The Venice Sketchbook(88)

He handed her a glass, and they clinked them together in a toast, his eyes challenging hers.

“I’ve just been thinking,” he said. “If what you say is true, then we are cousins. What a pity.”

“You don’t want to be my cousin?”

“I’m not sure what your laws are about cousins in England, but here . . .”

She picked up his meaning and again excitement fluttered. “We’d only be second or third cousins,” she replied. “Juliet Browning was my great-aunt, not my grandmother.”

“Ah yes. That is good to know.” He took a long drink, then made a face. “You drink cheap wine. I shall have to educate you.”

“We drink what we can afford,” she said. “But I could do with educating. I’ve only drunk what we call ‘plonk’ in my life.”

“‘Plonk.’” He chuckled at the word. “You English have strange words.”

“I suppose,” Caroline began, as she crossed the room to the window, “if we are related, you and I could do the DNA test. We wouldn’t need your grandmother at all.”

“You may be right,” he said. “But these tests take weeks, don’t they? And anyway, I still can’t believe what you say is true.”

“Just wait until you see this.” Caroline opened the desk and took out Aunt Lettie’s first sketchbook. He sat in one of the armchairs, and she came to perch on the arm beside him.

“My aunt’s sketchbook from her first visit in 1928,” she said. “She was eighteen. It says so on the front page.” She flipped through the pages and then came to the portrait of the man she had always assumed to be a gondolier. “There,” she said, placing the book into his hands. “He looks very like you, doesn’t he?”

She heard Luca’s intake of breath. “Yes,” he said at last. “It is my grandfather, I’m sure. I have seen photographs. They have always said I look like him.”

“So I wasn’t wrong?”

“This was when she was eighteen, you say? Nineteen twenty-eight? And my father was not born until 1940. She must have been his mistress for many years,” he said slowly. “He gave her this place so they could be together.”

Caroline wrestled with the Great-Aunt Lettie she knew being anyone’s mistress, being kept in a love nest. “Not when she was eighteen,” she said. “She only came on a brief trip.”

“But they met, and he never forgot her. Perhaps they stayed in touch, and she found ways to come and visit.”

“She came back in 1938 with a group of girls from the school where she taught,” Caroline said. “I have her sketchbook from that time, too.”

“She said she was bringing schoolgirls, but actually she came to see him,” Luca said. “They were in love.” He looked up, and his eyes met hers.

“So why didn’t he marry her? Why did he marry your grandmother?” Caroline asked.

Luca put a hand on her arm and caressed it. She found it disquieting. “In families like mine, we marry for the right connections. My grandmother came from a powerful family. A rich family. It was a good match. I expect it was arranged when they were babies.”

“So he married someone he didn’t love, just for business reasons?”

“That is how it goes.”

“Not any more, surely? You didn’t marry for business reasons?”

“Ah, but I did. That was part of the problem,” he said quietly. “I don’t think I ever really loved her. Everyone said, ‘She’s so suitable, she’s so accomplished, what a good wife she will make.’ But she didn’t. She drank too much, even at twenty-four. Our life was always in turmoil. And it sounds awful now, but in a way I was relieved when she died.”

“I’m so sorry, Luca.”

“I’m not. It took me a while, but I’m ready to move on.”

“To find the next suitable bride?” she asked, teasing now.

He shook his head. “My father dared to defy family and marry my mother, although her family is not without money and connections. And we no longer have the power we used to have before the war. So I don’t think it matters as much anymore.”

A squall of rain peppered the window. Luca looked up. “It seems the rain has set in for the night. And the aqua alta, too. I do not think I want to go all the way across to the Lido in this weather,” he said. “In fact it would be quite foolishly dangerous.” His voice became softer. “You are not going to turn me out into the storm, are you?” His hand moved down her arm, his finger tracing a line over her hand. “I think I should like to make love to you. Would that be so wrong? Even if I am your cousin.”

“Would that be wise?” Caroline asked, although she had to admit she felt a thrill of arousal. “After all, look what happened to my aunt Lettie.”

“Will not happen to you, I promise.” His eyes were challenging hers. “And you would not be cruel enough to send me out into the aqua alta, would you?” His finger was caressing the back of her hand. “But only if you want to. I think you do.”

Caroline returned his smile. “Why not?” she said.





CHAPTER 34


Juliet, Venice, December 26, 1939