Renzo turned deliberately to look at her, and she said quickly: 'I'm afraid I don't dance.'
'But it's quite easy.' The young man smiled coaxingly. 'I'm sure you'd soon pick it up.'
'Do make the attempt, child,' Renzo drawled, and he took her cup and saucer from her hand. 'Go along with you, you don't want to spend the evening sitting with me.'
'But I --'
'I won't take no for an answer.' The young man impetuously reached for her hand and drew her to her feet. 'It's an awfully good band, and the floor is smooth as silk, and everyone can waltz! That's the great thing about Duke's, they allow people to dance in the old-fashioned way.'
'Quite the best way,' Renzo commented wryly.
'Are you sure --?' Jorja was both torn and tempted by the chance to dance, but it seemed unfair to Renzo. It underlined the fact that he couldn't move with ease around that mellow, waxed floor.
'Of course he is.' The young man pulled her away from Renzo, and with a half-laugh she submitted to his persuasion. From the moment his arm slid around her waist she fell into step with him, for she had always enjoyed herself at those village hops. But there she had known everyone and she couldn't help feeling a little shy of this youthful stranger who held her just a little too close to him.
As she pulled slightly away from him, he broke into a grin. 'Why did you make out you couldn't dance?' he asked. 'Was it to spare the feelings of the man friend; I could see he walked with a stick when you came in with him?'
'He happens to be my husband.'
'You're kidding.'
'Why should I be kidding you?'
'He's obviously older than you, and he's foreign.'
'And those two things count against him?'
'I think so.' He spoke with a touch of the arrogance which young men of his stamp learned at their public schools, and with brash eyes he examined her jewellery. 'I bet he's as rich as hell.'
'I didn't marry him for his money.' The ease had gone out of her dancing and she could feel her spine stiffening. She wanted to tell this youth that his self-confidence was overrated and his manners left a lot to be desired.
'Then what do you find so fascinating about him, that machiavellian look?' His smile began to verge on the supercilious.
'You're very curious, aren't you?' Jorja spoke stiffly.
'Who wouldn't be? I've seen your picture on magazine covers and when I saw you sitting in the dining-room I could hardly believe my eyes.'
His words gave Jorja such a jolt that she mis-stepped. 'S-sorry.'
'Don't be.' He spoke insinuatingly. 'Wait till I tell the guys at the rugger club that I've danced with Angelica Norman—though it's a bit of a blow that you have a husband.'
Jorja didn't contradict him, she knew it was the stylish dress and the scintillating jewels that intensified her likeness to Angelica. But it was a mistake which emphasised the fact that neither Renzo nor this young man chose her company because she was simply Jorja, a person in her own right.
'There's something else.' His fingers gripped hers as they circled to the music, and by now Jorja was longing for the waltz to end. 'Is it true that you've appeared in a blue movie? A guy I know reckons he's seen you in one, and according to him it was a real scorcher.'
For brief seconds the sense in the question eluded Jorja, then all at once she felt as if the ballroom and the dancers were reeling around her. Involuntarily, her fingers clenched the shoulder on which her hand rested, and taking this for an invitation the young man pressed his cheek against her hair so the heat of his skin penetrated, along with the musky smell of his after-shave lotion.
These intimacies were alien and unbearable to Jorja and she pulled sharply away from him. She felt desperately shocked by what he had said, assuming her to be Angelica. She wanted to deny that it was remotely possible, but she had read her sister's letters and she was no longer certain that she had ever known the person behind the angelic face of her sister.
'Will you have the next dance with me?'
Jorja realised that the music had stopped, and with a sense of relief quickly pulled free of the arm that still encircled her waist. 'I think not --'
'Is the blue film a secret you're keeping from the rich husband?' A look of insolence had come into the eyes that raked her figure.
'Stay away from me!' Jorja flung off his hand and walked off the dance floor, unknowing how blue and tortured her eyes looked as she went in search of Renzo and couldn't find him.
As she stood there at a loss, the stout woman in pink approached her. 'I expect you are looking for your husband?' She spoke in a pleasant manner but her eyes were all over Jorja, whose hands were twisting and turning the filmy handkerchief which she carried. 'I believe he has gone to the card room, for I saw him going in that direction.'
'Th-thank you for telling me --' Jorja was turning away when a plump hand detained her.
'Do join my friend and me in a drink?'
'You're kind but I—I'm tired. I think I'll go to bed.'
'I must say you look a little peaked. I dare say you had a long journey to Sandbourne? Your husband is Italian, isn't he?'
'Yes.' Jorja withdrew her arm from the ringed fingers. 'Good night.'
She knew that when the pink lady returned to her chair, she and her friend would avidly discuss the distinguished Italian who came to Duke's bringing with him a wife who was so much younger and far less sophisticated. Let them speculate. The truth was far beyond what they could imagine.
There were several people waiting for the lift so Jorja took the stairs, and it wasn't until she had reached the door of the suite that she realised she hadn't a key. It was in the pocket of Renzo's jacket and he was playing cards ... then, to her intense relief, the door of the suite opened and a maid came out. 'Oh, good evening, madam.' She stared into the intensity of Jorja's eyes. 'I've turned down the bed.'
'Oh, good.' Jorja hurried into the suite, where corner lamps had been switched on so there was an air of welcome. She sank down on the couch, feeling as if her strength was running out. All she could think of was that it couldn't possibly be true that Angelica had degraded herself by appearing in one of those lurid films which were shown at stag parties for the amusement of a lot of drunken men.
If it was true, how could she do it? Strip bare in front of a camera crew and do unimaginable things with men who meant nothing to her! As shocking as her letters were, she seemed to be in love with Stelvio Talmonte, and those letters had been meant for his eyes alone.
Worn out by her thoughts, Jorja lifted her feet on to the couch and rested her head against one of the cushions. She would rest for a while and summon the strength to get ready for bed. Renzo might play cards for hours ... how strange a wedding night, she alone with thoughts she could hardly bear, and her husband of ten hours at the card table with strangers.
Her eyes grew heavy and her cheek sank deeper into the silk cushion. Dimly she heard a clock chiming as she fell asleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
Sunlight was bright across the terrace and in through the long windows when Jorja awoke in a large strange bed. She lay there bemused, like someone who had been plunged into a complex dream, then as her mind began to clear she realised where she was but couldn't understand how she came to be there.
She had fallen asleep on the couch in the sitting-room, and she had been fully clothed. Now she was in a four-poster bed and she was undressed.
That was to say she was divested of everything except her slip, the rest of her things had been thrown into a rather careless heap on one of the bedroom chairs. She drew herself into a sitting position and stared at them ... there was only one way they could have got there, and even as the thought crossed her mind a tall figure loomed between the sunlit terrace windows.
'Buon giorno.' He looked every inch the Italian in pale hopsack trousers and a grey shirt striped with maroon, the collar open against his throat. The sun that framed him seemed to intensify his darkness of hair and brow. In every way he seemed a foreign
stranger to Jorja rather than the man she had married, who had every right in the world to stroll to the foot of her bed, where he regarded her with the sheet held in front of her.
'I shan't ask if you slept well, donna, because I know you did. You were out like a light when I came upstairs at two o'clock, and you hardly stirred when I put you to bed.'
'So it was you --!'
'Who else would it be?' Amusement glinted in his eyes. 'Don't look so affronted, my dear child. At my age I do know what a female looks like, but from the expression on your face a man would think that you had something you wanted to hide from him.'
'Y-you could have woken-me --' Jorja could feel herself blushing beneath his amused eyes.
'It would have been a crime to do so. You were sleeping like a baby and when I lifted you, you barely roused—oh, don't look surprised, Jorja. I'm not that much of a lame dog.'
'I know --' She bit her lip. 'Someone told me you'd gone to the card room and I didn't want to disturb you. Luckily the maid was in the suite, turning down the bed. Did you sleep in the smaller room?'
'You know I did.' His eyes dwelt lazily on the virgin pillow beside her own. 'Wasn't that the arrangement? Do you imagine I'd take clandestine advantage of you? I'm not that desperate for your body, appealing as it is.'
Words which evoked images of herself being unclothed by him, his lean fingers unhooking her dress and her lacy bra; undoing the suspenders of her sheer stockings and rolling them down ... the intimacies of a lover and they weren't lovers.
'I've ordered breakfast,' he said. 'We'll eat on the terrace.'
'All right.' Her fingers gripped the sheet. 'I'd like to take a shower.'
'By all means.'
He returned to the terrace and once again Jorja was struck by his ability to walk without the aid of a stick when he was alone with her. It seemed as if he had grown used to carrying the ebony stick in public, perhaps to rely on, or because it had become part of his personality. When he laid it aside he seemed to grow younger, more flexible, more noticeably a man of enormous physical impact.
The thought flitted in and out of Jorja's mind that Angelica had not only behaved badly, she had behaved foolishly.
The bathroom adjoining the bedroom was a joy, big and white and with lashings of hot water. Jorja had spent years enduring the bathroom at the rectory, where the water was always tepid and where she had to dry herself rapidly because of the cold draught that blew under the door. There had never been money to spare for improvements, and according to her father it didn't hurt anyone to be a spartan.
It might not hurt, she thought, as she dried herself at Duke's on a large fluffy towel, but it certainly made a change to indulge in a little luxury.
As she dressed herself she couldn't help wondering what her father's reaction would be if he saw her clad in cabin-boy breeches laced just below the knees, topped off by a shirt with soft full sleeves. He seemed to relish photographs of Angelica in such clothes but Jorja doubted if he would approve of the way she looked; he had grown too accustomed to seeing her with an apron over her long-lasting slacks and skirts.
As she stepped on to the terrace and approached the table where breakfast had been laid in a ray of sunlight, Renzo rose to his feet with his meticulous courtesy and drew out a chair for her. Jorja could feel his eyes appraising her outfit as she sat down.
'You look very festive,' he remarked. 'When we've eaten you will show off Sandbourne to me.'
'I'd like that.' She lifted the cover of one of the dishes and the aroma of fried bacon made her appetite quicken. 'It's a lovely morning—shall we walk?'
'If you can be patient with the impediment which makes my step less light than your own?' He lifted another of the food covers and revealed crisply cooked sausages and tomatoes. 'Mmm, smells very appetising.'
Jorja nodded and helped herself to something of each. 'I don't mind your leg, Renzo.'
'Yesterday you implied that you did.' He unfolded the linen serviette in which hot rolls had been wrapped.
'Surely you didn't believe me?' She accepted one of the rolls but avoided his eyes.
'I am not quite certain.' He broke a roll in his lean fingers and the sunlight flickered on the golden band of his ring ... the ring which in church Jorja had been instructed to place on his finger.
'Oh, but I wouldn't hold your leg against you,' she protested. 'You made me say—what I did say.'
'Excellent bacon,' he commented. 'Why, because I kissed you, and you have it in your head that kissing has to be sinful in our situation?'
Jorja popped a wedge of buttered roll between her lips and hoped that her look was one of sang-froid. Inwardly he had touched a nerve with his statement. It wasn't just the way she had lived at the rectory which made her the way she was; it was as if she had been born with certain ideals about people, and one by one the people in her life were proving themselves less than ideal.
Although she had known of Angelica's faults, they had seemed forgivable when weighed against her charm ... a vivacious charm which like a glittering mask concealed the true Angelica.
Her gaze lifted from her plate and she found Renzo looking at her with a certain gravity in his eyes. Did he know everything about Angelica? How shameful if he did? What a blow to his pride if he had seen her performing in one of those films in which every kind of sexual activity was exploited.
Then, as if tuning in to her thoughts, Renzo asked her if she had enjoyed herself at last night's dance.
'Not really.' She poured herself some more coffee and busied herself with the jar of apricot jam.
'Did the young man try to flirt with you?'
'In a way --'
'There is only one way,' Renzo drawled.
'He --' Jorja took the plunge. 'He mistook me for Angelica!'
'Santo Dio.' Renzo's eyes were shadowed by his frown. 'Of a certainty there's a resemblance, perhaps more apparent when you are in evening dress and wearing make-up. Were you upset by his mistake? Did you assure him that you are not Angelica?'
Jorja shook her head. 'This jam is delicious —no, I didn't want to dance with him a second time, so I—I said nothing. What does it matter?'
'You don't think it matters?' His frown was still heavy across his eyes as they searched Jorja's face.
'Not where he's concerned.' Her lips gave a little twist of distaste. 'You know the type, affected public school voice and a condescending manner. And underneath it all a low-class mind.'
This time Renzo elevated an eyebrow. 'You have strong opinions on the subject, Jorja.'
'Not because he mistook me for Angelica,' she hastened to assure Renzo. 'I just happen to think that our public schools can produce a type of snob who is basically good-for-nothing. They're not really educated but the old school tie convinces people that they can run the country.'
'So you found your dancing partner a young boor?'
'I did.' She smiled but stark in her mind was her memory of what he had said in relation to Angelica. 'Would you think me greedy if I ate a banana?'
He selected a banana from the dish of fruit which had been placed on the table with their breakfast. He handed it across to her, then lounged back in his chair and lit one of his thin dark cheroots.
'Yours is a strange, unpredictable country, donna, and it never ceases to amaze me that one day it can be so wet and grey, and the following day so sunlit. You were right to suggest that we honeymoon at Sandbourne. The sea from here is like smooth, heavy silk. Take a look!'
Jorja was halfway through her banana, not totally unaware of how Renzo regarded her. She was like the English weather and he couldn't be sure of her ... he wasn't to know that she could no longer be sure of herself.
'It's an enormous terrace, isn't it?' She pushed back her chair and went to the parapet, which was rounded and overlooked the hotel, swimming-pool, the exact shape of a kidney and dazzling blue. Some of the guests swam there lazily; a few had already stretched out on loungers in order to enjoy the sunshine.
How
strange life was? It was as if when she was a child of ten her wish to see inside Duke's had been destined to come true. This was genuine warm stone beneath her hands, the laughter that floated up from the pool was real, and there across the terrace the man at the table was more profoundly real than anyone else.
She heard the sudden scrape of his chair as he stood up, then the slight halt in the way he walked as he came and stood beside her. Her hands tightened on the stonework as she felt his tall proximity, every inch of his skin, every sinew and every hair so potently male. His warm, smoky, Eau Sauvage smell was becoming familiar to her, as were the fascinating nuances of his voice.
'I prefer to swim in the ocean,' he remarked. 'It's more invigorating.'
Jorja cast a look of surprise at him, and he caught it. 'Do I seem so handicapped to you, young woman?' he demanded.
'Not in the least --'
'When I take you swimming you will find out that in the water I am far from lame.'
'You have a complex about your leg,' Jorja told him. 'I'm sure it hasn't stopped you from doing any of the things you like to do. I expect you still go riding.'
'I keep a couple of horses stabled in a London mews,' he admitted. He lifted his cheroot and drew on it, the smoke sliding out into the ocean-scented air. 'Are you afraid of horses, like your sister?'
'No, I'm not.' Her fingers resentfully gripped the parapet. 'Everyone keeps mixing me up with her ... as if I'm her shadow instead of an individual with my own likes and dislikes; my own fears and braveries. I begin to wish --'
'That you were not Angelica's sister?'
'Yes.' Jorja gazed towards the sea, a wing of hair screening her profile. 'I—I seem to be living her life instead of my own, and there's a falsity to our marriage that nothing can set right. I'm just the stand-in for the star!'
'You are the Signora Talmonte.' His hand closed upon hers, warm and firm. 'What is she at this very time? The amante of my fool brother, who like the majority of men will return to his wife when the excitement of illicit love begins to fade. It does, you know, and when all is said and done, Stelvio is a Roman Catholic and his conscience will drive him first to confession and then back to his family.'
The Honeymoon Page 6