The Mediterranean Rebel’s Bride

CHAPTER SEVEN

AS THEY ate Polly studied him. He might only have been starving for two days but it looked more like a week. What had happened while he’d been shut up alone with those photographs and his pitifully few memories?

And then she knew why he hadn’t wanted to come to this place.

Her cousin was there in her mind again, as she’d been in the last few weeks of her life, giving one of her cruel monologues in a voice that had begun to rasp.

‘He used to talk about how we’d go to Naples together and he’d take me to this little fish restaurant he part-owned. He said he’d show me off to all his friends-as if I wanted to be displayed to a load of fishermen! No, thank you! He thought he was really something, but he didn’t have a clue.’

That was why he hadn’t wanted to bring Polly here. In his mind it was reserved for Sapphire. He’d never known that she’d appreciated him only for his skill in bed. When he’d grown sentimental she’d despised him.

Get out, she told the evil imp in her head. You don’t deserve him.

But the imp was clever. She changed, becoming beautiful again.

‘And you think you do?’ she jeered. ‘Do you think you’ll take him from me by mothering him? I know what he wants from a woman, and it isn’t that.’

I’ll free him from you, no matter what I have to do.

Sapphire vanished, sulking, as she’d always done when she didn’t get her own way easily.

‘Are you all right?’ Ruggiero asked. ‘You went strange all of a sudden.’

‘Yes, everything fine. This food is good. Tell me, did you ever go into work?’

‘Yes, but after the first day I realised I wasn’t ready.’

‘And you always meant to come back to your apartment. That’s why you took the pictures of Sapphire.’

He avoided answering this directly, but gave her a curious look.

‘Do you know that you just called her Sapphire?’ he asked. ‘It was always Freda before.’

‘I didn’t realise. Well, it’s awkward if we’re using different names.’

But that wasn’t the reason, she knew. Freda had gone. Only Sapphire existed now. Increasingly she had the feeling that her enemy was taking shape before her, ready for a fight that was inevitable.

‘I’m not a very good host,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘When a man takes a woman for dinner he should talk about her-her eyes, her face…’

‘You try that and I’ll make you sorry,’ she threatened, her eyes gleaming.

‘Ah, yes. Brian wouldn’t like it.’

‘I wouldn’t like it. I’m here to look after you. Your mother hired me as your nurse, and I’m going to earn my salary.’

‘My mother’s paying you?’ he asked, in a voice that sounded surprised and not entirely pleased.

‘Certainly. I’m providing a service and she’s paying the going rate. Well, more than the going rate, if I’m honest, but that only means I have to be more conscientious about doing my job.’ A burst of inspiration made her add, ‘Brian’s very pleased. Getting married is expensive, and we’re neither of us earning much yet, so the longer this job goes on the better he likes it.’

‘Even though it takes his heart’s desire away from him? Why do you make that face?’

‘Why do you say such silly things?’

‘Aren’t you his heart’s desire?’

‘I’m English. We don’t talk like that. Stop trying to make fun of me.’

‘I didn’t mean to. It’s just that you never seem to come at the top of his list of priorities. He’s not exactly burning with passion, is he?’

‘I have no complaints,’ she replied primly.

‘But isn’t he bothered by the time we spend together? Why isn’t he here, threatening me with dire retribution if I dare lay a hand on you?’

Her lips twitched.

‘For three reasons,’ she said. ‘First, I’ve assured him that you’re an invalid who couldn’t lay a hand on a rag doll. Second, if you tried I’d knock you into the middle of next week. And third, I’m getting good money to put up with you.’

Ruggiero joined in her laughter.

‘Completely unanswerable,’ he conceded. ‘So I don’t have to feel I’m imposing on your kindness if I ask another favour?’

‘What favour?’

‘Come back with me now, and fill in some more of the blanks.’

‘If I can remember,’ she hedged.

‘I think you can remember everything, and you must tell me whatever I ask. Promise me that?’

Luckily he didn’t wait for her answer, but called Leo and rose to leave.

True to her promise, she tried to pay for the meal. But Ruggiero scowled until she gave up, and they left with his arm around her shoulder.

‘You don’t mind propping me up, Nurse?’ he asked lightly.

‘Not at all,’ she said, matching his tone. ‘I shall put it down as overtime.’

Once in the apartment, he took out the albums and laid them on the table between them.

‘Have you spent these last days going through these?’ Polly asked gently

‘Stupid, isn’t it? I turned off the radio and television, made no calls, shut out the world in every way I could so that I could be alone with her. But-’ He sighed.

‘Ruggiero, don’t you realise that I could say anything? How will you know what to believe?’

‘Because I trust you,’ he said simply.

‘But how do you know that you can?’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that-just that all my instincts say that you’re one of the most honest people I’ve ever met. I trust you as I’d trust my own family. I’d risk my life on your word.’

It was a crushing responsibility, but if she ducked it she couldn’t help him, and that was all that mattered. Nor must he guess how she felt about him. Because that would compromise trust and make her useless. Thank goodness for ‘Brian’, she thought.

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘I probably knew her better than anyone because I lived with her for years. This picture here-’ she flipped back to the beginning ‘-that’s my parents, that’s Sapphire’s parents, and the two little girls are us. It was a sort of joint birthday party. She was seven and I was eight. My mother died two weeks later in a car accident. ‘My dad couldn’t cope, so they took me in. It was meant to be temporary, but Dad died a couple of years later, so I stayed on.’

‘What did he die of?’ Ruggiero asked.

‘Pneumonia.’

‘I thought doctors could cure that?’

‘Mostly, yes. But people still die if they’re weak enough to start with. He’d been fading away for a while. He never got over losing Mum.’

After a short silence he said, ‘Go on.’

‘It was a happy sort of life. There was no money, but we were all fond of each other. People used to say that she was the pretty one and I was the brainy one. Well, she wasn’t academic, but she was sharp. All the other kids wanted to be her friend, and I was so proud because she chose me.’

Polly gave a reminiscent chuckle.

‘It was a while before it dawned on me that she’d hit on the perfect way of getting me to do her homework.’

His grin lightened the sadness in his face and gave her a moment of happiness.

‘I was flattered. I became her willing slave. But she gave full value in return. The others in the gang would have left me out of things. Children don’t give you any points for being brainy. But she saw that I was included.’

‘How old were you there?’ he asked, pointing at the two of them in sequined dresses.

‘I was sixteen, she was fifteen, and we’re dressed alike because it was the school concert and we did a singing act. I remember that while the rest of us were struggling with teenage acne she was already beautiful. Lord, but we all hated her!’

He frowned. ‘You mean the other girls bullied her?’

‘Don’t make me laugh! We didn’t bully her. We just seethed helplessly in the background. Mostly she didn’t notice, but when she did she loved it. It was a kind of tribute. She knew her own power even then.’

‘Her power,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘She had only to snap her fingers and fellers would fall at her feet. It was like a spell she cast-over women, too. You couldn’t even hate her when she pinched your boyfriends.’

‘Plural?’

‘Oh, yes. I used to refuse to take them home because they’d take one look at her and collapse. Then I realised that they’d only tagged along with me hoping to get close to her.’

‘But you couldn’t blame her for that?’

‘Of course not. It was natural to her-like breathing. And in a way I enjoyed it too. She was like a queen, and everyone who knew her was in the magic circle.’

He turned the page and stopped at a picture of the two girls and an awkward-looking young man. He had his arm about Polly’s shoulder, but his eyes were on Sapphire. Polly was regarding him with almost a glare.

‘Who’s that?’

‘That was my fiancé,’ Polly declared with a touch of tartness. ‘And this picture must have been taken at the exact moment he started to have doubts. I was madly in love with him-at least I thought I was. She just-I don’t know-smiled at him. And suddenly he was hers.’

‘She probably didn’t even know she was doing it,’ he remarked.

Oh, she knew all right, Polly thought. She didn’t even want him. He was too poor to really interest her, but she couldn’t bear the sight of a man who hadn’t fallen under her spell.

But she and Sapphire had declared a truce for tonight so she only said, ‘You’re probably right. It hurt a lot at the time, but I don’t think she realised.’

‘And yet you cared for her when she was ill?’

‘I’m a nurse. Looking after people is something you learn to separate from your feelings or opinions.’

‘I should have realised that. So what happened to this man? Did you get him back? Is he the one you’re engaged to now?’

Polly gave a soft chuckle. ‘Heavens, no! Why would I want him after that?’

‘You couldn’t forgive?’

‘It wasn’t a question of forgiveness. I just couldn’t take him seriously again.’

‘You thought, How can I be interested in a man who’s shown himself such an idiot?’ Ruggiero said lightly.

‘Well, I think my so-called “love” was only a juvenile crush, so it died very easily when he fell off his pedestal.’

‘How lucky that you found Brian, a man of good sense. How did you meet him, by the way? In the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was it love at first sight?’

‘No, of course not,’ she said sharply.

‘Why do you say it like that?’

‘I don’t believe in love at first sight. It’s just a sentimental myth.’

‘Maybe it is,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Or maybe not.’

He met her eyes, and for a moment the air was full of the things she couldn’t say.

Don’t you know by now that it’s just a myth? If any man should have learned that, it’s you.

But the words were too cruel to speak.

And in that moment she knew what she was going to do. If a kind lie was needed to make him happy, then she would tell that lie. It might not be the path of virtue, but that mattered less than nothing beside the need to bring him some inner peace.

‘The thing was,’ Polly said carefully, ‘that she attracted so much love that it was easy to envy her without seeing what she didn’t have. She knew something was missing-or at least she’d begun to suspect-and I think inside her she was looking for that something. Maybe she found it with you. I hope so.’

‘Did I make her happy?’ he asked quickly. ‘Did she say so?’

‘Yes. She said you were different to the others-kinder.’

What she’d actually said was, ‘Honestly, Polly, it was so easy it was boring. I mean, he was a hot-blooded Italian. I thought at least he’d give me a run for my money. But he just collapsed at my feet like the others.’

‘Kinder,’ he murmured. ‘I’m glad. She needed kindness so much.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘On the surface she had everything. But there was a vulnerability about her that I’ll swear nobody else had seen, and that drew me to her almost more than her beauty.’

‘Men love to think a woman is frail. Just let your voice break a bit, and they fall for it every time. It makes them feel good.’

‘But is it kind to delude them?’ Polly had asked.

‘Kind? Is the world kind? Look at what’s happening to me. My looks have gone and I’m dying. Is that kind? You have to use anything that works.’

Kind. Was it that echo that had made her use that word now? It had been chance, but the way he’d seized on it had revealed a new vista.

‘You said she might have found what she was looking for with me,’ Ruggiero said after a while. ‘Did she ever say anything to make you think so?’

‘She kept her secrets,’ Polly said gently. ‘There were things she didn’t know how to say. But when she talked about you there was a special note in her voice.’

It had been derision, but he needn’t know that.

‘Are there any other pictures? From the last year?’

‘No, she wouldn’t allow that. She wanted to be remembered at her best. This one here is the very last.’

It showed Sapphire holding her child, her cheek resting caressingly against the baby’s. The illness had made her thinner, but not yet ravaged her, and she was as beautiful as she had ever been in her life. Ruggiero looked at it for a long time.

‘It’s late,’ Polly said. ‘I have to go.’

‘Don’t go,’ he said quickly. ‘I have a spare room.’ He smiled briefly. ‘I’m afraid you might not come back.’

‘I’ll come back tomorrow if you want me to.’

‘No, stay. There’s a lot more I want to ask you. And don’t worry-you’re quite safe. I won’t do anything that would bring Brian’s wrath down on my head.’

Of course not. Because she wasn’t the right woman. She was a lot safer than she wanted to be.

Polly called the villa, spoke to Hope and found, as she’d expected, that Matti was safely in bed.

‘Not that it was easy,’ Hope complained. ‘My husband was playing with him and they were like two babies together. I had to get firm with both of them.’

Polly chuckled. ‘All right. I’ll leave well alone.’

‘You stay there and take care of the other one,’ Hope said enigmatically.

‘Don’t worry. I will.’

Ruggiero showed her the room.

‘I’ve got a shirt if you need something to wear,’ he said.

‘Thanks, but I have everything I need.’ She pointed to her bag.

‘But I thought-’

‘A good nurse always comes prepared. I could do with some tea.’

‘Yes, Nurse.’

She came out a few minutes later to find the tea ready, along with a snack of ham and melon. While they ate she entertained him with tales of the childhood she and Sapphire had shared. It was easier to make her cousin sound sympathetic this way, for in those days her charm had yet to develop its ruthless edge.

Ruggiero laughed at some of the stories and sat contentedly through the rest, sometimes nodding, as if to say that this was what he’d waited to hear.

It was one in the morning before she yawned and said, ‘Enough for now.’

‘Forgive me for keeping you up so late. And thank you.’

He laid a gentle hand on her arm, nodded, and left her.

Polly put on her pyjamas and got into bed, sitting up and staring into the darkness with her hands clasped around her knees. She had a vague feeling of disappointment that she could not explain.

Sapphire was there in her head-so vivid that Polly could almost see her.

‘Now do you get it?’ she said contemptuously. ‘All he wants is the pretty fantasy. Which means he’s chosen me.’

‘He needs more time. He’ll face the truth later.’

‘How, when you’re never going to tell it to him? He doesn’t want to hear it. He’s not brave enough.’

‘That’s true,’ Polly agreed sadly.

‘Then I’ve won.’

‘I guess you have.’

Sapphire gave her luxurious, self-satisfied smile.

‘Oh, push off!’ Polly said crossly.

Sapphire vanished.

She lay down, listening to the soft sounds of night-time life coming from the harbour until at last she fell asleep.

She was awoken by a hand shaking her gently but urgently. Staring into the gloom, she saw Ruggiero, looking urgently into her face.

‘Polly, please wake up.’

She pulled herself up, using him for support, then rubbed her eyes.

‘I’ll set Brian onto you,’ she said through a yawn.

‘No need. That’s not what I’m here for.’

That was the story of her life. This dangerously attractive man appeared in her room, sitting on her bed, and was she wearing a sexy nightie? No way. She was in austere pyjamas with sensible buttons that came up high. She checked to see if the top button had come undone, but it hadn’t. She never had any luck.

‘It’s all right, you’re decent,’ he said, seeing the gesture and misunderstanding it. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘I wasn’t,’ she sighed. ‘Ruggiero, what’s happened?’

In the darkness she knew that he was glaring.

‘Let’s say I’ve finally come to my senses,’ he said harshly.

‘What-exactly-do you mean?’

‘Do you need to ask? Haven’t you been waiting for me to let go of the damned fool fantasy and get real?’

He switched on her bedside light and showed her the album that he’d put on the bed before waking her.

‘Here,’ he said.

The book was open at a large, glossy picture of the bride and groom, standing just outside the church. The photographer had been an expert, and had caught every unappealing detail about the groom-including the fact that he was a good thirty years older than his bride, and at least five stone overweight.

Even that might not have mattered. Many an ugly man had won a woman’s heart with love and kindness. But George Ranley’s overflowing jowls showed only the greasy self-satisfaction of a man who was selfish, greedy, demanding, suspicious and thoroughly unpleasant.

‘Look at her.’

Ruggiero pointed to where the bride was regarding her new husband with a look of adoration. ‘Did you ever see so much love in a woman’s face?’

‘No,’ Polly said cautiously.

‘For that thing?’ he asked, pointing contemptuously at George. ‘The man’s a pig, but she’s looking at him like he’s a god.’

‘Well, it was their wedding. A bride is expected to…’ Polly’s voice faltered.

‘It was an act,’ he said. ‘I wonder what she was really thinking at that moment.’

‘Ruggiero-’

‘Just as I wonder what she was thinking when she looked at me like that,’ he finished quietly.

Polly was silent. There was nothing to say. After a while he spoke again, in a voice full of anguish.

‘That was the look she wore for me-the look of a woman who’s totally besotted with a man. And he believes it while what she’s really thinking is that she’s got the poor sap just where she wants him.’

Her heart ached. She’d wanted him to see the truth, but now it was happening she couldn’t bear the hurt it would cause him.

‘I expect he had a lot of money,’ Ruggiero mused, almost casually.

‘He was a multimillionaire.’

‘Those jewels on her head? Real diamonds?’

‘Nothing less. George had seized them back from his third wife.’

‘Third?’

‘Sapphire was the fourth.’

‘Go on. Tell me the rest-and don’t sugar it.’

‘He desperately wanted a son, and none of the other wives had ever got pregnant. He wouldn’t admit that there might be a problem with himself, and kept divorcing them as “use-less”.’

‘Sapphire-Freda-didn’t want to be divorced, so when he was away for a couple of weeks she went to London to find someone who would give her a child that she could pass off as his.’

‘So she went cruising the bars, looking for a suitable candidate?’ he said bitterly. ‘I just happened to be there. How did I come to pull the short straw?’

‘Your colouring is the same as George’s used to be before he went bald, so he’d have been easier to convince. And when she discovered that you’d soon be leaving England it was a plus.’

He winced. A long time seemed to pass before he asked, in a low voice, ‘She never cared for me at all, did she? Be honest, Polly.’

‘I don’t think she did.’

‘I was just useful,’ he said slowly, as though spelling it out would help him understand. ‘When I’d served my purpose I was surplus to requirements. All that mystery that seemed so exotic and romantic was just an efficient way to make sure I couldn’t spoil things by following her.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Suddenly he began to laugh. A cracked, bitter sound that was on the edge of madness. He lay back on the bed and laughed and laughed until Polly became scared for him.

‘What’s funny?’ she asked, leaning over, taking his shoulders.

‘I am,’ he choked. ‘It’s a great joke. I’m the funniest idiot who ever tramped the streets hunting for something that didn’t exist.’

He held her in return, looking up into her face.

‘When she vanished I searched for her high and low. Once I’d watched her walk away, so I reckoned she was within walking distance, and I went to every nearby hotel. I described her a thousand times, but nobody knew her. I didn’t shave or take any care of myself, and by the end of the week I must have looked like a down-and-out. I didn’t eat, because to eat I’d have had to stop, and I couldn’t bear to. Sometimes I didn’t go back to the hotel at night.

‘Finally I gave up, got blind, roaring drunk and ended up in a police cell. The next morning they threw me out and told me to stop bothering “decent people”. After that I came home. But that wasn’t the end of it. In my dreams I went on searching for her, always thinking she’d be around the next corner, but she never was. At last I realised that she wasn’t anywhere, and the dreams stopped. The strange thing is that since I’ve known she was dead they’ve come back again. Sometimes I’m afraid to sleep in case I find myself chasing around corner after corner, always finding nothing.’

He sat up slowly, still holding onto Polly.

‘I guess part of me has known the truth from the first moment, but I wouldn’t let myself face it. Now I have, and I should be glad. If this is how it really was, then there’s nothing for me to grieve about.’

Nothing except the end of an ideal. Neither voiced the thought, but it was there in the air between them.

‘I don’t understand,’ Polly said at last. ‘You’ve been looking at these pictures for days. Why has this happened now?’

‘I don’t know. As you say, I could have seen the truth in her face at any time. I guess I just wasn’t ready before. I ducked and dived, and clung to what I wanted to believe-anything to avoid the reality.’

‘But what do you think the reality is?’ she asked carefully.

‘That I’m a fool who fell victim to a clever woman because he was too stupid and conceited to see through her. She acted as though I were the one she’d spent her life waiting for. The only lover who could satisfy her, the one man who could make her life worth living. Of course I believed her. I was wide open for it. She must have seen me coming for miles.’

His voice was harsh with the scorn and derision he poured on himself. The more he’d believed in his dream, the more contempt and loathing he felt for himself now.

Polly couldn’t bear it. She pulled him into her arms and held him tightly. He clasped her back, as though she were his only refuge. It wasn’t the embrace of a lover, and he seemed completely unconscious of her lightly clad body, but he buried his face against her and she could feel him trembling.

In a sudden passion of tenderness she began to stroke his head. She knew it wasn’t wise, but suddenly wisdom seemed an abomination when set beside his need. If this moment cost her the rest of her life she would pay the price gladly.

Ruggiero didn’t draw away, which emboldened her to lay her cheek against his hair while her hands caressed his body, but only tentatively, half longing for him to sense her, half fearing it.

For a moment she grew still, waiting for his reaction, her heart thumping. If he would only reach for her-

But he didn’t move. His body against hers was heavy and relaxed, his head lying against her shoulder in an attitude of contentment. She dropped her head, letting her lips lie against his hair.

He did not react, and something inside her seemed to hide away, weeping.

‘Don’t…’ she murmured.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’

‘It’s better if I am. I’ve been easy on myself for too long. Now it’s time to see things clearly. Mio dio! What a coward I’ve been!’

‘You’re not a coward. You just needed time. And you made it. She was holding you trapped. The illusion was turning to poison and it would have destroyed you. Now you’re free.’

‘Free?’ He echoed the word as though trying to understand it. ‘Free.’

It had a hollow sound, as though it resonated only bleakly in his heart.

He drew back and looked at her for a moment.

‘I needed you,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

But you didn’t notice I was here, she thought sadly. Not really.