The Marchese's Love-Child (23 page)

Surely—surety he could feel the yearning in her, the unassuaged and aching need, and show her a little mercy—couldn't he?

But just as her lips pleadingly framed his name, he turned away and left as silently as he'd appeared.

And Polly sat where she was, forcing back the tears that were bitter in her throat, because she could not allow Charlie to wake and find her crying.

She spent a restless, unhappy night, and woke late the following morning, to the sunlight and an incongruously flawless sky.

'Buongiorno, madame.' Rafaella appeared with coffee as if on signal. 'It is so beautiful today with no storm.' She beamed at Polly. 'The marchese asks if you will honour him by joining him at breakfast. And wishes you to know that Signor Molena will be there also.'

'Molena?' Polly queried, feeling the name should mean something.

'His signore's avoccato,' Rafaella explained.

'Oh,' Polly said in a hollow voice, recalling that terrible afternoon at her mother's house. "The lawyer. I—I remember.'

'Si, the lawyer.' Rafaella said the word with care, and smiled again. 'Today, vossignoria is to meet with my grandfather,' she added with real excitement. 'His excellency has said so.'

Polly stared at her. 'Your grandfather?' she said slowly. 'Are you serious?'

'Certamente, madame.' The girl paused. 'Also the contessa goes with you,' she added more hesitantly.

'I see.' Polly digested that apprehensively, not understanding at all. 'Is she—well enough?'

She had questioned Teodoro haltingly about the contessa's condition the previous evening, and been told that the doctor had paid her a lengthy visit, and administered a sedative. Also that a nurse would be coming to spend the night, and that a transfer to a private clinic the next day was also being considered.

Polly, wincing inwardly, had given him a quiet word of thanks.

But if the contessa was well enough to go out, maybe a less rigorous solution would be found, she thought.

She popped into the nursery on her way downstairs to kiss Charlie good morning, and wished she could have lingered there forever.

When she finally reached the door of the sala da pranzo, she had to force herself to open the door and go in.

'Good morning, cam,' Sandro rose politely. 'You remember Alberto, of course.'

'It is a pleasure to see you again, marchesa.' Signor Molena bowed politely, and she murmured something in reply.

Why was he there? she wondered as she helped herself to a slice of cold ham she would never eat, and poured some coffee. Had he been summoned to tell her that her brief, ill-starred marriage was over?

She sat pushing the meat round her plate, while the two men talked quietly, their faces slightly troubled.

But the coffee put heart into her, and when Sandro said abruptly, 'If you have finished breakfast, Paola, we will go,' she was able to rise to her feet with a semblance of composure.

There were two cars parked in front of the house, and Polly saw that the contessa was being helped into the second of them by a brisk-looking woman in a white uniform.

The older woman looked bent and ill, and for an instant Polly quailed. Then she felt her arm taken firmly, and Sandro was guiding her towards the leading car.

She hung back, looking up into his face, searching in vain for some sign of softening.

'Sandro,' she whispered. 'Please—we don't have to do this.'

'Yes,' he said quietly, 'we do, cara mia.'

'But it's none of my business—I see that now. And I'm sorry— so sorry to have interfered.'

'It is too late to draw back,' he told her harshly. 'Only the truth will do for my cousin, and for you, it seems. This is what you wanted, and this is what you will get. So. andlamo. Let's go.'

She sat rigidly beside him in the back of the car, her hands clenched together, as Signor Molena took his place beside the chauffeur, and the cars began to move forward.

And above the whisper of tyres on gravel, she could hear a small voice in her head repeating 'Too late' over and over again, and she was afraid.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The dusty road in front of them climbed steeply and endlessly. They had passed through several tiny villages where the main streets were passable by only one vehicle at a time, but all signs of habitation were now behind them.

Polly had gone down to the town and visited the marina several times, but this was the first time she had been driven up into the mountains behind Comadora, and she was too tense to take real stock of her surroundings.

After the rain, the air was clear, and the creamy stone of the jagged crags, heavily veined in shades of grey and green, seemed close enough to touch. It was a landscape of scrub and thorn, stabbed in places with the darkness of cedars. Above it a solitary bird wheeled, watchful and predatory.

She found she was shivering slightly, and broke the silence. 'Is this the road to Sorrento?'

'One of them.' He did not look at her, and she could see his hand was clenched on his thigh.

I've made him do this, she thought bleakly. Made him confront whatever demons are waiting in this desolate place, and he'll never forgive me.

They had been travelling for about ten more minutes when the chauffeur began to slow down. The car rounded a sharp bend, and Polly gasped soundlessly as she saw that immediately beyond it the ground fell away, and she was looking down into a deep gorge with a glimmer of water far below.

They pulled over to the rough verge on the opposite side of the narrow road, and stopped.

Sandro turned to Polly, his face expressionless. 'Come,' he said, 'if you wish to see.'

After the fuss she'd made, she thought wretchedly, she could hardly tell him it was the last thing she wanted, so she followed him out into the sunlight. In spite of the heat, she felt cold.

Sandro's face was rigid, the slash of the scar prominent against his dark skin. Alberto Molena came to his side, talking softly, encouragingly, and eventually he nodded curtly and they crossed the road together, and stood looking down into the depths below.

She did not go with them. Her eyes had detected a flash further along the road, as if the sunlight was being reflected back from glass. She could see a smudge of colour too, and guessed this was the shrine that Sandro had mentioned.

There was nothing unique about it. Polly knew that they were seen all over the Mediterranean where bad accidents had occurred. But none of the others had carried any meaning for her.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, she went to face one of her own demons. Bianca had indeed been a beautiful girl, her face heart-shaped, and her eyes dark and dreaming. The only jarring note was struck by a set, almost hard look about the mouth, but Polly supposed she could not be blamed for that.

Knowing the man you love feels nothing for you in return can do that to you, she thought sadly.

Also in the elaborate frame was a small plaster figure of a saint, with an unlit votive light in front of it, and a vase of slightly wilted flowers.

She heard a step, and, glancing round, saw the contessa approaching, leaning heavily on a cane.

'Get away from here.' The older woman's voice was harsh, almost metallic. 'You are not fit to breathe the same air that she did.'

She turned and stared malevolently at Sandro, standing motionless on the edge of the drop, only yards away. Polly's heart missed a beat, and she was just about to cry a warning when they were joined by the nurse, who took the contessa's arm gently but firmly, murmuring to her in a soothing tone.

Polly crossed the road and stood at Sandro's side. She said in a low voice, 'Coming here may have been a bad idea. I think your cousin's getting agitated.'

'She has been here many times before,' he said stonily. 'Unlike myself.'

She looked at him, shocked. 'Is this the first time—since the crash?'

"The first, and I hope the only time. We came here solely to meet Giacomo Raboni, so that you could see what happened at this place through his eyes.' Sandro paused. 'He speaks little English, but Alberto will translate for you—if you can trust his accuracy,' he added with a touch of bitterness.

'Yes,' she said, 'of course I can.'

She looked down. Just below the edge, the ground, littered with rocks and boulders of all sizes, sloped steeply away for about a hundred yards before reaching a kind of rim, beyond which it disappeared into infinity.

The kind of drop, she thought, that nightmares were made of, and shuddered.

She said, 'Will Signor Raboni be long? I'd like to get away from here.'

'It has always been a bad place,' Sandro told her quietly. 'But it is part of the truth which is so important to you.' He paused. 'And you will not be detained here much longer. Giacomo is coming now.'

She heard a rattle of stones behind her and turned. A man was coming down the hill, half walking, half sliding, an elderly dog scrabbling beside him.

Giacomo Raboni was of medium height, and stout, wearing ancient flannel trousers, a collarless shirt and a cap pulled on over curling white hair. He had a mouth that looked as if it preferred to smile. But for now, his expression was faintly grim.

He gave the contessa a measuring look, then turned his head and spat with great accuracy, just missing the dog. Then he turned shrewd dark eyes on Polly, telling her without words that she wasn't the subject of his whole-hearted approbation either.

He took Sandra's offered hand and shook it warmly. He said gruffly, 'You should not be here, excellenza. Why not let the dead girl sleep?’

Sandra's voice was harsh. 'Because, my old friend, she still poisons my life as she did when she was alive.' He paused. 'You agreed to keep silent to protect the living, and spare them more grief. But my father can no longer be hurt by what you saw, and the Contessa Barsoli has tried to use your silence to damage me, and my marriage, so she is no longer worthy of my consideration.'

He threw back his head. 'But my wife is a different matter, so it is time to speak, if you please, and tell her what happened here. And slowly, so that Signor Molena can tell her what is said.'

Giacomo Raboni gave a reluctant nod. He said, 'I had been on the hill that day, looking at my goats. A neighbour had told me that two of them seemed sick. As I came down the track, I heard the sound of a car. As it came round the corner, I recognised it as the car which belonged to the Signore Alessandro. But it was being driven strangely, swerving from side to side, and I could see why. There was a passenger beside him—a girl, but not in the passenger seat, you understand. She was leaning towards him—clinging to him, it seemed.'

He stared at the brink, frowning. 'At first I thought it was love play between them, and that they were fools, bringing their games to such a dangerous road. Then I realised that the marchese was not embracing her, but struggling, trying to push her away, and control the car too.'

He turned his head and looked steadily at Polly. 'At that moment, vossignoria, I knew that your husband was fighting for his life. Because she was not reaching for him, but trying to grab the wheel. I think, also, she went for his eyes, because he flung up an arm to defend himself, and in that instant she turned the car towards the edge of the cliff.'

'Oh, God,' Polly said numbly. 'Oh, no.'

'As it went over, I heard her scream something. Then there was the sound of the crash, and I ran.

'I saw that the car had hit a rock, but glanced off it and continued down. It had reached the brink, but there it ran into a dead tree so it could go no further.

'But the marchese had somehow been thrown clear. I climbed down to him and realised he was badly injured. There was much blood and his pulse was weak.'

He paused. 'I realised too that the girl was still in the vehicle, and that the engine was running. The tree was a spindly thing, old and brittle, with shallow roots. It could not hold the car for much longer, so the signorina was inches from death.

'I went down to her, careful not to fall myself. The driver's door was open, and she was lying across the seat. She too was terribly injured, but I reached in to her, tried to take her hands to pull her free before the tree gave way.

'I spoke to her—called her Signorina Bianca, but she seemed barely conscious, and it was plain she did not know who I was. In her pain, she looked at me with eyes that saw nothing, and whispered something.

'She thought she was speaking to the marchese—that he was with her still, and she repeated the same words she had used before.'

His own voice was hushed with the horror of it. 'She said, "If I cannot have you then no one will." And with her last movement, she put her foot on the accelerator and sent the car over the edge.'

Polly stood rigidly, her hands pressed to her mouth. Then the contessa's hoarse voice broke the silence. 'You're lying,' she accused, her face twisted. 'The marchese has paid you to say these terrible things.'

He drew himself up with immense dignity. "The marchese has paid me with nothing but his regard. All this I would have said at the inquiry, but he knew the distress it would give his father, who loved the Signorina Bianca and was already a sick man. For his sake and no other, we allowed it to become an accident. And, for the honour of the Valessi, I have kept my silence until now.'

His voice became deeper, more resonant. 'But I, Giacomo Raboni, I tell you that the Signorina Bianca tried to murder the Signore Alessandro. And I saw it all.'

There was a terrible keening noise from the contessa, who had sunk to her knees in the dust.

'No,' she was moaning. 'It cannot be true. Not my angel—my beautiful dove. She never harmed anyone—or anything in her life.'

'No,' Sandro said, harshly. 'That is the real lie. There were stories about her—rumours of cruelty from the moment she came to Comadora. A dog that belonged to one of the grooms tied up in the sun and left to die without water or food because it left paw-marks on her skirt. The pony my father bought for her which threw her, and mysteriously broke its leg in its stall soon after.

'And the convent school she attended. Did you know that the superior asked my father to remove her? Or how much he had to give to the chapel-restoration fund for her to be permitted to remain? He insisted of course that the nuns were mistaken.'