'You think his wife will take him back?' Jorja asked curiously.
'Monica continues to love the fool, and Italian women can be most understanding of the peccadilloes of their men. There is a great deal of the mother in the women of my country, you know.'
'Yet your sister-in-law gave you those letters,' Jorja reminded him.
'Ah, but she was hurt and angry—wouldn't you feel the same? That is,' he gave a low, sardonic laugh, 'if you loved a husband as much as Monica loves hers.'
'You seem to think that a woman should forgive a man,' Jorja said, 'but you don't intend to forgive Angelica, do you?'
'No,' he said grimly. 'I consider that a woman should have self-respect, and her gift of bearing children places her in a special category. When a woman has an affaire she is like a vandal throwing stones in a chapel!'
The intensity in his words made Jorja glance up at him, and his face looked cold and chiselled in contrast to his smouldering eyes. 'Angelica,' he bit out the name, 'il fiore della morte!'
'Are you wishing her dead?' Jorja exclaimed.
'I am saying that she is like a white flower with dark leaves, which we place on the dead—and, believe me, she is dead where I am concerned.'
Jorja caught her breath at the harshness on his face and in his voice. She found the way he spoke rather fearful, for her life at Duncton hadn't prepared her for people who put so much emotion into their loves and hates.
Life in the vale of Duncton had a pattern to its days which was only disturbed when a harvest failed, or when a prized cow lost her calf.
Or had she lived too innocently in her father's house? Seeing people only as she wanted to see them, the parishioners who had always made such a favourite of her sister, as if they felt easy with the imperfections in her nature which her vivacity and beauty seemed to excuse.
Jorja's hand stirred nervously beneath Renzo's. Without knowing it, had she resented Angelica's popularity? Rapidly Jorja searched her mind but couldn't remember a time when she had ever looked at Angelica and not been as beguiled by her as everybody else. She couldn't believe ... it was impossible to believe that Renzo wished her sister dead.
'Have I shocked you, Jorja?'
She met his eyes and they still had the sheen of steel between the shadow of his lashes. Her heart gave a curious lurch ... she remembered when Angelica had brought him to the rectory, and seeing them together for the first time Jorja had been struck by the way they complemented each other. Dante and Beatrice, she had thought, knowing very well that her sister had never liked any sign of a physical handicap, and the handsome Italian, whose engagement ring she wore, walked with the aid of a stick.
Jorja's eyes were reflective. That may have been the only time when instinct had told her that Angelica wasn't to be trusted; that she would always put her desires before the happiness of other people and not care very much if she caused great hurt, or great harm to the person involved.
If Renzo was so deeply bitter, then he had justification for it, but such bitterness proved how much he had cared for Angelica when she had been his fidanzata, her hand agleam with a large, square-cut diamond enclosed in golden claws.
Jorja remembered how often her sister had looked at the ring, and when they had been alone in the bedroom they had once shared she had held out her slender hand once again and smiled at the glittering prize on her finger.
'He has heaps of money,' she told Jorja. 'And his family is a very distinguished one in Italy.'
'Do you love him?' Jorja asked her.
'Of course, darling, but not quite in the way you would be in love.'
'Whatever do you mean by that?' Jorja wanted to know.
'Well,' Angelica powdered her perfectly shaped nose, 'as if you'd lay down body and soul for a man. That kind of devotion is all in the past, sweetie. These days a girl has to be practical.'
'Signore Talmonte is in love with you,' Jorja had said, quietly.
'I should hope so!' Angelica had swung round from the vanity-table with the assured grace of the trained model who was always conscious of herself. 'He wasn't easy to land, but I've hooked him right through the heart. He's an attractive creature—apart from that tiresome leg. A pity about that, but it can't be helped. He insists that no more can be done about the leg but I'm not so sure. He can afford the very best of surgeons.'
'I don't think his limp is all that noticeable.' Jorja could remember their conversation with such clarity, there in the bedroom that stayed unchanged after Angelica went to London to make a career. Jorja had decided to let the twin bed remain in the room in case her sister wanted to come home at the weekends, but she came rarely to Duncton after becoming a successful model. She always said she couldn't spare the time, and her visit with Renzo had been but a duty call, so he could be introduced to the Reverend Michael.
When they departed in Renzo's big car, Jorja's father had sat rather glumly in his armchair, as if mulling over the fact that his favourite daughter was on the path to matrimony.
'What do you think of the engagement, Daddy?' Jorja tried to sound casual as she handed him a cup of tea.
'I want my dear Angelica to be happy,' he replied. 'I want her to have whatever will keep her happy, and if she must marry an Italian, at least he's a gentleman.'
An opinion he radically changed on the day Jorja left the rectory to go and be the second-hand bride of Renzo Talmonte.
She gave an involuntary shiver as she thought of that day, and the bleak misery of the train journey to London, staring from the window and seeing nothing but her father's embittered face. It wasn't true that Angelica had a gift for happiness ... she had instead a gift for hurting people.
'You can't be cold?' Renzo slid an arm about Jorja.
'No—I was thinking --'
'What about?'
'Can't you guess.' She stood unrelaxed within the circle of his arm. 'You're usually good at reading my thoughts.'
'You are thinking that it should be Angelica who shares with me this terrace overlooking the sea.'
'Yes.'
'I have firmly told you, Jorja, that she is out of my life.' His hand suddenly pressed hard against Jorja's body. 'If she came to me and begged on her knees to be taken back, I should kick her out of my way.'
'I—I don't think you would.'
'I tell you I know what I would do.' With his features gone dark he swung Jorja to face him, and his eyes compelled, warned, and threatened. He seemed to personify the inequality of strength between a man and a woman; a strength intensified by his sudden angry passion.
'What do you know of me? What do you know of any man, a girl from a rectory who hasn't a notion how to kiss a man!' He swung her almost brutally close to him and brought his mouth down hard upon her startled lips. His mouth was savage and his angry kisses forced her lips to yield; he pressed himself forcibly against her, as if he had cast aside the restraint he had promised.
'I should have done this last night,' he said savagely. Taught you once and for all to be a woman instead of a frigid, puritanical puss of a parson's daughter!'
Between angry words he went on kissing her, lips hard and warm against her eyes, her ears, her throat... and in a kind of daze Jorja felt her face and neck bombarded by his mouth. When all at once he stopped kissing her, her mouth was poised beneath his, and her eyes were fixed wide and blue upon his face.
'Enough of a lesson?' he growled.
She hadn't the breath to reply, and he took her by the hand and walked her off the terrace. 'Let's promenade,' he said drily, and as they passed through the sitting-room he picked up his ebony stick, and he was once again the Renzo Talmonte who didn't use his male sensuality to so confuse her.
Was she frigid and puritanical? Yes, she supposed she was, in comparison with Angelica. That was how he had kissed her sister, but driven not by anger. With Angelica in his arms he had been driven by desire.
As the lift lumbered to the foyer, Jorja stood there thoughtfully. Her lips still felt the hard pressure of his mouth;
her body knew a little more about the muscular texture of his body.
'Good morning!' a voice called out as they were crossing the foyer. Jorja quickly turned to look and it was the woman whom she thought of as the pink lady, making a majestic and purposeful way towards them. She carried newspapers under her arm, and incredibly enough she was clad in a pink blouse with ruffles and a dusky-pink skirt.
'I must introduce myself.' She spoke directly to Renzo. 'I am Mrs Cartwright and it really is so nice to see people of one's own class at dear old Duke's. Thank goodness this is one hotel which keeps up its standards but the class of clientele has gone down since the days when I used to come to stay here with my dear husband. I met your wife last night, signore. I expect the dear child has told you that she was quite at a loss when she couldn't find you, so I took it upon myself to inform her that you had probably gone to the card room. I do hope she found you? As I say, she was looking quite tearful.'
Renzo shot a look at Jorja, then he inclined his dark head. 'We are pleased to know you, signora. It was considerate of you to explain my absence to my wife. As you can see, I don't dance but I thought it would be amusing for Jorja to enjoy the orchestra with a partner.'
'I think the dear child is shy, signore.' Mrs Cartwright waved a roguish finger at Jorja, who was unable to stop herself from flushing. 'I noticed that she left the dance floor quite soon, and I expect she prefers the company of her husband, just as I did when I was first married.'
The words hung in the air like an announcement, and Jorja felt her flush deepening beneath the woman's gaze. 'It's all right, my dear.' Mrs Cartwright gave an indulgent laugh. 'I shan't say a word to a soul, for I can well remember how I wanted everyone at my honeymoon hotel to believe I was a mature wife rather than a callow bride. It's perfectly natural. Some people are so inquisitive, aren't they?'
'Incurably so.' Renzo spoke in his most sardonic tones. 'I hope you will excuse us, signora? We are about to take a stroll beside the sea, this being my first visit to Sandbourne.'
'You will enjoy the resort enormously, signore. It's far less spoiled than others I could name —you should take an open-top landau and spare your leg.' Mrs Cartwright squeezed his arm sympathetically. 'I now and again have trouble with my right hip so I know what it feels like to be handicapped.'
Jorja wanted the floor to open and receive her, but Renzo seemed to accept the remark quite casually. 'Enjoy your morning, signora. The sun is so beckoning that we could almost be in Sardinia.'
'I expect the two of you are in a world of your own, anyway.'
'Goodbye.' Jorja couldn't get away quickly enough from further remarks of this nature, and she heard Renzo laugh to himself as they stepped into the sunshine.
'Women of Mrs Cartwright's years assume they have a licence to be personal,' he said. 'You must learn not to be quite so sensitive.'
'I had a feeling she had guessed about us,' Jorja said uneasily. 'And she was exaggerating about last night—I certainly wasn't about to burst into tears because I couldn't find you.'
'What a let-down for my ego,' Renzo taunted. 'For the moment the good lady had me believing that my bride was really stricken to find I had not stayed in the ballroom to watch her dancing.'
'You encouraged me to dance,' Jorja reminded him. 'I was quite content to sit and watch, and if you were dying to go to the card room you could have said so. The last thing I want is to be in your way!'
'Don't be petulant, just because that woman said things that made you blush. What of it if she knows we are on our honeymoon? What if she does imagine that I make passionate love to you at every opportunity? Is the thought of my love-making so repellent to you?'
'Yes, knowing what I do know.'
'And what is that, pray?' As they paused at the roadside his gaze followed a gaily decorated landau with a family of four seated inside. The jogging, horse-drawn carriage reminded Jorja of long ago, when she and Angelica in their summer dresses had sat facing their parents in a landau, giggling together and pretending they were a pair of princesses on a state visit.
Oh, if only she could close her eyes and wish it all back; the pair of them children again, unaware of the things that were going to change their lives.
Automatically she crossed the road with Renzo, hoping he wouldn't pursue an answer to his question. 'Which way shall we go?' she quickly asked. 'Towards the town, or in the direction of Ocean Head?'
His eyes flicked her face, then he gestured with his stick to the immense sprawl of cliffs above the ocean, banked into a crescent which seemed to enclose part of the resort. 'Let's get away from the crowds.'
'We have to go down to the pathway.' She pointed out the steps leading down to the beach.
'I think I can manage those without falling on my face,' he said.
'It's just --' Jorja bit her lip. 'I daren't imagine what it must feel like, not having a kneecap. You're used to it, of course.'
'You, also, will get used to it,' he said drily, and he managed the steps with far less effort than she had imagined.
When they reached the path that skirted the beach Jorja saw a game of volley-ball being strenuously played on the beach by a group of young men in swimming briefs. One of them glanced in her direction, staring brazenly until the ball struck him in the chest. 'Who's the dolly-bird?' someone called out.
'Wouldn't you like to know!' The reply came to Jorja across the sands, and she cast a rather agonised look at Renzo and saw only the imperious profile cast in the natural bronze which was several shades of red on the skin of the ball players.
She felt scorched herself by the thought of being pointed out as the model who had lent herself to a scorching blue movie. She imagined it being whispered up and down the corridors of their palatial hotel, so that when she walked into the public rooms with Renzo a chilling silence would greet them. The women would look at her and later on tell each other that they had known all along that she couldn't be as unworldly as she seemed. The men would have in their eyes a look like the one she had endured last night, when she should right away have corrected that young man's assumption that she was Angelica Norman.
Jorja thrust her hands into the pockets of her breeches, the sea breeze blowing her hair about her face and flapping the silky sleeves of her shirt.
Along this stretch the beach grew wilder, huge slabs of prehistoric-looking rock jutting out of the water, giant perches for the seabirds who were flying and fishing in the golden blue light. As a child she had been awed by the great rocks and the way the sea lashed at them when the tide swept in. At tide-turn the waters of Sandbourne were dangerous and markers were put out warning people not to swim ... Jorja could recall vividly a strange summer day when a pair of swans had ventured from the river estuary where it opened out to the sea and had somehow got stranded out on the rocks and a solitary woman had picked her way among the great slabs, determined that something should be done to help the birds.
The woman had stood out there as the dusk deepened and finally a pair of coastguards had gone out and made her return with them, and something in the scene had made Jorja start to cry. Her mother had said at once that they must return to their hotel, and Jorja never dared to ask about the fate of the swans. She had known, like the woman who had risked a leg on the slippery rocks, that the swans couldn't survive the alien wildness of the sea unless they took wing. Jorja feared that one of the swans had injured a wing and the other one had stayed to die with its mate. She knew that when a swan took a mate it was for always.
She wanted to tell Renzo about that day, but shyness gripped her throat. Any kind of personal talk about those days involved Angelica as well ... in fact, all they seemed to have in common was her sister. Everything between them revolved around her; she was like a beautiful wraith who haunted them.
'This part of Sandbourne is very picturesque, isn't it?' she said at last, made too aware of him when he was silent, for his silence and the stillness of his profile seemed to indicate the trend of his thoughts. When they walked,
Angelica walked beside them. When they talked, she entered the conversation, and Jorja tried to find a topic which might exclude her.
'Does all this—this kind of scenery, give you ideas for a piece of music?' she asked.
'It is rather splendid.' His gaze followed the flight of a seagull, its beak down under the water and emerging with a flash of silvery scales. 'I had not expected Sandbourne to be this wild and lovely.'
'It is unexpected, isn't it?' Jorja took a deep breath of the tangy air. I'm glad you like it.'
'Your childhood paradise,' he murmured. 'You recall those days as golden and unclouded, for children have no need to worry, they have only to enjoy the texture of their days and their dreams.'
Jorja gave him a shy look. 'When you talk like that, Renzo, you make me very aware that you're a composer of music.'
'Do I, Jorja?'
'Yes.'
'Are you fond of music?'
'Very much.'
He turned his head to look at her. 'Let me guess, you like "The Blue Danube", possibly the theme from "Romeo and Juliet", and that fey kind of music which is played on an Irish harp.'
Jorja smiled a little. 'You make me sound like a schoolgirl—and you forgot to mention Chopin.'
'Ah yes, Chopin, preferably the Seventh Prelude when you are feeling light-hearted, but definitely the Second Nocturne when you are in a romantic mood.'
'When would I find time to have romantic moods at the rectory?' she said lightly.
'Quite so, cara. Now you have all the time in the world, have you not?' He stopped walking and made a bar of his stick so she had to come to a halt. They were alone on the path and only the cries of the birds disturbed the silence as he waited for her answer.
She stood there silently, the half-lowered curve of her lashes hiding her expression from him.
'We could make substance out of our shadow marriage, Jorja.'
Her heart gave one of those frantic leaps which he could induce with a look or a word. 'But last night at dinner—you know what we decided.'
The Honeymoon Page 7