“Of course I am frightened,” the Contessa snapped. “Who could imagine that anything like this could happen in Lucca in these days?”
She did not say so, but Paola was well aware that she was implying it was the Marchese’s fault and, if he had not stirred up trouble, everything would have been calm and peaceful as it had been in the past.
Paola wanted to say something in his defence, but thought that it would be a mistake.
The Contessa turned to her to say,
“My carriage is outside, Paola, and I suggest we go home now so that you can rest.”
Paola looked despairingly at the Marchese, but, as she met his eyes, she knew that he was not worried and was telling her to trust him.
“I would like to thank the maid who has looked after me,” Paola said humbly, “and, as I have no money with me, perhaps you would be kind enough to give me some.”
“Yes, of course,” the Contessa agreed and handed her two gold coins from her handbag.
Paola went upstairs.
She found that her clothes had already been packed and the maid was still in her bedroom. She thanked her and gave her the coins.
She bobbed a curtsey and Paola put on her hat and picked up her handbag.
Then, as she left the bedroom, she found the Marchese waiting outside for her in the corridor.
He took her by the hand and pulled her across into an empty room on the other side.
“Listen, my darling,” he said. “Go back with the Contessa and say nothing. I will send you my instructions and all you have to do is to follow them.”
“We cannot do – what you propose,” Paola said. “I love you – but you know how – angry everyone will be if we get – married without anyone – knowing anything about it. I cannot – imagine what the Contessa – will say to Mama.”
“At least we shall not be around to hear it,” the Marchese said, “and once we are married nobody can separate us.”
He could see that Paola was still indecisive.
Putting his arm around her, he lifted her chin with his other hand and tipped her face up to his.
“Listen, my precious,” he insisted. “Look into my eyes and tell me that you love me and that nothing else in the world is of any importance for either of us.”
Because she could not help obeying him, Paola was lost.
“I love – you, I love – you,” she whispered.
“And that is the only thing that matters,” the Marchese said. “All you have to do, my darling, is to rest and think of our love and believe that nothing and no one will ever come between us.”
He pulled her close to him and kissed her passionately.
Then, because they both knew they were on dangerous ground, he took her to the door.
“Go downstairs and I will join you in a moment,” he urged. “It would be a great mistake to make the Contessa suspicious.”
Swept away by the wonder of his kisses, it was difficult for Paola to think of anything except the ecstasy he evoked in her.
Yet she did as he told her.
She hurried downstairs and found the Contessa alone in the drawing room.
“I am ready,” Paola murmured as she entered the room.
“So I can see,” the Contessa replied, “but our host seems to have disappeared.”
Paola looked round as if she expected to see him somewhere else in the room.
And, while she was doing so, he came in through the door.
“I am extremely sorry that you must leave me,” he said, as he walked towards Paola, “but I do understand that after last night the Contessa feels that she must keep you with her.”
“I promised her mother that I would look after Paola and see that she did not get into trouble,” the Contessa affirmed.
As she said the last two words, she looked at the Marchese.
“I hope that you will not worry her by telling her what has occurred,” he suggested. “After all it is something that could happen only once in a million years.”
“That is too often for me,” the Contessa said. “Come along, Paola, the sooner we get home the better.”
She swept out of the drawing room and Paola looked at the Marchese.
His eyes were very soft as they rested on her troubled little face.
Then, as she walked after the Contessa, he joined her.
For a moment his hand held hers and she felt the vibrations from him drawing her closer.
She knew that, despite what anybody might say or think, she was his completely and their love would conquer all the difficulties that lay ahead.
The Contessa’s carriage was waiting at the front door.
When Paola had been helped into it, she bent forward to wave goodbye to the Marchese.
He was standing in the doorway, looking, she thought, as if not only the beautiful villa but the whole world belonged to him.
Only as the carriage moved away down the drive did she wonder frantically if she was leaving her heart behind.
Now that she was gone he might forget her.
Then she remembered he had asked her to trust him, and that was what she must do.
They could not let the love they had for each other be spoilt by other people, no matter what they might think.
The carriage had hardly passed through the gates before the Contessa began,
“I don’t know what your mother will think now that you have become involved with the one man in the whole of Lucca she disapproves of.”
“I think Mama and Papa would understand – that it is not the Marchese’s fault,” Paola replied.
“Then who else?” the Contessa asked sharply. “Who else would have murderers following him from the East and kidnapping you who had nothing to do with him?”
She paused then added scornfully,
“You should not have been in his villa at all!”
“He only took us there because – he thought we would be safe,” Paola replied.
The Contessa gave a sharp laugh.
“Safe?” she exclaimed. “With you spirited away in the middle of the night and of all places taken to the watchtower. As I said to the Chief of Police, it is a disgrace to the City of Lucca that this should happen, that is what it is.”
“I am sure the Marchese is hoping that – only very few people will know about it,” Paola said weakly.
“That is just what the Police said to me,” the Contessa answered. “But I cannot believe that anything so outrageous and extraordinary can be kept a secret.”
“I am sure that the Marchese – will not mention it,” Paola murmured, “and you would not wish anyone to know – how I was involved.”
She knew as she spoke that she had played a trump card.
The Contessa lapsed into silence.
It was only a short distance to her villa and, when they arrived, the Contessa suggested that Paola should go up to her bedroom and lie down.
“Better still go to bed,” she said. “There is no point in your getting up for dinner this evening and I must say that you are looking very pale and there are lines underneath your eyes.”
Paola hoped that the Marchese had not noticed them and did not think that she looked plain.
When she reached her bedroom, she ran to the mirror and, although it was true that she looked slightly pale, she could not see any lines.
Anyway because she was thinking of him her eyes were shining.
She was, however, quite ready to lie down or to go to bed so that she could think. She wanted to go over quietly what the Marchese had proposed that they should do.
Now, when she thought it over, it seemed utterly and completely impossible.
How could she get married in Lucca in secret without making her father and mother aware of it?
Whatever the Marchese might say, she was sure that it was wrong.
Then she told herself,
‘The Marchese is quite right. If we have to wait for six months with everyone telling me he is raffish, a roué and will eve
ntually leave me as he has left so many other women, what chance have we of real happiness?’
She had already heard before she met him how everyone discussed everything that he did! And, while they enjoyed repeating stories of his love affairs, they were not thinking of his point of view.
‘He truly loves me,’ Paola assured herself.
She remembered how he had said that she was different from anyone else he had ever known and how they were aware of each other’s thoughts.
‘I know,’ Paola told herself, ‘I could never feel the same with another man. I could never love anyone else in the same way.’
Then she added,
‘Apart from anything else it would be impossible to find another man who is so outstanding. Not only being so handsome but with so strong a personality.’
He had been so calm and unflurried in the desperate situation they had found themselves in that she had managed to follow his example.
She knew when he said that he had prayed that it was the truth.
She could not imagine herself talking in the same way to an Englishman nor would any Englishman have said the things to her that the Marchese had said.
‘He is a man who believes in God,’ she thought, ‘and that is more important than anything else.’
As time passed, she felt very lonely.
It was so wonderful to know that the Marchese was near and that everything in his villa was a part of him.
Then almost as if she was being tempted into unhappiness, she seemed to hear a little voice.
It was whispering that now she had left, he might be thinking of someone else.
Perhaps he was planning to go back to Florence rather than carry out with her all the wild plans he had so passionately suggested.
“I love – him, I love – him,” she murmured over and over again.
There was a knock on the door and the maid came in with a beautiful basket of flowers.
The flowers were all white and the basket was ornamented with white satin ribbon.
“With the compliments of Signore, the Marchese di Lucca,” the maid announced and put the basket down beside the bed.
Paola waited until the maid had left her and then instinctively, almost as if the Marchese was speaking to her, she looked amongst the flowers.
Amongst them, as she had hoped, there was a note.
She pulled it out eagerly, opened it and read,
“I love you, I love you, my beautiful wife-to-be. Trust me and don’t be afraid.
St. Francis and the angels are with us and we cannot fail.
Yours adoringly,
Vittorio.”
His words gave her so much happiness that Paola felt tears coming into her eyes.
Then she kissed his letter, feeling that was what he had done before he sent it.
A little later she fell asleep and was still sleeping when dinner was brought to her.
She sat up and ate it and, when she had finished, the Contessa came to her room.
“I hear you have been asleep Paola,” she said. “That is the best thing that could happen to you.”
“I am sorry you had to dine alone,” Paola replied politely.
The Contessa was not listening, but looking at the basket of flowers.
“At least he has very good manners,” she said. “And you certainly deserve flowers after all you have been through.”
“I am trying to forget about it,” Paola said. “Please don’t mention it when you write to Mama. It would only worry her.”
“I suppose I should tell her if I did my duty,” the Contessa replied. “But I don’t want her to worry about you while you are with me and so we will neither of us say anything.”
That was exactly what Paola wanted.
“Now I am quite safe here with you,” she sighed.
“I sincerely hope so,” the Contessa answered her a little doubtfully.
Paola then thought that she was about to say something more, but she obviously changed her mind.
However, she glanced rather meaningfully at the basket of flowers before she left the room and Paola thought that she could understand what the Contessa was feeling.
After all, she had been told the one man her protégé, while staying with her in Lucca, was not to meet or to have any contact with was the Marchese.
Who would have imagined, who would have thought for one moment that such things would happen?
Just because Hugo had asked her to carry a diamond ring secretly to Lucca.
Now in retrospect it all seemed so absurd that she gave a little laugh and then she cuddled down comfortably in the bed.
She put the Marchese’s letter under her pillow so that she could touch it.
*
Paola awoke the following morning to find it was far later than she expected.
Her breakfast was brought to her in bed.
“You are spoiling me,” she said when the Contessa came to see her a little later.
“One often suffers from shock when one has had an experience such as you have had,” the Contessa replied. “As I have several things to do this morning, I suggest you stay in bed until luncheon.”
Paola did as she was told.
When later she came downstairs, she found to her relief that the Contessa had invited one of her friends to luncheon.
She was helping her arrange a concert to be held later in the year in aid of the Cathedral and they had so much to talk about that Paola could be silent and unnoticed, which was what she wanted.
After they had eaten, the Contessa suggested to Paola that she should take a book and read it in the garden.
“Or better still,” she suggested, “doze while it is so hot.”
Paola did not argue, but went into the garden.
The Contessa had an appointment that afternoon with someone else who was to help with the concert.
Paola had not been alone long when a manservant announced,
“The Marchese di Lucca.”
Paola looked up and felt her heart turn several somersaults as he approached her, looking as usual so overwhelmingly handsome.
She just wanted to stare at him.
He sat down beside her and lifted her hand to his lips.
He kissed each finger and then pressed a long and passionate kiss in her palm.
Paola felt as if the world was swinging dizzily round her and she could only gaze at him, her eyes filling her whole small face.
“How are you, my darling?” the Marchese began. “I missed you last night and it was agony this morning to know that you were not in my villa, even though not far away from me.”
“I missed you too,” Paola told him, “and thank you so much for your lovely flowers and your letter.”
“I hoped I would be able to see you alone and tell you what I want to do,” the Marchese said.
Paola felt herself stiffen for a moment.
Then, as if she could not help it, she felt as if her whole being moved towards him.
She was ready to do anything he wished, anything he asked of her.
“I cannot trust servants,” he began, “not to talk and thus alert the Contessa to stop you doing what I want. So I have brought you something quite new. An alarm clock!”
“I have heard of them, but I have never seen one,” Paola said.
The Marchese brought the alarm clock from his pocket.
It was not very large, but, when he pressed a little knob at the back, it made a sound like the ringing of bells.
“That is fascinating!” she exclaimed.
“I am going to set it,” he said, “for half past six tomorrow morning. It will wake you up and you alone and I suppose you can dress yourself?”
“Of course I can,” Paola laughed. “You don’t suppose I had servants to dress me when I was at school!”
“I want you to wear a white gown,” he continued, “and to slip out of the house by the side entrance. You know where it is?”
“Yes, of course,” Paola said. “N
o one will see me if I leave that way.”
“That is what I thought,” the Marchese said. “I shall be waiting for you in a closed carriage. I will have with me a veil for you to wear over your head and a wreath of flowers to hold it in place.”
He smiled before he added,
“You will also have a bouquet, my darling, to make you feel like a proper bride.”
“Are – we really going – to be – married?” Paola asked in a small voice.
“Really and truly,” he said, “so that I will never lose you again or you me.”
“That is – what I am – afraid may happen,” Paola murmured.
“I know that,” he answered. “There are a great number of people ready to tell you what a bad husband I will make and that might perhaps spoil our love for each other.”
Paola did not speak.
Then after a moment he said,
“I swear to you on my immortal soul and everything I hold sacred that I will love you, look after you and worship you as my wife, as long as we both live.”
He spoke with such sincerity that Paola knew that she had to believe him.
She knew too that he was right in saying that, if anyone else learnt what they were about to do, they would try to stop her.
She was very young and they would be very sure that the Marchese would make her an exceedingly bad husband.
But every instinct in her body told her that they were wrong.
When his heart talked to her heart, she knew that it was the truth.
“When you join me tomorrow morning,” the Marchese was saying, “you leave everything to me. I have been planning to make our honeymoon, my beautiful one, the most perfect one there has ever been.”
“I just – want to be – with you,” Paola said because she could not help herself.
“That is what I want too,” he answered.
He hesitated as if feeling for words before he said,
“There is something that I want you to remember and something we shall both think of year after year.”
“What is that?” Paola asked.
“We will know how right we were to run away from everything that tried to spoil the perfection we found together.”
When he finished speaking, he bent forward and kissed her.
In Love In Lucca Page 11
