‘Baby!’ Drago sat up, tense.
In a daze, Alysa read on. ‘“My darling, never doubt that this child is yours. Since the day I met you I’ve kept my husband out of my bed, and no man but you has loved me. No man ever will again”.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ he muttered. ‘Why does she say things that can’t be true?’
‘Can’t they?’ Alysa asked, watching the fire intently. ‘Did she “keep you out”, as she says?’
‘Yes, but-’ He broke off with a groan. ‘A few months earlier I’d told her I wanted another child, but she put me off. We quarrelled and she shut me out. I wanted to be reconciled, but she wouldn’t-Now I see that it was more convenient to keep me away, because all the time-’
He slammed his hand down on a low table with such force that it smashed. A stream of violent Italian curses broke from him. His chest was heaving with the violence of his emotion, and for a moment he was too distracted to watch Alysa-and so didn’t see that she was staring into space, her face wooden, her eyes dead.
She and Carlotta had become pregnant by James at almost exactly the same time. When she’d been waiting for him to arrive for Christmas, thinking how she would tell him of their baby, he had been on his way to Florence -to Carlotta, and the child he’d fathered with her.
Half unconsciously she laid her hand over her stomach, almost deafened by the thunderous beat of her own heart.
She’d thought there could be no more pain beyond what she had already suffered. She was wrong.
She climbed slowly to her feet and moved away from the fire’s warmth to the window, where she stared out, unseeing. After a moment Drago came and stood beside her.
‘I’m glad you couldn’t understand what I was saying,’ he said. ‘I thought I was ready for anything, but that one-after all this time. I don’t know what I want to do-throw something, bang my head against the wall, curse her to hell and back.’
But she astonished him by shrugging.
‘Why bother? We knew they were sleeping together. This doesn’t really make any difference.’
Drago stared, alerted less by her words than by a note in her voice that he’d heard before: harsh. Dead. It was how she’d sounded when they had first met at the waterfall, and it had fitted with the robotic severity of her appearance that day. Today that chilling note had briefly gone, revealing a vibrant sound that had suggested a whole new side to her, but now it was back like steel armour.
He’d criticised her for it then, but not now. He was beginning to understand.
‘Does it really not make a difference?’ he asked carefully.
‘Why should it?’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘What’s one more betrayal? They’ve been dead a year. Good riddance!’
She leaned back against the window frame and regarded him with cool detachment as she observed, ‘I told you there was a lot to be said for putting it behind you, and now you see I was right.’
‘Then I envy you,’ he said untruthfully.
He could hardly speak for horror at what he was witnessing. She was turning to stone before his eyes, retreating into a place where he couldn’t follow. If he tried she would fight him off with deadly weapons. A sensible man would have feared her, but he could only feel a surge of pity, followed by anger at himself. What had he done to her?
His attention was caught by something floating past the window. Throwing it open, he saw a blanket of white. Thick flakes of snow poured down onto the leaves, through the branches and down to the ground far below. While they’d been unaware, the world had changed beyond recognition.
‘It looks so cold out there,’ Alysa whispered. ‘So cold.’ She turned away. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now.’
He wished she would meet his eyes. Her withdrawn look unsettled him.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, feeling how inadequate the question was.
‘Of course. I’m just tired.’
‘This snow will block the roads, and delay your bags getting here. You’ll find some clothes in the wardrobe, but I’m afraid they’re hers.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said indifferently. ‘I don’t need-’ she shuddered ‘-anything of hers. There’s no need to show me the way. Goodnight.’
She walked away to the bedroom, moving carefully because she was afraid that any moment she would break in two. When she was inside she leaned back against the door and stayed there for several minutes, trying to find the strength to move.
Her mind was focussed.
‘It doesn’t really change anything,’ she muttered. ‘What difference can it make now?’
But even as the words came she wrapped her arms around herself and bent double, as if to protect the child who was already lost. Still doubled up, she managed to get to the bed, where she breathed deeply until she felt her strength return a little.
‘Unpack,’ she said as though it was only by giving herself instructions that she could function. ‘I’ve got to make sure it’s there.’
‘It’ was a small bag containing underwear and make-up that she always carried in her hand luggage ever since an airline had lost her bags for three days. She found it quickly, much to her relief, as no power on earth would have made her wear Carlotta’s clothes.
But curiosity made her pull open drawers to see what was there. Carlotta hadn’t got round to clearing out this place, and there were still traces of her in lacy bras and panties, delicately made and shaped to be sexy rather than functional. There were nightdresses too, frothy and transparent, cut low.
How could any woman bear to leave such beautiful things behind? Because she was buying a new wardrobe for a new lover, of course. Alysa regarded them with cold contempt.
She thought of Carlotta’s photographs, which had emphasised intelligence over beauty, but these items told another story. This was a woman totally at ease with her own sexuality, happy to emphasise it-flaunt it, even-with more than one man.
She had shared this place with her husband, entrancing him with garments so sparely cut that they were almost nonexistent. Then she had gone to James and worked her magic on him until she, Alysa, had vanished from his mind.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, repeating the mantra that sustained her. ‘Nothing that happens now makes any difference.’
But the mantra was becoming meaningless. The more she tried to hold it up as a shield, the more useless it became. The strength that had kept her controlled for a year was vanishing fast so that the grief came welling up inside.
‘No,’ she said hoarsely. ‘No,
She couldn’t have said what she meant. Her hands were moving independently of her mind, pulling open drawers, tossing the contents out onto the bed, the floor, reaching into the bag for scissors. She didn’t know that tears were streaming down her face as she made the first slash and saw a filmy nightdress disintegrate.
Another slash, another, and now she was no longer destroying clothes but plunging a knife into the heart of the woman who’d stolen her love, killed her child and turned her life into a desert. She’d longed to do this for a year. She knew that now.
She stopped only when her strength had drained away. Sitting on the bed, she surveyed the devastation around her. None of Carlotta’s clothes were intact; some had been ripped to tiny shreds. Shocked, she stared at them while her body heaved, as the dam broke and the sobs that had been repressed too long forced their way to the surface.
The scream that broke from her might have come from someone else. It went on and on, louder, more shrill, full of an agony that would never end.
The next moment the door burst open and Drago stood there.
‘Alysa, what-?’ He stopped as he took in the sight of the devastated room, then froze as he saw the scissors still in her hand.
Following his gaze, Alysa tossed the scissors into a corner and stood facing him, breathing heavily.
