‘Then the next day-’

‘No, I can’t see you again,’ she said desperately. ‘I’m going home. I should never have come here. Please let me go.’

He made no attempt to hold onto her as she broke free and began to run down the nearest calle. She simply had to get away from what was happening here. It shocked and confused her. Nothing was going according to plan.

Her footsteps slowed, then halted. It looked the same in all directions, and she had no idea where she was. By the one lamp she groped in her bag for a map and tried to work out which way up it went. It was hopeless.

‘Now I’m totally lost,’ she groaned.

‘Not while I’m here,’ he said, appearing from nowhere. ‘I’ll take you to the hotel. It isn’t very far.’

It seemed to her that they had come for miles, but when he’d led her through calle after calle, all looking the same, she found herself near the hotel, and realised that they’d only been walking for ten minutes.

‘There it is, just ahead,’ he told her. ‘You don’t need my help any more.’ He was keeping back in the shadows.

‘Then I’ll say goodbye,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening. I’m sorry it all ended so abruptly-’

‘Has it “all ended”?’

‘Yes, it has to. Because you see-I can’t seem to get my head straight.’

‘Nor mine. But my response would be the opposite of yours.’

‘I’m going home tomorrow,’ she said quickly. ‘I really must-I can’t explain but I shouldn’t have come here-goodbye.’

The last word came out in a rush. Then she walked away fast, and hurried into the hotel without looking back at him.

As she opened the door of the Empress Suite her mind was functioning like an investigator’s again. Cool. Calm. Collected. She was a rational thinking machine.

And the sooner she was out of here the better.

The phone rang. She knew who it would be.

‘Please don’t leave,’ came his voice.

‘I-ought to.’

‘You should never do what you ought. It’s a big mistake.’

‘Why?’ she asked, knowing that she was crazy to ask.

‘Because you really ought to be doing something else.’

‘That’s just clever words.’

‘Now you’re indulging in common sense,’ he reproved her. ‘You must stop that.’

‘More clever words.’

‘You’re right. Actions are better. I’ll be waiting for you at ten tomorrow morning, at the vaporetto landing stage near the hotel. Come prepared for swimming.’

‘But-’

‘Ten o’clock. Don’t be late.’

He hung up.

She couldn’t think what was happening here. She should be in control, but suddenly everything was out of her hands. To help collect her thoughts she went out onto her balcony and looked down the Grand Canal. It was quiet now and just a few lamps glowed in the darkness. Now and then a gondola, empty but for the silent oarsman, drifted across the water like a ghost, gliding home.

She had called the evening magic, a word which troubled her practical mind. And staying practical was essential she thought, beginning to argue with him in her mind. Let him say what he liked. She wasn’t to be tricked by pretty words.

But out here, in the shadows and the cool night air, the magic couldn’t be denied. Awed, she watched as one by one the café lights went out, and the water lay at peace under the moon. Still she stayed, not wanting this night to be over.

The shrill of the telephone blasted her gentle dream. It was Roscoe.

‘How are you doing?’ he demanded without preamble. ‘Have you got anywhere yet?’

‘I only arrived today,’ she protested.

‘You mean you haven’t managed to meet him?’

‘Yes, I have-’

‘Great! And he’s a real creep, right?’

She answered cautiously. ‘Mr Harrison, if this man was an obvious creep he’d never have impressed Jenny as he has. He’s subtle, and clever.’

‘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 back.

That had been four years ago, and to this day Marco’s sole comment had been, ‘These things happen. We were unsuited.’

‘Unsuited?’ Guido had echoed when Marco was safely out of earshot. ‘I saw his face soon after. Like a dead man’s. His heart was broken.’

‘You’ll never get him to admit it,’ Leo had prophesied wisely. And he’d been right.

Marco had never discussed the cancellation of his wedding, and the others would have known nothing if Guido hadn’t happened to bump into the lady two years later.

‘He was too possessive,’ she explained. ‘He wanted all of me.’

‘Marco? Possessive?’ Leo echoed when Guido related the conversation to him. ‘But he’s an iceberg.’

‘Evidently not always,’ Guido had observed.

It was doubtful if Marco would have confessed to the possession of a heart, broken or not. But these days he was never seen without a beautiful, elegant woman on his arm, although no relationship lasted for very long. In this respect his life might be said to resemble Guido’s, but Guido’s affairs sprang from the impetuous warmth of his nature, and Marco’s from the calculating coolness of his.

He seated himself at the breakfast table now, ignoring Guido’s attempts to rile him, and reached for the coffee. Instantly Lizabetta appeared with a fresh pot which she contrived to set down, remove the old one and clear away used dishes without speaking a word or appearing to notice their presence.

‘She terrifies me,’ Guido said when she’d gone. ‘She reminds me of the women who knitted at the foot of the guillotine in the French revolution. When we’re loaded into tumbrels and hauled off for execution Liza will be there, knitting the Calvani crest into a shroud.’