was impossible, that she was what she was. Now, though, she was suddenly able to see that Raphael had been right when he had said that what she had been was what others had forced on her. The prospect of shedding that persona and its restrictions might be uncomfortable and alarming, but it was also exciting, Charley recognised, and was filled with new possibilities, new goals, new ambitions—just as she had been filled with a sense of mingled anxiety and delight when she had come face to face with her new image in the mirror. She was filled with those same feelings at the knowledge of what she could be if only she had the courage to seize the opportunity life and Raphael had given her.
She had always longed to visit this part of Italy and now she was here; she had always ached and yearned for a job that would allow her to express herself artistically, and now she had one. She wanted desperately to learn more and grow as a person now she had that opportunity. Like tiny bolts of lightning her thoughts darted through her head, illuminating the darkest corners of her secret self. She could improve her Italian, explore the countryside, soak herself in Florence’s artistic history, feel herself grow with the garden, do everything, be everything she had ever wanted to do and be. Except for wanting Raphael. That she could not and must not do. That was a closed door and must remain so. If with the birth of the new Charlotte that was happening within herself there was to come a desire to embrace her sexuality by taking a lover, then she must accept that that lover could not be Raphael.
The bill paid, Raphael told her, ‘I suggest you spend the afternoon getting to know your way around the city, as that will be essential if you are to work efficiently. There will be occasions when you will have to come here alone—which reminds me that you will need a car.’
‘Only something inexpensive…’ Charley put in. She had cost him so much already, but she was determined that the work she would do for the garden would more than repay that expenditure.
‘And small, please,’ she added, remembering the narrowness of the streets.
A waiter was hovering, ready to pull out her chair for her, and Raphael stood up, signalling that it was time for them to leave.
As they walked out into the sunshine of the courtyard Charley warned herself that she would need to buy herself some decent sunglasses to replace the cheap pair she had brought from home. Raphael was already reaching for his—c
lassically shaped, with a discreet Cartier logo—and their dark glass completely obscured his eyes. If he had already looked male and dangerous, the sunglasses brought a sharper raw edge to that look, making her heart turn over and her senses thrill with female sensual speculation and expectation. Coupled with a desire to make him equally aware of her it brought a new strand to everything else that she was discovering about herself. It was just as well, she decided, that Raphael quite plainly did not find her attractive—otherwise this new desire to explore and adventure could take her very quickly out of her depth, because if Raphael were to indicate that he wanted her, then…
Then what? Charley asked herself as they parted outside the restaurant and she turned to make her way to the square, following one of the many helpful signs. Then she would fling herself into a brief sexual affair with him with hedonistic abandon, relishing the opportunity to give in to what she had already been feeling? Her heart thudded—not with apprehension and shock, but with excitement and anticipation.
Deep in her own thoughts, she didn’t see the good-looking young man coming the other way until she had bumped into him. Flushed and guilty, she began to apologise, but instead of merely walking on the young man removed his sunglasses to smile at her, revealing white teeth. His voice was as liquid with warmth as the look in his eyes as he told her, simply and approvingly, ‘Si bella, signorina,’ and then swept her with a look of meltingly delicious male approval before moving on.
He had been little more than a boy, really, probably still in his late teens, his early twenties at the most, with a mop of dark curls and that male lankiness that young men possessed, but his compliment had still boosted her confidence, Charley admitted as she continued to walk down the street.
Watching her from the pavement a few yards from the restaurant, Raphael frowned and then turned on his heel. What did it matter to him if other men found Charlotte Wareham attractive?