Lucy Gordon: The Mediterranean Rebel’s Bride

‘You describe it so cleverly, darling. I think you’re wonderful. I couldn’t do what you do.’

That had been Freda’s way-always ready with the right words, even if they’d meant nothing to her. Polly, prosaic to her fingertips, had seen that slow, luxurious smile melt strong men, luring them on with the hint of mystery.

To her there had been no mystery. Freda had done and said whatever would soften her audience. It had brought her a multitude of admirers and a rich husband.

Polly had even watched helplessly as a boyfriend of her own had been enticed away from her, without a backward look. Nor had she blamed him. She hadn’t even blamed Freda. It would have been like resenting the sun for shining.

Freda’s heart-shaped face had been beautiful. Polly, with roughly the same shape, just missed beauty by the vital millionth of an inch. Freda’s hair had been luxuriously blonde. Polly was also fair, and could probably have had the same rich shade if she’d worked on it. But life as a senior nurse in a busy hospital left her neither time nor cash to indulge her hair. She kept it clean and wore it long, her one concession to vanity.

Trapped in the slow-moving queue, she had plenty of time to consider the matter and come to the usual depressing conclusions.

‘I look like I’ve been left out in the rain by someone who’s forgotten. But is that so strange, after the way I’ve spent the last year?’

At last she was out, and searching for a taxi to take her to the cheap hotel she’d booked on-line, which was all she could afford. It was basic, but clean and comfortable, with friendly service. Judging it too late now to start her search, she dined in the tiny garden restaurant off the best spaghetti she’d ever tasted. Afterwards she showered and stretched out on the bed, gazing at the snapshot she’d taken from her purse.

It was a small picture, taken in a machine, and it showed Freda, gorgeous as always, sitting with a young man in his late twenties. He had dark hair that curled slightly, a lean face and a stubborn mouth. Freda was leaning against him, and his arm was about her in a gesture of possessiveness. His cheek rested on her head, and although he was half smiling at the camera it was clear that the rest of the world barely existed for him.

Polly studied him, trying to decide why, despite his air of joy, there was a kind of fierceness about him that defied analysis. He seemed to be uttering a silent warning that Freda belonged to him, and he would defend his ownership with his last breath.

But it hadn’t worked out like that. He had lost her for ever. And soon he would know it finally.

For a long time Polly lay looking at the ceiling, musing.

What am I doing here? I don’t really want to see Ruggiero Rinucci, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to see me.

Maybe I should have written to him first? But I don’t have his exact address. Besides, some things are better face to face. Plus, men are such cowards that if he knew why I was coming he’d probably vanish. Oh, heavens, how did I get into this?

On the edge of Naples stood La Pista Grande, a large winding track that was the scene of many motorbike races.

Here, too, the firm of Fantone & Rinucci tested their motorbikes, with Ruggiero insisting on doing all tests personally, and taking every machine to the limit.

‘If it doesn’t half kill him he thinks there’s something wrong with it,’ one of the mechanics had remarked admiringly, and when Ruggiero was on the track as many as possible of the workforce turned out to watch, cheer and take bets on his survival.

He arrived next morning with Evie, gave her some technical paperwork about the bike and showed her to the best place in the stands, just where the track curved three times in a short space, so that briefly he would be riding straight for her before turning into another sharp bend.

‘If I break my neck, it’ll likely be just there,’ he said, indicating the mechanics who were also there. ‘That’s why they gather in this spot-hoping.’

Evie laughed. There was a sprinkling of women among the mechanics, and she doubted if they’d come hoping for an accident. More likely it was connected to the sight of Ruggiero in tight black leather gear that emphasised every taut line of his tall, lean but muscular figure.

He gave a harsh grin and departed, leaving Evie to get to her seat in the front row. As she was settling she became aware of a young woman standing a few feet away. She was slim, with long fair hair and a slightly nervous manner. She gave a brief smile and sat down, looking rather as though she hoped to avoid notice.

‘Are you from the factory?’ Evie asked pleasantly.

‘No-you?’

‘No, I just came to see Ruggiero. He’s my brother-in-law.’

After exchanging a few more words, the stranger smiled absently and seemed disinclined to talk further. Evie took out the paperwork and plunged happily into facts and figures about sequential electronic fuel injection, adjustable preload and eccentric chain adjuster, totally absorbed until the testing was about to begin. Then she looked at the young woman and realised that she sat like stone, motionless, her eyes fixed on the track as though something vital depended on what she saw there.

Ruggiero kept his grin in place as he walked towards the two men who were holding the bike. He used the grin as a kind of visor behind which he could hide. Today the effort was greater than usual, because he’d had little sleep. His thoughts about Sapphire had been destructive. Once conjured up, she’d refused to depart, haunting him all night until he fell into an uneasy sleep and awoke after one hour, not at all refreshed.

The sensible course would have been to delay the test until another day, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit that he didn’t feel up to it. Besides, he refused to give in to fancies. Sapphire could be banished if he were only resolute.

He pulled on the black helmet that enveloped his head completely, blotting out his identity and turning him into a cross between a spider and a spaceman. A kick and the engine roared into life. Another kick and he was turning out onto the track.

He took the first circuit at a mere ninety miles an hour-a moderate speed-leaning into the turn so deeply that his knee nearly touched the ground. Then he shot ahead, going faster and faster, until the machine reached a hundred and fifty-the extreme of its ability. But he knew that beyond the official limit there was always a little extra, and he urged it on, demanding just that bit more, and then more, because if he went fast enough he might outrun the ghost that pursued him.

Yet she was there, just behind him, warning him that flight was impossible. She was there inside his helmet, telling him that she would always be with him.

But she was also ahead of him, on the track, her long fair hair fanned into a halo by the wind-waiting for him.

Suddenly all the pictures ran together, so that he could no longer see ahead. Only half knowing what he did, he turned the front wheel, desperate to avoid the apparition that might or might not be there. The next moment he was flying through the air, to land with a brutal force that knocked the breath out of him and sent the world whirling into chaos.

FREDA had known little about Ruggiero except that his family lived in the Villa Rinucci, and Polly would have gone there on the morning after her arrival but for the chance of the hotel receptionist leaving open a Naples newspaper with a picture of Ruggiero just visible. Knowing no Italian, she’d asked the man to translate the piece, and found a description of Carlo’s wedding, with some background about the family, including a mention of the motorbike firm. She had decided to go there first, and the receptionist had called a taxi and given the driver the name of the firm.