Body And Soul

If he told Charles she knew the reaction she would get. Charles would be appalled. He was aware she didn’t trust his cousin but he expected her to have a little self-control and to keep her private opinions to herself. And, in fact, so did she. She was angry with herself for losing her cool.

‘I never forget anything,’ Bruno murmured, and she believed him. She had already discovered what a fantastic memory he had; he seemed to know everything about every public company and many in private hands. The tiniest detail was retained in his mind and could be conjured up out of nowhere when he needed it. They used state-of-the-art computers to do work Bruno could do in his head and seemed to find child’s play.

‘That’s up to you,’ she said, trying to hide her faint dismay. No doubt one day she would pay for having lost her temper. She suspected him to be a man who took his revenge for past wounds. That was why it worried her that Charles seemed to trust him so implicitly. She was afraid that one day Bruno Falcucci would make Charles pay for the way the Redmond family had treated Bruno’s mother.

She swallowed, looked at the screen in front of her and changed the subject. ‘Have you seen the latest Japanese figures?’

‘More or less as I predicted,’ he shrugged.

‘Yes, right again, as usual!’ Martine said with saccharine sweetness.

He laughed. She couldn’t even make him angry. It was infuriating. She wished he would go away, he was ruining her morning.

‘I am rather busy,’ she told him coldly. ‘So unless you wanted to tell me something important...?’

‘Charles just rang me from his home,’ he said. ‘About the Rome conference...’

‘Yes?’ She was flying to Rome with Charles the following day for an international banking conference, and was rather looking forward to the trip. It was ages since she had been anywhere interesting, and it would mean getting away from the office and Bruno Falcucci for a little while.

‘His doctor has advised him to stay in bed for a week, so he won’t be able to go,’ Bruno coolly said.

‘What’s wrong? Is he ill?’ Martine anxiously asked but Bruno shook his head.

‘Just tired, I gather. A touch of flu, too, maybe. Nothing serious, but his doctor thinks he needs complete rest. He asked me to explain to you, and say how sorry he is to miss the Rome trip.’

‘Of course; I understand, though,’ Martine said, deeply disappointed, her face falling. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised, he has looked quite exhausted the last few days. He really needs a long holiday, but a week in bed would be a good start. Well, I’d better cancel everything, but I don’t think we’ll be able to reclaim the price of the air tickets. The hotel can be cancelled without a problem, of course.’

She put out a hand to the phone but Bruno caught hold of her wrist, his fingers cool and light, yet making her aware of their potential strength.

‘No, don’t cancel anything. The trip is still on, it’s just that I’ll be taking Charles’s place.’

Martine stiffened. ‘You?’

His mouth curled. ‘Sorry, I know I’m no substitute for Charles in your eyes, but you’ll have to put up with my company for a few days, I’m afraid. Charles wants the bank represented. He was making a speech on the pros and cons of monetarist policy and he wants me to read it to the conference.’

Martine knew all about that speech; Charles had discussed it with her at great length. She could have delivered that speech for him, if he’d asked her, but Charles hadn’t even considered that, she realised, her mouth taut.

Bruno considered her expression, his brows crooked. ‘Charles has a rather old-fashioned view of women’s place in banking, doesn’t he?’

‘Which you share?’ she bitterly suggested.

‘You do enjoy thinking the worst of me, don’t you? No, as it happens, I don’t, but Charles was obviously ill and I couldn’t very well argue with him. Have you got all his documentation, by the way? Tickets, etcetera?’

She nodded and began to get up. Bruno moved back just enough to let her pass; she picked up the scent of his aftershave and decided she didn’t like it.

She found the folder containing all the travel documents for Charles, and handed it to Bruno.

‘The name on the tickets will have to be changed. I’ll do that.’

‘Don’t worry, my secretary will deal with it,’ he said, turning to walk out. ‘See you tomorrow, on the plane.’

She glared after him, half inclined not to turn up. Only her loyalty to Charles made her decide to go. Someone had to keep an eye on Bruno Falcucci.

They met at Heathrow, in fact, in a chaotic, overcrowded terminal building. All planes were delayed by fog in the London area. Bruno and Martine bought piles of newspapers and magazines, drank lots of bitter black coffee, tried to ignore screaming babies, restless children, the whine of the Tannoy, the discomfort of the seats they sat on.

At last the fog lifted and planes began to take off. They were two hours late in leaving for Rome, in the end.

The chauffeur-driven car they had ordered was not waiting to meet them when they arrived. They had to take a taxi, there were long queues and a black, relentless rain was falling. Rome sulked under sagging clouds and grey skies. Looking up, Martine felt very depressed.

By the time they got to their hotel, which sat near the top of the Spanish Steps, she was barely able to stand, and very fed up. She collected her key and went straight to her room, which turned out to be charming: beautifully furnished and with a magnificent view over the huddled roofs, towers and cupolas of the city.

The rain was still teeming down, lashing along streets, trickling down windows, spilling from the gargoyles on churches, splashing in gutters, forming rivers down the Spanish Steps.

Martine leaned on the window for a while, gazing out. There was a magnificent desolation about the scene spread out below her, and her eyes wandered from building to building, absorbing the atmosphere. Even in the rain Rome was noisy, bustling, over-full of people and vehicles. She heard the blare of horns, police whistles, people shouting to each other, people quarrelling loudly, the clatter of feet on old pavements.

Sitting there with the window open made her shiver after a while. She stood up, closed the window and went into her modern bathroom to take a long, warm, fragrant bath, pouring deliciously scented bath oils into the water before she climbed gratefully into it.

Bruno had suggested that they meet for dinner at eight o’clock in the bar. The first gathering of the conference was at nine o’clock the following day, and was scheduled to take place at another hotel, the Excelsior, which was a popular conference centre with efficient modern facilities, next door to the United States embassy and close to the via Veneto. Most of the delegates were also staying at the Excelsior, but Charles had wanted to have a peaceful bolthole to make for when conference politics grew too hectic. It often helped to be able to escape for a while. The lobbying began at breakfast and went on until well into the night, and if you could get away you had a better chance of preserving your sanity, Charles said.

After her bath, Martine went to sleep on her bed, wrapped in her thick white bathrobe, a quilt over her. Her dreams were as chaotic as the traffic in the Rome streets; she twisted and sighed in her sleep, her body restless, overheated.

She woke up with a start when someone knocked sharply on the door. For a second she was totally disorientated. While she had slept, night had fallen; the room was dark, only the flash of a neon light somewhere nearby in the city to show her the furniture, the high oblong of the window.

She lay on the bed, staring blankly; then somebody knocked on the door again, louder, peremptorily.

Stumbling off the bed, she went to the door and opened it on the chain, blinking in the light from the corridor.

It was Bruno, in evening dress, looking the way he had the night she first saw him—ultra-civilised, menacingly primitive. It was a very disturbing mix, added to which, just the sight of his smooth-skinned, closely shaven face and sleek black hair, his gleaming jet eyes, his powerful body, sent a strange quiver of weakness through her. Ever since she had met him she had been both alarmed by and hostile to him, working on instincts buried inside her, too deep for her to be quite sure what it was about the man that set all her alarm bells jangling.

‘Aren’t you dressed yet? We said eight o’clock,’ Bruno reminded her, his gleaming eyes roaming slowly over her dishevelled, damp coils of auburn hair, her flushed face, the short white robe which left her long legs bare and revealed the deep cleft between her breasts.

She instinctively put up a hand to pull her robe lapels together to hide her breasts, and saw Bruno’s mouth twist in wry comprehension.

‘I must have fallen asleep,’ she stammered. ‘Why don’t you get yourself a drink in the bar, and I’ll only be ten minutes, I promise!’

She shut the door quickly, afraid he would notice she was trembling. Switching on the light, she leaned on the elaborately carved oak bed for a moment, to steady her nerves. What on earth was wrong with her? Maybe she had picked up some bug? The same one Charles had got? She wouldn’t be surprised. That was how she felt—ill, feverish, weak-legged, shivery.

She didn’t want to get dressed, do her hair, have dinner alone with Bruno Falcucci; she didn’t feel strong enough.

But how could she get out of it? They were here representing the bank, standing in for Charles; she couldn’t simply duck out of her responsibilities, she would be letting Charles down. She must pull herself together.

Her hands cold and shaking, she began to get ready. She had picked out her dress before she had her bath: a dark green velvet, figure-hugging, with a deep scoop neckline along which ran a Greek key pattern in gold thread, a tight waist and very short skirt which left her long legs bare. It was formal and elegant, but once she had put it on Martine had second thoughts.

She stared at herself in the mirror, biting her lip. She had forgotten just how tight the dress was, and how short the skirt! It made her feel half-naked. Charles had always liked the dress, that was why she had packed it, but wearing it for Charles was one thing—wearing it when she was going to spend an evening alone with Bruno Falcucci was something else. The very thought of it made her hair stand up on the back of her neck.

She looked at her watch, and groaned. There was no time to change, either. If only she hadn’t fallen asleep on the bed! She still had to do her hair and her face. She picked up her brush and began to work hurriedly.

When she walked into the hotel bar she saw Bruno watching her from a table on the other side of the room and an atavistic shudder ran through her.