She watched him threading his way through the throng whilst she sank down gratefully on a sofa. One of the gentlemen happened to glance in her direction at that moment and walked over to her, saying, ‘Forgive me, Signorina, but you seem to be unwell. Is there anything I can get for you?’

She managed a smile of sorts and made an effort to speak cheerfully.

‘No, thank you, I am quite well, I assure you.’

‘You do not look it. You are overcome by the heat, I think. You will allow me to fetch you some refreshment?’

‘That is very kind of you, but it won’t be necessary. My husband has gone to fetch me a drink.’

‘Your husband? Ah, Signorina—I beg your pardon, Signora—you cut me to the quick. Such a vision of loveliness should not be married, she should be as free as the air to inspire all men with her beauty.’

Elizabeth laughed.

‘You are amused rather than flattered?’ he asked in surprise, but then his eyebrows lowered and he smiled. ‘But, of course, you are English! They are very prosaic the English, and not at all romantic.’

‘I assure you we are very romantic, with the right man.’

‘And your husband is the right man? He is a thousand times fortunate.’

‘You must meet him,’ said Elizabeth, seeing Darcy coming towards them. ‘Darcy, this gentleman noticed that I was out of sorts and he was good enough to offer to fetch me some refreshment.’

She took the drink that Darcy held out to her and sipped it slowly.

‘Darcy?’ enquired the gentleman in surprise. ‘Not Darcy of Pemberley, in Derbyshire, in England?’

His accent made the familiar names sound strange and exotic, and Elizabeth wondered if her country would seem as exotic to the Venetians as their city seemed to her.

‘Yes,’ said Darcy.

He did not seem surprised that even here his name was known to strangers.

‘But this is wonderful. Never did I think to meet you, but here you are! We have friends in common. Your cousin—I think?—Colonel Fitzwilliam and I have known each other for many years. Permit me to introduce myself. I am Prince Ficenzi.’

Elizabeth did not know how she should respond to the introduction, whether she should make some special mark of recognition of his title, but she was saved from her ignorance by the Prince saying to her, ‘Do not, I beg you, rise from your seat; you must recover yourself.’

He complimented Elizabeth on her newly married status, saying that Colonel Fitzwilliam had mentioned the wedding to him, and he complimented Darcy on his beautiful wife. Then he talked engagingly about the occasion on which he had met Colonel Fitzwilliam.

‘It was near my home in a more southern part of Italy, close to Rome. It is a beautiful place, better than Venice, I think, though I would not say so to any of my friends here! We have the great loveliness of the sea, but we have other things besides. There is water, which my friends in Venice have, but also we have hills and mountains, which my friends in Venice do not. We have walks through the countryside—Ah!’ he broke off, seeing Elizabeth’s reaction, ‘you like to walk through the countryside?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’

At that moment, the thought of walking along a country lane had a great appeal and she longed even more for home.

‘Then I beg of you, you will visit me,’ he said. ‘I have a villa there. It is so beautiful now. My garden is one of the finest in Italy. The seasons they are kinder to us near Rome than they are in Venice. We do not get such cold winds or fogs or the snows of winter. Our flowers are all blooming still and our air is full of the scent of them; not like here, where the air is not so good. The canals, they are intriguing, but the smell sometimes it is not of the best,’ he said, pulling a comical face. ‘I think you will enjoy the countryside. It is magnificent and yet at the same time it is—how do you English say it?—homely.’

He could not have said anything more calculated to appeal to Elizabeth at that moment.

‘I would love to come, if…?’ she said, turning to Darcy.

‘Then it is settled,’ said the Prince with a gallant bow, ‘for who can refuse a lady?’

Darcy, at least, could not, and the arrangements were soon made.

Whether it was the refreshing drink or the thought of leaving Venice, Elizabeth did not know, but her headache had all but disappeared by the time the Prince left them in order to mingle with the other guests, and she found that she was able to take part in the conversations and show an interest in the lives of her fellow guests, which would have been impossible for her half an hour earlier.


***

The palazzo was full of bustle as the Darcys made their preparations for departure. Elizabeth’s room was awash with boxes, and as Annie packed her clothes, Elizabeth assembled her paper, ink, and quills and put them into her travelling writing desk. Downstairs, Darcy made sure that the travelling arrangements had been carried out to his satisfaction and at last they were ready to go. As Elizabeth stepped into the gondola for the last time, she thought how glad she had been to arrive, but also how glad she was to be leaving Venice behind.

The Darcy coach had been sent round to Italy by sea and it was waiting for them outside the city. It was a welcome sight, with its sleek black exterior, its shining carriage lamps, and its four matched carriage horses. As soon as she saw the horses, Elizabeth realised how much she had missed them. Horses were a large part of her everyday life in Hertfordshire, even though she herself did not choose to ride. They were used to pull the plough on the home farms, her friends and neighbours rode them as they went about their daily business or used them to pull their carriages, and the officers proudly showed off their animals’ paces. In Venice she had not seen a single one and she had missed the smell of them, the sight of them and the sound of them, both their familiar snorting and the comforting clop of their hooves.

The boxes were soon loaded and Darcy handed Elizabeth inside. She took her place on the forward-facing seat with pleasure, inhaling the welcoming smell of leather and seeing all the familiar details, from the silk of the window blinds to the loops of the hanging straps, with the delight of someone meeting old friends.

The coachman clicked to the horses and the coach began to move. Behind it, the coach containing Darcy’s valet, Annie, and many more boxes also began to roll forward as the whole entourage headed south. The weather gradually improved, becoming warmer, and the view from the window was of a softer, rolling countryside. After the constant sight of buildings and squares and streets and canals, how welcome it was to Elizabeth! The olive groves and citrus trees, some with a few last fruits on their branches, were a reminder of a slower pace of life, and the views were of space and distance. No longer was the horizon a few feet from her face, but miles and miles away across acres of rolling hillsides, fields, and valleys.

‘You have been to Rome before, I suppose?’ asked Elizabeth.

Her spirits had risen since leaving Venice and Darcy seemed in a happier mood, too.

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Is there anywhere you have not been?’ she teased him.

‘China!’ he said, and then added, ‘yet.’

‘Perhaps we will go there one day,’ she said.

‘Would you like to go?’

‘I think, for the moment, I am content to remain in Europe. It has enough new sights to satisfy me, sometimes too many! I am glad to be in the country again.’

‘Would you like to ride?’ he asked.

Elizabeth’s mare had made the sea voyage with the Darcy coach and was now trotting along behind them, together with Darcy’s own mount.

‘Yes, I think I would.’

Darcy knocked on the roof of the carriage and it began to slow, pulling up before it had gone much further.

‘I should have worn my habit,’ said Elizabeth as he handed her out.

‘There is no one to see you here, only me, and I cannot fault your appearance,’ he said with a smile.

Her mare’s reins were untethered from the back of the coach, as were the reins of Darcy’s horse, and he helped her to mount before mounting himself. The coach set off again and they rode beside it, keeping to the highway when it was bordered by walls but riding over the fields when they could, enjoying the freshness of the wind as it blew past their faces.

They rode intermittently as they travelled south, returning to the carriage when Elizabeth was tired or when showers made it unenjoyable, until at last they neared Rome. They passed by a pine forest that filled the air with a clean, sweet scent and beyond it they could see the Mediterranean Sea. The water was a deep and vibrant blue, changing shade where the water grew deeper, and stretching into the distance, where it met the horizon in a barely perceptible line of differing shades of azure.

The coachman had been given directions to the villa but even so he had to stop a number of times and ask the way.

The Prince had called it a villa, and Elizabeth had no idea what to expect, whether it would be a small gentleman’s residence or a vast estate, but at last they saw it in the distance. The villa was three storeys high, but it gave the impression of being a low building because it was so vast. It was symmetrical, with tall arched windows and balconies adorning the façade. As she and Darcy turned into the gates, they found themselves travelling through formal gardens. On either side of the impressive driveway there were flowerbeds laid out in rectangles and squares. The flowerbeds were edged with low hedging and filled with flowers which bloomed as profusely as if it were August and not November. The whole was a riot of colour: pink and red and orange, backed with splashes of green.

The flowerbeds were divided by gravel walkways which were raked to a smooth surface. Where the paths crossed, fountains played. They were adorned with statues of mythical figures, mermaids and griffins and satyrs, which threw water into the air. The statues’ faces were turned towards the spray, and they seemed to watch it as it hung at its exuberant apex for a moment before descending as a shower of brilliant diamonds, winking and sparkling in the sunlight.

‘I never knew anything like this existed,’ said Elizabeth, as she let down the window in order to get a better view. ‘Last November I was looking at the rain in Hertfordshire and now here I am, in the midst of all this beauty, at the same time of year.’

Darcy smiled with the whole of him. His joy in her pleasure was tangible, filling the carriage with energy, like the after effects of a thunder storm.

And indeed, Elizabeth felt as though she had weathered a storm. The dark dreams were behind her and a few weeks of light-hearted pleasure in the villa were just what she needed.

The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel drive and they drew nearer and nearer to the villa with every turn of the wheels. When Elizabeth could tear her eyes away from the gardens she turned her attention to the villa itself. Its entranceway was on the first floor, and it was approached by two flights of steps, one leading up from the east and one leading up from the west and then meeting on a terrace in the middle.

The carriage came to a halt and liveried footmen flooded down the steps to form a living avenue of purple and gold, through which came the Prince. He was dressed in cloth of gold and looked at home amongst all the splendours of his home, but he welcomed them warmly, without ostentation, and led them up the east flight of steps to the front door.

As they reached the terrace, Elizabeth saw that its roof was supported by marble columns, around which sculpted sirens were entwined. Elizabeth was reminded of her first visit to Rosings with its many splendours, though Rosings paled beside the villa, and she wondered what Mr Collins would make of it. She imagined him walking in front of her and telling her about the weight of the columns, the size of the sculptures, the number of windows, and reciting an account of what the glazing had originally cost.

‘Something has amused you?’ asked the Prince.

‘Not really—well, yes. I have a friend whose husband is impressed by large houses. I was just imagining his reaction to the villa.’

‘Ah! Yes, we have such people in Italy. You, yourself, are not impressed.’

‘On the contrary, I am,’ said Elizabeth, looking around her as they entered the hall and admiring the frescoes, the marble statues, and the paintings. ‘It’s a truly remarkable home and very beautiful.’