Mediterranean Rebel's Bride

by Lucy Gordon

  ‘Stop it,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘You mean he’s not like that? No, on second thoughts I picture him with glasses and the start of a paunch.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to picture him at all,’ she said, trying to sound firm.

  ‘But you never talk about him. For a man who’s won your passionate love, he doesn’t seem to make much impact on you.’

  The memory of his kiss seemed to hang in the air between them. She was saved from having to answer by the waiter, bearing wine.

  ‘Lacryma Christi del Vesuvio,’ Ruggiero said as he poured it into her glass.

  Suddenly she held out her hand across the table.

  ‘Hallo,’ she said, ‘I’m Penelope. We’ve only just met.’

  Ruggiero shook her hand.

  ‘Indeed we have. So, Polly is short for Penelope?’

  ‘Yes, they wanted to call me Penny when I was a kid. But I didn’t like it so I became Polly.’

  ‘I like Penelope,’ he said, nodding. ‘I learned about her in school: the wife of King Odysseus, who waited for him for twenty years. Penelope the faithful and wise.’

  ‘Phooey—she was a twerp,’ Polly said firmly. ‘You wouldn’t catch me waiting twenty years without even a postcard!’

  He was unwise enough to answer this. ‘They didn’t have postcards in those—’ He stopped as he caught her eyes on him, brimming with fun.

  ‘But somehow I end up being wise despite trying not to be,’ she said. ‘At school it was always me warning the others that their daft pranks would lead to trouble, and then fibbing my head off to rescue them when it happened. I’ve always longed to be wild and outrageous. I try hard, I really do, but it doesn’t come naturally to me. I planned all sorts of careers—actress, fashion designer, international bond saleswoman—anything, as long as I could rule the world.’

  ‘But there are plenty of other people doing that,’ he said, grinning as he refilled her glass. ‘Be original.’

  ‘Yeah, I make a great doormat.’

  ‘Stop that,’ he warned. ‘You’re talking like an FCP again, and I won’t allow it.’

  They clinked glasses, sharing their amusement, and for once Sapphire was nowhere.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, glowing with joy at the warmth, the lights, the look in his eyes, and just possibly the wine, ‘for tonight I’m just going to be Cinderella at the ball.’

  ‘Is Cinderella ready for the next course?’

  They passed on to to Neapolitan rococo—a sweet dish that seemed to contain everything from toasted almonds to candied peel of orange, flavoured with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves. Polly closed her eyes in pure ecstasy.

  ‘That’s it,’ Ruggiero said, satisfied. ‘That’s what I wanted to see. Have some more.’

  ‘Yes, please!’

  Their perfect accord continued until they were drinking coffee and liqueurs, when she happened to say, ‘Talking as a nurse again, how are you managing now that you’re back at work?’

  ‘There’s plenty to do. I’m not very popular at the moment, after wrecking our new prototype.’

  ‘But that wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘It wasn’t the machine’s fault. It was working fine until I lost control. Everyone could see that, but they don’t know why. The mechanics have been over everything again and again—but how do I tell them to stop bothering because it was only me seeing things that weren’t there? I don’t want them thinking I’m off my head, even if I am.’

  ‘I can see that it might be a problem,’ she admitted.

  ‘And the next thing will be potential customers drawing back, wondering what’s wrong with it.’

  ‘What will you tell them?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ll have to demonstrate. It’s lucky the rodeo is coming up.’

  ‘Rodeo? With motorbikes?’

  ‘Yes. We call it a rodeo, but actually it’s a glorified bikers’ meeting. It’s a gathering of some of the best speedway riders in Italy, or even the world. We get riders from all over.’

  ‘And they’ll ride your machine to glory?’ Polly asked.

  He didn’t answer, but she saw the wry look on his face and the truth hit her.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said explosively. ‘Definitely no. You can forget that idea right now.’

  ‘It’s what I have to do.’

  ‘After what happened—’

  ‘Especially after what happened. Just let them get the idea that one fall frightened me and the machine will get a bad name.’

  ‘You mean you’ll get a bad name,’ she accused him. ‘They’ll say you’re chicken.’

  ‘Well, I certainly don’t want to hear any clucking behind my back.’

  ‘Let them cluck. You have more important things to consider. If you have one more fall like the last there’s no knowing what will happen. How often do you think a man can land on his head without damaging his brains?’

  A sulphurous silence.

  ‘Why don’t you add the next bit?’ he demanded at last.

  ‘What next bit?’

  ‘The bit you’re dying to say—if he had any brains in the first place.’

  ‘I was being polite,’ she said acidly.

  ‘Why bother at this late date?’

  It was astonishing how quickly a mood of sweet accord could descend into acrimony.

  ‘Anyway, you’ve said it for me now,’ she said crossly.

  ‘Fine, I’m brainless—so there’s nothing to damage. Polly, don’t make so much of it. Nothing will happen. I’ll be more careful this time.’

  ‘Phooey! You’re never careful.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Anyone who’s been acquainted with you for five minutes would know that. Ruggiero, listen to me—you are not going to do this, even if I have to stand in front of the bike to stop you.’

  He regarded her sceptically. ‘Cinderella didn’t last very long, did she?’

  ‘Cinderella never had to deal with a man who deluded himself with macho fantasies and had the common sense of a newt. And that’s an insult to newts.’

  He laughed at that, and Polly let the subject drop. But only because she planned to return to it at a more propitious time.

  When it was time to leave Ruggiero didn’t pay, but scribbled a note.

  By now Polly was beginning to see a pattern.

  ‘Let me guess,’ she said as they left. ‘You own half of this place as well. And probably several others.’

  ‘Not half. Maybe a quarter here and there. It keeps me in touch with my friends. What is it?’ He’d noticed her frowning.

  ‘I just wondered if there’s anything you own the whole of,’ she mused.

  ‘Not that I recall. Why? Does it matter?

  ‘You’ve got a finger in so many pies, but you never risk your entire hand. Is that the answer? That you’re reluctant to commit yourself totally? Always keeping something back?’

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting that I was willing to commit totally to Sapphire?’

  ‘Were you? Are you so sure?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean that it was never put to the test so you can believe what you like. Be honest, Ruggiero, we’ll never know.’

  He stopped and stared at her. ‘Is that really what you think of me?’

  ‘No, it’s what I wonder about you. You blamed Sapphire because she didn’t turn to you when she was ill. But maybe—’ She checked herself and groaned. ‘I did it, didn’t I? I raised the ghost. You’re right. I do it as often as you. Maybe more.’

  Polly closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her forehead. ‘Let me go,’ she whispered to someone neither of them could see. ‘Go away.’

  She turned, and would have started to run, but he grasped her quickly.

  ‘No, I’m not going to lose sight of you again. You might never come back.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s better if I don’t. My job here is nearly done. Let me go.’

  ‘No,’ he said drawing her close.

 
; ‘Ruggiero,’ she said, almost pleading. ‘Don’t—’

  But the formal protest didn’t fool him, as she had known it wouldn’t. His lips were on hers, silencing her, saying all that needed to be said without words.

  There was nothing to do now but banish regrets and yield herself up to the greatest joy she had ever known.

  Everywhere the lights were going out, and when he drew her into a corner there was only darkness about them.

  ‘Do you think I’m seeking her now?’ he murmured. ‘Can’t you tell the difference?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Let her go, Polly. Until you drive her out neither of us can.’

  He kissed her again and again, as though seeking the one kiss that would speak to her heart.

  ‘Perhaps it can’t be done,’ she gasped.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he begged.

  ‘I’m afraid. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She returned the kiss so that the impulse came from her and the strength was on her side. She was inexperienced in love, and the reverse was true of him, but now he was following her lead, learning from her, trusting her in love as in everything else.

  But she was leading him along a road whose end was obscure to her—a road that might be wrong for both of them.

  He guessed it too, for he said, ‘You can deal with my ghost but can I deal with yours?’

  ‘Hush.’

  ‘Can Brian?’ he growled. ‘Does he even know that you still spend your life making comparisons? That when he kisses you he holds two women in his arms?’

  ‘Forget him,’ she urged.

  ‘As you have?’

  ‘He doesn’t belong here now. Nobody else belongs here with us.’

  She gave herself up to the joy of the moment, trying to believe that only this mattered and she could make it last for ever. But that hope was doomed. Even in the midst of her happiness she knew that.

  It was the sound of a church bell that forced them back to reality, making them draw apart, both shaking with desire and confusion.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ she murmured.

  ‘It’s only the clock. Ignore it.’

  ‘I can’t. It’s striking midnight. Time for Cinderella to go.’

  ‘Why are you laughing?’ he asked, feeling her shaking in his arms.

  ‘I’m laughing at myself,’ she said with a touch of hysteria. ‘Oh, heavens! I should have remembered that midnight always comes. Sensible Polly isn’t always so sensible after all.’

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ he said huskily.

  He turned her face up and looked at it in the moonlight, seeing its clean, perfect lines as never before. The sight entranced him, and he would have kissed her again, but she pressed her hands against his chest.

  ‘It’s time we went home,’ she whispered. ‘The ball’s over.’

  ‘But you’ve left me a glass slipper, right?’

  She shook her head. ‘More like an army trainer. Nurse Bossy-Boots is back in charge.’

  His smile was as sad as her own as they walked together back through the small, winding streets.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘DULL, dreary, prosaic. That’s what I am, and I shouldn’t have let myself forget it.’

  It was typical of the hand life had dealt Polly that after claiming her freedom by dramatically shearing off her hair she should find that it backfired on her with a feverish cold.

  ‘Can you take Matti?’ she croaked to Hope next day. ‘I don’t want to get too close to him.’

  The cot was promptly whisked out of her room, and she herself was banished back to bed, where she was nursed royally. Everyone looked in to wish her well—including Ruggiero, who stayed well back in response to her urgently flapping hands.

  For three days she could do little but suffer. Her meals were brought upstairs, and in between eating she slept. At last she felt better, and began to make forays out of bed.

  On one of these days she sat by the window, watching as Ruggiero, below, played with Matti, showing every sign of pride in his mental alertness, while his son, as always, strutted his stuff to an admiring audience.

  They’re both fine without me, she thought.

  At that moment Hope pointed up to the window, and they all looked up, waving and smiling to her. For a strange moment it looked as if they were waving goodbye.

  When she was sure she presented no threat to anyone, she went downstairs again.

  ‘You were away too long,’ Ruggiero told her.

  ‘Or just long enough. You and Matti get on better when I’m not hovering over you.’

  ‘I’ve taught him three new words. And Toni swears he’s learning to call me Poppa, although it sounds more like patata.’ He grinned. ‘But I don’t mind being called a potato by my son. He’ll probably call me worse when he’s older.’

  ‘Brilliant. So now you and he have established a connection, you’re not going to be taking any risks, are you?’

  ‘Risks?’

  ‘I can assume that you’re enough of a father to abandon this mad idea of the rodeo?’

  ‘It’s tomorrow.’

  ‘And you’re riding?’ she demanded, aghast.

  ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t.’

  ‘There’s every reason. You’re not fit yet. You’ll have another accident and maybe this time you’ll be killed. That child has lost his mother—he doesn’t deserve to lose his father too. Especially when he’s only just met him.’

  ‘It’s no more than I’ve done before. I wasn’t killed in the past, and what happened the day we met was a freak accident, and you know it. I have a duty to our workers to prove that the bike is good. They depend on us for a living.’

  ‘So get another rider. You say there’ll be others, so I expect any one of them would be glad of the chance.’

  His mouth set in stubborn lines.

  ‘It has to be me,’ he said. ‘Because I was the one riding when things went wrong.’

  ‘And if things go wrong again—?’

  Hope, approaching, overheard this and joined in the conversation with horror.

  ‘I knew you were having this party, but I didn’t know you were actually riding,’ she said, appalled. ‘You’re not nearly well enough. Get one of the others to do it.’

  ‘Don’t give me orders, Mamma,’ he said quietly. ‘That goes for both of you.’

  He walked away before either of them could reply.

  Hope groaned and cursed herself.

  ‘I’m sorry, cara. I shouldn’t have spoken. You would have done much better.’

  ‘But I wasn’t doing any better,’ Polly sighed. ‘He’s completely pig-headed. I don’t understand that. I thought we were getting through to him—that Matti was getting through. Then suddenly everything goes into reverse. He plays with his son, he teaches him words, and he smiles in the right places, but he won’t give up his pleasure to protect him. Oooh, I could—’

  She made a strangling motion with her hands.

  ‘Do it for both of us,’ Hope snapped.

  Secretly Polly knew that it was disappointment as much as anger that was driving her. The softened mood between herself and Ruggiero had seemed full of promise for his future with his son. Suddenly his image had darkened into that of a man concerned only with himself and his own wishes, without care for his child.

  None of Ruggiero’s siblings happened to be in Naples at that moment, so there was only Toni, Hope and Polly who might have attended the rodeo. Hope flatly refused to do so.

  ‘No, you’ll just be shopping nearby,’ Ruggiero said. ‘As always.’

  ‘Not this time,’ his mother declared. ‘I’m going to stay here and look after your son. If you break your neck, you break your neck. That’s your business.’

  But when he’d left the house she turned to Polly and said fearfully, ‘You’ll be there, won’t you? If anything happens you’ll look after him.’

  ‘Of course. But he’s probably right. Nothing will happen.’ />
  She tried to sound reassuring, but she couldn’t voice her real fear—that what had happened before would happen again and he would see something that wasn’t there.

  If it wasn’t there.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t have him. Do you hear me?’

  There was no answer. Either Sapphire had admitted defeat, or she was too sure of victory to bother arguing.

  A privileged crowd had been allowed into the stands that surrounded the track. Potential buyers, a few journalists, everyone from the factory, plus friends and family from the biking fraternity.

  In their company Ruggiero relaxed. He spoke the same language as these people—the language of speed and danger, the language of ‘to hell with everything!’ He’d been away from them too long, among people who didn’t understand that risking your life was the most life-enhancing experience in the world. You had to toss it onto the flames to really enjoy the moment when you seized it back. What did they know?

  There were ten riders, including Enrico, who had won more races than anyone else that season, and was eyeing the new bike hungrily.

  ‘It’s a bit soon for you to be riding again,’ he said coaxingly. ‘Take a longer rest.’

  ‘I have to prove that bike. Not me, but the bike.’

  It wasn’t true. It was himself he had to prove again, but he couldn’t admit that to anyone else.

  The leather suit he’d worn before was now clean and perfect. When he put it on he felt he become himself again: his real self, the one he wanted to be, who’d almost been lost.

  There was applause as five riders walked out for the first race. He knew they were all watching him, willing him to streak ahead on the new bike and leave the rest standing. Either that or get killed. One or the other. That was just how he liked it.

  He stood for a moment, looking around through his visor, knowing the others were awaiting his move. From here he could just make out the place where she’d been before. It had been different then, with speed creating half the illusion, but now he needed no speed to conjure up the woman who stood before him.

  Suddenly he became quite still, watching, understanding everything for the first time.

  Then he began to move.

  Toni drove Polly down to the track, left her there, and returned home on his wife’s strict instructions. Polly was able to slip in and go to the same place in the stands where she had stood before.