But it was hard to stick to her resolutions when she was trembling with sweet urgency as never before. Whatever Matteo had promised about keeping his distance, in another moment he would have cast virtue and honour to the winds, and made love to her with her full consent.
She took her consolation in the knowledge that the vital moment was a success. Liza’s world seemed to have tilted in the way she needed, which meant that the arrangement was working.
And there was always tonight, she thought, feeling happiness creep through her. She tried to communicate that thought to Matteo, but he seemed anxious to get back to his own room, almost unable to meet her eyes.
That night his clerk called to say that the judge was working very late. By the time he arrived home she was asleep.
Two days later Galina returned to her own home. She never spoke of the dangerous subject again, but she smiled at Holly in a way that conveyed her meaning unmistakably.
Matteo travelled everywhere with a police escort, leaving early in the morning and arriving home late. Then he would spend his time with Liza, leaving little time for Holly.
Gradually she realised that her first suspicion was correct. He was avoiding her. Now he slept in his own room, with an alarm set for the early hours so that he could join her then, slipping in on the far side and staying there. Clearly the danger that had almost engulfed them once was not to be allowed to happen again.
In her odd moments alone, Holly watched the news compulsively. One evening there was a brief snippet about Fortese. She’d seen his face before, but only in newspapers that she had hastily put aside to keep them from Liza. Now she had the chance to consider him properly.
He might be a villain but he didn’t have the face of a thug. His features were narrow, gentlemanly, and all the more chilling for that. Eyes like ice, the smile of a dead man. He had committed several murders and always escaped by bribing or frightening witnesses or the judge.
But in Matteo he had met his match. On Matteo’s orders the witnesses received double the usual protection and, although clearly scared, they had given their damn-ing testimony.
Matteo could be neither bribed nor bullied. He had imposed a sentence of thirty years. Fortese had listened, motionless, to the sentence. Then, at the very last moment, he had spoken.
‘No prison can hold me,’ he said. ‘I shall find you and kill you.’
Commotion. The police pounced and hustled him out. Judge Fallucci showed no expression as he collected his things and departed.
Watching it now, Holly felt a chill of fear consume her. Matteo could take as many precautions as he liked. Fortese would win. That was the message.
That night she undressed thoughtfully, switched out the light and sat up in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the distance.
On the other side of the door she could hear Matteo moving around. She listened, tense, wondering if he would come in, but, as she had expected, he made no move towards her. After a while the light under the door went out.
She waited, coming to a decision. It took all her courage, but she wouldn’t turn back now. She didn’t know how much time there might be left.
At the door she raised her hand to knock, then lowered it. He was her husband, and she was blowed if she was going to knock. She tried the door and, to her relief, it was not locked.
Like so many other things about him, the room surprised her. It was small, almost monastic. In the corner was a narrow bed, on which he sat, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped, his forehead drooped wearily against them.
He was too lost in his own thoughts to hear her enter, and didn’t know she was there until she dropped down on her knees beside him.
‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you,’ he said.
‘Why, because you’re afraid you might have to talk to me?’ she asked, looking up seriously into his face.
‘No, I just…’ but he gave up at once, confronted by the truth in her eyes.
‘I needed to talk to you tonight,’ she said. ‘There was a programme going back over your history with Fortese-’
‘Did Liza-?’
‘No, she knows nothing except that you’re unusually busy just now, but she doesn’t know why. We talk all the time, except when the physiotherapist comes to work with her leg, or a teacher comes to give her a lesson.
‘When I can be alone I read the papers or watch the news, and there are so many things I want to ask you, but you hide away.’
‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Don’t patronise me, Matteo,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘I’m not a fool. I know exactly what there is to worry about. Every day I listen for you to come home, knowing that one day you may not come. I tell myself that if it was bad news someone would telephone first, and if there’s no phone call then you’re on your way. I try so hard to believe that.
‘When you enter the house I want to run and see you, to touch you and make sure that you’re real, but I keep back and let Liza have you to herself. I have to be content with staying in the shadows, but I thought we’d have more than that. The first night-’
‘The first night I came close to breaking my solemn word to you-’
‘Be damned to your word!’ she said, so fiercely that he stared. ‘Stop being a lawyer all the time. All right, you promised to keep your distance but you didn’t swear an oath about it in court. That kind of foolish promise is made to be broken. What kind of man can keep such a promise with a woman he wants?’
‘Who says I want you?’ he demanded in a voice that was as brutal as he could make it. Much more of this and he would go mad.
But nothing worked with this woman. Instead of being dumbfounded she flung back, ‘You do!’ in a voice of pure rage. ‘You tell me every moment, and you tell me most when you’re trying hardest not to. You want me as much as I want you, so for pity’s sake give up the pretence.’
She was still kneeling beside him, her face upturned, the moonlight shadowing the hollows of her breast. Moisture gleamed on his forehead as he seized her shoulders in cruel fingers.
‘Will you stop this?’ he demanded. ‘I’m trying to act like a man of honour.’
‘Then be damned to your honour too. Forget it. If Fortese shoots you down, shall I engrave that on your tomb? Here lies a man of honour. He kept his word to the end, but he left his wife alone and desolate, with an empty heart.’
She drew a deep breath and took a calculated risk. ‘Unless, of course, honour is just another word for fear.’
‘Are you mad?’ he flashed at her. ‘Of course it’s fear. How can I not be afraid? Yes, I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time, and that first night I nearly took you. But I’m glad I didn’t because where can it end? We’ve grown closer than we meant to, you know that. But who am I to dare to get close to a woman? To dare to l-’
‘To love?’ she challenged him. ‘Say it.’
But he shook his head.
‘At any other time I’d reach out to you,’ he growled, ‘and stop at nothing until I’d made you mine. I’d fight anyone, even you, to make you love me. I’d take you to bed and love you until you forgot the whole world, and I’d enclose your heart in mine so that we were one-if only-’
He sighed heavily.
‘If only…’
She tried to answer but something was making her throat ache.
‘But what right do I have to try to win your love when I probably won’t be here much longer? We have to be realistic. Fortese specialises in murder. He’s practically a genius, and he’ll probably get to me.’
‘Don’t-’ she whispered in agony.
‘I must. One day-when this is over-if we get through it-’
‘We will. You’re not going to die,’ she said frantically.
‘I pray to God I won’t, now that I have so much to live for. But I won’t risk leaving you when our love has only just started-’