‘I haven’t your courage. I still feel easier wearing the armour, except with you. But, like I told you, I sleep better. Tina is happier.’
In the poor light she could just make out the scar on his forehead, and she reached up to touch it.
‘Is that where you got hit?’
‘Yes, it’s fading now.’
‘I thought you were dead. Everything went dark. The thought of you not being there any more-even if I didn’t see you, I knew you were there, and if suddenly you weren’t-I didn’t know how I’d manage without you.’
‘I can remember lying in the hospital and thinking about you, wishing you were with me. And then you called. I think that was when I began plotting to get you out here again. I had to see you, to reassure myself that it hadn’t been a dream.’
‘Well, I’m here now, but it does feel like dreaming. I don’t know what’s real any more. Was this always going to happen?’
‘Don’t you know the answer to that?’ he asked seriously.
The question pulled her up short. Hadn’t she always known that they would end up embracing, exploring each other on the only level they hadn’t yet discovered?
‘I guess, if you’d just let me go home, I wouldn’t have liked it. I wouldn’t have liked it at all. It would have meant that something had gone wrong.’
‘Me too. And I wasn’t going to let it go wrong.’
‘So you had this planned from the first moment?’
‘Not planned. Hoped. I didn’t know how it was going to work out until the other night at the villa, when I looked up and saw you standing there-so beautiful, so changed in the way I’d been hoping for. And then I knew.’
‘Yes,’ she said, remembering the moment when she’d seen him again, the king in his own domain. ‘That was when I knew too.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, leaning his head on her.
‘Hey, you’re nearly asleep.’
‘No, not really.’
‘Just the same,’ she said with a little chuckle, ‘you are. So I may as well join you. Goodnight.’
At breakfast he said, ‘I thought today we’d go out, and I’ll show you how lovely this place can be. Then we’ll eat in a tiny restaurant in the village.’
‘Wouldn’t it be nicer to eat here? Just the two of us?’
‘You’re right. We’ll come straight back.’
The walk up the mountain was magic. As they climbed the gentle slope the sun glinted through the trees, so that they passed from shadow to sunlight to shadow again. Now and then he would take her into his arms and they would stand locked together in silence.
It seemed that there was nobody else for miles, as though they were alone in all the world, with nothing to think of but each other. When there was a gap in the trees they stood looking up at the birds flying overhead, transfixed by the beauty.
‘I love you,’ he said.
Alysa turned her head slowly, wondering if she’d imagined it. He looked back at her, answering her thought.
‘Yes, I love you. Why do you look surprised? You shouldn’t be.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said, dazed.
‘You said you could see where we were heading,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, but-I guess I only saw a little way ahead.’
As she said it she couldn’t help smiling as she thought of their time in bed.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘There was a time when I too only saw that much. But it’s not enough. Without love it’s nothing.’
‘But you’re going too fast for me. I think I’ve lost faith.’
‘In me?’ he asked quietly.
‘No, in me. Love costs so much, and I can’t pay that price any more. I guess that makes me a coward.’
‘You? Not in a million years.’
‘Yes, me. When I think of how I loved before, throwing myself into it heedlessly, I know I can’t be like that again.’
‘Of course not. No two loves are the same any more than people are the same. I love you differently from Carlotta, but not less. Or is this your way of saying that I’m fooling myself and you don’t love me?’
She took so long answering that his brow darkened. ‘Is it that?’
‘I don’t know. How can I tell? You’re dearer to me than anyone else on earth, but-How can I explain? Part of me doesn’t want you to be.’
‘So you’re going to fight me until you’ve driven me out? I’m stubborn, Alysa. I won’t go easily. I’ll haunt your mind and heart until you turn to face me. Night and day I’ll be with you every moment.’
‘Yes-yes,’ she whispered.
‘Stay with me. Marry me. Love me.’
‘You make it sound so easy,’ she said with a touch of anger. ‘It isn’t. Love’s more dangerous than you know.’
‘You really believe I haven’t learned that?’
‘You think you have, but you don’t know-’
She stopped, horrified at what she’d nearly revealed. She’d been on the verge of telling him about the letter, the one thing she must never do. Too late she saw the trap she’d laid for herself.
‘What don’t I know?’ he asked, looking at her keenly.
‘You don’t know anything,’ she improvised hastily. ‘We think we know, but we never really do.’
‘What don’t I know, Alysa?’
‘Stop pressurising me,’ she flashed. ‘I only meant that nothing is how we think it is, and that’s why nobody ever learns from experience. They never recognise the experience when it comes around the second time.’
He was giving her a curious look.
‘I wonder what you really meant to say,’ he mused. ‘You’re doing what my daughter calls talking “itty-bitty”. It means floundering for words just to change the subject.’
‘It’s only that we’re going too fast,’ she pleaded.
‘How can you say that after last night? We made love.’ He eyed her uncertainly. ‘Didn’t we?’
‘I don’t know what we did. It was beautiful, but-’
‘Yes, it was beautiful. You’re not trying to say that it was only sex, are you?’
‘No, but-’
‘We’ve wanted each other. Don’t tell me it was all on my side. Not after the way you came to life in my arms, and the things you whispered to me.’
‘I’ve wanted you as well, but it doesn’t have to be love. I won’t go through that again.’
‘Alysa, listen,’ he said seriously. ‘I don’t want to love you any more than you want to love me. Do you think I haven’t fought this? I have, day and night. But we may have no choice.’
‘We’re free beings. We make our own choices.’
‘Nobody is as free as that. I thought I’d always be hounded by Carlotta, and everything that happened. But
‘Drago, please, don’t rush me.’
‘You mean I should stand back while you return to that life you’ve made a refuge because you think it’s safer than love?’ His voice became grimly ironic. ‘A partnership in a firm of accountants! How can I compete with that?’
‘You’re not being fair.’
‘Maybe not, but that’s another thing about love-it isn’t fair. Or is there something else that you’re hiding?’
‘Stop trying to steamroller me,’ she cried. ‘Give me a chance to think.’
‘I didn’t mean-’ He checked himself with a groan. ‘I’m doing it again, aren’t I? Coming on strong, trying to pressurise you.’
