by Angela Arney
Reaching the crowd, Raul paused, then stubbed out the remains of his cigarette and felt in his pocket for a fresh one. He did it quite deliberately. Always vain, he relished dramatic mannerisms, and he was practical enough to know it was a perfect way of gaining attention without saying a word.
Raul placed the cigarette between his lips. Powerfully aware of the expectant silence he had created, he felt an arrogant sense of satisfaction. All these people, waiting for him to speak! He reached for his lighter, savouring the moment. But before he could flick a flame into life, a hand thrust a flaring lighter beneath his nose. Startled, he looked up. A tall dark girl was holding the flaming lighter. The sun, now almost directly overhead, threw her face into shadow, but it burnished the lustre of her thick hair so that it shone like ebony.
‘Signor, per favore.’
The unexpected appearance of the girl caught him off balance. Staring wildly at the shadowy face he tried to speak, but no sound came. The confident young man, never at a loss for the right words, was suddenly, struck dumb. Hand trembling, he reached up and loosened the collar of his shirt but a tight band around his throat and chest threatened his breathing. In spite of the intense heat, Raul was aware of cold beads of perspiration prickling across his forehead and upper lip, and the light and shade of the square suddenly fused into one confusing mass. Only the girl remained clearly visible, tall and aloof, her face in shadow. It was then that he realized the past was staring him in the face. It was Liana holding the lighter.
‘Raul, get a move on.’
Simionato’s voice dragged him back to the present. His breathing reverted to normal, although his heart still thudded uncomfortably; but his vision cleared and the cobbled square swam back into focus. When he looked again he could see there was nothing special about the girl, a Sicilian peasant the same as the others, a little taller perhaps, but that was all. The past confronting the present! How stupid; it was a trick of the light playing on his imagination.
‘Thanks.’ Hastily he accepted the proffered light but, annoyed, he noticed that he could not stop his hands trembling as they cupped the flame. He pointed to the chalk marks on the cobbles and spoke more brusquely than he had intended to the waiting extras. ‘Stay behind these marks, then move across the square shouting, just as you’ve rehearsed. But not until the two men begin to fight. Do you understand?’
A sea of dark faces stared mutely in his direction. Raul turned away feeling irrationally irritated. He wanted to shout at them, but held his tongue. It wasn’t their fault he was edgy. That damned girl had unsettled him.
Why the hell should he think of Liana after all this time? Damn it! It was nearly two months since he had left Naples, and not once since that first day had she ever crossed his mind. He’d been too busy, and anyway it wasn’t the first time he’d walked out on a girl and never given her a second thought, so why think of Liana? She wasn’t that special. And why the hell did he suddenly feel guilty? He’d done nothing wrong. In fact during the time he’d been with Liana he’d been very kind, helped her in every way he could. No, he had nothing, absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. His conscience was clear. After all, he’d never made any commitment. She must have realized that.
He walked back to Simionato, but the jaunty self-confidence was temporarily missing from his stride. I haven’t thought of her, and yet she’s always been there, he mused. He wondered why, then dismissed the thought as Simionato shouted impatiently. There were more important things to think about.
‘Raul, for God’s sake get a move on,’ roared Simionato. Raul ran into position as Simionato shouted. ‘Action.’
The cameras whirred into life and the actors began to speak their lines. From his allotted place Raul worked feverishly, checking the angles, keeping an eye on the extras, watching the lighting. Simionato gave him a thumbs-up sign; he was pleased with the way it was going. Raul grinned; he was pleased too. He would definitely make it to the top of the pile, and in record time, too, if he had anything to do with it.
He looked at his reflection in the back of the camera lens, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. Maybe he should grow a beard. It would make him look older and much more distinguished.
Chapter Nine
1 May 1944
‘Everything is over now, thank God.’ Nicholas heaved a sigh of relief. ‘The wedding, the reception: all that is behind us. No more hurdles to clear or hoops to jump through.’ He was particularly glad the wedding service was over. To tell the truth he had not felt comfortable during the ceremony, his long-ingrained Protestantism rebelling at the Catholic rituals. He would have much preferred to have had a simple service in the Norman church of his own village. But Europe was still at war, and they were lucky to have organized the wedding at all.
‘Hurdles and hoops?’ Liana turned to Nicholas looking puzzled. It was an English turn of phrase she had never heard used before.
He laughed at her expression. ‘I mean the obstacles which were in the way of our being together, as we are now.’ He put his arms around her tenderly and drew her out on to the tiny balcony of their room. Holding her close, he leaned back against the open shutters. How soft her perfumed hair was against his mouth. ‘I will tell you now,’ he said, ‘now that at last we are really married, that sometimes I despaired. There were days when all the red tape seemed insurmountable, and I wondered if we would ever be able to marry.’
‘I never doubted it,’ said Liana, which was true. Even in her worst moments, she had always known that somehow, by some means, the problems which arose daily would be overcome, and she would marry Nicholas. So great had been her determination, that she had never allowed herself to think anything else; anyway the alternative was unthinkable. ‘Anything is possible if you really want it.’
‘Sweet innocent,’ whispered Nicholas, smiling as he kissed her hair. ‘I hope you are never disillusioned.’
Never to be disillusioned! Liana turned her head slightly to hide a wry smile. How impossible that is – I have no illusions! To have illusions one has to be innocent, and I’m far from being that. I’ve done whatever I’ve had to do, and that’s how I shall always be, because I know it is the only way to survive. Turning back, she looked up at her husband. Poor Nicholas, it is you who harbour the illusion. That illusion is me, your wife. But I’ll work hard so that you can keep your illusion intact. I shall be a good countess, and a good wife. Perhaps then, she thought wistfully, this joyless feeling that fills my soul will be obliterated, the strange empty feeling that even the knowledge of the baby didn’t help lessen. But she knew why the feeling existed, why it would always exist. Raul had taken part of her away with him the day he had disappeared, and she had found nothing to fill the void it had left.
‘How can I be disillusioned,’ she said now. ‘I will always be happy with you.’ Reaching up she softly touched Nicholas’s cheek. ‘Tell me again about England.’
‘Well, you will live in the house with my mother, the Dowager Countess of Wessex, Lady Margaret. I hope you will like each other, although the house is so large you need never meet if you do not want to.’ He paused, then added almost as an afterthought, ‘And my brother, William, will probably be at home, too – for a while anyway. Until he manages to sort himself out. He was a pilot in the Battle of Britain and got shot down. He had to have a leg amputated, and needs help to get his life started again. Mother tells me he is depressed.’ He hesitated as if about to go on, then stopped. ‘Well, that’s about it,’ he said.
‘I’m sure I shall like them both,’ said Liana. She was determined to make friends with her mother-in-law and Nicholas’s brother, for she shrewdly realized that if her plans for improving the Hamilton-Howards’ fortunes were to succeed, she needed allies, not enemies. ‘Poor William,’ she added softly. ‘It must be terrible for a young man to lose a leg.’
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas, his voice oddly heavy. ‘I worry about him. God, I do hope you can get on with him.’
‘But of course I will. I will make him
like me.’ But the tone of Nicholas’s voice as he spoke of his brother disturbed her and the beginning of doubt gnawed inside her. ‘Tell me again about the house,’ she said quickly, determined to lighten the mood. Doubts had to be dispelled the moment they appeared. Doubts she could not tolerate, they were not part of her plans, not now, not ever.
‘The house is old and is called Broadacres. Parts of the original building date from the early sixteenth century but most of it was rebuilt after a fire in 1650, and that is the house we live in now.’ Nicholas sighed. He always felt despondent when he thought of all the responsibilities awaiting his return to England. ‘Somehow I’ve got to raise the money to restore it. Most of the house is dropping to pieces.’
‘We’ll get the money,’ said Liana confidently.
Nicholas laughed. ‘We?’ He tousled her hair. ‘You, my sweet innocent, have no idea of the size of the problem.’ He kissed her. ‘But we shall be happy, even if the roof does leak.’
Liana returned his kiss, but her mind was elsewhere, in England to be precise. She longed for the day when they could leave Italy and go to England, because only then could she begin to formulate her hazy plans into a more concrete form. She already knew a little of what would be expected of her in her role as the new countess from what Nicholas had told her. She had to be involved and interested in the lives of the people of the estate and the village. You must be a figurehead, Nicholas had said, boring sometimes but necessary.
‘And we’ll keep your Roman Catholicism quiet,’ Nicholas had added.
‘I’m not a believer,’ said Liana. ‘I’ll go with you to your church if you want me to, but I don’t believe in God. Nothing can make me believe in God.’
So vehement was her statement that Nicholas was momentarily taken aback. Then he comforted himself with the thought that she was young and had survived terrible experiences in the war. She only thought she didn’t believe, but of course she did. Everybody did. His own belief was of the comfortable, unquestioning type. He went to church, prayed, and then promptly forgot about it. For him, religion was just there, like daytime and night-time, always the same, always predictable. He shared the opinion of many Englishmen: deep, philosophical probings were not only unnecessary, they were almost indecent.
Wrapped in Nicholas’s arms, Liana looked out from the balcony of the tiny pink-washed house in Puzzuoli. Nicholas had rented it for their brief three-day honeymoon. By some miracle of fate, Puzzuoli had escaped the devastation of the rest of the country. The ugliness of the savagely scarred landscape of war existed only a few miles away, and yet here nothing had ravaged these timeless cobbled streets. Here it was warm and peaceful. Fishing boats were tied up at the harbour wall in the same way as they had been for centuries. They bobbed up and down slowly on the swell of the sea. The only sound was the occasional slap of the water against the boats’ hulls.
Liana yearned to draw in the peace that surrounded her and wrap it, like a mantle, around her soul. But peace was something that eluded her, and yet she had to achieve some measure of it if she was to suppress all memories of the past. And that was something she had to do if she was to retain her sanity.
Hard work and ambition seemed to offer the only salvation. A faint smile played around her mouth. Nicholas was unaware as yet of her decision to make him the richest earl in England. But soon he would find out and stop worrying about the wretched leaking roof, and then she too would find some kind of peace. It could never be perfect. Liana, practical as ever, knew that perfection did not exist on this earth, but she would be rich, so rich she would never have to bow her head in deference to anyone, not even her own husband. Other women might yearn for other things – a husband they loved, his children. But she was not other women. For her, wealth would suffice. She would be happy, but it would be a different kind of happiness from that which she had imagined for herself in her childhood.
Much as she would have liked to dismiss it from her mind for ever, Liana acknowledged that she could never forget the agony and joy of her life in Italy. It would always be there, beneath the surface; and soon she would have a very tangible reminder of that short period of joy which had changed her life so drastically. Raul’s child would be born in December.
It was time to consummate the marriage. She turned back into the room. ‘I’ll unpack our things,’ she said, adding softly, ‘before we go to bed.’
Nicholas felt a dizzy thrill of desire run through him at her words. This was what he had been waiting for, but he had promised to be gentle, and was still determined not to rush her. So he remained where he was, staring with unseeing eyes at the deepening purple of the brief Mediterranean dusk. Give her plenty of time to get undressed and slip into bed. She was bound to be shy.
‘Tomorrow we’ll go sightseeing,’ he said. ‘We’ll explore this land of ruins and legends. Did you know that Nero is supposed to have murdered his mother here? What was her name?’
‘Agrippina,’ replied Liana, smiling to herself in the dimness of the room. She was well aware of what Nicholas was thinking. I am lucky, she thought, not for the first time. He is a kind man.
‘What a place for a honeymoon.’
Liana laughed softly. ‘And what stories we’ll have to tell our children in years to come.’
‘Our children?’ It seemed to Liana’s anxious ears that Nicholas’s voice was edged with a hint of bitterness, or was it anxiety?
‘Why, yes. You do want children, don’t you?’
Oh God, she’d never thought of it before. Supposing he didn’t want children. What if he intended using a sheath to prevent her conceiving? What would she do?
Nicholas did not answer immediately. He stood quite still, his back towards her, the horizon blurring before his eyes. Children, yes he did want them, but . . . A sudden vision of his father, drunk and in a towering rage, seared his brain; a riding crop was in his hand and Nicholas could feel it crashing down first on his shoulders and then on to William. He took a deep breath, resolutely dispelling images of the past. Life would be different for his own children. He would never raise a hand in anger. They would know only love and peace. Nothing would be allowed to scar their minds.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘I do want children.’
Liana had been holding her breath during the long pause. Now at last she could breathe. ‘Oh, so do I, darling. So do I.’ The plans for a secure future for Raul’s baby were falling into place.
Moonlight began to filter a ribbon of silver across the sea as Nicholas closed the green venetian shutters and turned back into the room.
Liana was not in bed as he had expected. She was standing in the centre of the room, looking at him. Their one small suitcase had been unpacked, and now she stood still and silent. Nicholas thought she was afraid.
‘Darling,’ he said, and started to move towards her. He was about to tell her not to be frightened of him but she interrupted him.
‘Wait.’ The word was uttered so softly that Nicholas could not be sure whether she had actually spoken or he had perhaps imagined it.
The moonlight, sliding in between the wooden slats of the blinds, bathed her in a silvery light, turning her into a replica of one of the stone maidens that adorned the ruined temple not far from their villa. Nicholas was aware of a feeling of unreality, a feeling enhanced by her total silence. He watched with incredulous amazement as the girl who had kept him at bay for so long, not even allowing him to slip an exploratory hand into her bra, now began to undress. She took off her clothes slowly, folding them up carefully as she went along. Nicholas remained where he was, watching and drinking in the intriguing mixture of innocence and eroticism.
Finally, Liana was completely naked, and the full impact of her beauty was revealed to Nicholas. She was slim and her legs were long. Even in the cold light of the moon her skin glowed with a warm, golden sheen. Jet black hair streamed down over her back and shoulders, partially screening the fullness of her breasts with their wine-dark nipples. Liana wondered for a moment i
f Nicholas would notice the darkness of her nipples, a sign of her pregnancy, but she need not have worried. He was too aroused to notice anything clearly.
Proudly tossing back her hair, she walked slowly across to him, and leaning lightly against his chest, she let the fullness of her breasts rest against him for a moment. A quiver ran through his tall frame. Satisfied that he was aroused, Liana began to unbutton his shirt.
Nicholas had thought it impossible to want a woman more than he already wanted Liana, but he was now aware of a new sensation, a force of such enormous dimension that it was frightening in its intensity. He could not remember getting undressed. She had started it, he knew that, but who had finished? It did not matter now; it was unimportant. Suddenly they were on the bed; he on top of her, his face buried between the full, soft mounds of her breasts.
For Nicholas the world ceased to spin on its axis. All that existed in the universe was the wonderful silkiness of her skin, the beautiful, special smell of her body. Even the hair that covered the soft mound between her legs was like silk. He wanted to eat her, drink her. Gasping, he thrust downwards, mouth open, tongue searching, but Liana pulled at his head. Intent on his pleasure, Nicholas resisted, but she persisted.
‘Darling,’ he protested.
‘Shush, darling. Let me,’ she whispered, pushing him back gently until he reluctantly rolled over on his back.
Unprepared for his new bride to take any initiative on their wedding night, Nicholas almost drowned in the unexpected pleasure. The perfume from her hair filled his nostrils, as her mouth moved down his body, kissing, biting, teasing, sucking until she reached his penis, already rock hard and erect. Her mouth closed on it, while her tongue flicked and darted and swirled around the soft tip.
A rainbow of inexpressible sensations exploded from his groin into wild ribbons of fire, reaching into the top of his skull. With a terrible cry of wild abandonment, the last vestige of his control broke, and Nicholas rolled Liana over on to her back and plunged into her soft body. Deeper, deeper, deeper he strived to penetrate her very core. In the blood-red mist of his frenzy Nicholas was vaguely aware that his huge, rigid organ was tearing into soft flesh, but nothing in the world could stop him now; all thoughts of gentleness had long since flown as he poured his manhood into her with ever-increasing violence.