Venetian Masquerade (5 page)

For the next few days, Amy spent most of her time with her godmother and watched sadly as she grew weaker and weaker. She and Gabriel took turns sitting with her during the night, and at dawn one morning, he came and gently woke Amy.

“I think you should come to Maria’s room.”

She went into the dimly lit bedroom, took Maria’s hand, and whispered in her ear. “I’m here and I want to thank you for being so wonderful, to Gabriel and to me. We love you very much.”

The elderly lady focused with difficulty, first on Gabriel and then Amy. Faintly, she murmured, “And I love you both. Be good to each other. Goodbye, my dears.”

She closed her eyes and seemed to relax; her breathing became shallower and shallower, and finally, half an hour later, she peacefully faded away. Amy sat, clutching Gabriel’s hand, and after each of them had kissed Maria’s cheek, together, they wept.

As custom demanded, Maria’s funeral was two days later. Mass was said for her and attended by many friends and neighbors, who packed the local church and followed the hearse to the cemetery. Everyone treated Amy and Gabriel as the chief mourners, and at the graveside, they held hands, listening as the final prayers were said for the lovely lady who had given them both so much.

Afterwards, Amy, linking her arms through Gabriel’s and leaning her head on his shoulder, walked with him back towards the gates of the cemetery. “I once saw in a book the words
remember me with love and I am immortal
. I’d like that to be engraved on her headstone. What do you think?” she asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Amy, I think that’s beautiful. She would love it.” Gabriel turned her to face him and, putting his arms around her, kissed the top of her head.

Almost thirty people came back to the villa, where Carmela and Amy had prepared a buffet lunch. Constanzo and Simona, who lived in the equally large house next door, were particularly upset.

“We have been such friends for so long,” sighed Simona, “and we shall miss her. Now that Constanzo and I are getting so old, perhaps it’s time for us to sell up and find somewhere smaller. It won’t be the same without dear Maria.”

They stayed until late, chatting and reminiscing, and Amy came to appreciate just how many lives Maria had touched with friendship and kindness.

At last, the house was quiet. Carmela and Antonio had gone exhausted to bed, and James was staying over at Donna’s apartment. Donna’s mother, Sonya, had been to the villa several times over the preceding few days, where she and Amy discovered how much they liked each other.

Gabriel poured a glass of chianti for Amy and made her sit down. “It’s time to start making some decisions.”

“I know. I am due back in London the day after tomorrow.”

“Yes. If you want to go back permanently, I can put the villa on the market for you. It should sell very quickly because properties here become available so rarely. Your life need not change, except you’ll have enough money to be secure for life.”

She twirled her glass thoughtfully. The prospect of returning to work in the pressure cooker of the London office appalled her. The past two weeks had meant precious time with James, and she had come to realize her little boy was growing up fast and she was missing out. More importantly, so was he. “Gabriel...I’m staying. I shall phone Jake in the morning and tell him. I couldn’t stand going back to that rat race.”

Gabriel nodded and smiled. “I thought that is what you would say, and I’m glad. But I think you are running away from more than your job. Would you like to talk about it?”

“Yes, I would—and I’m sure I can trust you. My problem is James’s father. I accidentally met him for the first time in nearly six years the day before I came out here. He doesn’t know about James, and I’m desperate to keep it that way.”

Gabriel came to sit opposite her after topping up her glass with chianti. “What did he do to you that was so awful you don’t want him to know his own son? Did he beat you?”

“No…no of course not.” She laughed weakly. “Well, in short, we…I…fell madly, and irrevocably, in love with him. I was young, and he was a romantic figure who swept me, quite literally, off my feet. We were together for three glorious months. I naively assumed he would ask me to marry him, but I had reckoned without his dynastic family. They are worth millions, but truly, it wasn’t what attracted me to Alessandro. On the contrary, I just loved the simple things about him—his sense of humor, his humanity. He has a mind like a cleaver. The other stuff—the yacht, the mansion—they were fun, but…well, unlikely as it may sound, not at all important to me.

“When we were together, we often spent weekends on Silver Lady or at his house, and sometimes, if he was travelling on business, he flew me out to Vienna or Cape Town to be with him. And then, one evening, he took me to a party. It was the first time he had ever done that, and it had crossed my mind that it was strange I had never met his friends or family. I realized, of course, his social circle are the rich and famous of Rome, and I knew if the local media picked up on his relationship with me, we’d come under scrutiny, so I was happy to keep things very quiet and private. That night, I was nervous, so I dressed to kill, and he said how proud he was to be with me. But he was obviously very stressed about the evening. When we entered the reception salon at The Ritz Hotel, a kind of silence fell…just for a couple of seconds, before people started talking again. He introduced me to some people who were clearly very taken aback and curious. I went to the ladies room, followed by two women who practically sat on me, asking all sorts of questions. When they discovered I was ‘a nobody from nowhere,’ in their terms, they all but spat in my face. I overheard one of them mention Sophia, and the others went off into gales of laughter.”

Amy took a gulp of wine, grimacing at the memory. “They were horrible. I felt a complete outsider, but at the time, I assumed they were all jealous and being catty. I tried to keep my dignity, went back into the party, and took Alessandro’s hand. He was edgy and uncomfortable, and I found out why a while later when his parents arrived.

“Giovanni and Dolores made an entrance like the royal family; people almost bowed and scraped to them, and I was totally intimidated. I begged Alessandro to let me take a taxi home, but he insisted I stay. Finally, halfway through the evening, he introduced me to them.”

“What happened?” Gabriel was totally intrigued.

“I smiled and shook hands, and after an initial coolness, his mother took me aside and asked me some very personal questions. Did I come from a good Italian family? How long had I known Alessandro? Was I a business acquaintance? And she was clearly distressed to be told I was his girlfriend. Afterwards, I felt so uncomfortable, as they made no secret of the fact they were talking about us. Dolores had retired to a corner with Giovanni and was angrily prodding him in the chest and gesturing at me. I felt like a worm and we left.

“Alessandro apologized and took me back to my flat. He was leaving for Berlin early the next morning, but he stayed for a couple of hours…” She paused, remembering how he had made love to her so tenderly that night. It had been quite extraordinarily ecstatic, gentle, and so fulfilling, she had begged him to stay with her, but he couldn’t.

“I have a flight at six in the morning, angel, and haven’t packed yet. I’ll be back in two days, and then we need to talk.”

“I presume the family put pressure on you to give him up,” said Gabriel, eager to recapture her attention.

“The next day, there was a knock at the door—obviously Alessandro’s father had us followed the night before. To my surprise, he was actually very sweet when he came in. He asked for a cup of coffee and said he wanted to talk to me. I had expected him to say simply that I wasn’t good enough for his family and to leave town on the first train out. But he took my hand and told me his son was a first-class bastard and he was ashamed of him. He told me Alessandro had been engaged to Sophia Bellucci for a year. There had always had been an understanding between the families, and he showed me pictures of them together—one of them obviously on holiday, others at various functions, and one was a posed studio portrait, which he told me was their engagement picture. He said he felt sorry for Sophia because he was sure Alessandro would destroy her as he had always had so many mistresses and that he didn’t want to see a nice girl like me hurt by his wayward son.”

Amy remembered so clearly Giovanni’s words: “There have been so many, my dear, and most have been older and wiser than you—though none so beautiful. If you have any sense of self-preservation, you will leave before he returns from Berlin. Let him ruin his own life—and that of poor Sophia—but don’t let him ruin yours. Find someone who will love and cherish you, because that’s what you deserve.”

“Naturally, I was totally devastated. It had just never crossed my mind that Alessandro could be such a two-faced bastard. I asked around the next day, and it didn’t take long discover to Sophia Bellucci was a millionairess who would inherit a chain of hotels from her father. She was the perfect match for the di Benedetto millions. I also remembered Alessandro had said we must talk when he returned from Berlin, and it seemed obvious what he wanted to say—that he was going to marry Sophia and buy me a nice little love nest, where he could come when he fancied a change of bed mate.”

“What did you do?”

“My mother was living in Paris with her sister at the time, my father having died some years earlier. I packed my things and left Rome without telling a soul. Three weeks later, I realized I was pregnant, and you can imagine what a shock that was. By then, I had decided although I desperately wanted his child, I had to cut Alessandro completely out of my life. There was no way I was going to tell him about the baby. I stayed with Mama until a few months after James was born and never saw Alessandro again until the day before I came to Venice, when I backed into his car outside my office.”

Gabriel walked up and down the threadbare carpet for a few minutes. “Did he marry the heiress?”

“Yes. About a year later, I saw the pictures in a society magazine.” She remembered the tearfully sleepless night she had spent after seeing those photographs. But for James’s sake, she had thrown the magazine away and resolved never to think about the wretched man again. It hadn’t worked, of course, and even though she’d gone on a few dates, she couldn’t bear the thought of a sexual relationship with anyone else and had ended each liaison before it got too serious.

“Well, he has no business to pursue you now,” said Gabriel, “and of course, if you need me to pose as your partner, I shall do so with relish,” he added fiercely.

“You’re such a flirt, Gabriel.” Amy managed a weak smile. “But you do cheer me up. Now, let’s go to bed…no, I mean, I’m going to bed because I am on my knees with weariness, and tomorrow…well, tomorrow will be the beginning of a new adventure.”

Amy woke early and went downstairs to finish cleaning up after the funeral. She washed the remaining plates and put the kettle on the range to make coffee. Carmela emerged a short while later, rubbing her eyes and calling for Antonio to go to the bakery for bread and rolls. Then James arrived back with Sonya and Donna, having enjoyed his sleepover. Gabriel, who had stayed overnight, also wandered yawning into the kitchen. Suddenly, the room was full of kind, caring people, and Amy began to cry.

James ran to her. “Mama, what’s the matter? You’re not ill like Maria, are you?”

“No, darling, I’m not ill. I’m sad because Maria has gone, but I’m happy, too, to be here in Venice with all these lovely people. Thank you, all of you, for being so supportive.”

They gathered around her, murmuring and patting her, and soon, the whole company had assembled around the table for breakfast. Coffee was poured and hot rolls spread with butter and jam.

“Mama, are we going home to London soon?” James asked her as she wiped raspberry jam off his chin.

‘Do you want to go back, James?”

“No. I miss Grandmamma, but I like it here and I am going to marry Donna.”

Amy almost choked, and managing not to laugh aloud, she hugged him. “Then, we’ll stay.” She turned to the assembled company of friends and told them, “As you all know, the villa is mine now, and Maria had the idea of turning it into a hotel, so that’s what I plan to do.”

“I’m so glad.” Gabriel put an arm round her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I know an excellent architect; he’s a friend and he is honest. Shall I ask him to come to see you?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I can help you get James settled,” chimed in Sonya. “He’s almost the same age as Donna, so they will be in the same class at school. And I am a cordon bleu cook, so maybe, when the hotel is up and running…”

“You’ve got the job,” said Amy, giving her new friend a hug.

“We can still do a bit of cleaning and gardening till you get on your feet,” offered Carmela, and Amy was deeply touched that the sweet old couple wanted to be involved.

“It’s a deal.”

“What are you going to call the hotel?” asked Donna. “It has to have a name like all the others down the road.”