The Sin of Cynara (18 page)

  Her own fingers shook uncontrollably as she took the masculine ring from the prayer book, and as she slid it on to Rudolph's finger her skin in contact with his felt as if it were receiving an electrical charge. The priest locked their hands together with his ... they were man and wife and the racking ritual was over at last.

  As this final moment came the guests watched avidly ... would the baróne kiss his bride in front of them and how would she react, this foreign girl who was now their padroncita?

  His arm slid firm and strong around her waist and he held her against him as he brought his dark face down to hers ... such a pale face, blue-shadowed by the wide brim of her hat, her deep blue eyes fixed upon the twisted lips.

  That sense of drama was so heightened in the chapel, filled with islanders to its very doors, that a total silence fell as the bride suddenly pressed to her bridegroom and gave him her lips without protest or any outward sign of trepidation. At the same time her ringed hand touched his scarred cheek, and somewhere in the packed chapel a woman gave a choked sob.

  'Bless you for that moment,' Gena said afterwards to Carol. Tt was the perfect gesture, for everyone was quite certain that you were scared out of your wits. My dear, there were moments when your voice could hardly be heard, but actions speak louder than words and it was really quite moving when you put your hand to Rudi's face. Oh, what a day ! My head is spinning from all that wine and music. Teri enjoyed himself, didn't he? Dashing about with those other kids and looking every bit as Italian as they are. He doesn't resemble you, but I guess that's how it is when someone so fair has a baby with a man so dark.'

  Gena turned from the salotto window and gave Carol a frankly curious look. 'Do you plan to give Rudi any children?' she asked.

  Carol flushed deeply, not so much at the question but at what it implied in reference to the baróne. He had spoken of a marriage in name only, but Carol couldn't see how it was going to work. Already her personal belongings had been moved into the wing of the palazzo used exclusively by Rudolph, and Flavia had agreed to sleep in the room next to Teri's so he wouldn't feel too abandoned by Carol's departure. He was a precocious child who knew that a husband and wife slept in adjoining rooms, and he hadn't sulked when Carol had explained to him that she was now expected to sleep in her husband's apartment. He had taken to his uncle, and grown fond of Flavia, so there was no problem there.

  The problem lay in Carol's own heart ... she was disturbed by the man she had married, and common sense told her that a man and a woman couldn't live on the edge of intimacy without being aware of each other. A marriage of pure formality could only work if they lived in separate parts of the house, but he wanted their relationship to look as normal as possible; too proud a man, and too much an Italian, to want it whispered about that he never laid hands on his attractive bride.

  'Che sarà, sarà,' she said in answer to Gena's question. 'I've already learned that we don't really plan things for ourselves, but have to swim with the tide that catches hold of us.'

  'You're being evasive,' Gena said shrewdly. 'I don't think you really know what Rudi wants of you, and much as I love him there's a forbidding pride to him that makes me stop at asking personal questions. I won't probe, Carol, so there's no need to look cornered, You and Rudi have entered into a state of privacy which excludes even a fond sister, but I'll wish you good luck in your marriage. It's quite an undertaking when someone marries a Falcone.'

  They moved out into the hall after that and said good night. The last guest had drifted away an hour ago and now the palazzo was strangely quiet. The baróne had gone out into the grounds to smoke a cigar, and Carol hadn't seen anything of Bedelia for some time. As she stood alone in the hall, Gena having gone upstairs to bed, Carol looked around her and tried to believe that she was now the mistress of all this. She had become part of the history of this house, for no matter what happened privately between her and Rudolph, it was now recorded that she was his wife and her name had been entered in the huge, silver-bound recording book of the family.

  She drifted from one portrait to another on the high walls and studied the faces of other Falcone brides. Mostly they had been Italians, with here and there the fairer face of some European woman. On one or two of the women she recognized the tiger rubies, and it was a startling thought that she now wore jewellery which had once adorned that austere-looking Latin with her hair in Victorian ringlets.

  Suddenly she tensed and felt that she was being watched by living eyes that made her turn sharply to look. Bedelia was standing silently in one of the embrasures of the hall, and she smiled when she saw that she had startled Carol.

  'Nervous on your wedding night?' she mocked. 'After that pretty demonstration in the chapel one would suppose that you couldn't wait to get into Rudolph's arms. But I knew you were acting ! I could have told those sentimental fools the truth about you, that you would do anything to get your hands on the lands and the title for that brat of yours. You would even endure his lovemaking for that, and one look at your face tonight is enough to show that it will be an endurance test. In the dark you will have to pretend that you are with Vincenzo - I believe that quite a few women act out this kind of fantasy in order to survive the love-making of a man they don't really fancy. Yes, that is what I advise you to do, close your eyes and make believe that you are kissing the handsome face of my husband — as you kissed it when he was alive, his long lashes against your skin, and the very tip of his finger parting your lips to his. The perfect lover, wasn't he?'

  Bedelia drew nearer to Carol as she said this, and there was the faintest rustle of silk about her body, the faintest drift of musky perfume.

  She was like a serpent, Carol thought wildly, slithering across the mosaic floor with a hissing sound, her tongue flickering with venom on this night when like all the others she believed that the baróne was going to consummate his marriage.

  A tide of anger and dislike swept through her and she just had to retaliate and make this bitter woman squirm in her own venom.

  ‘I daresay Rudolph is an equally perfect lover,' she rejoined. 'Are you envious of me, Bedelia? Would you like to change places when he takes me in his arms and makes me his woman?'

  'Change places with you?' Bedelia's voice rose in the quietness of the hall. 'You are welcome to have that devilish face close to yours, and those twisted lips on your body. If I didn't hate you I might pity you for having to give yourself to him. He won't be a tender lover! A woman did that to his face and he'll always feel the need to get his own back on other women, and you're the one who's vulnerable. You're now his private property, on his very own island, where he makes the laws.'

  Vindictive words with an awful ring of truth in them, but even as they had their effect on Carol she flung up her head and defied anyone to see the fear that knocked at her heart. No one knew themselves, or the extent of their own passions, and Carol would be at his mercy when the door of his apartment closed behind them tonight. They were to share adjoining bedrooms and there was no knowing what memories, what pain it might trigger off when he found himself alone with her, her long fair hair let down for the night.

  'Because you're vindictive,' Carol said, 'you take it for granted that everyone else is. Rudolph knows that I want security for Teri, and I'm deeply grateful to him for providing it.'

  'So out of gratitude you'll give yourself to him, eh?'

  Bedelia gave a laugh that was like claws scraping across silk. 'Your demon lover - why, it's like something out of one of those old melodramas, when for the sake of her family the girl sacrificed herself to a man who really frightened the heart out of her. Do you think I can't see it in your face, you little fool? You're as white as those flowers you carried to your wedding — did he provide the orchids? You know their meaning, don't you? I await your favours.

  'Of course he does.' Bedelia ran her eyes all over Carol's slim figure. 'You've sold yourself to the devil and you'll have to pay the price.'

  'Oh, stop it!' Carol could feel the edginess of her nerves - this was ail she had needed, a confrontation with Bedelia to round off a day of sheer bravado on her part. Walking arm in arm with Rudolph from the chapel, the guests following beneath the flowered archways to where the decorated tables were piled with food and drink. There in front of everyone they had drunk their wedding wine, and those white orchids had been tossed into the air for one of the single girls to catch. The music had played and she had danced with her bridegroom. The smile had been fixed to her face until the muscles of her mouth had ached with tension. Slowly the day had drawn to a close and a sort of peace had drifted into the air along with the fragrant coolness of the night.

  Now that tentative peace had vanished and a new sort of tension had Carol in its grip.

  'I'm going to my room !' She turned and made for the branch of the stairs that led to her old room. Remembrance stabbed and as she halted at the foot of the stairs she heard Bedelia laugh.

  'Wishful thinking, dear,' there was infinite scorn in the Italian woman's voice. 'You go to his bed tonight.'

  'You can go to hell!' Carol flung at her, and with flying skirts she dashed up the other flight of stairs and walked in the direction of Rudolph's suite as if she were going to the gallows, head high and features white as marble, feeling as if at any minute her legs would give way beneath her.

  She opened the door of the suite, where there was a master bedroom and bath, a smaller bedroom fitted out for Carol, and a salottino with armchairs, an elegant writing-table and several book cabinets.

  There was an air of luxury and style, and a subtle aroma of the tobacco he smoked. Carol opened a door which she thought led into her own bedroom, but instead she found herself in Rudolph's room. She stared at the bed where his black silk robe and pyjamas lay dark against the bedcover ... a large bed, with carved posts soaring into the shadows of the high ceiling.

  And it was there by his bed that her legs went suddenly nerveless so that she had to drop to the bed or find herself on the floor. A wave of weakness swept over her and the bravado which had kept her going all day was like sand ebbing from a rag doll. She lay there motionless, feeling the silk coverlet beneath the grip of her hand, seeing the rubies wink and gleam against the gold of her wedding ring.

  She knew when the door opened, but the carpet silenced the sound of his approach. He bent over her and she felt his breath against her neck.

  'So the little sacrifice awaits her demon lover,' he murmured. 'Well, my dear, if you want to pay the devil, then I'm perfectly willing to accept payment - a rather sweet one, at that.'

  As he spoke his hand slid down Carol's spine and she shivered from pure emotion. The very words he used made her realize that he had caught part of that conversation with Bedelia, and she just about found the strength to turn over and face him, so she might read his eyes and try to gauge how dangerous his mood might be.

CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN he saw the way she was looking at him, his lips gave a mocking twist.

  'That is why you came in here, eh?' His eyes wandered over her face, a heaviness to his eyelids so that his lashes screened their gold to a sultry duskiness. 'That's why I find you on my bed so invitingly?'

  'No—' She attempted to sit up, but his hands closed upon her shoulders and she was borne back against the silk bedspread. 'I — I mistook your room for mine—'

  'With my robe and pyjamas to hand?' he mocked. 'Come, don't lose your nerve now you have come to me in this way. I assure you I'm not averse to changing the terms of our bargain if it will ease your mind to repay me for giving your child the legal right to my name and fortune.'

  'Oh, you won't understand—' Carol fought her feeling of weakness, but even when her vitality was at its best she was no match for his strength, and quite deliberately he was removing the pin that secured her hair and as it tumbled around his fingers they twined themselves in its glossy strands and he held her to the bed -his prisoner of a passion she could see smouldering in his eyes.

  'Pale and lovely as those orchids, and a little mysterious, aren't you, mia? I do indeed await your favours—'

  'You were listening,' she accused. 'You heard what Bedelia said to me and now you're putting your own interpretation upon her remarks.'

  'I admit it, my dear. I was about to come in from the garden after a most enjoyable smoke when I caught the sound of raised voices in the hall. I paused in the shadows and I heard you taunt Bedelia and ask if she was envious that tonight I would hold you in my arms and make you my woman. Followed by that I come to my room and find you stretched upon my bed so provocatively.'

  As he spoke he forcibly took her left hand and carried it to his scarred cheek. 'Today in the chapel you touched my face in front of everyone, but like Bedelia I believe that you were acting your part to perfection. Now the show is over and tonight is a reality.'

  Carol saw from his face that he meant every word, and beneath her hand she could feel the agitated movement of a tiny muscle in his jaw. Instantly her eyes filled with the fear that haunted her .. . the fear that he would find out that she had lied to him from the moment she had walked into the palazzo.

  'I thought you were a man of your word,' she gasped. 'Y-you promised me a marriage in name only -you said there would be nothing between us but the legal formalities.'

  'I meant what I said, but you are the one who has altered those terms by being here in my room, here on my bed. What did you think, that you could tease the poor beast with your beauty and then run away?'

  He studied her intently and that tiny muscle throbbed against her fingers. He leaned a little closer to her and very deliberately he traced the outlines of her pleading mouth with the very tip of his finger.