Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (30 page)

Allain left Violet sitting, gently rocking in the somber black gondola that had brought them, while he went to speak to the widow’s majordomo. By that time Violet had ceased to wonder how he knew where to go, how to get there, or whom to ask for shelter. Nor did it occur to her that he might be refused.

He was not. By nightfall they were ensconced in a large, square room with long windows that opened onto one of the front loggias. A tin bath had been wrestled up the stairs by a pair of grinning manservants directed by the majordomo, a middle-aged man with a nice smile but a long nose and longer chin. He was harried in turn by the housekeeper, an older woman with a sharp tongue, fine black mustache, and ample shape who turned out to be his wife. Water to fill the bath appeared soon after; it was plentiful, though not particularly warm.

A nightgown, a wisp of batiste edged with exquisite handmade lace, was laid out on the great bed with its dusty silk brocade hangings. With it was a dressing gown only slightly more substantial. The housekeeper had brought them, though when Violet asked her where they had come from the woman only nodded in Allain’s direction, winked, and bustled from the room.

The majordomo, Savio, brought a doctor, a man of grave visage and sage opinions. The doctor looked at the slash in Allain’s side with pursed lips, but did nothing more than wash it with soft soap, dust it with a white powder, and wrap it with clean linen. Bowing over his fee with consummate grace, smiling a little as he stepped, quite unnecessarily, to kiss Violet’s hand, he departed. Allain frowned as he watched him go.

A man of many parts, Savio also provided an evening meal, one brought to them, on Allain’s order, immediately after they had bathed. This repast, consisting of pasta and salad greens followed by pork roast with new potatoes and cabbage, was cooked by Savio’s wife and served, with passable competence, by the two manservants who were their sons.

Later Violet and Allain carried the last of their wine to the loggia. They sat enjoying the evening air and entertaining themselves by watching the water traffic plying up and down, counting the different kinds of boats and the different cries of the boatmen that served as warnings against collisions.

The moon came up. It slanted its silver beams across the water, gilding the rooftops with their baroque chimneys, cutting the square buildings with their rows of columns into odd foreshortened cubes and angles with the look of a drawing in black and white made by a madman. Somewhere, in some ancient courtyard garden, a nightingale trilled. A musical ensemble two houses away was practicing Mozart’s Concerto for Clarinet in A, playing that slow, melancholy piece over and over again, so it drifted across the rooftops, coloring the night with its bittersweet refrain. A gondolier out in the Grand Canal sang a snatch of song with the caressing lilt and rhythm of a love ballad. The water lapped at the poles at the landing below the loggia and slapped at the palazzo’s old stone walls.

A gondola, gliding past, carried the yellow gleams of its prow lantern before it as it went. Violet, turning her head to look at Allain in that brief yellow glow, saw his face turned toward her, his eyes like dark, glinting pools of desire as he watched her.

She reached out her hand to him.

IT PLEASED JOLETTA TO THINK
that the route she and Rone were taking by car to reach Venice was not so different from that taken by Violet and Allain by carriage and train. The placement of roads had changed little in that part of the world, and the train embankment ran beside the autostrata for miles.

The car Rone rented, the only one available at the agency, turned out to be ancient and cranky, a standard-transmission compact that trailed a blue vapor of oil smoke and had no air-conditioning. Joletta knew without being told that few cars came equipped with air in Europe, but couldn’t resist pointing out that the tour bus had been.

Rone listened to her acid comments and watched her trying to keep the wind from tearing the hair from her head for half the morning. When they stopped at a pharmacy for their toiletries, he bought a white silk head scarf and a pair of oversized white-rimmed Italian sunglasses. As he handed them over, Joletta was too surprised, and irritated that she hadn’t thought of them herself, to offer more than a muttered thanks.

Regardless, when she tied the scarf over her hair, put on the glasses, and propped her arm on the open window as they whizzed down the road with the wind in their faces, she felt very European. She did not, of course, mention that to Rone.

Joletta had never learned to manage a standard transmission. Because of it Rone had to do all the driving. Less than ten minutes over the Italian border, she was delighted to have an excuse not to get behind the wheel.

The Italian drivers were demons on the road, charging forward with a disregard for safety that bordered on suicidal, or possibly homicidal. An automobile could at any moment become a weapon of aggression in the war of the motorways. When it happened, they took no prisoners.

The frantic traffic, streaking along at one hundred and forty kilometers per hour and beyond, nearly eighty-five miles per hour, didn’t seem to bother Rone; he merged with it with competence and élan. Hands rock steady on the wheel, senses alert, he held his own and did not flinch or give way to any man or vehicle.

By default it became Joletta’s task to act as navigator. Following the strange road signs and distances in kilometers was not as difficult as she had feared when Rone first tossed the map into her lap. The highway system itself was little different from the interconnected roads and interstates of the United States, and the method of marking the different routes was possibly even better. Her instructions as she guided their progress were short and to the point, and usually in answer to some request from Rone.

He whistled as he drove, snatches of some Italian folk tune, Joletta thought, though she didn’t know the name. Apparently he was happy because he had gotten his way about leaving the tour group. She was also enjoying the change. It was so much nicer to be speeding along at their own pace, slowing when there was a village worth seeing, or even stopping to take a photograph of a patch of wildflowers or a vista. The wind whipping through the open window felt good on her face. Free of the hermetically sealed and air-conditioned bus, she could catch the scents of the countryside, savor the privet scent of the vineyards, the whiff of herbs in newly mown grass, even the faint odor of a herd of goats.

She began to wish that the drive could go on and on. Still, she would not have admitted it to Rone under torture. She was in no mood to be reasonable. She was mad at him, and she wanted him to know it.

She reached out to switch on the radio.

Rone glanced at her, then abruptly stopped whistling.

She fiddled with the dial, trying to tune in a station. After a few minutes she frowned in irritation. She was sorry that she had put an end to his whistling. The sound of it was preferable to the rock music and soccer games that were all she could find on the radio, and was certainly better than his strained silence. Embarrassed to switch off the radio again so quickly, she left it on a rock station and leaned back in her seat.

It was a shame she wasn’t talking to him, really, she thought as an hour passed and then another. There was history and romance and endless fascination in the very names of the places they were passing through, and Rone was one of the few people she had met who might have been able to appreciate these things. More, there were new green leaves on the trees, and the yellow gorse and red poppies along the roadsides seemed bigger and brighter than in England and France. She turned toward him once or twice to mention such things, but always subsided again without speaking.

She was staring out the window when he spoke in flat tones. “How long are you going to keep this up?”

“What do you mean?” The question was an automatic defense as she faced him.

The corner of his mouth twitched in a faint smile as he said, “The silent treatment.”

She had not considered it in that light. It was an uncomfortable reminder of Gilbert’s silence toward Violet in the journal. She didn’t much like that image of herself, didn’t care for the idea that that particular method of dealing with anger might be a family habit.

She said, “I’m here because you arranged it. I don’t have to like it, or be nice about it.”

“You don’t have to sulk, either. If you don’t like it, tell me about it. I can’t read your mind.”

“That,” she said sweetly, “is a very good thing.”

Laughter deepened the lines at his mouth as he looked at her where she lay back, relaxed in the seat, though his eyes were concealed by his dark glasses. His tone meditative, he said, “I wonder.”

“Yes, well,” she answered, straightening in some haste, “civilized people don’t finagle others into doing things against their will.”

“Even if it’s in their best interests?” He glanced up into the rearview mirror, then across at her for an instant before returning his attention to the road.

“There was some difference of opinion over that, as I remember,” she said. “But yes, even then.”

“I would like to point out that it’s only for an afternoon, not a lifetime. Unless there’s a change of plans.”

She lowered her sunglasses to stare at him over the rims. He appeared unruffled by her scrutiny, sitting at ease behind the wheel with the wind through the window fluttering the open collar of his polo shirt against his tan throat and sculpting his straight, dark hair into windswept waves. His ease and the sunglasses gave him a look that was cosmopolitan, if not European — and far too attractive for comfort under any label.

“Meaning?” she inquired in astringent tones.

A smile came and went across his face. “Meaning you might find you like striking out on your own. What else?”

“Kidnapping crossed my mind there for a second.” She refused to mention the other idea that had flitted past first.

“You’ve been reading too many spy novels. But at least we got all that cleared away. Now will you talk to me?”

She reached to turn off the radio, where the soccer scores were being given again for what seemed like the tenth time in the past half hour. She wasn’t so pigheaded as to spite herself. “I’ll be glad to,” she said. “What shall we talk about first?”

They bypassed Milan on the four-lane autostrata, the E30, streaking along past ancient villas of sun-warmed stone and long stretches of fruit trees in bloom and vegetables growing under protective plastic. They were making good time; there was no reason they shouldn’t be able to rejoin the group in Venice for dinner at the latest.

One moment they were skimming along, talking about finding an aire stop for an afternoon snack; the next they were in trouble.

It was just a transport truck, one made on a slightly smaller scale than American models, but with nothing unusual about it; they had seen dozens similar during the day. It overtook them in the left lane in a perfectly normal manner. It seemed to be crowding them a bit, not a pleasant feeling in the lightweight compact, but drivers of big trucks in the States also had a tendency to think they owned the road.

Rone’s soft curse came first. Joletta heard it distinctly. She swung her head. He was frowning in concentration as he stared into his side mirror. He pressed his foot hard on the accelerator.

The bump with its metallic thud was like being hit by a giant padded fist. The car fishtailed with tires squealing. Rone held the light vehicle on the road with main strength, steering into the spin. They straightened. Joletta, regaining her balance, grabbed for the dashboard with one hand and her taut seat belt with the other.

The truck slammed into the rear of the compact. It swerved off the highway, plunging down the embankment. The front tires struck with teeth-jarring force. They bounced and bucked, rolling, sliding. Dust and gravel flew. A row of plane trees rose up before them. Rone wrenched the steering wheel over, the muscles in his arms standing out like carved stone. They slewed around, skidding. The right side of the car struck with a solid, grinding thud.

Leaves showered. Metal groaned. Steam hissed in release. The car shuttered to stillness. The engine roared. It died as Rone cut the ignition.

“Out,” Rone said in hard command. “Now!”

His seat belt clicked. He pushed at the door on his side, slamming against it with his shoulder as it stuck. Dazed, Joletta saw there was blood streaking down his face. She fumbled with her own seat belt with fingers gone stiff and clumsy. It seemed an eternity before she could spring the latch. She tried the door on her side, but it was welded shut by crumpled metal.