Wounds of Passion by Charlotte Lamb

Author:Charlotte Lamb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1993-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

THERE was a sudden heatwave the following weekend. The soft autumnal mists which had hung over Venice blew away on Thursday night, and next morning the sun was blazing as if it were July again. Antonia was so hot that she had to move slowly at work that day. Patsy told her to go home after lunch, which they had together.

‘See you on Monday; I’m off to have a siesta. Why don’t you do the same, darling, when you get home?’ she said, lethargically fanning herself with a real nineteenth-century Venetian fan made of black silk and lace, sprayed with hand-painted red roses, as she made for the stairs.

On her way home, Antonia decided Patsy was right; it was too hot to do anything. She would go straight upstairs to her room and lie down with the shutters closed to keep the heat of the day out. When she got back to the little pink house, though, she found Patrick sitting in the garden, sketching, under the fig tree.

‘You’re early,’ he said, glancing at her sideways as she tried to slip into the house without his noticing her arrival.

She halted, shyly said, ‘Hi, isn’t this some heatwave? Patsy sent me home; she said it was too hot to work.’

‘She’s right; I was just going to stop. Come and see this. What do you think? Have I managed to get those shadows on the wall right?’

She stood behind his shoulder and stared at his pencilled sketch of the house. ‘It’s terrific,’ she said, admiring his technique. He was better than her by miles; he always would be. She wished she had his talent.

He put his head back to look up at her, his face oddly inverted, the lids half down over glimmering blue eyes, smiling. ‘Thank you.’

She felt a tremor deep inside her, and turned away, her breath catching. ‘Well, I’m going to have a siesta for an hour or two.’

‘Come to the beach instead,’ he said, standing up. ‘A swim will help cool you down and afterwards you can sleep under an umbrella.’

‘The Lido will be too crowded today.’

‘Not by the time we get there.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s gone three now; it will be half-past four before we get on to the beach. Come on, this is the perfect weather for the Lido.’

She looked up at the deep blue bowl of the sky, cloudless and brazen. He was right; this was a day for being on the beach. She had a sudden yearning to plunge into the sea, feel cold water breaking over her whole body. She looked at Patrick’s coaxing face and gave in, shrugging.

‘OK.’

The Lido of Venice had originally been a barrier of silt built up over centuries by local rivers rushing down from the Dolomite mountains, carrying mud and sand which was thrown out into the Adriatic and stuck there, forming a very elongated, narrow island with some fine sandy beaches which became the playground of Venice. Always crowded, these were now lined with cabins, some belonging to the Lido’s grand hotels, others rented by local people or visitors.

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