Free The Sin of Cynara by Violet Winspear Page B

sanctuary lamp. Carol had glanced up the stairs earlier on, but this was the first time she had actually seen the little sitting-room, and she found it so delightful that some of her disquiet was lessened as she faced Vincenzo's wife.
      'I know you must have cared deeply for Vincenzo,' she said, in a gentler voice, 'and I do understand your resentment of me. But can't you try and accept Teri? He's a nice little boy, even if I do say it, and he won't understand if you resent him.'
      'You are just interlopers here,' Bedelia insisted. 'You are going to cash in on the child's resemblance to Vincenzo, that is obvious.'
      'I wouldn't quite put it that way,' Carol argued, 'but I see nothing wrong in assuring for Teri a secure future, one that would have been beyond my own meagre resources. He is a Falcone, and the baróne isn't a poor man. I want nothing myself, signora, and I shall be working for my bed and board at the palazzo.'
      'Working?' Bedelia looked astounded. 'At what, may I ask?'
      'I am going to take care of the baróne's library. I felt sure a house of this size and background would have a proportionate library and I used to work among books when I -I met Vincenzo.'
      'Met him and chased after him, no doubt.' There was flame in the Latin eyes. 'So you were a working girl and obviously inferior to him from the very start. I have never had to work for my living. I brought a dowry to the house of Falcone, a very substantial one, and I am entitled to live here. But you—'
      'I am Teri's mother,' Carol said deliberately, but keeping her eyes from that limpid gaze of the Madonna in her niche. 'I bring him instead of money, a living child who didn't ask to be born but who certainly deserves to be loved. As I warned you, signora, I won't tolerate any unkindness towards him - it isn't his fault that he's my son instead of yours.'
      Bedelia caught her breath sharply, and though Carol didn't usually resort to being hurtful, she was fighting for Teri and she didn't want for him at Falconetti the same attitude of the Aunts at Chalkleigh, that he shouldn't have been born and didn't belong here or there.
      'Do you imagine I'm jealous of you?' The Latin nostrils were taut with dislike and temper. 'You're just a cheap little gold-digger who lived in sin with my husband!'
      'Thanks,' said Carol. 'That is putting it succinctly, I must say. You are welcome to make digs at me, if it gives you any satisfaction, but I promise to claw your eyes out if you harm a hair of that boy's head. He's all I care about in the world and I'll protect him like a tigress if I have to.'
      Bedelia stared at the sudden blaze of Carol's eyes, matching the very colour of her wrapper. The almond-shaped Italian eyes narrowed and the pale ringed hands curled into claws against the long silken skirt of her dress. 'Yes,' she almost hissed, 'it would amuse the baróne to throw together in one house the two women who loved his brother. There is a side to him that is cruel and twisted as his face, English Miss. Did you know that, or did you really imagine that he was being kind to you?'
      'Not for one moment,' Carol replied, and it struck her that there could be an element of truth in Bedelia's statement. He would realize at once that Vincenzo's childless and deserted wife would hate her, and it might indeed amuse him to watch two women at each other's throats. He must hate women in his heart and enjoy in subtle ways their unhappiness or humiliation.
      Bedelia stood there glaring at Carol, pain and passion marring the face that at first sight had struck
      Carol as being rather beautiful.
      'It is as well for you to know that Rudolph isn't a kind man.'
      'He's like a Roman of old,' Carol said quietly. 'I gathered that much for myself, signora, for knowing one Falcone has taught me that a streak of wilful passion runs in all of them.'
      'And that will include your son, won't it !'
      'When he grows into a man, perhaps, but right now he's