A Gift for a Lion (14 page)

'Just a moment,' she halted him, feeling utterly crushed and foolish. 'My—my shoes. I've lost them.'

He muttered something under his breath, and stood waiting with obvious impatience while she raked around in the clumps of undergrowth round the base of the statue for the missing sandals. At last she found them, and stood awkwardly trying to fit them on to her feet without overbalancing.

'Take my arm,' he offered coldly.

She was glad the darkness hid her unhappy flush. 'It's all right, thank you. I've—I've managed.'

'Don't sound so nervous,' he jibed at her. 'I shan't force any more of my attentions on you. Apart from your own apparently double standards of behaviour, my cousin is almost certain to return at any moment, which could be embarrassing for us both.'

Joanna trailed after him miserably, stumbling a little on the rough patches of undergrowth. The scent of crushed myrtle seemed to be everywhere, and she knew that for ever after she would associate its bitter-sweetness with her own unhappiness.

It was swelteringly hot that night and Joanna, tossing restlessly, felt that even the simple covering of a sheet was almost too much to bear.

Another brilliant cloudless morning dawned, with not even the slightest breeze to move the still air.

Nick gloomily predicted that a thunderstorm was on the way, and Joanna agreed that the atmosphere was certainly brooding and oppressive enough.

'I don't think the storm will break before we have had our picnic at the ruins—if that is still your wish,' Nick said, pouring himself another cup of coffee. They were breakfasting on the terrace in the little arbour which provided a certain amount of shade. 'I wish Leo would have air-conditioning installed,' he added rather fretfully. 'My room was like an oven last night.'

Joanna smiled. 'I would have thought air-conditioning was rather too progressive for a place like Saracina.'

Nick shrugged. 'For Saracina, maybe, but not for Leo. He likes modernity. You should see the kitchens. His father modernised them and Leo has improved on his design. They're like the control deck of a pace ship.'

'That's not my picture at all,' Joanna admitted. 'I had a vision of huge open ranges, and copper pans and garlic, with smoked hams hanging from the ceiling.'

Nick's eyes twinkled. 'Very traditional,
cara
, but not very practical. Leo spends at least half the year in the States, and that is where he has developed his ideas on efficiency.'

'He speaks perfect English,' Joanna said slowly. 'I suppose that is why.'

'We have all spoken English from our cradles as a second language, and we have to be fluent in French as well.' Nick explained. 'Leo visits Britain often too. In fact Saracina is probably the only link with the old country that he has left. He has never looked on himself as being solely Italian. He believes in internationalism and has moulded the Vargas Corporation accordingly since he took over at its head.'

'Is that why he also considers himself apparently above the law?'

'Oh, Joanna!' Nick looked uncomfortable. 'Does it never seem to you that there are some laws which would be better broken?'

'That's no answer. If everyone felt like that we would be left with anarchy. Ordinary men and women get sent to jail every day for the sort of actions that seem everyday occurrences in your cousin's sphere. Is it right that he should get away with it, simply because he's richer and more powerful than other people, when he deserves prison just like any other law-breaker?'

She saw Nick, obviously embarrassed, looking past her rather than at her, and guessed with a sinking .heart that they were no longer alone.

'Who deserves jail?' Leo Vargas dropped into the remaining seat at the table and reached for the coffee pot.

'Joanna says you do because you are an anarchist,' Nick said, grinning, and Joanna was mortified to see the same amusement reflected in Leo Vargas's eyes.

'I think I'll go up to my room until we're ready to leave, Nick,' she said, hurriedly pushing back her chair and rising. 'What time are we setting off?'

Nick glanced at his watch. 'I'll have the car at the front door by eleven,' he promised.

Joanna walked back along the terrace and entered the
salotto
by the french windows. She was halfway across the room to the door when she remembered that she had left her sunglasses on the table. Although it was more than likely that the ubiquitous Josef would deliver them to her when the meal was over, she decided to go back for them.

She was just emerging on to the terrace when she was halted in her tracks by Nick's urgent voice, and stayed where she was, her presence masked by a large flowering bush growing against the wall.

'You are sure she knows nothing?' he was saying.

'What can she know?' Leo sounded calm. 'They were on board that boat of theirs for ten days before they arrived at Calista. They will have heard no broadcasts and seen no papers. You worry too much.'

Joanna, straining her ears, heard Nick mutter something about 'so much at stake.'

Leo's voice was incisive. 'True, but do not forget we are only go-betweens in this. Anyway, the girl is my responsibility and they have accepted her as such.'

Joanna turned and slipped back into the
salotto
, speeding across the room to the door and the approximate safety of the hall. She was in a state of utter confusion over what she had just heard.

Just what were the noble Vorghese family involved in as go-betweens, and what did news broadcasts and papers have to do with it?

In the quiet of her room she flung herself on the bed and began to think. Leo Vargas was wrong. She had seen a newspaper since her arrival in the area—the English paper that Tony had brought back from Calista. She frowned, trying to remember what the main items had been, although it seemed most unlikely that they would have any relevance to what was going on at the
palazzo
. What had there been—some political row over a conference, she remembered vaguely, and a bank robbery.

Joanna sat up slowly. A bank robbery, she repeated to herself. Could it be? She remembered a crystal goblet smashing to the ground and Josef's frightened face when she had joked about Leo Vargas having made off with the Vorghese millions. But just now on the terrace he had said he was only a go-between. Did this mean that someone else perhaps had done the robbery and he was now sheltering them on Saracina until the hue and cry died down?

She shook her head bewilderedly. She knew from odd scraps of information overheard at her father's dinner parties from time to time that the Vargas Corporation was a vast concern of world-wide importance and respected as such. Was it possible that the head of the corporation and the driving force behind it was nothing better than a crook, stealing from his own workforce and shareholders? She could not believe it, and yet what other answer was there?

She turned her head unwillingly and looked at the portrait of the first Lion of Saracina, all pride and tawny virility and a villain to his elegant fingertips, she thought unhappily. Perhaps this total amorality was another strain that only showed itself once in so many generations along with the distinctive hair and smouldering amber eyes.

She gave a small bitter sigh. Well, she had wanted to believe the worst of Leo Vargas. It was odd then that the achievement of her wish brought her no sense of triumph, only a chilling disappointment which left her strangely bereft.

And Nick too was involved in this gigantic conspiracy, and presently she would go on this picnic with him, and have to laugh and talk as if nothing had happened. Of course, as far as he was concerned, nothing had. He had no idea that she had overheard that brief snatch of conversation with his cousin. They still thought she knew nothing, whereas in reality she knew too much for her own peace of mind.

She supposed wretchedly that the little man with his ecstatically inaccurate rendering of the Easter Hymn was one of the gang, come out of hiding to enjoy the evening air, who had wandered into the wrong part of the garden by mistake.

Had the gang then been as unaware of her presence as she had been of theirs? It explained why she had been smuggled into the
palazzo
under a jacket and why she had been forced to remain against her will. Leo Vargas had taken responsibility for her, presumably to make sure she did not get away and raise any alarm before the rest of the gang had dispersed. She wondered what might have happened to her if he had not decided to extend his protection to her, and shivered a little.

She got up and started to pace restlessly round the room, in spite of the cloying heat. She must get away from this place and tell the authorities what was going on. She had no choice, in spite of her unwilling attraction to Leo Vargas. A man's practised expertise as a lover could not be enough to excuse his criminal activities, at least in her eyes, she told herself.

She felt cold and sickened, as much at the thought of never seeing Leo again as by the realisation of what he had done. Whatever kind of a rogue he was, he had taught her in a few short moments what it was to be a woman, and changed her irrevocably. She would never again be content with second best in a relationship. Yet without him, what else was there for her? She was dismayed at the deep waters her attraction to him had led her into.

It was useless telling herself that she was crazy. That for him she had been merely an interlude, because there was no one else, not even the beautiful Marisa Fallone, available. She remembered Nick's words with painful clarity: 'When he needs a woman, one comes to him, believe me.'

She gave a little involuntary sob, then took a fresh grip on herself. Falling in love with Leo Vargas was an in-diligence that she could not afford. The most he would ever want would be a brief physical relationship, and he would not thank her for burdening him with unwanted emotional demands. But in turn, could she bear to be merely the plaything he wanted, if that was all he was to ask of her? She sighed and shook her head. She had always imagined that when she belonged to a man it would be as part of a permanent relationship, and she had never wanted to take part in the promiscuous affairs that many of her friends accepted as quite normal conduct. Her behaviour with Leo had been totally out of character, and she was bewildered and chagrined by her own lack of control and the confused emotions that prompted it.

She was heavy-eyed and listless by the time she went in search of Nick, and he expressed immediate concern and suggested they should postpone their trip to another day. But Joanna refused. The car waiting for them was a low-slung sports model with the hood down and she felt that a drive could be just what she needed to blow some of her blues away. She was wearing a plain cream shift dress, deeply scooped at the neckline, back and front, to show off her tan, and she tied a matching cream scarf over her hair to protect it from the dusty roads before taking her place in the passenger seat beside Nick.

'These are yours, are they not,
carat'
Nick casually handed her a pair of sunglasses—those she had left on the breakfast table—and she gulped her thanks, glad that he was fitting the key into the ignition and had not noticed her guilty blush as she took them.