The Rich Shall Inherit (2 page)

The old parrot ruffled his feathers against the damp, penetrating chill swirling in with the mist from Venice’s Grand Canal. It oozed its way through the crumbling ocher stucco walls and brittle windowpanes of the Palazzo Rinardi, rising to the lofty beamed ceilings and clinging to the faded silk curtains that were now so fragile with age, they threatened to disintegrate into dust. The bird’s plumage was the only blaze of color in the once sumptuously hued bedroom, but this morning even his gay jungle attire seemed submerged under Venice’s watery November light.

He unfurled a leg from beneath his feathers, flexing it stiffly, and the emerald and diamond rings caught the light with astonishing brilliance. Poppy had had them made at Bulgari, instructing the jewelers to use only the finest stones, and for more than eighty years her beloved pet had worn a ransom in jewels around his stick-like legs. His thick perch was of solid gold, scratched and worn from his constant skittering up and down, and at each end was a knob the size of a tennis ball, clustered with fine jewels. An enormous gold cage shaped like a palace in a story by Scheherazade, its curves and arches battered by the bird’s lifetime of use, stood on a table in a corner of the room. But mostly, nowadays, the parrot just sat on his perch, watching and waiting for Aria, the way he used to wait for Poppy.

The soft rustle of slippered feet sounded along the marble corridor and he cocked his head as the gilt door handle rattled and Fiametta, limping with arthritis, placed the breakfast tray on a seventeenth-century painted table. His weary, hooded eyes watched as the old woman tugged back the white linen hangings on the half-tester bed, tut-tutting as flakes of paint fluttered from its newels, adding more scars to the exquisite decoration of scrolls
and flowers and trellises that had lasted for more than two hundred years.

“Aria,” she called, shaking the girl’s shoulder, “wake up!”

Her voice sounded different this morning, she was excited and the parrot scrabbled along his golden perch, flexing his wings. “Go away, Fiametta,” replied Aria’s muffled voice, “I don’t want to wake up.”

“But you must, it’s your birthday!” The old woman’s voice trembled with excitement as Aria stirred restlessly.

“That’s exactly
why
I don’t want to wake up,” Aria mumbled into her pillow, “just go away and let me sleep.”

“Now that’s a fine thing to say!” Fiametta pulled the blanket back firmly.

“It’s
freezing “
Aria moaned, pulling the covers over her pajama-clad shoulders. “Oh, go away, Fiametta, do. Just leave me with my misery!”

The old woman stared at her with an expression of mixed tenderness and exasperation. She never failed to be amazed by Aria’s beauty, especially because as a child she could not even have been called pretty; her extreme thinness, along with her huge dark blue eyes and the thick fringe of curling lashes that dominated her tiny face, had given her the air of a badly nourished waif. Many a time Fiametta’s heart had been in her mouth, fearing a broken limb, as she watched her charge climbing trees with the agility of a monkey, or surefootedly leaping the stepping-stones across the rough stream that bisected the parkland surrounding the Villa d’Oro. But Aria’s delicacy had been deceptive. She was as strong as an ox, thought Fiametta proudly, and as graceful and fleet as a gazelle. There were those who compared Aria’s genuine looks to the young Audrey Hepburn, and others who argued she had the pure beauty of Grace Kelly, but no matter, Fiametta knew that Aria resembled no one but herself. She was unique.

She arranged the pillows comfortably behind Aria’s back as the girl wriggled reluctantly upright. “There now, that’s better,” she said as Aria flung a slender arm around her neck and kissed her affectionately on either cheek.

“Ciao, Fiametta” Aria murmured, a smile lighting up her smooth young face. “Why all this fuss? I haven’t had breakfast in bed since I had my tonsils out when I was twelve!” She was smiling but her eyes were sad, and the parrot skittered along his
perch squawking to catch her attention. “Luchay,
caro,”
she called, “come here to me.”

The parrot fluttered from his perch to the table and from there to the dresser, making his way toward her in a series of little hops. “Poor Luchay,” Aria murmured sadly, “I think we are all feeling our age this morning, aren’t we?” He hopped onto her outstretched hand, edging gently up to her shoulder where he nestled her against her cheek, nipping delicately at her earlobe and making soft cooing noises in his throat.

The breakfast tray was set with a worn white linen cloth edged with delicate Venetian lace, and on it was a chipped crystal glass of orange juice, a basket of fresh rolls, a dish of soft yellow butter, and another dish of the vivid scarlet jam made by Fiametta from the summer’s lavish crop of wild strawberries that grew up in the hills near the Villa d’Oro. A neatly folded newspaper lay by the side of the beautiful blue and white plate—one of the last remnants of the Haviland service that had been made for the Baronessa Marina Rinardi a hundred and fifty years ago.

Fiametta’s hand was trembling as she picked up the newspaper. “Read it,
cara!”
she exclaimed. “Here, read it quickly.”

Aria took the paper from her, surprised. “But what must I read … it’s just the paper, the same old news. Unless …
someone has died?”
She blushed, ashamed of the faint note of hope that had crept into her voice.

“Not the person you mean. But yes … in a way.” Fiametta’s finger, distorted with arthritis, pointed shakily to the bottom of the page. The ad for the Mallory heiress, outlined in double rows of black, stood out from the rest of the page.

“Well?” Aria asked, still puzzled.

“But it’s
Poppy!”
exclaimed Fiametta.
“Poppy Mallory! …
Don’t you see?
You
must be the heiress, Aria.
It’s you!”

Aria read the notice again, only now it looked like a beacon of hope. What if it was true? If she really was an heiress? It could resolve the fate that was hanging like the sword of Damocles over her head.

It had been just six months ago that her mother had dropped the bolt from the blue, that the Rinardi family trust had finally dried up; there was no more money and now she expected Aria to do her duty and marry a rich man, a man she had chosen for her—Antony Carraldo.

The name had sent a shiver down Aria’s spine and she’d stared at her mother in horror. She had heard the rumors about Carraldo—everyone
had, though no one had ever proven anything, or even tried. Her mother had told her she shouldn’t believe the rumors, that they were just stories put about by people who were jealous of his wealth and success. “Think, girl,” she’d said, “would your father have been his best friend if what they said was true?”

It was strange, Aria had thought, bewildered, that Carraldo had been Papa’s best friend. Somehow he’d always been there, on the fringes of their lives, a shadowy figure, keeping his distance … she even remembered holding his hand at Papa’s funeral …

“Don’t worry,” Francesca had said, “he promised he’ll take good care of you.
You
will have everything in the world a woman could ever want.”

“Yes
—a woman like you!” Aria had retorted, tears stinging her eyes again.

Her mother had just laughed, a light, tinkling, mirthless sound. “Somehow I always thought Carraldo was waiting for you to grow up,” she’d said.

Of course, Aria had refused to do it; she’d stormed, she’d cried, she’d protested that it wasn’t the Middle Ages, that mothers didn’t marry off their daughters anymore … she would run away, she’d said, anywhere … a million miles from Carraldo. And then her mother had stopped all her raging with a simple quiet statement.

“If you refuse,”
Francesca Rinardi had said icily,
“then I don’t know what I will do.”

Aria had stared, terrified, into her clear blue eyes, and then Francesca had simply walked out and left her to think things over.

Aria had understood Francesca’s threat, and she’d also known that she was capable of killing herself. To a woman like her mother, a world without the luxuries she considered to be the necessities of life was a world simply not worth living in. Frightened, she’d known then that Francesca had left her no choice.

And now it was her eighteenth birthday, the day she was to become engaged to Antony Carraldo. She stared again at the black-banded advertisement for Poppy Mallory’s missing heiress.

“Poppy …” she whispered hopefully. “Have you come to save me? I don’t even know who you are, only your name. Poppy.”

“Poppy,”
repeated Luchay.
“Poppy, Poppy
cara,
Poppy
chérie,
Poppy darling.”

They stared at him in astonishment as he fluttered back to his perch, still cackling harshly.

“Poppy,”
he called again, more clearly as his throat, long unused to the sound of her name, seemed to remember the proper reflexes.

“Luchay!”
Aria cried excitedly. “Of course.
You
knew Poppy.
You
knew all about her!” Her eyes widened as she realized
what
the parrot knew. “And,” she added quietly,
“you
know who is Poppy’s true heir.”

It was five-thirty in the morning and Antony Carraldo’s sleek black Gulfstream III, with its distinctive raven emblem inside the gold circle, was waiting on the tarmac at Milan’s Malpensa airport, its engines already warming up for takeoff to London. The long black Mercedes drew silently alongside, its smoke-gray windows hiding its occupant. The steward waiting by the steps drew smartly to attention in anticipation. He knew that Carraldo would be out of the car before the chauffeur even had time to apply the hand brake, let alone run around to open the door for his master.

Carraldo walked quickly up the flight of steps. “Good morning, Enrico,” he said, nodding pleasantly.

“Good morning, sir. The captain is ready for takeoff whenever you give the word, sir,” the steward replied.

Carraldo nodded. “Let’s go.” Without a further glance he sat down and fastened his seat belt, picking up the first of the dozen international newspapers that he read every morning. They were airborne within minutes and as he opened Il
Giorno
, Enrico appeared carrying a pot of coffee on a silver tray. He poured deftly, accustomed to his master’s silence. He knew that Carraldo used every available minute of the day to work; even now, he would be checking the international money markets, as well as the art market. He thought to himself that Carraldo probably had a finger in every pie.

Nodding his thanks, Carraldo sipped the coffee. It was a blend made specially for him in Paris, thick, dark, and rich, and it never failed to jolt him into complete awareness, whether it was one, two, or five o’clock in the morning. But this morning he didn’t need it. The ad, heavily bordered in black, jumped from the pages
of Il Giorno
with the impact of a time bomb.

Poppy Mallory.
He stared mesmerized at the name from the past. It was a name that transported him back in time to a woman
he’d never even met. But he knew it was a name that could have a devastating effect on his future.

Antony Carraldo was fifty-one years old. He was of medium height with a thin yet muscular torso, and his olive complexion had the light, year-round tan of the very rich. His thin face was prominently boned with a broad forehead and the sort of arrogant nose seen on ancient Roman statues. Carraldo would not have looked amiss in a toga on the steps of the Roman senate in Caesar’s day, but in fact he always wore immaculately tailored suits—cream linen in summer and dark blue pinstripe in winter, and always with plain light blue shirts of the finest Sea Island cotton. For such a formal man, his shoes were a slight eccentricity—tasseled loafers from Westons in Paris—but his ties were discreet, striped or spotted and fashioned from exquisite Italian silks. He had a firm mouth that rarely smiled, and he spoke in measured tones as though each phrase had been thought out carefully beforehand. His hands were slender and well manicured, and he wore no rings. A plain white-gold handcrafted Vacheron & Constantin watch was his only adornment—and that was for practical reasons, not vanity.

On the surface, Carraldo looked what he was—a rich, fastidious, and cultured man. Over the past thirty-five years he had made a fortune as an art dealer, and as a philanthropist he’d put a great deal of that money back into supporting his great loves: music, the opera, painting.

Carraldo traveled the world on his private jet to clinch major art deals. He owned a lavish turn-of-the-century villa in the hills above Portofino, a vast town house on the Via Michelangelo Buonarroti in Milan, and an ancient but beautifully restored palazzo in Venice. He also had a house in Belgrave Square, London, and kept a permanent suite at the Pierre Hotel in New York. Each abode contained a fortune in paintings, sculpture, and other art treasures and each was kept fully staffed and in immaculate order.

But there was another house, one that no one knew about—a large, shuttered villa near Naples that he visited once a month without fail. He always stayed exactly two days and two nights, and then he returned to his normal life in Milan.

Carraldo was not a partygoing man, but he was seen at the important international social functions, particularly those involving the worlds of art or music. He was involved in the Spoleto Festival and the Venice Biennale, and four or five times a
year he entertained lavishly at his homes—a masked ball in Venice for the Lenten carnival; a congenial summer house party in Portofino; a gathering of eminent operagoers at dinner in Milan. Apart from these occasions his private life was exactly that—private. But it was also whispered about in the bars and cafes of half a dozen international cities.

They whispered that Antony Carraldo’s smooth facade covered a thousand secrets, that his money was not earned only from his knowledgeable trading in art, that there were other, more sinister ways he added millions each year to his Swiss bank accounts. And despite his urbane appearance, they said that Carraldo’s sexual appetite was insatiable.