Страница 27 из 38
much she was aching deep inside herself for what he
was not going to give her.
How foolish she had been to think that she was in
control of his desire. In this relationship she wasn’t
in control of anything, she decided bitterly, as she
almost ran for the door, desperate for the sanctuary
of her own bedroom.
CHAPTER TEN
JODIE tensed as she heard the sound she had been
lying awake waiting for. The now familiar click of
Lorenzo’s bedroom door being opened very quietly,
and then closed again equally secretively.
In two days" time they would be getting married,
but on no less than four occasions now Jodie had been
aware of Lorenzo leaving his bedroom late at night
and not returning to it for at least an hour. And
Caterina was still living at the Castillo, in Lorenzo’s
late grandmother’s rooms. If Caterina had made good
her threat to get Lorenzo back into her bed, then
surely she had a right to know about it? Even though
she was only going to be a temporary wife.
Getting out of bed, Jodie pulled on her robe and
slipped her feet into a pair of soft-soled shoes. She
was determined to confront Lorenzo with her suspicions.
Being a business arrangement wife was one
thing, but being the unwanted wife of a man who had
a mistress was very definitely another. And the kind
of humiliating situation she had no intention of allowing
Lorenzo to put her in.
She hurried along the landing to the top of the
stairs, and as she looked anxiously down them she
saw Lorenzo’s shadow moving swiftly along the hallway
below. Determinedly she hurried after him, wondering
why he had not simply used the upper corridor
that led to Caterina’s apartments.
Several narrow passageways led off the hallway
which linked the old part of the Castillo to this newer
wing, which had been added in the seventeenth century.
Which passage had Lorenzo taken? There was
a light burning on the stairs that led down to a lower
level. Exhaling nervously, Jodie turned down them.
The stairs were directly under Caterina’s apartment,
so perhaps—
She gave a small shocked scream as suddenly, out
of the shadows, a hand curled round her wrist.
"What the hell do you think You’re doing?"
"Lorenzo!"
He must have realised that she was following him
and waited to trap her.
"I wanted to know where you were going. This is
the fourth time I’ve heard you leave your room late
at night," she told him boldly, lifting her chin.
"You were spying on me?"
The narrow-eyed look he was giving her was making
her feel acutely uncomfortable, but she wasn’t
going to let him see that.
"If I’m going to marry you then I have a right to
know if You’re having sex with Caterina."
"What?"
"I won’t marry you if you are," Jodie told him
fiercely. "And I mean that."
"You mean You’re snooping around following me
because you thought you were going to find me in
Caterina’s bed?"
Put that way, he made it sound as though her behaviour
was verging on the bu
guiltily. How could she tell him that his rejection
of her, so closely mirroring John’s lack of sexual interest
in her, had not only heightened her own insecurities
but had also led to her wondering if, like
John, Lorenzo was actually finding sexual satisfaction
with someone else?
"You can’t deny that you and she have been lovers,"
she told him stubbornly.
"Have been, yes," he agreed tersely. "But that was
nearly twenty years ago, when I was a boy."
"She says you still want her."
"She may choose to think that, but it is most certainly
not true," Lorenzo told her firmly. His fingers
were still clamped round her wrist, and suddenly he
cursed beneath his breath, saying grimly, "You want
to know where I go? Very well, then — come with
me."
He was walking so fast along the narrow, tu
corridor in front of them that Jodie almost had to
run to keep up with him. She could smell damp, and
see it too on the vaulted curve of the ancient stone
walls. She gave a small shiver, and then a shocked
gasp as they reached a heavy oak door and Lorenzo
told her emotionlessly, "The corridor beyond here was
once know as the via eternal, because it led to the
Castillo’s dungeons and torture chambers."
"The torture chambers?" Jodie could hear the horrified
revulsion in her own voice.
Lorenzo gave a dismissive shrug as he unlocked
and then opened the heavy oak door. "They were considered
a necessary part of warfare."
"In medieval times, perhaps," Jodie acknowledged.
"But—"
"No, not merely in medieval times," Lorenzo interrupted,
his voice and his expression both so savagely
forbidding that she shivered.
Beyond the door lay a large cavernous room with
a low, vaulted ceiling. Wine racks leaned emptily
against one wall, whilst moisture dripped onto the
floor from the ceiling.
"It’s all right," Lorenzo told her following her anxious
upward glance. "The ceiling is quite safe, and the
coldness of the air, although unpleasant, does have
certain merits."
"More torture for the prisoners?" Jodie suggested
sharply.
"My grandmother’s first husband was imprisoned
down here for a time."
The unexpectedness of Lorenzo’s low-voiced comment
sent a shock through her.
"He was against Mussolini and made the mistake
of saying so; for that he was imprisoned and tortured
in his own home. My grandmother never really got
over it. Oh, she remarried after his death, but her heart
wasn’t really in it. She often told me herself that,
given a free choice, she would have preferred to retire
to the contemplative life of a convent — but she had
promised him that she would provide his house with
an heir. Her marriage to my own grandfather was arranged
by her first husband as he lay dying from the
damage inflicted on his body by his torturers. They
stole many works of art from the Castillo — and emptied
the wine racks," he added grimly, nodding in the
direction of the empty racks. "But there was one treasure
they were not able to take."
Jodie looked round the bleak, cold underground
room in bewilderment.
"Down here?"
Lorenzo shook his head. "No. Come with me."
He led her over to a small door that opened onto
another set of stairs. "These lead up to the main salon
of what used to be the state apartments."
"Caterina’s rooms?" Jodie questioned him uncertainly.
"She sleeps in what was my grandmother’s room,
which forms part of the state apartments, yes — which
is why I use these stairs to reach the salon instead of
the main corridor stairs."
They had reached the top of the stairs and another
door.
"Through here, in the main salon, concealed by the
fabric which my grandmother’s first husband had specially
applied to the walls, is a series of wall paintings
by a pupil of Leonardo. Although, according to my
grandmother, family legend insists that the Master
himself had a hand in their execution."
As he spoke he was ushering her into a large elegant
room, its walls hung with green silk fabric. The
room was shabby and slightly neglected, with dust
motes hanging in the air along with the faint smell of
roses.
"The Duce was afraid that Mussolini’s men would