Free The Rape of Venice by Dennis Wheatley

protested lightly, as he turned to face her, ‘Is it really necessary to compromise yourself like this? Strap me! Despite the fact that you are looked on much as though you were my niece, tongues would wag mightily did it become known that we’d chosen your bedroom as a place to talk in.’
    She was probably unconscious of it, but the dark mahogany of the door against which she stood made a perfect background for her. The pale gold hair fell in heavy ringlets on one side of her oval face. The purity of her milk and roses complexion was almost dazzling in the strong light thrown from the window opposite. Her arrogant little nose stood out imperiously above her tilted chin and long slender throat. Beneath the crossed fichus of her bodice, the corset that gave her an absurdly small waist, and the voluminous skirts of sprigged muslin, was a figure that Roger knew to be perfection; for less than six months earlier he had seen her naked.
    â€˜â€™Tis the only place in which we can talk with certainty that we’ll not be interrupted,’ she said quickly.
    â€˜And what,’ he enquired with a lift of the eyebrow, ‘is there in a discussion about my little Susan that demands such privacy?’
    â€˜Susan is concerned in this—deeply concerned. Her future well-being may depend on it. But that is not all. Tell me honestly, Roger. Are you in love with Georgina?’
    â€˜No more and no less than I was when I first knew her, as a boy; no more and no less than I will be on the day I die.’
    â€˜That, then, is a thing apart. It proved no barrier to your marrying Amanda; so should prove none to your marrying again.’
    â€˜Not if I had the desire to do so. But I have not.’
    Her mouth began to work, betraying her acute agitation. Suddenly she burst out, ‘I know it to be unmaidenly! I am utterly ashamed! But, since you will not speak of this, I must. Amanda gave your child into my care. Only by invoking thelaw can you take her from me. It was Amanda’s dying wish that we ... that I ... that you ... Oh, Roger, can we not make a home for Susan together?’
    â€˜M’dear,’ Roger said gently, ‘Deeply honoured as I am by your continued attachment to me, I had hoped that our six months’ separation would have caused you to feel differently. We went into all this shortly after poor Amanda’s death. I told you then that I’d prove a most disappointing husband to you. For one thing, I am too old, and for another ...’
    Too old!’ she interrupted scornfully. ‘What nonsense! You are but twenty-eight, and I’m near twenty.’
    â€˜I do not mean in years, but mentally. The life I’ve led this dozen years past, the deceits I have been forced to practise, the sometimes terrible decisions I’ve had to take, the cynicism engendered by a roving existence in which many women have played a part, all make me unfitted to take a young bride and bring lasting happiness to her.’
    â€˜Roger, I’d take you at your word, but for one thing. When I came to your room that night in Martinique, you at first spurned me; yet later, in the dawn, you declared me to be the loveliest thing you had ever looked upon, and vowed that when I’d been married for a while you’d seize on the first chance to seduce me.’
    â€˜I admit it: although I added that I’d attempt to only did your marriage prove an unhappy one. Yet I was a fool even to say so much, and did so mainly from an urge to restore your self-respect. I’d have done better to maintain that your beauty left me cold. Then you might by now be married. You were the toast of the Island, and could have taken your pick of the young officers in the garrison or a score of wealthy planters. That you should have thrown these chances away, and continue to be obsessed with a passion for anyone so unworthy as myself, fills me with acute distress.’
    â€˜â€™Tis no fault of