by Margaret Way
'You're almost too good to me, Maggie.' Brooke said quietly. 'By the way, Lucia will want to thank you for her pendant. She loved it.'
'Nothing at all! ' Generous Maggie brushed the pretty little Art Nouveau gift away. 'She thanked me very nicely on the phone. She's really a delightful little girl and you're extraordinarily good with her.'
'That's easy.' said Brooke. 'She's so grateful to belong, to put her roots down. She's made friends with some of my girls too. They're .out at the pool now, having a lovely time. Harry put on a lovely lunch―not that I was able to eat any.'
'And why not?' Maggie took the armchair to the left of the sofa.
Brooke brooded on it, her golden-green eyes darkening to jade. 'I had rather an upsetting visit from Carla this morning. A very brief visit. I had to ask her to leave.'
Maggie's intelligent face looked disturbed. 'I don't like that young lady. She's very attractive, I grant you, but there's something … sly, is that the word? …there.'
'That's not the only word we can arrive at.' Brooke answered dryly, though her pent-up feelings were robbing her of her bright natural colour.
'Then tell me.' Maggie invited, still frowning. 'It has something to do with Paul, of course.'
'Yes, it has.' Brooke stared back at her. 'Can I offer you something, Maggie?'
'No, dear.' Maggie shook her head. 'Just tell me what's making your heart ache.'
'Does it show?'
'I know that much about you. Carla has been trying to make mischief, hasn't she?'
'Maybe she was simply telling the truth.' Brooke said strangely. She clasped her hands together in a convulsive little movement, then bent her bright head to stare at them. 'I couldn't tell anyone else but you, Maggie, but I feel utterly tormented and I can't help it. Things aren't right with my marriage and I think Carla knows it.'
'My dearest child!' Maggie said in a strong, comforting tone. 'I know your husband worships you.'
'No, Maggie! '
'Well, if he doesn't, he deserves an Academy Award.'
'All Italians are good actors.' shrugged Brooke.
'Are you trying to tell me Carla claims Paul is interested in her?' Maggie almost shouted.
'Yes.' Brooke whispered, and swallowed hard. 'You see, Maggie, ours is a compassionate marriage, not a passionate one. He wanted certain things from the beginning .. .'
'He wanted you! ' said Maggie, gasping and numb.
'He wants a house and a family.'
'Well?'
'Well, he doesn't sleep with me!' Brooke burst out, driven and full of grief.
Maggie pushed herself up out of the armchair and came to sit beside her on the sofa. 'But, my dear child, whose idea was this? Not Paul's, surely. One can scarcely start a family from separate rooms.'
'I want him to love me, Maggie!' Brooke said intensely. 'He's never mentioned love once.'
'Have you?'
'Of course not!' Brooke said, stammering a little. 'I'd feel such a fool. You see how attractive he is to women―they practically fling themselves at him. Why should I?'
'I'd advise you to do it if you want to hold on to your husband! ' Maggie answered dryly.
'You make it sound the simplest thing in the world.' Brooke murmured with increasing unhappiness.
'It should be if you love him.' Maggie pointed out gently. 'Do you, my dear?'
'I hardly know!' Brooke gave a little shudder. 'I miss him every minute I don't see him. I love the look of him and the sound of him, the way he sings in the morning just to amuse me. He knows every opera that was ever written, every pop tune. He's an amazing man. He rushes around every part of the country and he works fantastic hours, yet he never get tired. He loves Lucia and she adores him, but mostly he regards me as a young sister.'
'Good gracious! ' said Maggie, her voice marvelling.
'The whole situation is absolutely mad! Say what you will, dear, I've seen Paul looking at you, and so help me if a man ever looked at me like that, I'd live on it for the rest of my days.'
'What if it's true, what Carla says?'
'You still haven't told me what she did say.'
Brooke's mouth quivered and she bit her lip. 'I don't think it was worth repeating, but it gave me a shock. I can't stop thinking about it.'
Maggie's expression grew thoughtful and she patted Brooke's hand. 'You sound to me as if you're very much in love with your husband. That being the case, you'll have to work at making a success of your marriage. Most of us think it is a success. Both of you present a very beautiful front―the best I've seen at any rate. You always had great potential, but you've positively bloomed since your marriage. You can't tell me Paul hasn't tried to make love to you.'
Brooke looked up at her friend with a curious expression. 'Am I mad to care whether he loves me or not?'
'I think he does!' Maggie challenged her. 'Listen, dear, no woman can afford to lock her husband out of her bedroom―not if she cares about him and wants to hold on to her marriage. The only advice I can give , you is to ignore Carla and practise setting your husband's heart pounding. There's a fire in you, why not let him see it?'
Brooke pushed her titian mane over her shoulder. 'I might get more than I bargain for. Paul is no ordinary man.'
'Isn't that the truth?' said Maggie, trying for lightness.
'Carla has hurt you, but I'd simply refuse to believe her.'
'She had Paul's lighter. The one I gave him soon after we arrived home. It doesn't pay to leave things about.'
'I fancy she's just jealous! ' Maggie said sharply. 'And she could have picked it up anywhere. She was here at the party last week.'
'Then Paul has taken a long time to miss it.' said Brooke, her face intent and serious. 'I can't change my nature, Maggie. I know marriage is a very serious business, that many things are expected of me, but I refuse point blank to share my husband. That would be too cruel, too degrading.'
'It's also out of character for Paul.' Maggie insisted with unwonted irritability. 'He has too much finesse, too much integrity to be taken in by a little bit of spice like Carla. You can't keep questioning him over and over because he's a very attractive man. It's too bad you haven't got more confidence in yourself. You're looking wonderful these days. It shouldn't take the slightest effort to reach your husband. I'm sure, now, you haven't even tried.'
'No, I haven't because I thought … oh, it doesn't matter.'
Maggie watched her, the shining bent head, the soft drooping mouth. 'Take my advice, dear, and get out your flimsiest nightgown tonight !'
By the time Brooke was ready for bed; she was whiter than ever. All through dinner she had been very quiet and Lucia had looked at her anxiously. Paul had rung to say he wouldn't be home until much later in the evening. There were problems with the new high-rise building down near the waterfront and the architects were coming in. Brooke had taken the call in a strange apathy, but not for a minute did she consider checking. It wasn't what she expected out of her marriage and she wasn't prepared to do it. It went completely against the grain. Nevertheless, she suffered the dreadful uncertainty Carla had bequeathed to her.
Shortly after Lucia had gone off to bed, the phone rang. Gianni answered it, but when Brooke came out into the hallway he told her with a graphic shrug that no one had answered and he hung up again. Ten minutes later it rang again and this time Brooke took the call. After the third hello she stopped, There was someone at the other end, but they obviously weren't going to talk. Disturbed, Brooke went to hang up, and it was then she heard the soft, muffled giggle. 'Who's there?' she said sharply, but the line went dead.
'What is it, signora?' Gianni stood watching her, a tall distinguished blur, because her heart was thumping so hard.
'A nuisance call, I think !'
'So!' Gianni drew in his breath and his face went rigid. 'Allow me to attend to this, signora.'
'Thank you, Gianni.' Her head was slightly bent, but she smiled at him.
'A servirla, signora. Do you wish for anything
else?'
'No, I think I'll follow Lucia's example and have a reasonably early night. Buona notte, Gianni. You make things very easy for me.'
'Then I am happy I' Gianni bowed with great style, and Brooke, watching him, approved of him more than ever. 'Paolo will be here .shortly,' he added as if Brooke was in dire need of her husband's presence.
'I don't think so.' His smile could not reassure her, or his words. Unless her imagination was playing tricks on her that detestable gurgle was Carla's. She had heard her many times laugh deeply in her throat like that. Was that what the phone call was all about? To explain it all to her; the whole unhealthy situation. Gianni was reading her distress, for he was looking at her searchingly but gently.
In her room she decided to wash herself clean of her wretchedness. She walked to the adjoining bathroom and ran the bath, pouring in a preparation that turned the tub into a scented sea of foamy bubbles, coloured a blush rose. Later, lying back in the scented water with her hair pinned to the top of her head, she tried to relax. She had been brought up to believe good manners were all-important, but she would like another chance at telling Carla just what she thought of her.
'Darling?'
She heard Paul's voice and sat up quickly, then slid down again.
'Brooke, where are you?'
He sounded madly impatient to see her, volatile, demanding, and she wondered afresh at the many faces he presented. He must have come through the connecting door, because she could hear the soft thud of his footsteps in her bedroom.
'I'm in the bath !' she called out in frantic modesty. The rosy bubbles made a gauzy veil for her slender body and she was incredibly shy of him. She slid down lower to protect herself, stricken by the fact he was most certainly going to walk into the bathroom. He was unashamedly uninhibited, though she had to admit he had always shown scrupulous regard for her privacy.
'Well, well, well!' he said softly. He came to the doorway, resting against the jamb, his black eyes full of admiration and sparkling laughter. 'Who said pink did not suit redheads?' He was wearing a beautiful lightweight summer suit and he looked very handsome and vital.
Brooke could have strangled him, but her eyes dropped and her colour heightened. 'I'll be out in a minute!'
'Of course you will, silly! I have a drink ready for both of us. It has been such a terrible day, but you're something special to come home to.'
His voice was deliberately caressing her, lovemaking from a distance, and she could feel the curious answering tingling sensation right through her body. 'Go away! ' she begged him.
There was excitement and brilliance in his liquid black eyes. 'I realise you're very shy, very modest, but I am your husband, Surely I don't matter?'
'You do! ' She was agonisingly aware of him and the disappearing bubbles.
He stood looking down at her with a faintly mocking, faintly quizzical expression, then he laughed and turned away. 'Don't be long. You know I hate to drink alone.'
The moment he disappeared Brooke started up and grabbed for a pink towel, huge and velvety, somehow perfumed with sunshine and roses. She stepped out of the bath on to the thick rug, drying herself hastily, avoiding her own delightful reflection. She looked around the room, then made a small sound of distress as she realised she had no clothes to put on, not even a robe.
'Hey, what's keeping you?' Paul was back, looking so flamboyantly male he made her think of some dark, dashing buccaneer invading her boudoir and her bath. He had taken off his jacket and tie and loosened the tiny pearly buttons of his finely striped shirt so she could see the dark mat of hair on his chest and the gold glint of the medallion he always wore. He was arrogant, super-positive and super-masculine, and perhaps this very night he had betrayed her.
All over again she could hear Carla's hateful, breathy giggle and her golden-green eyes went huge and accusing. 'You're home earlier than I expected.'
'Must you sound like that?' There was a little break in his vibrant voice and in the next instant he was behind her, drawing her back against him, lowering his dark head to drink in her fragrance, pressing little kisses all along the sensitive cord of her neck. 'Don't speak like that to me, little one. It has been a long day and I've longed for the sight of you! '
Brooke could see their multiple mirrored reflections and it gave her a little shock, so for a moment she leaned back against his hard body. She had never realised before how dark he was or how fair she seemed in comparison. Their images were erotic, disturbing her, and she looked away.
'Brooke!' he murmured. There was a delirious sensuality in his voice and a dominance.
'No!' she whispered. 'No more.'
'Be still now I' He lifted her easily and though she cried out he carried her back into her quiet bedroom, lowering her on to the big four-poster bed with its silken bedspread and hangings. Her hair had come loose from its confining pins and it tumbled all around her flushed face and bare 'shoulders. She lay staring up at him with a breathless panic in her face much like some small wild creature confonting its hunter.
'What is this expression? What are you afraid of?' One finger lay hard along her cheek, but he made no further move to touch her.
Brooke made a desperate effort to cover her fright. 'Maybe I'm frigid!' she said hazily. She sat up and pulled the towel more closely around her, though she knew he had seen the tips of her breasts.
'That's nice! ' His tenderness and gaiety seemed to be turning to anger and a hard, mocking control. 'You look so lovely and inviting! '
Horrified, she could see now that he had brought home masses and masses of roses of the most beautiful deep crimson, cramming them into the big Oriental blossom jar from the hallway. 'They're beautiful!' Two crystal tumblers stood beside the roses, their sides frosted, ice jingling, and she took a long, inadequate breath.
'Ah, you've noticed!' he reproached her. 'You feel ashamed! '
'I'm no good for you, Paul,' she said doggedly. 'You know how I feel. I'm hopeless at pretending.'
'I know what you tell me! ' he countered, moving to sit down on the bed beside her. 'Is anything wrong? Something I should know about?'
The light gleamed on her titian hair and het flawless skin, got caught in her eyes. In that moment her beauty was ravishing, woven of many things, her deshabille, her acute femininity and innocence, her sweetly sensuous capacity to arouse this stranger, her husband, in a way she did not intend. 'Of course nothing's wrong,' she said with great difficulty.
'So?' His black eyes seemed to be consuming her, moving from her head to the tips of her toes. 'Gianni told me you seemed pale and upset. Now you are blushing like a rose, though I've scarcely touched you. That is your flower, I think, the rose. So memorable, so sweetly scented and romantic.'
'I'm sorry !' her fingers fluttered as though excusing herself and she moved a little away from him. 'I'm not right for you, Paul!'
'Not yet,' he agreed crisply, 'but right or wrong, you are mine and I do not intend to ever let you go.' He spoke quietly, but it sounded so implacable she bent her body away from him.
'But our bargain ! I can't give you anything …never! '
'So hysterical I 'his tone mocked her. 'No more drama, cara, please no more. What you can't give, I'll take. I know you don't love me, but you will love our child.' His eyes moved from her face to the shadowed cleft of her breast and the long narrow waist.
Brooke didn't answer, staring at him, and only when he reached for her did she find her voice. 'Surely you haven't forgotten your promise?'
'I've gone through' hell remembering!' he told her with harsh humour. 'You make me very angry―all this fire and ice. You are perfect, I want only to love you, yet you talk such terrible nonsense. Everything is different now. You can't give me anything. Such a foolish child, when I so badly want a woman !'
A wild fit of jealousy seized her. 'That's a joke, is it?' she cried bitterly. 'I mean, how many women in a day are necessary?'
His hands that held her tightly at the waist dropped away. '
Are you mad?'
'Not in the least !' She opened wide her luminous green eyes. 'You think you're wonderful, so clever, Paul Corelli. Maybe I've found you out! '
For several seconds he stared at her, his winged black brows drawing together. 'You are mad!' he snapped, flinging her away from him so she fell like a tossed flower against the heaped nest of pillows. There was a flickering dangerous light in the depths of his eyes, a hard tension in his lithe graceful body. 'I do not have unlimited patience, perhaps you will tell me what you're talking about.' Abruptly he moved away from her and walked to the little Louis Quinze escritoire picking up his drink and tossing it off with bitter satisfaction. 'Well, what are these rumours, these whispers that have so shocked your virgin ears?'