Authors: Unknown
Somewhat comforted, Deborah got back on her own coach and suggested that the American girl should take a turn beside the window. 'Not that you can see anything because the windows steam up as soon as everyone sits down.'
'I saw you with your friends,' the American told her. 'There was someone else looking at you too from the front of the party. Did you see him?'
Deborah shook her head. 'What was he like?'
'We-ell, perhaps he didn't know you but just thought he'd like to! He looked pretty seedy, now I come to think about it, not at all like your other friends.'
Deborah merely smiled. Could it have been Michael? Fervently, she hoped not! And yet how strange it was for her not to want to see Michael. Could she. really have changed so dramatically in a couple of days? But yes, she thought she had. The transformation had been as great as the change of a caterpillar into a butterfly— and it had all been Domenico's doing. Perhaps she had had more in common with Galatea than she had thought, only being brought to life was such a painful business, she thought she might have preferred to be left as a lifeless statue all her days.
It had stopped raining when they arrived at the Via Veneto. She rejoined her friends and they set out to walk the short distance to the apartment where they were staying.
'Don't expect too much,' Patty warned Deborah. 'It's a couple of rooms, not a palace, you know!'
Deborah knew it was only a figure of speech, but it hurt all the same. 'I wasn't expecting a palace,' she said.
'That's all right, then,' Patty confirmed. 'But you have been staying in one, haven't you?'
'Yes,' Deborah admitted. But such was the look on her face that not even Patty persisted with any further references to where she had been for the last few days. Instead she cast a speaking look at Jerry and, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, said, 'We got rid of Michael. You don't mind, do you?'
'Why should I?' Deborah murmured.
'Well,
you
should know!'
Deborah quickened her pace, not even trying to take in which way they were going. 'Michael helped me with my work,' she said stiffly, 'but I don't have to be with him all the time!'
Patty stared at her, and even Mary raised her eyebrows in friendly disbelief. 'You've changed your tune!' Jerry said frankly. 'We all thought that where you're concerned, the sun rose and set between Michael's shoulder-blades. You were forever quoting his opinions at us!'
'Then I apologise,' Deborah retorted on the edge of anger. 'But it would be all the same to me if I never saw Michael again!'
'Well, that's a change of tune, I must say!' Patty exclaimed. 'Good for you, Debbie! I'm beginning to think that this Manzu man has more to him than a palace! Have you fallen in love with him?'
Deborah stood stock still in the middle of the pavement. 'He's got a fiancée. She lives in a palace too.'
Even Patty was reduced to silence by this. It was left to Jerry to ask, 'Is he in love with her, do you think?'
'How should I know?' Deborah protested. But she did know. She knew that Domenico would marry Alessandra because she was suitable and because it was expected of him, but if it hadn't been for her father and his determination to reduce her relationship with Domenico to a matter of cold cash, she could have made him admit that it was
she
he loved, even if it were Alessandra he meant to marry. Only now she would never know for certain. He was proud enough, heaven knew, but she had her pride too and it had revolted at the prospect of being dangled in front of his nose on a golden string that would be operated by her father entirely in the interests of Beaumont International!
The apartment was small, too small for one couple to live in in comfort, let alone five people. Deborah tried to make herself as small as possible, but whatever she did she seemed to be in somebody's way.
'I'm not surprised Michael's left,' she said.
'But I didn't!'
It was hard to tell who was the most shocked to see Michael's unkempt figure in the doorway.
'But ' Deborah made an anguished sound.
'I only went because you weren't here,' Michael went on smoothly. 'Now that you're back, I'm back too!'
The others groaned, but Deborah only stared at him. 'I'm sorry, Michael, but I didn't come back for you. It wouldn't work '
'You'll never do anything without me!' he retorted.
'But I have to try.'
'If that isn't just like a woman,' he declared in disgust. 'You'll never be a sculptor, love! But you might have helped me to get somewhere! Your money would cushion my talent over the rougher places and we'd both have got something out of it!'
'My money?' Deborah said blankly.
'Beaumont's. Beaumont International's! Did you think we didn't know who your father is?'
Deborah went on staring at him as though she had never seen him before. 'No, I knew you'd met my father. He gave you five hundred pounds.'
'Yes, well'—Michael had the grace to look ashamed—'he doesn't want an artist for a daughter any more than I want one for a wife. Women ought to know better than to compete with their menfolk. They never have any real talent of their own.'
Deborah turned her back on him. Was it her imagination, or had the others moved closer to her, making a protective ring around her?
'I don't think there's any room for you here, Michael,' she said.
He took a step towards her. 'Is that your last word?'
Her eyes met his over her shoulder and she wondered what she had ever seen in him. He had no meaning for her now. He was only the shadow of a man and she was ashamed she had ever thought him better than he was. It came to her in a flash that when she had last seen him and listened to his opinions she had been a child. But she had grown up now. Domenico had seen to that.
'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Please go.'
'Okay, I'm going! I'm disappointed in you, Deborah. How did your father talk you into losing your soul? I hope you find his world big enough for you?'
'It has nothing to do with my father!'
'Of course it has!' he sneered with open contempt, and turned on his heel, leaving as suddenly as he had arrived.
Deborah sat down on the floor where she stood. 'I didn't think he'd go,' she said slowly, feeling like a pricked balloon.
'You know,' Mary told her, 'I think that the last few days have done you good! You'd never have told him where he got off before!'
'I'd never really seen him before,' Deborah admitted. 'Is it still raining? I think I'll take myself off for a walk —I want to be alone for a while. Do you mind?'
'So long as you're not running after Michael Doyle,' Mary said frankly. 'We'll expect you back when we see you, shall we?'
Deborah hurried down the stairs, wishing her knees felt better able to support her. She seemed to know all the things she didn't want and wasn't going to do, but what was she going to do with herself?
She looked up at the windows and saw her friends' faces peering out at her, and she was grateful for their concern. It was just possible that Michael could have been waiting down below for her. She wished the possibility had not occurred to her. She looked up and down the road with increasing nervousness, but he was nowhere to be seen. She took a step outside into the street and nearly jumped out of her skin as a quite different hand grasped her by the wrist and Domenico's angry voice exploded about her ears.
'You
are coming with me!' he announced. 'Where have you been all afternoon? Your father '
She presented a white and strained face. 'Has he been talking to you?'
'Not exactly,' Domenico reassured her. 'All I wanted to know was where you'd gone! Then I remembered you had the address of this place, and I turned your room upside down looking for it. But
what are you doing here?'
She stiffened her back, hoping to do the same to her courage. 'I told you I'd rejoin my friends if I could!'
'So you did!' His expression changed to one of complete mockery. 'Funny, I thought you'd grown out of having to hide yourself behind their presence here in Rome. You told me many, many things,
spiache mia,
and not always in words. But now you are going to tell me something else—and you're going to tell me the truth!'
'I can't leave my friends!' she exclaimed, scared of what he was going to ask her.
'Then bring them with you!' he retorted.
She heard them then, pounding down the stairs behind her, and she thought she couldn't bear their curiosity about Domenico just then, no matter how kindly it was meant.
'If I come with you ' she began.
'Oh, you're coming!' He was so certain that she would allow herself to be dragged down the road after him that her jaw dropped. She'd show him she was not the spineless being he imagined! If necessary, she'd shout and scream and kick! But she did none of these things.
'Please, Domenico,' she said.
'Then you'd better come willingly,' he advised her. 'Because you're coming, if I have to carry you every inch of the way you're coming!'
Deborah's spirits failed her. Her friends spilled out on to the street behind her. 'What's going on?' they demanded.
Domenico bowed politely to them. 'Are you coming too?' he inquired. 'Deborah and I have a long-standing engagement for the rest of today. We were going to choose a piece of marble for her to work on, but it's too late for that now.' He studied Deborah's flushed face and her eyes widened with fright as she wondered what he was going to do. 'We are going to visit the Bocca della Verita instead. You see, I have something to ask her and I want to make absolutely sure that when she answers me she is telling the truth!'
Deborah's mouth was dry. 'I won't go with you!' she whispered.
'Afraid
?' he demanded.
'You can't make me '
'Can't I?' The special tone in his voice was too much for her and she made a mad dash away from him, only to find he had her by the wrist. 'Shall I have to carry you after all?' he asked her.
She shook her head, quite unable to speak. She had an unworthy suspicion that he was enjoying himself, whereas she felt a perfect fool. How dared he insist that she should follow him down the road, not caring one bit about the interested glances they aroused in the passers-by? And a few paces behind followed her four friends, delighted by their first meeting with Domenico Manzu. A fine protection they had proved to be!
'You can't be sure I shall tell you the truth even with the help of the Mouth of Truth!' she exclaimed, pulling vainly against him.
His only answer was to increase his grip on her wrist and to pull her more firmly against him. She cast him a speaking look and saw that he was
smiling
! How could he do this to her?
When they reached the portico of St Mary in Cosmedin, she was breathless from the pace he had set.
'I never thought you'd use force against a woman!' she threw at him as he released her arm, giving her a push towards the ancient drain-cover with its masklike face.
She put her hands behind her back, refusing to so much as look at it.
'You don't
understand
!' she said desperately.
'Oh yes, I do,' he claimed. 'I understand only too well. But this has nothing to do with your father, or Alessandra, or anyone else but the two of us,
amante mia
, and I mean to have an answer in front of witnesses so that there will be no going back on it '
'I won't answer!'
He patted her cheek with gentle fingers. 'Of course you are going to answer,' he encouraged her. He took her unresisting hand and placed it in the mouth of the marble mask. 'My dear little love, did you really think I would let you run away from me?'
'I won't be bought and sold! I won't answer! I won't!'
He stood behind her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body through her thin clothes and the unfailing excitement that gripped her whenever he came near overcame the last of her reluctance to give way to him. His own hand joined hers at the mouth.
'I love you, Deborah Beaumont,' he said. 'Do you love me?'
She wriggled her fingers, but she knew she wasn't going to take her hand out of the Bocca della Verita. She didn't even resent it. It would be such a relief to put it into words. She shut her eyes and the warm pressure of his fingers on hers was bliss to her.
'I love you more than life itself,' she said.
She
opened her eyes, shocked by what she had said. 'But then I don't know what love is!' She wrested her hand free of his and the Mouth of Truth. 'It doesn't make any difference anyway, does it?'
Domenico said something in Italian that she couldn't translate and took her bodily into his arms. He was surprisingly gentle. 'It makes this much difference,' he said, 'if you love me you're going to marry me!'
Her panic was plain to everyone present. 'I can't marry you!' she exclaimed. 'I can never marry you!'
He smiled deep into her eyes. 'Of course you're going to marry me,' he coaxed her. 'I've already sent for your mother and invited all your friends! If you don't marry me, I'll come to England and sit on your doorstep until you take pity on me '
'Don't be ridiculous!' she scoffed. 'Willow wouldn't
suit you!'
The illusion was lost on him, but the implication was not. 'That is uncivil of you,' he rebuked her. 'Be insolent if you like, but never uncivil! That is the mistake your father makes in his handling of you '
'Do you think you can do any better?' she demanded.
'Of course,' he murmured. 'I know I can do better!'
He certainly practised what he preached, she thought, for that was insolent enough. Yet she hadn't the heart to make an issue of it. She could imagine nothing more pleasant than to be handled by him—and he would be the one to call the tune between them, there was no doubt in her mind about that!