Seduced by Innocence (14 page)

* * *

At the hotel she hurried upstairs and packed as quickly as she could, throwing her clothes in with no concern to orderliness. As she was closing the last lock, there was a knock at the door. “Who is it?” she called cautiously.

“Francisco.”

Surprised, she opened the door to the count. “Elena told me everything that happened at the cemetery,” he said. “I hurried here at once.”

“I’m leaving the Midas. I can’t stay here with Maurizio, not after he—” Abruptly, she stopped speaking, realizing that she couldn’t tell the whole story without betraying Elena’s secret.

“Yes?” Francisco urged, watching her face.

“After he behaved so cruelly to Elena,” Terri finished lamely.

Francisco studied her for a moment longer, then he said, “I know about Rufio. Venice is a city of love and these little flirtations are innocent enough. It’s a tragedy that Rufio took it so seriously, but I’ve told Elena she mustn’t blame herself. She came home very upset, so I’ve come to fetch you. You must stay with us now.”

“You mean live in the palazzo?

“Elena needs you. I know you won’t refuse her this little service. If you’ve finished your packing, we could go now.” He took her bags and they went out together.

At the reception desk, she received a shock. Francisco had already paid her bill. “I was simply acting on my wife’s instructions,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”

In a few moments, her bags were loaded into his motorboat and they were moving. As they swung out into the Grand Canal, Maurizio’s boat appeared, but he didn’t see them.

At the palazzo, Elena greeted her by running down the full length of the grand stairway and throwing her arms about Terri’s neck. “Thank you for coming,” she whispered. “Promise not to leave me.”

“I promise,” Terri said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Once in her own room, Elena almost collapsed, clinging to Terri and shaking like a leaf. “I knew he hated me,” she said through streaming tears. “But not that much.” She buried her face against Terri, sobbing hysterically, and for the moment there was nothing Terri could do but hold her and try to comfort her. She put her arms about Elena and sat beside her on the bed, rocking her as though she were the mother and Elena her child.

At last Elena raised her head. Her hair was in disarray and her makeup smudged. The perfectly groomed beauty had vanished, to be replaced by a tortured, despairing woman. “I didn’t know what Rufio was going to do,” she moaned. “He never told me he was thinking of suicide, I swear he didn’t. Oh, Teresa, you must believe me.”

“Of course I believe you.”

“I don’t understand why Rufio should tell his brother such a lie. He’d never have hurt me.”

“Did you love him?” Terri asked gently.

“How could I help but love him? He loved me and I was so lonely for love. But I was so much older. If we’d lived together, he’d soon have realized it was a mistake, but his honor would have made him stay with me. His life would have been ruined. I loved him too dearly to do that to him. I tried to explain why we had no future but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept saying that I couldn’t love him. I thought he’d understand one day. I never dreamed—” She burst into more sobs and Terri enfolded her again in her arms, hating Maurizio. How could a man cause such devastation and still try to justify himself?

At last Elena pulled herself together and took Terri to the room she’d had prepared for her. Terri looked around her in amazement. It was almost as luxurious as Elena’s own, not at all the room of a paid employee. “I don’t need anything as grand as this—”

“But this is close to my room,” Elena said eagerly. “I need you near me. I feel stronger if you’re there.”

“Of course, if that’s what you want.”

Suddenly, they both tensed. From somewhere deep in the house they could hear the sound of doors banging, men’s voices raised in anger. Terri slipped out onto the landing and looked down the long stairs to where she could see Francisco and another man. The painful thump of her heart told her the other man’s identity before she could see his face. For an instant, she was on the verge of returning to her room, locking the door and staying there, where Maurizio couldn’t get her. But the next moment, her head went up and she was walking purposefully down the stairs to confront him.

“I’m glad to see you,
signorina,
” Francisco said. “Our friend here seems to think I kidnapped you. Perhaps you can enlighten him.”

Maurizio ignored him and strode up to Terri. “Come away from here,” he said urgently. “It’s no place for you.”

“On the contrary,” she said, “it’s the ideal place. I’m close to my work and Elena needs me.”

“I’m sure you’d prefer to talk in private,” Francisco said with a cool smile. “Oblige me by making use of my study.” He indicated the double doors immediately behind her, and walked away.

Maurizio followed her into Francisco’s study and closed the heavy doors. “You have to leave here,” he insisted. “I know Francisco better than you. The most corrupt, debauched sinner in all Venice, a man with no morals and no scruples, whose pastime is destroying innocence—”

“You had no scruples about introducing me to him for your own purposes,” she reminded him pointedly.

He winced. “I never liked your working here, but as long as you weren’t living under his roof—”

Terri swung around to face him, eyes blazing. “Do you think I do only what
you
allow? Oh, yes—you had a plan. Leo and I were to be your pawns, but we both spoiled it by doing things you hadn’t thought of, didn’t we? Now we’ve stepped out of your plan. Leo is wandering around somewhere, not knowing who he is, and I’ve come to where I belong.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said desperately. “You don’t belong in this sink of corruption.”

“Who isn’t corrupt? You with your heartless scheming? Not me, surely? I’ve been taught some fascinating lessons by a man who took my heart and twisted it to his own purpose, a man who degraded love by using it as a weapon in the vendetta. Can anyone be more corrupt than that? Why are you here, Maurizio? Why aren’t you out looking for my brother?”

“I’m going to find him if I have to tear this city apart.”

“Then do it. And when you’ve done it, come back and I may have something to say to you.”

“I don’t know you,” he said, staring at her, dazed. “It can’t be you, speaking like this.”

“It’s me as I am now. You said I’d discover myself in Venice and I have. And I like the new me. She’s strong enough to cope with what you’ve done and tell you to go to hell.”

“It can’t end between us like this—”

“It’s already ended.”

“And what we were to each other—can you forget it just like that?”

“We were nothing to each other,” she cried in anguish. “I thought—you made me think—” She choked and brought herself under control by sheer force of will. Devastated, paralyzed with horror, Maurizio couldn’t tear his eyes from the havoc he’d wreaked. His lips formed her name but he could make no sound. “None of that matters,” she said when she could trust her voice. “I thought you were an honest man. You thought I was a fool. We were both wrong.”

“We thought many things about each other, Teresa,” he said somberly. “And some of them were true.”

“Nothing was true,” she said vehemently. “Not one word from the beginning. You planned everything so that I could be useful to you in your plan. Even when—” She broke off, shuddering.

“Teresa.”
He came toward her.

“No, don’t come near me. I never want to see you again unless it’s to tell me that Leo’s safe.”

“I’ll find him,” he swore. “But, Teresa I beg you to believe that my feelings for you have been honest.”

“Oh, I do. Vengeance is a very honest feeling,” she raged.

“For God’s sake, don’t make this worse by denying the truth of what’s between us.”

“I decide my own truth,” she retorted. “I’ll never again take ‘the truth’ from you.”

“Not from me but from your own heart. It speaks for me, Teresa. Listen to it.”

“My heart speaks only of hatred,” she said bitterly. “There’s nothing else there.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said, coming very close to her.

She saw what he meant to do and put up a hand to ward him off, but he ignored it and pulled her close. She refused to struggle, but looked up at him with fierce eyes. Her breast rose and fell quickly with her anger and she could hear his heart hammering against her, but she felt none of the old tenderness. Hatred as strong as passion welled up within her, making her breath come quickly and her eyes glitter. That sight was Maurizio’s undoing. With a growl, he tightened his arms and dropped his head to lay his lips on hers.

She tensed, holding herself motionless, fighting him with silence and stillness. Let him see that he had no power over her now.

If only it were true. Within seconds, she knew that her hatred and her new strength were useless against the passion that his lightest touch could bring alive. And he wasn’t touching her lightly now, but with purpose and a determination to make her relive everything she wanted to forget. His lips were torturers invoking the memory of suffocating kisses that had led to deeper delight. His hands were possessed by black magic, recalling caresses that had driven her wild when they lay together—as they never would again.

“No,” she whispered, unable to endure the memory.
“No.”

“There are some truths that are beyond words, Teresa,” he growled against her lips. “Love me or hate me—as long as I live in your heart somehow.”

He smothered her answer beneath a kiss that burned her with its wildness. His mouth was desperate as it strove to reawaken the tenderness and delight that had once been his for the taking. All tenderness was gone from the woman in his arms now. Her eyes, blazing up into his, were hostile, but even in the midst of hostility there was a gleam of something no hatred could kill, something that had existed between man and woman since the dawn of time. Part of her was still his and would always be his. But he knew this wasn’t enough. He could rekindle her passion but not her love, and now that he’d thrown it away forever, he understood that it was her love he wanted. This one woman, so different from any other, had been sent by an ironic fate to torment him. He’d meant to use her but she’d turned the tables on him, showing him how little he knew of the human heart, reducing him to despair.

“Love me or hate me,” he repeated.

“Let it be hate then,” she said fiercely.

“You don’t know what you’re saying! Do you think there can ever be any feeling between us that isn’t infused with passion?”

“I can be as passionate when I hate as when I love. Hate can be beautiful, Maurizio. It sings in my blood and shows me how to enjoy your pain and fear. And you
are
afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid that Leo may never be found. But why should you worry? If he’s dead, you’ll have the final revenge on Elena. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

“No,”
he cried hoarsely.

“But you should. It’ll be the perfect murder, because nobody will ever be able to prove his death was your fault. They’ll suspect. I’ll make sure of that. They’ll wonder every time they look at you, but there’ll never be any proof. You’ll stay free, but for the rest of your life, Leo’s ghost will walk one step behind you.”

“Did a devil put those words in your mouth?” he demanded. “Do you enjoy tormenting me?”

“Yes, I enjoy it.”

He stood back and regarded her in horror. “I’ve committed many crimes,” he said, “but I think the greatest one is the change I’ve wrought in you. Dear God, what have I done to you—to us?”

“What have you done to me? You’ve taken my brother away from me, perhaps destroyed him. In here—” she laid her hands over her heart “—you’ve so changed me that I don’t know myself. I only know I’ll never be the same person again.”

“I regret that most of all,” he said somberly. “The woman you were was gentle and kind—and lovable. She made me think that perhaps we—”

“Don’t!” she cried in agony. “That’s all over. It was never more than an illusion.”

“Perhaps love itself is an illusion. Perhaps it’s an illusion that one person is different from any other. I only know that for me you
were
different. No other woman has ever been like you. No other woman has touched my heart.”

She backed away from him, hands covering her ears. Her eyes were wild for his words seemed to her a monstrous cruelty. “Stop it!” she cried. “
Stop it.
Don’t ever speak to me this way again.”

He took a step toward her. She warded him off. The next moment, she was running out of the room, out of the palazzo, running into the streets of Venice where there was anonymity and escape from words of love that were the most terrible she’d ever heard.

T
erri ran without looking where she was going, but soon realized that she was taking the old route to the Midas, and turned aside sharply. After a while, she knew she was lost. The back streets of Venice were all so similar that it was like wandering in a maze. Wherever she turned, she found the same flagstones, the same narrow, dimly lit alleys and shuttered windows. She tried to retrace her steps but the route she’d just traveled had vanished as if by magic, replaced by streets she could have sworn she’d never seen before, although they were all so alike.

She quickened her pace, desperately seeking some place that she recognized. Little canals appeared, crossed by toy bridges that vanished under her feet, each one like the last. The streets grew narrower, the buildings rearing over her head until they seemed to touch one another. This was the Venice she’d been warned of, the place of shadows and sinister magic. The whole city conspired against her, leading her in dark circles. She looked up wildly at the blind windows. Perhaps Leo was behind one of them, hidden away in fear and confusion.

“Leo,” she cried.
“Leo—where are you?”

Shutters creaked, heads appeared, faces full of kindly concern, but she was running again, gone before anyone could help her. Those who looked out saw only an empty street, heard far off the mournful echo, “Leo—Leo—” and shut themselves into the warm again, thinking they’d heard one of the ghosts whose shades had lingered in the corners of Venice throughout long centuries.

But one man knew it was no ghost. He followed the sound determinedly through twisting ways until at last he caught up with Terri, leaning against a wall, shivering. “Now, what possessed you to run out without a coat in the middle of winter?” he demanded.

Startled, Terri looked up, and saw Bruno. “I forgot I wasn’t wearing a coat,” she said tiredly. He pulled off his own jacket and tried to put it around her shoulders, but she drew away and regarded him with suspicion. “Did you know?” she demanded.

He didn’t waste time asking what she meant. “I knew Maurizio hated Elena and saw you as part of his revenge,” he admitted. “I tried to hint to you that things weren’t all they seemed, although I lacked the courage to say it outright. But then I saw him falling in love with you, and thought it would be all right.”

“
All right?
When he was concealing Leo?”

“I didn’t know about that, I swear it. Not until the day before yesterday. If I’d known, I’d have told you everything, despite Maurizio.”

After a moment, Terri nodded. “I believe you.” She let him drape his jacket about her sagging shoulders.

“Let’s get you back to the Midas,” he said.

“I’m not staying at the Midas anymore,” she said quickly. “I’ve moved into the Palazzo Calvani.”

“I see,” he said. “Was that wise?”

“It was inevitable.”

“Well, let’s get you into the warm, wherever it is.”

He guided her through a couple of small streets and suddenly there was the Grand Canal. Terri was amazed to find she’d been so close to it all the time. A vaporetto was just pulling in to a landing stage and he hurried her onto it and stayed with her throughout the journey.

Elena saw them coming from an upstairs window and hurried down to the door. “Get her to bed quickly, she’s taken cold,” Bruno said, and slipped away.

Elena immediately took charge of her, drawing her up to her room and helping her to undress, clucking like a protective hen. The cold seemed to have penetrated Terri’s bones and she couldn’t stop shivering, even when she was in the warm bed. “I’m sorry to give you so much trouble,” she muttered.

To her surprise, Elena smiled. “You’re no trouble. I’m going to enjoy myself.”

“
You
can’t take care of me,” Terri said, scandalized.

“Why not? Leave me to do the worrying.”

Terri gave up. Her head was aching and all she wanted to do was sleep. She sank into a fevered dream in which Madge seemed to be there with her, saying with a sneer, “I told you so. Slut!” Madge had been right all the time. Terri had given her love to a man who was only using her. She was a
slut
and love was vile, after all. The discovery made her cry out with anguish, and suddenly someone was there, comforting her, cooling her forehead and speaking soft words. She opened her eyes and found Elena leaning over her. The countess was dressed in nightclothes and her hair hung about her face, as though she’d had no time to worry about her appearance. She looked softer without her mask of glamour.

Over the next few days, she tended Terri at all hours, bringing her meals, some of which she’d cooked herself. It was blissful to be cared for so tenderly. During Terri’s childhood illnesses, Madge had nursed her conscientiously but had never made her feel cherished and cocooned in affection as Elena did.

One day when Terri had merely toyed with a tempting meal, Elena gathered some on a spoon and said firmly, “Just one more mouthful.”

“I haven’t any more room,” Terri pleaded.

Elena smiled, at her most charming. “To please me,” she coaxed.

When she put it like that, she was impossible to resist, and Terri obediently forced the mouthful down. But it was a mistake. Without warning, her stomach rebelled. Quick as a flash, Elena dashed to the bathroom and returned with a towel just in time.

“I’m sorry,” Terri choked when the storm had passed.

“It was my fault,” Elena said penitently. “Come, I’ll help you to the bathroom and find you a change of clothes.”

Terri emerged a few minutes later to find Elena changing the bed linen with a clean nightgown laid out. She chivied Terri back into bed. The clean linen felt cool and smelled delicious and Terri snuggled down gratefully, closing her eyes. Elena watched her for a moment with a look on her face that no one had ever seen before. It was a look of protective love and almost incredulous tenderness. It would have lightened Terri’s heart if she could have seen it, but she never opened her eyes. After a while, Elena crept out.

Slowly, Terri sank into a fevered sleep and a strange dream came to her. She called it a dream although she had the sensation of awakening and seeing everything that happened. She seemed to split into two people, and her other self rose from the bed and stood looking down at her. She had Terri’s face but her manner was different. She was poised and purposeful, with defiant eyes that confronted the world—or any man in it—on equal terms. She had almost nothing in common with the shy, retiring young woman who’d come to Venice so many weeks and so many ages ago.

“Who are you?” Terri whispered.

“I am Teresa.”

“No,”
she protested. “Teresa was
his
name for me. I won’t be Teresa.”

“You have no choice. This was bound to happen. He said your Italian blood would speak to you, and now it does. It speaks of love and pain, of passion and hate. And when it speaks of the vendetta, it sings. I am Teresa, and I am
you.
”

Then the phantom lay down on the bed and the two of them became one again. At once Terri seemed to fall asleep and when she awoke everything was normal. Her temperature had fallen and she was herself once more.

Except that she was no longer sure who she was. The dream had been real and vivid, and she was determined to understand it. Maurizio was right. She was Italian by blood, and the love and pain she’d discovered had tapped deep wells of feeling within her that she’d never dreamed of in her English life. The passion and violence of those feelings had brought her Italian side alive. The dream had merely crystallized something that was already happening.

“Vendetta,” she murmured. “You were right, Maurizio. And when you discover how right you were, you’ll wish you’d never brought Teresa to life.”

Elena came in, and seeing Terri sitting up and looking better, the countess beamed. She herself looked tired and pale but she bustled energetically over to the bed and laid her hand against Terri’s forehead. “Good,” she said. “Your fever has gone and now you can start to get well.”

“I feel bad about you looking after me,” Terri said. “It’s not your job.”

Elena shrugged. “I like looking after people,” she said simply. “And there’s no one else for me to care for. I’ve really enjoyed caring for you, dear.” She smiled. “Or must I call you Teresa now?”

“Why—why should you think that?”

“Because while you were asleep you kept saying, ‘I am Teresa. I am Teresa,’ over and over. And once you said, ‘This was bound to happen.’ Were you having a bad dream?”

“It was a dream, but I’m not sure it was a bad one,” Terri said thoughtfully. “It made me understand something about myself, and now I’m stronger.”

“Why did you run away from Maurizio? Was it to do with what Denise told you about Leo?”

“Yes. Leo fell sick on Terranotte, and Maurizio kept him there. Even when I came to Venice looking for him, Maurizio didn’t tell me where he was.” She took a shuddering breath. “He pretended to love me just so that he could keep tabs on me.”

“But why?” Elena asked, bewildered. When Terri didn’t answer, she said hesitantly, “Was it connected with Rufio and those things Maurizio said to me at the cemetery?”

“Yes, he thought that you and Leo were—close,” Terri said carefully. “When Leo vanished, he thought it would scare you.”

If Elena noticed any holes in this carefully edited explanation, she didn’t say so. Her only comment was, “Maurizio always made me nervous.”

“And you were right.”

But then, Elena’s volatile nature showed her the bright side. “But at least you found out about Leo,” she said. “Where is he now?”

“I don’t know. He left the estate and vanished. His mind is wandering. All we know is that he came to Venice. Oh, Elena, I have to find him and I don’t know how!”

Elena had gone very pale. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, we must find him. Poor Leo. That Maurizio is a devil.”

“A devil,” Terri agreed.

When she was alone again, she found something else that gave her food for thought. Her things had been thoroughly unpacked and put away neatly. The smallest bag had a zipped pocket at the side where she’d packed her passport, but she found the pocket empty. A search revealed the passport neatly stowed away in her bedside drawer, and that made her sit down and think hard.

Without asking outright, there was no way of knowing for sure whether Elena had opened the passport and studied the information it contained, but Elena’s frank curiosity and love of gossip were part of her wayward charm, and Terri guessed she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. Which meant that she’d seen the name Mantini and Terri’s date of birth. She had enough clues to guess Terri’s identity—if she wanted to.

* * *

As soon as she was well again, Terri began scouring the city for Leo. She had to search at night as her duties with Elena occupied most of her days. Venice was a small place and she set herself to knock on every door, armed with a picture of Leo. It was tiring, dispiriting work that took her down a thousand dark alleys, up flights of stairs, to confront the puzzled faces of strangers for a brief moment of hope before turning away again, close to despair.

Late one night, she was on the verge of giving up when she decided to try a final building. It had been converted into four tiny apartments that made an L-shape on two sides of a courtyard. As soon as she knocked on one door, lights came on in all the other apartments. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman dressed for bed. Terri made her usual speech and showed her the picture, which the woman studied carefully. Her husband appeared and screwed up his eyes at the picture, but shook his head.

There was a step behind Terri and she moved aside to allow a girl of about sixteen to enter the apartment. From the way the man and woman screamed,
“Maria,”
and pounced on her, firing questions, it was clear that this was the couple’s daughter returned from a date with her boyfriend—much too late. Maria looked sheepish but uncowed, and deflected the inquisition by studying the photograph.

“I think I may have seen him,” she said slowly.

“You have? When? Where?” Terri asked eagerly.

“Don’t you believe her,” Maria’s mother said with grim humor. “She’s hoping we’ll forget that she should have been home two hours ago.”

A young woman of about twenty emerged from one of the other apartments and strolled toward the little crowd. Maria thrust the picture at her. “Here, Damiata,” she said. “Didn’t I see you talking to him once?”

Terri held her breath as Damiata took the picture and stared at it. But then she shrugged and shook her head. “I’ve never seen him,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Terri pleaded.

Damiata yawned. “I’m sure. He hasn’t been around here.”

“But
you
thought you’d seen him,” Terri said desperately to Maria.

Maria shrugged and grinned, as if admitting that her interest had been a smoke screen to hide her from her parents’ suspicions, and Terri’s heart sank again.

People appeared from the other apartments and studied Leo’s face but they all shrugged. Terri looked around, hoping to see Damiata again, but she’d vanished. She thanked everyone and went out into the dark street with slow, weary steps.

She froze as she saw the dark shadow of a man standing beneath the lamp. Despite the dim light, she knew the outline, even before he stepped forward and spoke her name in accents that made her heart lurch. “What are you doing here, Maurizio?”

“The same as you. I, too, spend my nights going from door to door. I promised you I would search every corner of Venice.”

“I thought you had employees to do your dirty work,” she said cruelly.

“I do. I thought they’d find him but they didn’t, so now I’m conducting my own search.”

“On valuable casino time?” she mocked. “Won’t your customers miss you?”

“Let them. This is more important. I gave you my word to find Leo, and I’m going to keep it.”

Despite herself, she was touched, but she was Teresa now, not Terri, and Teresa refused to weaken. “If you
can
keep it,” she said. “Suppose he’s dead?”

She was bitterly gratified to see that that thought hurt him almost as much as it hurt her, and it must have shown in her face because Maurizio winced and said, “You enjoyed saying that, didn’t you?”