The Italian's Baby. Lucy Gordon

down at odd moments, and then she would laugh and chatter as she handed him spanners. Sometimes she would get under the car with him, and they would kiss and laugh like mad things.

      And perhaps it was a kind of madness, he thought as he headed the Rolls out of Rome to his villa in the country. Mad, because that heart-stopping joy could never last. And it hadn’t.

      He’d brushed the thought of her aside once, but now she seemed to be there beside him as he drove on in the darkness, tormenting him with memories of how enchanting she had been, with her sweet gentleness, her tenderness, her endless giving. He had been twenty, and she seventeen, and they’d thought it would last forever.

      Perhaps it might have done if—

      He shut off that thought too. Strong man though he was, the ‘what if?’ was unbearable.

      But her ghost wouldn’t be banished. It whispered sadly that their brief love had been perfect, even though it had ended in heartbreak. She reminded him of other things too, how she’d lain in his arms, whispering words of love and passion.

      ‘I’m yours, always—always—I shall never love any other man—’

      ‘I have nothing to offer you—’

      ‘If you give me your love, that’s all I ask.’

      ‘But I’m a poor man.’

      How she had laughed at that, ripples of young, confident laughter that had filled his soul. ‘We’re not poor—as long as we have each other…’

      And then it was over, and they no longer had each other.

      Suddenly there was a squeal of tyres and the wheel spun in his hand. He didn’t know what had happened, except that the car had stopped and he was shaking.

      He got out to clear his head, looking up and down the country road. It was empty in both directions.

      Like his life, he thought. Coming out of the empty darkness and leading ahead into empty darkness.

      It had been that way for fifteen years.

      The Allingham was the newest, most luxurious hotel to have gone up in London’s exclusive Mayfair. Its service was the best, its prices the highest.

      Rebecca Hanley had been appointed its first PR consultant partly because, as the chairman of the board had said, ‘She looks as if she grew up with money to burn, and didn’t give a damn. And that’s useful when you’re trying to get people to burn money without giving a damn.’

      Which was astute of him, because Rebecca’s father had been a very rich man indeed. And these days she didn’t give a damn about anything.

      She lived in the Allingham, because it was simpler than having a home of her own. She used the hotel’s beauty salon and gymnasium, and the result was a figure that wasn’t an ounce overweight, and a face that was a mask of perfection.

      Tonight she was putting the final touches to her appearance when the phone rang. It was Danvers Jordan, the banker who was her current escort.

      They were to attend the engagement party of his younger brother, held in the Allingham. As Danvers’ companion and a representative of the hotel, she would be ‘on duty’ in two ways, and must look right, down to every detail.

      As she checked herself in three angled mirrors Rebecca knew that nobody could fault her looks. She had the slim, elegant body that could wear the tight black dress, and the endless legs demanded by the short skirt. The neckline was low-cut, but within relatively modest limits. Around her neck she wore one large diamond.

      Her hair had started life as light brown, but now it was a soft honey-blonde that struck a strange, distinctive note with her green eyes. Small diamonds in her ears added the final touch.

      On exactly the stroke of eight the knock came on her door and she sauntered gracefully across to let Danvers in.

      ‘You look glorious,’ he said, as he always did. ‘I shall be the proudest man there.’

      Proudest. Not happiest.

      The party was in a banqueting room, hung with drapes of white silk interspersed with masses of white roses. The engaged couple were little more than children, Rory twenty-four, Elspeth eighteen. Elspeth’s father was the president of the merchant bank for which Danvers worked, and which was part of the consortium that had financed the Allingham.

      She was like a kitten, Rebecca thought, sweet, innocent and intense about everything, especially being in love.

      ‘I didn’t think people talked about “forever and ever” any more,’ she said to Danvers when the evening was half over.

      ‘I suppose if you’re young enough and stupid enough it seems to make sense,’ he said wryly.

      ‘Do you really have to be young and stupid?’

      ‘Come on, darling! Grown-ups know that things happen, life goes wrong.’

      ‘That’s true,’ she said quietly.

      Elspeth came flying up to them, throwing her arms around Rebecca.

      ‘Oh, I’m so happy. And what about you two? It’s time you tied the knot. Why don’t we make the announcement now?’

      ‘No,’ Rebecca said quickly. Then, fearing that she had been too emphatic, she hastened to add, ‘This is your night. If I hijacked it I’d be in trouble with my boss.’

      ‘All right, but on my wedding day I’m going to toss you my bouquet.’

      She danced away and Rebecca heaved a secret sigh of relief.

      ‘Why did she call you Becky?’ Danvers asked.

      ‘It’s short for Rebecca.’

      ‘I’ve never heard anyone use it with you, and I’m glad. Rebecca’s more natural to you, gracious and sophisticated. You’re not a Becky sort of person.’

      ‘And what is “a Becky sort of person” Danvers?’

      ‘Well, a bit coltish and awkward. Somebody who’s just a kid and doesn’t know much about the world.’

      She put her glass down suddenly because her hand was shaking. But she knew he wouldn’t notice.

      ‘I haven’t always been gracious and sophisticated,’ she said.

      ‘That’s how I like to see you, though.’

      And, of course, Danvers wouldn’t be interested in any other version of her than the one that suited himself. She would probably marry him in the end, not for love, but for lack of any strong opposing force. She was thirty-two and the aimless drift that was her life couldn’t go on indefinitely.

      She rejected his suggestion of dinner, claiming tiredness. He saw her to her suite and made one last attempt to prolong the evening, drawing her close for a practiced kiss, but she stiffened.

      ‘I really am very tired. Goodnight, Danvers.’

      ‘All right. You get your beauty sleep and be perfect for tomorrow.’

      ‘Tomorrow?’

      ‘We’re having dinner with the chairman of the bank. You can’t have forgotten.’

      ‘Of course not. I’ll be there, at my best. Goodnight.’

      If he didn’t go soon she would scream.

      At last she had the blessed relief of solitude. She turned out the lights and went to stand in the window, looking out at the lights of London. They winked and glittered against the darkness, and in her morbid mood it seemed as if she was looking at her whole life from now on: an endless vista of shiny occasions—dinner with the chairman, a box at the opera, lunch in fashionable restaurants, entertaining in a luxurious house, the perfect wife and hostess.

      It had seemed enough before, but something about tonight had unsettled her. That young