Montega's Mistress Read online

  When she returned to Matteo’s bedside she tried to slip the sleeve off his injured arm, but he fought her hands, twisting away, seemingly slipping further into delirium. Taking an alternative tactic, Helen picked up a pair of shears and began to cut away the sodden material around the wound. But once she uncovered it she wished she hadn’t.

  It was a jagged mass of torn flesh, carbon stained and flayed raw, with the reddish streaks that indicated infection already radiating out from the bloody center. Helen stuck her tongue in the corner of her mouth, fingers busy, muttering a prayer under her breath. When she realized she was reciting the Girl Scout oath, she stopped short and began again, encouraged by the familiar words as she washed away the coagulated blood, splashed the gaping wound with antiseptic and covered it with sterile pads. She hadn’t been able to feel anything under the skin, and she could see the bullet had passed clean through the meat of his upper arm, exiting out the back. She finished by tearing ah old pillowcase into strips and tying them around the dressing to hold it in place, securing them just above Matteo’s bicep. Her handiwork, when complete, looked like a neat little package, but the patient did not seem improved.

  He was still mumbling incoherently, his skin fiery, and she didn’t know how she was going to get him to take the pills in her pocket. Finally she crushed them up in a glass of water and forced the liquid down his throat a little at a time, tilting his head back and dribbling it between his lips. It was a tedious and exhausting process for both of them. When the glass was empty she didn’t feel like struggling with him any further, but she knew that the rest of his damp shirt had to come off. She peeled it from his body by inches, noticing the foreign label inside the collar. She also noticed that his torso was beautiful, the dusky skin flowing silkily over his well developed arms and chest. A spray of dark hair spread over his breast and formed a line down his abdomen to his belt. She paused to wipe his face, heavily beaded with perspiration, studying his long, spiky lashes, the heavy shadow of beard on his upper lip and chin. His thick, wavy hair was damp and matted, and she brushed it back from his forehead, wondering whether it was black or dark brown; in its current state it was impossible to tell. When she was finished she tidied the bed and got up to wash the instruments she had used. On her way out the bedroom door the telephone rang, and Helen glanced at the clock on the dresser as she went to answer it. The night had passed and it was morning. As she picked up the receiver Helen thought that it had to be one of her parents, since they alone knew she was at the beach house.

  It was the long arm of Switzerland, otherwise known as Helen’s mother, Sophia Chamberlain Demarest Collier Nyquist. Sophia lived in Gstaad with her third husband, the chocolate baron, who commissioned his secretary to send Helen a ten pound box of bonbons every Christmas. Helen had long ago stopped reminding her stepfather that she was allergic to chocolate and routinely dropped the gift off at an orphanage near her apartment in Cambridge. And now Sophia, with her exquisite timing, was calling up for her semiannual clothes lecture while her daughter was harboring a gunshot victim.

  “Darling, just ringing up to remind you that the collections are coming out next week, and I’m expecting you to go with me to pick out a few things,” Sophia began in her breathless, confidence sharing voice, broaching the expected topic.

  Sophia had been born in Darien, Connecticut, but ever since she had lived in England with her second husband, she was fond of dropping Britishisms like “ringing up” into her conversation. Helen looked at the ceiling. She had never accompanied her mother to this ritual orgy of spending, but that did not deter Sophia from behaving as if it were an obligation which Helen would be rude and insensitive to ignore. Helen sighed as her mother rattled on about the trip, wondering how much her stepfather would be expected to pay for this latest indulgence. “Pick up a few things,” to her mother, meant packing off her entire current wardrobe to a secondhand house for a tax deduction and starting over from scratch, ordering originals from a range of designers.

  “Sophia, I have enough clothes, and I really have to go,” Helen interrupted when her mother paused for air. “I have to get to the library.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, sweeting, one never has enough clothes,” Sophia replied, laughing lightly and ignoring the rest of her daughter’s statement. “I’ve already bought your ticket; you can meet me in Rome at Claudia’s villa.”

  Claudia Fierremonte, a friend of Helen’s mother who had inherited a sports car fortune, shared Sophia’s attitude toward life and the continual pursuit of the perfect wardrobe. Helen would rather do battle with Medusa than be trapped in the Eternal City with the two of them.

  “I can’t make it, Sophia, I have too much work to do.” Helen glanced at Matteo as he kicked off his cover, wishing that she were churlish enough to hang up in Sophia’s ear. Helen wanted to get back to her patient, who was now cold again and shivering. She put down the phone while her mother was still talking and unfolded the quilt from the foot of the bed, drawing it up to his chin. He settled down, and Helen picked up the receiver again to hear her mother say, “And Roberto will be there.”

  As if that were an enticement. Roberto Fierremonte was Claudia’s brother, a handsome, charming playboy who, like Claudia, had never done a day’s work in his life. Sophia thought that he was love’s young dream and considered Helen’s low opinion of him to be just another of her daughter’s many aberrations.

  “I thought we had closed the subject of Roberto,” Helen said wearily, mentally tapping her foot. She had to hand it to her mother; Sophia was as relentless as a tidal wave. She never surrendered, never seemed to consider doing so. “And my research can’t wait. I’m sorry.”

  “Helen, really, your obsession with that... project... simply defies comprehension,” Sophia observed, the first note of irritation creeping into her tone. “You absolutely must do something about the way you look. When you arrived for Bobbie’s shower in that.. .jacket, I almost died. I mean, died, right there in the Sherry Netherland. Darling, I hate to say this, but you are embarrassing me.”

  Helen had thought her mother’s cousin Bobbie should be embarrassed, throwing herself a shower for her fourth wedding. “That jacket was a pea coat, Sophia. Millions of people wear them.”

  “That’s just my point, dear, you’re not millions of people. You have an image to project; you can’t go around in rags you’ve picked up in the basement of an army-navy store. I’ll bet that thing isn’t even wool.”

  “I don’t know; I didn’t interview the sheep,” Helen replied sarcastically, but the gibe was lost on her mother, who switched to her other favorite subject, Helen’s stepmother.

  “I hope you’re comfortable there in your father’s place, Helen,” Sophia said unctuously. “It was so chic and stylish when I decorated it; I can only imagine what it looks like now. That woman your father married has the Manhattan town house done in Reign of Terror, I think; I can’t understand why everything is red.”

  Matteo stirred, and Helen waited until he relaxed again before answering. “It’s Mediterranean, Sophia, and you know her name is Adrienne. Dad’s been married to her for five years.” Helen glanced around the room, desperate to get off the phone quickly without provoking a follow up call by Sophia. Suddenly inspiration struck, and she added, “Actually, maybe you’re right. I really should get out of here soon because Adrienne needs the place for a house party Debra wants to have. She told me so a few days ago.”

  Sophia’s most cherished guiding principle was to thwart her successor’s plans whenever possible. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t let Adrienne drive you out so she can throw a shindig for that fat little adolescent of hers. Take as long as you like, dear. Forget about the collections. I know you have things to do. Shall I call your father and tell him you need to stay a little longer?”

  “That’s okay,” Helen answered, grinning. “I’m sure Adrienne and I can work it out. Have a good time, Sophia. Goodbye.”

  “Ciao, darling.”

  Helen hung
up gratefully, going immediately to check on Matteo. Fresh red was already staining the gauze above the wound, but the blood wasn’t running in rivulets anymore. She hoped he didn’t need a transfusion, because he wasn’t going to get one lying in Adrienne’s bedroom. She realized that there was nothing more she could do for him and that she should just let him rest, so she completed the task Sophia’s call had interrupted: cleaning up and putting everything back where it belonged. Then she stretched out on the chaise next to Matteo, propping a pillow behind her head and closing her eyes. She was exhausted and it wasn’t long before she slept.

  * * *

  Helen awoke in late afternoon, to find that she had slept through the time to give Matteo his pills. She found him bathed in perspiration, still feverish, and drifting in and out of consciousness with a rapidity that scared her. During one of his lucid moments she told him that she was calling a doctor, but he reacted so violently that she retracted the statement in order to calm him. She changed the dressing on his wound and then gave him a dose and a half of the medicine, praying that it wasn’t too much. After drinking the liquid, Matteo fell back on the bed, his eyes closed, and Helen thought he was unconscious again. But as she moved away the fingers of his good hand encircled her wrist, squeezing it. Too weak to talk, he nevertheless communicated his gratitude, and Helen felt the sudden sting of tears behind her eyes. She was glad that she had sheltered him, sure now that she had not been wrong to do so.

  After she had taken a quick shower and dressed, she made coffee and toast and took them back to the bedroom. She felt the disorientation that doing morning things in the evening brought, but forgot it when she saw that Matteo was shaking so badly that the bed rattled. He was wracked with chills. She grabbed extra blankets and piled them on top of him, crawling up on the bed to hold him when his trembling didn’t cease. She held him tightly, cradling his head against her shoulder, and after several minutes his shivering lessened. He relaxed into her arms, and Helen remained in her awkward position, loath to disturb him. When he seemed to be sleeping peacefully she let him slip back to the bed, turning his pillow so that the cool side touched his cheek. He sighed deeply, and she was happy that she was able to make him more comfortable.

  Helen went back to her tepid coffee and cold toast, wondering how old he was. It was difficult to tell from his appearance, because he had probably never looked worse in his life than he did right now. That he was young and, under normal circumstances, quite attractive in a dark, Latin way was obvious. The rest was a mystery. He had no identification on him, which was undoubtedly not an accident, and his knowledge of English could have been gained anywhere. Resignedly she finished her toast and brought the dishes back to the kitchen.

  For two more days Helen cared for Matteo while he plunged in and out of fevers, sometimes seeming to improve, then losing ground when his diminished strength was not equal to the struggle. At times it was clear he knew she was there, but at others all his concentration appeared to be focused on fighting off the infection that sought to conquer him. And he was a fighter. He wrestled with his illness the way Jacob wrestled with the angel, a mere mortal against a powerful force, but a fierce, stubborn mortal who would not acknowledge an enemy greater than himself. Helen, silent witness to the battle, fed him juice and medicine and stormed heaven with pleas for his recovery. Her papers gathered dust on the dining room table, and her books went unread as day merged into night while she kept her vigil by his bedside. She changed his linen and his dressings, forced soup on him when he seemed capable of drinking it and left him alone only once, to slip out to the local drugstore for supplies. Convinced that he would be dead when she got back, she ran headlong into the bedroom, relaxing only when she saw the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  By the afternoon of the third day she thought he looked better. His color had improved and the skin around his wound felt cooler. At suppertime she ate a container of yogurt and made a cup of tea, sitting on the edge of Matteo’s bed to drink it. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired; she ached with it, and for the first time in her life understood what it meant to be “bone weary.” Letting the empty cup fall to the rug, she lay down on the other side of the bed, where she would be able to hear Matteo if he made the slightest sound. She thought she should set the alarm to give him his medicine, and that was the last thing she remembered before she awoke because someone was touching her hair.

  She sat up, startled to find him looking at her with eyes that were clear and steady.

  “You’re better,” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer, merely continued to gaze at her as if trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together.

  “Do you remember me?” she asked.

  “Helen,” he replied, in a disused, rusty voice.

  “That’s right. Do you remember how you got here, what happened?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ve been very sick. You wouldn’t let me call a doctor, so...”

  “How long?” he interrupted hoarsely.

  “How long have you been here?”

  He nodded again.

  “Three days.”

  “Three days?” He seemed unable to believe it.

  “Yes. You...arrived late Friday night, and it’s now Monday evening.”

  He attempted to clear his throat, wincing slightly. “And you’ve been taking care of me all this time?”

  “Yes. I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”

  He glanced around the room, then looked back at Helen.

  “Where is my gun?”

  “I put it away.”

  “Where?”

  “In the refrigerator,” Helen mumbled, dropping her eyes.

  He looked blank. “What?”

  “In the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. I didn’t know what to do with it, and I figured it was the last place anyone would look.”

  For the first time he smiled. It wasn’t much of a smile, just a slight upward turning at the corners of his mouth, but it changed his face. “Good girl,” he said, and suddenly her action didn’t seem ridiculous anymore, and she smiled back at him, proud of herself.

  “Has anyone been here?” he asked, closing his eyes, visibly running down, the strain of even this short conversation tiring him.

  “No one at all. We’ve been quite alone.” Helen moved to check his bandage, and his eyes opened as she bent over him. The gauze bore a dried brown stain, small and unintimidating.

  “Why did you help me?” he inquired huskily, holding her gaze with his.

  Helen had been asking herself the same question ever since the first night, and she hadn’t been able to come up with an answer more complicated than the one she now gave him.

  “I guess because you needed help,” she replied. She stepped back and eyed him levelly. “Matteo—is that your real name?”

  He indicated assent.

  “Matteo, what are you mixed up in?”

  He turned his head. “I can’t tell you. For your own protection, it’s better if you don’t know. I’ll leave as soon as I’m able; if anyone traces me back here you can say I forced you to hide me at gunpoint, took you for a hostage.”

  “Why? Would someone come looking for me?”

  “For me,” he murmured. Helen’s brow furrowed, but as she opened her mouth again to press him for more information, she realized that he had fallen asleep and she felt ashamed. Now was not the time to grill the man; he was two steps away from an intensive care ward. She tucked his blanket around him and resolved to let the questions wait until he felt up to answering them.

  She didn’t know then that as far he was concerned they would not be answered.

  * * *

  When Matteo awoke again, it was to the smell of food.

  Helen was sitting next to the bed with a plate of scrambled eggs. She extended a forkful to him, raising her eyebrows.

  He glanced at the offering without enthusiasm, then turned his head away.

  “I know your appetite is gon
e, but it’ll come back once you taste something good,” she encouraged him.

  He brightened. “Got any Angel Bites?”

  Helen stared back at him in amazement. “Angel Bites? You mean those chocolate covered marshmallow snacks the kids like?”

  He looked offended. “I never heard they were just for kids.”

  “That sounds like an advertising campaign,” Helen said dryly. “Sorry buddy, no Angel Bites. I’ll pick some up when I go to the store. In the meantime you’ll have to make do with this.” She handed him the fork.

  He eyed her warily.

  “Eat, or I’ll feed you,” she threatened.

  He picked up the plate and obediently swallowed several mouthfuls, then pushed the dish back into her hand. Helen allowed him the round and presented him with a cloudy glass of dissolved pills.

  “What’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

  “An antibiotic and a painkiller crushed up in water,” she answered.