Cruel Angel

‘I thought I saw you come in here,’ she pouted.

‘Mr di Camilla just—er—wanted my—autograph,’ butted in Cressida, knowing, even as she said it, just how ridiculous it sounded.

And Alexia’s expression said it all—this man was not a stage-door johnny, hardly the type who would hang around asking actresses for their autographs. She turned china-blue eyes on him. ‘Justin’s waiting for you in the foyer,’ she said, putting her head to one side slightly so that a wing of golden hair fell alluringly over one eye.

‘Thank you,’ said Stefano formally, and then inclined his head in Cressida’s direction. ‘And thank you so much for giving me your . . . time, and your—er—autograph.’

He had managed to make a simple sentence sound positively indecent, she thought furiously. ‘Goodbye,’ snapped Cressida.

‘Addio,’ he murmured.

‘I’ll take you to Justin now,’ gushed Alexia eagerly, but he shook his head.

‘There is no need,’ he said firmly. ‘I know the way, and I am certain that you must have better things to do than to act as my guide.’ He smiled.

As if he didn’t know, thought Cressida, with an oddly painful pang, that Alexia would have stuck to his side all day like a parasite if he’d let her.

Both women watched as he moved away, the superbly cut loose Italian suit only emphasising the remarkably muscular body which it covered.

Alexia stared at Cressida curiously. ‘Did he really want your autograph?’ she asked disbelievingly.

‘Yes,’ muttered Cressida abruptly, thinking angrily that she still didn’t know why he’d been here. And what business did he have with Justin?

The older girl had mischief in her voice. ‘Strange then,’ she said innocently, ‘that you’ve got lipstick smudged all over your mouth!’

Giving a yelp of rage, Cressida grabbed a handful of tissues covered in cold cream and wiped her lips bare. She turned to Alexia reluctantly. ‘Better?’

‘Better. I take it you approve of our new angel?’

There was a long pause, and, not getting the expected response, she looked at Cressida enquiringly. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Yes,’ said Cressida slowly, ‘I heard.’ She had been thinking what an appropriate description of Stefano that was—yes, he had the face of an angel, a dark, mysterious angel. A cruel angel. But then the true meaning of the word sank in, with all its likely repercussions. ‘Angel’ was theatre slang for the financial backer of a play, with all the power and influence which that position merited.

She stared at Alexia in disbelief.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Alexia chattily. ‘I thought that you hadn’t taken it in. He’s been having hush-hush talks with Justin for weeks now—because the other backers are dropping out. He’s a hugely rich Italian businessman, I gather—or perhaps you knew that already?’ she fished.

‘Why should I?’ asked Cressida guilelessly, amazed at the ease of her lie and hating herself for it, and yet not seeing any alternative.

Why? she thought helplessly. Why is he doing it? Stefano had never been involved in the arts before—the very opposite, in fact. She asked herself the question without really wishing to know the answer.

She wasn’t aware of the journey back to the flat, only of the taxi driver’s startled expression when he took in her half-made-up face and the stiff, lacquered hair-do. He looked as if he was about to make a joke, but something in her expression must have stopped him, and the journey home was completed in silence.

All she knew was that she found herself lying on her bed, tears staining the thick foundation on to the cotton pillow, her dinner date with David forgotten.

Crying, not because fate had brought Stefano back into her life, but because he represented a happier time, the time of her life, and she was reminded with heart-rending clarity of how it had once been between them, such a long time ago . . .

CHAPTER TWO

IT HAD been the second hottest summer that century, and England seemed to have caved to a standstill. Everywhere the atmosphere was still and heavy as lead. Even breathing seemed to take the most enormous effort, thought Cressida, as she sucked the hot air down into her lungs.

She was walking towards the park, having arranged to meet Judy her flatmate from the drama school at which they were both final-year students. No one went into the canteen or to cafés in weather like this—they sought the shelter of the frazzled trees, or the light breeze which they prayed they might find near the large pond.

Cressida saw Judy in the distance, gave a languid wave, and walked towards her. Her dark red hair was already damp around her temples, the thin material of her cotton dress limp with the heat and clinging to her body like a second skin. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat—not, as so many of her peers did, for effect, but because it protected the fair skin which had remained pale all summer.

She reached Judy, who was lying on a beach towel spread out on the grass. She sat up and smiled as Cressida approached.

‘Hiya, Cress!’ she called. ‘Come and eat—I’ve made heaps of sandwiches. Ham and tomato, egg and cress. Cress! Get it?!’

Cressida’s shaded eyes were raised heavenwards. ‘Original sort of person, aren’t you?’ she teased, and shook away the foil-wrapped packages which her friend offered, wrinkling her nose at them. ‘No, thanks. I couldn’t face them. I don’t know how you can eat in this sort of weather.’

‘Oh, you just want to be thin, thin, thin,’ teased Judy as she flapped her hand in the air. ‘Go away!’ She swiped again. ‘Bother these wasps—there’s millions of them.’

‘Well, if you buy jam doughnuts, what do you expect?’ asked Cressida drily, and sank down on to the grass, pulling off the straw hat, so that her hair tumbled down the sides of her face.

Judy’s sandwich froze in mid-air. ‘Wow!’ she breathed. ‘Hot!’

‘Too much mustard?’ enquired Cressida mildly.

‘Hotter than that. I’m in love!’

‘Where?’

‘Over there. Don’t look now. Oh, Cressida—now he’ll see!’

And Cressida saw him.

He was sitting across the grass from them, but his face was clearly visible. The thing that struck her first was how cool he looked, and how surprising that was in view of the fact that he was wearing more clothes than almost anyone else. Not for him the ubiquitous uniform of singlet and shorts—a lot of them worn by pot-bellied men who should have known better. This man was wearing a lightweight suit of cream, against which his olive skin contrasted superbly well. She found herself studying him closely, which in itself was unusual, thinking to herself that he, of all people, would have looked superb in some of the sawn-off denims which were all the rage that summer. The man had loosened his tie, and that was his sole concession to the day.

Dark brown velvet eyes met hers, and held them in a mocking gaze, one eyebrow raised in question, and she hurriedly looked away, taking a mouthful of the warm lemon barley beside her.

‘I didn’t get a look-in,’ said Judy in mock disgust. ‘He was too busy ogling you.’

Cressida blushed. ‘He wasn’t really.’

‘Yes, he was.’ Judy finished the last of her sandwich and rolled over on to her stomach. ‘Oh, well—I might as well tan the back of my legs. Do you want some cream?’

Cressida shook her head from side to side, trying to create some moving air, but it was no good. There was simply no cool to be found. ‘No, thanks—I’ll burn. I want some shade. I’ll wander down towards the lake.’ She stood up, in a fluid movement which was testimony to the years of ballet training. She tucked her copy of Antony and Cleopatra under her arm, and slowly walked across the fried earth.

She had found the welcome green umbrella of a horse-chestnut, when she heard a loud buzzing and a wasp danced infuriatingly around her face. She waved it away. ‘Off! Off!’

But the wasp was persistent, straying so dangerously close to her eye that her wild swipe at it sent her off balance, causing her to trip forward, one foot catching the jagged edge of an exposed tree root.

Down she tumbled to sit on the grass, seeing the sudden appearance of blood on her foot. The pain brought tears to her eyes, and as a shadow moved over her she looked up with over-bright eyes at the man in the suit.

‘Do not cry,’ he said gently, and she noticed that his voice had the slightest foreign inflexion. ‘Here. Let me see.’

And, before she could stop him, he had crouched beside her, gently removing her sandal and putting it aside, and then he was cradling her foot in the palm of his hands, examining it with long fingers which were both cool and firm. Bizarrely, she felt an electric tingling at the curiously intimate sensation of his skin touching hers, and in an automatic reflex she tried to withdraw the foot.

‘No, please . . . ’ she protested without conviction, her normal savoir-faire deserting her. She was transformed instead into a creature who was gazing up at him as if he could take the pain away by magic.

‘Yes,’ he insisted quietly. ‘I will dress it for you.’

She watched as he retreated to the tree where he’d been sitting to pick up a bottle of mineral water. He saw her bemused expression as he returned. ‘Not fizzy,’ he smiled. ‘Still water. And Italian—so it’s only the best, naturally, for such an exquisite foot!’

Involuntarily, she gave a slight shiver at the compliment he paid her, watching as he tipped the mineral water over a fine piece of linen which he produced from his jacket. He squeezed it out with strong hands and then, very firmly, tied it around her narrow foot.

The coolness of the makeshift bandage provided instant relief, but, perversely, she missed that contact with his hand as he had touched her bare flesh. She found herself looking at the line of his mouth, at the slightly mocking upward curve at each side—and began to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him.

She shook her head to make the thoughts go away. Crazy thoughts! Summer madness. Heat-stroke. ‘I have to go,’ she said.

To her surprise he made no demur. He nodded. ‘Of course.’ And with the same delicate touch he slipped her bare foot back into the sandal, his dark eyes narrowed slightly as they looked at her with concern. Prince Charming, she thought suddenly, as he fastened the strap.

He sprang like a panther to his feet and, looking down at her, extended his hands.

She found herself reaching up her hands, and when he had grasped them he swung her up lightly so that she stood in front of him, looking up expectantly into his face. For a moment he frowned. He was very close. She could hear the humming of bees, and the longed-for breeze had just started. Her lips instinctively parted, and her green eyes were huge in her face.

And suddenly, he became very formal. ‘Can you walk?’ he asked courteously.

She felt as though she had snapped out of a dream. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, very shaken, though less by the accident than by the realisation that she had been standing waiting to be kissed by a man who was a total stranger to her. And thank God, she thought, that he had not responded. She tried to move away, but he caught her by the elbow.

‘Let me help you,’ he insisted, in that mocking, accented voice, and slid his arm around her slender waist to walk her back to Judy.

And she allowed him to hold her in that familiar way, relaxing naturally against his strength. The short journey was heaven, but, too soon, they’d arrived. She saw Judy roll over from her prone position, rubbing her eyes, her expression of curiosity showing that she’d seen nothing of the incident. ‘I—tripped,’ Cressida explained, still weak from the effect that this man was having on her.

His hand dropped from her waist. ‘It will cause you pain for no more than a few hours, I think.’ He smiled. And then he looked down at a mute Cressida, cupping her chin between thumb and forefinger. ‘Ciao,’ he said softly, so softly that only she could hear, and then he walked away over the brown grass, the brilliant sunlight glancing off the dark hair.

There was silence for a moment. Judy’s eyes were like saucers.

‘Who was he?’ she demanded. ‘Close-up he’s even more of a hunk!’

It sounded absurd, even to Cressida. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

‘What do you mean—you don’t know?’ quizzed Judy.

‘Just what I say,’ replied Cressida, a touch querulously. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life, and all I know is that he tended to my foot.’ Her eye was caught by the linen handkerchief.

‘But did you see the way he was looking at you? Did you give him your phone number?’

‘He didn’t ask,’ said Cressida, trying, and failing, to sound annoyed at the implication that she might give out her phone number to a person she had just met. Because if she were perfectly honest, she would have given it—willingly.

Judy was looking at his retreating back-view just visible in the distance. ‘Well, that’s that, then. London’s a big place—you’ll never see him again.’

And that was what Cressida had thought, too, after a week of spinning ‘What if?’ fantasies.

What if he went there for lunch every day? Would it look too obvious if she went back there? And why should it? she reasoned—for all he knew it might be her regular lunchtime venue. Which might have been all very well in theory, had the weather not broken with a series of alarming thunderstorms which prevented her from re-visiting the park.

What if he worked near the drama school? Along with half a million others, she thought wryly. If he did work near by, she never saw him, even though she spent too much of her meagre grant on frequenting the many swish new sandwich bars in the vicinity, thinking she might spot him.

No, she decided, as she pushed the fine linen handkerchief she had carefully laundered and ironed to the back of her underwear drawer—it had just been a strange, one-off encounter, and she should take comfort from the fact that she had reacted so strongly to him, stranger or not, because hadn’t it worried her for long enough that she had seemed to share none of her peers’ urges for sexual experimentation? Hadn’t there been shrugs and whispered comments because she showed not the slightest inclination to disappear at parties—unlike the other girls, who were seen leaving the room with their current flames, usually in the direction of the bedroom.

A week went by, and, if not exactly forgetting about the man, then at least Cressida had put him out of her mind as she concentrated for the end-of-term production, in which she was playing Cleopatra.

It was a gruelling rehearsal, and she was glad enough to finish, sitting in the cramped dressing-room cleaning her face and trying to decide whether or not to go to her speech coach’s party that night. But she was strangely reluctant. And let’s face it, she thought, as she dragged the brush through her thick red hair—it’ll be the same old faces, the same old jokes. No one will notice if you aren’t there.

A long bath, a cool drink on the plant-filled patio and the flat to herself seemed an infinitely preferable option.

It was a warm, balmy night, with the setting sun gilding the clouds pink as she walked the short distance to the flat. She had been lucky to have hit it off with Judy so well in their first few weeks of term, and had been delighted to be asked to share the flat with her. Judy’s parents were rich. Rich, rich, rich, as she cheerfully admitted herself. And they loved indulging their only daughter—thus the spacious flat in a prestigious area of London. Otherwise, Cressida—with her elderly aunt her only relation in England—would have been living in some grotty little flat, goodness knew where.

Her only bone of contention was that Judy had refused point-blank to accept any rent money. ‘My parents have already paid for it,’ she had pointed out. The only way round this was for Cressida to buy new things for the flat—so that every month a new vase, pretty dishes or colourful scatter cushions were introduced into their home.

Cressida had her bath, and pulled on a filmy wrap patterned in soft shades of green. Her hair dried into a cloud of fragrant dark waves shot with fire. She had just poured herself a glass of weak Pimm’s and added lemon and a sprig of mint when there was a ring at the doorbell.

It must be Judy, she thought, back early and disenchanted by the party, but she opened the door to find the man from the park there, silently watching her, not a flicker of emotion on the implacable olive-skinned face.

She opened her mouth to say all the things which she knew one should say in such circumstances, from, ‘What are you doing here?’ to, ‘How did you find out where I lived?’ But she said none of these, just stood regarding him with the same intense interest as she saw reflected in his own eyes.

There was a mocking look in the quizzical way in which he surveyed her, one dark eyebrow arched, the trace of a smile touching the firm mouth. ‘You knew I would come.’

She looked into those dark velvety eyes and was lost. She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, dry-mouthed, recognising the truth in his words immediately. ‘I knew.’ And, without another word, he had taken her in his arms and begun to kiss her.

Cressida groaned as she turned her head away from the pillow and lay staring at the wall. She had been so young, so naïve. Anyone who had ever doubted the veracity of the phrase ‘she was like putty in his hands’ had only to look at her relationship with Stefano.

She sat up, her hand going to her hair and encountering the thick lacquer which clogged it, her eyes going to the small clock on the rickety bedside table. It was gone seven, and David was due here at eight—and she hadn’t even cleaned her face properly. If she didn’t remove the heavy stage make-up soon, there would be hell to pay with her skin. Her head had begun to throb alarmingly. The last thing she felt like doing was going out to dinner, being forced to make polite conversation—even with someone as charming as David—not when her mind was spinning round like a Ferris wheel gone crazy.

She dialled his number with a shaky hand, and to her relief it was answered on the second ring. At least he hadn’t already left.

‘Hello, David—it’s me, Cressida!’

‘Well—hello to my favourite actress!’ came the cheery reply. ‘Are we still on for tonight?’

‘I wondered,’ she said apologetically, ‘if I could take a rain-check?’

The cultured voice sounded anxious. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’

She liked him—she owed him more than a flimsy excuse, but not the truth; she couldn’t face that. ‘No, I’m not ill. It was just a—hard day. Tough rehearsal—you know.’

The anxiousness in his voice was magnified. ‘Everything going all right with the play, I hope?’

She hastened to reassure him. ‘The play’s fine—you know it is. Hasn’t everyone said that you’re the best playwright since—?’

‘I know. Since Shakespeare. Just not so prolific, nor so acclaimed.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve been looking forward to a date with my favourite actress all week, and now she’s turning me down for no reason other than it’s been a long day. I’ve had a long day, too, you know.’

‘Oh, David—don’t make me feel bad. It isn’t that I don’t want to see you—just that I don’t feel up to going out for dinner.’

‘Then we won’t!’ he said, sounding triumphant. ‘And if Cressida won’t go out to the restaurant then the restaurant must come to Cressida. We could eat a take-away—no problem. What do you fancy? Indian? Chinese? Pizza?’

‘Oh, no—honestly. I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ he insisted.

She was fighting a losing battle here. ‘But I’m not feeling very good company tonight.’

‘You’re always good company to me, Cressida,’ he said quietly.

And after that declaration, she found it impossible to say no to him, agreeing that she would see him at eight-thirty, and that they would choose what they wanted from a local restaurant, and he’d go out to buy the meal.

As she replaced the receiver, she thought how ironic it was that David should make his first hint at something approaching seriousness at precisely the wrong time. They had been dating now for almost four months, and he was the first man she’d seen regularly since Stefano. The only man, apart from Stefano, she realised.

It had taken a long time for her to even consider going out with another man after the breakup of her marriage, but David had seemed the perfect partner, the balm she needed to soothe her troubled spirit. He was everything she liked and respected in a man—and everything that Stefano was not. They liked the same things—primarily the theatre, but they also liked loading up their bicycles on to the roof-rack of David’s estate car and escaping from the rat race into the country, where Cressida would sit quietly reading, while David indulged his hobby of photographing birds. Most importantly for her, everything they did did not end up with them in bed together. Her face flamed, and a pulse began to throb insistently as she recalled Stefano’s idea of recreation. David was a gentleman. He was prepared to wait. But then a memory intruded—jarred and disturbed her—because so, too, had Stefano—at the beginning . . .

His kiss was like nothing she had ever experienced, on or off the stage. There had been no one special in her life—and at just nineteen that hadn’t been so very unusual. And even the on-stage embraces, where the current breed of up-and-coming actors prided themselves on simulating realism, kissing you with an intimacy that Cressida had found slightly repugnant and definitely unnecessary—none of them had even remotely resembled what this man was now doing to her.

His mouth cajoled her into instant response, so that she found herself somehow knowing that he wanted their tongues to lace together in erotic dance—the result of which sent her heart-rate soaring, and made her insides melt. She felt a tingling awareness in the tips of her breasts, a growing warmth in her groin. She found that she wanted to explore the substance of his taut, muscular body, so that when he pushed her up against the wall and ground his hips into hers, like a man who was out of control, she did not cry out her protest, but urged him on with a slurred and exultant, ‘Yes, oh, yes,’ and his answer was to lightly brush his hands over her breasts, gently stroking each one in turn until he had her almost collapsing against him in agonised arousal, which was replaced with an equally agonised frustration when he suddenly stopped, his hands leaving her, but he himself not moving, just surveying her with dark eyes in whose depths were sparks she could not fathom.

He did not speak for a moment. Months later, he was to tell her that it was the first time in his life he had ever been rendered speechless. And when he did speak, it was with a rigid control which astounded her.

‘Not now.’ He shook his head. ‘And not in such a way. If you had not been wearing such a garment—’ he shrugged in the direction of the filmy green wrap ‘—then I should not have lost my head.’ He lowered his voice. ‘When I collect you tomorrow—at eight—you will wear something more—’ he seemed to muse for a second, and then he smiled, a smile which transformed the handsome, stern face into someone she knew she would die for ‘—suitable. Cover up a little, yes? Or I will not be responsible for my actions, cara. But not trousers. Promise me you will never cover up your legs with trousers?’

It was preposterous, but she found herself agreeing in delight, loving the mastery in his voice as he spoke. Had she been older, wiser, surely she would have steered clear of a man who, even at that early stage, had shown such a strong inclination to control her?

He was turning to leave, his hand on the door-handle, when something shocking had occurred to her. ‘Your—your name?’ she stammered. ‘I don’t even know your name.’

He gave her a long, unbelievably sexy smile, before leaning forward to plant on her mouth a slow kiss of such unbearably sweet promise that she trembled again. ‘Names are not important,’ he murmured. ‘But it is Stefano. Stefano di Camilla.’