Kitabı oku: «From Paris With Love Collection», sayfa 40
CHAPTER NINE
BY THE time she returned to the castle, Raoul was gone. ‘To the village,’ Natania told her, looking sullen again.
‘Did he say when he would be back?’
She shook her head and passed her a cup of hot, sweet tea; Gabriella gave up. Natania could not help. How could anybody help when she did not know what the problem was herself?
So she sat in the library to await his return. Maybe Phillipa had been right, after all. Maybe she had rushed into this marriage without talking through the details of each other’s expectations. Maybe she should have waited. But it was not too late; they had only been married one day. She flatly refused to believe it was too late. He loved her, she was sure. Otherwise why would he have married her?
So she would wait, and when he returned they would talk.
She busied herself with studying the books in his collection, trying desperately to be interested and get absorbed when she found a rare or first edition, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her ears were permanently pricked, waiting for any sound that might signal Raoul’s return.
Natania eventually came and brought her a bowl of chunky soup filled with vegetables, crusty bread and local butter; it smelled wonderful but Gabriella could not stomach it and sent it back barely touched.
And, as day slipped into evening, Gabriella knew he intended not to return while she was awake, so she pressed Natania to take her to Raoul’s room. ‘Are you sure?’ the woman asked.
‘I have to,’ she said. Natania nodded and showed her to his room, not on the first floor as she had expected, but a modest room tucked away behind the kitchen, barely better than servants’ quarters.
‘He sleeps here?’
Natania nodded. ‘Ever since we have worked for him. He will not sleep on the floor above.’ She fetched Gabriella a robe and laid it on the bed. ‘I am sorry. Even I did not think he could be this cruel or I would have not have let you marry him.’
‘I love him,’ she said, feeling weak, stupid and totally shell-shocked. ‘Nothing could have stopped me marrying him.’
The gypsy woman nodded, her eyes sad. ‘I know.’
He watched her sleep, her chestnut hair splayed across his pillow. He physically ached to join her, but he knew he could not. Not if he was ever to let her go.
And he must let her go. She was too precious, too beautiful. She deserved far more than he could ever give her. She deserved better. She deserved a man who might save her if she ever fell …
And yet here she was in his bed, curled up like a kitten, and here he was, rock hard with wanting her. He could take her right now. He could climb into bed, kiss her into wakefulness, caress her sweet curves and bury himself deep in her sweet depths.
He ground his teeth in frustration and growled low in his throat, forcing his feet to stay right where they were.
Why didn’t she give up? How many times did he have to reject her before she hated him enough to leave him alone?
He had never taken her for such a fighter.
And he had never taken himself for such a fool. He knew he was capable of being a fool; God, he’d more than proved that eleven years ago, marrying a woman at the end of her career who had wanted the safety blanket of a marriage, while refusing to be satisfied with being out of the limelight, still lusting after the adoration of everyone. The adoration of just one man had not been enough.
He thought he’d learned his lesson then.
But no. He had been a fool to agree to this. He had known it would come unstuck. He had known it could not work. There were other ways to get revenge against a family he hated with his soul without holding someone so precious and innocent hostage in the process.
It was so wrong to hold her hostage.
But he could not afford let her go yet. If he did, she would flee straight into the arms of Garbas and this would all have been for nothing; Umberto’s plans would backfire in spectacular fashion. He had not come this far to let a Garbas win now. So he needed to keep her here just a little while longer, just until Garbas was put away for good, and then he would let her go. There had to be someone decent out there for her—someone worthy of her love.
And in the meantime there would be no more picnics on the beach. No more occasions where they could be alone together, even if it meant no more smiles, no more laughter to add to his bank of memories. And, given what he was doing, the last thing he deserved were smiles and laughter.
‘I’m sorry, Bella,’ he whispered, aching for her, aching for what he had lost before he had ever known the full extent of her love. ‘So very sorry.’ And he left her sleeping and walked away.
‘We need to talk.’ It was after lunch and he’d been avoiding her all day, taking his meals alone and forcing her to do likewise, but finally she had managed to track him down to the library.
‘Bella,’ he said, rising to his feet to greet her with a kiss to her cheeks. ‘How lovely to see you. Did you sleep well?’
‘Forget it, Raoul. I’m not in the mood.’ She didn’t want empty platitudes. All morning a storm had been building outside, thick, dark clouds building on the horizon, sweeping in from the sea until they formed a heavy dark bank. All morning a storm had been building inside her, dark and brooding and increasing in intensity. ‘Is something wrong?’
‘You know it is. I want to know what’s going on.’ ‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.’ ‘I don’t think so. I think I’m the one at a disadvantage. I gave up on waiting for you to come to my bed, given that was apparently too onerous a task the night we were married, so I slept in your bed last night, hoping you would join me some time through the night.’
‘Bella, I am so sorry. I was held up …’
‘Doing what? I want to make love with my husband. What is wrong with that?’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘I do! I just don’t understand what you’re saying or why you’re saying it. I’m your wife, Raoul, and I am going mad here wondering what is wrong with me that you are so interested in doing something else—anything else! But there is nothing wrong with me, so it must be with you. You hide yourself away from me every night; I won’t let you do that again. Because I love you, and I want to make love to you. I want you in my bed. I want to be in yours. Why won’t you make love to me, now that we are married, when you found no such barrier before? Or is there something painfully wrong with me you haven’t told me about?’
‘There is nothing wrong with you.’
‘Then what the hell is wrong with you? We are married, Raoul. You took me for your wife. What is it you intend to do with me that you bring me to this godforsaken end of the earth and as good as hang me out to dry? What’s with that? This is supposed to be our honeymoon.’
He stiffened. ‘I did not realise you were so inconvenienced by being here.’
‘Inconvenienced? How ungrateful of me to imply such a thing, when clearly I’m having the time of my life! And when I try to seduce you—my own husband—you reject me. You turn me down. How do you think that makes me feel?’
‘Gabriella …’
‘Do you know how humiliating it is for everyone to know that your own husband will not make love to you?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘Except for Natania and Marco. Or is that why you brought me here? To save me the humiliation and indignity of the entire world knowing? Should I thank you instead for your kind consideration?’
‘Gabriella, it’s not like that.’
‘Isn’t it? You know, I used to think you had bricked up your heart behind walls so high and thick that they could never be breached. But I thought there was hope for you when we spent those days in Venice. I thought there was hope when you asked me to marry you. But I was wrong.
‘Because you don’t have a heart at all. You’re empty inside. You’re not a man, you’re a shell. An empty, hollow shell of a man. Devoid of emotion. Devoid of feeling. And I wish to God I’d never met you.’
His jaw was set tight, the cords in his neck pulled taut, and when the words came they sounded like they were ground out. ‘You have no idea what I feel.’
‘No, I don’t. Because you won’t tell me. You won’t share the slightest thing with me. Me, the woman who is supposed to be your wife! And yet you give me nothing. When I tell you that I love you, I get nothing in return. I don’t even know if you love me. I thought you did. I believed you when once you told me that you do not have to hear the words to be true, but now I need to hear those words. Can you say them? Do you love me, Raoul?’
‘Bella …’
‘Don’t Bella me! Don’t pretend I mean something to you when clearly I mean nothing. Do you love me? It’s a simple enough question. Yes or no, Raoul; what’s it to be?’
He spun around, his hand raking through his hair. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because I need to know. I need to hear those words. I need you to prove that they are true.’
His hand slammed down hard on his desk. ‘Do you think I wanted this?’
‘What are you talking about? You’re the one who asked me to marry you. Who insisted on not waiting? Who told me that I was the one who made him want to break his vow never to marry again? You’re the one who asked me to marry you!’
He shook his head wildly from side to side, like a stallion readying for a fight. ‘Do you think I wanted a wife who needed a man to love her and cherish her? Do you think I needed another wife?’
Thunder rolled overhead, a long, booming sound that filled the silence in the room and turned it toxic.
‘But you asked me …’ She heard a sob, recognised it as her own and knew she had to escape, knew she had to get as far away as she possibly could from him. She turned and fled out of the room and across the stone entrance-hall, her shoes slapping on the stones.
‘Gabriella!’ she heard, but she didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. She had to get away, as far away as she could. She tore through the kitchen, looking for escape, finding it in the doors leading to the terrace and the path to the cove, thinking she could hide there, amongst the boulders on the beach, and find the time to work out what she should do.
She would have to leave. She would have to run away, her tail between her legs. Humiliated. Defeated. Phillipa would take her in—Philippa, who had warned her to take her time.
Two short days ago she had been so happy. So wondrously happy. So sure that he loved her.
Do you think I needed another wife?
Hadn’t he wanted to marry her? Then why had he asked her? What had she been thinking? Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision. The bank of dark clouds blotted out the sun, the loose edges like thick, black fingers rolling dark dough across the sky; they rumbled and grumbled with discontent. But still she ran on, faster, towards the stone steps that led down to the beach.
Behind her, she heard him call her name again and ran faster, her grief pushing her on. She flung herself down the time-worn steps to the beach, her feet barely touching the stones, before launching herself onto the sand. The skirt of her dress flew around her; she kicked her flat shoes from her feet at the first opportunity to give her purchase on the sand.
‘Gabriella!’
Above her the sky darkened, the waves crashed against the cliff. She heard his voice on the wind that whipped through her hair, filled with salt and moisture from the sea, but she didn’t look back. She dared not. There was no point. What was the point of looking back at a man you loved—a man you thought you loved—who seemed incapable of loving you but had married you nonetheless?
She could not bear to see him.
Why had he done this to her?
Why?
Her feet pushed on, fighting the loose, soft sand, searching for somewhere to hide, somewhere she could be safe in her misery and despair.
But the sand had been eaten up on the incoming tide and there was nowhere to run. The tide lapped at her feet and she turned back only to collide with a rock that should not have been there. Except this rock was warm, had a thumping heart and had arms that clamped tightly around her.
Raoul.
She looked up at him, panting, desperate and afraid. She saw her storm reflected in his eyes, wild, insane and wanting, as above them the storm broke in a thunderclap that shook the ground and sent the vibrations spiralling through her. They fell on each other like that storm, hungry, wild and insatiable.
Their mouths meshed, their tongues dancing, duelling, her cheek scraping hard against his blue-black beard as she pulled his clothes free with busy, seeking hands, needing to touch him, to feel him; needing to feel his hot flesh against her own.
Rain pelted down upon them, fat droplets that tugged on their hair, their clothes and stuck the fabric to them, but his hands were hot and liberating; the wet fabric was no barrier to those seeking hands. He groaned in her mouth and spun her away, finding their own private grotto, where he pressed her hard against the stone, and pressed himself hard against her, making her gasp with his size and his need while her own need spiralled out of control. Her hands explored him, fingernails raking his back, relishing the firm, hard flesh, the muscled tone; her fingers traced the lines of his ribs, the nub of his nipples, the thick column of his erection.
He made a sound like a hungry beast, half-growl, half-roar, and she felt her dress tear apart, felt the rain on her hot skin and his hotter hands at her breasts. Felt her bones dissolve as he dropped his hot mouth to one breast, sucking her nipple in tight until she thought she would explode with the agony and the ecstacy, while his large hands travelled her body, heading south, taking away her last remaining scrap of cover.
She battled with his waistband and, still locked together with her at the mouth, he pushed her hands aside and did the job himself; she felt him hard and hot and bucking against her belly.
She felt herself lifted, pressed hard against the smooth stone, her body pulsing as her legs encircled him, throbbing with need, anticipating completion.
Thunder boomed again and lightning rent the sky. She caught sight of his face, wretched, desperate and tortured, and she pulled his face to hers and kissed him so deeply, she knew he must feel her very soul.
She was lost to the storm going on around her, the storm going on inside, the fury building with the need until he lowered her slowly down.
She felt his hardness in a nudging press, her muscles working to pull him in; her body ached for completion. And yet he held her there, suspended, for what seemed like for ever as his tongue drove into her mouth, demanding every part of her for his own. Until he let her fall as he pressed inside, her mind blew apart in a raging storm of stars.
Nothing could ever be better than this.
The fleeting thought came to her in that one moment of clarity when the world and everything in it was suspended and there existed just this one, intense moment.
Then he moved inside her and her world threatened to come apart. He was so large she felt that she could not let him go without feeling the suck of his organ on her womb, without feeling the need to have him back inside.
She was already on the brink. He thrust again and she gasped with the spiralling sensations shuddering around him, and with the next he cried out and buried himself so deep inside her she wondered if he could ever find his way out.
Her orgasm came in a rolling wave, like the dark clouds had done this day, building and intensifying until there was no way to go but be lost in the thunderclap of her release as she felt him lose himself inside her.
He carried her to the castle wrapped in the shredded remnants of her dress and his damp shirt; he carried her to his bathroom where they soaped each other in the steamy shower, exploring each other’s bodies, taking the time they had not had before.
And then he laid her reverently on his bed and acquainted his mouth with every part of her, tasting her, suckling her until she once again cried out, begging for release.
Afterwards he held her close. ‘I love you,’ she said, and he stilled and kissed her cheek.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said, holding her close, his voice a husky promise.
She snuggled closer. For she knew in her heart that he loved her, even though he still could not bring himself to say the words for whatever reason he must love her.
She knew it.
Until she woke in the morning to find him gone.
There was a letter on his pillow, barely a note, just two short lines:
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
And the bottom dropped out of her world.
CHAPTER TEN
HE HAD gone. Some time this morning before light, according to Natania who had heard the car, he had left her.
Why?
‘I thought he loved me,’ she said, sitting in Natania’s kitchen, sipping sweet tea.
‘I told you this was a bad place. You should leave.’
Nothing had ever sounded so tempting. But where to go? Back to Paris, and the big empty house? Or Venice, where she would not be welcome if Raoul was there? ‘I don’t know where to go.’
‘You have a friend in London. Marco can take you to the airport.’
She bit her lip, thinking through the options. Wondering how Phillipa’s husband would take the news of her separation so soon after dragging his wife and young baby to Venice for the wedding. ‘I don’t know. I have to call her, see if it’s okay.’
‘Call her, then. Or email. There is a computer in the library.’
‘You’re right. I’ll book a ticket while I’m at it. Thank you, Natania. I’m sorry that we could not have met in better circumstances.’
The gypsy woman shook her head, setting the hoops at her ears dancing. ‘It is not your fault. I thought you were the one.’ She sent her gaze in a wide arc. ‘But it is this place. It is what it does to Raoul. It is what it reminds him of. It is a bad place.’
It was a toxic place as far as Gabriella was concerned. It got worse when she realised the computer was password-protected and she couldn’t even access her email account, let alone book a flight.
‘Damn you, Raoul,’ she snarled as she stared at the blinking cursor. On a hunch, she typed ‘Raoul’. No luck.
‘Raoul Del Arco’ met with the same ‘invalid password’ response.
Out of frustration she typed in ‘bastard’, half-expecting that one would work—but then, she rationalised when it didn’t, anyone could have guessed that; it was hardly secure.
She scanned the desk, looking for somewhere he might have jotted down the password, but the desk was irritatingly paper free. She pulled open a drawer, searching through the papers for something, anything, on which he might have written it down. But she could find nothing and slammed it shut.
The drawer on the other side got similar treatment. This one was almost empty though; mostly stationery supplies. A few pens. A stapler. A key.
That drawer got slammed shut too.
Damn!
Unless, she thought a moment later, there was a filing cabinet somewhere. She opened the drawer again, picked up the key, which was heavy, despite its small size, and ornately carved. Maybe it was not like any filing-cabinet key she had ever seen before, but then this was Raoul and his filing cabinet was no doubt antique.
She prowled the library, testing any piece of furniture with a lock, but most were already unlocked and the key did not fit. She studied it in the palm of her hand. Why keep a key that fitted no lock?
Then she remembered the door at the end of the passageway.
The locked door. And she wondered …
What had he done? Raoul drove aimlessly through village after village of simple white stone buildings and small fields set amidst the rocky hills, knowing only that he needed to get away—except there was no getting away from his own black thoughts.
For he had done the unthinkable. He had done what he had promised himself he would not do. He was supposed to keep her safe; he was supposed to protect her.
Instead he had given in to his basest self. He had taken advantage of her sweet body, and he had not been able to stop at just once.
And it didn’t matter that she had provoked him, that she had goaded him with her taunts and her words. Nothing mattered except that he was in the wrong, whichever way he looked at it. He had been in the wrong from the very beginning.
He had set out to marry her, to do anything it took to keep her and Garbas apart, and he had done that. But in the process he had lost Gabriella.
You don’t have to love her.
The old man’s words came back to him. He’d taken the words at face value. They had seemed cold but they had made sense. And he had intended to keep himself apart. He would not love her; he could not afford to, not if he was to set her free.
He hadn’t meant to love her.
He pulled the car to a halt near a horreo, a corn shed that looked like a miniature stone cathedral, his palms sweating on the wheel.
He hadn’t meant to love her.
But he did.
He looked at the horreo, reminded of the stone castle where he had brought her and then abandoned her. What would she be thinking? How would she be feeling? After giving her the cold shoulder since their wedding, they had shared a night of exquisite pleasure—he had lost count of how many times they had made love—and then he had cold-heartedly walked away.
His hands were sweaty on the steering wheel.
Their love-making had been so frantic and desperate that he had not even thought to use protection.
Even now she could be carrying his child.
What had he done?
He had run from the truth. He had not even been able to bring himself to tell her he loved her. Surely she deserved at least that?
But then, she deserved so much more. She deserved an explanation. She deserved his apology. After which she probably would not want his love.
But he had to tell her.
He put the car into gear and turned it around on the narrow road, only then noticing the dark bank of cloud that extended along the coast. And with a sizzle of apprehension he was reminded of another time, another day long ago, when the cloud gathered heavy over the castle and he had been rushing to get back.
Only to have his world crash and burn when he had.
He wasn’t superstitious; he didn’t believe in Natania’s gypsy folklore that she would spout whenever she got the chance. But, still, there was a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach and he put his foot down.
She slipped the key into the lock where it fitted like a hand in a glove and held her breath, turning it with a solid click. She looked around, wondering if anyone had heard her. But Natania was busy in the kitchen and Marco was with her. Besides, the way the wind outside was building, nobody would possibly hear.
She turned the knob, easing it around, her heart hammering in her chest as she pushed open the door. It was dark, soft, grey light filtering in through a grimy window, dust motes playing in the shifting air. She found a switch and flicked it to and fro but nothing happened. And then she could see enough in the dim light to make out a dresser, an oil lamp on top, a stack of boxes in one corner and a circular staircase rising up on the other side of the room.
Everything was musty. The dust tickled her nose and she thought about leaving. Some kind of store room, he had said, and she could believe him. Clearly she had imagined it when she had thought she had seen someone entering.
But why would Raoul keep it locked and why would he secrete the key in his desk downstairs?
Something banged upstairs and she jumped. Then it banged again. A shutter come loose in the wind, she guessed.
The staircase beckoned. Maybe the answers were upstairs, in the turret room itself. She found matches by the lamp, lifted the glass and held a match to the wick, hissing and spluttering, filling the glass and the room with soft white light. Then, holding it carefully, she started to climb the creaky stairs.
Outside the wind started to howl, a sound that conspired with the banging to make a home in the back of her neck, prickling as if someone unseen had run their finger along her skin.
She shivered. Next she’d be seeing ghosts. Warily, tentatively, she peered through the hole at the top of the stairs, the doorway to the turret room. It was dark but for the shutter slamming repeatedly against the wall letting in a thready glow of grey light. She stepped up into the room, holding out the lamp as she circled, stunned beyond measure.
It was someone’s idea of a fantasy bedroom, something from The Arabian Nights or similar. The bed was low and covered in rich red silks and brightly coloured cushions with gold trim and tassels, dusty now, but still a glorious splash of colour. The walls were hung with jewel-coloured silk wall-hangings and covered in portraits: a ballerina, stunningly beautiful, photographed in costume in every ballet imaginable, Swan Lake, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet.
And there on the dresser was a close-up of her laughing into the camera, beautiful, glamorous and so full of life. Gabriella put down the lamp and picked up the picture in her hands.
To Raoul, she had written in large, elegant letters. All my love, Katia.
Katia. Raoul’s first wife.
A chill went down her spine. This was Katia’s room, kept as it must have been when she was alive. Kept locked and preserved, like some kind of shrine.
Was that why he hadn’t wanted another wife? Was that why they had come here, to be close to his first wife. Because he was still in love with Katia?
Pain lanced her heart. She’d thought she had sensed something holding him in reserve. It had not been there when he had made love to her; he had loved her then.
Or so she had thought.
Raoul drove the last few kilometres with a growing sense of dread. It wasn’t the approaching storm, but the fear that Gabriella had already left. What had she to stay for, after all? He had left her. There was nothing for her here.
But as he neared the castle something else caught his attention and froze his blood solid. There was a light on that shouldn’t be there, a flickering light in the turret room—just as there had been that day all those years ago.
And suddenly he wasn’t afraid that she had already left.
He was afraid that she had stayed …
* * *
The wind howled around the windows, cold fingers searching for a way in, the shutter banging endlessly, threatening to shatter what was left of her already bruised and battered nerves. She put the picture down and crossed to the window, testing the latch. It was stuck, probably grown shut through years of disuse.
Down below she could hear the surf smashing against the cliff, sending spray raining skywards. The window budged, little by little. If she just pushed a little harder, it would come unstuck.
He took the stairs three at a time, bellowing for Marco and Natania, wishing Gabriella would stick her head out of a door and demand to know what was wrong, fearing all the time that she would not—that he was already too late.
He reached the landing and turned right, standing panting and gutted when he saw it—the door to the turret room open, the flickering light from the lamp dancing down the stairs.
‘Gabriella!’ he shouted, leaping onto the stairs. ‘Gabriella, where are you?’
She pushed against the glass with all her weight just as the clap of thunder burst from the skies, but it was the feeling that someone had just called her name that had her looking over her shoulder at the same moment the window finally gave. She didn’t have time to see if there was anyone there; the wind clamped icy fingers around the open window and flung it open, dragging her from her feet. She screamed, clinging to the catch, her legs battling for purchase on the window sill while the surf boiled and spewed on the rocks below.
‘Nooo!’ he roared, feeling the past come crashing back, dark and horrific.
This could not be happening again!
He flew across the room, red spots before his eyes, the colour of blood in the white sea foam. He caught hold of her leg and then her waist. ‘Let go!’ he yelled at her. Her fingers were still wound deathly tight around the window clasp.
Finally she seemed to realise he had her and let go. He spun her inside, into his arms and against his frantically beating heart, stroking her hair with one hand, keeping the other wound tightly around her while the wind swirled and screamed into the room. ‘What the hell were you doing?’
‘The shutter was banging.’
‘No,’ he said, relief giving way to anger. ‘What the hell were you doing in here?’
She pushed him away, ran her hands through her hair as if she was fine, but she was trembling and as white as a ghost, her chest rising and falling quickly as she tried to catch her breath. ‘I was looking for a password for your computer so I could book a flight out of here. I found a key instead.’
‘And you thought you’d go exploring?’ Behind them the shutter and the window both slammed, rain slanting inside, feeling like icy needles against their skin. He growled and yanked the shutter closed before securing the window.
‘You told me it was a store room.’
‘It is.’
The storm let loose outside, the thunder overhead, lightning piercing the gloom and letting loose a fresh burst of rain against the shutters. ‘You didn’t tell me what it stored. You didn’t tell me you kept it as a shrine to the woman you love.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘What else could it be? No wonder you said you never wanted another wife. You already had one—all her photographs, all her mementos, locked away safe and sound for whenever you wanted to spend a moment or two with her. I never believed you slept downstairs near the kitchen. This is where you spent the first two nights of our marriage, isn’t it? Tucked away with the memories of a dead woman!’
