Desire Has No Mercy (7 page)

The late afternoon was sheened with a raw gold haze, lovely and just a little melancholy. The vine-terraced hills had a blue look and trees made lacy smudges of shadow, and here and there were women shrouded in black, making their way home after a day in the fields. It was like another world to Julia, with an unreal quality to it, for here long ago in this lush countryside the Romans had built their fine white villas when they retired from their campaigns or their seats in the Senate.

The noisy, teeming city of Naples had been left far behind and she listened to the easy purring of the sleek Maserati as it took the steep gradient with its spectacular views over sea and land. Rome's car had been garaged at the casino while he flew to New York to attend her sister's wedding and of necessity they had gone there by cab from the airport. Seeing the place once more, with the broad palm trees green against the white walls, had brought back memories that made it difficult for Julia to enjoy the drive to Campania.

Everything would have been so different had she been a carefree tourist, with nothing to mar the journey for her. If she could have relaxed she might have found really fascinating the natural beauty of it all, with Vesuvius smouldering over the ruins of Pompeii, and below the curving, spectacular highway the deep waters of Lake Averno, where the boats to Hades were said to glide when darkness fell.

Rome swung the wheel of the car and cornered with all the expertise of an Italian who took pride in a speedy, well-constructed car. He wore pigskin driving gloves, and the interior of the Maserati, upholstered in fire-red suede, bore all the signs that the car hadn't come off the production line but had been custom-built to Rome's demanding specifications. Julia's seat felt as comfortable as a lounger, and across her body a leather strap was fastened by a buckle much smoother and easier than others she had worn.

She admired the precision and quality of Rome's driving with the detachment of a stranger. From a deprived boy he had certainly grown into a man of initiative, with a look of style and culture about him. Few people would have guessed that the sophistication concealed a creature as dangerous as a tiger; sleek and merciless in dealing with his prey. People would have scoffed that a woman in a beautiful cashmere coat, wearing on her hand a costly emerald ring, thought of herself as this man's prey. But she saw it in every glance he gave her, centred deep in his brilliant eyes. Heard its undertone in his voice when he spoke about the wild grandeur of this part of Italy where neither the land nor the people had been really tamed, not even in Roman times.

They sped along its winding, dazzling coast until when the sun started to decline he told her that they were within a few miles of the villa.

The house of tomorrow, Julia reflected, where far from familiar surroundings and people she knew and trusted, she must live with a man she distrusted with every nerve in her body. Her fingers played restlessly with the emerald, companioned by the solid band of gold that symbolised the bonds of marriage. Frightened and anxious about the future, she had believed Rome when he said their marriage would be but a necessity. She had clung to an illusion and now she had to face the reality. Without loving her, Rome was possessive of her and his most fleeting glance or touch was sufficient to convey his sense of ownership. Her slim white shape and the child she carried were his, just as this car was his, and the villa above its own stretch of beach.

I take and hold
could have been the motto of this man who had known what it was like to be poor; to be the outsider while others belonged to a charmed inner circle of privilege and plenty. Julia knew she was symbolic to him of that charmed circle and that made her all the more to be desired… and tormented. The girl in the rose-coloured party dress, with the bright hair and the buckles shining on her shoes. The little girt m the big house, who would now belong to him in his own big house.

They came suddenly to a driveway that snaked along an avenue of cypress trees, their limbs twisted with age, darkened by time and weather. A tall pair of gates glided open automatically, responding to an ingenious gadget fixed into the dashboard of the Maserati. Stone pillars stood at either side of the gates, with the heraldic figures of twin falcons upon them, one with wings outstretched, the other with its wings folded.

'Almost like the Borgias,' Julia couldn't resist saying. 'When I look at you, Rome, I wonder if there's some connection.'

'It's kind of you to select one of the most notorious families in Italian history, my dear.'

'They were so handsome and terrible, Rome, that the comparison is irresistible. Your bone structure can be seen in the portraits of the Renaissance.'

'That might almost be a compliment, Julia.'

'I don't deny your looks, Rome. You're probably the best looking man I'm ever likely to meet, and I expect you've known for years that you can have your way with most of the women you meet. Some women do have a tendency to prefer the wrappings to the contents.'

'But you aren't one of them, eh?'

'I think you've discovered that for yourself,
signore
. If your character matched your profile, then you might be straightforward instead of devious. When you come to think of it, the way people look should reflect their inner selves.'

'Then you'd be an angel, my dear.'

The car made a turn and there was the villa rising against the sunset, its rose-coloured walls giving it a beauty that made Julia press a hand to her mouth as if to suppress her instant need to say it was haunting, entrancing, like a painting from out of the past. At one side of it a tower curled high like a serpent from the sea, capped by oval black tiles rising into a peak.

Julia felt the quick beating of her heart and knew herself mysteriously charmed by that slim, dark-capped tower, its narrow windows aflame in the sunset.

'A dramatic welcome for you to Domani.' Rome was holding open the car door beside her and caught in a kind of spell she placed her hand in his and was drawn out on to the stone flags of the forecourt. The moment was so acutely strange that she gripped his hand so tightly that she felt the tiny hairs on the backs of his fingers.

'It's a house of yesterday, not tomorrow,' she murmured, and as they stood there the ravished sky grew darker and the sun sank out of sight. Cypress leaves rustled and a breath of ocean wafted across the forecourt, where at the centre stood a fountain with gods and nymphs cavorting in marble.

'It's quite a
palagio
.' Julia glanced at Rome and his features had a bold dark clarity which should have been set off by the dark velvet men had worn at the time this villa was built. It was pictorial in its design and ambience. It radiated an air of romantic seclusion, as if meant for a couple who came here for romantic reasons. There was no romance in the reason she came here with Rome, and her glance was drawn back to the tower, symbolic of captivity.

'Are you wondering if I'm going to lock you up in my sea tower?' Rome enquired drily. 'Doubtless it may have been used for that purpose in days gone by, but I use it for my den. It's very secluded and relaxing up there, but not very popular with my servants who don't like climbing all those stairs. They wind upwards in a spiral.'

'Was it the tower that made you buy this place?' Julia asked.

'That and the jacarandas in the gardens at the rear. I call them my blue trees.' Rome tilted back his head and took a deep breath of air into his lungs. 'This is the true smell of Italy, the sea and the sap in the trees and vines, extracted by the sun but not apparent until the day cools down. I want my child to be born here, where the air is good to breathe; where there are trees to climb and rocks and sand to play on. He or she will never know what it's like to play in city streets where there is garbage in the gutters, and drunken men in doorways, and painted women who sell themselves for a few dollars. The noise and stench and foul talk were part of my life, and I sometimes sit alone in the tower and recall myself as a youth, needing to know how to use my fists in those rough streets, needing to be part of a gang because anyone alone got beaten up, finding dance-hall escape on Saturday nights until I realised that I could escape altogether if I used my wits.'

Rome paused and looked about him in the gathering dusk, his hands still holding Julia's. 'I escaped from all that and found Domani. I have a painting of it in my office at the casino to remind me that it's always here, waiting for me, a reality and not just the dream of a boy in a New York slum.'

When he spoke like that Julia felt an instinctive sympathy for the boy he had been… the boy long lost in the man. She had known that boy, with his thin young face which showed signs even then of becoming not only striking but distinctive. She remembered the gravity of his grey eyes and the way the dark pupils seemed to her childish imagination to look like black velvet. She had one day remarked to her nurse Lucie that she thought the Demario boy quite beautiful, but weren't boys supposed to be plainer than girls? Julia had thought herself a plain little girl because she had straight hair and eyes the colour of the green marbles she and Verna played with. Verna was the pretty one because her hair was wavy and a deeper gold colour, rather like the daffodils in Grandma's big garden.

There had been no dirt in the gutters of the street they lived on. Nor did Julia hear any bad language until she went away to finishing school where one of the girls used to say 'damn it' out of earshot of the Misses Delaine who ran the school, where charm and the social graces were learned, along with French and Italian.

Julia realised that Rome had no idea she spoke quite fluent Italian, and she decided not to tell him. It made a bond between people when they shared the ability to speak together in a foreign language, and Julia wanted to keep as much distance as possible between Rome and herself.

'No two people could be more opposite than you and I,' he remarked, 'but that's how it should be with a man and a woman. It adds an edge to the relationship, makes unpredictable their reactions to what may arise in their everyday life. I wouldn't want a woman I could read like a copy of
Vogue
.'

'I prefer a man who hasn't a Machiavellian mind,' Julia rejoined. 'With you I feel as if I'm treading on quicksand. There's no feeling of stability… it's as if I've been led astray from a trusted path on to one that twists and turns and makes me constantly nervous of what lies ahead. The unpredictable doesn't appeal to me! I prefer a straightforward life and people to match!'

'How dull, Julia,' he mocked. 'How unexciting to have life written out like a menu, with each event for the day marked out in prim and proper order.'

'That's the sort of person I am, Rome, prim and properly brought up. What you've led me into is a kind of—of bad dream. I want to wake up and find that none of it is true. That I'm not your wife… that I'm not going to have your child!'

'You aren't sleeping or dreaming.' He caught her by the shoulders and brought her close to him, so she felt the hard warmth and reality of his body against hers, 'Not now you aren't, though in many ways you were a sleeping beauty before I woke you up. Life can't be run as if it's a kitsch article in a smart magazine which professes to know all the answers and supplies only advertising. Between us we have a living bond of flesh and blood, bone and marrow, growing in you as I hold you and feel you against me. Doesn't it thrill you, Julia, the mystery and wonder of it, that together we have made a small piece of humanity? Have you ice-water in your veins that you can't feel any pleasure in what a lovely, clever, exciting thing your body is?'

'That's all you think about!' She flung him a tormented look. 'That's all I am to you, a body—a machine that's in the process of fashioning a replica of yourself. Do you gaze in the mirror and imagine a daughter with your perfect Italian face, or a son with your wide shoulders and ruthless ego? Do you have plans to make him into a gambler and a seducer?'

'You will stop what you are saying!' Rome's eyes were suddenly so furious that Julia felt as if the strength drained out of her legs, leaving her limp in the grip of his hands. 'How dare you speak to me in such a way? Who do you suppose you are? Being the granddaughter of Blanche Van Holden doesn't make you superior to any girl in the village nearby. You are merely a female in trouble, and a fortunate one who has a man willing enough to supply you with a wedding ring. Do you imagine I'd want you if you weren't carrying my child? I might have intimated to the effete Paul Wineman that I always wished to marry you, but in truth you're a frigid little madam, with a sarcastic tongue in your head and a way of looking through a man that makes me want to spank your backside until you can't sit down on it. You look like a woman, Julia, but you're really a statue, and I already have enough of those around my swimming-pool. I don't plan to have one in my bedroom!'

'Your bedroom is the last place I plan to be in,' she retorted, with more defiance than conviction.

He smiled in the dusk light, a brief glimmer of strong white teeth. 'We say in Italy that a woman with temper in her is a woman with passion in her, so there may be hope for you yet.'

'You're the one that's hopeful,' she flared. 'I didn't beg of you to marry me—you know what I intended to do and if I let you talk me into this fiasco it's because I confused your word of honour with that of a man like Paul. He wouldn't say one thing and mean something else, but I suppose it must be difficult for a gambler to play strictly by the rules.'

'One thing is certain,
donna mia
, this between us is going to be played according to the rules. I knew well enough what was in your mind at your sister's wedding, looking so elegant and thinking such murderous thoughts. Don't you care for children?'

'Not yours!' she said stormily. 'How could I want a child from a man who forced me to—to—'

'Can't you say the words?' he taunted. 'That night in Naples wasn't so terrible, but you'd sooner be chained to a stake and set afire than admit that I made you feel sensations you didn't know were possible. You were brought up believing the Old Victorian adage that a lady says her rosary while the man behaves like a beast. Poor misguided little Julia! I really must take your emotional education in hand.'