The Sin of Cynara Read Free Page B

all strangers as intruders into their close-knit lives. They could see that the boy was one of them, but she wasn't and therefore was a source of suspicion and unrest. When she caught their gaze they glanced away from her and made her realize how wide a gulf she had to cross in order to become acceptable to them.
      Oh dear, would it be the same with the Falcones? Must she really face the wrenching pain of having to part with Teri in order to ensure for him a secure future?
      She glanced down at his dark head and couldn't bear to think of being without him, yet that probability loomed very near. That these Sabine people didn't welcome strangers was very evident, and she could only suppose that the friendly waiter at the café came from Rome where the people were far more sophisticated.
      Teri gave her a quick smile and she forced the pensive look from her face and shared his interest in the passing scenery. Farmhouses spread across the sunlit hills, with massive wooden gates and groves of chestnut trees. The road lifted and fell and curved around the Sabine farms, and she marvelled at the timeless beauty ol it all. These fortress-like farms and olive terraces had been like this in the time of the Roman occupation; they had built the triple-arched bridges and marched in their legions along this very road.
      It was exciting and she couldn't help but respond to the antiquity of the countryside and the fabulous history. Here the soldiers had carried off the Sabine women and their screams had echoed through these hills, and their petticoats of blue or pea-green would have billowed across the saddlebows of their rough and laughing abductors. Would it have been so terrible, she wondered, to be carried off by a warrior, hard, lean and campaign-scarred?
      Her heart gave a tiny flutter in her breast. Was that the kind of man she really preferred, deep in her secret heart? But surely in this day and age such men were no longer existent, daring and dangerous, and riding hard across this sun-cracked land where the wild red geraniums spilled among the swords of cacti and the agaves.
      They arrived suddenly at the Lake of Lina, the road twisting suddenly to give a wide and gleaming view of the lake, with its long harbour wall and rising tiers of colourful houses. The bus came to a halt in the cobbled piazza, and the sun struck hot as Carol and Teri climbed down the steps and were soon left on their own, their suitcases beside them, the rest of the passengers dispersing to their homes.
      Stone steps led down to the shoreline of the lake and there they found a boatman who agreed to take them to the isola, and because Carol was so obviously a foreigner he asked a fare which she knew to be a high one. But she couldn't argue with him. Only by boat could they get to Falconetti, and having come this far they might as well go the rest of the way and discover for themselves what kind of a family she had married into.
      Their cases were stowed into the boat and an excited Teri was persuaded to sit down before he fell in the lake. He chattered away to the boatman while Carol sat in silence and watched the island loom nearer at every stroke of the oars. She was approaching the Falcones with trepidation in her heart, and it grew as the boat circled the island, making for the jetty beneath waterworn walls, where on a stretch of shingle rested a few colourful sailing boats.
      Her gaze slowly lifted from the jetty to where a towering, majestic house hung among a jungle of green vines, sun-burnished and sea-cooled, and exactly like the villa of a Roman governor, white-columned, open to the sun, wide-terraced, there above the water on its own great balcony of rock.
      Carol caught her breath in wonder. So it was true ! The house of the Falcone was a palazzo, and Vincenzo's family did have the means to give Teri a better life than she could.
      'Look, caro,' she directed his attention to the proud-looking place, its walls the colour of