Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) (25 page)

No, he couldn’t stand it. It would be all the same if he made the shower cold.

Joletta was asleep when he came out of the bathroom again. Or at least she was giving a good imitation, lying with one arm flung above her head, her lashes shadowing her cheeks and her chest rising and falling in even cadence.

He had forgotten to take his pajamas into the bathroom with him. Fastening the towel he wore more firmly at the waist, he padded across to his suitcase that sat on the floor at the foot of his bed. Keeping an eye on Joletta, he searched out the pajamas that were still folded in sharp creases; pajamas he packed only for emergencies.

With the pajama bottoms in his hand, he eased to his feet again. Then, as if drawn, he approached the bed where Joletta lay. Moving with slow care, he went down on one knee beside it.

The light from the bathroom slanted with a yellow gleam across her face. She looked so vulnerable lying there. The shadow of the bruise and the small, bandaged cut at her hairline affected him with aching tenderness. He put out his hand to touch it, then stopped with it poised in the air. The softness of her skin, the sweetly curving lines of her mouth were an incitement that sent waves of heat rising to his brain. He wondered what she would do if he lay down beside her and kissed her awake.

He swore softly. So much for good intentions.

He rose to his feet so swiftly that a tendon in his knee cracked like the snapping of a whip. He went still, afraid that she would open her eyes and discover him standing there.

The minutes ticked past. He swayed a little, there on his feet. He was so tired. It had been years, it seemed, since he had last slept soundly. It might be aeons more before he could manage it again.

He retreated to the bathroom. There, he stepped into the pajama bottoms. He snapped off the light and came out again, walking quietly to his own bed. Sliding under the duvet, he stretched out.

He lay listening, but he could not hear her breathing. Was she that quiet? Or had she gone? He raised his head, his eyes wide in the dark.

She was still there. Still sleeping. Still beautiful.

Still untouched.

It was in the nature of things that two of the most talkative widows on the bus should see Joletta and Rone leaving his room together on the following morning.

It wasn’t that it couldn’t have been avoided. By that time Joletta and Rone had been to breakfast and taken an early-morning walk around the block. They had also gone down to Joletta’s room to retrieve her suitcase and the rest of her things, since they would be checking out of the hotel that morning. She could, Joletta thought, have gone on ahead, taking her own luggage. But no, Rone had insisted on carrying her brown plaid bag as well as his own heavy black leather case.

There were more than a few knowing smiles when they reached the bus. Rone seemed oblivious to the interest they had aroused, but Joletta could not be quite so casual about it. It bothered her to know that people were speculating about her love life, perhaps even picturing her and Rone in bed together. She had few hang-ups about sex, but there were some things that deserved a decent privacy.

As they settled into their seats Joletta thought one or two of the older women watched Rone with a certain bright appreciation in their faded eyes. He was worth looking at this morning, with the lean planes of his face freshly shaven, his eyes still heavy-lidded from sleep, and the warm charm of his smile on display as he exchanged greetings with first one and then another.

He took up a bit more than his share of the seat with his wide shoulders and long legs, but he was so apologetic about it that it didn’t matter. Joletta, feeling the press of his shoulder against hers for an instant before he moved away, and affected against her will, perhaps, by the speculation around her, could not prevent a vagrant curiosity about what kind of lover he would be. A gentlemanly one, she thought, courteous, humorous, and just possibly inventive. One corner of her mouth tugged upward a little at the analysis.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Are you too warm? No? I must have put on too many clothes this morning, or else it’s the sun shining on this side of the bus.”

They were heading for Italy. Lugano, near the Swiss border, was their destination for a late lunch, and they reached it in good time. The bus driver let them out near the lake while their guide pointed out a number of small restaurants and cafeterias along the streets in either direction. Rone and Joletta had a quick meal of eggplant Parmesan and a red wine from Tuscany in honor of their approach to the Italian frontier. Afterward they strolled across the street to explore a nearby park.

Hidden by a stone wall and a hedge of evergreens, this public park appeared to have once been a private garden surrounding a solid manor house. It curved to follow the lakeshore, a quiet retreat where the sound of bird songs was louder than the traffic noises beyond the wall. Studded with ancient trees in infinite variety, it was lapped by the chill alpine waters and made serene by the view of cloud-cloaked mountains through a soft gray-blue haze.

The sun was warm in contrast to the coolness that lingered in the shade of the trees. The scent of the massed beds of annuals drifted in the light air. Out on the pellucid blue of the lake, a motorboat sped, dragging a white arrow of foam behind it.

Joletta, wandering among the towering rhododendrons and azaleas, pausing to take pictures of the curving beds of pansies and wallflowers, wondered if Violet had ever seen this garden, if it had been there a hundred years before. She should know, but she didn’t. She had skimmed over some portions of the journal in her first reading, meaning to study them in more depth later. Somehow, she had not found time, with her headaches and Rone’s company.

They had a little over a half hour before they were supposed to rejoin the group. They would have to be back at the appointed meeting place promptly on the hour if they didn’t want to be left behind, but for the moment there was no hurry. They sat on one of the many benches placed to take advantage of the lake view, enjoying the feel of the sun and the breeze in their faces. Joletta opened her purse and took out a few pages of the journal, squinting a little in the bright light as she tried to find the right section.

A scene unfolding between Violet and Allain snagged her attention. It was one of haste and longing changing to desire. Violet’s pen had faltered over descriptions of passionate caresses, silken whispers, and crushed roses; she had splattered ink and left long spaces marked with single words and strings of quick dashes, places where imagination had to be exercised for understanding. It was absorbing, if somewhat frustrating reading.

It was long minutes before Joletta realized that Rone was reading over her shoulder. She jerked the pages from his line of sight, holding them against her chest.

“Why did you do that?” he asked as he straightened from where he leaned with his arm along the back of the bench. “I was just getting to the interesting part.”

It had been purest reflex action, an instinctive protectiveness not unmixed with embarrassment. She got to her feet, putting the journal away as she answered. “I don’t know — habit, I guess.”

“If I’m going to help, I have to know what’s in there.”

“Yes, I know. But it will be better when we have more time.”

He didn’t push it, for which she was grateful. They walked along until they came to a long bed of deep purple pansies, so dark they were nearly black. Joletta stopped for a moment beside them, enjoying the sight of the velvety petals ruffling in the wind.

With some vague idea of introducing Rone gradually to the journal, she said, “Have you ever heard of the language of the flowers?”

“You mean as in, "There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance, pray, love, remember"?”

“Exactly,” she said, smiling in surprise, both for his quick understanding and the Shakespearean quote. “It seems the Victorians were big on such things. The flower language was used in the journal for secret communication, a sort of code, by the man my great-grandmother became involved with. Pansies stood for Thoughts, or Thoughts of Love.”

“You think this flower code might have something to do with the perfume you’re after?”

“It crossed my mind, though I can’t really see how it would work.”

“No, but it does make you wonder about the meaning of roses.” He gave her a quizzical glance that plainly showed he had been reading the journal for some time before she noticed.

“Love, of course. What else?”

“Oh, right,” he said in dry disparagement for the evasion.

She gave him a caustic look. Nevertheless, his lack of serious attention for the contents of the journal was comforting. He was, apparently, content to wait for her to tell him as much or as little about it as she wished.

They had regained the path beside the lake and were strolling along it. Ahead of them a few hundred yards was a tall shrub with dark, shiny green leaves and bright clusters of blooms colored a brilliant coral.

“Is that an azalea?” Rone asked, moving toward the shrub.

“It’s possible.”

“Let’s see,” he said, picking up his pace.

Joletta glanced at her watch. There was time. She moved after him.

It was a rhododendron, and beyond it was a mass of lily of the valley, and past that was a rock garden where mats of yellow and magenta blossoms tumbled over mossy stones. Near the rock garden was a small boy, hardly more than a toddler. He stumbled this way and that, talking to himself as he played with a large blue ball. The child’s hair curled in a wild platinum tangle, and there was devilry in his clear blue eyes. He was fast on his feet, and when his laugh rang out, it had the piercing clarity of near-unbearable joy. His parents sat not far away, holding another baby in a carrier between them on a bench while they ate towering cones of ice cream.

The little boy kicked the ball. It spun toward the water of the lake. Rone ran to intercept it, scooping it up and tossing it back. The little boy laughed and kicked the ball again.

What followed was a hilarious game of pitch, one Rone played while kneeling and lunging this way and that in the damp, emerald-tinted grass. Joletta, laughing at the sight, did not look at her watch again for some time.

They missed the bus. The place where it had been parked was empty. Though they had seen one or two of their tour group in the gardens earlier, there was now none of them in sight.

They had been warned that lack of punctuality was a discourtesy to the whole group, one that must alter multitudes of complicated arrangements and reservations. Anyone who failed to be at the appointed place at the required time would be left behind, to catch up with the group later. There would be some small amount of grace allowed, but no more than ten minutes.

They were nearly a half hour late.

“Never mind,” Rone said. “We’ll rent a car and catch up with them in Venice. Or failing that, in Florence.”

“Our suitcases are on that bus,” Joletta reminded him.

“We’ll buy what we need.”

“I’ve already done that once.” His comments were so facile that she looked at him with suspicion rising in her eyes. “You’re not heartbroken over this, are you? It’s what you wanted to do all along, leave the others, rent a car, and go off on our own?”

“The idea had a certain appeal.” There was wariness in his tone as he faced her.

“I think,” she said deliberately, “that you did this on purpose.”

He looked at her a long moment before he answered. “What if I did?”

“Why? Why would you do such a thing?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, his gaze speculative, “but I had the feeling you weren’t exactly comfortable on the bus with me there.”

“Oh, I see. It was all for my sake.”

“Not entirely.”

The calmness of his voice did nothing for her irritated nerves. “Anyway, whatever I may have felt, it didn’t mean I wanted to leave the group.”

“Too late now,” he said.

The words he spoke were pleasant, without rancor. And why not? she thought irascibly. He had what he wanted, didn’t he?

J
UNE
16, 1854

I once considered myself virtuous
.
I
have since discovered that within the heart of every woman of virtue lies a courtesan. I am a passionate female. Also a guileful one. How could I have ever thought otherwise?