Dark Venetian

‘Your English is excellent, Contessa,’ she murmured awkwardly, unable for the life of her to think of anything else to say, and she knew she was expected to say something.

‘Thank you, my dear. I have always thought so, myself.’ The Contessa smiled. ‘Come, drink up your martini. I think it is time we went in for our meal.’ She slid an arm through Celeste’s. ‘And now, my dear, you must tell me everything. I want to know all about these two late husbands of yours, and whether you are thinking of marrying again. At thirty-three your life has barely begun. We must try to make your stay an unforgettable one.’

Emma felt stunned. She wanted to plead a headache, which she surely had, and leave them for a while to gather her scattered wits, but her innate sense of decency would not allow her to insult the Contessa in this way. Besides, she knew well what Celeste’s reaction would be if she suddenly found her stepdaughter trying to escape from the evening’s entertainment.

So she went in to dinner, and toyed with her food while she listened to the conversation going on between the Contessa and her stepmother. The meal was delicious; the minestra, a soup made of vegetables and herbs, was both aromatic and tasty, but Emma hardly noticed what was on her plate. Even the sweet dessert failed to arouse her from the lethargy into which she had sunk. To her relief, the Contessa addressed most of her remarks to Celeste, so she was saved of the need for more lies, although Celeste was not averse to embroidering the truth to suit her own ends, as well as altering circumstances completely should she find it more in her interests to do so.

‘Poor Charles,’ she was saying. ‘He was still a young man when he died, barely fifty-three, and so charming!’ She glanced at Emma. ‘Naturally, Emma and I shared our grief together, and I think we helped one another at that awful time.’

‘Of course.’ The Contessa was understanding. ‘It is always an unhappy time, and you were lucky to have a companion so near your own age. After all, my dear, you could not by any means be taken for this child’s mother! You look ridiculously young yourself, and you could almost be taken for sisters.’ The calculating look she gave Emma as she said this implied more implicitly than words that she considered Celeste far too attractive and delicate to have such an opposite for a daughter.

‘Emma and I are good friends,’ said Celeste, looking again at Emma, as though daring her to deny this statement, but Emma was too absorbed to care.

And, as the evening wore on, she wondered why she cared anyway. After all, she had never been left in any doubt as to Celeste’s feelings towards herself from the time she was sent away to boarding school, and she had only assumed she was being taken on this trip as a kind of maid-companion, so what did it matter if Celeste chose to act as though she were the fairy godmother who had taken Emma from a life of prosaic existence, to the elegant world of palaces and countesses and riches?

It seemed logical to suppose that Celeste wanted to appear as Emma’s saviour and mentor, and the Contessa with her obvious pride in family would hardly consider a woman who had abandoned her stepdaughter without regret two or three years ago as a fit and proper member of her society.

Emma was not a fool, whatever Celeste might think, and chances of free holidays, although they might not come every day, should not be sufficient to warrant the deliberate deceiving of an old lady. For that was what Celeste was doing, there was no doubt about that. And the reasons would no doubt become evident if the present Count chose to make an appearance. Middle-aged, ugly, debauched; he might be any or all of these things, but Celeste, who had not baulked against marrying a man already in his seventies in the United States for the sole and obvious purpose of gaining a wealthy position in society, would hardly consider any of these things important when compared to the noblesse she would achieve by calling herself the Contessa Celeste Cesare.

Emma felt sickened, and ashamed. By even being here she was allying herself in the deception, and all thoughts of the pleasure she herself might gain from this free holiday were banished by embarrassment of the situation. She would tell Celeste as soon as they got back to their suite that she was going home, and Celeste could move into the Palazzo tomorrow and do whatever she liked without any assistance from her.

The Contessa suddenly turned her attention to Emma. She studied her for a moment, and then said:

‘How are you liking your visit to Venice, my dear?’ She smiled. ‘Are you interested in old buildings and museums and art galleries? Or are you more enamoured of the Lido, and the calm blue waters of the Adriatic?’

Emma gathered her thoughts. ‘I think it’s a beautiful place,’ she replied politely, none of her earlier enthusiasm now evident, and Celeste looked curiously at her. ‘Of course I’ve already visited the Doge’s Palace, and this morning I had coffee in one of those outdoor cafés in St. Mark’s Square.’

‘Ah, yes, the Piazza San Marco. And did you go into the Basilica?’

‘Unfortunately, no. I didn’t have the time to explore it properly, and I didn’t want to have to rush it.’

The Contessa clasped her hands. ‘I can see you do find pleasure in beautiful things. That pleases me. My family used to have a great collection of paintings and sculptures, but alas, many of these have had to be sold, but that does not prevent me visiting the art galleries, and the churches where there is a veritable fortune in famous art treasures to be seen and gloated over.’ She laughed, and turned to Celeste. ‘Your mother and I used to spend hours in the Louvre when we were young students. Did she tell you?’

Celeste hesitated. ‘Of course, dear Aunt Francesca,’ she said smoothly, but Emma felt sure that this was just more of Celeste’s lies. She herself had been unable to prevent the surge of excitement that talking about such world-famous masterpieces could arouse, and the Contessa’s knowledge, strengthened by years of exploration and interest, would have enthralled her for hours. It was a pity that tomorrow she must return to London, and try and forget this almost unforgettable interlude.

When dinner was over, Emma excused herself thankfully. Now at least she could leave without arousing Celeste’s annoyance, for she felt sure her stepmother wanted to be alone with the Contessa to pursue whatever reason had brought her to Venice in the first place.

Emma went up to her room, collected a light wrap, and went downstairs again. If she was leaving in the morning, she intended enjoying as much of her final evening as was possible. She didn’t particularly care that it was not the thing for an unescorted young girl to venture out alone on the streets of Venice, particularly as Italian men were noted for their amorous advances.

But Emma felt perfectly capable of handling any would-be suitor and she ignored the admiring glances cast in her direction, and the casual greetings sometimes flung across at her.

The Riva degli Schiavoni was crowded even so early in the season, and gondolas were departing at intervals from the landing stage taking couples for an unforgettable trip along the canal, the gondolas with their lights glinting in the dusk.

The shops were closed now, but the numerable cafés were still open, and Emma was tempted to go in and ask for coffee, but in this her courage defeated her. She had not brought her purse with her or she might have hired a gondola herself, despite the extravagance, for there at least she would be free of the necessity of continually looking away from bold dark eyes.

She returned to the hotel at last, depression beginning to invade her consciousness. She still had Celeste to face, and it was not going to be pleasant. She could remember in the past the viciousness of Celeste’s temper when she was crossed.

She reached the Danieli, and was crossing the foyer unseeingly, when she was brought up unexpectedly against the chest of a man coming just as self-absorbedly from the bar. She stepped back awkwardly, her cheeks flushed, and a ready apology on her lips. But the man forestalled her, his inbred courtesy always in evidence.

‘Scusi, signorina. Si lo un mio sbaglio.’

‘Non importa, signore,’ Emma murmured, swiftly, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth as her eyes encountered the light blue gaze of the man confronting her, and as his experienced appraisal of herself was taking place she found herself studying him just as intently.

There was something about him which she felt set him apart from the other Italian men she had encountered this evening. That he was Italian she was left in no doubt despite the fact that he was easily six feet in height, which is tall for an Italian. He was lean, but his shoulders were broad and belied the casual elegance of his dinner jacket. She felt sure he was not simply a sybarite, although he looked completely at ease in these luxurious surroundings. His skin was darkly tanned for a European, as though he spent much time outdoors, and his lashes were the longest she had ever seen on a man and were the only effeminate thing about an otherwise completely masculine face. She supposed some women would call him handsome, but his attraction did not rely on good looks, but rather on a magnetic kind of charm which surrounded him leaving a woman completely aware of her own femininity. He was much older than Emma, anywhere between thirty-five and forty-five, with a kind of agelessness that utterly disarmed Emma. She had never been attracted to older men; boys of her own age had always seemed much more fun than the older doctors at the hospital but suddenly all her earlier opinions seemed to go through a swift revision, and she realized she really had had very little experience of life.

The man smiled now, and said: ‘Parla lei Italiano?’

Emma sighed. ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Only phrase-book Italian, anyway.’

‘So.’ He spoke English now with only a slight accent. ‘You are English. Tell me, did I hurt you?’

Emma shook her head, ignoring the fact that when she had stepped back so precipitately someone had kicked her ankle and it was really quite painful now.

‘Good, good. You are holidaying here, signorina?’

‘Yes, signore.’ Emma nodded, and then realizing she was allowing herself to be ‘picked up’ as they say in England, she began to move away, but the man stopped her, a light hand on her arm, his fingers hard and cool.

‘Don’t go, signorina. Allow me to buy you a Campari, if only to show that you accepted my apology.’

Emma shook her head. ‘Thank you, but no, signore. My … my friends are waiting for me. I must go. And of course I accept your apology. It was as much my fault as yours.’

The man’s eyes were amused. ‘Very well, but at least tell me your name.’

Emma smiled. ‘All right. Emma Maxwell.’

‘Bene. Arrivederci, signorina.’

‘Good-bye.’ Emma walked resolutely across to the elevator, but she felt supremely conscious that his eyes followed her, and felt a leap of something like excitement inside her at the possible prospect of seeing him again.

It was not until she gained the sanctity of her own room that she remembered her earlier decision to tell Celeste that evening that she was leaving in the morning. Emma faltered, and walked across to her dressing table mirror, drawn by a desire to see her reflection, to study it appraisingly, and just how stupidly she was behaving. What would a man like that want with an idiot teenager like herself? If she had been madly beautiful like Celeste, there might have been some reason for her to feel this mad surge of happiness, but she had nothing in particular to commend her. Her hair was blonde, it was true, but it was disappointingly straight and at the moment hung over her shoulders in silky strands; her complexion was fair, but would soon tan in the hot sun; and her eyes which she had always considered her best feature, large and wide-spaced and most definitely green, had lashes which were nowhere near as long as that man’s. And finally she came to the pink gown; it really did do nothing for her whatsoever, and she decided that whatever happened, first thing in the morning she would visit one of those small markets, that abounded in the tiny alleyways among the canals, and buy some material and cottons and run herself up a couple of dresses in colours which she knew suited her. A vivid red, perhaps, and that gorgeous shade of kingfisher blue.

But first of all there was Celeste, and somehow now the desire to escape from Venice at the first opportunity seemed to have lost its appeal.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8cb32427-8844-5509-a005-b688283a714b)

CELESTE did not come up to the suite until well into the early hours of the morning, and when she did she was humming softly and smugly to herself as though well pleased with the evening’s happenings. Emma had sat up reading until midnight, and then she had gone to bed to lie awake wondering what on earth Celeste was doing. Surely the Contessa did not keep these hours at her age.

Emma slid out of bed, and wrapped a quilted dressing-gown about her slim body. Then she quietly opened the door of her bedroom and entered the lounge of the suite. Celeste had just lit a cigarette, and was standing smoking, a lazy smile on her face.

She started, almost guiltily Emma thought, at her stepdaughter’s appearance, and said:

‘Emma! What in heaven’s name are you doing, creeping around at this hour of the morning?’

Emma shrugged her shoulders, and advanced into the room. ‘I … I couldn’t sleep,’ she said casually. ‘Celeste, I’m thinking of going home tomorrow … or I mean today, actually.’

Celeste’s expression altered considerably. ‘Home? You mean to England?’

‘Yes.’ Emma hugged herself nervously. ‘I … I don’t know what lies you’ve been telling about our relationship, but I’m certainly not prepared to deceive that sweet old lady by any more of it …’