Seduced by Innocence

by Lucy Gordon

  *

  At the hotel she hurried upstairs and packed as quickly as she could, throwing her clothes in with no concern to orderliness. As she was closing the last lock, there was a knock at the door. “Who is it?” she called cautiously.

  “Francisco.”

  Surprised, she opened the door to the count. “Elena told me everything that happened at the cemetery,” he said. “I hurried here at once.”

  “I’m leaving the Midas. I can’t stay here with Maurizio, not after he—” Abruptly, she stopped speaking, realizing that she couldn’t tell the whole story without betraying Elena’s secret.

  “Yes?” Francisco urged, watching her face.

  “After he behaved so cruelly to Elena,” Terri finished lamely.

  Francisco studied her for a moment longer, then he said, “I know about Rufio. Venice is a city of love and these little flirtations are innocent enough. It’s a tragedy that Rufio took it so seriously, but I’ve told Elena she mustn’t blame herself. She came home very upset, so I’ve come to fetch you. You must stay with us now.”

  “You mean live in the palazzo?

  “Elena needs you. I know you won’t refuse her this little service. If you’ve finished your packing, we could go now.” He took her bags and they went out together.

  At the reception desk, she received a shock. Francisco had already paid her bill. “I was simply acting on my wife’s instructions,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

  In a few moments, her bags were loaded into his motorboat and they were moving. As they swung out into the Grand Canal, Maurizio’s boat appeared, but he didn’t see them.

  At the palazzo, Elena greeted her by running down the full length of the grand stairway and throwing her arms about Terri’s neck. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “Promise not to leave me.”

  “I promise,” Terri said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Once in her own room, Elena almost collapsed, clinging to Terri and shaking like a leaf. “I knew he hated me,” she said through streaming tears. “But not that much.” She buried her face against Terri, sobbing hysterically, and for the moment there was nothing Terri could do but hold her and try to comfort her. She put her arms about Elena and sat beside her on the bed, rocking her as though she were the mother and Elena her child.

  At last Elena raised her head. Her hair was in disarray and her makeup smudged. The perfectly groomed beauty had vanished, to be replaced by a tortured, despairing woman. “I didn’t know what Rufio was going to do,” she moaned. “He never told me he was thinking of suicide, I swear he didn’t. Oh, Teresa, you must believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you.”

  “I don’t understand why Rufio should tell his brother such a lie. He’d never have hurt me.”

  “Did you love him?” Terri asked gently.

  “How could I help but love him? He loved me and I was so lonely for love. But I was so much older. If we’d lived together, he’d soon have realized it was a mistake, but his honor would have made him stay with me. His life would have been ruined. I loved him too dearly to do that to him. I tried to explain why we had no future but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept saying that I couldn’t love him. I thought he’d understand one day. I never dreamed—” She burst into more sobs and Terri enfolded her again in her arms, hating Maurizio. How could a man cause such devastation and still try to justify himself?

  At last Elena pulled herself together and took Terri to the room she’d had prepared for her. Terri looked around her in amazement. It was almost as luxurious as Elena’s own, not at all the room of a paid employee. “I don’t need anything as grand as this—”

  “But this is close to my room,” Elena said eagerly. “I need you near me. I feel stronger if you’re there.”

  “Of course, if that’s what you want.”

  Suddenly, they both tensed. From somewhere deep in the house they could hear the sound of doors banging, men’s voices raised in anger. Terri slipped out onto the landing and looked down the long stairs to where she could see Francisco and another man. The painful thump of her heart told her the other man’s identity before she could see his face. For an instant, she was on the verge of returning to her room, locking the door and staying there, where Maurizio couldn’t get her. But the next moment, her head went up and she was walking purposefully down the stairs to confront him.

  “I’m glad to see you, signorina,” Francisco said. “Our friend here seems to think I kidnapped you. Perhaps you can enlighten him.”

  Maurizio ignored him and strode up to Terri. “Come away from here,” he said urgently. “It’s no place for you.”

  “On the contrary,” she said, “it’s the ideal place. I’m close to my work and Elena needs me.”

  “I’m sure you’d prefer to talk in private,” Francisco said with a cool smile. “Oblige me by making use of my study.” He indicated the double doors immediately behind her, and walked away.

  Maurizio followed her into Francisco’s study and closed the heavy doors. “You have to leave here,” he insisted. “I know Francisco better than you. The most corrupt, debauched sinner in all Venice, a man with no morals and no scruples, whose pastime is destroying innocence—”

  “You had no scruples about introducing me to him for your own purposes,” she reminded him pointedly.

  He winced. “I never liked your working here, but as long as you weren’t living under his roof—”

  Terri swung around to face him, eyes blazing. “Do you think I do only what you allow? Oh, yes—you had a plan. Leo and I were to be your pawns, but we both spoiled it by doing things you hadn’t thought of, didn’t we? Now we’ve stepped out of your plan. Leo is wandering around somewhere, not knowing who he is, and I’ve come to where I belong.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said desperately. “You don’t belong in this sink of corruption.”

  “Who isn’t corrupt? You with your heartless scheming? Not me, surely? I’ve been taught some fascinating lessons by a man who took my heart and twisted it to his own purpose, a man who degraded love by using it as a weapon in the vendetta. Can anyone be more corrupt than that? Why are you here, Maurizio? Why aren’t you out looking for my brother?”

  “I’m going to find him if I have to tear this city apart.”

  “Then do it. And when you’ve done it, come back and I may have something to say to you.”

  “I don’t know you,” he said, staring at her, dazed. “It can’t be you, speaking like this.”

  “It’s me as I am now. You said I’d discover myself in Venice and I have. And I like the new me. She’s strong enough to cope with what you’ve done and tell you to go to hell.”

  “It can’t end between us like this—”

  “It’s already ended.”

  “And what we were to each other—can you forget it just like that?”

  “We were nothing to each other,” she cried in anguish. “I thought—you made me think—” She choked and brought herself under control by sheer force of will. Devastated, paralyzed with horror, Maurizio couldn’t tear his eyes from the havoc he’d wreaked. His lips formed her name but he could make no sound. “None of that matters,” she said when she could trust her voice. “I thought you were an honest man. You thought I was a fool. We were both wrong.”

  “We thought many things about each other, Teresa,” he said somberly. “And some of them were true.”

  “Nothing was true,” she said vehemently. “Not one word from the beginning. You planned everything so that I could be useful to you in your plan. Even when—” She broke off, shuddering.

  “Teresa.” He came toward her.

  “No, don’t come near me. I never want to see you again unless it’s to tell me that Leo’s safe.”

  “I’ll find him,” he swore. “But, Teresa I beg you to believe that my feelings for you have been honest.”

  “Oh, I do. Vengeance is a very honest feeling,” she raged.

  “For God’s sak
e, don’t make this worse by denying the truth of what’s between us.”

  “I decide my own truth,” she retorted. “I’ll never again take ‘the truth’ from you.”

  “Not from me but from your own heart. It speaks for me, Teresa. Listen to it.”

  “My heart speaks only of hatred,” she said bitterly. “There’s nothing else there.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said, coming very close to her.

  She saw what he meant to do and put up a hand to ward him off, but he ignored it and pulled her close. She refused to struggle, but looked up at him with fierce eyes. Her breast rose and fell quickly with her anger and she could hear his heart hammering against her, but she felt none of the old tenderness. Hatred as strong as passion welled up within her, making her breath come quickly and her eyes glitter. That sight was Maurizio’s undoing. With a growl, he tightened his arms and dropped his head to lay his lips on hers.

  She tensed, holding herself motionless, fighting him with silence and stillness. Let him see that he had no power over her now.

  If only it were true. Within seconds, she knew that her hatred and her new strength were useless against the passion that his lightest touch could bring alive. And he wasn’t touching her lightly now, but with purpose and a determination to make her relive everything she wanted to forget. His lips were torturers invoking the memory of suffocating kisses that had led to deeper delight. His hands were possessed by black magic, recalling caresses that had driven her wild when they lay together—as they never would again.

  “No,” she whispered, unable to endure the memory. “No.”

  “There are some truths that are beyond words, Teresa,” he growled against her lips. “Love me or hate me—as long as I live in your heart somehow.”

  He smothered her answer beneath a kiss that burned her with its wildness. His mouth was desperate as it strove to reawaken the tenderness and delight that had once been his for the taking. All tenderness was gone from the woman in his arms now. Her eyes, blazing up into his, were hostile, but even in the midst of hostility there was a gleam of something no hatred could kill, something that had existed between man and woman since the dawn of time. Part of her was still his and would always be his. But he knew this wasn’t enough. He could rekindle her passion but not her love, and now that he’d thrown it away forever, he understood that it was her love he wanted. This one woman, so different from any other, had been sent by an ironic fate to torment him. He’d meant to use her but she’d turned the tables on him, showing him how little he knew of the human heart, reducing him to despair.

  “Love me or hate me,” he repeated.

  “Let it be hate then,” she said fiercely.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying! Do you think there can ever be any feeling between us that isn’t infused with passion?”

  “I can be as passionate when I hate as when I love. Hate can be beautiful, Maurizio. It sings in my blood and shows me how to enjoy your pain and fear. And you are afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid that Leo may never be found. But why should you worry? If he’s dead, you’ll have the final revenge on Elena. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

  “No,” he cried hoarsely.

  “But you should. It’ll be the perfect murder, because nobody will ever be able to prove his death was your fault. They’ll suspect. I’ll make sure of that. They’ll wonder every time they look at you, but there’ll never be any proof. You’ll stay free, but for the rest of your life, Leo’s ghost will walk one step behind you.”

  “Did a devil put those words in your mouth?” he demanded. “Do you enjoy tormenting me?”

  “Yes, I enjoy it.”

  He stood back and regarded her in horror. “I’ve committed many crimes,” he said, “but I think the greatest one is the change I’ve wrought in you. Dear God, what have I done to you—to us?”

  “What have you done to me? You’ve taken my brother away from me, perhaps destroyed him. In here—” she laid her hands over her heart “—you’ve so changed me that I don’t know myself. I only know I’ll never be the same person again.”

  “I regret that most of all,” he said somberly. “The woman you were was gentle and kind—and lovable. She made me think that perhaps we—”

  “Don’t!” she cried in agony. “That’s all over. It was never more than an illusion.”

  “Perhaps love itself is an illusion. Perhaps it’s an illusion that one person is different from any other. I only know that for me you were different. No other woman has ever been like you. No other woman has touched my heart.”

  She backed away from him, hands covering her ears. Her eyes were wild for his words seemed to her a monstrous cruelty. “Stop it!” she cried. “Stop it. Don’t ever speak to me this way again.”

  He took a step toward her. She warded him off. The next moment, she was running out of the room, out of the palazzo, running into the streets of Venice where there was anonymity and escape from words of love that were the most terrible she’d ever heard.

  Chapter Ten

  Terri ran without looking where she was going, but soon realized that she was taking the old route to the Midas, and turned aside sharply. After a while, she knew she was lost. The back streets of Venice were all so similar that it was like wandering in a maze. Wherever she turned, she found the same flagstones, the same narrow, dimly lit alleys and shuttered windows. She tried to retrace her steps but the route she’d just traveled had vanished as if by magic, replaced by streets she could have sworn she’d never seen before, although they were all so alike.

  She quickened her pace, desperately seeking some place that she recognized. Little canals appeared, crossed by toy bridges that vanished under her feet, each one like the last. The streets grew narrower, the buildings rearing over her head until they seemed to touch one another. This was the Venice she’d been warned of, the place of shadows and sinister magic. The whole city conspired against her, leading her in dark circles. She looked up wildly at the blind windows. Perhaps Leo was behind one of them, hidden away in fear and confusion.

  “Leo,” she cried. “Leo—where are you?”

  Shutters creaked, heads appeared, faces full of kindly concern, but she was running again, gone before anyone could help her. Those who looked out saw only an empty street, heard far off the mournful echo, “Leo—Leo—” and shut themselves into the warm again, thinking they’d heard one of the ghosts whose shades had lingered in the corners of Venice throughout long centuries.

  But one man knew it was no ghost. He followed the sound determinedly through twisting ways until at last he caught up with Terri, leaning against a wall, shivering. “Now, what possessed you to run out without a coat in the middle of winter?” he demanded.

  Startled, Terri looked up, and saw Bruno. “I forgot I wasn’t wearing a coat,” she said tiredly. He pulled off his own jacket and tried to put it around her shoulders, but she drew away and regarded him with suspicion. “Did you know?” she demanded.

  He didn’t waste time asking what she meant. “I knew Maurizio hated Elena and saw you as part of his revenge,” he admitted. “I tried to hint to you that things weren’t all they seemed, although I lacked the courage to say it outright. But then I saw him falling in love with you, and thought it would be all right.”

  “All right? When he was concealing Leo?”

  “I didn’t know about that, I swear it. Not until the day before yesterday. If I’d known, I’d have told you everything, despite Maurizio.”

  After a moment, Terri nodded. “I believe you.” She let him drape his jacket about her sagging shoulders.

  “Let’s get you back to the Midas,” he said.

  “I’m not staying at the Midas anymore,” she said quickly. “I’ve moved into the Palazzo Calvani.”

  “I see,” he said. “Was that wise?”

  “It was inevitable.”

  “Well, let’s get you into the warm, wherever it is.”

  He guided her through a couple of
small streets and suddenly there was the Grand Canal. Terri was amazed to find she’d been so close to it all the time. A vaporetto was just pulling in to a landing stage and he hurried her onto it and stayed with her throughout the journey.

  Elena saw them coming from an upstairs window and hurried down to the door. “Get her to bed quickly, she’s taken cold,” Bruno said, and slipped away.

  Elena immediately took charge of her, drawing her up to her room and helping her to undress, clucking like a protective hen. The cold seemed to have penetrated Terri’s bones and she couldn’t stop shivering, even when she was in the warm bed. “I’m sorry to give you so much trouble,” she muttered.

  To her surprise, Elena smiled. “You’re no trouble. I’m going to enjoy myself.”

  “You can’t take care of me,” Terri said, scandalized.

  “Why not? Leave me to do the worrying.”

  Terri gave up. Her head was aching and all she wanted to do was sleep. She sank into a fevered dream in which Madge seemed to be there with her, saying with a sneer, “I told you so. Slut!” Madge had been right all the time. Terri had given her love to a man who was only using her. She was a slut and love was vile, after all. The discovery made her cry out with anguish, and suddenly someone was there, comforting her, cooling her forehead and speaking soft words. She opened her eyes and found Elena leaning over her. The countess was dressed in nightclothes and her hair hung about her face, as though she’d had no time to worry about her appearance. She looked softer without her mask of glamour.

  Over the next few days, she tended Terri at all hours, bringing her meals, some of which she’d cooked herself. It was blissful to be cared for so tenderly. During Terri’s childhood illnesses, Madge had nursed her conscientiously but had never made her feel cherished and cocooned in affection as Elena did.