over her face.
‘Well?’ she said at last, turning to look at him.
‘Well?’
‘Well, why are we here? Drago, when are you going to stop putting things off? You wanted to show me something so important that you dragooned me into coming here, but then you seemed to forget all about it.’
‘I’ve been trying not to think of it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s something that was found in their apartment and only delivered to my house yesterday.’
‘But didn’t you go through the place?’
‘Yes, and I thought I’d been pretty thorough, but it seems there was a secret place-a small cupboard in the wall that you’d never find unless you knew it was there. The people who rent the place now discovered it by accident and found a box inside, containing a cache of letters. From them they learned enough to get in touch with me.’
‘You mean…?’
‘Letters between James and Carlotta, dating from September, as soon as he went back to England after their first meeting. When he came to live here he brought her letters with him. His were sent to her work, and I suppose that’s where she kept them, because I had no idea.’
She had to force herself to ask, ‘What do they say?’
‘I haven’t read them.’
‘How could you bear not to?’
He smiled faintly. ‘Because you weren’t there. I’ve always thought of myself as a brave man, but I found I can’t do this alone.’ His smile became self-mocking. ‘I need you to hold my hand.’
‘If you haven’t read them, how can you be sure they’re real? James wasn’t a man for writing letters. He did it all by phone and email, like most people these days.’
He showed her the envelope. ‘There are some things that you can’t trust to email. Is this his handwriting?’
‘Yes,’ she said slowly, taking it from him. ‘That’s James.’
She pulled out the letter and looked at the date.
‘September,’ she murmured. ‘He must have written this as soon as he came back.’
The words seemed to leap off the page.
I’m sitting here at midnight, trying to imagine that I’m still there with you. It’s only a few hours since you kissed me goodbye at the airport, yet already it seems like a lifetime. All I can do is try to tell you what our meeting has meant to me, how you’ve transformed my life in only a few days.
She laid down the letter. ‘I can’t read any more.’
But even as she said it she began reading again. James had written these words on the night he’d returned from Florence in September. She’d met him at the airport, gone home with him, tried to make love to him and been rejected.
‘Because he’d come from her bed only a few hours before,’ she whispered. ‘He sent me away, then sat down to write to her.’
Drago was reaching into the bag, pulling out more letters, searching through them feverishly.
‘What does she say to him?’ Alysa asked.
‘She says here that her marriage is a sham,’ Drago replied in a dazed voice. ‘And she can endure it no longer.
Alysa barely heard. She too was pulling out letters, seeking the ones from James. They were revealing. He wrote:
My darling, please don’t be jealous of Alysa. She means nothing to me any more. Even at its best it was only an insipid love, nothing compared to what I feel for you.
And in another letter:
I’ve promised to be with you next week, and I will. Don’t worry about my failing you, because I never will. I’ve made an excuse to Alysa and she’s accepted it. Luckily she’ll believe anything I tell her. So I’ll arrive on that plane, and, if you can be there to meet me, wonderful. If not, I’ll just go to our little home and wait for you.
‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I believed whatever he told me, I loved him so much.’
In answer to Drago’s look she handed him the letter.
‘It’s dated just before my birthday,’ she said. ‘We had such plans. But then he said he had to go away for a few days-something to do with the prospect of a job as a photographer. When he came back he said he hadn’t got the job and it had been a wasted few days.’
‘You didn’t check up on him?’
‘I never checked up on him. I trusted him totally. I didn’t know he despised me for it.’
‘And now you can despise him,’ Drago said fiercely. ‘Let that be your revenge.’
‘Yes,’ she said in what she hoped was a strong voice. ‘You’re right, of course.’
But the words echoed bleakly through the emptiness inside her.
CHAPTER SIX
DRAGO studied the contents of the next letter with a set face that grew almost cruel as he read on.
You say your husband is a harsh man. My love, it breaks my heart to think of you trapped there with him, the victim of his bullying. But it won’t be long now before I come to rescue you.
‘It’s a lie!’ Drago said violently. ‘I never bullied her. Others maybe, but not her or Tina, I swear it.’
‘You don’t need to convince me,’ Alysa said.
‘But how could she tell such a lie?’ he demanded.
‘She was playing a part, saying what she thought would fire him up.’
She took the letter from him and scanned it quickly, finding it full of a tender possessiveness that she would have thought charming in any other man. James was writing to the woman he had passionately adored, and it was so different from the casual love he’d given her that her heart ached.
Or at least it would have ached, if she hadn’t been safely past that stage, she reassured herself.
There was more about Drago, making it clear that Carlotta had painted him in a tyrannical light. Alysa found herself disbelieving every word. Already she knew him well enough for that. It was he who was Carlotta’s victim, raging helplessly like a baited bear.
‘We were together for ten years,’ he grated. ‘Until she left me, I thought they were wonderful years. We loved and cared for each other.’
‘And you were always faithful to her, weren’t you?’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Of course I was faithful,’ he said scornfully. ‘I was hers in every way, body and soul. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for her.
The last word was a shout of anguish. Alysa moved instinctively, taking his hand between both of hers. He gripped her so hard that she winced, but concealed it, letting him hold onto her as long as he needed.
‘Sorry,’ he said ruefully as he released her. ‘Did I hurt you?’
‘Not at all,’ she lied, flexing her fingers.
‘Do you want to stop?’
‘No, we can’t give in now. We’ve got to follow the path wherever it leads. After all, we already know the worst.’
She began to read aloud.
‘“Talking to you last night was wonderful, but I wish it hadn’t had to be the telephone. I so much wanted to tell you our wonderful secret in person, and see your dear face”.’
‘What secret?’ Drago asked. ‘Does she say?’
Alysa didn’t reply. A suffocating fear was overtaking her. It was impossible. She was mad even to think of it. She told herself she must read on, and then, ‘“It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. I thought nothing could make our love more perfect, but our baby will make us complete”.’
