Seduced by Innocence

by Lucy Gordon

  “Well, after I’d boxed his ears, he was a bit confused,” Signora Busoni said, pushing the coffee toward Terri. “But he said Leo had gone to visit friends for the weekend.”

  “What friends?”

  “Do you think the fool could tell me that? When I realized Leo wasn’t coming back at all, I boxed Tonio’s ears a few more times but it didn’t make him talk any more sense.”

  “Not coming back at all? You mean he went to stay with friends and just vanished?”

  “That’s right. I cursed him when I realized he’d left owing me money, but it was all right in the end. He sent what he owed.”

  “Then you must know his address?” Terri said eagerly.

  “No, a man came to pay his bill and collect his things.”

  “What was the man’s name?”

  The signora shrugged. “Rienzo—Rafaello—something like that.”

  “You just let him take Leo’s possessions without even knowing his name?” Terri cried.

  “I was very busy packing everything up to close the hotel. Besides, he must have been a friend of your brother’s, or why should he pay his bill?”

  “Can’t you remember anything about him?” Terri asked in despair.

  “Well—he wasn’t a Venetian. From his accent I’d say he came from the south. And he had a large gap between his front teeth.”

  Terri tried one last time. “Could I talk to Tonio, please?”

  “You could if I knew where he was. As soon as the doors were closed, that work-shy good-for-nothing took off. Said he was going to India, to hitchhike.”

  Terri could have wept. She was no nearer to finding Leo than before, and his disappearance seemed even more mysterious. “Can I have a look at his room?” she asked.

  Signora Busoni sighed but didn’t refuse her, and a few minutes later Terri was standing in the room Leo had occupied. The bed had been stripped bare and covers shrouded the furniture. She went through the wardrobe and the bedside drawers hoping to find a scrap of paper, or something that would give her a clue. But there was nothing to suggest he’d ever been there. She stood in the echoing silence and could find no sense of Leo.

  She thanked Signora Busoni and went despondently out into the street. A café stood next door and she went in and ordered coffee. But when it was on the table in front of her, she simply sat staring into thin air, trying to grapple with her despair. Leo had gone away one weekend and simply vanished into thin air, and now she had no idea what to do next.

  “Your coffee will get cold,” came a voice from above her.

  Startled, she looked straight up into the dark eyes of Maurizio. Before she could speak, he’d signaled for a fresh coffee to be set before her. “Thank you,” she said. “I guess I lost track of time.”

  “Have you been to the Busoni to get news of your brother?”

  “Yes. I thought I’d got lucky because the owner returned, but she didn’t know anything. Leo went away one weekend and never came back. Someone paid his bill and took his things.”

  “So he must be all right.”

  “But why didn’t he contact me?”

  “From your description of him,” Maurizio said thoughtfully, “he doesn’t sound like the most responsible person in the world.”

  “That’s true,” she said wryly. “He might simply have forgotten—or maybe he wrote and the letter went astray.”

  “Will you let me give you some advice? Don’t worry about Leo. I don’t think he came to any harm.”

  She made a valiant effort to seem nonchalant. “Oh, I’m not worried. Like I said last night, Leo is such a jumping bean that—” She saw Maurizio looking at her and her pose collapsed. “Leo’s thoughtless but he’s kind. He’d have called me before this unless—no, I’m not going to start thinking like that. There’s still the art gallery where he did some casual work. There’s also the casino, where, according to Signora Busoni, he used to gamble the rent away. A waiter told me you’re having a big function there tonight.”

  “That’s right, to celebrate the new rooms. So it will be the ideal time for you to come. All Venice will be here, not the tourists but the Venetians.”

  Perhaps the Calvanis, she thought with rising excitement. Then she remembered her dull wardrobe. “I haven’t anything suitable to wear,” she mused out loud. “I saw people coming in last night and they were dressed to the nines.”

  “So you must do the same,” Maurizio said with a shrug. “If you haven’t a suitable gown, it’s simple to obtain one. Some of the Venetian shops sell the highest fashion.”

  “I don’t need the highest fashion. I don’t want to look conspicuous.”

  Maurizio laughed, and the sound went through her like warm tremors. “Whoever heard of coming to the Midas Casino and being inconspicuous?” he declared. “When the gorgeous peacocks of Venice parade under the chandeliers, they know how the lights make them glitter, and they strive to outdo one another. Being inconspicuous isn’t allowed.”

  “I don’t really see myself as a peacock. Nature didn’t make me that way.”

  “How do you know?” he asked at once. “There isn’t one woman in a thousand who really understands how nature meant her to be. Only the beholder knows that.”

  His eyes were fixed intently on her, and she had a terrible temptation to ask him how he saw her. But in the same moment, she felt herself instinctively withdrawing, as she always did at the first sign of a man’s interest. Part of her felt a frisson of intense pleasure at his gaze and the significance behind it, but another part, that was beyond her control, flinched.

  “I know myself,” she said, fighting a sudden breathlessness. “I’m no peacock. More like a little brown mouse.”

  Unnervingly, he leaned closer and brushed back a stray tendril of blond hair. “No little brown mouse ever had hair this shade of pale gold,” he said softly. “It’s the color of glamour.”

  “Glamour,” she echoed with an awkward little laugh. “Me?”

  Maurizio curled the tendril softly around his finger. “Didn’t you ever read fairy tales as a child?” he asked. “The princess was usually blond, whether she was called Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, she was as fair as a spring day, and the prince found her irresistible.”

  She looked up at him, puzzled at his tone, and suddenly Maurizio felt something constrict his throat. Did ever a temptress gaze at a man from eyes so innocent and candid, so dangerously concealing of her true nature? Elena Calvani’s daughter, with Elena Calvani’s treacherous ways! It was all there in the lovely blue eyes, curving mouth and small, determined chin. A seductress masquerading as an ice maiden. And such a mask! So convincing that a man might almost believe it was the real thing, if he didn’t know that it couldn’t be.

  He was assailed by a mad desire to get her out of the demure clothes she was wearing and into something that would reveal the truth about her inner nature. Then perhaps he would know peace instead of being tormented by the two conflicting sides of her. The need was like a storm within him, but no trace of it appeared on his smooth, gambler’s face. “You must let me take you to a place where you can choose something suitable to wear,” he told her.

  “Well—perhaps some other time,” Terri prevaricated. She was feeling rather overwhelmed by his energy.

  “What better time than now? Come. I know the very boutique that will suit you.” He took her hand and strode out of the café.

  There was no question of refusing, and suddenly she didn’t want to. An urgent physical excitement had blended into a feeling of happiness that swept her without warning.

  After hurrying along for ten minutes, they plunged into a tiny shop, so tucked away that Terri would never have noticed it. As Maurizio swept her in, she just had time to notice a single dress in the window. It looked simple but expensive, and the fact that there was no price on it suggested it was very expensive. Anyone who had to ask the price couldn’t afford it. “Maurizio,” she tried to protest.

  But he was already inside, summoning the ma
nageress and greeting her with a kiss on the cheek. She evidently recognized him and regarded Terri with interest and curiosity. “My friend Teresa Wainright is buying new clothes,” Maurizio declared. “First she needs something for the big party at the casino tonight. It must be extra special.”

  Signora Zena, the manageress, was tall, middle-aged and imposing. She cast appraising eyes over Terri before going to a curtained door and rattling out a series of commands. Within a few minutes, two young woman scurried in with their arms filled with gowns. “This one first,” Zena declared, indicating a creation in blue.

  Terri tried it on in the changing room and emerged hesitantly. The skirt was shorter than she was used to wearing, yet she was rather taken with her new, more glamorous self. But Maurizio shook his head when he saw her. “It’s perfect for her,” Zena declared. “Youthful and daring.”

  “Too daring,” Maurizio insisted.

  “So? The young can afford to take risks. Signorina Wainright has a perfect figure. She should show it off. Later will be too late.”

  “Hey, don’t I get a say in this argument?” Terri asked, amused and bewildered. “I like it.”

  “It doesn’t suit you,” Maurizio said firmly. “Try something else.” He saw her looking at him askance and broke into a smile that seemed to make her heart somersault. “I’m being intolerably overbearing, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” the two women said with one voice.

  He assumed an expression of penitence that didn’t fool Terri. This man was a natural autocrat and any appearance of regret was merely a device for getting his own way. Already she could divine that much about him. But it didn’t matter. The fact that he cared so much what she wore caused a sweet singing inside her. He should have been back at the Midas completing his preparations for tonight, but on such a busy day he’d chosen to be here with her, trying to make her appearance fit his inner vision of her. Just to know that she figured in his inner vision gave her a feeling of excitement that was filled with delightful danger. If she was to look the way he wanted, what would he do then?

  At Maurizio’s insistence, she tried another dress but that didn’t please him, either. He seemed unable to explain what he wanted, yet he knew exactly what he didn’t want. At last Zena produced a white dress that Terri had briefly considered and discarded, and said wearily, “There’s only this one left.”

  “I don’t really want a floor-length gown,” Terri began to say, and stopped when she saw Maurizio’s face. “What is it?” she asked anxiously.

  He seemed to come out of a dream. “Try that one on,” he said with an effort.

  “But it’s white. I don’t normally wear white. I think it looks pallid with my coloring.”

  “Try it,” he repeated.

  The dress was skintight and hugged her so closely that she had to strip off every stitch of underclothing to get a smooth line. Yet the neckline was demurely high, coming right up to her throat. There were no sleeves and the gown was cut away over the shoulders so that everything hung from the neck. Terri drew in her breath at the vision that faced her in the mirror. This was a dress for a woman who was supremely confident in her own body, yet who kept that body for herself, revealing only a little, and that in the most tantalizing and subtle manner; it was for a woman who held back, seeming to offer much yet offering nothing that couldn’t be withdrawn; suggesting much, yet nothing that couldn’t be denied. Only a subtle temptress could wear such a dress, and Terri simply didn’t feel up to it.

  “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, “but not for me.”

  “I disagree,” Maurizio said in a strange voice. “I think it suits you to perfection.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to take a look at yourself next door,” Zena suggested smoothly. “You can watch yourself walking in the mirrors.” After showing Terri into a long room, one whole wall of which was taken up by mirrors, she discreetly faded away.

  Terri stood for a moment, trying not to hear Madge’s voice crying “Slut!” in her mind. Only a slut would wear such a dress, so calculated to warn men off and lure them on at the same time. Slowly, Terri began to walk the length of the room, watching her own movements in the mirrors. Mysteriously, her body seemed to have changed shape in some indefinable way. Now it glided as though it had been born to wear such a provocative garment. It knew just how to walk to reveal the curve of hip beneath the chaste white silk. Maurizio’s face came into her mind, his eyes warm and penetrating as she’d seen them last night. She knew he wanted her to choose this dress and the thought sent heat scurrying through her body, making her breathless. Never before had she known this unnerving sensation of having her will destroyed. She was a strong-minded woman, but all she wanted now was to look as he desired, and be what he wanted.

  Slut! Slut!

  “No,” she breathed. “I won’t listen to you. It doesn’t make me a slut to feel this way. It makes me—his. But I’ve only known him a day. How can I be such a fool?”

  She walked the length of the mirrored wall again, torn by indecision.

  Maurizio, waiting outside with apparent calm, allowed Zena to press coffee on him, drinking it without tasting it. His thoughts were in that room, with Terri. Mentally he walked the floor with her, watching every sinuous movement of the dress against her hips and thighs, contrasting them with the nunlike face above. To torment a man by cloaking herself in feigned ingenuousness—Elena’s daughter would have been born knowing how to do that. What was she waiting for now? Some sign that she could lead him on, perhaps? If so, she would be disappointed.

  But as the minutes ticked away and she didn’t appear, his nerves tautened to breaking point. “Perhaps you should go and have another word with her,” he said to the manageress.

  She shrugged. “Oh, no. That’s the way to lose a sale. When a woman is undecided, the more time alone she has, the better.”

  “In that case, I’ll have some more coffee.” He set his cup down with a slight clatter.

  *

  Terri came to a reluctant decision. She felt like a coward because her nerve had failed her, but Madge’s influence had proved too strong. She pushed her hair up high on her head in the manner the dress demanded and took one last longing look at what she might have been.

  “Yes.”

  She opened her eyes wide at the soft violence of that word. Maurizio had entered silently and stood looking at her in the mirror. “Yes,” he repeated. “Like that.”

  She turned, letting her soft blond hair fall. “I can’t,” she protested. “It’s not me. I only wish it were.”

  In a moment he was beside her, turning her to face the mirror again. “That’s because it is you and in your heart you know it,” he insisted. His strong, brown hands swept her hair back up, leaving her neck bare, and suddenly she was overwhelmingly conscious of how close his lips were to that bare skin. “Look,” he said, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Look and see the truth of yourself.” He caught up a tendril from her neck and she shivered as his fingertips brushed her. “Why do you deny it?” he whispered.

  She sighed, overpoweringly tempted. “If only…”

  “If onlys are for little girls. A woman takes what she wants. You want this gown because it tells you the truth about yourself, and also because I want you to wear it.”

  Overwhelmed though she was, one calm, ironic corner of Terri’s mind resented this assumption and enabled her to say with a touch of annoyance, “Do I really want only what you want, Maurizio? Aren’t you taking a lot for granted?”

  “A lot, yes. Too much? Only you can answer that. Blame yourself for what you’re doing to me.” The words poured out of him in something like desperation. He was closer to losing control than he’d ever been in his life. She’d shown him the vision before threatening to snatch it away, and now he was on the rack.

  And he’d blundered. He knew that was so when he saw the sudden aloofness in her eyes. She was watching him and calculating, and he’d revealed too much. He strove to get command of himself, to remem
ber that she was a part of his plan, but it was no good. The warm, sweet scent of her filled his nostrils, making his senses riot. Her pale skin was silk under his fingers, while the dress suggested and concealed everything he wanted to know. Unable to stop himself, he drew her back against him and dropped his head so that his lips rested on her long neck. He felt the tremor that went through her, then the slight stiffening as if she were rejecting what was happening. For a moment, he almost thought she would break away from him, and the thought almost drove him to madness. He wanted her, not Elena Calvani’s daughter but her, Teresa Wainright with her soft skin, candid eyes and air of innocent abstraction. He wanted her and he would have her.

  He tightened his hold, turning her in his arms so that he could look into her face. Her head was thrown back and her lips were slightly parted, but what struck him most was the startled look in her eyes, as though she couldn’t understand what was happening to her.

  “Teresa…” The word was torn from him. “Teresa…”

  He was kissing her before she knew what he was going to do, kissing her with a mad lack of restraint that made a mockery of his careful plans. There was no calculation now, only a burning desire to possess this woman, to discover the heart of her mystery and understand it, so that it ceased tormenting him. She was sweet and melting in his arms, yet with a hint of fire far back, fire that he knew would draw him on so that it could engulf and consume him.

  He’d known that her pale blond beauty, so seemingly English, was but a mask for her hot Italian blood. Now he rediscovered it with new force. That mask hid the truth of her, and the truth was what he was determined to have. He forgot that he, too, hid behind a mask of steel that he kept between himself and the world. The touch of her lips on his left him feeling defenseless, open to her and all the new experiences she promised. He kissed her more deeply, reveling in the discovery of a woman unlike all others.

  In the first shattering moments of his embrace, Terri tensed. The old instinctive withdrawal was still there, but it couldn’t survive under the onslaught of Maurizio’s passion. She’d been kissed before, but only by boys who’d politely retreated when they sensed her coolness. This was a man who would retreat before nothing, whose desire was fierce enough to melt her icy barriers. She put her arms about him, returning his kiss in a way she hadn’t realized she could. But she did know it because the knowledge was born into every woman for the man who could bring it to life.