Secrets of Castillo del Arco (9 page)

She was just about to descend the ladder when she saw it—the slim volume wedged tightly between two others. Even with her imperfect Italian she could make out the title:
Ghostly Tales of Venice
.

Thinking it must have been the source of Raoul’s story, she pulled it out, curious, leafing through the pages and searching for his story of the wealthy merchant who was haunted by his lost love. She flipped the pages, just able to decipher a few words here and there. One was a story of children lost in the mist who had disappeared for ever, their gondola found floating listlessly the next day. Another was of a murdered soul who haunted the bridge where he was brutally killed, and yet another told of a woman lost at sea whose unearthly casket could be seen floating on the lagoon on mist-shrouded nights.

Maybe Raoul had been right, she thought as she flipped through the book, her blood running cold with even just a snatched word here and there and a pencil-sketch illustration. Maybe there really were ghosts in
Venice’s mist-shrouded waterways. She had felt something last night; she was sure of it.

But she reached the last page of the slim volume and closed the book without finding what she had been looking for. There was no mention of Raoul’s wealthy merchant, nothing that came close to the story he had told her, of the wife lost with her lover who had haunted her merchant husband ever since.

And like the cold slice of steel through flesh an idea came to her and she wondered …

Had it been a legend?

Or had Raoul been telling his very own ghost story?

The lost wife, the tragic death, the darkness he seemed to carry around with him as if the past still had hold of him, weighing him down, refusing to let him go. Was Raoul that haunted merchant?

She clutched the small book to her chest and shivered as she remembered the cool detachment with which he had related the tale, as if it had had nothing to do with him. But Raoul too had lost his wife in tragic circumstances. And he had cut Gabriella off earlier when she had expressed her sympathy, changing the subject. Had the story been his way of explaining something he found too difficult to talk about?

Her heart went out to him. Hadn’t they both suffered enough when they had lost their parents? Yet Raoul had suffered another blow by losing his wife not long after.

She started down the ladder, the book still clutched in her hand. It was so unfair.

It would be enough to drive any man to despair.

She resolved that she would not cause him more pain.
As he had come to her rescue with Umberto’s death, rescuing her from her sudden loneliness, so she too would do everything she could to ease his suffering so that he would never rue the day he had invited her here.

She was almost at the last step when the door swung open behind her. One-handed, she turned and lost her footing, and would have fallen, but he was there to steady her, his hand like a steel clamp around her wrist, the other at her waist, easing her gently down to the floor. ‘Bella, what are you doing?’

She looked up at him, breathless and grateful, intending to find him a sympathetic smile, to let him know she understood about his pain and his loss. But just the very sight of him warmed her soul so much—his dark features, the angles, planes and dark recesses that combined to stir her senses—that her smile became so much more besides. ‘Raoul,’ she said as he bent down to kiss her cheeks, leaving her almost breathless as his evocative scent filled her lungs. ‘I thought I would get started on your library. To earn my keep.’

‘I have a better way,’ he suggested. ‘It is a beautiful day outside. Come and share it with me.’

‘But the library?’

‘Has waited this long. It will still be there tomorrow. Come, Bella—you
do
want to see something of Venice while you are here?’

‘Of course. I’ll just go and get changed.’

‘Please don’t,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘You look good in anything you wear—but in those jeans, Bella …’ And his words put a sizzle all the way to her bones. Then he tilted his head and looked almost genuinely contrite.

‘I probably should not say such things.’

‘It’s okay,’ she said, licking suddenly dry lips—the dust from the books, she assumed. ‘I don’t mind. I … I’ll just grab my jacket.’

He had her
. From the moment he had kissed her on that Venice path last night, he had sensed that she was his. Ridiculously easily, as it happened. He could not imagine why any woman, let alone one as beautiful and filled with life as Gabriella, would be drawn to someone as dark and as accursed as him. But for whatever reason—maybe that trait in her that had her believing the best in everyone—she seemed all too ready to forgive him his faults, if he could only repress that dark part of him and act civilised every now and then.

So he donned the air of a civilised man, not one plagued by dark deeds and darker moods. In the ensuing days, he showed her the best of Venice. He walked her to the Castello area in the evening, lingering in the Giardini—the gardens created only two short centuries ago after Napoleon’s invasion—then spent time in the Via Garibaldi, where they sipped bitter spritz with fat green olives amongst the locals taking time out. He took her to the museums and galleries, both the well-known and obscure, and he treated her to the best and least well-known of Venice’s restaurants on the outlying islands, while treating her to the most exclusive of Venice’s boutiques nearby.

He listened to her talk, seemingly endlessly, about the books she’d discovered in his library where she explored every day. And he let her joy of discovery wash over him, knowing he must if she was to trust him.

He had been the perfect host. And tonight would be no exception, he decided as he slipped on his jacket. Tomorrow he would take her to the glass-making factories and shops of Murano, but tonight would provide one more piece for the fairy-tale picture she was building up of Venice. And, if tonight’s excursion went as well as expected, they would be shopping tomorrow for more than just glass.

He swallowed back on the now-familiar pang of guilt, that what he was doing might be wrong or unfair, or was somehow taking advantage of her. Because it wasn’t as if he didn’t like her. It wasn’t as if he had to pretend to be attracted to her; it wasn’t as if he had to lie about those things. They were old friends, he told himself, and it wasn’t as though he planned to hurt her. He was protecting her, just as her grandfather had requested.

And Umberto had been right—there would be nothing worse for her than if she fell into the clutches of someone like Garbas.

If marrying her was what it took to prevent that, he would do it.

Gabriella’s body hummed with anticipation as she waited. Raoul had promised her something special tonight, a secret he had refused to reveal, even when she had teased him and begged him to let her in on the secret.

He was different, she decided as she looked down from the balcony at the never-dull vista that greeted her. Could one ever get sick of the sight and sounds of Venice? It was a world unto itself—a place of incredible
beauty on the one hand, of secrets and hidden depths on the other.

Just like Raoul himself
.

For even lately in these last few days, even when he had played the host role to perfection, there had been times—glimpses, really—when she would turn her head and look at him, catch him unawares and see
something
lurking in the depths. Something troubled, menacing and sometimes even sinister that made her want to reach out with her hands, smooth his brow, untangle his thoughts—and then he would look up, see her watching him and smile, chasing the shadows away.

Venice suited him, she thought, sighing into the soft breeze and, just like Venice, he was unique. One of a kind. Impossible not to fall in love with.

She stilled at the railing, her heart skipping a beat and then resuming just that slight bit quicker. She couldn’t love him, could she? Not really?

Sure, she had always loved him; he had been almost family.

Except that wasn’t what she was thinking now
.

When she had been no more than a child, she had worshipped him as a child worshipped someone she adored like a hero, someone she could look up to.

As an adolescent, her fantasies had been based more on fairy tales and rampant teenage hormones, of a fantasy Raoul that was larger than life that she could only dream about, the product of her own wild imagination.

And now?

Now she was a woman. Surely she did not imagine
that tingle every time they touched? Surely she did not imagine the magic of their kiss?

Those things were no fantasy.

Those things were real.

But love? Could she really be falling in love with Raoul? They had been together just a few short days, after all.

She must be crazy even to think it.

She must be.

And yet the magic of the last few days had not simply been all about Venice. Venice delighted her, it was true. But it wasn’t Venice that had her blood pounding or her heartbeat quickening right now, it was the thought of spending the evening with Raoul. Of losing herself in his bottomless gaze and feeling the heat from his body feed into hers, warming her in an endless, sensual glow.

It was more than just Venice.

It was Raoul, and she was falling in love with him.

He found her waiting for him in the living room, standing on the balcony overlooking the canal, her expression pensive. She was more beautiful than ever in a soft pastel-print dress with a cinched waist and full skirt that made the most of her tan skin, chestnut hair and the near-sinful proportions of her figure, the feminine curve from breast through waist to hip.

When had he gone from merely noticing that she had grown up to thinking she had grown into a very desirable woman? When had just a glance at her turned from benevolent approval of the changes time had brought about to something deeper and more fundamental, something
that stirred his blood and sent it simmering? Right now, it seemed like he had wanted her for ever.

She turned when she heard him approach, her smile wide, welcoming and totally innocent—and that pang of guilt made itself known again, twisting this time, mercilessly so. He wished there was something about her he did not like, something he could find fault with aside from her unswerving faith in her human companions.

Except that it was that very fault—the trait that made her see the best in the likes of that scum Garbas—that was also making his job so very, very easy.

‘Are you ready, Bella?’ he said, taking her hands in his. ‘For tonight’s adventure?’

Her eyes held so many stars he could not count; her eager smile was infectious and he laughed in spite of his own misgivings and his own endless doubts. ‘Then let’s go.’

Tonight the air was warm and blessed with only the lightest of breezes, the architecture of Venice turning honey gold under the westerning sun.

‘This evening,’ he said as he handed her into the gondola waiting at the sea door, ‘We continue our exploration of Venice from the water.’

Together they sat back on the plushly cushioned reclining seat as the gondolier let the vessel drift away, setting it moving along the canal with long, languid sweeps through the water.

They ventured into the Grand Canal, past St Mark’s Square, still heaving with tourists and its cloud of pigeons, past all of the sights that Raoul had shown her on foot. Only this way showed Venice as it was always
meant to be seen—from the sea, where the water offered an unbeatable perspective of the wonders that rose all around them.

He had judged his timing well. Gabriella sat entranced, reclining in the curve of his arm, as comfortably wound against him as a cat, and he sensed that if he asked her this day to fly to the moon she would say yes.

Right on cue, the rich tenor voice of their gondolier rang out in the balmy evening air.

‘Raoul,’ she said, her eyes so bright and brilliant they threatened to rival the moon’s pearlescent glow. ‘Did you plan this?’

He drew her closer to him and smoothed a loose tendril of her hair with his hand. ‘Are you happy, Bella?’

‘I don’t think I have ever been happier.’ And she settled deeper, curving her delicious body against him, making him burn. Tonight, he thought, she was his. All he had to do was ask the question.

The gondola slipped along the canals, gently slicing through the water, taking the route Raoul had instructed the gondolier to take, getting closer and closer to that moment—and to the task he had promised himself he would undertake tonight.

Except, the further the boat ventured, the heavier and darker his gut felt. How was he supposed to keep her safe? What if he couldn’t? What if he failed again? For she was beautiful, too beautiful for him. Too beautiful to be shackled to a man with a dark past and no future, even if he told himself it need only be for a few months, just until he knew she was free from Garbas. Too beautiful
to be shackled to a man who could not keep anyone safe, not even his own wife.

‘It’s a beautiful night,’ she said, nestling closer to him. ‘At least we will be safe from your ghosts tonight.’

He stilled, for there were always ghosts. She had been gone ten years and still she would not let him go.

She would never let him go
.

He felt Gabriella shift against him, protesting his sudden stiffness. ‘Raoul, is something wrong?’

‘I’m sorry, Bella,’ he said, trying to force himself to relax. Tonight was no time to remember, to think of ghosts, horrors and mistakes that belonged in the past. Tonight there was a job to be done. ‘Look,’ he continued, pointing ahead, wanting to change the subject for his own sake as much as to distract her. ‘The Bridge of Sighs.’

Before them the white limestone bridge arched gracefully over the Rio di Palazzo, connecting the old prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge’s Palace. ‘I read about that,’ she said. ‘And how Lord Byron gave it that name for the prisoners who would sigh as they took their last view of the city from the windows of the bridge before being taken away to meet their fate.’

He nodded, feeling an uncomfortable tightness constrict his chest. ‘That is indeed one story of the bridge,’ he managed, his heart beating faster, his blood pumping louder in his ears as the moment he had been planning drew nearer. ‘There is another—much more romantic, as it happens. They say that if lovers kiss at sunset under the Bridge of Sighs they will find blissful happiness with each other for the rest of their lives.’