‘You mean he’s got to you?’ Roscoe demanded.
‘Certainly not!’ she said quickly.
‘Are you sure? Like you say, subtle and clever. Knows how to get any woman under his spell.’
‘But I’m not any woman,’ she told him crisply. ‘I’m a woman who’s seen through him before we started. You can leave him to me. Tonight was stage one. Stage two will be my masterpiece.’
She hung up, feeling as though she’d been punched in the stomach. The call had brought her back to reality. What had she been thinking of to let this man weave fantasies about her when she knew the truth about him? It was simply-she searched for the worst word she knew-unprofessional.
But not any more, she assured herself. Tomorrow I’m going to be sensible.
Guido made his way through the streets by instinct and the fact that his feet knew the route by themselves. Lost in his blissful dream he didn’t notice the two men approaching him until he collided with them.
‘Apologies,’ he murmured.
‘Hey, it’s us,’ Marco said, grabbing his arm.
‘So it is,’ Guido agreed amiably.
‘You weren’t looking where you were going,’ Leo accused him.
Guido considered. ‘No, I don’t think I was. Is this the way home?’
Any Venetian would have recognised this as an absurd question since, in that tiny city, all roads lead home. The other two looked at each other, then stationed themselves on either side of Guido like sentinels, and they finished the journey together.
The Palazzo Calvani had a garden that ran by the water. Marco signalled the butler to bring wine, and they all sat out under the stars.
‘Don’t talk, drink,’ Marco ordered. ‘There are few troubles that good wine can’t cure.’
‘I’m not in trouble,’ Guido told him.
‘What’s got into you?’ Marco demanded. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘I’m in love.’
‘Ah!’ Leo nodded wisely. ‘That kind of crazy.’
‘The perfect woman,’ Guido said blissfully.
‘What’s her name?’ Marco asked.
But Guido’s sense of self-preservation was in good working order. ‘Get lost,’ he said amiably.
‘When did you meet her?’ Leo wanted to know.
‘This afternoon. It happened in the first moment.’
‘You always say they’re after the title,’ Leo reminded him.
‘She doesn’t know about the title, that’s the best thing of all. She thinks I’m a gondolier, scratching a living, so I can be sure her smiles are for me. The one honest woman in the world.’
‘Honest woman?’ Marco echoed scathingly. ‘That’s asking a lot.’
‘We’re not all cynics like you,’ Guido told him. ‘Sometimes a man must trust his instincts, and my instincts tell me that she’s everything that is good. Her heart is true, she’s incapable of deception. When she loves me, it will be for myself alone.’
Leo raised his eyebrows. ‘You mean she doesn’t love you already? You’re losing your touch.’
‘She’s thinking about it,’ Guido insisted. ‘She’s going to love me-almost as much as I love her.’
‘And you’ve known her how long?’ Leo asked.
‘A few hours and all my life.’
‘Listen to yourself,’ Marco snorted. ‘You’ve taken leave of your senses.’
Guido held up a hand. ‘Peace, you ignorant men!’ he said sternly. ‘You know nothing.’
He wandered away under the trees, leaving the other two regarding each other uneasily.
When he was out of their sight Guido stopped and looked up at the moon.
‘At last,’ he said ecstatically. ‘She came to me. And she’s perfect.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I SHOULD be getting home soon,’ Leo said next morning. ‘I only came to see Uncle, and he’s fine now.’
‘Don’t leave just yet,’ Guido hastened to say. ‘He sees you so seldom, and who knows how long he’ll be around?’
They were having breakfast on the open-air terrace overlooking the water, relishing in the warm breeze and Liza’s excellent coffee in equal measure.
‘Uncle will outlive us all,’ Leo insisted. ‘I’m a farmer, and it’s the busy time of year.’
‘It’s always the busy time of year, according to you.’
‘Well, I don’t like cities,’ Leo growled. ‘Hellish places!’
‘Don’t talk about Venice like that,’ Guido said quickly.
‘For pity’s sake!’ Leo said, exasperated. ‘You’re no more Venetian than I am.’
‘I was born here.’
‘We were both born here because Uncle made Poppa bring his wives to Venice for the births of their children. Same with Marco’s mother. Calvani offspring must be born in the Palazzo Calvani.’ Leo’s tone showed what he thought of this idea. ‘But we were both taken home to Tuscany when we were a few weeks old, and it’s where we belong.’
‘Not me,’ Guido said. ‘I’ve always loved Venice.’
As a child he’d been brought to stay with his uncle during school vacations, and when he was twelve Francesco had made a complete takeover bid, demanding that he reside permanently in Venice so that he could grow up with the inheritance that would be his. Guido had only the vaguest idea about the inheritance but the city on the water entranced him, and he was glad of the move.
He had loved his father but was never entirely at ease with him. Bertrando was a countryman at heart, and he and Leo had formed a charmed duo from which Guido felt excluded. Bertrando had wept and wailed at the ‘kidnap’ of his son, but a large donation from Francesco to ease the effects of a bad harvest had reconciled him.
In due course Guido had come to feel his destiny as a poisoned chalice, but nothing could abate his love for the exquisite city. The fact that he’d made an independent fortune from catering to its tourists was, he would have said, an irrelevance.
Marco joined them a moment later, just finishing a call on his mobile phone. As he sat down he said, ‘It’s time I was going home.’
Guido went into overdrive. ‘Not you as well. Uncle loves you being here. He’s an old man and he doesn’t see enough of you.’
‘I’m neglecting business.’
‘Banks run themselves,’ Guido declared loftily.
This was flagrant provocation since he knew, and the others knew he knew, that Marco was far more than a simple banker. He was a deity of the higher finance, whose instinct for buying and selling had made many men rich and saved many others from disaster. Guido himself had profited by his advice to expand his business, but couldn’t resist the chance to rib him now and then.
Marco bore up well under the treatment, ignoring Guido’s teasing, or perhaps he managed not to hear it. Although his father had been a Calvani his mother was Roman, and he lived in that city from choice. Austerely handsome, proud, coolly aristocratic, unemotional and loftily indifferent to all he considered beneath him, he was Roman to his fingertips. Anyone meeting him for a few minutes would have known that he came from the city that had ruled an empire.
Just once he’d shown signs of living on the same plane as other men. He’d fallen in love, become engaged and set the date for the wedding. His cousins had been fascinated by the change in him, the warmth that would flare from his eyes at the sight of his beloved.
And then it was all over. There was no explanation. One day they were an acknowledged happy couple. The next day the engagement was broken ‘by mutual consent’. The wedding was cancelled, the presents sent
