A Gift for a Lion (9 page)

'Have you anything more to say, before I bid you goodnight?'

'Yes,' she said, and at last her voice trembled a little. 'You asked me just now if I forgave easily. But I'll tell you now, Leo Vargas or Vorghese or whatever you choose to call yourself, I shall never forgive you for what you've made me suffer on this island. If it takes me all my life, I'll make you sorry for what you've done to me. And every day you keep me here will be one more day to hate you.'

He laughed softly, jeeringly, and somehow it frightened her more than the anger she was half expecting.

'Hate me, then,
mia
.' He came away from the door in a swift lunge, and two long strides brought him to her. 'But hate me for a reason, not because I have hurt your pride a little.'

She wanted to move, to back away, but the chair was behind her and she stumbled even as his arms went round her body, drawing her against him. For a moment her hands instinctively clung to his shoulders as she steadied herself and she could feel his hard muscles straining against the soft velvet tunic.

His eyes were golden and glowing, as if lit by some inner angry fire. Lion's eyes, she thought wildly. And he's strong and dangerous and cruel. King of his own private jungle. And then as his mouth came down on hers, all thought stopped and sensation, pure and naked, took its place.

All thoughts of resistance melted as he gathered her even closer, his lips parting hers with a ruthless mastery that she had never dreamed could exist. She was helpless against his strength, helpless to deny him the sweet flood of response his kiss was arousing in spite of herself.

He raised his head, his own breathing unsteady, and gazed down at her, her eyes wide and enormous in her small face. Then with a sound between a sigh and a groan, he bent to her again. Their mouths clung, parted, dissolved. It was as if they drank from each other. His tongue trailed a delicate fire around her eager lips, then found the small hollows of her ears. She heard herself moan as her mouth sought his again, like a flower turning to the sun. His hand caressed the soft mound of her breast through the concealing silk, then found the sash of, her robe and pulled it loose. The breath sighed from her throat in one long clamour of yearning.

Then from the corridor came a slight sound. Leo Vargas lifted his head, listening. Joanna stared at him for a moment, feeling utterly bereft, then she heard them too, the quiet footsteps approaching along the passage.

It was Josef coming to clear the table, she thought dazedly. He could have found them here, like this. Icy with sudden shame, she dragged the folds of black silk around her body, tightening the sash with shaking hands.

'
Cara
.' He sounded almost amused, she thought furiously. 'Josef is a perfect servant. He would never intrude.' He reached for her again. 'Let me send him away,' he whispered.

She slapped him as hard as she could across the face. For a moment she waited, appalled, afraid that he was going to retaliate as his grip tightened cruelly on her slender arm. He had gone pale, she saw, and the angry mark her blow had left stood out on his cheek. Then quite suddenly she was free, standing alone on legs that threatened to collapse under her.

He looked back at her from the doorway. 'You hate well,
mia
,' he said coolly, and left her.

It was almost dawn before Joanna drifted into a restless sleep. She had lain awake for hours, mentally and emotionally exhausted by the most prolonged bout of self-examination she had ever conducted. And the answers she had come up with had ranged from the unsatisfactory to the totally unacceptable.

There was simply no gainsaying the fact that she had allowed a man who was her enemy, keeping her prisoner in his house for his own dark purposes, to make passionate love to her. In fact, she had not merely allowed him to do so, but had responded with every fibre of her being to him. If Josef's imminent arrival had not shocked her back to sanity, she knew unquestioningly that there would only have been one end to the episode, and she shivered, pressing her burning face almost convulsively into the cool linen of the lace-edged pillows.

So much for her fighting words of hatred and revenge, she thought bitterly. Leo Vargas had shown her just how vulnerable she was as a woman. Another page for his dossier, and her spirit writhed in rebellion at the thought.

When he had gone, she had looked at herself in the mirror, horrified at the stranger who stared back at her, with the huge, drowsy eyes and the mouth swollen and blurred by passion. She had wiped a swift, rejecting hand across that mouth, but it had done nothing to obscure the softness that her first real encounter with sensuality had brought to her features.

She had remained by the window, staring rigidly into the darkness while Josef, tactfully silent, busied himself with the clearing away.

At last she spoke, her back still turned, terrified of what he might read in her face. 'Josef, do I have to to have that portrait hanging in this room while I am here?'

'But it has always hung here,
signorina
,' Josef said, in obvious surprise. 'You do not care for it? You are not like the other ladies who have occupied this room. They think the Lion Prince is
molto bello
.'

'No,' she said tightly, 'I am not like the others. Were they locked in too?'

There was a brief, unhappy silence, then Josef said diffidently, 'If the
signorina
could only understand… if it were possible to explain…'

'So you're in it too,' she said, and laughed almost wildly. 'What has that
signore
done, Josef—made off with the millions from the Vorghese bank? Is that the reason for the guards—that he expects an armed landing to get them back?'

There was a splintering crash from behind her, and she turned to see Josef on his knees picking up the remnants of one of the crystal wine goblets they had used at dinner.

Her mouth went suddenly dry. Josef was too impeccable a servant to behave with such clumsiness without cause. Had her shot in the dark actually hit the target? Leo Vargas with his icy patrician air, and volcanic emotions—a thief?

She shook her head disbelievingly. And yet it all fitted, she thought, trying to assemble her thoughts rationally. When she had accused him of concealing something discreditable, he had made no outraged denials. Perhaps he was merely relieved she had not carried the accusation a step further and called him a criminal to his face.

It also explained, gallingly, a possible motive for his lovemaking, she realised. He probably thought she would be less likely to inform on him as his mistress, or had he merely hoped that his expertise in the art of seduction would have swept every other consideration from her mind? Had he visualised her as blind and tamed to obedience as the hooded falcon who sat in perpetual thrall on the wrist of the first Vorghese Lion?

She said in a stifled voice, 'Please see if you can take that portrait away, Josef. I don't think I can bear it in the room with me.'

'I will tell the
signore
how you feel about it,
signorina
, but I can promise nothing.' Josef sounded distracted, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He bade her a rather stilted goodnight and left, and she heard the sound of the trolley disappearing down the corridor. But he had not been too distracted to forget to lock the door behind him, she thought bleakly.

She switched off the lights, leaving only one of the shaded bedside lamps burning. She sat down in front of the dressing chest and picked up the hairbrush, to give her hair its routine nightly grooming. As she did so, she remembered what Josef had said about the 'other ladies' who had occupied this room, and she found herself unwillingly wondering who they had been. Perhaps they too had sat at this dressing table, brushing their hair in the lamplight, smiling a little as their eyes met in the mirror the bold, tawny gaze of the golden-skinned man who lounged on the wide bed in the shadows behind them. A little sob rose in her throat at the picture she had deliberately created and she was shocked at its power to wound her.

Perhaps if she could only get rid of that damned portrait, that other and infinitely more disturbing presence would also stop plaguing her, she thought savagely, pressing the soft swell of her palm against her teeth.

Guilt rose up in her as Tony's face swam into her mind. Less than two hours before, she had told Leo Vargas how much she loved Tony. Now she was forced to acknowledge how lukewarm her feelings for him had been in the light of the evening's revelations about her own desires. And if she was honest with herself, she had already suspected that their relationship was not completely wholehearted as far as she was concerned. It could have been doubts about her feelings that had influenced her in deciding to pursue a modelling career after all, she thought, remembering as if it was a thousand years ago her idyllic afternoon on the beach, and the decisions she had reached there.

It was not a particularly pleasant reflection to wonder if she had chosen Tony simply because he was suitable, and she knew he would make no demands on her that she could not handle. She had found little difficulty in fending off his attempts to bring their lovemaking to a more intimate level, she recalled. Yet she was not naive enough to believe that the simple placing of a wedding ring on her finger was suddenly going to transform their relationship to the heights of ardour. She realised now that if she married Tony, she would be doing them both an injustice. He was a warm loving person, and deserved more than the half-hearted giving of herself he would have got from her, she thought soberly.

If she had been wavering before, she was now certain that everything had to end between them. It was odd to think how little effect Tony's caresses had ever engendered and then to remember that wild burning moment when she had waited, poised it seemed between heaven and hell, for Leo's hands to touch her body.

He would never again find her so weak or so willing, she vowed fiercely as a sweet stab of longing went through her. This torment of unfulfilled desire would be her punishment for having yielded herself so easily to a stranger who had shown her neither tenderness and consideration, nor respect. But from now on her mind would be shut to him.

But her dreams were not so responsive to her will, and it seemed when she opened reluctant eyes to the morning sun streaming in through the delicate iron lattice-work at the windows that she was still in some nightmare jungle where giant cats pursued her endlessly as their prey under the sardonic gaze of a tawny-haired man, his hunting hawk docile on his wrist.

She sat up with a heavy sigh, conscious that her head ached, and then she saw something at the foot of her bed which brought her attention sharply into focus. Three pigskin suitcases with gold initials were stacked neatly on the mosaic floor. It was her luggage from the
Luana
. Another victory to the enemy, she thought morosely, but perhaps it would be his last, and she had to admit it would be good to have her own clothes again, and to know she did not have to spend any more hours in that black silk dressing gown. She pushed its crumpled folds contemptuously aside with her foot as she slid out of bed.

Her nightwear and undies were in the top case, and also included was a note—from Mary, Joanna realised as she snatched it up and unfolded it.

'Dear Joanna,' it read, 'You did not say how long you would be staying on Saracina, so I am sending all your clothes to be on the safe side. I don't think we shall be here much longer anyway, as Tony is too upset by the way you've behaved to want to go on with the cruise to Livorno, and I can't say I blame him. We shall visit Corsica as planned, and then call it a day. I suppose we shall see you in London some time when you can tear yourself away from your wealthy Italian friends. You could have told us Prince Vorghese was an old friend of your father, instead of just creeping off like that, but I suppose you have your reasons. Mary.'

Old friend of her father indeed! Joanna screwed the note into a ball and hurled it to the floor. Oh, the damnable cleverness of the man, even down to the use of his discarded title to add that final touch of ultra-respectability.

So now they were all on Corsica, thinking the worst of her, and she could expect no help from that quarter. Joanna sighed. She would have to rely solely on her own wits from now on, and they had not served her particularly well so far, she thought sourly.

She pulled out her favourite broderie anglaise wrap and put it on, just as a discreet knock sounded at the door. She called 'Come in', and then paused, her heart thumping, but it was only Josef who appeared in the doorway.

'The
signorina
wishes to use the bathroom before her breakfast?'

'She certainly does.' Joanna swept up a handful of underwear and snapped the locks on the next case, pulling out a sleeveless full-skirted dress in navy cotton with a trim white edging round the low scooped neck and armholes.

Her spirits had risen mercurially by the time she had showered and dressed, and she returned to her room in time to see that Josef had set a table and a chair by the window for her and was putting out a tall jug of fruit juice and a silver coffee pot on a small electric heater. There was grilled fish, tasting magically of the sea, and freshly baked rolls to eat with chilled curls of butter.

'Magnificent,' she told Josef when he reappeared at the end of the meal, and he gave her a delighted smile.

'I have told the
signore
of the
signorina's
request that the portrait of his ancestor should be removed from her room,' he said with a little cough. 'The
signore
replied that if a finger was laid on the portrait then the ghost of the Lion of Saracina would return to haunt the
signorina
. But I think he was joking,' he added, frowning a little. 'No one has ever spoken of a ghost at the
palazzo'

Joking I Joanna's nails curled into her palm. She smiled at Josef. 'You may tell the
signore
that it is no longer important,' she said. 'Tell him in fact that I am no longer the fool I was last night.'