Joletta saw Natalie give Caesar a glance that was both amused and sardonic. They were standing very close together, their shoulders almost touching, and there was an air about them of interrupted discussion. Joletta glanced at Rone. He was watching them also, and the look on his face could only be described as wary.
“Did we forget an appointment?” Joletta asked.
“No, no,” Caesar answered. “I came to the hotel with an idea for a drive and met your cousin, who was waiting. We had a long lunch; this is Italy, so there was no problem. But it would have been better if we could all have gone to see the villas of the River Brenta together.”
“Villas?”
“A little like the châteaus of the Loire Valley, you understand. They are country retreats built by the old Venetians to get away from the damp and play at farming with the profits made from sea ventures. Few tourists find them, which is a great pity.”
“We could still go,” Natalie said. “It’s only twenty miles, not much of a drive. Caesar was telling me about a wonderful trattoria he knows in a town called Mira. We might wind up there for dinner.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Rone said, taking Joletta’s arm. “We have other plans.”
“What other plans?” Joletta asked as, with deliberate movements, she removed her elbow from his grasp.
Natalie’s gaze moved quickly from Rone’s frown to Joletta’s flushed face. Her voice was sharp as she said, “You have to eat somewhere.”
“Not in a crowd,” Rone said.
Joletta turned a chill stare in his direction. That he would try to arrange her time after everything that had happened was beyond belief. “I think,” she said distinctly, “that this trattoria sounds interesting.”
“You don’t know the first thing about it,” Rone said in clipped tones.
Caesar struck in quickly: “It’s the best in the region, this I promise.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rone,” Natalie said, her voice hard. “Perhaps we should have a little talk? I think I can persuade you to see reason.”
Rone stiffened before he swung his head slowly toward the other woman. His voice hard, he said, “I doubt it, Natalie; I really do. Joletta already knows who I am.”
Natalie’s eyelids flickered. She looked from him to Joletta once more, her gaze lingering on his stance, the way he shielded Joletta both from view of the door and from direct eye contact with Caesar. Her lips twisted. “So that’s the way it is?”
“That’s it,” Rone answered, the words abrupt.
“Does she also know,” Natalie said softly, “what good friends we are?”
The stress she put on the words was suggestive, and was meant to be. Joletta felt the sting of distress behind her eyes. She forced a smile as she answered for herself. “He didn’t tell me, but it wasn’t necessary. I thought the two of you reached an understanding with amazing speed.”
“Yes, indeed,” Natalie drawled. “He is amazingly quick to make up his mind. You have to admire that.”
“Not,” Joletta answered, “when he’s making up mine for me at the same time. I think the drive sounds great.”
Caesar smiled with a lifted brow. “This means you will go? We can rent a boat and punt down the river; that’s the best way to see the villas. But we should leave soon if we are to have the daylight.”
It was not a comfortable outing.
Caesar was on his dignity with Rone. Natalie seemed annoyed with Caesar. Joletta had little to say to Natalie or Rone. Rone said nothing to anybody.
It was worth the trouble, however.
Many of the villas were quite literally Palladian, designed by Andrea Palladio himself. Classically pure of line and with perfect harmony in their proportions, they were more like palaces than villas, though their plastered facades of rich cream and gold and gray gave them a soft, airy look. The pediments and columns and arched windows glimpsed behind walls and greenery had very little of the Arabian Nights look so obvious in Venice.
The rowboats Caesar hired were designed for two people in each, with a pair of sweeplike oars that were used while standing, as in a gondola. Joletta was silently amused at the way Caesar maneuvered to hand her into the boat he had chosen for himself, leaving Rone to follow with Natalie.
The Italian tried to insist that Joletta remain seated while he sent the boat skimming down the river, but she refused. She felt the need for some kind of physical exertion to work off the irritation still bottled inside her. Besides, it was easier to see while standing, and much easier to avoid the pass she was afraid might come if Caesar decided to sit with her while letting the boat float along with the current.
“Ah, American women,” Caesar said as he leaned on his oar in the rear of the boat, gazing with open admiration at the grace of her movements as she swung the sweep. “They can do anything, and so beautifully.”
“I’ve seen Italian women rowing, too,” Joletta pointed out.
“A few,” he agreed with a grin, “but, like your cousin, most prefer that men do the work.”
Joletta wondered briefly if there was some salacious undertone to that remark; with Caesar, she had discovered, there often was. She gave him a direct look, but he only met it with smiling sangfroid.
A moment later he said, “So you go on to Florence tomorrow. Such a pity to leave Venice so soon.” The timbre of his voice dropped to a more caressing note. “I need not tell you, I think, carina, that I am at your disposal. Only speak, and I will drive you there, stay with you every moment.”
“Rone wouldn’t like that,” she said dryly.
He flicked his fingers. “I care not even that much for what Rone likes or dislikes. It’s what you want that’s important.”
His attitude was a refreshing change. That he had picked up on her dissatisfaction earlier and used it made no difference. An idea began to form in the back of her mind.
“You would have to get up very early,” she said, a warning in her voice, though her smile was brightly quizzical.
“For you it would be no sacrifice.”
“Very early.”
“Joletta, carina, command me.”
She glanced at the other boat that was some distance away but closing fast as Rone got the hang of the sweep oar. Keeping her voice low, she outlined what might be required. When she had finished, she asked, “Is it possible for you?”
Caesar spread his hands, letting the boat veer as it would. The look in his eyes several degrees warmer, he said, “How can you ask?”
She gave a slow nod. “Let me think about it a little more, and I’ll let you know if we’re on.”
“Think quickly, Joletta, I can live only so long on hope,” he answered in droll despair.
They had time after the river journey to visit the palatial Villa Pisani, which had been owned in succession by a doge of Venice, Napoléon I, and by the emperor’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. They were also able to wander through the house called la malcontenta, supposedly named for an erring wife who was shut away in the country to prevent indiscreet behavior. At last they made their way in the lingering twilight toward the Trattoria Nalin.
The food was everything Caesar promised, from the antipasto of squid eggs, scampi, spider crab, and scallops to the delicate risotto and the crab fettuccine. To accompany it, they had a fine local wine, a Prosecco Conegliano, that tickled in its fresh astringency.
Because conversation with the others was still strained, Joletta and Caesar talked and laughed with each other. He paid her outrageous compliments and refilled her wineglass with practiced ease, in spite of her protests. When Rone objected to the amount she was drinking, Joletta stopped protesting and encouraged the Italian.
She came to her decision concerning the trip to Florence while ordering the dessert. Rone made one suggestion, Caesar another, and while she was making up her mind Rone ordered for her. It was a small thing, especially since he chose the gelato flavored with apricots and almonds that she was about to settle on herself. But she had had enough
of having her decisions made for her, enough of having her wishes overruled.
Outside the restaurant, as they walked toward the car, she spoke to Caesar in quiet tones. The look he gave her was exultant.
It was late when they reached Venice again. Joletta and Rone parted company with Caesar and Natalie at the quay. At the hotel desk she asked for her key. Rone stood aside, waiting. She gave him a quick, warning glance, but said nothing until they had mounted the stairs and were outside her room.
“I thought,” she said as she fitted her key into the lock, “that you would have asked for your own room key.”
“I couldn’t,” he said evenly. “I turned it in, and they’ve already filled my room.”
“You did check then?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” he said, the words even.
She hadn’t been sure. Just as she wasn’t sure at that moment whether he was telling the truth.
She took a deep breath. “You know—”
“I know,” he said abruptly. “You don’t want me in your room, and you would like me to leave. I’m not going to do that. But I don’t intend to entertain the rest of the hotel with the argument over it.”
He reached above her head to push open the door she had unlocked. Stepping around her, he entered the room.
Joletta could stand in the hall or go join him. She moved after him into the darkened room. The door swung shut, latching behind them.
She noticed the smell even as she felt for the light switch. Spicy, fresh, it was a dense wave of fragrance reaching out of the darkness. She pressed the button under her fingers, and the room sprang into brightness.
The tiny, old-fashioned carnations known as clove pinks were everywhere, hundreds of them massed in vases sitting on every available surface. Peach pink and blood red, striped and white, their small, tattered-edge blossoms shed their scent on the air until the night was dizzy with the sweetness of it.
“What in the world?” she said in frowning amazement.
“Carnations. I saw them at the Rialto market and made arrangements.”
“The phone call.”
He agreed. “They are supposed to mean Blighted Love, or something like that according to the journal.” His voice was abrupt, shaded with something near embarrassment.
“Alas My Poor Heart,” she said in hollow recognition.
“Exactly.”
It was absurd of her to allow herself to be affected by such an obvious appeal to sentimentality. Yet the generosity of the gesture, and the understanding of her needs and thought processes shown by it, indicated a level of awareness about her that was astounding. And disarming.
“What are you trying to do?” she asked quietly.
“Say I’m sorry, that I didn’t mean to hurt you. Find out if there’s some way we can try again.”
“At least long enough for you to finish reading the journal?”
He took a harsh breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t care if I never see the journal again.”
“That’s good,” she said soberly.
She expected to see irritation in his face. There was nothing except iron determination. She moved toward a chair, where she slipped the strap of her shoulder bag down her arm and let it drop onto the seat.
“I love you, Joletta,” he said, his voice low and husky.
“Don’t!” she said sharply without looking at him, then added more quietly, “Please. Just don’t.”
“I know I’ve given you no reason to believe me, but it’s important to me to tell you.”
“It’s certainly convenient that you discovered it just now,” she replied, her voice steady.
“I’ve known it for a long time, since Bath at least, though it began before that, possibly even that night in New Orleans. It just didn’t seem right to say it when I wasn’t being honest with you. It would have been carrying false pretenses a little too far.”
“Too bad you didn’t feel like that about climbing into my bed.”
“For that,” he said, “I have no regrets. It seemed likely to be all I would ever have.”
She really wanted to believe him; that was the worst of it. She couldn’t. He had used her, and would continue if she let him. She wouldn’t. Not again.
No doubt he thought there was still some chance she might manage to wring the formula from the journal and wanted to be around if it happened. When that time came, if it did, that would be the end of it; he would have what he wanted, and he would be gone. Or if she failed, if when this trip was over she had nothing to show for it, he would have no reason to stay. Either way she would lose.
It was this she couldn’t face, as much as his lies told to please her.
Everyone always left her. Her mother and father, her fiancé. Even Mimi. But not this time.
This time it was she who would leave.
She moved to the bedside table, where several vases of the small carnations sat. Leaning to breathe deep of their rich scent, she allowed the cool petals to touch her eyelids, her chin, her mouth. With wine and fragrance simmering in her veins, she thought that, just possibly, Rone deserved at least a parting gift, something from her to remember later, to take away the sting of being abandoned.
“Joletta,” he said, a pleading note in his voice.
She needed time to think, time to be sure this was what she wanted. Pure compassion, misplaced desire, or guilty sacrifice, there were all these things in the impulse rising steadily inside her. There was more, she knew, but she would not acknowledge it.
She wanted a last night with him, a last time in the security of his arms. Perhaps she needed a farewell after all, for herself. Who would ever know? Who would care? Except her.
He might think, when she surrendered, that he had won, but what of it? She would know the truth.
And so would he, soon enough.
Her voice not quite even, she said, “The luggage will have to be put out before we go to bed for collection early in the morning. I still have to repack. I think I’ll shower first, if you don’t mind.”
He watched her for long seconds before he turned away with an almost inaudible sigh. “No,” he answered, “I don’t mind.”
The smile that touched her mouth as she sent him a glance from the corners of her eyes was wry and fleeting, but tender.
Joletta did not take long in the bathroom. While Rone took his turn she laid out the slacks and shirt she meant to wear next day, set her packed suitcase outside the door, and stuffed the things she would be carrying with her down inside her big shoulder bag. She patted the bulky purse to be sure the journal was still where it should be; she had hardly thought about it all day. The feel of a sharp corner reassured her that all was well.
Wearing only a nightgown of much-washed white cotton embroidered in white around a design of open cutwork flowers, she moved to inhale the scent of the carnations once more. They really were delicious. She reached to cup a single blossom in her palm. Lifting it from the vase, she took it with her as she turned out the light, then moved to slip between the sheets.
When Rone emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, she turned her head. He was tall and broad where he stood framed in the doorway before he turned out the light. She watched him in the dimness as he moved around the foot of the bed to the opposite side. The width of his shoulders and shape of his head were silhouetted against the window as he climbed in beside her. She waited, not quite patiently, while he stretched out and settled onto his back.
She could feel the uneven pumping of her heart in her chest, like a ball bounced by a clumsy toddler. Heat moved over her in waves, and the palms of her hands itched with the dampness collecting there. It was, she discovered, terrifying to become a temptress, nearly as terrifying as it was exciting.
Easing to her side, she supported herself on her bent elbow while she reached out to draw the carnation she held in her fingers across Rone’s lips.
He snatched at the flower in a swift reflex, as if he thought it might be some invading ins
ect. His movement stilled abruptly.
“What are you doing?” he asked in stifled tones.
“Shh,” she said.
Tugging the carnation free, she touched his mouth once more, outlining its shape, before trailing the ragged petals down the strong jut of his chin and along the turn of his neck. She dipped it into the hollow between his collarbone, then brushed slowly back and forth through the glinting hair on his chest to the flat disks of his paps. As she touched one, teasing it to a nub of firmness, he turned his head toward her in the darkness.
“Joletta?” he whispered in entreaty.
She did not answer.
Leaving the carnation lying on his breastbone, she moved closer and leaned to touch the wet heat of her tongue to his tightened pap. She traced its circumference, applied adhesion, nibbled gently, then moved to the other one.
He said not a word as he reached for her, circling her body with his arms as he held her close, searching out the warm and sensitive curves of her body through the soft, thin cotton, finding areas of delicate sensation she had hardly known existed.
She tasted him without haste, and with rich delight growing inside as she felt the increased depth of his breathing that matched her own.
Blindly then, she sought the warm, chiseled shape of his mouth. Her soft lips molded to his as she traced the edges of his teeth and gently eased deeper to entice his response. Sweetly, generously, he gave it, twining his tongue with hers, following her lead.
He drew her closer, until the lower part of her body was pressed against the unyielding length of his thigh. Holding her there, he smoothed the slender concave of her waist, ran his fingers with exquisite care over the roundness of her hips, and drew the cotton of her gown tight to outline the shape. He smoothed his hand over that gentle curve before he began to inch the gown higher.
Joletta lifted her knee across his body, allowing access to his delicately probing touch. The heat that flushed her skin spiraled deep inside, coalescing in the lower part of her body. A soft sound left her as he sought and found its center. Molten inside with desire, she tasted the corners of his mouth and trailed a line of kisses across the hard plane of his face to his ear. She tasted the lobe, then in a rush of ecstasy, buried her face in his neck.
Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Page 31