The Italian’s Baby Read online

  ‘No, let’s just leave it here. We met again and found that we’re strangers. There was no lightning flash. The past doesn’t live again and it certainly can’t be put right. Love dies, and once dead it can’t be revived.’

  ‘Love?’ he snapped. ‘Have I asked for your love? You flatter yourself.’

  ‘Well, you certainly wanted something in return for diamonds. And I don’t flatter myself, because it doesn’t flatter me to be pursued by a man who approaches a woman as though he were buying stocks and shares. I am not a piece of property.’

  ‘Aren’t you? Well, it sure as hell looked like it last night.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘They paraded you in front of me, didn’t they? First you sat next to me, then you led me out into the garden. Did you think I didn’t know what was going on? Sweet-talk him! That’s what they told you. Make his head spin so that we can milk him of his money. Wasn’t it something like that?’

  She faced him defiantly. ‘It was exactly like that. What else would make me go out into the garden with you?’

  It was cruel, but she was desperate to make him back off. He threatened the stability it had cost her too much to achieve.

  But she was sorry when she saw the colour drain from his face, leaving it a deathly grey. She had meant only to stab at his pride, as a warning. She might have thought he was hurt to the heart, if she believed that he still had a heart.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was cheap and unjust. I didn’t mean to hurt you-’

  ‘You can’t,’ he said curtly. ‘Don’t worry yourself.’

  There was a knock on the door, and a faint call of, ‘Room Service.’

  Luca made a sign that he would be back and went to the door. Left alone, Rebecca looked around for somewhere to leave the diamonds so that there would be no more arguing about them.

  The door to the bedroom was open and she could see the small chest of drawers against the bed, with a heavy lamp on top. Luca was still at the front door, and she had time to slip into the bedroom and pull open the top drawer, ready to thrust the box inside.

  She had to move some papers aside to make room for it. Some were in a large open envelope that spilled its contents as it was moved. What Rebecca saw made her stop dead.

  A photograph had fallen out. It showed a young girl with windblown hair and a young, eager face. She was sitting on the top rail of a fence, laughing at the cameraman, her eyes full of love and joy.

  Luca had taken it on the day she told him about the baby. Even if she had not remembered, she would have known that from the look on her own face. This was a girl who had everything, and was sure she could never lose it.

  And Luca had kept this picture with him.

  It was as though someone had given him back to her. Suddenly her anger at him melted and she wanted to find him and share the moment.

  ‘Luca…’

  She turned eagerly and saw him standing, watching her, his face defenceless, possessed by a look that mirrored her own feelings. He was there again, the boy she had loved, and who still lived somewhere in this harsh, aggressive man.

  ‘Luca,’ she said again.

  And then it was gone. The light in his eyes shut down, the mask was back in place.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’ he snapped.

  ‘I wasn’t prying-’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  She realised that he was really angry.

  ‘I was putting the diamonds in here for safety, but never mind that. You kept this picture, all these years.’

  ‘Did I? I hadn’t realised.’

  ‘You couldn’t have kept it by accident, or brought it all these miles by accident.’

  ‘There are a lot of papers in that drawer.’

  ‘Luca, please forget what happened a moment ago. We were both angry and saying things we didn’t mean-’

  ‘You, maybe. I don’t say things I don’t mean. I’m not a sentimentalist, any more than you are.’

  She looked at the picture. ‘So you didn’t keep this on purpose?’

  ‘Good lord, no!’

  ‘Fine, then let’s dispose of it.’ She tore the picture in half, and then again. ‘I’ll be going now. The diamonds are there. Goodbye.’

  Luca didn’t move until she’d walked out. But as soon as the door had closed behind her he snatched up the four pieces of the picture and tried to put them back together with shaking hands.

  Nothing was going right. The look she had surprised on his face, before he could conceal it, had been his undoing. Without meaning to she had breached his defences, and he had instinctively slammed them back into place, bristling with knives.

  Deny everything, the picture, its significance, the power it had over him! That was the best way. It was done before he could stop himself, and now he would give anything to call the words back.

  He’d thought himself prepared in every detail, but the glamorous sophisticate she had become had taken him by surprise the night before, making him flounder. After that he had made one wrong move after another.

  But it wasn’t his fault, he reasoned. Her stubbornness hadn’t been part of the plan.

  He wanted to bang his head against the wall and howl.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I N THE early hours of the morning Rebecca heard something being pushed under her door.

  She looked down at the envelope without touching it. Then she lifted it and stared longer, while thoughts and fears clashed in her mind.

  ‘Destroy it, unread. If you read it you’re embarking on uncharted seas. Play safe.’

  She opened the letter.

  His handwriting hadn’t changed. It was big and confident, an assertion in the face of life. But the words held a hint of something else, almost as though he was confused.

  You were right about almost everything. But the day your father arrived wasn’t our last meeting. If you want to know about the other one, I’ll tell you. Otherwise I won’t trouble you again.

  Luca

  He was playing mind games, was her first thought, but she dismissed it, in fairness. Mind games demanded a subtlety that he didn’t have.

  She decided to go back to bed and think about it.

  An hour later she was knocking on his door. He answered at once.

  He was in a white shirt, heavily embroidered down the front, as though he’d spent the evening at a smart function. Now he’d returned and tossed aside his black jacket and torn the shirt open at the neck.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he growled.

  ‘I want to hear what you have to say, Luca, but then I’m leaving at once.’

  ‘My God, you won’t give an inch, will you, even now?’

  ‘No, because whatever you tell me can’t really make any difference. How could you ever imagine that it would, after what you did?’

  ‘After what I did?’ he echoed. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘Oh, please, don’t pretend you don’t know. We talked about it the first evening. You took my father’s money.’

  ‘Naturally. I had every right to it.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ she said scornfully. ‘After all, you’d given me several months of your valuable time, and I didn’t even reward you with a living child. There had to be some recompense for that. But what do you think it did to me to hear my father crowing with delight because you’d lived down to his worst expectations?’

  ‘That I…?’ He frowned. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘That you’d taken his money to go away and never see me again. That’s another reason I wouldn’t touch those diamonds. Did you think I’d want to take anything from you after you sold me back to him? Besides, you overpaid. I know what those diamonds are worth, and it must be twice what he paid for me. Or is that interest added on?’

  For a thunderous moment Luca was so silent that she had an eerie feeling that he would never speak again. Then he swore violently, turning away and smashing a fist into the other palm while a stream of
invective flowed from him.

  ‘And you’ve believed that, all these years?’ he raged when he turned back.

  ‘What else was I to believe? He showed me the cheque when it had been cashed and returned to him. It was your bank account. Don’t pretend it wasn’t.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it was mine. He paid me that money, I don’t deny it.’

  ‘Then what more is there to say?’

  ‘He lied to you about why. I left because, when Frank had finished, I was sure it was all my fault, the state you were in, the baby’s death-I felt guilty about the whole thing.

  ‘Then he had you whisked off to England, to a place I didn’t know. I couldn’t reach you. I went back to the cottage, and found him there, setting fire to it.’

  She stared at him, trying not to believe.

  ‘My father burned our home?’ she whispered.

  Something flickered across his face.

  ‘Our home. Yes, that’s what it was. I’m glad you remembered. He burnt it with his own hands. Luckily there were witnesses. On their evidence he was arrested and put into the cells. He could have faced a long stretch in prison if I hadn’t told the police that it was a “misunderstanding” and I wouldn’t press charges.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  His grin flashed out again, cynical, jeering.

  ‘Why, for fifty thousand pounds, of course. That was my price for letting him off. I sold him back his freedom. Nothing else.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she whispered, just as she had done long ago.

  ‘He got caught in the fire himself and burned his arm. Did you never notice that?’

  And it came back to her, the memory of Frank arriving one day with his arm in a sling. He said he’d broken it, but months later she’d seen the ugly mark and thought it looked like a burn. When she’d asked him about it, he’d become angry and evasive.

  ‘All these years,’ she murmured, ‘he told me that you-’

  ‘You heard him offer me money once before,’ he reminded her, ‘and you heard my reaction.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. He said you’d turned against me when I lost the baby and lost my looks.’

  ‘You never lost them,’ he said simply. ‘Never. And did you really believe that of me?’

  She nodded dumbly.

  ‘You should have had more faith in me, Becky.’

  His voice was sad, but not reproachful. He had never blamed her for anything.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered. ‘All these years, I thought that you-oh, God, oh, God!’

  She had thought she’d touched bottom long ago, but now she knew that this was far worse. She went to the window and looked out into the darkness, too confused to think.

  ‘I should have known,’ she said at last, ‘but I wasn’t myself.’

  ‘No, you were never yourself after the day your father came,’ he said. ‘I saw you once after that. Do you really not remember when I came to the hospital?’

  Distressed, she shook her head. ‘I always wondered why you never came near me again.’

  ‘Do you think he would let me? He was your father, your next of kin, and I was nothing. If he’d arrived a day later we would have been married, but we weren’t, and I had no rights.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, suddenly struck. ‘I remember him saying, “Then I’m in time.” He meant in time to stop us marrying. But you were the baby’s father.’

  ‘Before he came to our door your father had approached the police chief, and got him in his pocket. I was arrested and held in the cells for a week.’

  ‘Dear God! On what charge?’

  He shrugged. ‘Anything they could think of. It didn’t matter, because they never meant to keep me inside for long, just long enough to suit Frank Solway’s purpose.

  ‘I thought you were dying. I begged to be allowed to see you, but nobody would listen. And then, at last, your father came to me and told me that the “little bastard” as he called our child, was dead.

  ‘He said it was all my fault, that I’d caused you to lose the child by my “rough behaviour”-’

  ‘But that’s not true,’ she burst out. ‘He was the one who was rough. You didn’t fight him back, you just stood there like a rock. I do remember that.’

  ‘Of course I did, because I was afraid to harm you.’

  ‘Then how could you have felt guilty when you knew it wasn’t your fault?’

  He tore his hair. ‘Why does an innocent man ever confess to a crime he hasn’t committed? Because they torture his mind until he thinks lies are truth and truth is a lie. I was in such torment, with our child dying, longing for you, not able to get near you, it wasn’t hard for him to make me feel that I was entirely to blame.’

  She looked at him, torn with pity.

  ‘And then he took me to see you. I thought my chance had come, that I could take you in my arms and tell you that I loved you. But you weren’t in your right mind.’

  ‘I had post-natal depression, very badly, and I think they gave me some strong medication.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that now, but at the time I just walked in and saw you staring into space. I didn’t know what had happened. You didn’t seem to hear or see me.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she breathed. ‘I had no idea you’d even been there.’

  ‘I wasn’t able to be alone with you. There was your father, and a nurse, in case I “became violent”. I begged you to hear me. I told you over and over how sorry I was. You just stared at me. Don’t you remember?’

  Dumbly she shook her head. ‘I never knew,’ she said. ‘I must have been completely out of it.’

  ‘And your father knew the state you’d be in while I was there. I wonder what he persuaded the doctor to give you beforehand, to make sure.’

  She nodded. She could believe anything of Frank now. ‘And he never told me that you came.’

  ‘Of course not. It suited him to have you think I’d callously abandoned you. I went away half-crazy with guilt at the harm I thought I’d done you.’

  ‘It wasn’t you, Luca, it wasn’t you.’

  He regarded her sadly.

  ‘You can tell me that now, but how can you tell the boy I was then? His agony is beyond comfort. Do you remember how it was between us at the very start, how I tried to resist you, for your sake?’

  She nodded. ‘And I wouldn’t let you.’

  ‘My conscience had always troubled me about taking you away from the life you were used to, making you live in poverty.’

  ‘You didn’t make me. I chose it when I chose you. And I never felt poor. I felt rich because we loved each other.’

  ‘But I knew I ought to have been stronger. And in the end your father convinced me that the best thing I could do for you was to free you. He said that if I kept trying to “force myself on you”, you might never recover.’

  ‘He was a bad man,’ she said. ‘I never fully understood that before.’

  Luca nodded.

  ‘I took his money to make myself rich and powerful enough to revenge myself on him. I promised myself we would meet again, but we never did. My business flourished, so I made it my life. Now it’s all I know. Becky-’

  ‘I’m Rebecca now,’ she said quickly. ‘Nobody calls me Becky any more.’

  ‘I’m glad. I want it to be just my name for you. It was special, that time.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘It was special. But it was another life.’

  ‘But I don’t like my life now. Do you?’

  ‘Don’t,’ she begged, ‘don’t ask me that kind of question.’

  ‘Why not? If you’re happy, you have only to say so. Danvers Jordan is the man of your dreams, right?’

  She almost laughed at that. ‘Oh, please! Poor Danvers. He’s not the man of anyone’s dreams.’

  ‘No, he’s a dead fish.’

  This time she did laugh. ‘Your English is still shaky. You mean a cold fish.’

  ‘Whatever. I prefer my version. So life with him isn’t blissful. Are you going to
marry him?’

  ‘If I decide to, yes! Leave it, Luca. I’m glad to have found out the truth. I’ve misjudged you, and perhaps we can be friends now. But it doesn’t give you the right to question me about my life.’

  ‘Friends? You think we can be friends?’

  ‘It’s the best there is.’

  He sighed and she thought his shoulders sagged.

  ‘Then let us celebrate our friendship with a drink,’ he said.

  ‘All right.’ She followed him to the drinks cabinet. ‘What do you drink now?’ she asked. ‘Surely not-?’ She named a Tuscan wine, valued for its rough edge.

  ‘No, these days I don’t move among people who could appreciate it. You have to be Tuscan.’

  ‘True,’ she said. ‘Dry sherry, please.’

  She watched him pour, watched the deft movements of the big hands that were so powerful, and so tender. They were a rich man’s hands now, but no amount of manicuring could hide their suggestion of force. When she looked up she found him looking at her with a softened look on his face.

  ‘Am I very changed?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Your hair’s different. It used to be light brown, not as fair as it is now.’

  ‘That isn’t what I meant.’

  He nodded. ‘I know what you meant.’

  He stepped closer so that he could look directly into her eyes, not moving for a long moment. Rebecca tried to turn away, but his gaze held her with its fierce intensity, and its sadness. She hadn’t expected his sadness, and she couldn’t cope with it.

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘You haven’t changed.’

  She gave him a melancholy smile. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘I say it is. No, don’t move.’

  He had laid a hand on her shoulder to keep her there. She stopped and raised her head again, unwilling to meet his eyes but unable to do anything else. At last she could see the connection that spanned the years. The old force and power streamed from him, the confident authority that had been there even when he was penniless. This was Luca as he had been, and as she recognised him now.

  Slowly he moved his hand upward so that it brushed against her neck, then her cheek. He seemed almost in a trance, held there by something stronger than himself. She saw his face soften, his expression become almost bewildered, as though something had taken him by surprise.