‘Very clever—very subtle.’
‘No, you’re wrong. I’m not playing tricks. It’s just that—’ She sat up and moved away from him. ‘Good grief! Today was my husband’s funeral.’
‘Suddenly you remember that?’
‘I guess I’m more conventional than I thought I was. I’m sorry. I just can’t do this.’
He too got up, retrieving his jacket from the floor.
‘You may be right,’ he observed. ‘It will keep until we meet again.’
‘I doubt that we’ll ever meet again.’
In the darkness she couldn’t see his face well or read its expression, couldn’t see the bafflement, admiration and sheer blazing hatred that chased each other in swift succession through his eyes.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said softly. ‘This isn’t the end between us. There’ll come a day when you’ll remember what I told you—take what you want. And then you’ll take it because, in that, we’re the same.’
Now her thwarted passion was punishing her, making her tremble with the violence she’d done to herself. But from somewhere she found the strength to give him a challenging look and say, ‘You left something out. I’ll take it when I’m ready, and not before.’
‘Then there’s nothing more for me to say. I will bid you goodnight.’
Before her astonished eyes, he walked calmly out of the room without a backward glance.
Vincente was just closing his suitcase the next morning when his cellphone shrilled.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s your driver. You said to let you know if I saw her. She’s just got into a taxi. I heard her tell the driver to go to the cemetery.’
‘I’ll be right there. Have the engine running.’
He was downstairs in a moment. As they found their way through the streets, he asked tensely, ‘Are you sure you heard her correctly?’
‘She definitely said St Agnes Cemetery, where she buried her husband yesterday. It’s natural enough if she’s grieving for him.’
Vincente didn’t answer this. His eyes were fixed on the road.
By good luck he saw Elise as soon as he reached the cemetery. She’d left her taxi and was walking away. A twist in the path gave him a sideways glimpse of her, revealing that she was carrying a bouquet of glowing red roses.
Red roses. The symbol of love. It defied belief that she was putting them on her husband’s grave.
He followed, taking care to remain among the trees that would hide him, and managed to get close enough to see her drop to one knee before a modest grave, contrasting with the swaggering mausoleums that littered the place. She was facing him and he could see her face well enough to detect its look of unutterable sadness as she spoke to some unseen presence.
He’d come to England seeking her, hating her, determined to make her pay for a long ago act of cruelty. He’d so nearly secured her through her husband, but the greedy fool had died and Vincente had to think of a new plan, fast.
He’d been so sure of the kind of woman he would find, but she had been different—softer, more vulnerable, more honest. But he quickly reminded himself that this was bound to be an act. She’d had years to practise it by now.
By sheer force of will he managed to keep his hatred alive.
Her passion was harder to explain away. He was no stranger to feigned desire. Attracted by his wealth, women had always put themselves out to seduce him, and everything in Elise’s past warned him that she was one of that kind. But she’d turned out to be different. He’d felt her trembling in his arms and his deepest instincts had told him that she wasn’t feigning. At almost any moment he could have stripped her naked and taken her with her full-hearted consent.
Until the end, when she’d fended him off with real intent, filling him with astonishment. For a moment he’d been on the verge of losing control, but he’d forced himself to calm down and leave her. He’d spent the rest of the night racked with unsatisfied desire and anger. But there had also been the dawning of respect, and that disconcerted him more than anything.
Vincente stayed hidden as she rose to go, and only came out from among the trees when she was out of sight. Then he crossed quickly to where she had been and studied the graves. He spotted the red roses at once and dropped down on one knee to read the inscription.
‘George Farnaby,’ he read. He had died two months ago, in December, aged sixty-four.
Frowning, Vincente reached into his pocket and drew out a small notebook. Flipping through the pages, he came to the entry he was looking for.
One final note. Her father died just before Christmas. Ben Carlton’s extensive entertaining was unaffected. A guest at one of his parties says she went through the motions of being a good hostess, but looked terrible.
Vincente looked at the roses that lay, fresh and blooming, against the hard stone. At last he went away.
Elise had slept badly and awoken early. In the shower she’d turned the water down cold, trying to refresh herself enough to view her life clearly, but the world was still a confused place.
After a light breakfast she slipped out and took a taxi to the cemetery, but not to go to Ben’s grave. He was already in the past, but the man who’d died two months earlier still seemed with her. As she laid her flowers on the grave she looked sadly at the headstone.
‘Dad,’ she whispered, ‘why did you have to die now? I put up with Ben for eight years, to stop you going to gaol. “Just a little fiddle”, you said. Only Ben got his hands on the evidence and he made it look not so little.
‘I should have left him when you died, but I was stunned. I needed time to make plans, and then everything caught up with me. Now he’s dead, I’m free, and you’d have been free too. But it’s too late. Oh, Dad, I miss you so much.’
She stayed a few minutes before walking away and getting a taxi back to the hotel. A plan was forming in her mind. First she would leave the extravagant suite Ben had insisted on hiring and move into a smaller, cheaper room for a week, while she finished tying up loose ends. Then she would find a less expensive place to live while she waited for the Rome apartment to be sold.
But first she must talk to Vincente Farnese and make it clear that what had happened between them the night before had been an aberration. After that, she would refuse to see him again, no matter how long he remained in England. It would be hard to make him understand that because he knew now that he could bring her under his spell, at least for a while. But she was resolved to be firm against all the persuasions he could muster.
Upstairs in her suite, she chose with care the words she would say to him, then stretched out her hand to the phone. But, before she could make the call, there was a knock at the door. Outside stood one of the hotel bellboys, holding out an envelope.
‘This was left for you, Mrs Carlton.’
Tearing it open, she found a page scrawled in a confident, masculine hand.
I fear urgent business calls me back to Rome with no time to say goodbye to you. Forgive me this discourtesy.
I wish you well for the future.
Vincente Farnese
There was silence, broken only by the sound of a piece of paper being torn to shreds.
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