A Gift for a Lion (15 page)

They drove out of the courtyard of the
palazzo
, past the cool splash of the tall fountain which formed its centrepiece and through the iron gates which slid open as if by magic when the car approached.

'Another of Leo's American gadgets,' Nick indicated with a grin, and she nodded, smiling faintly. The perfect fortress, she thought, perfectly guarded.

Away from the towering walls of the
palazzo
and whatever they concealed, Joanna felt a new sense of freedom. In, spite of the sultriness of the day, the air was fresh with unusual scents. Nick said little as he drove, leaving her to enjoy the scenery. The narrow road bordered by tall rocks interspersed with cypresses and eucalyptus trees on one side, and a plunge down the cliffside to the restless sea on the other, required most of his attention.

Occasionally they passed through small hamlets built where the rock had given way to soil that could be cultivated and Nick slowed, sounding his horn for the groups of dark-haired children invariably absorbed in the centre of the highway in the games that occupy children the world over. Women dressed in black, with headscarves covering their hair, came to stand at their doorways and smile as the car sped by.

'We are basking in Leo's glory, you understand,' Nick said lightly, acknowledging the salutations with a wave. 'It is the owner of this car who is being honoured, not its occupants.'

Joanna remained unhappily silent. She wondered what would happen to the people on this tiny island who looked to the Vorghese family for employment and sustenance if Leo Vargas was arrested. Would anyone carry on the industries he had set up? And what of the
palazzo
, left masterless, and the work it provided for the local townspeople in the house itself and the grounds? She had little doubt that even some of the security guards were local men. Her own misery seemed selfish and insignificant when compared with the hardship for the islanders that the downfall of the Vorghese family could bring in its wake. The repercussions on the international finance scene would also be inconceivable, she thought.

'Another day we will go to see the cascade,' Nick was saying. 'For that we take the other road towards the interior and travel up to the
col
. It is the highest point on the island. And soon I should be able to show you the town.'

The first lot of fortifications they reached were rather a disappointment, being, as Nick had warned, reduced to a haphazard pile of mossy grey stones.

'Half the stones are missing,' Nick explained. 'For years the islanders have been using them to repair their houses.'

'The same thing happened in Britain after Hadrian's Wall was overrun,' Joanna recalled.

Nick grinned. 'Some were used as missiles as well,' he said. 'When stocks of cannon balls were running low, the islanders used to throw rocks from the defences themselves to knock the invaders back into the sea.

'But they didn't always win?'

'Not always. The island was overrun by Barbary pirates on more than one occasion and some of our ancestors were actually held to ransom. The men, that is. The women suffered less honourable fates, I fear. The mistress of the
palazzo
was treated no differently from the peasants in that respect. During one raid Prince Lorenzo Vorghese's three young daughters were carried off and never heard of again.'

'I think a little of the Barbary blood has survived to the present day,' Joanna said acidly, and Nick threw back his head and laughed.

'Oh, the world will hear from you again, Joanna,' he teased. 'Have no fear of that. And your fate will only be as dishonourable as you choose. After all, why force a woman when to persuade her can be so much more rewarding?'

Joanna smiled perfunctorily, but his words roused too many disturbing memories of the previous evening for comfort. She said hurriedly, 'By the way, you never explained to me what that statue of the lion was doing on the headland.'

'What chance did I have?' he protested. 'By the time I found your wrap and came to look for you, you were half-way back to the house with Leo. Why didn't you ask him to tell you its history?'

'We were talking of other things,' she said awkwardly, wishing she had not raised the subject, but he merely gave a slight shrug.

'The carving was done by a local man after the first Leo Vorghese had settled on Saracina. It was he who organised the islanders into their first rough defensive system before the forts were built and the carving was made in honour of their first victory against some enemy —or that is the legend. Later there were—other legends,' he added, grinning.

'Such as?'

'Oh, very romantic,
cara
. The islanders had to seek their new lord's permission to marry, you understand, and when a girl was finally married to the man she loved she used to hang her bridal wreath over the lion's paw as a way of saying thanks to the Lion of Saracina himself.'

'I think that's rather charming,' Joanna said.

'But later the custom fell into disrepute, alas, when it was found that some of the more forward of the
ragazzi
were hanging garlands of flowers on the statue as a way of attracting the Lion's attention to their charms. Gradually it became accepted that if a girl hung a flower garland on the lion's paw she was saying in effect "I'm yours, if you want me." It wasn't long before parents were watching their pretty daughters to make sure they went nowhere near it.'

Joanna smiled faintly. 'I suppose that was where that saying about the gift for the Lion came from.'

He laughed. 'Almost certainly, I would say,
cara
.'

The next fort was in a much better state of preservation, still maintaining some semblance of its towerlike structure. Nick parked the car at the side of the road and they walked through thick undergrowth redolent with the scents of lavender, rosemary and honeysuckle where enormous dark red butterflies hovered like exotic blossoms borne on an invisible breeze.

The cannon which had once been the mainstay of the fort had vanished long since, but Nick showed Joanna the opening in the wall where the defenders had hauled it to fire on the Saracen or Barbary marauders as their galleys approached the beaches.

'At one time, every headland on this side of the island was occupied by a garrison, and the
palazzo
itself was heavily fortified,' Nick remarked, spreading a rug on a piece of turf for their meal. 'When things were peaceful the soldiers must have sat here just as we do now, eating and playing dice or cards, perhaps. Or,' his tone took on a distinctly caressing note and he laid his hand over hers as she helped straighten the corner of the rug, 'maybe they even made love to their sweethearts.'

Joanna freed her hand with a jerk. 'I hardly think so,' she commented crisply. 'I would have thought all the women would have taken refuge in the sixteenth-century equivalent of an air raid shelter at times like those.'

Nick sighed dejectedly, 'You are not very romantic, Joanna
mia
.'

'Perhaps I don't like having love made to me to order,' she said lightly.

He stared at her. 'You cannot think such a thing.'

'Can't I? Are you trying to pretend that I'm not here with you now, sitting in the sunshine eating chicken and drinking wine simply because your cousin decided it would be more convenient to have me away from the
palazzo
for a few hours—for reasons of his own? What is it, I wonder? More non-existent visitors arriving on non-existent helicopters?'

He burst out laughing. '
Brava
, Joanna! You are an incredible girl. No wonder Leo finds you too much of a distraction when he has so much urgent business to deal with. You are right, of course. I am to keep you away for a while. But I assure you that I have no orders to make love to you. That is entirely my own idea.'

'It's not a very good idea, Nick,' she said quietly, pulling restlessly at a small pink blossom growing beside her.

'Why not? The sun is warm, the wine is good and we are very much alone. The English boy-friend is miles away, and what he does not know he will never regret.'

It was on the tip of her tongue to protest that Tony's possible reaction was the last thing on her mind, but she remained silent. Better for Nick to suppose mistakenly that it was loyalty to Tony that held her back than to search for other motives, and perhaps discover the sorry truth.

He reached out gently, taking the beaker of wine from her unresisting hand and putting it down on a convenient stone.

'Relax,
cara
,' he murmured, his fingers sliding questioningly up her bare arm. 'It's a beautiful day. Maybe together we can make it perfect.'

With a little sigh, she allowed him to kiss her. His lips were warm and gentle as they moved on hers and he smelt expensively of cologne. She could hear the hum of bees, drunken with pollen as they sailed heavily among the blossoms of the
maquis
around them, and feel the sun beating on her eyelids. She wished almost desperately that Nick's kisses could mean something to her, that they would rouse her from this curious sense of detachment which was her prevailing emotion. He was young and attractive and probably a very good lover, she thought remotely. It was a pity he would never get the response he was seeking from her.

Eventually he drew back, staring down at her, frowning a little.

'What is it, Joanna? You are not cold—your eyes and mouth tell a different story. Do you dislike me?'

'No, of course I don't,' she said wretchedly. But I—I am almost engaged and…'

'So Leo told me, but he also said he did not believe that you really loved this man.' Nick's eyes narrowed. 'Now why should he think that, Joanna? Have you given my noble cousin reason to doubt your feelings towards your fiancé?'

'No!' The monosyllable was jerked out of her. 'I—I've told you how I feel about Leo.'

'What have words to do with it?' he said moodily. 'You can tell me what you will, but I have seen that look in your eyes, that glow on your skin which says louder than any words that you want to be loved. I know now that it is not meant for me, so I ask myself whom it is for, and I do not like the answer that springs to mind.'

'You're imagining things,' she protested, conscious of how weak her rebuttal sounded. 'You Latin men seem to think that women are all the same—just looking for someone to make love to them. All I want is to get away from this island and go on with my own life.'

He laughed shortly. 'And what kind of a life is that without love in it?' he challenged her. 'Your protestations don't deceive me,
cara
, and I am sorry for you because you are a fool.'

'Why?' Joanna faced him indignantly. 'Because I don't .want you to make love to me? Of all the conceited…'

'No, no,' he said impatiently. 'Because it is Leo's lovemaking you want. I thought you had more pride, Joanna, than to be merely another "gift for the Lion". He has already had a surfeit of such gifts, or why do you suppose he sent for me?'

Joanna's face felt stiff and her voice seemed to come from a long way away.

'Are you trying to say I've just been handed on—like an unwanted package?'

Nick sighed. 'Not exactly. But you are not like the usual girls who come here in search of Leo. You would want more of him—maybe even a wedding ring. I tell you,
cara
, you are crying for the moon. He has never been involved with any woman to that extent. Besides, you are the daughter of a man who moves in his own world, so he must be wary.'

'Am I to understand then that Leo sent for you to prevent me becoming a possible embarrassment to him?' she asked carefully. 'As—as a chaperon even?'

'What else?' He studied her face gently. 'I am sorry,
cara
, but in spite of your undoubted attraction for him an affair with you is one luxury that even Leo cannot afford. The price he might have to pay would be too high.'

'I notice you don't share his scruples,' she flung at him.

He shrugged. 'I think we could be happy together,
cara
. I haven't Leo's wealth, it is true, but I am far from poor and my mother would welcome my settling down. She wants grandchildren.'

'Are you proposing to me?'

'I think it is too early for that, Joanna, but one day I hope you will allow me to speak to your father.'

If she had not been so hurt and angry, she could have been touched by the odd formality of his speech. As it was, she shook away the hand he placed on her arm with a little inarticulate sound.

Out of her pain and indignation,-a voice was crying, 'But he had no reason—no reason to think like that!' But even as she heard the words reverberating in her ears she knew they were not the whole truth. She had given him reason enough by her own unexpected surrender to his kisses. He could not know that he was the only man whose mouth had ever roused her to such a fever of longing. He could even have written her off as a typical product of the permissive generation, but at the same time forbidden fruit because of her family background, she thought with fresh agony—desirable, but dangerous, and more fitted for his younger, marriage-minded cousin.

She saw Nick was watching her with concern and forced a smile to her quivering lips, trying to conceal her inner turmoil from him. She supposed he had considered he was being cruel to be kind. After all, what a waste of time and emotion to hanker after a man who had already cold-bloodedly decided to cut you out of his life, because, however desirable, you were a threat to his bachelor way of life.

Little wonder that he had found it apparently so easy to let her go the previous night, she thought bitterly. He had accused her of playing games with emotions, but was he really any better himself?

She picked up her beaker again, and lifted it in a caricature of a toast. 'To the future,' she announced, trying to sound gay. 'Whatever it may hold.'

When they had eaten and re-packed the hamper, Nick drove further round the coast, pointing out other sections of the fortifications and the best bathing beaches as he went. They laughed and chatted as before, but Joanna sensed an awkwardness between them that had not existed hitherto and she regretted the loss of his carefree companionship which had helped to make her time on the island so much easier.