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.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘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.’
