Dark Fate

Saskia was dumb, her eyes held by Domenico’s, hearing what Jamie was saying without understanding a word of it. What was he talking about?

‘Saskia, this is Signor Alessandros...’ Jamie said, coming towards her, and Domenico moved beside him, like a hunting animal, light on his feet, yet tense, his body poised to leap for the kill.

Still holding her eyes, he proffered his hand and she automatically put out her own. The first touch of his flesh sent a shiver through her; his skin was cool, his grip powerful. Possessive, she thought. His fingers swallowed her small hand; she felt she would never escape again. She pulled her fingers free in witless panic; for a second he resisted, as if to underline his capacity to take and keep her, then he slowly let her go.

Jamie was quite unaware of any atmosphere between them; he was too excited.

‘Signor Alessandros and I got into conversation out on the terrace, Saskia, while I was having some tea. He noticed me leafing through that book on Italian gardens we bought before we came to Italy, and told me it wasn’t always accurate. Well, we noticed that ourselves, once we saw some of the gardens, didn’t we? The book’s full of stupid mistakes; I started to wonder if the guy had actually been to half the gardens.’ Jamie laughed, pausing, and, realising that he was waiting for her to agree, Saskia blindly nodded and forced a smile.

‘Yes, I remember.’ At that moment she didn’t; she couldn’t think, let alone remember. Her whole body was still shuddering from the effect of touching Domenico again.

‘The book is out of date, I think that’s the problem,’ Domenico said in his deep, husky voice and her body vibrated to the sound. He was watching her, not looking at Jamie; he knew what was happening inside her. ‘It was first published years ago,’ he drawled, ‘but it must be popular because they keep bringing it out again, and some of the descriptions are no longer accurate.’

‘A lot of them!’ nodded Jamie.

Saskia couldn’t take her eyes from Domenico. Earlier that day, in the Accademia’s low lighting, she had thought he was unchanged, exactly the same, but the more she looked at him, the more she realised that wasn’t true.

His face was thinner, his body leaner; he had visibly lost weight. He had always looked tough; now his olive, tanned skin was drawn tightly over his cheekbones, his face all angles, hard and austere, his grey eyes glittering like razors.

‘I explained to Signor Alessandros that I had a garden centre back home in England, and you worked for me,’ Jamie said. ‘Which was why we took a professional interest in the gardens we’d seen on this trip, and I told him we wished we could have seen some of the gardens of the villas along the Brenta canal.’

Saskia vaguely remembered Jamie talking about the Brenta canal. It was an ancient canal, he had said, on the mainland of Italy, which started somewhere opposite Venice, and flowed inland in the direction of Padua, but she couldn’t quite remember why Jamie had been so keen to visit it, nor did she understand why he had talked to Domenico about it.

‘But of course there hasn’t been time,’ Jamie added. ‘As we’re only here for two weeks, we only just had time for a few days in Venice before we went back, I told him.’ He gave her an excited smile. ‘And then guess what? Signor Alessandros told me that he actually owned a sixteenth-century villa on the Brenta canal, Saskia!’

Saskia was startled into a gasp, her eyes widening. Domenico actually lived just outside Venice now? Had he sold the house near Milan? When had he moved here?

Their eyes met. ‘I haven’t owned it for long,’ he said, watching her remorselessly, reading her thoughts and answering them. ‘I inherited it from a great-uncle a year ago.’

‘And guess who designed it?’ Jamie burst out eagerly; he didn’t wait for her to guess, which was just as well as she wasn’t even capable of thinking about it, let alone remembering the names of Venetian architects. ‘Palladio!’ he said, his face lit up.

During their exploration of Venice he had become a big fan of the Italian architect whose neo-classical styles had influenced architecture all over Europe, including some of the most famous buildings in England. Nothing they had ever seen at home, though, she had decided, could match the beauty of the churches of Venice which Palladio had designed. The grave classical style he used was given an extra dimension of beauty by the water running beside the churches day and night, reflecting the white stone, the pediments and columns, the measured elegance of proportion, by sun or moonlight.

Saskia was startled. ‘Palladio!’ The villa must be worth a fortune, then, although that in itself did not surprise her.

Domenico’s family were incredibly wealthy; they headed a conglomerate which owned various companies: food-manufacturing, paper-milling, a drug company, a hotel chain. They were hard-working, ambitious, clever men, the men of the Alessandros clan, but they had not got rich suddenly—the family was a very old one; you could trace the name back to the fifteenth century and beyond. They had begun as merchants, acquired land and castles, married the daughters of the nobility. Domenico’s father was the head of the clan, and intended that Domenico should take his place in time.

Old Giovanni Alessandros had been obsessed with his family’s pedigree, their place in Italian history, their future influence; it was his driving passion. Arrogant, proud, domineering, he had had his own ideas of the sort of woman his son should marry, and when Domenico had first brought her home his father had made it clear that he disapproved of her, resented her, despised her. She simply wasn’t good enough for his son. In time he had come to hate her. In fact, he had been one of the main reasons why she had fled two years ago.

Coolly, Domenico said, ‘It’s a national treasure, one of the few private commissions Palladio fulfilled, but the house is in a bad way. My uncle was a miser, obsessed with not spending money. He hadn’t had any work done on the place in half a century; he didn’t so much live in it as squat in it, with a couple of old servants who barely did a stroke of work. There’s a lot to be done, including work on the gardens, which are a mess, but which I plan to restore to their original design.’

‘And he’s thinking of adding a classic English-style rose-garden, he loves roses,’ Jamie said in a rush. ‘Even more exciting, he might consider letting us design it for him, and supply all the roses, Saskia, if you can come up with a design he likes!’

Stiffening, she looked at Domenico. What was all this? What lies had he been telling Jamie? What was he up to?

He smiled at her lazily, narrow-eyed, watchful. ‘I gather your tour ends in two days so there isn’t much time if you are to come and look round my gardens; you’ll have to come tomorrow,’ he drawled, and watched her face tighten with comprehension.

So that was it. He was using Jamie to get her to visit his new house? He could think again; she wasn’t going within miles of the place.

‘There’s nothing important on the schedule for tomorrow, is there, Saskia?’ burbled Jamie. ‘Just a trip out to Murano—we can skip that.’

‘I want to see Murano, actually; I was looking forward to that visit,’ she stubbornly said, without taking her eyes from Domenico’s face, sending him the message she wanted him to get. He might have waited until they had had that talk over coffee at Florian’s, he might have given her a chance to explain why she had gone, why she wasn’t coming back.

Jamie looked amazed, frowning at her. ‘Oh, we can fit in a trip to Murano as well before we go, on our own—we don’t have to go with the group—and this is such a wonderful opportunity, Saskia, something we couldn’t have hoped for, a visit to one of the private villas along the Brenta, especially one designed by Palladio. It’s manna from heaven, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t wait. But you must come too; you’re the rose expert; we’ll need you there.’

Domenico smiled drily at her. ‘Yes, you must come, Saskia; I insist that you do,’ he murmured, and she tried to read his secret thoughts, to penetrate the bland exterior he was showing her and find out what he was really planning, but she couldn’t.

She had never been able to read his mind at will, of course; she never knew when she would pick up his thoughts or feelings; the flashes only came in moments of stress or intense emotion. But this time she sensed something different, something new. Domenico was shutting her out deliberately; his mind was like the blank screen of a computer; she felt no impulses at all coming from him and she had never met that before.

Until now, even when she couldn’t read his mind she had always felt the energy of his thoughts, like the hum of an electric machine.

Now there was nothing, no buzz of activity at all, as if his mind had been switched off.

That wasn’t possible, of course. His mind was operating all the time. She looked into his hard grey eyes and saw amusement, mockery there, and was startled by that, too. This mood of his was puzzling; at the opera last night she had sensed rage, hostility; this was very different.

It hadn’t occurred to her until now that Domenico might have changed inwardly as well as outwardly, but she saw now that he had. His mind as well as his body was different, and not in some small way—he had changed radically; he was not the same man she had left two years ago.

‘The easiest way to get there is for me to pick you up in my motorboat,’ he said to Jamie. ‘What time do you get up? Can you get up early, have breakfast at seven-thirty? Would eight-thirty be too early for me to pick you up?’

‘No, that’s fine,’ Jamie quickly said before Saskia could argue any more, and Domenico gave a satisfied nod.

‘Good. Then until tomorrow—I’ll see you both on the quay, outside the hotel. Oh, and bring raincoats—the weather forecast is for spring showers—and some strong walking shoes, if you haven’t got boots with you—the gardens are large and some of the older paths are overgrown with grass, and can be muddy.’

Jamie gave him a complacent look. ‘We did bring boots, actually, because we thought we might need them for some of the bigger gardens, and the tour people warned us that Venice gets lots of rain and some parts of it flood.’

‘That’s very true—the Piazza San Marco is often under water; that’s why the duckboards are often out in the square, and even San Marco itself can be flooded, unfortunately, at certain times. You’ve been very lucky with the weather so far—we’ve had fine weather for the past week—but it is about to change, I’m afraid. Spring is always unsettled here.’

‘It’s just as unsettled back home in the spring!’ grinned Jamie, and Domenico nodded.

‘I know.’

‘You’ve been to England?’ Jamie was interested; it was obvious that he was very curious about Domenico, and Saskia was nervous of that curiosity, it might make Jamie far more observant than usual.

‘Many times,’ Domenico said. ‘Especially lately; I’ve been going there often over the past couple of years.’

Saskia tensed again, and he looked into her eyes, his mouth twisting with cynical derision.

‘I suppose you have business interests there?’ asked Jamie, quite unaware of any undercurrents.

‘I do, but my visits were mainly personal,’ Domenico said, still watching Saskia.

He had been looking for her. She had always known he would; he wasn’t a man to give up anything easily. At times over the past two years she had been tensely aware of Domenico brooding over her; she had even felt sure he was in her own country, looking for her, and she had been on tenterhooks until she sensed that he had gone back to Italy again.

She couldn’t stand any more. Huskily, she said, ‘I’ve got to go upstairs to change for dinner—excuse me.’

‘See you later,’ Jamie said as she retreated.

‘See you tomorrow,’ Domenico said, with a silky threat hidden in his smooth tone.

Safely in her room, she went into the bathroom and ran a bath, took off her apple-green linen dress, was about to take off her slip when she heard a sound in her bedroom. She ran back in there, her nerves thudding as she saw Domenico closing the door.

‘How did you get in here? What the...?’

He leaned his broad shoulders on the door in a cool pose, smiling mockingly. ‘I told the floor maid I’d forgotten my key and my wife was in the shower and hadn’t heard me knocking, and she let me in with her pass key.’

‘She must have realised you weren’t part of our group! She can’t have believed you were with me; this is a single room!’

‘She must have forgotten that. She was a charming girl, and very helpful; I gave her a handsome tip.’

Saskia shook with anger. ‘You mean you bribed her to let you in here! My God, I’ll call the manager!’

‘And lose the girl her job?’

‘Someone that untrustworthy shouldn’t be working in a good hotel. She could be letting thieves into rooms, if she let you in here!’

He didn’t seem to be listening; he was too busy staring, his grey eyes intent on her naked shoulders and half-covered breasts, the way the silky slip clung to waist and hip, a wide hem of lace ending mid-thigh.

In a mirror on the wardrobe behind him Saskia caught sight of herself and was shocked to realise that with the sun streaming through the window behind her the slip was totally transparent. She might as well have been naked from her waist down, the flat stomach, rounded hips, the dark triangle of hair and below.

Saskia suddenly couldn’t breathe. She backed away, watching him with her heart knocking in her throat, her hand going out to catch hold of a white towelling robe on the end of the bed.

Domenico moved faster, caught hold of her, his hands splayed across her smooth, bare shoulders.

‘No!’ she cried out in panic, but her body was burning, aching, and his body moved against her, one hand sliding down her back to push her closer until they were touching. She trembled, mouth dry, perspiration prickling on her skin.

The conflict between wanting him and being afraid of the pain of loving him made her almost helpless. She had escaped this trap before; now she was back in it again, betrayed by her own desire, weak in the face of his.

Domenico’s mouth hunted for hers; she evaded it, turning her head from side to side. He bent his head and she gasped as his lips brushed her shoulder, crept along the collarbone to her neck, pressed deep into the soft skin. One hand caressed her back, followed the deep indentation of her spine, the other hand moved up to her breast and cupped the full, warm flesh.

She gave a smothered moan and wrenched herself free, retreated to the door, opened it before he could get to her.

‘Do I have to scream, or will you leave quietly?’

Darkly flushed, breathing audibly, Domenico sat down on her bed. ‘OK, you win—I’ll go in a minute; I just want a word with you first.’

She didn’t lock the door again, she held it almost shut, watching him warily.

‘Well?’

‘I want to make sure you aren’t going to bolt for it again, because I’m having the hotel watched, you wouldn’t get far, so don’t bother to try it.’ He gave her a dry smile. ‘I just thought I’d save you the trouble and embarrassment of attempting to get away and being caught.’

She wasn’t surprised, but the threat made her angrier. ‘Go away,’ she said, opening the door wide.

‘And I would have to break the news to your friend Jamie that you’re my wife, wouldn’t I?’ he murmured, then got up, walked past her, his eyes on her every step of the way, making her body shudder.

She slammed the door shut on him, shaking so much that she sank down on the floor, her eyes shut, rocking herself like a distraught child, dry sobs in her chest.

Her bath was cold when she remembered it. She had to run some more hot water into it to make it bearable. She only spent a short time in the lukewarm water, towelled herself and put on her robe, lay down on her bed, trying desperately to think.

She had to confess the truth to Jamie, and she knew he would be sympathetic; he’d understand why she had fled, why she had lived a lie for two years. But she still couldn’t bear the thought of talking about it. The past was an unhealed wound; it would hurt too much to tell Jamie about it.

But what was she going to do about tomorrow? Be on the quay with Jamie, let Domenico take her to this Palladian villa he had inherited? But would he ever let her leave again?

Her only chance was to stick to Jamie like glue while they were at the villa. Whatever Domenico tried to do she wouldn’t let him separate them, or, at least, she would always keep Jamie in sight and make sure Jamie could see her all the time.

The trouble was, she knew how Jamie could be once he was looking at a strange garden, especially an old garden which would no doubt have some old and possibly forgotten, or rare, species in it; he would be too absorbed in plants and trees to notice what was happening to her.

Another, even more disturbing thought hit her. What if other members of the Alessandros clan were living at the villa? They were such a close family, always visiting each other.

What if his father was there?

Ice trickled down her spine.

She could not face Giovanni Alessandros. The very prospect was a nightmare. Two years ago he had tried to kill her, and she was afraid that if he thought she was coming back into his son’s life he might try again.

CHAPTER THREE

JAMIE explained to Terry, the tour organiser, that they would be going off separately next day, taking great pride in explaining where they were going.

Terry frowned at him. He had constantly stressed security while they were travelling around Italy, but since they had reached Venice he had seemed less concerned about that, claiming that Venice had the lowest rate of crime in Italy because criminals found it far too much of a problem to get away after committing a crime. Unlike most cities in the world, Venice suffered from little urban theft; muggers and pickpockets rarely tried their luck. Without roads, they had to rely on boats for an escape, and the police could soon catch up with any boat, however fast, in these waterways. The local police had the advantage of knowing everything there was to know about the local waters, and in such a small city most people knew their neighbours far too well for anyone to get away with a life of crime for long.

Now, though, Terry looked uneasy. ‘Sounds a bit fishy to me. What did you say this chap’s name is? Did he give you any proof that he owned a Palladian villa on the Brenta? Far-fetched story, isn’t it? Have you any idea how much a place like that is worth? He’d have to be as rich as Croesus.’

Jamie looked startled. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. But come to think of it, he dressed as if he had money. His shoes were handmade, I’m certain of it. I coveted them, anyway, I noticed how good they were, and I know I could never afford to buy shoes like that; they must have cost a fortune.’ He made a wry face. ‘But then I spend most of my time wearing wellington boots! I take your point, Terry, but I don’t think there’s much doubt he has money, wouldn’t you say so, Saskia?’

She didn’t reply, but that didn’t matter because it was a purely rhetorical question; Jamie didn’t wait for her to say anything, he just went on thoughtfully, ‘Although, I have to say, it was odd, getting into conversation with him out on the terrace; I mean, he went out of his way to talk to me.’

‘There you are, then!’ Terry said, and Jamie looked uncertainly at him.

‘I remember now, he came and sat at my table, when there were plenty of other tables free. Mind you, he said it was because he noticed I was reading a book on Italian gardens, and maybe it was. After all, why should he lie to me? What would be in it for him?’

Terry looked pityingly at him, sighed heavily. ‘Well, Jamie, I can think of several motives—Venice is the safest city in Europe, but now and then a conman does slip through their net, and if he’s talking of taking you off alone with him, in his boat, you could end up anywhere.’

‘Oh, that’s ridiculous!’ Jamie broke out, laughing. ‘Why on earth would he want to kidnap me?’

Terry looked at Saskia, his eyes sly. ‘Maybe it isn’t you he’s interested in?’

She went pink, her nerves jumping and her eyes opening wide, startled by his shrewd guesswork.

Jamie looked at her, too, his face changing. ‘Saskia? Oh, that hadn’t occurred to me. Mind you, I did notice him staring, but...well, that isn’t unusual, especially in Italy. Italians always notice pretty women.’

‘Italians notice women, period!’ Terry said. His eyes slipped down over Saskia again and she quivered with distaste, looking away. She had thought for an instant that he might know something about her and Domenico, but now she saw that that wasn’t it at all. Terry had a nasty mind. No Italian had ever looked at her with that expression; their admiration was usually warm and open, it didn’t make her feel sick, the way she felt now with Terry staring at her like that.

‘You think he’s hoping to impress her with his money?’ Jamie asked.

‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t trust him,’ Terry shrugged. ‘After all, a rich man would surely get a local expert to design his rose-garden! Someone from around here would know local conditions better than you could, however good you are, and I’m not being rude, Jamie. Just that a local would know what grows best here, what never thrives, what the weather does at various times of year, and so on, now, wouldn’t he?’

Jamie reluctantly had to agree. ‘Yes, you’re right, I suppose so, but we do specialise in roses, as I told him; we have a huge variety of them in stock, and we do get orders from the continent all the time, especially from France, where they’re very fond of English roses even though they grow some marvellous roses themselves.’ He frowned, silent for a while, then his face cleared and he burst out, ‘No! You know, I do think you’re wrong; I don’t believe he was just interested in Saskia, because he invited me to see his villa before she arrived! He had never set eyes on her until then.’ He beamed at Saskia. ‘Mind you, he could be trying to pick our brains without having to pay us a penny. If he takes us round his gardens as tourists we can’t charge him for any advice he gets from us. You know how mean people can be about paying for advice! And the richer they are, the more they hate parting with money!’

‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ Terry said flatly, sounding unconvinced. ‘In your place, though, I’d think twice about taking him up on his invitation.’

Jamie frowned while he finished his main course, a dish of calf’s liver fried with fresh leaves of sage, served with onions.

‘That was delicious!’ he said to the waiter as the man whisked away his plate, looking cross because Jamie was the last at table to finish that course.

The waiter mumbled a reply and Jamie suddenly did a double take, catching his arm. ‘Giorgio! You were serving tea on the terrace this afternoon, weren’t you? Did you notice the man who joined me at my table?’

‘Signor Alessandros?’ The man shrugged. ‘Yes, signor.’

‘You know him?’ asked Jamie eagerly.

‘But, of course, signore—he owns this hotel!’ said the waiter, sniffing.

Saskia drew a shaken breath.

Terry sat up in his chair, staring at the waiter. ‘Signor Alessandros?’

‘He owns the hotel?’ repeated Jamie, his face incredulous. ‘Are you sure?’

The waiter nodded vehemently. ‘Very sure, signore. He bought it last year; he lives on the mainland, opposite Venice, in a very beautiful, historic house on the Brenta canal, and is often here, in the hotel. I have served him many times.’

Terry was scowling. ‘If you had told me his name was Alessandros, I’d have known who he was,’ he said, his face envious and faintly resentful. ‘I haven’t actually met him myself, but of course I’ve heard of him—he owns a number of hotels we use, his family own a hotel chain with hotels all over Italy; he must be one of the richest men in the country.’