Читать книгу Wounds Of Passion - CHARLOTTE LAMB - Страница 6

ANTONIA CABOT thought for a moment that she was seeing things. She stared down at the canal, watching his face quiver on the surface of the water.

It was the face she had seen so many times in nightmares, the face which had haunted her for the past two years. For a long time she had been afraid to go to sleep. She had sat up all night, heavy-eyed, white-faced, because she was afraid of meeting that face in her dreams.

Even now, although it happened less and less often, she still woke up shaking from one of those dreams every so often; and even when she was awake she wasn’t safe; something would trigger a memory and she would catch herself thinking about him.

Frozen, she had stared at the reflection, expecting it to disappear any minute. But it hadn’t. It had merely come closer, grown clearer.

Taking a deep breath, she had slowly looked up at last, and the hairs had risen on the back of her neck.

It wasn’t her imagination. He was there, a few feet away, staring back.

She hadn’t forgotten a detail of his face: the smooth brown hair, the threat of the brows over cold blue eyes, the strong nose, the mouth...

It was looking at that hard, angry mouth that ended her paralysis. She fled, bolted for home, like a hunted animal, getting curious looks from everyone she passed. It was rare to see anyone running in Venice. Tourists wandered along, staring; local people took their time too in that sultry summer heat. Antonia ran all out, hurled herself round the next corner, shot down an alley, through a shadowy court, across a bridge.

It was easy to lose yourself in Venice; there were so many ways to weave in and out between the blank-walled rear of buildings which faced the canals. It was a maze. Antonia already knew her way round it.

Instinctively as she ran she kept listening for the sound of following footsteps. Sound was magnified by high walls, by water; you could hear a whisper on a quiet day.