Sophie's Secret

by Anne Weale

  Would she be able to rebuff him when her senses were still alight from the expectation of being kissed in the gondola?

  At the top of the staircase she unlocked the door between the landing and the living room and felt for the light switch. It was connected to a table lamp and a concealed uplighter in a corner of the little roof garden.

  ‘How about some more coffee?’ Marc suggested as he entered the room behind her.

  She could have come out with the hackneyed excuse that she was tired and tomorrow was a busy day, which indeed it would be. But she put off the critical moment, knowing as she did it that she was weakening her defences.

  ‘Of course…it won’t take long. There’s a very good percolator. Do the roses need a drink too? Did you have your aunts’ permission to plunder their garden for me?’

  He set the basket on the big table in the corner between the sitting area and the kitchen. ‘They have their stems in water. The basket is metal-lined. Actually the garden is mine, although the aunts treat it as theirs. I’ll be glad to have a garden I don’t share with three old ladies. Are you interested in gardening, Sophie?’

  His manner was reassuringly friendly. Perhaps, after all, he had nothing in mind but coffee and conversation. Perhaps kissing her hand had been merely some goodnatured play-acting for the benefit of the tourists. She wished she knew where she stood with him.

  ‘I think I could be,’ she said. ‘When I was at boarding-school, I made friends with an old man who worked part-time in the kitchen garden. His name was Jeremiah Jones. When he was twelve, and the house was privately owned, he started work as a garden boy. I loved listening to his stories. He died soon after I left. He—’

  She broke off, not wanting to bore him with reminiscences of no interest to him. She felt she was talking too much—partly from nervous tension and partly, perhaps, from the effect of the liqueur which had tasted innocuously smooth but was probably far more potent than rougher spirits.

  ‘How did you find out he’d died?’

  ‘His daughter wrote to me…to stop me writing to Jem. It turned out she’d had to read my letters to him. He couldn’t read or write. I think he was probably dyslexic, but in his day they didn’t know about such things.’

  ‘Were you unhappy at boarding-school?’

  ‘A bit homesick at first. Who isn’t? Later on I enjoyed it. Oh—’

  Her exclamation was caused by his coming to where she was busy setting the coffee-tray and taking a carton of brown sugar crystals out of her hand.

  ‘I don’t take sugar and neither do you.’ He replaced it in the cupboard above the worktops where it belonged. Then he put his arms lightly round her. ‘I don’t like to think of you being homesick.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEIR bodies were only inches apart. Sophie felt he must hear the violent thumping of her heart. She looked at the knot of his tie, slightly above her eye level, until by force of will Marc made her meet his eyes, before drawing her closer to kiss her.

  It was eight years since her first kiss and many months since her last time in Robert’s arms. Neither his nor any other kisses had prepared her for this embrace with the man she worked for, the man she loved.

  After the first few moments when his lips were gentle, giving her time to resist, suddenly passion took over. He kissed her as if by right, holding her hard against his powerful body, taking confident possession of her mouth.

  Sophie’s response astonished her. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she put her arms round his neck and surrendered herself without reservation.

  When the telephone started ringing, the sound seemed to come from a long way away, recognisable but irrelevant. Her eyes closed, her body a turmoil of delicious sensations, she ignored it. But it wouldn’t stop and leave them in peace. Eventually Marc raised his head.

  ‘You’d better answer it,’ he said huskily, putting her away from him. His dark eyes glittered with desire.

  Dazed, she went to the end table where the interruption came from. Picking up the receiver, trying, reluctantly, to come down to earth, she said, ‘Pronto.’

  ‘Is that you, Sophie? It’s Merle.’

  For a minute she couldn’t think who Merle was. It was on the tip of her tongue to say, You have the wrong number, ring off and hurry back to where she belonged—in Marc’s arms.

  Then her mind made the connection. ‘Oh…Merle… hello. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. How are you? Happy birthday.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Did you get my card?’

  ‘Yes, I did. It’s a beauty. It came today…perfect timing. Thank you.’

  ‘I have some exciting news. I’ve won a trip to Europe, to Courchevel 1850…it’s a swish ski resort in France.’

  ‘That’s wonderful, Merle,’ said Sophie, looking in the direction of the kitchen.

  Marc was where she had left him, still standing with his back to her. She couldn’t signal to him until he turned round.

  ‘It would be if I could ski, or wanted to learn,’ said Merle. ‘But I’m trying to get it switched to somewhere I want to vacation…preferably Venice.’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  ‘Maybe not, but I’m working on it.’

  As Merle started going into details of how she had won the prize Marc turned slowly round. Across the room their eyes met. It made Sophie feel weak at the knees just to look at him across five metres of carpet. She knew if he kissed her again, she would be lost.

  He was coming towards her when the percolator went into its final spasm. He turned back to attend to it.

  Merle was still explaining. Sophie sank down on the sofa. She felt weak with longing to let events take their course from those heavenly minutes in his arms. He had brought her alive in a way she had never experienced. Her whole body ached with a yearning for those feelings to come to a natural and satisfying conclusion under the window to the stars in the other room.

  Merle had started to wind up her call. ‘So I’ll fax you as soon as it’s settled. It’s nice to hear your voice. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too, Merle. It will be great if you can come to Venice. I’ll look forward to showing it to you.’

  Merle said goodbye and rang off. Preoccupied with her prize and the hope of changing its location, she had forgotten to ask how Sophie had celebrated this year.

  Marc was still behind the bank of units screening, from where she was sitting, most of the kitchen area. She debated joining him there, then decided to stay where she was, leaving the initiative with him.

  Now her intelligence was coming back into play, telling her she would be mad to be swept away by her instincts.

  Marc came round the end of the screen. ‘Sophie, I’m going to take a rain check on the coffee. That call reminded me of a couple I have to make before I turn in. I’ll say goodnight. There’s no need to come down with me. Give me the key to the bottom door. I’ll lock it and put the key through the letter box.’

  His tone was friendly but final. For reasons she couldn’t begin to guess, he had made up his mind and that was that.

  Torn between disappointment and relief, Sophie went to her bag and found her keyring. As she started to detach the key he wanted he said, ‘Let me do that. You may break your nails.’

  The touch of his fingers as he took the keys from her sent a frisson of erotic sensation quivering through her nervous system.

  Perhaps the contact had a similar effect on him. She saw his jaw muscles tense.

  Detaching the key, he gave the ring back to her, but in such a way that the contact wasn’t repeated. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Goodnight.’

  ‘Goodnight…and thank you again for a wonderful evening.’

  He acknowledged her thanks with a nod and headed for the door.

  When he had gone, closing the door to the stairway behind him, Sophie collapsed on the sofa, taking off her shoes before drawing her legs up beside her.

  A horrible feeling of rejection was beg
inning to come over her. Why had Marc had second thoughts? She didn’t believe his excuse that he had some calls to make.

  It was true he was flying out tomorrow and wouldn’t be back for several days, possibly a week. But if the calls were to local numbers on personal matters he would have made them earlier, before joining her at the restaurant. Everything outstanding in his official diary had been dealt with before she’d left the palazzo. The calls had been a pretext to get him out of the apartment. Why? What had changed him from the man who had kissed her with such intensity to the man who had said a courteous but distant goodnight?

  The question was still tormenting her when she heard various church bells strike two and rose from her rumpled bed to make herself a cup of camomilla, hoping it would help her to sleep.

  Merle and many of the people she had known in London and New York had routinely taken sleeping pills. But it was only since coming back to Venice that Sophie had found herself tossing and turning at night. She had never lost sleep over her relationship with Robert. But he hadn’t made her feel the way Marc did. She had never shivered and burned with longing for him. She had never felt that if anything happened to him it would be the end of the world for her as well.

  * * *

  It was mid-afternoon the next day when Marc called her from Copenhagen, where he was attending a conference.

  He sounded as if nothing had changed, yesterday had never happened and they were still on their previous footing. But she couldn’t believe that their kisses had meant nothing to him. He had been as strongly aroused as she had, perhaps more so. The closeness of their embrace had given her unequivocal proof that it was not only she who had felt desire raging through her.

  When she finished work, she found Paolo waiting for her outside the street door.

  She hadn’t seen him for some time and had concluded, with relief, that he was pursuing someone else. Perhaps he was here on his mother’s behalf, the bearer of an invitation to some family celebration.

  ‘Hello, Paolo. What brings you here?’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘You didn’t tell me you had left the hotel.’

  ‘I would have, if I had run into you. It was never my intention to stay there permanently, you know. It was only a temporary roost till I found a place of my own.’

  ‘Where is your new place?’

  ‘On the Zattere.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Property there is expensive.’

  ‘It’s not a large place. I’m renting it while the owner is overseas.’

  ‘Who’s the owner…a friend of your boss?’

  She nodded.

  ‘That’s what he told you anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe he owns it himself. Maybe it’s one of his lovenests. He has several, so I’ve heard.’

  ‘Gossip!’ was Sophie’s succinct comment.

  ‘Not all of it. I saw you with him last night. I thought you were going out with the guy from the bookshop?’

  ‘We’re friends. Damiano’s in love with an American. I’m someone to talk to about her.’

  ‘More fool him…and more fool you if you get involved with your boss.’

  ‘I’m not involved,’ she said, with partial truth.

  ‘Oh, no? What were you doing in a gondola with him, then? Taking dictation? I’ll bet!’

  ‘If you must know, it was my birthday. He was merely being nice.’

  ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’ Paolo retorted sarcastically. ‘Or do you take me for a fool? If he didn’t seduce you last night, it’s only because he likes to play with his women like a cat with a mouse. Answer me this—when he left…if he left…did he shake hands or kiss you?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, Paolo.’

  ‘He kissed you!’ he said triumphantly. ‘And today he’s rubbing his hands because he knows he’s got you right where he wants you, or as near as makes no difference. In a few hours’ time he’ll be ringing your bell with a big bunch of flowers in his hand, and while you’re putting them in water he’ll come up behind you and start to nibble your neck, and the next thing you know you’ll be on your back and—’

  Sophie cut short this forecast by using the book she was carrying to give him a thump in the ribs. He was too well-muscled for it to hurt him badly, but it made him yelp in surprise.

  ‘That may be a method you’ve found effective, Paolo, but I don’t want to hear about it. Your advice is unnecessary and your style of giving it offensive. If that’s all you have to say, I’d prefer to walk home alone.’

  She quickened her pace, hoping he wouldn’t follow. His words had touched her on the raw because they expressed her own doubts and fears about Marc’s intentions towards her.

  ‘Sophie…don’t lose your temper.’ Paolo was at her heels as she ran up the steps of a small bridge.

  It led to the mouth of an alley too narrow for people to pass without making room for each other. Halfway along it, silhouetted by the last of the afternoon sun, an elderly man with a stick was shuffling towards her. Politeness obliged her to wait for him, but the look she flashed Paolo was a warning not to persist.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His tone was penitent. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I shouldn’t have put it like that.’

  ‘I accept your apology. Now let’s drop it.’

  Looking chastened, he stayed at her elbow while the old man came slowly towards them with short, tottering steps.

  ‘Let me walk as far as your door with you. If Mamma finds out you’ve moved and I don’t even know your address, she’ll give me a thump to match this bruise,’ Paolo said, rubbing his side.

  ‘You’ve had worse,’ she said unsympathetically, remembering more than one black eye acquired in his pugnacious boyhood. ‘You can bring your mother to see my flat, if you like, but I won’t show it to you today. I’m not in a sociable mood…but not because Marc’s coming round. He’s away in Denmark and from there he’s flying to London.’

  Paolo made no comment on this. It wasn’t until they had emerged from the alley that he said, ‘How’s the work going on the island? Are the bureaucrats giving you a hard time?’

  ‘No more than bureaucrats anywhere. They need the right approach.’

  ‘And we all know what this is,’ he said, with a knowing grin and a graphic twist of the wrist.

  ‘You’re too cynical. Not everyone is corrupt. I don’t believe Marc would use bribes to achieve his objectives.’

  There was no doubt in her mind that he was a man of integrity in his business dealings. It was only his attitude to women she wasn’t sure about.

  Echoing her thoughts, Paolo said, ‘If he’s spending a mint of his own money to improve state property, there’s no reason for them to obstruct him. Listen, Sophie, don’t get mad at me, but there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘Something about Marc?’

  He nodded, his expression troubled.

  ‘If it’s something unpleasant, I don’t want to hear it, Paolo. I expect it’s pure supposition.’

  ‘No, no…this time it’s fact. This is something I know.’

  She wanted to close her ears, to refuse to listen. But curiosity won. Everything to do with Marc was of such compelling importance to her.

  ‘Very well, then, tell me…but don’t expect me to believe it.’

  ‘I wish there was no need to tell you. When I thought he was just your boss, I kept my mouth shut. He’s the father of Marina Guilio’s eldest son. She used to be a housemaid at Palazzo Cassiano.’

  Sophie averted her face, not wanting him to see how much this statement had hurt her. She knew Paolo wasn’t malicious. As a boy he had never been spiteful or thoughtlessly cruel.

  This wasn’t a slanderous piece of gossip motivated by jealousy. It had to be true. And it had the same effect as the summons she’d once had to see the headmistress of her boarding-school. She had known before she’d reached Miss Wilkinson’s study that there could
be only one reason why she had been sent for. Michael had had another heart attack, as the doctors had warned him was likely. Now Paolo was breaking the news that another man she loved was not the wholly admirable person she wanted him to be.

  ‘How do you know this, Paolo?’

  ‘Maria’s brother is a gondolier. I had something going with another of his sisters for a while. She told me about it. I’ve seen the boy. He’s the spitting image of your boss.’

  ‘Does Marc acknowledge the boy? Does he support them?’ she asked in a low voice.

  ‘I expect he’s forgotten her by now. He knew she was pregnant. She told him. Most likely he told her that it was her problem. Luckily she had a nice steady fellow in love with her. By the time the baby arrived she was married to Sirio.’

  ‘Does he know the boy isn’t his?’

  Paolo shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know. All I do know is that your boss caused her a lot of grief, and she wasn’t the only one he loved and left in the lurch. I wouldn’t want to see the same thing happen to you. I expect you’ve got too much savvy to get yourself in the family way, but even smart girls get hurt in other ways.’

  ‘When did this happen? How old were they?’

  ‘Stefano, the boy, is sixteen. They live near Padova now, on the country estate of the family Sirio worked for when he lived in Venice. From what I hear, they have a good life over there. They’ve three other children. It’s turned out well for Marina, but she might have had a bad time of it if Sirio hadn’t been there to pick up the pieces.’

  ‘If the boy is sixteen, Marc would have been nineteen when he was conceived. How old is the boy’s mother now?’

  ‘About thirty-five, I suppose.’

  ‘If they live near Padova, how do you know the boy is like Marc to look at?’

  ‘They came back to Venice for a family wedding a couple of years ago. At fourteen Stefano was as tall as me and still growing. He’s bright too. They say he’ll get to university. I wonder if he’ll ever come face to face with his natural papa. It would be a shock for them both…and a worse shock if your boss has a wife by then and hasn’t come clean about his past.’