Page 27

Suppose the drugs did not work, or suppose she found herself, when it came to it, too scared to try them for fear of the risk involved. Very well. She could bear the child, secretly, here in Italy, and have it adopted. Every feeling revolted instinctively against the idea, to bring another person into the world, a helpless innocent, and then abandon them to some dreadful orphanage or the care of indifferent strangers; no, she would not do that. Others must take that painful step because they had no option and a living to earn. But she had more resources – money in abundance, a home of her own, and an unconventional and loving family – than almost every other woman on this earth. She could say that she had found the baby in some dreadful situation and adopted it on impulse; everyone knew she loved children. Make up some tale. Her sisters would help her, whether she told them the child’s true parentage or not, and face down any scandal if the truth should be suspected. She could even claim – there was a rich irony here that she could hardly miss – that she had married abroad in secret and now her husband was dead, leaving her a widow with a little child. She had been away long enough for a brief marriage and an untimely death, and who could disprove such a story, from faraway England? Because of course she would go home, to the people who loved her. She swiftly discarded the idea of going to her mother for aid, even though she was less than two hundred miles away, and undoubtedly would help, albeit at the price of an epic and deserved dressing-down; unless she became quite desperate, Bianca’s pride would not allow it.

Or she could tell Xan, of course, since it could not be denied that he was nearly concerned in the matter. And then what?

He had never so much as mentioned marriage to her, and she had not wanted him to. She could say that he believed her, wrongly, to be a woman of low social status and no family to speak of, and that was why a permanent union had never so much as crossed his mind. She might even manufacture some righteous anger about this; was an ordinary woman not good enough for a man of his enormous consequence, et cetera? That would be rank hypocrisy on her part; she did not wish to be the sort of person who required a man to propose to her merely so that she could refuse him with scorn. But now, of course, their situation might perforce be very different.

In her mind, beginning it, their relationship had been a brief and wonderful interlude for them both. She had wanted experiences, she was beginning to suspect that she would never marry, and certainly not if it meant giving up her freedom and her art. He had offered her the chance of pleasure, of tasting an important part of life that she would never know otherwise, without the least scandal or consequence. But here was a consequence with a vengeance, making a great fool of her, as no doubt had happened to women a million times before, here and everywhere.

Xan did not speak much about his life at home, probably because it was irrevocably bound up with his dead wife. He did not seem to spend a great deal of time in London, but resided quietly in the West Country, on what sounded like a modest little estate, and he had been sunk in depression after Louise’s death, which was why he had gone travelling and ended up here. But he did have a life waiting for him on his return – both his parents were dead, he’d said, but he had a young son he loved, other relatives he mentioned occasionally. He had a brother, too, but she knew that they were not close because their lives and pastimes were very different. Just as it was for her, this unexpected liaison had been taken up as a brief moment out of time, far away from reality, and he’d had no more intention of prolonging it beyond some natural, never-discussed end than she had. It might be tempting occasionally to linger over daydreams of prolonging their relationship, and she could not deny that she had done so, but daydreams were all they were. This was painfully obvious to her now.

If she told him she was with child today, she knew he’d offer to marry her in honourable fashion, whatever private misgivings he must have. He wouldn’t let her see them, not at first. They would return to England together as man and wife, or even, after some months’ delay, as a man and his new wife and child, which would be safer in terms of dates. Nobody would question the circumstances of their meeting, or if they did, again, there’d be no proof of wrongdoing, and the whispers would soon subside. She would find herself – unrecognisably – a wife, a stepmother and a mother, deep in the English countryside, far from all she knew. Not an artist, not a free spirit, not a traveller. Her life would be just like Cecilia’s, with the difference that neither she nor he would have chosen it, but had it forced on them by circumstances. Unlike Cecilia and Alistair, they did not love each other. They had not waited patiently for a year so that they could be together without loss or compromise. Their very union would be a compromise, and one they had both been forced into.

But this was madness. Surely it was. They had come together precisely because they had met here and now, and this overwhelming, inconvenient mutual passion had sprung up between them in a place where it could be indulged, as they had thought, safely. If they had met in London, bound by social convention as everyone was, would they even have looked at each other twice? She could never know. Their lives – their real lives – were so far apart, and maybe that gap was unbridgeable and should remain so.

And the passion itself made her uneasy, quite apart from anything else. It scared her, now that she was forced to reflect upon it rather than just be swept away by it beyond all thought or reason. It was so violent and so all-consuming, which was not what she had anticipated when she’d decided impulsively to be daring, that day in St Mark’s Square. She wasn’t working as she should be, nor doing anything else that she had come here to do. Days where she should be painting, she was spending idly with Mr Challender or thinking about Mr Challender, mooning over him, longing for his presence and his incendiary touch. Often now when she set to sketching something else, a scene or another person entirely, his countenance and body appeared, unbidden, unwelcome, from her pencil or her paintbrush. But surely this obsession, whatever it was, would burn out in time and leave them with nothing but ashes and painful memories, and a child who had not asked to be brought into the world in this reckless, irresponsible fashion.

‘“It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,”’ she found herself muttering as she looked out through her small bedchamber window on the dark little canal below, which was so narrow and high-walled that it rarely saw the sun. Miss Macintyre would be proud of her erudition – no, she would not. Not in these circumstances. Little use to quote Shakespeare when she was in such desperate straits.

No doubt many, many couples married because there was a child on the way, and no doubt most of them bitterly regretted it almost immediately, or after a short while or a long one. Bianca would be damned if she would be one of those unfortunate trapped people.

She did not want to see Xan’s face, his constant delight in seeing her, change into an expression of dismay and then – worse – weary resignation and afterwards perhaps anger at being caught in the oldest snare in the world. She would not be a burden or a mistake, made lightly abroad and suffered for a lifetime at home. Her innocent child would not be that, to its father. Did she really know Xan well enough to be sure that he would not resent a child conceived in such a fashion, with a woman who had been a temporary diversion and now was all too permanent a fixture? No, was the uncomfortable answer. Their acquaintance had been far too fleeting, and so much of it not spent talking. Hence her situation – her possible situation.

So, this must be her problem and her problem alone. And she was alone, more so than she had ever been in her life before, but after all, she had chosen this and could hardly complain now.

45

LONDON

Xan did not know what he had been expecting when he opened the door of the room he had found for them, which was not to say that his mind had not been busy for days picturing it in exquisite detail. Picturing her. The brief contact he and Bianca had had over the last few weeks, mostly mere touches of hands, had done nothing but serve to stoke the flames. As soon as they were skin to skin, it was all too obvious that thoughts of prudence and self-control would fly out of the window.

Her face was oddly resolute, and she was still fully dressed when he came to her – he had an odd fancy that she had been pacing the floor just before his arrival, and that her mood was unsettled, even anxious. And this was confirmed when she said, ‘I know we should talk. There are things I have not told you before, and must before the night is over. Things you deserve to hear. But not now. Let’s go to bed. We have both waited long enough for this.’

God knows he agreed with that. Her words were ominous, but… just now he needed her and simply could not wait. He had never undressed her fully before, nor she him. And somehow they found the patience to take it slowly, both of them knowing without speaking of it that it would be both the first time and the last. It was her turn to begin it; she undid his cravat and tossed it aside, and helped him shrug off his jacket. Her fingers were deft on his waistcoat buttons, and as she dragged his shirt over his head. Her warm hands explored his chest and back, and their touch was so familiar and so welcome that he closed his eyes for a moment and merely revelled in the joy of it. Then she was closer, kissing his neck, pulling his head down so that their lips could be joined in mutual hunger, and he pulled her tight into his embrace and let his hands touch her body at last.

Then his control snapped, and he was picking her up and carrying her over to the bed, fumbling with buttons and ties, ribbons and knots. Her dark gown slipped from her shoulders to lie pooled at her feet on the bed, followed by drifts of white lawn and muslin, and her hands were just as eager on the buttons that closed the fall of his trousers. Her stays were an impediment, but her flimsy chemise was not, and in a few moments she was naked except for her stockings, lying back against the pillows in all her glory. He tore at the fastening of her garters with his teeth. He wanted every inch of her under his eyes and mouth. Looking was a privilege, but touching, tasting, were so much more. He lay down on the bed between her lush thighs and buried himself in her, reacquainting himself with every fold and hollow, every tender place, every delicious gasp and moan, aware at the periphery of his senses of her fingers tight and urgent in his hair, of her legs draped across his shoulders, her heels digging into his back. And he could feel the tension rise in her, and taste the wonderful change in her, and when she came under his mouth and tongue and fingers, he carried on worshipping her while he pressed himself hard against the bed and let the waves of pleasure crash over him too, cradled deep in the cavern of her thighs.

Some while later, he lay with his head between her breasts and she began to speak.

46

‘I’ve never told you why I left you so suddenly, have I, Xan, beside that awful note that revealed nothing? And though I know it’s not why you came here, nor why I did either, I believe I should do so now. Then, if you wish, you can go away, or I will.’

He sat up in bed, so that he could see her better, and his face was suddenly a mask, though it had been eager and alive a moment ago. He stilled, and then replied evenly, ‘Very well. That’s reasonable. And I have tormented myself all these long months with asking why, so I would be glad to know.’

Her heart was pounding; she was sure he must be able to feel it, they were so close. ‘I will not speak again of why I lied to you, or at least did not correct the lie I was already living for reasons that were nothing to do with you – you know all that, because I have told you before. And that is not to the purpose now, in any case.’

She hesitated for a moment, then pushed on. She did not know why it seemed to be so ridiculously hard to talk about when it had all undeniably been seductively easy enough to do – up to a point, and then it had suddenly become impossible.

‘The truth is, I had a scare in Venice, towards the end,’ she told him bluntly. When she saw that he did not immediately understand her, she went on with a touch of pardonable impatience, ‘Xan, for heaven’s sake, my courses were late, and I thought I was with child, as any woman in my situation would.’

He looked startled, as if such a notion had never occurred to him; Bianca supposed men were lucky that way. ‘You did not tell me.’

‘No. I considered it, of course, but I knew that if I did let you know, you would ask me to marry you directly. But you’d never thought to ask me before, because – Xan, I am not criticising you for this, please do not think I am – it was not any part of your plan for your future; I was not. And I realised that I most definitely did not want a marriage on such terms – especially not when I was and am still unsure if I have any desire to marry at all. I did not want to be a burden – a duty – and nor did I wish a child of mine to be such a millstone around your neck, which you would be reminded of every time you laid eyes on him or her. So I resolved to deal with my predicament myself. To take remedies, such as women everywhere know, and if that did not work, to go away and bear my child and bring it up alone. To persist with the story that I was a widow, maybe, and come home to England as one, so that my family could help me find a way to live. You’ve met them now, some of them – you can see that they would do that for me.’

‘You had it all worked out, it seems, with no need for me at all.’ His voice was very controlled, but some deep emotion lay beneath the careful words. Was he angry, hurt, even disgusted? She could not tell, and it should not matter.

‘I thought I did. I don’t know if it was self-delusion, because the question never arose. My courses came after all, just a few days late, without me doing anything to bring them on. But it was a bad time for me, while I waited and worried all alone. I know it was my own decision, though, not to share any of this with you then – you need not point it out.’

‘And then you left anyway, and still did not tell me the truth.’