by Nora Roberts
No surprise, Annie thought, considering what she’d been dealing with. “Tell him I’ll stop by tomorrow.”
When her mail carrier delivered a stack of letters, Annie thanked him and began sorting through them. She never even bothered to look up when the door opened a second time.
It was Ben’s voice that made her slowly lift her head.
“You were easy enough to find. Everybody in Tranquility knows Annie Tyler.”
“Ben.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Shelly’s jaw drop. And no wonder. He looked every inch the successful lawyer. Perfectly tailored dark suit. Designer tie. Italian loafers. “I figured you’d be in New York by now.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought, too. In fact, I started out for the airport. Then I realized what a mistake that would be.”
“A mistake?”
He was looking at her the way he’d looked in the cove by the bay. The way he’d looked in the portrait.
Except that the picnic by the cove had never really happened. And the portrait was as unreal as the man who’d flirted with her in the stable.
She had to keep reminding herself of that fact.
He pressed his two hands on her desktop so that his eyes were level with hers. “We were given a very special gift this weekend, Annie, and we very nearly tossed it away.”
“You mean mass hysteria is something to be thankful for?”
“Is that what you think? Annie, we weren’t suffering from mass hysteria. Win was really there.”
He saw her glance at her friend, then away.
For Annie’s sake he lowered his voice. “The storm, the time we spent away from the rest of the world, even the portrait, were real. We experienced those things together.”
She pushed away from her desk and got to her feet. “I don’t want to talk about this, Ben.”
“Well, you’re going to, whether you like it or not.”
She was already shaking her head, about to turn away, when he rounded the desk, blocking her way. “I don’t know how he did it, but Win managed to come back. And what he gave us was a very special gift.”
“You call fear, terror, a gift?”
“You weren’t afraid while it was happening. In fact, you never showed an iota of fear. Not during the storm, or the power outage, or any of the other inconveniences. It wasn’t until you realized what had really happened that you bolted. I don’t blame you for being afraid then. I was afraid, too. But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I can appreciate just how special Win’s gift was.”
Annie was watching him carefully. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you see what he gave me? What he gave us both?”
She shook her head, determined to deny everything.
“Time, Annie. He gave us the gift of time. We were two workaholics running on a treadmill, without ever getting off. And now, thanks to that little…storm, we’ve had all the time in the world to meet, to fall in love, to think about a future together.”
“Then you…think this really happened?”
He stared down at her, afraid to touch her. If he did, there was no telling what he might do. All he had thought about on the long drive here was the touch of her, the taste of her lips, the way she felt in his arms. He was aching to hold her again.
“I don’t think anyone will ever believe what happened to us. But you and I will always know. And for that I have my brother to thank.”
His smile came slowly. But when it did, Annie felt her own fears begin to evaporate. “Win told you it was my re-birthday surprise. A good choice of words. Because, thanks to his generous gift, I have been reborn.”
She studied him carefully, noting that the little lines of stress around his eyes were gone, and the smile on his lips was as bright as the sun. “Does this mean you’ve forgiven Win?”
He nodded. “I never thought such a thing would be possible. The pain was too deep, the betrayal too vicious. But now I realize that sometimes a family’s bonds are too strong to be severed, even by such a cruel act. However he managed it, Win found a way to come back and make things right. I’ll always be grateful. Because of him, I’ve found you, Annie. And I don’t want to lose you.” He did touch her then. Just the press of his hands along the top of her arms. But it was enough to bring the familiar rush of heat to both of them.
“Annie, I love you more than I could have ever believed it was possible to love anyone.” He took a deep breath, needing to impress on her the enormity of his feelings. “I’ve already asked my mother to reconsider the sale of White Pines. I’d like to buy it myself. That is, if you’d be willing to go up there with me on weekends and breathe life into the old place again. I think with a lot of love and hard work we could restore it to its former beauty.”
“But my work. My responsibilities. I…have so many debts from my grandmother’s illness.”
He smiled that wicked, dangerous smile she’d come to know. “Annie, I’m a wealthy man. Your debts are the least of my worries. I still don’t know how I’ll fulfill my obligations to a staff of employees on two coasts. I’ll just have to figure out a solution. But I will. I have to. Because you’re more important than anything else in my life.” His tone lowered for emphasis. “There are probably a hundred good reasons why we shouldn’t rush into this, but only one very good reason why we should. Life is so short. And we’ve just found the most incredible love. Why shouldn’t we just reach out and hold on to it?”
Annie twisted her hands together. “Oh, Ben. This is crazy. Impossible. Impulsive. It’s so unlike us.”
“I know. But we can change. We can bend.” He held his breath.
“Win said you were so rigid that if you ever tried to bend you’d break.”
“He did?”
She nodded. A slow smile curved her mouth. “But he was wrong. And you’re right. I love you. Nothing else matters.”
He grabbed her and held her a little bit away from him. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. I love you, Ben Carrington. And right now, I want it all. Love. Marriage. The fairy tale. The happily-ever-after.”
At her words, Ben felt his heart begin to beat again. With a shout he lifted Annie in his arms and swung her around, then kissed her until they were both breathless.
In that instant they heard a sound. Like a man’s soft chuckle. Shelly would later say it had been the wind, but Annie and Ben knew otherwise. They looked at each other and began to laugh. Then they came together in another long, slow kiss to seal their bargain. As they did, they were convinced that a certain wild soul was watching with approval as the brother he’d admired, then betrayed, finally found the forgiveness and the peace he’d sought for so long, with the woman of his dreams.
This was, they realized, the finest gift of all. Love. Enough to last a lifetime. And beyond.
THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS
Marianne Willman
To my favorite spinners of enchanted dreams, Nora,
Jill, and Ruth, to Karen Katz, and to Dan.
May all your most beautiful dreams come true.
Prologue
Venice, Italy
SHADOWS FILLED THEgreat room with its ornamental plastered and painted medallions. The girl glanced about nervously, then hurried inside. The hem of her gold velvet gown, the soft leather of her green embroidered slippers, whispered over the rose-and-white-marble tiles of the floor. Water dripped nearby.
The tall shutters at the far end of the salon were closed, but bars of fading light told her that twilight was approaching rapidly. A sense of urgency compelled her. She was late.
Dear God, please not too late!
She hesitated by the stairs leading down to the first floor, which opened to the canal. Her escape would be quicker by water, but she didn’t dare risk being seen. The girl sighed and turned reluctantly away. Passing through a small vestibule, she pulled aside the heavy curtain that covered the door leading to a neglected courtyard.
Lifting her velvet skirts to keep them from being
soiled, she moved silently around the starlit gardens. A bit of Pointe de Venice lace caught on the rough bricks of the ancient stone well, and she yanked it free.
She took the wine-colored cape from its hiding place in the alcove behind a statue, then tied the strings of her mask securely She had vowed on her life to meet him. He would already be there, waiting.
The door in the far wall that led to the calle was locked, but she had the key tucked in her pocket. She peeked through the intricate wrought-iron design set in the thick wood, then slipped into the narrow alleyway. The hinges sighed, and the door clicked shut behind her. There was no going back now. The outer door had no handle and could be opened only from inside the garden.
The blank walls of the buildings rose up four and five stories on either hand. As darkness deepened, their mellow tints of peach and pink and rose faded to dull terra-cotta and lavender. Soon they would be leached of color and merge into the night shadows.
She listened to make sure no one had followed. By daylight she felt safe here, as if she were in a secret passageway leading to adventure. Tonight, with only the deepening incandescent twilight to light her way, she was terrified. This path to freedom could so easily become a trap!
There were no footsteps. No sound but that of her own ragged breathing. After a moment she went on.
The calle narrowed, then branched off into a maze of other alleyways. There was no way she could get lost. She had only to look for the tall, pointed roof of the Campanile San Marco rising above the tiles of the neighboring houses to guide her.
Suddenly the plaintive call of a gondolier drifted on the breeze, and another picked it up in the distance, like an echo. The sound was so lonely, so wrenching, she felt as if her heart might break.
She touched the necklace at her throat for courage. It was the only thing she had taken with her when she fled the house. He had given it to her. Her fingertips slid over the smooth beads that held the heart-shaped ruby pendant, as if she were telling the beads of her rosary. Starlight caused the matching ring on her finger to glow with intriguing lights. She’d never dared to wear it before.
Thoughts of her lover, of their future together, made her brave. He would be waiting for her at the bridge. But the closer she got to the bridge, the more her heart pounded beneath her lace-trimmed bodice.
She hid in the shadows. Domenico was not there. She was suddenly afraid.
Deeply afraid…
“I had had my dreams of Venice.
But nothing that I had dreamed was as impossible as what I found.”
—ARTHUR SYMONS,Cities
1
CLAIRE JERKED SUDDENLY awake, completely disoriented. The frightened girl in the long velvet gown and embroidered slippers faded and reality took over. The comfortable leather chair, the elegant cabin interior, the muted roar of the private motor launch as it sliced through the fog and rain.
Sandbagged by jet lag, damn it! And that dream. Again.
She always awakened before the girl reached the bridge. Before dream changed to nightmare.
Clair shook her head to clear it, then looked out the window beside her. Opalescent mists rose from the surface of the lagoon to meet the fine silver rain, almost totally obscuring the view. Somewhere out there was Venice, the most romantic and intriguing city in the world.
Now and then the mist shifted, creating a strange, dreamlike effect. Bits of Venice hovered in the air like apparitions: The spire of a church, a square bell tower, or the Gothic facade of a palazzo took shape, only to dissolve once more into the pearly, scattered light.
Claire felt as if she were floating softly back in time, into a world filled with decadent charm and unearthly beauty.
It was snug and warm inside the richly appointed cabin. Count Ludovici had insisted on sending his launch to pick her up. Leaning back against the luxurious leather chair, Claire smiled. This trip to Venice to appraise several of the count’s paintings was the high point of her career.
Sterling Galleries in San Francisco, where she worked as a specialist in Renaissance art, had scored a major coup when Count Ludovici had commissioned them to offer several drawings from his family’s extensive collection at private auction. Now he was planning on doing the same with some fabulous paintings.
But the real bombshell had come in a cryptic phone call she’d received from Ludovici himself, hinting that he had an unknown Titian. Why he would want to sell it was a mystery, but if it was true, Sterling Galleries and Claire would be on their way!
Not that it was definite that Sterling Galleries would get the private auction. Claire had to convince the count that they were up to the job. That they’d deal with the Italian authorities, that they’d find the right buyers—discreet patrons of the arts who would only be too glad to pay fabulous fees for incomparable works and avoid the notoriety that attended a public auction. Then most of them would be donated by the philanthropists and art patrons who bought them to a local museum. A win-win situation. Everyone came out ahead.
She wasn’t sure she could pull it off. Panic fluttered inside her breast. I’m not a saleswoman or a dealmaker. I’m researcher, a bookworm. A behind-the-scenes kind of person, damn it!
Tish Sterling, the ultra-fashionable gallery owner, had thought otherwise and was eager to clinch the deal.
“You’ll do fine,” Tish had assured Claire her smile as bright as her expensively cut, copper-penny hair. “And you have a connection with Venice. That’s a link between you and the count, right there.”
Claire had splayed her hands and examined her nail polish. Venetian Pearl. Maybe it was an omen. “I just don’t want to ruin this opportunity for you, Tish. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Why are you always afraid of trying something new?”
It was an old question, and Claire still didn’t have an answer.
Tish opened the window, lit a cigarette, inhaled, and blown a smoggy cloud out over the parking lot. With her bright green-gold eyes and spiky hair, she looked like a friendly dragon, with two streamers of gray smoke curling lazily from her nostrils.
“I’m a good businesswoman, Claire, and believe me, I wouldn’t pack you off to Italy if I didn’t think you could pull it off. Be yourself, but treat the count with kid gloves. Fitzgerald was right, you know: The rich are different. Especially the old, noble families.”
She waved her manicured hand with its wide cuff of silver and gold at the marvelous burled-chestnut paneling of her office, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge beyond. “We’re Johnny-come-latelies. The Ludovicis can trace their roots back a thousand years, to when Venice was nothing but a few huts stuck up on pilings in the mud flats of the lagoon. They don’t think in terms of years but of generations.”
Tish took a second drag on her cigarette, then stubbed it out carefully in the only ashtray allowed at Sterling Galleries. She let herself use it once a day. “Count Andrea Ludovici’s ancestors were ruling Venice even then. Mine were raiding English cattle over the border from Scotland, wearing nothing but blue paint beneath their plaids. If they even bothered to wear their plaids.”
She ran a hand through her hair, making it stand straight up, and still managed to look chic. “You go to Venice, Claire, and convince the count to sign the contract with us.”
And here I am, Claire thought in amazement, as the launch changed course in the glowing mist. The engine slowed. The panic hardened to a dull lead fist, right in the pit of her stomach. The moment of truth was growing closer every minute.
Over a thousand years. She tried again to grasp the enormity of that span of time. To know exactly who your ancestors were for the past millennium! It seemed impossible.
Certainly it was for her. She knew her father’s great-grandfather had sailed to America from Scotland when he was a boy of sixteen and started the family ranch in Idaho. On her mother’s side, Claire’s bloodlines were Irish and Italian.
That was about it, as far as her own family history went. Her mother had died too young
to tell her more, and her father and grandfather were more interested in the future than the past. Perhaps that was why she loved the past so much. It was real and constant.
Once again she felt the launch swing right in a long arc. With her small map spread across her lap, she tried to guess how close the launch was to her destination. If only the mist would burn off and the skies clear! Off to one side, she knew, was the Isola de Guideca, the curving island of crumbling palazzi and neglected squares, with the elegant Hotel Cipriani set like a jewel at its tip. On the other side were the multitude of small islands, connected by humped bridges, that formed Venice proper.
She caught her reflection in the polished brass fitments. The interior lights winked off her emerald-cut topaz earrings and turned her wildly curling blond hair to masses of beaten gold. On their first date, her ex-husband had told her that she looked like a woman from a Renaissance painting. Val’s deep voice floated through her memory: “Botticelli’s Venus, rising from the sea. Only with clothes on. Unfortunately.”
Claire remembered laughing up into his blue eyes—and that had been that. She ran her fingers through her hair. One thing about Val, she thought wryly. He certainly knew the way to an art major’s heart. He just didn’t know how to keep it.
His loss, she told herself, but an ache remained just the same.
The launch’s engines reversed suddenly, slowing their forward motion. “Behold, signorina,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Venezia!”
She swiveled her chair for a better look out the side window. The weather was changing. The soft rain that had been falling since the launch had picked her up at the airport suddenly ceased.
It was pure magic. The gray waters lightened, turned silver, and suddenly the sun burst through the clouds. Mists vanished as though at a conjurer’s command. The scene, a monochromatic ink drawing a short time earlier, was now a glorious watercolor, the lagoon the same shifting, blending aqua and deep turquoise as Claire’s eyes.
