But what was happening between them was on nobody’s terms: need, craving, curiosity, antagonism. They were all there, mixed up with a desire that obeyed no laws but its own. Her heart was pounding so wildly that he felt it and laid his hand between her breasts.
‘Could Lorenzo make you feel like this?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you feel the difference?’
‘There’s no difference,’ she cried. ‘You and Lorenzo are two of a kind. Both selfish, careless of other people’s feelings, thinking of women as creatures to be used.’
She wondered what perversity made her hold out against a man who was gaining such a strong hold on her heart and senses. But ancient, wise instinct warned her not to let Renato have too easy a victory. She didn’t know what their future would hold, whether it might be love or just desire. But it would be built on what was happening now, and if she didn’t stand her ground she would always regret it.
But he too seemed to understand this, because he was making it so hard for her to hold out, caressing her with his lips that murmured seductively of passion and pleasure, passion so intense that it was destiny, pleasure too great to be resisted.
They shared desire but no love, and a marriage based on that faulty basis could only end in bitterness. She must cling to that, but it was hard when her body clamoured as never before for what only this man could give.
As abruptly as it had started, the rain eased off to a light drizzle. She broke free and turned away from him, but that helped her not at all. Wherever she looked she saw the carvings and statues depicting Ceres and the fertility she demanded. Here was corn, ripe for harvest, there were animals mating vigorously on a frieze that ran all around above their heads. And everywhere were men and women united in a fury of ecstatic creation.
Ceres was a ruthless goddess, sworn to make the little people she ruled fruitful, at any cost. To tempt them she dangled the sweetness of desire, but when her purpose was achieved the desire turned to ashes.
Renato came up behind her. He’d followed her gaze and understood everything she was thinking. ‘There’s no fighting it,’ he said. ‘Certainly not in this place, which was built to remind us how helpless we are in the hands of the gods.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘I believe there are some forces we can’t withstand.’
‘And what do you think the gods meant for us?’ she asked, turning on him.
‘I’ll tell you what they didn’t mean. They didn’t mean for us to live peacefully. You and I could never do that. There’s something in you that drives me crazy, and there’s something in me that brings out a temper you never show to anyone else. We’ve fought from the moment we met, and we’ll probably fight until the last moment of our lives. But we’ll pass those lives together because
Looking into his face, she was swept by a wild mood. It was the same as the one that she’d known on the jet ski when she had incited him to ride on out of sight of the boat. It had almost cost her her life then, and now it might decide the rest of her life.
‘Do you understand?’ he said. ‘Answer me.’
She answered, not in words, but in a slow smile that made him growl and pull her hard against him. ‘Are you tormenting me for the pleasure of it?’
‘What do you think?’ she asked, speaking quietly so that he couldn’t hear, had to make out the movement of her lips.
‘I think I won’t let you torment me any more,’ he growled.
She laughed recklessly. ‘How will you stop me?’
‘Don’t challenge me, Heather. You’ll lose.’
‘I think I’ve already won.’
She’d won his lips crushing hers, one arm tight around her waist, the other behind her neck, so that she couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to stay in his arms and enjoy her prize to the full. Because afterwards would come the day of reckoning, when she would discover what else she had won with this strange, mysterious, complicated man.
‘Tell me that you never slept with him,’ he said hoarsely.
‘If I did, I had every right to. I was his, not yours.’
‘Tell me you didn’t.’
‘It doesn’t concern you. You don’t own me. You never will.’
He stepped back from her. He was trembling as though he’d run a long race.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘And I always will.’
He fell silent. He might have been waiting for her response, but she was determined to say nothing. Slowly the stormy look died out of his eyes, leaving bleakness behind. ‘The rain has stopped,’ he said. ‘We should leave before it starts again.’
At the villa he stayed only long enough to dry off and change into some of the dry clothes that were still in his room. Heather went to her own room to change, and when she emerged Renato had already gone.
‘He said to say goodbye,’ Jocasta explained. ‘But he couldn’t stay.’
‘No, I didn’t think he would.’
She ate alone that evening, and picked so delicately at the food that Jocasta privately berated her husband, demanding to know if he wanted to drive the mistress away by his bad cooking.
She was late going to bed. As the moon came up she wandered in the garden, finding her way easily along silvered paths. The rose bush shone in the cool light, symbol of a love that had never really died.
That was what she’d thought awaited her here: the sweetness and tenderness of love. It was the kind of gentle experience that, as a northerner, she had instinctively understood.
Instead, in this country of fierce sun and fiercer rain, she’d found a passion as primitive as time itself, passion as these varied, unpredictable people understood it, and it had revealed that at heart she was one of them.
Very well. If she was to be a Sicilian, then she would meet the problem not merely with Sicilian intensity, but with Sicilian cunning.
She was swept again by the memory of Renato’s lips on hers, the way he’d pulled her against him so that her body moulded itself against his. These things had made her want to cry
But his mouth had spoken the language of pride and possession, and no woman of spirit could consent to that. So her words had denied him while her senses clamoured for him. It seemed there was no way to solve the riddle.
Unless…
Next day she drove down to the Residenza in the late afternoon, and found Baptista fresh from her nap, bright-eyed and cheerful. They had tea and cakes together on the terrace as the afternoon light faded. The rains had left everywhere looking freshly washed, and now that the hottest part of summer had gone this time of day was cool and pleasant. Encouraged by Baptista, she described how she was spending her time at the villa.
‘The local priest paid me a ceremonial visit, and said very anxiously that he hoped I played chess. I assured him that I did, and he went away happy.’
Baptista chuckled. ‘Father Torrino is a dear man but the worst chess player in the world. You’ll have to let him win sometimes. So you’re fitting into the community. That’s excellent.’
‘Oh, they’re all looking me up and down and wondering if I’ll “do”,’ Heather said with a smile. ‘They seem to think that I will. It’s a happy place. No wonder you love it.’ After a moment she added significantly, ‘I really don’t want to leave.’
‘I was sure you wouldn’t.’
‘But it’s not that easy.’ Heather sipped her tea and thought for a moment before asking, ‘How many men did you turn down before you finally said yes?’
‘Five or six. My poor parents were tearing their hair, but they persevered.’
Out of the corner of her eye Heather became aware of a shadow on the curtain, and then the figure of a man appearing. She was sure Baptista also knew he was there, but neither of them took the slightest notice of him. Nor did he speak. He was listening intently.
‘It’s not just the man who has to be right,’ Baptista continued, ‘but the circumstances. That’s one advantage of
