Free The Sin of Cynara by Violet Winspear

Teri hopped up the half-moon of steps and dived into the bed, and there he sat sipping his drink, while Carol unbound her hair and began to brush it.
      'It's better than a dog's home,' Teri announced. 'D'you reckon he'll let me ride one of the ponies, Cally?'
      'If you ask him very politely,' she said, 'and remember to call him Uncle Rudolph.'
      Teri gazed at her big-eyed over the rim of his beaker. 'It's a very long name and that lady with the laughy eyes called him Rudi.'
      'That, my Buster, is because she is the baróne's sister and entitled to - to an affectionate name for him, just as I have my name for you. To you, caro, he is Uncle Rudolph and don't you forget it. He's an important man, remember, and we must show a proper respect for his hospitality.'
      'Will we see much of him, Cally?' Teri nibbled a chocolate finger and his own straight dark brows made that single line across his small but decidedly Italian nose as he watched the lamplight shimmering on Carol's hair. 'He touched you !'
      'It was nothing.' But even as she spoke Carol could feel the wave of warmth sweeping over her, and that clutch of panic in the pit of her stomach. The baróne was absolute master here, and in his eyes she was the woman who had lived with Vincenzo and borne a love child. She had to accept the bitter with the sweet, and there was a certain sweetness in having this apartment to share with Teri, with its great carved door that secured for them the kind of privacy very much denied at the Copper Jug. The amber-shaded lamps gave a light that was softly golden, and though large the apartment was warmed by radiators, for as in most southern countries the nights were cool after the sun died away.
      She tucked Teri into her bed and bent to kiss his forehead. 'Sleep well, caro, and have good dreams.'
      'Goo-night, Cally.' Already his lashes were falling sleepily to cover the big dark eyes. 'It's ever such a soft bed.'
      'Yes, isn't it?' She sat there on the bedside watching as he fell asleep, and she assured herself that she didn't care what attitude the baróne took towards her. This was where Teri belonged and it had been worthwhile coming here for his sake.
      Glass of wine in hand, her long hair falling around her slim body like a pale silk cloak, Carol wandered about the room getting acquainted with its atmosphere.
      The massive furniture of dark mahogany had some strange and fascinating carvings worked into it, and the light of the lamps glimmered on the wood and made it gleam. She made out tiny figures grouped as if to dance the tarantella, a shepherd carrying a lamb, and fat little angeli. Carol stroked her fingers across the patina of the old wood and wondered which projection of carved flower or tiny head opened the inevitable secret passage in this Italian suite.
      From all accounts the Latin nobles had loved to build into their houses these concealed openings that made it possible for intrigues to be carried on, and it wouldn't have surprised Carol if such an opening lay behind the panelling of this room.
      She stroked the long hand-woven curtains and listened to the ticking of a lovely Venetian clock. The borders of the curtains were richly embroidered, and beyond lay deep window embrasures, quite sheer above the lake.
      The Lake of Lina, with its wavelets and overhanging trees ; its air of night-time sadness. And out there in the darkness the cicadas made their ceaseless fiddling while the stars burned and the big moths floated by like ghosts.
      A perfect setting, Carol thought, for a Byronic master who had been tortured by a former love ; a man who sought solitude, his passions and angers kept firmly in hand, cruel or kind as the mood took him.
      Carol cradled her wine glass in her fingers and felt the chiselled facets against her skin. She would have been beautiful, that woman who had loved and hated him, and each time he looked into a mirror at his own face he would be unable to forget her. It would