Buch lesen: «Dark Fate»

CHAPTER ONE

AS THE lights went down in the theatre, Saskia suddenly knew Domenico was there.

Not only was he there, but he had seen her too, at the same moment. At the very instant that she sensed his presence she felt the surge of his rage and it was like being hit by lightning. Her whole body reacted with a jerk of terrible shock.

Sitting beside her, Jamie felt her shudder, and looked round at her, his face concerned, whispering, ‘Toothache back again?’

She drew a shaky breath and lied without stopping to think.

‘Just a jab; it’s gone now.’

In the blueish dimness cast out into the upper reaches of the rococo theatre by the footlights she glimpsed Jamie’s curly brown hair, his rugged, weatherbeaten face; and Jamie could probably see the gleam of her blue eyes, the shimmer of her skin. She bent her head and the shining bell of her dark auburn hair fell forward so that he couldn’t see anything more of her. It was instinctive, to hide her expression and the feelings she was afraid might show in it; Jamie knew very little about her—she had only ever told him what she felt he really needed to know, and she didn’t want him to know any more, especially about Domenico.

‘Sure?’ Jamie whispered, leaning closer. ‘If you need them, I’ve got some paracetamol in my pocket. I thought they might come in useful in case your tooth started playing up again.’

That was typical of Jamie, not only because he was warmly sympathetic to anyone in pain, but because he was so intensely practical and thoughtful in the way he responded. Jamie never simply used words; he immediately put his concern into action.

She lifted her head again to give him a faintly wavering smile. ‘You’re amazing; thanks, Jamie. I might take a couple in the interval.’

She had been to the dentist earlier that day to have some work done on a back tooth which had begun aching after she bit on a toasted almond, the decoration on a pastry served to them at dinner at their hotel last night.

Saskia had been kept awake half the night by toothache. The tour operator had made arrangements for her to visit a Venice dentist, and while the others had been taking a gondola tour of the smaller canals in the city Saskia went off to have the offending tooth excavated and filled.

She hated going to the dentist, and particularly hated having a tooth drilled, but anything was better than being kept awake with pain.

‘Tell me, why is toothache always worse at night?’ she had asked the dentist, who had laughed, then given her an admiring look which dwelt longest on her dark red hair and slim, rounded figure before he explained.

‘At night you have nothing to take your mind off it.’ He had smiled again. ‘Unless you are married!’

Saskia had flushed slightly, and the dentist had jumped to a very false conclusion, saying quickly, ‘You are not offended, signorina?’

‘No,’ she had assured him and he had smiled at her again, relieved.

‘You speak Italian very well, signorina.’

‘Thank you, signore,’ she had gravely answered, not explaining why she spoke his language so fluently. For two years she had been lying to people, and Saskia hated being forced to do it yet could see no way out of it. If she told a single soul the truth she might be putting herself at risk. The only safety lay in living a lie.

‘You don’t live in Venice?’ the dentist had asked and she had shaken her head.

‘I’m only here for a few days.’

‘You must go to the opera while you are here; there is a wonderful new singer at the Fenice this season,’ he had told her, his face lighting up with the excitement of the enthusiast.

‘Yes, we are being taken there tonight!’

‘Ah, La Traviata is playing at the moment; you’re so lucky to see it in the Fenice—that is where the opera was first performed, you know! Verdi wrote it especially for the Fenice, but the audience didn’t like it; it wasn’t a success, at first, not in Venice. But the Fenice is the most beautiful theatre in the world. Seventeenth-century, originally, although it was burnt down and rebuilt early in the nineteenth—even London does not have a theatre that old!’

‘Covent Garden Opera House is very old, too,’ Saskia had mildly suggested, but he had made a disparaging noise, shaking his head.

‘Much too big, too ornate and pompous. I don’t like those huge theatres. The Fenice is small, intimate, elegant.’

Looking around the theatre when they arrived Saskia had had to admit that his enthusiasm was understandable; the décor of the theatre was delightful, and as always with theatres of that period glittered with gilt and was swagged with elaborate stucco, the ceiling full of cherubs flying from all corners.

When the injection the dentist had given her had worn off the tooth had begun to ache again, but she had taken some pain-killers and the pain had ebbed away gradually during the afternoon. She had almost forgotten about the tooth until Jamie mentioned it, but now that she had thought of it again she felt it give a dull throb.

Pain was like that. If you ignored it, it often went away, but the minute you thought about it again, back it came.

She had been able to forget about Domenico for hours on end over the last few months. Now the pain was back; far worse than toothache and far harder to cure.

The audience around her were humming along with one of the better known arias being performed on stage at that moment. Italian audiences knew all the words and loved to join in with the performers, especially when a famous song had a good tune to it, and celebrated having a good time: wine, women and song. Saskia stared at the vivid party scene on stage, dancers whirling around, people raising champagne glasses to each other, but her mind was elsewhere.

It hadn’t once occurred to her that Domenico might be here tonight or she would never have taken the risk of booking for the opera; in fact, she would never have come to Venice at all if she had even dreamt that she might see him there.

Domenico was passionately fond of opera, of course, and went to La Scala, in Milan, frequently. He would never miss any performance of La Traviata there, especially by a soprano as fine as the woman singing the heroine, Violetta, tonight, but she never remembered him visiting Venice.

Apart from going to the opera, or to concerts, Domenico was engrossed in his work. He often went abroad, to America, or other parts of Europe, he visited other parts of Italy, and when he was at home he occasionally gave dinner parties, and went to them, but they usually had some business connection. Everything in his life had to fit in with his business.

‘I have no time for inessentials,’ he had often told her impatiently, when she tried to persuade him to take her to see a light-hearted film or play, or take a holiday in the sun somewhere.

She had often had a secret feeling that he saw her as inessential; a frivolity, a toy he had picked up in an idle moment and enjoyed playing with, but did not actually need.

Domenico had been essential to her; or, at least, she hadn’t been able to imagine life without him at one time. It was only when the pain hurt too much that she had fled. There was a limit to love, she had finally been forced to realise, or rather, a limit to how much you could bear in the name of love.

She hadn’t seen him since the night she left his house; she feverishly ached to see him now, and at the same time was terrified.

Where was he sitting? Not close to her, she was sure of that, but within sight of her, because he had seen her, before the lights went down.

There was no point in looking around, trying to see him in the darkened theatre. It was full; not a seat vacant in the house, which, the tour operator had told them, was normal for the Fenice. The Venetians loved opera. This particular production had been a runaway success as soon as it opened. The new soprano had a miraculous voice and was lovely to look at, too: black-eyed, with long, silky black hair, worn dressed up in the party scene, but loose and flowing when she was in her bedroom. Her voice had sensuality and so did her slim, sexy body and she had a way of walking across the stage that made every man in the opera house catch his breath and sigh. You couldn’t get a seat for months ahead, the tour operator had also told them, pleased with himself for having booked ahead long ago.

‘How’s the tooth now?’ asked Jamie.

Behind them someone hissed, ‘Shh...’ in an affronted voice.

Jamie made a rueful face at her and looked back at the stage.

Saskia’s eyes wandered restlessly. A sea of faces surrounded them; pale glimmering circles in the gloom, all eyes fixed on the party scene taking place on stage.

Which face belonged to Domenico?

She closed her blue eyes, concentrating on finding out exactly where he was sitting. It didn’t always work; so much depended on the other person giving off strong enough signals.

Slowly she turned her head, like a radar dish, homing in on his emotions. Anger; black and dark red, she could almost see it in the darkness, like a smouldering fire, which was how she found him, knew when she was looking in the right direction.

He was sitting in a box on the left-hand side of the stage.

She opened her eyes and looked that way, saw the silky curtains swagged and held back with tarnished gold tassels, and between them the stark outline of his head, an immediately familiar silhouette.

He was sitting turned towards her, not towards the stage. She couldn’t see his face from this distance, but she didn’t need to see him. She knew what she would see if the lights came back up again: black hair brushed back from a high, bony forehead, chiselled features, cold grey eyes, a strong jawline and a mouth which was hard and reined in, yet hinted at potential passion. Domenico was not cold in bed; far from it. He was a possessive and demanding lover, but he kept his emotions in one compartment and his working life in another. The two were never allowed to meet.

Tonight, though, his emotions were uppermost; across the theatre she picked up what he was thinking, feeling, and it made her flinch and tremble.

Jamie felt her betraying movement, turned again and looked at her anxiously. ‘Is it getting worse?’

Everyone began to applaud at that moment, some of the men actually getting to their feet, calling out the soprano’s name and blowing her noisy kisses, throwing her red carnations.

Under cover of the uproar, Saskia whispered, ‘Jamie, I think I’m going to have to go—you stay, though; I don’t want to spoil the evening for you.’

‘I’m sure that if you take a couple of pills they’ll help,’ he urged.

She risked a quick glance towards the box where Domenico sat. His head was still turned their way. She knew he was watching them. He couldn’t see their faces or hear what they were saying, but if she got up to leave Domenico would follow her, catch up with her.

At the back of the box in which he sat she saw a faint movement, a darker shadow which detached itself as Domenico lifted his hand in a commanding gesture. A man came forward, bent to listen to him.

She drew a sharp breath. The bodyguards. She had forgotten them. He could send them round here to get her! She should run, now.

On the point of getting up she hesitated, biting her lip. Oh, what was the point? If she got away now, he would still be able to trace her through the tour firm. The theatre management would tell him who had booked those seats, and which hotel the tourists were staying at in Venice.

Oh, why didn’t I realise how risky this holiday was? she thought grimly. It was crazy to think of coming to Italy, any part of Italy; but after two years she had begun to think there was no need to be so nervous or take elaborate precautions against running into him again.

She didn’t know Venice at all, and, remembering that Domenico never went there either, she had decided it would be safe enough, especially as this would be a coach tour, constantly moving on each day until it reached Venice and halted there for a few days. There shouldn’t be any risk.

Wrong! she thought, shuddering. She should have stayed in England, in obscurity, where he could never find her. This was his country, his territory; she had made a serious mistake in coming here. Although if she hadn’t come to the opera he would never have known she was here, probably.

She wasn’t even able to enjoy the opera. She had hardly noticed anything that happened on stage—the girl in the lovely dress whirling around, singing, now that her party guests had gone and she was alone.

Saskia sighed as the girl’s singing broke through her own agitated thoughts, and the man beside her looked sharply at her again, leaning over to ask, ‘Toothache getting worse?’

She nodded. ‘At the end of this act, I’m going, Jamie. You stay, though; I really don’t want to ruin your evening.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not letting you walk through the city alone, especially when you’re not well.’

It was typical of him to insist on that. Jamie Forster was a warm, kind-hearted, friendly man who cared about other people. He wasn’t either ambitious or dynamic; all Jamie wanted was to enjoy his life, have plenty of friends, and earn enough to live on, comfortably.

He ran a garden centre, which he had inherited from his late father, in a small country town about forty miles from London. Jamie loved working in the open air, with growing things; he had large but capable and sensitive hands, green fingers, which could make anything grow. He almost casually pushed tiny plants into the earth and they sprang up rapidly, vigorous and hearty. His work was more than a hobby, it was a passion, perhaps his only real passion.

Saskia had grown fond of him since she started working there two years ago, but she had never let him get too close because there was so much she had never told Jamie about her past. She was not free to get involved with anyone. Luckily, although Jamie was clearly fond of her, too, he had never shown any sign of being in love with her. If anything, they were such good friends that anything more intimate was almost out of the question. Jamie had had a girlfriend until a few months ago when they had a big row and broke up because Jamie was more interested in his work than he was in his girlfriend. Now and then he took Saskia with him to parties, but only as a friend; Jamie had never even tried to kiss her.

But would Domenico believe that when he knew that she was on holiday in Italy with Jamie? Saskia bit her lip, her eyes flicking towards where Domenico sat, his head a dark silhouette in the glow from the footlights.

Of course he wouldn’t.

He must not meet Jamie. She was terrified of his reaction if he did. Domenico had an ice-cold manner, very controlled, and yet under that ran burning lava which could erupt without warning and devastate those it touched.

Jamie couldn’t possibly cope with Domenico in that mood. Nor could Saskia; she never had been able to; he terrified her when the frozen surface of his manner cracked and the fire beneath leapt out.

A moment later, to her relief, the first act finally came to an end. Saskia ruefully clapped with everyone else as the soprano whirled off stage and the curtains closed. She loved La Traviata, the romantic, piercingly sweet music and the tragic storyline, the nineteenth-century décor, the wonderful clothes the women wore at that time, the heartbreak of that last act. All day she had been waiting on tenterhooks for this evening.

Yet she hadn’t really been aware of anything that was happening on stage!

As the audience began to get up, Saskia ran for the exit, swerving round other people, pushing past anyone who blocked her way, muttering apologies. She didn’t look round to check if Jamie was following. She was too busy concentrating on getting out of the theatre before Domenico or one of his bodyguards caught up with her.

She was already a street away before Jamie panted up beside her. ‘Hey! You almost lost me! I stopped to explain to Terry that we were going back to the hotel; if he didn’t know we had left he would have panicked when he counted up heads and found two missing.’

She gave him an apologetic look. ‘Oh, you should have stayed; I’m sorry I’ve ruined your evening, Jamie! I know how much you were looking forward to La Traviata.’

‘It isn’t your fault; you didn’t ask to have toothache tonight!’ he said with a resigned sigh. ‘It’s just fate.’

No, he was wrong, Saskia thought. It wasn’t fate that had planned this evening; it was her own stupid folly. If she hadn’t come to Italy she would never have been in this theatre, she would never have seen Domenico again.

Yet...why had Domenico been there? Had fate been busy, after all?

They came to one of the rounded corners which were so typical of the labyrinthine streets of Venice which curled round and round like the inner spirals of an ear, and Jamie paused, looking up at a street name painted on the wall.

‘We go left here, don’t we?’

‘I can’t remember!’ Saskia looked around anxiously. She wanted to get as far away from the theatre as possible, quickly. She did not want Domenico to catch up with them.

Venice was such a maze of tiny streets and squares, alleys and canals. She hadn’t orientated herself properly yet, and, anyway, had a very poor sense of direction. She could get lost even when she had a map in her hand.

Jamie asked a man walking past and got directions; they started off again and as they approached their hotel at last she began to relax and feel safe. Domenico couldn’t catch up with them now.

She knew he had lost them completely. She didn’t need to see him to be sure of that. She could feel it; his anger, his frustration, as he realised she had got away again. He was searching the streets around the theatre, she sensed, as if she were watching him; moving with that prowling lope which was characteristic of his tall, loose-limbed, long-legged figure, while his eyes flicked, quick and intent, along alleyways, into empty, moonlit squares, hunting for her.

She knew what he was feeling, although not exactly what he was thinking. Domenico was too clever for her to be able to divine his thoughts. She could only tell what he was thinking when his feelings and his thoughts merged, were one. That rarely happened with Domenico, although with some people it often did.

She had discovered her gift many years ago, when she was a child; she hadn’t understood it then, and it was intermittent, so unpredictable, that sometimes months would go by before it happened again, that sudden flash of awareness of what someone else was thinking. Saskia had actually wondered if she was imagining it for a long time, until she reached puberty and it began to happen more frequently. At that age she had experimented with it, turned it almost into a party game for her friends, and been able to check that she was really picking up their thoughts and not imagining them.

Not that she could read everything in their minds, or do so at will, but if ever they were very angry, or upset, or frightened she could tune into those emotions, tell them what they were feeling exactly.

It always amazed them, it even frightened some, who would keep away from her after one such experience, seeing her as someone weird, alarming, even dangerous. People did not like the idea that you could read their minds and know what they were really thinking, even though she assured them that her glimpses of their minds were fragmentary and arbitrary.

‘It’s like picking up radio waves,’ she had told Domenico once. ‘Like voices coming out of the air. I hear what people are thinking...but only if they’re very excited or upset; it only happens when there’s an extra charge of electricity in their brains, I think, boosting the signals so that I can pick them up. Anger or fear or happiness...I always pick up strong emotions.’

‘I can see I’ll have to be careful of you,’ he had said, those grey eyes of his watching her sardonically, and she hadn’t needed to tune into his thoughts to know that he didn’t believe her, he thought it was all nonsense, crazy imagination on her part.

Domenico did not believe in other dimensions—in horoscopes or signs of the zodiac, fortune-telling, mind-reading, the tarot, palm-reading or second sight. Saskia didn’t believe in most of them, either; she had often tried to explain that she didn’t do any of those things, she didn’t even pick up other people’s thoughts voluntarily any more, she hadn’t since her teenage years. She would be glad to stop doing it, especially now, she found it more and more disturbing, but she didn’t know how to switch it off or shut it out.

‘It just comes,’ she had said. ‘Out of nowhere, whenever there’s a crisis, or someone is really upset.’

Domenico had shaken his head at her, his mouth crooked and incredulous. He hadn’t understood or believed a word of what she said; it didn’t fit in with his view of the universe or human nature.

He had a clear, diamond-hard, ice-cold mind; logical and rational. Domenico was a perfectionist, about himself, his job, even his life. Even her, she began to realise. Domenico expected her to be perfect, too.

Perfect in looks, in the way she dressed and behaved, in everything she did, the perfect wife for a powerful man like Domenico Alessandros and, he expected, in time, the perfect mother of his no doubt equally perfect children.

Perfection was a hard act to sustain. Saskia was bitterly aware of being human, of failing in some areas of her life, of weaknesses, inadequacies which she could do nothing about, and which, she began to be afraid, Domenico would never forgive in her, when he recognised her imperfection.

He was not a man who forgave easily, and she had failed him. That was why she had run away from him, dreading the icy contempt of his stare, the cutting lance of his voice. She wasn’t normally a coward, but Domenico’s anger had frightened her; still frightened her.

Two years away from him and yet she still couldn’t face him and she knew now, after picking up his feelings across the theatre, that Domenico still hadn’t forgiven her, either. His pain and rage were still as bitter.

‘You’re very quiet—is the pain worse?’ asked Jamie anxiously as they collected their keys from the reception clerk and turned towards the hotel lift.

She made a wry, self-mocking face. ‘Would you believe...I’ve got a headache now, as well?’ It was true; her head was thudding as if a little man were perched on top of it banging hammers. She groaned. ‘This isn’t my day, is it?’

‘You must take two of these pills with a glass of water, and then ring Room Service and ask them to bring you some hot chocolate to help you sleep,’ Jamie told her, handing her a packet of pain-killers, as the lift slowly moved up to the third floor on which their rooms were situated.

‘Thanks, Jamie. I’m sorry...’ she began again, and he shook his head at her, smiling.

‘Forget it. I’ve had toothache, I know how you must be feeling. I often think there’s no pain worse. My mother often says she’d rather have a baby than toothache any day!’

They walked along the hotel corridor quietly. As they reached her door Jamie paused and looked down at her. ‘Now, you get to bed as soon as you’ve drunk some hot chocolate; and if you don’t feel better in the morning we’ll make sure you see a doctor, or go back to that dentist and ask him to take another look at your tooth!’

‘I’m sure I’ll be over the worst tomorrow. I probably just need a good night’s sleep. Goodnight, Jamie.’

Saskia didn’t bother with hot chocolate; she took the pills and went straight to bed, but although her headache soon died away she couldn’t get to sleep for hours. She lay awake in the dark, listening to the soft lapping of water against the piers outside the hotel which fronted the Grand Canal, fighting waves of panic as bad as anything she had felt two years ago.

Then, she had been obsessed with grief and fear and guilt; she had constantly been afraid that Domenico would find her, would track her down and confront her at any minute.

The hard physical exercise of working in the garden centre had helped to get her over those first months. She had not worked so hard for a long time; her muscles had ached heavily in the beginning. She would come in from work, muddy, weary, her skin filmed with sweat, have a long, hot bath in water scented with pine, trying to relax her muscles and ease their aching, and then she would eat a light supper in front of the electric fire before going to bed early. After one of those baths, having been out in the fresh air all day, she would find herself falling asleep the minute her head hit the pillow, and, although at first she had had nightmares every night, slowly over the months those bad dreams had stopped.

She had one tonight, though. Even though she eventually went to sleep, she woke up in the early hours, crying, trembling, and sat up in bed, staring at the paling sky without seeing it, remembering what had happened at the opera last night, wondering if Domenico had discovered that she was one of a group of tourists staying in Venice that week, or if he had believed she was there privately, with the man who had left with her.

For once she wished she could tap into private thoughts at will, but it didn’t happen. Her mind was blank. Perhaps Domenico was still asleep? But somehow she knew he wasn’t; she felt sure he was awake as well, and that he had had a bad night, too. It was no comfort to be sure of that.

She couldn’t stay in her room all day. At seven-thirty, Saskia slid out of bed, went into the bathroom and took a shower, put on a robe just as her breakfast arrived—orange juice, rolls, black-cherry jam, coffee.

She tipped the waiter, who opened the shutters for her, letting in the golden glory of a Venetian morning. When the man had gone, Saskia sat down on her balcony and ate her breakfast, reading the Italian paper which had been sent up on her tray.

She stiffened as she glanced down a business page and Domenico’s name leapt out. Hurriedly she read the short item, and understood why he was in Venice. If only she had known! She would never have come here at this precise moment.

Jamie had said to her last night, ‘It’s just fate,’ without realising quite how accurate she was in using those words. Fate had made Jamie suggest a trip to Italian gardens for them both, to get ideas for the garden centre at home; and fate had ordained that that garden trip should end with a few days in Venice before they flew home. Fate had been busy organising Domenico’s life, too. He was here, on business; she might have known. Domenico was in the process of negotiating with one of the major Italian hotel chains; he was planning to take over some of their top luxury hotels for his own chain and the chairman of the other company lived here, in Venice, so Domenico had come to Venice.

After breakfast she dressed in a simple apple-green linen dress, slid her feet into flat white shoes, and put on make-up, brushed her hair, before going down to meet up with Jamie and the others on the tour.

This morning they were going back to the Accademia art gallery, which they had already visited once, but which was so crowded with marvellous paintings that they had barely scratched the surface in their earlier visit.

‘This time we are going to concentrate on Giovanni Bellini,’ their guide told them, and launched into a long talk on the famous Venetian painter. Saskia tried to concentrate on what he was saying, but her mind kept straying back to her own problems. They were here for another two days. Even if she took a plane back to England this morning, Domenico could easily trace her, through the tour operators, get her address and track her down.

What am I going to do? she desperately wondered, following the others out of the hotel on their walk through Venice to the Accademia building.

She hated the thought of running away again, leaving her job, her friends, the little home she had set up over the past two years, having to start again, somewhere else, lying, hiding, maybe even running again at some future time.

Yet was she strong enough, even now, to face Domenico? Her courage failed her at the very idea.

They had been in the Accademia for an hour when Saskia felt that familiar flash inside her brain, as if an electric spark jumped between two points.

She looked hurriedly around, and saw him instantly, at the other end of the room, a tall, lean figure dressed casually, in shades of brown: chocolate-brown brushed-cotton jeans, a matching brown cashmere polo-neck sweater, and worn over that a golden-tan brushed-suede waistcoat under a dark brown leather flying jacket. It all looked haphazard, thrown on in a moment’s whim, but Saskia knew Domenico was dressed by the best Italian designers; someone had put that look together, charging an arm and a leg for doing so!

He wasn’t looking at her, he was standing in front of a painting by Bellini which Saskia’s group had seen earlier: The Virgin and Child in the Garden. Domenico was staring fixedly at the mother and child, and the pain in his mind made tears sting under her lids.

She hadn’t paused in front of the altarpiece while the tour director was talking about it, she had walked on to the next picture. She hated to see paintings of mothers and babies. She hated even more to feel the anguish Domenico was feeling; it brought back her own, welling up inside her like an inexhaustible fount of tears.