The Honeymoon

by Violet Winspear

  'Do you expect any thanks for standing by?'

  'Probably not, but it's going to be a difficult time for him, especially as he's chosen not to try and locate Stelvio.'

  'Who, presumably, is still with Angelica?'

  'Yes.' She gazed through the wide windscreen, where she seemed to see Renzo's dark, determined face. She felt sure it was because of Angelica that he chose not to contact his brother, for who could tell what Stelvio might do? He might bring her to England with him!

  'What are you thinking, Jorja?'

  A traffic signal glowed red against the windscreen. 'That if I do leave Renzo, for whatever reason, then I shall go home to Duncton. You see, Bruce, I don't think love is for people like me. We take it too much to heart and want what is beyond the purely physical. Oh yes, everyone likes to make love but the real splendour is in feeling it.'

  The traffic lights went from amber to green, and when the car arrived at Hanson Square and turned into the driveway of the house, Bruce looked at Jorja as if she had eluded him.

  'I'll see you on Friday,' she said. 'Thank you for treating me to such a nice lunch.'

  He gripped her hand, as if he would hold her there and not let her enter the tall Georgian house. 'If you go home to Duncton, then I'll follow you and prove how wrong you are to run away from me.'

  'I must go in, Bruce.'

  'Did you hear what I said, Jorja?'

  'I heard, Bruce.'

  'Would you refuse to see me if I came to the rectory?'

  'Of course not.' She half-smiled. 'I'd give you lunch and return your hospitality.'

  'You're an elusive girl, aren't you?'

  'Which must be a novelty for a successful and attractive director of films,' she rejoined.

  His green eyes glimmered down at her. 'So you think me attractive, eh?'

  'You're a nice man, Bruce, but I'm a married woman and if I'm seen holding hands with you, right in front of my husband's house, I'm going to be in trouble. Do you want to make trouble for me?'

  'Yes and no,' he said frankly. 'It would all be out in the open, wouldn't it?'

  'Do let go of me, Bruce.'

  'Must I really?'

  'Yes.'

  'You could invite me in.'

  'I certainly won't.' She cast a swift look at the house, which had a serene and mellow look in the afternoon light; the emotions and sorrows it had witnessed were not apparent. The walls and windows were like features which had masked their pain.

  'Renzo could have returned by now,' she said, dropping her voice into a lower key. 'If he has, then Monica will be with him.'

  'It might make things easier for you if I came in,' Bruce suggested.

  Jorja shook her head. 'You don't know the kind of mood Renzo has been in—I don't want him getting any wrong ideas about us.'

  'Would they be so very wrong?'

  'You know the answer to that.' She gave him a troubled look. 'I might not be the woman Renzo loves but I am his wife, and living in England doesn't mean that he reacts like an Englishman.'

  'You're not afraid of him, are you?' Bruce glanced at the house, whose graciousness could be a kind of cage for Jorja. 'It was never my business to think of Renzo in relation to a woman, and I could certainly see that Angelica would be a match for Old Nick himself. But I'm damned if I'll have him pushing you around!'

  'He doesn't push me around,' she protested.

  'Not in a physical way, perhaps, but you're living on the edge of his moods, and you don't know how to please or console him, do you? To the devil with him, Jorja! You're not going into that house ‑'

  At which juncture the front door opened above the steps to reveal Torrence. He came out in his stately way upon the top step. 'If you please, madam, you are wanted in the drawing-room.'

  'Bruce,' her fingers scrabbled for their release, 'you must let go of me!'

  'Let me come in ‑'

  'No.' Her eyes flashed with appeal. 'I know you mean well, but you're going to get me into trouble—please, let me go.'

  Reluctantly he let go of her hand and watched as she ran quickly up the steps and in through the door which Torrence held open. 'Thank you,' she said breathlessly to the butler. 'Signore Talmonte is back from the airport?'

  'Yes, madam.' The butler quietly closed the door. 'He saw you from the drawing-room window and sent me to fetch you.'

  Her heart was hammering. As she crossed the hall she heard the Porsche drive away and couldn't help feeling a stab of regret. Especially when she entered the room where Renzo stood tall and broodingly handsome by the windows, where the deep-gold of the curtains seemed to frame his dark-clad figure.

  The moment she stepped into the drawing-room, his eyes ran over her, showing not a glimmer of welcome. 'Did you intend to stand all day in the square with Clayton?' he demanded. 'Hand in hand?'

  'Bruce was good enough to give me lunch, and naturally he has offered his sympathy regarding your mother.' Jorja spoke composedly, but there was something in his manner which jarred on her. He had started to pace back and forth and when he gestured towards a chair, she obeyed him and sat down.

  'Did you meet Monica?' she asked. 'Is she here?'

  'Oh yes, she is here.'

  His tone of voice was so sardonic that Jorja couldn't help looking at him in surprise. 'What is it, Renzo—what's wrong?' She felt instinctively that his manner had nothing to do with Bruce and the fact that she had spent two hours lunching with him. Something took precedence over that ... something which she started to guess even as he began to tell her.

  'Stelvio came with her,' he said, pausing in front of Jorja's chair and capturing her gaze, which widened incredulously upon his face. 'They are together right now in the guest suite, saying some of the things they couldn't discuss on the aircraft.'

  'So Monica managed to contact him ‑?'

  Renzo shook his head. 'It was Flavia. She assumed that I would want my brother located, so with her usual efficiency she proceeded to make enquiries. As it turned out he had left the yacht on which he had been cruising and had returned to Rome, and a business colleague was able to put Flavia in direct touch with him. She informed him that Monica was due to fly to London, gave him the time of the flight, and he was able to book himself a seat.'

  Jorja sat there in silence, while all the unspoken questions raced through her mind. What about Angelica? Had Stelvio left the yacht because they had quarrelled? Had he even been on the yacht with her?

  'Monica's with your brother in the guest suite?' she asked.

  'They are together.' Renzo resumed his pacing. 'He's extremely upset over madre, but somehow it has bridged a very awkward gap. In a while they are going to the chapel of rest.'

  'And what are you feeling, Renzo?' Jorja had to ask. 'You were so angry with him.'

  Her husband spread his hands in a very Latin way. 'When I saw them together at the airport, what could I say? Monica was pleading with her eyes, and he was obviously stricken by the news about madre. And knowing our mother, she would want the two of us reconciled.'

  'Oh, I'm glad about that.' Jorja rose to her feet and went to Renzo, her hand reaching out to his. It felt lean and muscular within her clasp, and it was the first time in days that she had touched him. 'I was hoping something like this would happen, for her sake.'

  'I would prefer her to be alive.' He turned away from Jorja and went to stand alone by the window from which he had seen her with Bruce. 'Madre was the one constant person in my life, always the same, always serene and wise. Other women? What are they? Creatures of the moment whom a man is a fool to trust.'

  Jorja stared across the room at him, a slim figure in grey, uncertain as she stood beneath the charming, hand-painted scenes of Georgian court life which embellished the ceiling. A chill feeling struck through her, and suddenly she felt in the way. Like someone whose part in the drama was no longer integral to the plot.

  'Renzo,' she had to ask, 'who walked out on whom?'

  'Need you ask?' He went on gazing from the window
into the square, where the sun had given way to the threat of rain.

  'I see.' When Jorja stepped out of the drawing-room, a man and a woman were making their way downstairs. She was an elegant brunette wearing a black mink coat. He had something of Renzo in his appearance, but he seemed less distinct, certainly less impressive as he stood staring at Jorja.

  Even as that look on his face slightly angered her, she realised that he hadn't expected his brother's wife to look like the woman who had almost ruined his marriage.

  'I'm Jorja,' she said quietly. 'I'm glad you both had a safe journey to London.'

  'I am glad to know you.' Monica stepped forward with a nervous eagerness and hugged Jorja against the silky dark fur of her coat. 'We are going to be friends, eh? We shall be a family again!'

  Jorja was looking directly at Stelvio across Monica's shoulder and she saw a kind of resignation in his eyes; the look of a man who was here with his wife because he was no longer wanted elsewhere. He had been bewitched, led into the dance of love by Angelica ... now the dance had ended but the spell of it still held him.

  It was something Jorja had learned to live with, and she feared for the harmony which Monica hoped to enjoy with him.

  Renzo's car and driver awaited them in the square, and after they had left for the chapel, Jorja went upstairs. She felt a little weary, as if her emotions had been stretched beyond bearing. She took off her shoes and jacket, stretched out on the couch in the sitting-room and closed her eyes. Her restless mind went back and forth over the events of the day, and each one had a significance which stretched beyond Friday, when both the Contessa's sons would now follow her casket to the quiet grave.

  What, she wondered, had been Renzo's inmost thoughts when he had stood by the window and watched the day clouding over. He had not asked what she and Bruce had found to talk about, but he had probably watched them in some curiosity. He hadn't missed the way Bruce had held on to her hand.

  She turned restlessly against the cushioned headrest of the couch. Did she want him to ask questions? Did she want him to show some sign of jealousy?

  It was a forlorn hope. There was no jealousy without love or desire ... no emotions of any sort between strangers, and in the past few days that was what they had become. Sometimes when she looked at him she saw again the cold stranger who had forced her to read Angelica's letters. The memory of it held Jorja like a stark dream, in which everything was darkly detailed. Even the roses seemed black in contrast to the torn-up pieces of paper on which words were still discernible.

  'I need to be with you, Stelvio! When I'm in your arms and you are kissing every part of me, no one else matters! When you take me, I'm delirious…'

  Jorja's lips twisted almost with cynicism. So much for the delirium of love! Where was Angelica right now? Was she with some other man, or were other plans going on in her lovely head?

  Jorja listened to the sound of rain against the windows. Monica and Stelvio would be at the chapel right now, together in the dim, cool beauty of his mother's resting place. Her sad loss might bind him to his wife again, and in time he might forget the witchery and the self-serving lies of someone who looked like an angel and behaved like a devil.

  Yes, there was a glimmer of hope for Monica and Stelvio, but Jorja saw no hope for her own marriage. It had never started out as a love affair; it had been for both of them a vendetta the impetus of which had died with the Contessa.

  That was when Jorja had looked into Renzo's eyes and seen the pain and shock of a man affronted by his own behaviour, and from that moment he had shut her out. The rain was pelting the windows now, and the room had dimmed so that Jorja could barely make out its details. She was intensely startled when the telephone rang on the table beside the couch and for an instant she lay there, almost resenting its intrusion upon her thoughts.

  When she lifted the receiver, she was even more startled to hear her husband's voice on the line. 'A friend of yours is calling,' he said. 'I'm switching him through to you.'

  'Jorja?' As the caller spoke she heard Renzo replace the receiver of the downstair's phone. 'I just had to speak to you—I had to find out if you were all right. Are you?'

  'Yes.' It was Bruce Clayton, and even as she automatically replied to him, she had an image of Renzo, looking as he had sounded, neither angry nor amazed that Bruce should phone her. A cold, cold feeling swept through her, for his indifference was more punishing than anything else had ever been.

  'Renzo saw us together, didn't he, Jorja?'

  'Yes,' he saw us from the window.'

  'What did he have to say? Was he annoyed with you?'

  'He didn't seem to care very much.' She shuddered anew and felt as if she were out in the rain and it was beating against her skin as it beat against the windows. 'He was back from the airport—Monica didn't come alone, Bruce. She came with Stelvio.'

  'Stelvio? You mean he ‑'

  'He had been in Rome for some days—alone.'

  'Good lord! So the flaming affair with Angelica came to an end?'

  'It would seem so.'

  'Have you heard from her? Has she been in touch?'

  'No.'

  'You sound—what is it, Jorja, are you afraid of what she'll do?'

  'I'm not afraid, Bruce, but I am prepared.'

  'Damn that little hellcat! She hurts everyone she touches—leaves destruction in her path like some damned hurricane. You must get out of that house, Jorja! I'm coming to fetch you out before that sister of yours descends on you. You've done the unforgivable, haven't you? You've married one of her men, and they remain hers even after she's turned them inside out. Pack a bag, Jorja. I'll be with you in about twenty minutes ‑'

  'No, Bruce ...'

  'See reason, my dear girl. Angelica's had a game with Stelvio's heart, now she'll come after Renzo again. You know it, and I know it. And didn't you say that he still wants her?'

  'I did say that, yes.'

  'Then leave them to it. If Renzo still wants the pain and dubious pleasure of Angelica, then walk out on him, Jorja. Walk out with your head held high. Let him see that you aren't beaten down. Come away with me—you know I care about you. You're the nicest, kindest, most sweet-face girl I ever met and I want you—I want you, Jorja.'

  'You're kind yourself, Bruce.'

  'Then start packing that bag.'

  'No.' Jorja surprised herself, she spoke the word so firmly. 'I'm not running away.'

  'You can't mean it. You can't stay and be torn in two by a husband who doesn't love you, and a sister who doesn't give a damn so long as her whims and fancies are satisfied. You're not going to like this, Jorja, but your sister's a film tramp. She's appeared in the kind of movies they hire out from way under the counter; the kind of videos the police swoop down on.'

  'I know,' Jorja said quietly. 'That's why I'm not leaving Hanson Square, for I've the same feeling you have, Bruce. I believe she's back in London —she's out there somewhere, among the glaring lights, and she's looking this way.'

  'God, Jorja, you're making my blood run cold,'

  Bruce exclaimed. 'What are you going to do?'

  'I'll kill her,' Jorja said deliberately, 'if she tries to lay one hand on Renzo.'

  There was a protracted silence at the other end of the telephone line, then Bruce spoke and the energy had drained out of his voice. 'You love hint that much, Jorja?'

  'It seems that I do, Bruce.' Energy was flowing in her own voice; flowing through her, warming her back to life again. 'A little while ago I was lying here on the couch and I had the surest feeling that I'm going to have a baby. It wasn't anything tangible, no sudden faintness, or sudden craving for spicy pickles, just a tiny finger touching my heart and warning me not to give up what became mine on the day I promised to love, cherish and keep for always the man I married.'

  'But he forced you into marriage with him,' Bruce protested.

  'There's no doubt of that,' she agreed. 'But he never forced me into his arms, I went willingly.'

  A qui
et groan broke from Bruce Clayton. 'What's the scenario if he tells you to your face that he doesn't want you?'

  'He'll want his child.'

  'And you'll settle for that?'

  'If I must.'

  'You're a sweet-faced fool, Jorja.'

  'I dare say I am, but I know something wise, that very often in a family a baby replaces a beloved person who has died, and I shall be as ruthless as Angelica in getting what I want. Believe me, Bruce.'

  'It seems I have to believe you, dearest girl, who will never be my dear.'

  'Thank you for phoning me, dear Bruce.'

  'Was my call the catalyst which made up your mind?'

  'Yes.' And she was smiling in the darkness as she cradled the receiver and rose to her feet. After switching on the light she found her shoes and stepped into them. She smoothed her hair but didn't look at herself in the mirror; right now she didn't want to face those aspects which made her look like Angelica. She was Jorja, and as Jorja she was going to confront Renzo.

  Upon arriving downstairs, where the lights were ablaze in the hall, she glanced into the drawing-room but found it unoccupied. She went across to the music-room and opened the door with its rococo carvings of tiny fiddles, trumpets and harps. The handsome grand piano stood as silent as the recording equipment, and on the music stand there was a half-filled page of those strange symbols which turned out to be the most sweeping and romantic of harmonies.

  Had he left the house? Had he gone out in the rain, to walk down to the Embankment to stand alone with his thoughts?

  'Are you looking for your husband, madam?'

  She turned to face Torrence, and instantly she had composed her features. 'Has he gone out?' she asked.

  'No, madam, he asked for coffee to be served to him in the garden room.

  'I'll join him.'

  As she made her way to the garden room, Jorja felt that Torrence was concerned for her. He would have noticed the constraint between Renzo and herself, and the maids would have mentioned that they weren't sharing a bed. Jorja suddenly knew how much she wanted her husband's arms around her; she wanted the close, hard feel of him, his deep-grey eyes flickering with fire as he touched her, kissed her, made her belong to him from her tingling toes to the luxurious movements of her head, cradled by his arm.