Lucy Gordon - The Mediterranean Rebel’s Bride

‘Yes, I’m here. Is something the matter?’

‘Yes, in a way. I’m so sorry.’

‘Hey, you’ve already apologised.’

‘For being a jerk, but not for-’ He broke off, groaning, ‘I hit you, didn’t I? When you were by me on the track-I seem to remember-’

‘You sent me flying,’ she said lightly. ‘But it was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it. You were just flailing around blindly.’

‘I do a lot of that, I’m afraid.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she said in a rallying voice. ‘Why are you so determined to give yourself a hard time?’

‘Perhaps somebody ought to,’ he said grimly.

She was touched by this glimpse of humility, so unexpected.

‘You’re very quiet,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you don’t blame me?’

‘Honestly-it’s not that.’

‘Then what is it? What’s the mystery, Polly? And don’t try to brush me off, because I’ve been lying here doing a lot of thinking, and I don’t reckon you just happened to be at the track-did you?’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘It wasn’t an accident.’ She took a long breath. ‘Maybe it’s time I told you everything.’

Suddenly the enormity of what she had to tell him came over her. She’d wanted to choose her moment-not have it forced on her like this.

‘I meant to tell you earlier,’ she said at last. ‘But then you were ill so I had to wait.’

‘Whatever it is, I think I need to know.’

Switching on the bedside lamp, she reached into her bag and took out the photograph of him with Freda.

‘I think this will explain part of it,’ she said, handing it to him.

As he stared at the picture she saw a change come over him-but not the one she’d expected. After the first shock he became possessed by dark fury.

‘You’ve been going through my things,’ he accused.

‘Of course not.’

‘You must have done, or you couldn’t have this picture.’

‘That isn’t yours,’ she said urgently.

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not lying. I have one too. Yours is still wherever you keep it.’

He hauled himself up in bed, wincing, so that she reached out to help him. He pushed her away.

‘Get off me,’ he snapped.

She realised that she should have thought of this, but she hadn’t.

He made it painfully over to the chest of drawers on the far side of the room, pulled open the top drawer and reached deep inside. Polly wondered at the swift change in him. There was no trace now of the humility that had briefly touched her heart. His streak of ferocity, never far below the surface, had reasserted itself.

She saw his face change as he drew something out of the drawer and looked at it. She guessed it was the companion picture. Coming slowly back to the bed, he almost fell onto it, breathing hard with the pain. In silence she handed the first photograph back to him. He gazed from one picture to the other, like a man who’d received a stunning blow.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded hoarsely.

‘She gave it to me.’

‘She?’

‘My cousin-Freda. She said you went to the funfair together and had the pictures taken in a machine. There were two, and you took one each.’

‘Freda?’

‘You knew her as Sapphire.’

He turned his head on the pillow, looking at her intently.

‘Take your hair down,’ he said.

‘Surely there’s-?’

‘Do it.’

A quick movement and it fell about her face. She guessed that the dim light emphasised her likeness to Freda, and was certain of it when he closed his eyes, as if to shut her out.

‘That’s why I thought you were her,’ he said, almost to himself.

‘It’s not much of a resemblance. She was always the beautiful one.’

He opened his eyes again and studied her. She was sure the contrast between her and his fantasy image struck painfully.

‘You said she’s your cousin?’

‘She was,’ Polly said softly. ‘She’s dead now.’

‘DEAD,’ he whispered. ‘No-you didn’t say that. I just thought for a moment-’

‘She’s dead,’ Polly repeated softly. ‘A few weeks ago.’

He looked away, concealing his face from her, while his fingers moved compulsively on the photograph until it began to crumple.

‘Go on,’ he said at last, in a voice that seemed to come from a great distance.

‘Her real name was Freda Hanson-until she married George Ranley, six years ago.’

He stirred. ‘She was married when I knew her?’

‘Yes.’

‘He made her unhappy? She no longer loved him?’

‘I don’t think she was ever madly in love with him,’ Polly said, choosing her words carefully. ‘He’s very rich, and-’

‘Stop there,’ he said quickly. ‘If you’re trying to tell me that she married for money-don’t. She wouldn’t-not the girl I knew.’

‘But you didn’t know her,’ Polly said gently. ‘Don’t you realise that she made sure of that? She didn’t even tell you her real name. That way you couldn’t find her again when she went home.’

‘Where was home?’

‘In Yorkshire, in the north of England.’

‘How much do you know of what happened between her and me?’

‘You met in a bar in a London hotel, and you were together for two weeks.’

‘You could put it like that,’ he said slowly. ‘But the truth was so much more. What we had was there from the first moment. I looked at her, and I wanted her so badly that I was afraid it must show. I even thought I might scare her off. But nothing frightened her. She was brave. She went out to meet life-she came to me at once.’

There was an aching wistfulness in his voice that saddened Polly. She knew the truth behind her cousin’s ‘bravery’. She hadn’t had much time to pursue her object. That was the ugly fact, and it was painful to see this blunt, forceful man reduced to misery by her ruthless tactics.

‘I remember being surprised that she was English,’ Ruggiero continued. ‘I thought English women were prim and proper. But not her. She loved me as though I was the only man on earth.’

‘Didn’t you think it strange that she wouldn’t tell you her full name?’

‘At the time it almost seemed irrelevant-something that could be sorted out later. What she gave me-I’m not good with words, I couldn’t describe it-but it made me a different man. Better.’

There was something almost shocking in the quiet simplicity of the last word. Hesitantly, Polly asked, ‘How do you mean, better?’

Slowly he laid his fingers over his heart.

‘What’s in here has always been just for me,’ he said. ‘I’ve kept it that way. A man’s safer that way.’

‘But why must he always be safe?’ she ventured to ask.

‘That’s what she made me ask myself. It was like becoming someone else-ready to take risks I couldn’t take before, glad of it. I even enjoyed her laughing at me. I’ve never found it easy to be laughed at, but she-well, I’d have accepted anything from her.’

Against her will Polly heard Freda’s voice in her head, chuckling.

‘The tougher they are, the more fun it is when they become my slaves.’

And this was the result-this bleak, desolate man holding onto his belief in her like a drowning man clinging to a raft. What would become of him in a few moments when that comfort was finally snatched away?

‘What happened after she left me?’ he asked.

Polly took a deep breath.

‘She went back to George, and nine months later she had a baby.’

He stared at her. ‘Are you saying-?’

‘Your baby.’

He hauled himself up again, waving her away so that he could sit on the edge of the bed, his back to her.

‘How can you be sure it’s mine?’ he demanded harshly.

‘It isn’t George’s. It couldn’t be.’

‘But why didn’t she tell me? I never concealed where I lived. Why didn’t she come to me? She couldn’t have thought I’d turn my back on her. She knew how much I-She knew-’

‘She didn’t want you told.’

‘But-’

‘She wanted to stay married to George, so she had an affair hoping to get pregnant.’

For a moment he was as still as if he’d been punched over the heart.

‘Shut up!’ he said at last in a fierce voice. ‘Do you know what you’re saying about her?’

‘Yes,’ she said, with a touch of sadness. ‘I’m saying that she planned everything.’

‘You’re saying she was a calculating, cold-hearted bitch?’

‘No, I’m not,’ she insisted. ‘She could be warm and funny and generous. But when she came to London that time she wanted something, and it turned out to be you.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snapped. ‘You don’t know how it was with us when we were together-how could you understand-?’

She remembered George when he’d learned the truth, wailing pitiably, ‘I thought she really loved me.’

The mood hadn’t lasted. He’d become vicious and vengeful, but she’d briefly glimpsed the devastation that Freda could cause. She’d been a genius at inspiring love by pretending love, and she’d obviously done it well with both men.

‘Did her husband think the child was his?’ Ruggiero asked.

‘At first, yes. Then he found out by chance that he had a very low sperm count, and he began to doubt. He demanded a test, and when he discovered that he wasn’t the father he threw Freda and the baby out of the house.’

‘When was this?’

‘Almost a year ago.’

‘Why didn’t she come to me then?’

Because she’d hoped to entice George back, was the truthful answer. But Polly couldn’t bring herself to hurt him more, so she softened it.

‘She was already growing thin from illness. She said she’d contact you when she got well. But she never did. She came to live with me. I nursed her as best I could, but it was hopeless. She made me promise to find you afterwards-to tell you that you have a son.’

‘She’s dead,’ he murmured. ‘Dead-and I wasn’t with her.’

In the face of his pain there was nothing she could say.

‘Why didn’t I know?’ he demanded. ‘How come I didn’t sense it when we were so close?’

Polly was silent, knowing that Freda had never felt close to him.

‘You should have found a way to contact me while she was alive,’ he insisted.

‘I couldn’t. She wouldn’t tell me where to find you. I didn’t even know that you lived in Naples. I found out that and the name of this villa in a letter she wrote me, to be opened when she was dead.’

‘I would have looked after her,’ he said in a daze.

‘She didn’t want you to see her. She hated not being beautiful any more.’

‘Do you think I’d have cared about that?’ he flashed, with a hint of ferocity. ‘I wouldn’t even have seen it. I lo-’

He stopped himself with a sharp breath, like a man pulling back from the brink. His haggard eyes met hers.

‘It’s too late,’ he said, like a man facing the bleak truth for the first time. ‘Too late.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. She reached for him but he flinched away.

‘I want you to go,’ he said.

‘But-’

‘Get out, for pity’s sake!’ he said in agony.

She rose, reaching out for her copy of the picture, but he took it, saying curtly, ‘Leave that.’

At the door she glanced back at him. He was holding both pictures, looking from one to the other as though in this way he might discover a secret. He didn’t notice as she left.

Polly understood his need to be alone. She shared it. The conversation had been even harder than she’d expected. She’d been fooled by Freda’s ‘love-’ em-and-leave-’em’ description of Ruggiero, thinking he might take the news in that spirit.

Instead, his explosion of emotion had astonished her. Suddenly she saw the chasm yawning at her feet. From the first moment everything about Ruggiero had been a surprise-starting with the discovery that her cousin haunted him. She should have been prepared for tonight, but she’d sensed the danger almost too late.

‘You’re saying she was a calculating, cold-hearted bitch?’

He’d spoken as though the mere thought was outrageous, but it was an exact description of Freda. In the great days of her beauty she would have taken it as a compliment.

‘It’s such fun to make them sit up and beg,’ she’d once trilled. ‘You can make a man do anything if you go about it the right way.’

Later, talking about Ruggiero, with his baby in her arms, she’d said, ‘He was the best-know what I mean? Well, no-maybe you don’t.’

‘I certainly don’t have your wide experience for making comparisons,’ Polly had replied, trying to speak lightly.

‘Well, take my word for it. Ruggiero was really something in bed.’ She had given a luxurious gurgle. ‘Every woman should have an Italian lover. There are things about passion that only they understand.’

There had been no affection in her voice. Freda had taken what she wanted from her lover, then dispensed with him. She’d appreciated his technical skills, but she’d never thought of him as a person.